jan bowman

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jan bowman

jan bowman

@therealjanbow

Architect-trained artist/author. Inspired by humanity, democracy, gardening, ancient Greek vase paintings & melodious songs about 21st-century angst.

London England Katılım Kasım 2010
1K Takip Edilen935 Takipçiler
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Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib
Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib@afalkhatib·
Gaza's Deradicalization, Part 1: Two days ago, a man in Gaza posted a photo of a mosque hosting a youth session titled “How Do We Control the World?” The discussion centered on when and how to dominate the world – lamenting that believers spent years fixating on the “when” instead of preparing for the “how.” They criticized reliance on “dreams and visions” rather than “analyzing reality,” and pledged to finally think seriously about global domination. Anyone seeing this would wonder what mass delusion has taken hold when many of these young men live in tents, survive on internationally funded food, and depend on Israeli approval for every item entering the Hamas‑controlled “Red Zone,” conditions created by Hamas’s own catastrophic rule and actions. A first, non‑negotiable step in Gaza’s deradicalization is reclaiming the thousand-plus mosques across the Strip and restoring them as houses of worship, not propaganda hubs, indoctrination centers, weapons depots, or Hamas command posts. When I lived in Gaza, Hamas had turned mosques into nonstop venues for lectures, workshops, Salafi sermons, and political mobilization; prayer was almost incidental. It’s one thing for fringe individuals to indulge in delusional fantasies; it’s another when they have hundreds of facilities to reach thousands of youth and saturate them with hate, violence, and jihadist ideology. The next Gaza administration, just as most Arab states already do, must take firm control of mosques, restrict them to prayer only, and keep them locked between prayer times. Imams and preachers must be vetted, monitored, and held accountable to prevent the spread of religious opiates, incitement, and brainwashing. The encouraging news: roughly 90% of Gazan commenters mocked this “world domination” gathering, ridiculing Hamas’s remaining loyalists for peddling religious insanity to distract from the disaster they caused. Gazans aren’t buying it anymore. The window for deradicalization is still open.
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Ahmed Al-Khalidi
Ahmed Al-Khalidi@khalidi79397·
Why did it take Arabs another full generation after 1948 to adopt a "Palestinian" identity? Because the identity was never primarily about a people. It was about a strategy. For the first two decades after Israel's founding, the dominant Arab framework wasn't Palestinian nationalism. It was pan-Arabism. Nasser, the Ba'ath party, the Arab League. The operating theory was that "Arab" was the nation, and the various states were artificial colonial borders waiting to dissolve into one. A separate Palestinian identity would have undermined this project, not advanced it. If Arabs from Jaffa were a distinct nation, then Arabs from Damascus and Baghdad were too and pan-Arabism collapses. So between 1948 and 1967, the residents of the West Bank were Jordanians. The residents of Gaza were under Egyptian rule. The displaced were "Arab refugees." The fight against Israel was an Arab fight, not a Palestinian one. What broke this framework was 1967. Six days of catastrophic defeat ended pan-Arabism as a credible vehicle. Nasser was humiliated, the combined Arab armies were routed, and the dream of dissolving Israel through unified Arab power was over. A new vehicle was needed. Enter the Palestinian national identity. Retooled, repurposed, weaponized. And the architects said so openly. Zuheir Mohsen, PLO Executive Committee, 1977 (interview with the Dutch paper Trouw): "The Palestinian people does not exist. The creation of a Palestinian state is only a means for continuing our struggle against the State of Israel for our Arab unity. In reality today there is no difference between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese. Only for political and tactical reasons do we speak today about the existence of a Palestinian people, since Arab national interests demand that we posit the existence of a distinct Palestinian people to oppose Zionism." Azmi Bishara, founder of Balad, former Knesset member, in a 1994 Israeli TV interview: "I don't think there is a Palestinian nation. I think there is an Arab nation. I always thought so... I think that until the end of the 19th century, Palestine was the south of Greater Syria." He went on to argue that Palestinian identity was a recent construction shaped by colonial borders and the conflict with Zionism, not an ancient nationhood. This from one of the most prominent Arab intellectuals inside Israel, who himself led a Palestinian-Arab political party. Walid Shoebat, a former PLO operative who later went public: "Why is it that on June 4th 1967 I was a Jordanian and overnight I became a Palestinian? ...We considered ourselves Jordanian until the Jews returned to Jerusalem. Then all of the sudden we were Palestinians." Shoebat is a controversial figure with his own credibility disputes, but his autobiographical point about the timing is consistent with the historical record. Hafez al-Assad to Yasser Arafat (recounted by Arafat himself and reported in Israeli and Arab press): "You do not represent Palestine as much as we do. Never forget this one point: There is no such thing as a Palestinian people, there is no Palestinian entity, there is only Syria. You are an integral part of the Syrian people, Palestine is an integral part of Syria. Therefore it is we, the Syrian authorities, who are the true representatives of the Palestinian people." Joseph Massad, Columbia professor, sympathetic to the Palestinian cause, in The Persistence of the Palestinian Question (2006): acknowledges that Palestinian national identity in its current form crystallized in the 20th century in dialectic with Zionism, a serious academic admission, even from a pro-Palestinian scholar, that the identity is modern and reactive rather than ancient. >>
Ahmed Al-Khalidi@khalidi79397

