General

Women’s Tears Win in the Marketplace of Ideas

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How belief in the blank slate plus residual gender double standards create “cancel culture,” and the difficulties of fighting back

Richard Hanania
Having mentioned the concept a few times, many have been encouraging me to write a Substack on the feminization of political life and its connection to free speech issues. Noah Carl beat me to it, and the idea has also been picked up by no less an authority than Tom Edsall at the New York Times. I’ve already written about the overrepresentation of women in HR. We can understand the decline of free speech as a kind of female pincer attack: women demand more suppression of offensive ideas at the bottom of institutions, and form a disproportionate share of the managers who hear their complaints at the top.

What is left to contribute on the question of how feminization relates to pathologies in our current political discourse? First, I think that the ways in which public debate works when we take steps to make the most emotional and aggressive women comfortable have been overlooked. Things that we talk about as involving “young people,” “college students,” and “liberals” are often gendered issues.

This doesn’t always show up in the data, and many may not want to discuss anything controversial without having numbers they can refer to, lest they be accused of everything they say being a figment of their sexist imagination. Nonetheless, I think that anyone who has spent time paying attention to politics, journalism, or academia, or wherever people debate ideas, will understand what I’m talking about.

Second, I think there’s a certain weirdness to the arguments made by both sides of the gender issue. To simplify, you have the left, which leans towards the blank slate and opposes gender stereotypes but demands women in public life be treated as too delicate for criticism, and conservatives, who believe in sex differences but say to treat people as individuals. But if men and women are the same, or are only different because of socialization that we should overcome, there’s no good reason to treat them differently. And if they are different and everyone should accept that, then we are justified in having different rules and norms for men and women in practically all areas of life, including political debate. How exactly this should be done is something worth thinking about. Finally, I argue that much of the opposition to wokeness is distorted and ineffective because it avoids the gendered nature of the problem, which also makes fighting it difficult.

Continues …

The BBC waking up to the disaster of multiethnic Britain

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IDF: Iran war “a failure” if Iran’s nuclear program remains

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From Haaretz: “senior Israeli defense officials told Haaretz that the campaign would be considered a failure unless Israel secures the dismantling of Iran’s nuclear program and the removal of its enriched uranium.” Which means that Trump continues to be under intense pressure to achieve the dismantling of Iran’s nuclear program. I suspect this is a red line for Iran—that they see a nuclear weapon as insurance against an attack when it is well known that Israel has nukes.

Trump says he’s ‘not satisfied’ with Iran’s latest proposal.

As the period for U.S. military action against Iran without congressional approval is set to expire, senior Israeli defense officials told Haaretz that the campaign would be considered a failure unless Israel secures the dismantling of Iran’s nuclear program and the removal of its enriched uranium.

Despite operational successes, including the elimination of senior Iranian officials and strikes on its defense industries, IDF officials said that plans to topple the regime were quickly abandoned after it was understood that attacks on the regime’s repression apparatus were not achieving their goal and were not driving the masses into the streets.

The officials also pointed to a new challenge facing the IDF – the threat of drones and UAVs that manage to evade air defense systems: To date, Air Defense troops have intercepted 27 drones using the Iron Dome system – a marginal figure compared to the hundreds launched toward forces, and relative to the capabilities Hezbollah still possesses.

Meanwhile, Tehran sent ⁠its ⁠latest proposal for negotiations with Washington to Pakistani mediators, according to state media. On Thursday, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei said on Thursday that “expecting to reach a result in a short time, regardless of who the mediator is, in my opinion, is not very realistic.”

Earlier on Thursday, NBC News reported that Iran is accelerating efforts to retrieve missiles and munitions that are buried under rubble, citing sources who said this activity has intensified in recent days. U.S. President Trump responded on Friday, saying he was “not satisfied” with the proposal but added that “they all want to make a deal.”

