Telegraph hack Zoe Strimpel is an Israel fanatic. Her output for the ‘Torygraph’ includes gems such as:
- “Mamdani’s victory shows New York learnt the wrong lessons from 9/11“;
- “We need to talk about what’s going wrong with young women — from loony Greenism to anti-Israel hatred, the fairer sex are embracing extremism”; and
- “The rise of the monstrous grannies — From yelling in fury over trees to bellowing support for Palestine Action – these grey-haired activists really are awful”.
But Strimpel is also a regular at libel factory the Jewish Chronicle, where she has feverishly penned, one after the other, such delights as:
- “Meet the courageous Jewish Instagrammers who are cooking up a storm for Israel“;
- “How keffiyehs and watermelon swim bags became middle-class terror chic“;
- “Dawn French and the comedians who can’t resist punching down at Israel” (yeah, because Israel is so powerless);
- Will the BBC learn anything from its latest Gaza disaster?; and
- Real Holocaust remembrance requires standing up for Israel.
Safe to say then, that protecting Israel is a priority for her. The last one listed even says so explicitly. She also wrote a whole article about her aggressive behaviour toward a woman for wearing “red-and-white keffiyah [sic] around her midriff” and kissing her boyfriend in public. She told her victim that she’d be punished or even murdered in Palestine for a public kiss. How to say “I’m an Islamophobe” without saying “I’m an Islamophobe”.
Down with the Tate shop!
Her latest unhinged output is a rant about museum shops — specifically the Tate — daring to sell a book by Jewish author Sarah Schulman. Cue an outpouring of scorn and victimhood. Schulman describing herself as “queer” on a book about Gaza is derided as “ludicrous”; calling Israel’s genocide in Gaza a genocide is not just “not an innocent mistake”, it is (of course) a “blood libel” and not even “a plausible interpretation of the truth”. Anything left-wing or anti-racist at all is “evil progressive nonsense” that has no place in somewhere as “civilised” as a museum:
[Browsing the Tate’s bookshop] reminded me of how far and widely culture – and specifically the ostensibly pleasant, civilised space of the museum shop – has gone up the backside (excuse me) of evil “progressive” nonsense. Among all the usual tomes about feminism and racism, the predictable anti-Zionist material was there, and I could not help but take the bait.
In particular, there was a book called The Fantasy and Necessity of Solidarity by Sarah Schulman, clearly one of those “I’m Jewish so I can’t be anti-Semitic” types. Shulman [sic] is described on the back as “a longtime activist and critic of the Israeli war on Gaza”.
I glanced at the impassioned blurb looking for one thing in particular, and there it was. Schulman, it said, “examines… the current wave of protest movements against Israel’s genocide of the Palestinian people” in light, hilariously, of “her own experience growing up as a queer female artist in male-dominated culture industries”.
Now, however widespread and ludicrously presented, this unchallenged invocation of “genocide” is a very serious allegation. It is not the truth, nor is it a plausible interpretation of the truth. It is just an audacious falsehood, which shows itself on its face. It is not an innocent mistake, or opinion, borne of naïve high passions and poor understanding. It is very explicitly and by design a lie about the Jews, a blood libel.
The historic ‘blood libel’ was a lie, and a very evil one. It claimed that Jews used the blood of gentile babies in rituals, and it was used to stir up hate and excuse pogroms. But the clue is in the name: blood libel. It was evil because it was a lie and an outrageous one.
Israel IS committing a genocide
But the mass slaughter of hundreds of thousands of innocents is anything but a lie. We have watched it, in horror, for more than two years on our phone and computer screens. If it’s true, it can’t be libel. Nor are accusations of genocide aimed at people because they’re Jewish. The accusation is used to describe a very specific situation that fulfils components of genocide, as defined under article II of the 1948 Genocide Convention:
- A mental element: the “intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such”; and
- A physical element:
- Killing members of the group
- Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group
- Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part
- Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group
The accusation is aimed at land-stealing, ethnic cleansing, genocidal, war criminal colonisers who have murdered every day since October 2023 (and were murdering most days before that) and continue to do so even during the current ‘ceasefire’.
It is also aimed at them because everyone honest says it’s genocide: legal experts, genocide scholars, the World Court, the UN, every human rights group including Israeli groups.
And it’s not only aimed at the genociders who happen to be Jewish. Keir Starmer, who’s not a Jew, is deeply guilty. He is a genocide enabler. So is non-Jew Donald Trump. So are the governments of Germany and other European nations clamping down brutally — or through ‘lawfare’ — on those who speak out against Israel’s crimes. Along with all their hangers-on and enablers.
Israel — always the victim
Israel, always the victim even when it’s the murderer. Criticism of the poor, feeble murderers is “punching down”, remember.
Strimpel then rambles on for a while complaining more broadly, for example that people dared object to a painting because of “two depictions of black slave boys in chains”. She concedes (not really seeming to mean it) that “perhaps” campaigners against the painting had some kind of point — but even then, of course, it’s brought back to Israel:
Perhaps. But then nobody should be browsing amid raw anti-Semitic blood libels either.
And she has one final “Israel is the victim” point that perfectly illustrates the wilful blindness of the Zionist mindset. Commenting on a pro-Israel artist she likes, she says that the artist:
gets away with her send-ups of woke because “I’m not an ideologue” and because maybe, at the end of the day, it’s still a slightly free country.
Free country?
But it’s not really a very free country any more. Anyone who is really paying attention knows that. And the reason it’s not free is because successive governments have waged war on UK rights and freedoms to protect… Over Israel, particularly from accusations over its genocide in Gaza. And no government has been more enthusiastic in that war than the current one, run by “Zionist without qualification” Keir Starmer and his equally appalling ministers.
Starmer’s ‘lawfare’ war has decimated UK rights of free speech and protest; it extends even to journalists — actual journalists, not just deranged right-wing scribblers. Police have arrested thousands of people for peaceful protest in this war. They have raided homes, detained journalists at airports and prosecuted people for ‘terrorism’ for speaking out. Many of the victims are Jewish.
All because Israel and its lobbyists expect to be able to commit mass murder with impunity — and without even being criticised for it. But Israel is the victim, remember — and its advocates don’t like even to acknowledge the existence of contrary evidence.
Which brings us full circle to why Israel fanatics really don’t like books about Israel’s genocide in museum bookshops (or anywhere else) — and why less genocidal people should certainly be looking for them and buying them.
By Skwawkbox
From Canary via This RSS Feed.