What changed in 1948? The Jews stopped being Palestinians. May 14, 1948. Ben-Gurion reads the Declaration of Independence. The next morning, the residents of the Yishuv wake up as Israelis. The label they'd carried for decades was simply vacated. The Palestine Post → Jerusalem Post (1950). Palestine Symphony Orchestra → Israel Philharmonic. Palestine Electric Company → Israel Electric Corporation. Anglo-Palestine Bank → Bank Leumi le-Israel. Palestine pound → Israeli lira. Jewish Agency for Palestine → just the Jewish Agency. "Palestinian" passports → Israeli ones. Within 24 months, "Palestinian" had been stripped off every Jewish institution that had worn it. Now the Arab side. Arabs did not rush to claim the empty label in 1948. They didn't claim it for another generation. In 1948, the Arabs who fled or remained still called themselves Arabs. The Arab League's war wasn't fought in the name of "Palestine" as a nation. It was fought to prevent partition and absorb the territory into existing Arab states. Transjordan took the West Bank and East Jerusalem and in 1950 simply annexed them; the residents became Jordanian citizens with Jordanian passports. Egypt took Gaza and ran it under military administration. No citizenship, no nation, no "Palestine." The one institutional use of "Palestinian" that survived 1948 was a refugee category: UNRWA, created December 1949, defined "Palestine refugees" as a humanitarian classification. Not a nationality. It kept the word alive in international bureaucratic language while the Arab world itself wasn't using it nationally. Then came the long appropriation. 1964. Nasser sponsors the founding of the PLO in Cairo. The original charter (Article 24) explicitly disclaims any sovereignty over the West Bank, Gaza, or the Himmah area. Read that again. The founding document of the Palestine Liberation Organization renounces claims to the West Bank and Gaza. Because in 1964, those were Arab lands belonging to Jordan and Egypt. The PLO's purpose was to liberate the part Israel held, not those parts. 1967. Israel takes the West Bank and Gaza in six days. Suddenly Jordan and Egypt no longer hold the territory, and the Arab residents there are no longer Jordanians or under Egyptian rule. The pan-Arab framework had just been humiliated on the battlefield. A new identity was needed. 1968. The PLO charter is rewritten. Article 24's disclaimer disappears. The West Bank and Gaza are now central to Palestinian national claims. The label has been fully transferred. Sequence: 1917–1948: "Palestinian" = Jewish institutions and self-identification; Arabs reject the term and call themselves Arabs / Southern Syrians. 1948: Jews drop the label and become Israelis. The word goes dormant on the Arab side, surviving mainly as a UN refugee category. 1948–1967: Arabs in the West Bank are Jordanians. Arabs in Gaza are stateless subjects of Egyptian military rule. "Palestinian" is not yet a national identity. 1964–1968: The PLO transitions the label into a national identity but only after 1967 makes pan-Arabism politically untenable. 1948 didn't create a Palestinian Arab nation. It vacated a Jewish label and left a 20-year identity gap that Arab nationalism took until 1968 to fill.

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John Cleese
John Cleese@JohnCleese·
The right to criticise a religion is part of British culture Criticism of Islam is Islamoscepticism, not Islamophobia Phobias are irrational fears, like arachnophobia- the fear of spiders Or in the case of Islam, fear of dogs and pigs Calling scepticism (or criticism) a phobia is a misuse of the English language An infidel's fear of being beheaded is not irrational
Laurence Fox@LozzaFox

We need to remove meaningless words such as “Islamophobia” from our beautiful and ancient language. We need to be as rigorous in mocking the term as the midget dictator @SadiqKhan is about making sure no one can reply to his tweets.