Mark Wauck: Spike In Renewed Iran War Rumors

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There has been a flurry of rumors—entirely plausible on their face—to the effect that Miriam Adelson and other leading Jewish Nationalists are frantically lobbying Trump to renew his undeclared war on Iran. Trump himself has been on a toot with goofy tweets intended to project an image of strength, but which in context project desperation. This, as the War Powers Resolution deadline of May 2 approaches and Congress holds hearings on the subject. This also comes after a flurry of rumors that Trump is exploring some form of TACO—such as proclaiming the effectiveness of an ineffective blockade:

Far-Right Extremist Fight Clubs Are Happening in America’s Forests

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Newsweek: Far-Right Extremist Fight Clubs Are Happening in America’s Forests

Groups of men move through a dry woodland dotted with sparsely leafed trees. Some wear face coverings. Others wear grappling gloves. One has face paint smeared across his skin.

“I came out here to fight,” says a man identified as Avery Ross Ruiz, a Texan who goes by “Panzzer” and is a member of the Lone Star Active Club. “Sworn to the quest, man. It’s our duty.”

“I’m fighting for f***ing glory,” says Don, a man from the same club. Another participant, identified as Dagda from Tribal Lands, puts it more simply: “I just love to fight,” he says in a video posted to the Forest Fights USA Telegram page that racked up over 46,000 views.

A video posted to Forest Fights USA’s Telegram account described the March gathering as the “first official Forest Fights USA event.”

‘Blood Was Shed’

The men grapple. Some fall to the ground and are pummeled with repeated punches to the head and torso. They scream out. Dagda lies on his back, panting, with what appears to be blood smeared on his white vest.

The men are willing participants in a so-called “forest fight”—an organized brawl between different Active Clubs. “Teams gathered for a weekend of violence and tribal fellowship,” Forest Fights USA wrote on Telegram. “Blood was shed, and honor was won.”

A Newsweek review of videos, Telegram channels and expert analysis found that these forest fights appear to serve as more than private brawls. Researchers say such events help far-right and white nationalist groups build camaraderie, recruit members, and create real-world networks around combat sports, even when the gatherings themselves do not obviously violate the law.

Researchers describe Active Clubs as a transnational network of far-right fitness groups promoted by the white supremacist Robert Rundo and the Russian neo-Nazi Denis Kapustin since 2020. Rundo is one of the founders of the U.S. far-right organization Rise Above Movement (RAM) and was sentenced to prison in 2024 for conspiracy to riot at California political rallies in 2017. Kapustin is a far-right figure who runs the Russian Volunteer Corps and has been described by German authorities as “an influential neo-Nazi activist.”

Physical Fitness Crucial

The decentralized groups, which are present in at least 34 states, engage in physical training and post white nationalist propaganda, according to the Counter Extremism Project.

According to the advocacy group Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), combat sport clubs have been used to boost recruitment to the Patriot Front, which was formed by Thomas Rousseau in September 2017 following the “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia and has been designated as a hate group by the SPLC.

In a video explaining the purpose of fight clubs shared on Telegram, Rousseau said: “Fitness and martial arts are a crucial aspect of the organization’s patriotic culture for a multitude of reasons. It’s a civic duty for the men of the nation to be prepared to seize opportunity and survive emergency.”

Active Clubs post about news stories, share quotes from Hitler, and images from their training days.

Not Illegal Activity

There is no suggestion that attending these events is inherently illegal, or that every participant is motivated by extremist ideology.

Jacob Wagner, a digital research analyst at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, said the likelihood of violence occurring at one of the fight competitions was “minimal”.

He said: “Law enforcement may be reluctant to take significant action against these competitions unless they have evidence that members are clearly engaging in criminal or illegal activity.”

But Alexandria Olsen, an analyst with the Anti-Defamation League’s Center on Extremism, told Newsweek: “Law enforcement should be aware of when and where large-scale extremist gatherings occur. While these gatherings do not inherently involve illegal activity, the presence of hate and extremism can negatively impact the community and disrupt their sense of safety.”

