Holocaust Memorial Day

• Jews forcibly removed from Holocaust event. At a Holocaust commemoration event in Dublin last weekend, security forcibly removed several Jews who turned their backs to Ireland's president, Michael Higgins, while he was speaking, in which he was said to have “predictably” admonished the state of Israel. Higgins apparently equated antisemitism and the mass murder of 6 million Jews with issues in the present day including homophobia and Islamophobia. Israel's Minister for Diaspora Affairs and Combating Antisemitism, said he was “stunned” by Higgins' decision to use a Holocaust commemoration event to "spit in the faces of Holocaust survivors." Israel’s deputy foreign minister has claimed she fears for the safety of Jews in Ireland following the row. Telegraph columnist Ruth Dudley Edwards said Ireland’s President “has shamed his nation”, which “is now seen as the most anti-Semitic country in the EU.”
• The ‘dejudification’ of the Holocaust. A disturbing number of public figures failed to mention Jews as they commented on or took part in Holocaust Memorial Day commemorations. A presenter on On ITV’s Good Morning Britain referred specifically to many of the 6 million who were killed being “Polish, disabled, gay or belonged to another ethnic group’”, but made no mention of Jews. (Following a flood of complaints to Ofcom, GM Britain was forced to apologise). UK deputy prime minister Angela Rayner issued a tweet “to remember all those who were murdered just for being who they were”. Read more here.
• Anti-Semitism by stealth. Justin Trudeau expressed sadness over the ‘systematic murder’ at Auschwitz but neglected to say who was murdered. A plaque he unveiled at Canada's Holocaust memorial commemorated the “millions of men, women and children murdered” but did not specifically mention Jewish people or anti-Semitism (it was later taken down). Cambridge City Council lit up the Guildhall ‘to remember those persecuted by the Nazis’. A Jewish community event included a prayer written by Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis, the then Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby and Senior Imam Qari Asim, which spoke of “the horrors of that history, when so many groups were targeted because of their identity.” The Telegraph’s George Chesterton referred to such gross and indefensible omissions as “a form of anti-Semitism by stealth – Jews being written out of the Holocaust story.” Read more here.

Donald Trump

• Trump’s anti-Semitism crackdown. Donald Trump has issued a new executive order that will target resident ‘aliens’ – including students with visas – who broke laws during pro-Hamas demonstrations on college campuses in the US following the October 7, 2023 attacks in Israel. The move is part of a wide-ranging crackdown on anti-Semitism. Trump said he would instruct his Justice Department to “aggressively prosecute terroristic threats, arson, vandalism and violence against American Jews”. Meanwhile, the US President has also been outlining an extraordinary plan for peace in the Middle East, by moving more than one million people out of Gaza and into Jordan and Egypt. 

Society and Politics

• Oxbridge Unis to artificially ‘boost’ grades of black students. The universities of Oxford and Cambridge have announced they will use different assessment methods in order to artificially boost the grades of students from minority racial groups in a move towards diversity and inclusivity. The plan by the University of Cambridge specifies that it aims to improve results from black students and those of Bangladeshi heritage. Commentator Andrew Doyle says “the universities’ decision to overtly racialise this debate is needlessly divisive.”
• British voters back Trump’s policies. A survey of 2,000 voters in the UK reveals that British voters back many of Donald Trump’s policies. When asked whether a “border emergency” similar to that proposed on the US’s southern frontier with Mexico should be declared in the English Channel, more than half of British voters said yes. Voters supported other key elements of his speech, including that Britain should be a “merit-based, colour-blind society” and that there were only two genders. Those asked also said they would support a British attempt to “fill our strategic [gas] reserves up again right to the top” and export it all over the world – which would be a snub to Ed Miliband’s net zero agenda. They also supported tariffs on other countries to protect UK workers.

World Events

• Christian Iraqi who burnt Koran in Sweden is shot dead. A Christian Iraqi anti-Islam activist who sparked outrage across Muslim countries for setting a Koran on fire and stomping on the religious book outside Stockholm's main mosque in 2023 has been shot dead in Sweden during a livestream on TikTok. Salwan Momika’s Koran-burning stunts enraged Muslims around the world, who regard desecration of their ‘holy book’ as a blasphemous act. A court case was due to be held this very week to see if the 38-year-old and a colleague were guilty of inciting ethnic hatred. Five people have been arrested in connection to the death.

Church Issues

• God makes a comeback in Gen Z. A ‘Belief in Britain’ poll of a total of 10,000 people reveals that teenagers and those in their early twenties are half as likely to identify as atheists than their parents. Just 13% of those aged 18-24 (Gen Z) identify as atheists, making them ‘the most spiritual age group’ in the UK. Another 62% describe themselves as 'very' or 'fairly' spiritual. When asked what the biggest factors in declining Christianity rates in the UK, Gen Z cited the 'inability to grapple with scandals involving abuse' as well as generational change. In contrast, Gen X members, those aged 45-60, are the most likely to be atheists, with 25 percent saying they do not believe in a god or spirituality. For Baby Boomers over the age of 65 and Millennials aged 25-44, one in five are atheists at 20 percent.

Bite-Size News

• A teenager with learning difficulties has been suspended for six football matches for asking a referee whether adult transgender opponents she was playing against were men, given their level of ‘aggressiveness’.
• The Church of England is facing a new crisis after it emerged two women made allegations of a sexual nature against the Bishop of Liverpool, John Perumbalath, who has now resigned. Perumbalath denies the charges.
• Groups representing the elderly and disabled have been blocked from giving evidence to the assisted dying committee, it is claimed.

Covid and the Vaccines

• Debunking the ‘20 million lives saved by the Covid vaccines’ claim. A much quoted paper published in The Lancet in September 2022 claimed that the Covid vaccines saved 19.8 million lives during the 12 month period following their initial rollout in December 2020. Rarely has this figure ever been challenged. We see it quoted on the BBC, Sky News, in Parliament, by broadcasters and leaders across the world. Yet considerable research conducted by Nick Rendell, a reporter for The Daily Sceptic, claims that the 20 million statistic is “complete nonsense.” His conclusion is that “When we look at ‘real-world’ data it’s difficult to see that the vaccinations made any difference at all. The idea that total all-cause global deaths would have been a third (i.e. 20 million) higher in their absence is laughable.”

Other Covid-Vaccine stories:

• A Daily Mail journalist has finally confessed and given reasons as to ‘Why the Media Failed During Covid’;
• Haematologist Dr Sue Pavord was one of the Covid vaccine’s biggest supporters, but she knew something was wrong when she saw the side-effects of AstraZenica up close;
• Official Czech record level data shows Moderna recipients had up to a 50% higher death rate than Pfizer recipients;
• Chris Whitty said he was “sceptical” about the vaccine mandate for healthcare workers and says the decision was “100% political”.