James Ghani

Seven dogs stolen from their owners have gone viral after escaping their captors and making their way home The group is believed to have travelled around 17 km together led by a corgi across highways and fields

Update on David Collings exhibit at Margate’s Joseph Wales gallery. Kent police sergeant just called. He told me: no action to be taken. The pictures (a few below) are in his view ‘criticism of the Israeli state’. He said ‘because some Israelis happen to be Jews it doesn’t mean it’s antisemitic’. He said: ‘you’re obviously very passionate’. (Thereby dismissing my complaint). I tried to tell him that he was perhaps not best judged to evaluate antisemitic content if his view was that this was not ‘Nazi imagery’ but ‘criticism of the Israeli state’ and could he possibly send someone who knew more about this stuff. ‘No police officer is an expert in racism’, he told me, oddly. I gave him some friendly, if ‘passionate’ advice: sometimes ‘criticism of the Israeli state’ overlaps with anti-Semitic content and incitement. This is one such case. I’ll be complaining - please join in. Case 21-0938 I always want to believe the best of the polite agents of the law on the other end of the phone. But this well-spoken man telling me that hail of swastikas and blood and Jews was nothing but ‘criticism of the Israeli state’ is why we are where we are, why Jews don’t expect anything from the police, and how we find tha Kent police are exactly in tune with Matthew Collings.

Update on David Collings exhibit at Margate’s Joseph Wales gallery. Kent police sergeant just called. He told me: no action to be taken. The pictures (a few below) are in his view ‘criticism of the Israeli state’. He said ‘because some Israelis happen to be Jews it doesn’t mean it’s antisemitic’. He said: ‘you’re obviously very passionate’. (Thereby dismissing my complaint). I tried to tell him that he was perhaps not best judged to evaluate antisemitic content if his view was that this was not ‘Nazi imagery’ but ‘criticism of the Israeli state’ and could he possibly send someone who knew more about this stuff. ‘No police officer is an expert in racism’, he told me, oddly. I gave him some friendly, if ‘passionate’ advice: sometimes ‘criticism of the Israeli state’ overlaps with anti-Semitic content and incitement. This is one such case. I’ll be complaining - please join in. Case 21-0938 I always want to believe the best of the polite agents of the law on the other end of the phone. But this well-spoken man telling me that hail of swastikas and blood and Jews was nothing but ‘criticism of the Israeli state’ is why we are where we are, why Jews don’t expect anything from the police, and how we find tha Kent police are exactly in tune with Matthew Collings.

In Margate. My cheeks are red. I am shaking. I popped into an exhibition that turned out to be the insane fever dream of an artist called Matthew Collins: ‘Drawings Against Genocide.’ The exhibition is described as ‘drawings… raising consciousness about hell…. Israel is the pure encapsulation of it. Zionism is this terror state’s ruling ideology.’ Shocked by the use of Nazi imagery - the room is full of the Star of David pasted around figures meant to be Israelis and the Jewish ‘lobby’ spewing blood, to say nothing of blonde yummy mummies wearing ‘globalise the intifada’ shirts, I spoke to the artist to share my reaction as a Jewish person. He was instantly aggressive. As soon as I started to say I was shocked and threatened by what I was seeing because it was Nazi imagery, the artist started yelling at me that I didn’t mean anything I was saying. Anytime I tried to speak (calmly) he said: ‘you don’t mean any of what you said, you’re just repeating ‘hasbarah talking points’ because ‘you’re defending a genocide’. On and on he yelled, in my face. I said: ‘if I was a Black person…’ but couldn’t finish the sentence because: ‘you’re not are you?’ On the Nazi ideology point he said: ‘yeah. Why do you think it’s there. Israel are the Nazis’. His breath was disgusting. The crowd began booing and closing in around me, making to shoe me out. I said: ‘fine, get the Jew out’ and he yelled more across the room at me, ‘repeatedly jeering ‘call the police, go ahead, call the police’. I said I would, and the community security trust, which features as a devil in his exhibition. This was met with even more jeering. ‘Yeah, call the CST’ was the last I heard before leaving. Someone snapped pictures of me while I was being shouted at. Short video shows the artist. The longer video, of our final almost surreally disgusting exchange, didn’t record.

In Margate. My cheeks are red. I am shaking. I popped into an exhibition that turned out to be the insane fever dream of an artist called Matthew Collins: ‘Drawings Against Genocide.’ The exhibition is described as ‘drawings… raising consciousness about hell…. Israel is the pure encapsulation of it. Zionism is this terror state’s ruling ideology.’ Shocked by the use of Nazi imagery - the room is full of the Star of David pasted around figures meant to be Israelis and the Jewish ‘lobby’ spewing blood, to say nothing of blonde yummy mummies wearing ‘globalise the intifada’ shirts, I spoke to the artist to share my reaction as a Jewish person. He was instantly aggressive. As soon as I started to say I was shocked and threatened by what I was seeing because it was Nazi imagery, the artist started yelling at me that I didn’t mean anything I was saying. Anytime I tried to speak (calmly) he said: ‘you don’t mean any of what you said, you’re just repeating ‘hasbarah talking points’ because ‘you’re defending a genocide’. On and on he yelled, in my face. I said: ‘if I was a Black person…’ but couldn’t finish the sentence because: ‘you’re not are you?’ On the Nazi ideology point he said: ‘yeah. Why do you think it’s there. Israel are the Nazis’. His breath was disgusting. The crowd began booing and closing in around me, making to shoe me out. I said: ‘fine, get the Jew out’ and he yelled more across the room at me, ‘repeatedly jeering ‘call the police, go ahead, call the police’. I said I would, and the community security trust, which features as a devil in his exhibition. This was met with even more jeering. ‘Yeah, call the CST’ was the last I heard before leaving. Someone snapped pictures of me while I was being shouted at. Short video shows the artist. The longer video, of our final almost surreally disgusting exchange, didn’t record.