A Department of Justice spokesperson told Newsweek: “Political violence has no place in this country, and this Department of Justice will investigate, identify, and root out any individual or violent extremist group attempting to commit or promote this heinous activity.”

But the FBI told Newsweek: “The FBI has no comment on the specifics of your inquiry. The FBI focuses on individuals who commit or intend to commit violence and criminal activity that constitutes a federal crime or poses a threat to national security. We can never open an investigation based solely on First Amendment protected activity.”

Photos and videos circulated on Active Club Telegram pages appear to show that Patriot Front organized a private combat-sports event in South Carolina in March, billed as an “American Muscle” tournament.

According to the Counter Extremism Project, the event was held March 28 and 29 at a clothing store called Dixie Republic in Travelers Rest, South Carolina.

Newsweek reached out to Patriot Front by website form, as well as the Travelers Rest Police Department and Dixie Republic to comment on this story, but received no comment.

Synthesis of Physicality and Culture

“Sport is a synthesis of physicality and culture,” said one of the group’s Telegram posts about the event.

“Events such as this encourage masculine vitality, and offer athletes a chance to test themselves and be recognized within a nationalist community. Patriot Front is dedicated to the reconquest of the nation, which includes building spaces of culture that uphold and foster the merit of the men that will stand as examples to future generations of patriots.”

Photos that circulated on social media showed men in boxing gloves fighting in a ring. One showed a woman at a stall showcasing goods from Above Time Coffee, which describes itself as “the first and only pro-White coffee company in the U.S” and has reportedly been accused of using Nazi-aligned imagery on its packaging.

Another showed people whose faces were blurred playing musical instruments and singing into a microphone. Newsweek reached out to Above Time Coffee by email to comment on this story.

An Instagram post showed Above Time Coffee Roasters at the American Muscle event. The Black Sun, a Nazi symbol, is seen behind a sign that says “open….

Street Fight Club, which is reportedly linked to a Russian street fighting organization that promotes neo-Nazi and white supremacist symbols, also circulated videos from the event and said that its members attended the activities.

When they are not organizing fights, members of Active Clubs keep in touch via Telegram chats where they share updates about their activities.

On Monday, the Ohio Nationalist Network posted a photo of Adolf Hitler on its Telegram page alongside a quote from a speech by the Nazi leader advocating “struggle and fight.” The image was viewed 196 times and 30 people sent fire emoji reactions in an apparent endorsement of the post. Newsweek reached out to the Ohio Nationalist Network by Telegram.

Screengrab of a Telegram post showing an Adolf Hitler quote on the Ohio Nationalist Network Telegram page. | Ohio Nationalist Network/ Telegram

Active Club members also discuss current affairs. Posts by Wyoming Active Club show posters of Iryna Zarutska, the 23-year-old Ukrainian refugee whose death caused a national outcry, affixed to poles and other outdoor locations.

Zarutska was stabbed on a train on August 22, 2025, in Charlotte, North Carolina and videos of the stabbing circulated on social media.

She was pronounced dead at the scene, and Decarlos Brown Jr. was charged with her murder. The group also posted photos warning against “employing illegal migrant labor” and urging against “wars for Israel.”

Posters of Iryna Zarutska (Wyoming Active Club/ Telegram)

Another recent Telegram post by Wyoming Active Club showed a photo of eight people gathered in Laramie, a city in southeastern Wyoming for what it billed as “a training meet and cardio day.” The faces of the individuals were blurred. A quotation under the photo read: “A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government.”

Newsweek did not receive a response when it reached out to Wyoming Active Club via Telegram to comment on this story but appeared to be removed from the Telegram group.

A Telegram post shared by the Lone Star Active Club showed members of the group had put up posters advertising the group on a wall in Fort Stockton, Texas promising to “crush the left.”

