The Israeli newspaper Haaretz has run a fascinating long report this week offering a disturbing snapshot of the political climate rapidly emerging across Europe on the issue of antisemitism. The article documents a kind of cultural, political and intellectual reign of terror in Germany since the parliament passed a resolution last year equating support for non-violent boycotts of Israel - in solidarity with Palestinians oppressed by Israel - with antisemitism.

The article concerns Germany but anyone reading it will see very strong parallels with what is happening in other European countries, especially the UK and France.

The same European leaders who a few years ago marched in Paris shouting "Je suis Charlie" - upholding the inalienable free speech rights of white Europeans to offend Muslims by insulting and ridiculing their Prophet - are now queuing up to outlaw free speech when it is directed against Israel, a state that refuses to end its belligerent occupation of Palestinian land. European leaders have repeatedly shown they are all too ready to crush the free speech of Palestinians, and those in solidarity with them, to avoid offending sections of the Jewish community.

The situation reduces to this: European Muslims have no right to take offence at insults about a religion they identify with, but European Jews have every right to take offence at criticism of an aggressive Middle Eastern state they identify with. Seen another way, the perverse secular priorities of European mainstream culture now place the sanctity of a militarised state, Israel, above the sanctity of a religion with a billion followers.

Guilt by association

This isn't even a double standard. I can't find a word in the dictionary that conveys the scale and degree of hypocrisy and bad faith involved.

If the American Jewish scholar Norman Finkelstein wrote a follow-up to his impassioned book The Holocaust Industry - on the cynical use of the Holocaust to enrich and empower a Jewish organisational establishment at the expense of the Holocaust's actual survivors - he might be tempted to title it The Antisemitism Industry.

In the current climate in Europe, one that rejects any critical thinking in relation to broad areas of public life, that observation alone would enough to have one denounced as an antisemite. Which is why the Haaretz article - far braver than anything you will read in a UK or US newspaper - makes no bones about what is happening in Germany. It calls it a "witch-hunt". That is Haaretz's way of saying that antisemitism has been politicised and weaponised - a self-evident conclusion that will currently get you expelled from the British Labour party, even if you are Jewish.

The Haaretz story highlights two important developments in the way antisemitism has been, in the words of intellectuals and cultural leaders cited by the newspaper, "instrumentalised" in Germany.

Jewish organisations and their allies in Germany, as Haaretz reports, are openly weaponising antisemitism not only to damage the reputation of Israel's harsher critics, but also to force out of the public and cultural domain - through a kind of "antisemitism guilt by association" - anyone who dares to entertain criticism of Israel.

Cultural associations, festivals, universities, Jewish research centres, political think-tanks, museums and libraries are being forced to scrutinise the past of those they wish to invite in case some minor transgression against Israel can be exploited by local Jewish organisations. That has created a toxic, politically paranoid atmosphere that inevitably kills trust and creativity.

But the psychosis runs deeper still. Israel, and anything related to it, has become such a combustible subject - one that can ruin careers in an instant - that most political, academic and cultural figures in Germany now choose to avoid it entirely. Israel, as its supporters intended, is rapidly becoming untouchable.

A case study noted by Haaretz is Peter Schäfer, a respected professor of ancient Judaism and Christianity studies who was forced to resign as director of Berlin's Jewish Museum last year. Schäfer's crime, in the eyes of Germany's Jewish establishment, was that he staged an exhibition on Jerusalem that recognised the city's three religious traditions, including a Muslim one.

He was immediately accused of promoting "historical distortions" and denounced as "anti-Israel". A reporter for Israel's rightwing Jerusalem Post, which has been actively colluding with the Israeli government to smear critics of Israel, contacted Schäfer with a series of inciteful emails. The questions included "Did you learn the wrong lesson from the Holocaust?" and "Israeli experts told me you disseminate antisemitism - is that true?"

Schäfer observes:

The accusation of antisemitism is a club that allows one to deal a death blow, and political elements who have an interest in this are using it, without a doubt... The museum staff gradually entered a state of panic. Then of course we also started to do background checks. Increasingly it poisoned the atmosphere and our work.

Another prominent victim of these Jewish organisations tells Haaretz:

Sometimes one thinks, "To go to that conference?", "To invite this colleague?" Afterward it means that for three weeks, I'll have to cope with a shitstorm, whereas I need the time for other things that I get paid for as a lecturer. There is a type of "anticipatory obedience" or "prior self-censorship".

Ringing off the hook

There is nothing unusual about what is happening in Germany. Jewish organisations are stirring up these "shitstorms" - designed to paralyse political and cultural life for anyone who engages in even the mildest criticism of Israel - at the highest levels of government. Don't believe me? Here is Barack Obama explaining in his recent autobiography his efforts as US president to curb Israel's expansion of its illegal settlements. Early on, he was warned to back off or face the wrath of the Israel lobby:

Members of both parties worried about crossing the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). Those who criticized Israeli policy too loudly risked being tagged as "anti-Israel" (and possibly anti-Semitic) and confronted with a well-funded opponent in the next election.

Reo's Ribs in Portland, Ore. was set ablaze in late November and authorities investigating the fire have determined that arson was the cause.

Officials are searching to question the suspected arsonist caught on surveillance footage. The individual set the local restaurant ablaze after the owner criticized vandalism in the area committed by Antifa militants.

Editor's note: See also our recent seven-part series on transgenderism, by Discovery Institute biologist Jonathan Wells, here.

