Zara Hubble

Official Statement by The Global Imams Council Regarding the Terrorist Attack on the Jewish Community at Bondi Beach, Sydney, During Hanukkah Celebrations. Statement delivered by: H.E. Imam Tawhidi (@imamofpeace).

You go ahead and boycott whatever you want to for whatever reasons you think make it right. This is a free country after all. Meanwhile, I’ve reviewed an Israeli restaurant. Israeli food, Israeli culture, Israeli owned. And it was marvellous. thetimes.com/article/1456f7…

One of the fundamental issues with the Israel/Gaza conflict is the sheer lack of understanding of law by too many simple minded idiots. Israel CANNOT occupy its own land!!! This video is SOOOOOO important for everyone to watch more than once and to fully understand it. Thank you @SpencerJJoseph for sharing this 🩷🩷🩷

An incredible letter written by a non-Jewish Scottish professor to his students who voted to boycott Israel It's a response from Dr. Denis MacEoin to the motion put forward by The Edinburgh Student's Association to boycott all things Israeli, in which they claim Israel is under an apartheid regime. Denis is an expert in Middle Eastern affairs and was a senior editor of the Middle East Quarterly. Here's his letter to the students. TO: The Committee Edinburgh University Student Association. May I be permitted to say a few words to members of the EUSA? I am an Edinburgh graduate (MA 1975) who studied Persian, Arabic and Islamic History in Buccleuch Place under William Montgomery Watt and Laurence Elwell Sutton, two of Britain 's great Middle East experts in their day. I later went on to do a PhD at Cambridge and to teach Arabic and Islamic Studies at Newcastle University . Naturally, I am the author of several books and hundreds of articles in this field. I say all that to show that I am well informed in Middle Eastern affairs and that, for that reason, I am shocked and disheartened by the EUSA motion and vote. I am shocked for a simple reason: there is not and has never been a system of apartheid in Israel . That is not my opinion, that is fact that can be tested against reality by any Edinburgh student, should he or she choose to visit Israel to see for themselves. Let me spell this out, since I have the impression that those members of EUSA who voted for this motion are absolutely clueless in matters concerning Israel, and that they are, in all likelihood, the victims of extremely biased propaganda coming from the anti-Israel lobby. Being anti-Israel is not in itself objectionable. But I'm not talking about ordinary criticism of Israel . I'm speaking of a hatred that permits itself no boundaries in the lies and myths it pours out. Thus, Israel is repeatedly referred to as a "Nazi" state. In what sense is this true, even as a metaphor? Where are the Israeli concentration camps? The einzatsgruppen? The SS? The Nuremberg Laws? The Final Solution? None of these things nor anything remotely resembling them exists in Israel , precisely because the Jews, more than anyone on earth, understand what Nazism stood for. It is claimed that there has been an Israeli Holocaust in Gaza (or elsewhere). Where? When? No honest historian would treat that claim with anything but the contempt it deserves. But calling Jews Nazis and saying they have committed a Holocaust is as basic a way to subvert historical fact as anything I can think of. Likewise apartheid. For apartheid to exist, there would have to be a situation that closely resembled how things were in South Africa under the apartheid regime. Unfortunately for those who believe this, a weekend in any part of Israel would be enough to show how ridiculous the claim is. That a body of university students actually fell for this and voted on it is a sad comment on the state of modern education. The most obvious focus for apartheid would be the country's 20% Arab population. Under Israeli law, Arab Israelis have exactly the same rights as Jews or anyone else; Muslims have the same rights as Jews or Christians; Baha'is, severely persecuted in Iran, flourish in Israel, where they have their world center; Ahmadi Muslims, severely persecuted in Pakistan and elsewhere, are kept safe by Israel; the holy places of all religions are protected under a specific Israeli law. Arabs form 20% of the university population (an exact echo of their percentage in the general population). In Iran , the Bahai's (the largest religious minority) are forbidden to study in any university or to run their own universities: why aren't your members boycotting Iran ? Arabs in Israel can go anywhere they want, unlike blacks in apartheid South Africa . They use public transport, they eat in restaurants, they go to swimming pools, they use libraries, they go to cinemas alongside Jews - something no blacks were able to do in South Africa . Israeli hospitals not only treat Jews and Arabs, they also treat Palestinians from Gaza or the West Bank. On the same wards, in the same operating theatres. In Israel , women have the same rights as men: there is no gender apartheid. Gay men and women face no restrictions, and Palestinian gays often escape into Israel, knowing they may be killed at home. It seems bizarre to me that LGBT groups call for a boycott of Israel and say nothing about countries like Iran , where gay men are hanged or stoned to death. That illustrates a mindset that beggars belief. Intelligent students thinking it's better to be silent about regimes that kill gay people, but good to condemn the only country in the Middle East that rescues and protects gay people. Is that supposed to be a sick joke? University is supposed to be about learning to use your brain, to think rationally, to examine evidence, to reach conclusions based on solid evidence, to compare sources, to weigh up one view against one or more others. If the best Edinburgh can now produce are students who have no idea how to do any of these things, then the future is bleak. I do not object to well-documented criticism of Israel . I do object when supposedly intelligent people single the Jewish state out above states that are horrific in their treatment of their populations. We are going through the biggest upheaval in the Middle East since the 7th and 8th centuries, and it's clear that Arabs and Iranians are rebelling against terrifying regimes that fight back by killing their own citizens. Israeli citizens, Jews and Arabs alike, do not rebel (though they are free to protest). Yet Edinburgh students mount no demonstrations and call for no boycotts against Libya , Bahrain , Saudi Arabia , Yemen , and Iran . They prefer to make false accusations against one of the world's freest countries, the only country in the Middle East that has taken in Darfur refugees, the only country in the Middle East that gives refuge to gay men and women, the only country in the Middle East that protects the Bahai's.... Need I go on? The imbalance is perceptible, and it sheds no credit on anyone who voted for this boycott. I ask you to show some common sense. Get information from the Israeli embassy. Ask for some speakers. Listen to more than one side. Do not make your minds up until you have given a fair hearing to both parties. You have a duty to your students, and that is to protect them from one-sided argument. They are not at university to be propagandized. And they are certainly not there to be tricked into anti-Semitism by punishing one country among all the countries of the world, which happens to be the only Jewish state. If there had been a single Jewish state in the 1930's (which, sadly, there was not), don't you think Adolf Hitler would have decided to boycott it? Your generation has a duty to ensure that the perennial racism of anti-Semitism never sets down roots among you. Today, however, there are clear signs that it has done so and is putting down more. You have a chance to avert a very great evil, simply by using reason and a sense of fair play. Please tell me that this makes sense. I have given you some of the evidence. It's up to you to find out more. Yours sincerely, Denis MacEoin