One poster read: “You are hated, train like it.” Other posters advertised Patriot Front, demonstrating the link between recruitment for the far-right movement and active clubs. At time of writing it had been viewed over 600 times. Newsweek contacted the City of Fort Stockton Police Department by email and Lone Star Active Club via Telegram to comment on this story.

Posters in Fort Stockton, Texas (Lone Star Active Club/ Telegram)

A Growing Threat

The Ohio Nationalist Network recently posted an image showing they participated in a grocery drive, sponsored by vendor Pepper Cave, which was previously suspended from a farmer’s market over reported allegations of antisemitic social media activity. Newsweek reached out to Pepper Cave by email to comment on this story.

It comes after the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism (GPAHE) found that the number of Active Clubs in the U.S. has increased from 49 in October 2023 to 78 in June 2025, a 59.2 percent increase.

Of these, GPAHE found that at least 19 clubs in 42 states target teen boys aged 15 to 18. Some of these groups posted neo-Nazi propaganda on social media, as seen by GPAHE.

Globally, the number of Active Clubs increased by 25 percent between 2023 and 2025, according to GPAHE research, which said 187 chapters of the movement were operating across 27 countries in June 2025.

It warned of an “explosion” in the number of Active Clubs in the U.S. and other countries, calling the rise of the groups a “growing transnational threat.”

According to the Anti-Defamation League, there were more than 750 white supremacist incidents between 2020 and 2024. The group said there were 282 events organized or attended by white supremacists in 2023, a 63 percent increase from 173 in 2022.

While there is no suggestion that all Active Club participants are involved in violent extremism, data from the Center for Strategic and International Studies illustrates the broader threat posed by right-wing extremist violence in the U.S. Its analysis shows right-wing extremists killed 112 people in 152 attacks across the U.S. between 2016 and 2025.

International Expansion

There are also signs the U.S. Active Clubs are collaborating with extremist groups in Canada. Second Sons Canada, an Active Club group, has met with both the Lone Star Active Club in Dallas and the Great Lakes Active Clubs ahead of their participation in the American Muscle event, posts and photos on Telegram revealed.

“The international brotherhood that was established this weekend serves as a reminder that our ideas cannot and will not be subdued,” read one post on Telegram.

Wendy Via, co-founder of GPAHE, told Newsweek the movement is transnational, with allied chapters and groups across the Western world.

“They are connected and building networks that do not limit themselves by borders,” she said. “There needs to be international community and institutional efforts to stop the potentially violent far right from spreading its message, particularly on social media, and attracting new members.”

A Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CS) spokesperson said that while CSIS may investigate in instances where ideologically-motivated groups engage in activities that pose a threat to the security of Canada  it “is precluded by law from investigating lawful advocacy, protest or dissent. Not all activities associated with ideologically-motivated groups meet the threshold for CSIS investigations, including other potentially illegal activities, which can be appropriately addressed by law enforcement.”

 “Given the need to protect our sources, tradecraft, and methods however, we cannot confirm or deny any investigative or security details related to such groups.”

Members of Great Lakes Active Club met with Second Sons Canada for the American Muscle event.

Active Club activity looks set to grow. According to a post to the Forest Fights USA Telegram page, another fight is scheduled to take place in May in Pennsylvania, although its location has not been disclosed. Wagner said that can make it harder for law enforcement to monitor or prepare for such events.

Wagner told Newsweek: “One major hurdle law enforcement officials face in preparing for these events is that the clubs rarely advertise the locations of their private events ahead of time. The exact location is often only transmitted to vetted participants shortly before the event is set to take place, frustrating monitoring or disruption attempts by law enforcement.”

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Meanwhile, in a Telegram post seen by the Counter Extremism Project, Rundo revealed future plans for Active Clubs. “2026 is the year we solidify everything we gained,” he said. “We become the infrastructure. We need real-world roots; nationalist-owned businesses, housing, gyms, private events, the whole network.”