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Neo
Neo@Realneo101·
🔴DON’T LOOK AWAY The Islamic regime is going to hang Milad Armoun simply for protesting. He was tortured, forced to confess, and now faces death for demanding freedom. This is pure barbarism. Share this before they kill him.
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Claire Fox
Claire Fox@Fox_Claire·
It was always Nova festival slaughter that got me most. How could so many young in West relate more to Hamas butchers than their music-loving peacenik peers? So this REMARKABLE interview with Taryn, a former pro-Pal - open-minded enough to change her mind after seeing @novaexhibition - is a challenge to my anti-zionist mates: don't boycott, go see for yourselves
GB News@GBNEWS

'This exhibit completely dismantled everything that I thought I knew.' Former pro-Palestine activist Taryn Thomas joins @JoshxHowie to discuss whether the Nova music festival exhibition has the power to change minds on the Israel-Palestine conflict.

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John Cleese
John Cleese@JohnCleese·
A sad tale of what happens when the people in charge have no idea what they are doing
Sama Hoole@SamaHoole

A farmer dies in April 2026. His son inherits the farm. The farm has been in the family since 1847. The farm consists of: 300 acres of grazing pasture, a farmhouse built in 1892, a barn, a milking parlour, two tractors of varying ages, a Land Rover that runs about 70% of the time, and a herd of 180 Hereford-cross cattle. On paper, the farm is worth approximately £3.2 million. This is because land near him has been bought recently by a London hedge fund looking for carbon credits, which has dragged the comparable value of every field within forty miles upward to a number nobody local can justify. In cash, the farm produces a profit of about £28,000 a year in a good year. In a bad year it loses money. The son also works as a fencing contractor three days a week to keep the operation viable. The inheritance tax bill on a £3.2 million estate, even at the reduced 20% rate, comes to approximately £140,000 after the increased threshold is applied. The son does not have £140,000. The son has never had £140,000. The son has £4,200 in his current account and an overdraft. The son sells 60 acres to a developer to pay the tax. The developer puts solar panels on the 60 acres. The remaining herd cannot be sustained on the reduced land. The herd is sold. The barn becomes a holiday let. A different family eats Brazilian beef this Christmas without knowing why the price went up. The Treasury collects £140,000. The land never produces British food again.

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Dan Levy ✡ דניאל אליהו בן מאניש דוד
Posters torn down for a missing 14 yr old Jewish girl in North York in one of the most Jewish neighborhoods in Canada & reportedly happened across the city of Toronto. Reminiscent of the disrespect of the Hostage Posters. The same exact Jew hate. Be ashamed, 🇨🇦 Canada
Dan Levy ✡ דניאל אליהו בן מאניש דוד tweet mediaDan Levy ✡ דניאל אליהו בן מאניש דוד tweet mediaDan Levy ✡ דניאל אליהו בן מאניש דוד tweet media
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Benjamin Jones
Benjamin Jones@BenBarryJones·
We're seeing huge numbers of people being punished for criticising Islam or Muslim cultural practices at @SpeechUnion. This is the number of new such requests for help we get each month. Look what happens after Starmer comes to power. It's a 4x increase. And that was before the new 'anti-Muslim hostility' definition.
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The Free Speech Union
The Free Speech Union@SpeechUnion·
As of Wednesday, the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) has adopted the Government’s official definition of “Anti-Muslim Hostility”. The FSU is in no doubt that the NMC will enforce this de facto Islamic blasphemy code zealously. After all, the regulator initially deemed NHS nurse Jennifer Melle — who had served for 12 years — unfit to practise after she refused, on grounds of her Christian faith, to refer to a trans paedophile patient by his preferred pronouns. The NMC has already offered an example of what it considers “anti-Muslim hostility”. It says that if an employee posts an image on social media stereotyping Muslims — for example, “an image depicting women with headscarves, men with long beards and a mosque in the background” — alongside a call for the deportation of “anyone who undermines British values and the British way of life”, it would likely take action against them and deem them unfit to practise. The FSU will be keeping a very close eye on the NMC and would support anyone struck off for such speech.
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Hen Mazzig
Hen Mazzig@HenMazzig·
No, I cannot believe I have to write this. “Second time.” You cannot be voluntarily kidnapped, and definitely not twice. And being sent away a few hours after doesn’t meet the definition either. Kfir Bibas was kidnapped. Hersh Goldberg-Polin was kidnapped. You bought a ticket. They did not get to come back alive and write an op-ed.
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The Spectator
The Spectator@spectator·
Imagine if, in 1941, as we were fighting for our lives against the German menace, a boatload of foreign narcissists rocked up at Dover to make fun of us. Worse, imagine these self-regarding seafarers cheered on our enemies. Imagine they waltzed up to the nearest soldier or copper and barked 'Victory to Germany!' while sporting the smuggest smirk you have ever seen. We'd be annoyed, right? More than annoyed: there would be national fury. Every paper in the land would denounce the preening aliens. Lines of boys in blue would have to hold back angry Brits yelling 'Let me at 'em!'. Well, now you know how the good people of Israel must feel after yet another armada of cranks sailed their way to remonstrate with their soldiers and tell them how demonic they are. ✍️ Brendan O’Neill Article | spectator.com/article/ben-gv…
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HonestReporting
HonestReporting@HonestReporting·
1/ The @nytimes’ new defense of Nicholas Kristof’s column on alleged sexual abuse of Palestinians – including the “rape dogs” claim – even drags in Oct 7 and Islamophobia to protect it. Here’s what they still aren’t telling you 🧵 x.com/NickKristof/st…
Nicholas Kristof@NickKristof

