Joseph Finlay

Who would you favour? I’m not convinced Corbyn or Sultana are the best options

I know he’s still in Labour but the person I’d most like to see lead Your Party is John McDonnell

Could be, not sure

Apropos of nothing, the Community Security Trust (CST) HQ, where Starmer and Mahmood spoke yesterday is a very odd place for politicians to go on an official visit. It's an office building in a back street in Hendon.

To say that the banning of fans of an Israeli football team, who have a record of hooliganism and violence, is antisemitic is in itself antisemitic, and deeply insulting to British Jews

Thank you!

If anyone wanted to find it, there’s potentially a lesson in that fact that it’s very difficult to tell bodies apart, especially when so many lie under rubble, that we are all fundamentally alike in death.

Which collection is this from please? One day I’d love to research the history of conversion to Judaism in the UK.

The fact that Hamas can't accurately identify or readily locate the remaining dead hostages certainly implies that they were incinerated and crushed in Israel's bombing, which rendered – by most estimates – many thousand bodies unidentifiable under the rubble.

Not what I read but I don’t have time to comb through old reports now

From the reports I read it seemed like the staggered releases were an Israeli proposal. Hamas sought to avoid releasing all the hostages without a full IDF withdrawal and a complete end to the war

Unless they use explicitly pro-Hamas messaging I don’t accept that protests marking 2 years since Oct 7th can be considered as celebrations of that attack. Since Israeli reprisals began within hours, on Oct 7th, such protests likely mark 2 years of Palestine mass death / genocide.

As with all ideologies, if people and institutions claim to uphold it then it exists

Expressing worry is not the same as blaming. And we underestimate the diaspora’s power. Clear statements from major orgs that any return to war/failure to fully withdraw is unacceptable would have an impact on Israel. And if not it would encourage our own gvts to be tougher on Israel eg. sanctions.

I fear that diaspora Jewish communal statements welcoming the deal that frame it purely in terms of bringing home the hostages make it more likely that the Israeli government will resume the war (or at least never fully withdraw from Gaza) once the hostages are freed.

It is hard to describe an organisation which has done more to damage interfaith cohesion between Jews and Muslims in this country than 5 Pillars

How about the Jewish Chronicle?

In @thetimes.com letters page today

The deal is a huge relief. But it could have been made 2 years ago on the same terms. Netanyahu promised that he would defeat and destroy Hamas. Instead he signed a deal with them. So many killed for the impossible promise of total
victory and ‘permanent security’.

We Are Each Other’s Security - Joseph Finlay British Jews should reject the British state’s philosemitic embrace in the wake of the terrible Manchester synagogue attack.

One more share for this - on why the British state bears some responsibility for the Manchester attack and how racialised minorities should provide security for one another josephfinlay.com/weareeachoth...

We Are Each Other’s Security - Joseph Finlay British Jews should reject the British state’s philosemitic embrace in the wake of the terrible Manchester synagogue attack.

Rejecting the British state’s philosemitic embrace in the wake of the Manchester attack

josephfinlay.com/weareeachoth...

We Are Each Other’s Security - Joseph Finlay British Jews should reject the British state’s philosemitic embrace in the wake of the terrible Manchester synagogue attack.

I wrote a piece about the Manchester attack, on why the British state bears a degree of responsibility and how Jews and Muslim communities would be safer if they provided security for each other.

josephfinlay.com/weareeachoth...

YouTube video by Daily Express Jenrick's EXPLOSIVE takedown of Starmer's Attorney General for "defending Britain's enemies"

There should be no doubt that Robert Jenrick is a racist. His disgraceful Birmingham comments would have seen him sacked by previous Tory leaders. It wasn't much noticed but this video from May is full of Judeo-Bolshevik tropes about Attorney General Ricard Hermer. www.youtube.com/watch?v=tE0P...

But they were attempting to reach Palestine’s waters. A state which you have just recognised.

As Zionism is to Judaism one might say

STATEMENT: Board of Deputies calls for more than 400 protest terror arrests to also be investigated for stirring up racial hatred The Board of Deputies utterly condemns the morally grotesque protests that took place today and over recent days. After the most deadly attack on British Jews since the York Massacre of 1190, we called for the protests to be stopped out of respect to the dead. Politicians and police echoed our community’s call, stressing the burden of policing this rally while providing enhanced protection to more than 300 synagogues across our traumatised community. The crass insensitivity shown by the protesters, more than 400 of whom were arrested for supporting a proscribed terrorist organisation, is an offence to public decency. That they would go ahead despite our pleas shows such reckless disregard for public safety and our community’s wellbeing that we consider the underlying motivation to be not just their support for terror, but that they are antisemitic acts, designed to stir up racial hatred. As such we are calling today for those arrested to also be investigated and prosecuted for stirring up racial hatred. We are demanding that the Government look again at the legislation and powers available to police to stop this continued assault on community relations, city centres, and stretched police resources. What is happening on our streets is just not acceptable. Freedom to protest must come alongside a sense of decency and civil responsibility that seems to completely evade these hateful marchers.

Absolute unhinged nonsense from @boardofdeputies.bsky.social

The more I think about it the clearer it is: if you say that anti-genocide protests should be called off because of British Jewish sensibilities you are saying that British Jews support genocide. It’s disgraceful and it’s the kind of conflationist discourse that laid the ground for this attack.

This is not it Simon

Since it's emerged that one of the victims in Manchester died from a police bullet it's clear that the existence of armed police in Britain is part of this story.

British Jews are tired. Quite literally tired after 25 hours of fasting and intensive prayers. So please don’t expect quick and thoughtful takes on the Manchester synagogue attack from us. Give us a few days.

If an international protectorate is such a great idea for Gaza why not apply it to the whole land between the river and the sea? Call it the Mandate 2.0.