Rundo also wrote in a recent blog post: “These events are a tip off point for a fascist cultural revolution, its [sic] is the first step in building our own parallel system. You dont [sic] need to be a master class fighter in this but no matter what you will need brothers around you and this is how you find them. Join a [sic] active club near you.”

Michael Hudson: Postponing the World’s Financial Winter, But For How Long? Iran’s MAD Standoff with the Rest of the World

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But now that the United States has de-industrialized and become debt-ridden, it has abandoned and indeed reversed these rules that served it eighty years ago. What U.S. officials call national security strategy is how to recover and maintain America’s control over other countries by weaponizing the dollar-centered financial system and its foreign trade. And instead of protecting other countries and their economic sovereignty, its attempt to enforce its dominance disruptively and militarily has become a threat to the entire world’s security. And unlike the balance of power that Mutually Assured Destruction had established, most other countries have not mounted any symmetrical check to U.S. bullying by isolating themselves from America’s weaponization of its trade and financial relations. …

By acting as a major catalyst for reshaping the international order, Iran has made itself a world power – not a major military power, or even an economic power as an investor nation or market, but a moral and political power pushing the world to create an alternative international order. The emerging Global Majority is destined to be led by China, Russia and Iran providing the core for a region-wide self-sufficiency in Asia and the Global South, so that countries in these regions no longer need to depend on the U.S.-centered West for their energy, fertilizer, chemicals, credit and other essentials.

CounterPunch: Postponing the World’s Financial Winter, But For How Long? Iran’s MAD Standoff with the Rest of the World

Michael Hudson

Photograph by Nathaniel St. Clair

Announcing that “A whole civilization will die tonight,” Donald Trump threatened on April 7, 2026, to destroy “every bridge in Iran” and “every power plant … burning, exploding, and never to be used again.” His intention to continue committing war crimes is driving the world toward a Financial Winter as devastating as the Great Depression. Iran’s April 8 response called his bluff, laying down the terms for ending the conflict and opening the Strait of Hormuz. Oil-importing countries will need to compel U.S. and Israeli compliance with these terms in order to avoid an economic crisis.

We are seeing the economic version of what the 1960s called Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD).[1] The term referred to the military standoff that avoided the global Nuclear Winter that would have occurred if the world’s leading powers had used atomic weapons against each other. The possession of atomic bombs by both the United States and Soviet Union assured that they would not attack each other as long as the arms race maintained nuclear parity. The resulting balance of terror made the U.S.-Soviet Cold War relatively peaceful as far as fighting among the world’s most heavily armed adversaries was concerned. Their mutual restraint enabled America to wage its wars in Southeast Asia and Latin America without threatening world conflagration.

Today’s world is threatened with an economic kind of global collapse. Iran is defending itself against the prospect of U.S. and Israeli military attack by threatening to destroy OPEC’s oil and gas trade if its survival as a sovereign country is endangered. This threat is confronting the world with a fateful choice: Either countries will suffer a deep depression if Trump follows through on his threat to destroy Iran and seize its oil – in which case Iran’s retaliation will destroy OPEC’s energy trade on which many countries have become dependent – or they must actively move to prevent the U.S. attack.

In the 1960s, it was understood that an atomic attack by either of the major powers would not be survivable by them in meaningful terms. But today’s economic version of MAD has no such restraint on America’s floundering attempts to reverse the loss of its economic power that has left it with few major levers to exert control over other countries. Its main leverage is its ability to threaten countries with economic and financial chaos, by closing off the U.S. market to their exports and by blocking their access to oil and gas from Russia, Iran and (until just recently) Venezuela in its drive to force reliance on its own energy supplies and Arab OPEC oil under its control.

This threat of trade disruption has worked best against America’s closest allies. President Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariffs of April 2, 2025 imposed exorbitant levies that Trump offered to relax on the condition that other countries sign “giveback” agreements in the form of agreeing to impose trade and financial sanctions on America’s designated enemies, headed by Russia and Iran, and to shift their oil purchases to the United States.

