Then they came for Ken Loach – how Israeli apologists are using cancel culture to silence criticism of Palestine
And then they came for Ken Loach…
“We are deeply troubled to learn of a McCarthyite campaign demanding Oxford University cancel a public event with director Ken Loach discussing his distinguished career in film. The campaign to silence a world-renowned artist, which has been active behind the scenes and which became public at the last minute, is using the controversial IHRA definition of antisemitism to try to prevent a cultural event from taking place. If any further evidence were needed to demonstrate how a vaguely worded definition is being deployed to silence critics of Israeli policy towards Palestinians — then this is it. We have been warned by respected Palestinian academics, Israeli scholars, leading experts on antisemitism, dozens of progressive Jewish groups, and others that this definition is being used as a political weapon. We cannot fight racism, including antisemitism, by demonising and silencing supporters of Palestinian rights.”
Signed:
Hany Abu-Assad, filmmaker
Raed Andoni, filmmaker
Hanan Ashrawi, Palestinian parliamentarian, scholar and civil society leader
Nahed Awwad, filmmaker
Victoria Brittain, journalist, author, playwright
Judith Butler, philosopher and gender theorist
David Calder, actor
Dame Carmen Callil, publisher, editor
Julie Christie, actor
Caryl Churchill, playwright
Steve Coogan, actor, comedian, producer
Dror Dayan, filmmaker, senior lecturer
Raymond Deane, composer, author
Esther Ruth Elliott, actor, director
Brian Eno, musician, producer
Peter Gabriel, musician, founder Womad music festival
Tony Graham, theatre director
Ohal Grietzer, composer and mixed-media performer
Barbara Harvey, civil rights and labor lawyer
Trevor Hoyle, novelist and radio dramatist
Ronnie Kasrils, former South African Government Minister
Mike Leigh, screenwriter, director
Zwelivelile “Mandla” Mandela, South African Parliamentarian
Jean Said Makdissi, writer
Samir Makdissi, Professor Emeritus of Economics, AUB
Kika Markham, actor
Mai Masri, filmmaker
Thurston Moore, musician
David Morrisey, actor
Rebecca O’Brien, producer
Ruth Padel, poet
Maxine Peake, actor
Mark Rylance, actor
Alexei Sayle, comedian
Eyal Sivan, filmmaker
Rosemary Sayigh, journalist and scholar
Ahdaf Soueif, author, founder PalFest
Rima Tarazi, Palestinian pianist, composer and social activist
Harriet Walter, actor
Roger Waters, musician
Samuel West, actor, director
Rabbi Alissa Wise, deputy director of Jewish Voice for Peace
…Israeli Apologists are increasingly attempting to use the claim of anti-Semitism to cancel critics of their brutal and illegal occupation of Palestine.
Ken Loach is probably the most important contemporary British film maker in history and the attempt to cancel him with claims of anti-Semitism BECAUSE he has been a vocal critic of the brutal and illegal occupation of Palestine should send a clear an urgent warning to anyone who cares about social justice.
This debate is just warming up in New Zealand where Israeli apologists have managed to con the Human Rights Commission into considering any use of the word ‘zionism’ when criticising Israel as hate speech.
No one has any time for actual anti-Semitism. The Jewish people have put up with centuries of persecution and disgusting discrimination. The Holocaust is a horror that must always be remembered as the very worst of humanity, so I have zero time for anti-Semites. But to extend that sensitivity of persecution to claim any use of the word ‘Zionism’ (which has become radicalised and culturally hateful against Palestinians) is now suddenly part of hate speech is an insult to the intellect of the debate and should be resisted at all costs.
If your solution to a white supremacy attack against Muslims is to make the word ‘Zionist’ hate speech against Jews, you seem to have been at the wrong massacre.
I stand with Ken Loach.
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Israeli propaganda never sleeps, like their online troll farms staffed by paid students.
Make a pro Palestinian comment on social media and you will be attacked, and possibly stalked and harassed for weeks after.
The Israeli Govt and Military play hardball so those into solidarity with Palestinians should do the same and not let attacks on artists like Ken Loach (or Lorde!) pass uncontested.
This began with the Loach’s production of the stage play Perdition decades ago. The play covered the interface between Zionist and German nationalism back in the 1930’s.
Another case, an actor (mainstream Trumpist Republican type – freedom before pandemic regulation and the myth of the stolen election and who identifies as both “beep and boop”) said of the social media campaigns calling for her to be blacklisted – that this was akin to the 1930’s when Nazis preached hate against Jews leading to incidents where civilians would then attack them “Jews were beaten in the streets, not by Nazi soldiers but by their neighbors. Because history is edited, most people today don’t realize that to get to the point where Nazi soldiers could easily round up thousands of Jews, the government first made their own neighbors hate them simply for being Jews. How is that any different from hating someone for their political views.”
And to prove her point she was then blacklisted by Hollywood (in the role of the authority abusing power) – who claim the comparison is offensive.
Those the mob can attack (including on social media) by profile with impunity will later be the victims of either violence or discrimination – including employment etc. If the institutions do not hold, then civil society falls. On this occasion Hollywood did not hold (and given what the left went through there in the 1950’s that should not happen). Often the arts an academia are the canary …
The worm is turning: https://www.theguardian.com/news/2021/feb/12/ucl-board-rejects-ihra-definition-of-antisemitism
It is also apparent that at a time when the UK has its most incompetent government in a number of lifetimes, Keir Starmer is bleeding pole votes to Bozzo Boris and the Conservatives. Why? The Jewish socialists have a few clues.
Extreme Zionism is ‘ethnic cleansing’ ,,, with lots of war crimes
53mins – 1:03mins https://youtu.be/6jepCC9qhE8 … or start at 43mins if you want the full segment
The Biden admin will no doubt continue Trumps attack on the International Criminal Court ..
As for the Israeli sniper who boasted of hitting the knees pof 40 Palestinians (their right of retur n protest near the border fence) .
Note this comment by an MK that Ahed Tamimi should have been shot in the knee for protesting loss of her Arab village land (she spent 8 months in prison for slapping an IDF soldier – they had smashed her family home windows and put tear gas through the place because they allowed her to protest).
https://www.jpost.com/arab-israeli-conflict/twitter-blocks-member-of-knesset-who-said-ahed-tamimi-should-be-crippled-552625
Disney cancelled Gina Carano (Cara Dune on the Star Wars show “The Mandalorian”) for also nonsensical reasoning. We are in the age of ultra-woke now. If anyone gets remotely triggered by anything, they set plagues of Twitter wokists on them. Once these wokists have cancelled their target, they move on to the next one.
https://deadline.com/2021/02/mandalorian-gina-carano-lucas-film-responds-to-controversial-statement-1234691898/
“Free Speech” only exists if you echo whatever the woke Twitterazzi allow you say.
Note how this Jew argues that oppression based on political belief is more acceptable, than oppression of Jews (as an ethnic and religious identity). Such as orgainising worldwide political campaigns against anyone opposed to their nationalism/Zionism as an order of rule in supremacy over the human rights (mere UN politics) of Palestine residents without state of Israel passports.
https://twitter.com/leiaswinterfell/status/1359490660068438026
Welcome to the chosen ones foot (mother’s son’s) over the head of the political citizen (those of the deep state reptilian snake) order of rule (you have to witness their use of the sound weapon to get this monstrous arrogance).