The New England Journal of Medicine continues its hard swing toward wokeness. Now, it has published an advocacy article that would remove sex designation as an identifiable factor on birth certificates. From, "Failed Assignments: Rethinking Sex Designations on Birth Certificates":

Assigning sex at birth also doesn't capture the diversity of people's experiences. About 6 in 1000 people identify as transgender, meaning that their gender identity doesn't match the sex they were assigned at birth. Others are nonbinary, meaning they don't exclusively identify as a man or a woman, or gender nonconforming, meaning their behavior or appearance doesn't align with social expectations for their assigned sex.

The idea is to move sex designation "below the line," which allows for general statistical compilation of vital statistics, but not an identifiable designation of the particular individual about whom the birth certificate was created. The point is to promote a particular view of social justice:

On the latest hunt for 'trolls' in Africa and the Middle East, in addition to the usual 'Russians' Facebook for the first time banned a network of French accounts fighting for influence in former colonies.

On Tuesday, Facebook announced the ban on 84 Facebook accounts, 6 pages, 9 groups and 14 Instagram accounts, citing policy against "coordinated inauthentic behavior." Their activity originated in France and targeted mainly the Central African Republic and Mali, but also Niger, Burkina Faso, Algeria, Cote d'Ivoire and Chad - all former French colonies in Africa.

About 5,000 or so accounts followed the banned pages, along with 1,600 accounts in the banned groups and about 200 followers on Instagram, according to Facebook's head of security policy Nathaniel Gleicher and Global Threat Disruption Lead David Agranovich.

Vaccine certificates may be needed to attend social gatherings or sporting events once the majority of the population are vaccinated.


At the launch of the National Covid-19 Vaccination Programme, Health Minister Stephen Donnelly said certificates could play a key role in the fight against coronavirus if the vaccine significantly reduces transmission of the disease.

The certificates are being considered for air travel in the EU, but they may also be used to allow for greater attendance at mass gatherings once most people are vaccinated.

A Government source said "nothing is being ruled in or out" in terms of how the certificates will be used, but noted that other countries have trialled using them for attending events.

This piece is the first in a series of five articles I will be publishing over the next couple of weeks looking at various aspects of our new Covidian State in 2020. These pieces are also due to be published on The Conservative Woman website from 27-31 December.

"Our Government, along with Governments around the world will shortly announce the quarantining of whole populations for a seasonal respiratory virus which leaves 99.8-99.9% of those who get it in the land of the living. What is more, they will also announce a shutdown of the entire economy for months and then, when the epidemic has actually gone, will mandate that you cover the lower half of your face with a bit of cloth. They will do this by frightening people into compliance with a barrage of propaganda, slogans, data entirely taken out of context, and the threat of massive fines."

Anyone making this claim at the beginning of the year would rightly have been thought to have mislaid the plot and their marbles, long ago. But here we are, at the end of that same year, and it is precisely what has happened.

Only it is much worse than that.

Had you somehow been persuaded to give credence to this insane prophecy, you would probably have been comforted by the following thought: "They'll never get away with it. The people will never stand for it."

Not a bit of it. Somehow, millions of people across the country, and in fact across the world, were persuaded to accept it. By far the majority somehow thought that quarantining whole nations of healthy people for a virus, for the first time in history, was a good idea. Well, actually the second time in history to be precise. It was tried in 2009 by the Mexican Government during the Swine Flu outbreak, but they had the good sense to end it after a couple of weeks after realising how much it would devastate the country.

An analysis of ballot transfer forms from Cobb County reveals that 78 percent of the more than 89,000 absentee ballots from drop box locations, required to be "immediately transported" to the county registrar according to Emergency Rule of the State Election Board for Absentee Voting, took more than one hour to be transferred to election officials.

State Election Board Emergency Rule 183-1-14-0.8-.14 relative to securing absentee ballot drop boxes was adopted by the State Election Board at the July 1, 2020, meeting.

In addition to other prescriptive requirements for securing the absentee ballot drop boxes, which were placed at 16 locations throughout Cobb County, the rule also addresses the collection and transport of the ballots from each drop box location to the custody of the registrar.

After a November report by New South Wales Supreme Court Judge and Army Reserve Major General Paul Brereton, that found "credible information" about Australian soldiers being involved in the alleged killing of civilians and prisoners in Afghanistan, the army fired 13 servicemen in connection with the four-year probe.

An Australian senior Special Forces soldier pictured drinking beer out of a killed Taliban fighter's prosthetic leg in a bar in Afghanistan is reported to have recently lectured troops on army ethics and integrity, writes the Daily Mail.

A 50-year-old veteran of overseas deployments, Warrant Officer Class 1 John Letch, Command Sergeant Major of the Special Operations Command, voluntarily retired after a pixelated copy of the controversial photograph, believed to be showing a scene from an unofficial pub set up inside Australia's special forces base in Tarin Kowt in 2009, was leaked at the start of the month.

Orange County, Calif., Sheriff Don Barnes pushed back against an "absurd" order from a local Superior Court judge ordering the release of 1,800 inmates, including some who are locked up for murder and child molestation, due to the coronavirus.

"I have no intention of doing that, of releasing those individuals back into the community. I think they pose a serious threat," Barnes told "Fox & Friends."

The decision by the court was made in response to an April lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) in an effort to protect disabled and medically vulnerable people at the Orange County Jail, reports said, but Barnes plans to appeal.

The Grand County coroner is calling attention to the way the state health department is classifying some deaths. The coroner, Brenda Bock, says two of their five deaths related to COVID-19 were people who died of gunshot wounds.

Bock says because they tested positive for COVID-19 within the past 30 days, they were classified as "deaths among cases."

"It's absurd that they would even put that on there," she said. "Would you want to go to a county that has really high death numbers? Would you want to go visit that county because they are contagious. You know I might get it, and I could die if all of a sudden one county has a high death count. We don't have it, and we don't need those numbers inflated."