This is not the first time that U.S. strategists have broken the rules of international relations that America itself had put in place in 1945 to shape the post-World War II economic order. Controlling 75% of the world’s monetary gold, it dictated creditor-oriented rules of international finance, and also rules of free trade as a means of breaking up Britain’s imperial preference trade restrictions. These rules prevented other countries from following protectionist policies to protect their agriculture and industry as the U.S. itself was doing. The United States also created a global military presence, promising to protect the world against the specter of Soviet military attack and to prevent countries enacting strong government controls or socialist policies that would pose an alternative to the U.S.-backed system of international finance, trade and private investments.

But now that the United States has de-industrialized and become debt-ridden, it has abandoned and indeed reversed these rules that served it eighty years ago. What U.S. officials call national security strategy is how to recover and maintain America’s control over other countries by weaponizing the dollar-centered financial system and its foreign trade. And instead of protecting other countries and their economic sovereignty, its attempt to enforce its dominance disruptively and militarily has become a threat to the entire world’s security. And unlike the balance of power that Mutually Assured Destruction had established, most other countries have not mounted any symmetrical check to U.S. bullying by isolating themselves from America’s weaponization of its trade and financial relations.

In the present crisis Iran’s main defense to the U.S. attack has been to block OPEC oil and gas through the Strait of Hormuz, and even to threaten to directly destroy OPEC production. These acts have confronted the world’s oil-importing countries with a crisis of their economies if they do not act to counter the U.S. threat to Iran’s sovereignty, which indeed is threatening their own economic and financial sovereignty.

America’s attempts to preserve its ability to weaponize the world’s oil trade …

Continues…

Australia’s “Antisemitism Envoy” Makes It Clear That Israel’s Critics Are The Real Target

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Australia’s “Antisemitism Envoy” Makes It Clear That Israel’s Critics Are The Real Target

Caitlin Johnstone
Apr 25, 2026

Reading by Tim Foley:

Australia’s “antisemitism envoy” Jillian Segal has published a handbook which unequivocally clarifies that her office exists not to protect Australian Jews from discrimination, but to stomp out criticism of the state of Israel.

However bad you’re imagining it is, it’s worse. The handbook, set to be formally launched later this week under the title “Understanding Antisemitism in Australia,” explicitly conflates antisemitism and antizionism with statements like “Antisemitism and antizionism are both expressions of hatred towards Jews” and asserting that it is antisemitic to accuse Israel of “apartheid, oppression, racism and genocide.”

It is therefore unambiguously the official position of the Australian government’s appointed authority on antisemitism that it is hateful and abusive toward Jews and their religion to oppose the racist political ideology underpinning the modern state of Israel.

So when Australians hear Jillian Segal and government officials talking about how there’s been an increase in “antisemitism” in our country and saying extreme measures must be taken to stop it, it’s important to be clear that this is the “antisemitism” they are talking about. They are talking about criticism of Israel.

The forward in the handbook stresses the importance of the Australian government’s endorsement of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) working definition of antisemitism, which has been opposed around the world for its conflation of criticism of Israel with hateful actions toward Jews. Under the IHRA definition it is considered antisemitic to claim that Israel is a racist endeavor, or to compare Israel’s abuses to those of Nazi Germany — both of which are entirely legitimate criticisms which should be put forward far more often than they are. Much of the handbook follows from the premises of the IHRA definition.

Segal’s office states that the handbook “is intended as a practical resource for schools, universities, public servants, community organisations and anyone seeking to understand antisemitism today.”

Segal’s office says that antisemitism “morphs” over the ages, from the blood libels and “Christ-killer” accusations of the Middle Ages to the racism of Nazi Germany, and has now morphed so that “antisemitic tropes are conveyed and justified in the language of human rights and international legal arguments.”

“For example, sometimes Jews are labelled and libelled as ‘settler-colonialists’, ‘oppressors’, and a symbol of a global system of domination that ‘can seemingly accommodate even the murder of Jews as Jews’,” the envoy proclaims.