Readers offered questions and pushback about my investigation into sexual assaults against Palestinians by Israelis. So here are our answers: nytimes.com/2026/05/21/opi…

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Jim Chimirie 🇬🇧
Jim Chimirie 🇬🇧@JChimirie66677·
.@YvetteCooperMP, a joint statement from the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Norway and the Netherlands on Israeli settlement building in the West Bank. Issued today. Let us examine what these same nine nations have not found time to issue joint statements about. Iran massacred 30,000 of its own citizens in 48 hours in January 2026. No joint statement. Sudan has killed up to 400,000 people, displaced 10 million and subjected civilians to mass sexual violence and ethnic cleansing. No joint statement. Pakistan has ethnically cleansed over a million Afghan refugees, deporting children as young as thirteen to overcrowded camps. No joint statement. China has detained over a million Uyghur Muslims in what the UN has described as mass arbitrary detention on an industrial scale. No joint statement. Nine nations. Four catastrophes. Four silences. One statement about Israeli planning permissions in the West Bank. On the Palestinian Authority you are calling on Israel to support financially. The PA operates the Martyrs Fund, a programme enshrined in Palestinian law requiring seven percent of the PA's annual budget to be allocated to payments to terrorists and their families. It amounts to over $300 million every year. A terrorist serving a life sentence earns four times the average Palestinian salary and more than Palestinian teachers and doctors. The more Israelis killed, the higher the payment. The US State Department confirmed in February 2026 that the PA continued the fund under a different name, paying $200 million to militants and their families in 2025 alone, with $315 million projected for 2026. Britain recognised a Palestinian state whose governing body pays bonuses for murder. The financial support you are demanding Israel restore funds an institution that has enshrined the incentivisation of terrorism in its own law. On international law being clear. International law is clear on many things that these nine nations consistently ignore. It is clear on the prohibition of torture. Several signatories maintain diplomatic and trading relationships with states that practise it systematically. It is clear on the right to self determination. Several signatories have said nothing about the Uyghurs, the Tibetans or the Kurds. It is clear on the prohibition of ethnic cleansing. Pakistan is conducting it right now against Afghans and not one of these nine nations has issued a joint statement. International law is not being applied consistently. It is being applied selectively. The selection criterion is not the severity of the breach. It is the identity of the state committing it. The same one. Every time. Israel. On recognising a Palestinian state. Britain recognised Palestine in May 2024. The Palestinian Authority governs the West Bank with a democratic mandate that expired in 2007. It has not held an election since. The state Britain recognised is governed by an institution whose democratic legitimacy ran out nearly two decades ago and whose budget includes a line item for paying the families of people who stab Jewish civilians on the streets of Israeli cities. The E1 settlement is a planning dispute in a contested area. Thirty thousand Iranians killed in 48 hours is a massacre. The United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Norway and the Netherlands found time for one and not the other. That tells you everything about whose suffering is considered politically useful and whose is not. "The PA operates the Martyrs Fund, a programme enshrined in Palestinian law requiring seven percent of the PA's annual budget to be allocated to payments to terrorists and their families."
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Nova Exhibition
Nova Exhibition@novaexhibition·
London, we are open. The Nova Exhibition London has officially arrived in East London. Thank you to everyone who joined us for opening week. The journey begins now. Purchase your tickets here: bit.ly/4dxfiIs
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