Do you see how the subject was moved to lump medieval superstitions about Jews in with entirely legitimate criticisms of the modern state of Israel? According to Australia’s Special Envoy to Combat Antisemitism, criticising Israel using “language of human rights and international legal arguments” is not meaningfully different from saying that Jews drink the blood of Christian children.

This, clearly, is stark raving insanity.

“Legitimate criticism of Israel is not antisemitic,” the envoy concedes, then proceeds to completely negate this concession with everything that follows. “However, there are many examples of antisemitic imagery, tropes, conspiracy theories and propaganda (echoing medieval myths) that have found their way into anti-Israel discourse. It is also increasingly common for the word ‘Zionist’ (or iterations of it) to be used as cover or proxy for ‘Jew ’.”

This is completely made up. The claim that critics of Israel’s abuses use the word “Zionist” when they really mean “Jew” is just something Israel apologists started asserting with no substantiation whatsoever a few years ago. They have no evidence for this assertion apart from the frequency and forcefulness which with they assert it.

The envoy defines Zionism as “the belief that the Jewish people have the right to self-determination within their ancestral homeland,” which is misleading at best. That’s not what Zionism is. Zionism is what we see before us today. The genocide, apartheid, ethnic cleansing and nonstop war and abuse. That’s what Zionism is, as evidenced by material reality. The best definition of Zionism is its real-world manifestations. Zionism is what it looks like when you give the Zionists everything they want.

“A new variant of antisemitic atrocity denial emerged in the wake of the 7 October 2023 Hamas terrorist attacks — the deadliest day for Jewish people since the Holocaust,” the envoy writes. “Disturbingly, these atrocities have been met by some with denial, minimisation, justification and distortion — echoing Holocaust denial, minimisation, and distortion.”

Segal’s office is here telling us that it is antisemitic to talk about the glaring plot holes in the narratives about mass rapes, beheaded babies and babies cooked in ovens on October 7, or to talk about the large number of Israelis who were killed by IDF fire under the Hannibal Directive, or to “justify” the attack by pointing out the monstrous Israeli abuses which gave rise to it.

The envoy writes of the importance of “Standing firm against antisemitism parading as ‘anti-racism’,” stressing the IHRA position that framing Israel as a racist endeavor is hateful toward Jews. A flyer saying “We don’t want your two states. We want all of 48” is labeled “antisemitic, because there is only one Jewish country.”

Segal’s office warns of the dangers of “Holocaust inversion,” which is when “Israel and Jews are portrayed as Nazi-like perpetrators of mass atrocities and genocide,” which is bad because it “serves to demonise and delegitimise Israel, Israelis and Jews.”

To be clear, every relevant humanitarian institution on earth has said that Israel is guilty of genocide in Gaza. These groups include:

1. The United Nations Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory

2. The International Association of Genocide Scholars

3. B’Tselem (an Israeli organization)

4. Physicians for Human Rights-Israel (another Israeli organization)

5. Amnesty International

6. Doctors Without Borders

7. The European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights

8. Human Rights Watch

9. The International Federation for Human Rights

10. The Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention

The list of humanitarian institutions who say Israel is NOT committing genocide in Gaza includes:

1. Nobody

2. No one

3. Zero

4. Nothing

5. Nada

6. Zilch

7. Sweet damn all

8. A complete absence

9. Diddly squat

10. Bupkis

This is not some fringe conspiracy theory. It is a thoroughly established and entirely indisputable fact. Australia’s Special Envoy to Combat Antisemitism is saying that facts are antisemitic.

Some examples cited in the handbook of glaring instances of the antisemitic crime of “Holocaust inversion”:

 — Placards of ‘ Well done Hitler would be proud’ and ‘Same shit Different asshole’, the latter with images of Hitler and Netanyahu, both placards making Nazi analogies to Israel.

 — Three banners of Hitler removing his mask , revealing the face of Netanyahu, making an analogy between Nazism and Israel, on major roads.

 — Graffiti of a Star of David, equal sign, and Nazi swastika , and another graffiti of ‘End the Genocide’ on a main road.

We’re meant to believe it should be a hate crime to say the state that’s waging multiple wars of aggression while mass murdering people because of their ethnicity bears some resemblance to another state which did these things. I don’t know about you, but I find that silly.

Australia’s “antisemitism envoy” claims it is antisemitic to say the IHRA definition of antisemitism silences criticism of Israel, arguing that “claims that the leading global definition of antisemitism — which reflects the lived experience of Jewish people worldwide — is designed to intentionally silence criticism echoes antisemitic tropes of Jewish power and control.”

That’s right kids: you can’t criticise Israel because that’s antisemitic, and if you complain that your speech is being suppressed, that’s antisemitic too.

The handbook includes a hypothetical office group chat with a coworker making the statement “But what about the genocidal, racist Zionist project that has oppressed the Palestinians? Zionism is a supremacist ideology invented by Theodore Herzl. They’ve done this through apartheid and ethnic cleansing.”

“This is antisemitic,” the handbook argues, dismissing the entirely accurate statement as “Soviet-era antizionist propaganda” and saying it “was antisemitic because it included statements that accused Israel of apartheid, oppression, racism and genocide.”

Saying it’s antisemitic to accuse Israel of apartheid, oppression, racism and genocide is as clear an admission that Segal’s goal is to stomp out all criticism of Israel as you could possibly ask for.

If that wasn’t clear enough for you, the handbook concludes with the assertion that it is impossible to separate antizionism from antisemitism:

“Trying to separate ‘antisemitism’ from ‘antizionism’ ignores the history of misinformation, disinformation and antisemitic propaganda that has shaped narratives about Israel and Zionism,” the envoy asserts. “It also ignores the lived and practical reality that wherever these antizionist narratives have been propagated, it has resulted in discrimination, harassment , vilification, hate and harm towards Jews. For example, Poland’s 1968 antizionist campaign resulted in expulsions and forced emigration of thousands of Jewish Poles.”

“Antisemitism and antizionism are both expressions of hatred towards Jews,” the handbook concludes.

So there you have it. That settles that.

Throughout the handbook, the feelings of Australian Jews are cited over and over again as supremely important and of far more urgent a concern than genocide, apartheid, ethnic cleansing, and wars of immense geopolitical consequence.

“Feel more isolated… I feel like I am living the life of a Jew from history, rather than the Jew I was 2 years ago,” reads a quote from an unnamed Jewish person.

“I just feel so sad that I need to educate my children in how to respond if they are screamed at in the street,” reads another.

“The silence from friends I have known almost all my life, the constant posting of antisemitic slurs and the public broadcasts of factually incorrect reports has been devastating and makes me fearful of what might happen next. Since October 7, when I speak to someone who hasn’t offered any support, I often ask myself ‘would they hide me’ which is a terribly sad situation in our beautiful country where I have always felt safe,” reads another.

“A tutor in my university class made antisemitic comments very casually which made me feel extremely uncomfortable and unsafe. I am now nervous when entering a uni class,” reads another.

“Being confronted again and again with blind hate towards my people and the place I come from was very painful. It impacted my mood, the way I perceived my community and my place in it, and my daily function,” reads another.

Virtually nothing is said about the real victims. The murdered, displaced and terrorized targets of Israeli atrocities in Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon and Iran. The war orphans. The child amputees and burn victims who were operated on without anesthesia. The Palestinians being raped and tortured in Israeli prisons. The people who will carry the physical and psychological wounds from their holocaust with them for the rest of their lives.

They are not regarded as important by Jillian Segal. The real crisis, in her mind, is people talking about these things and making Jewish Australians feel upset.

Absolutely psychotic. We cannot allow our country to continue to be dragged in this direction.

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