BREAKING: The full video from Nahal Oz base on 07/10 has been released. Watch it, do not look away. These girls are still kept hostage in Gaza.

@NickLakhani Testing assertions is critical and approaching issues with an open mind and a willingness to learn is crucial if we want global peace and tolerance. Only my view though!

@NickLakhani It takes immense courage I admit. The key question is what is the risk of not having these discussions. I think we are witnessing that now and it is very concerning. We are seeing people repeating info from SM where issues are binary and that isn’t reality.

Let’s apply these skills people - a perfect lesson in critical thinking. It appalls me that so many are repeating offensive rhetoric without applying knowledge, nuance or understanding. Critical thinking needs to be taught in schools without fear. youtu.be/zIPPpsJY39c?fe…

Populist leaders are on the rise around the world, attacking the liberal global order. They haven't explained what will replace the order they have destroyed, and the result is the disorder, chaos and violence we are seeing today.

@NinaGunson Congratulations Nina!! 🎉🎉

Happy New Year from my husband and I!

Excellent speech from @eddiemarsan “I think it's about time, in fact I think it's essential that moderate people stand up, and find their voice, and speak up against extremism, against all forms of racism and xenophobia” ❤️❤️👏🏼👏🏼

Britain has not seen a gathering against antisemitism of this size in almost a century, since the Battle of Cable Street. We are proud to come together to say: This is the United Kingdom: United Against Antisemitism. #MarchAgainstAntisemitism

MARCH AGAINST ANTISEMITISM This Sunday, will you stand shoulder to shoulder with British Jews? Join the march starting at 13:30 from the Royal Courts of Justice, Strand, London WC2A 2LL Route will be policed

Paris Berlin Washington Next it’s London’s turn to say NO to antisemitism. Hope to see many of you there, next Sunday 26th 1.30pm 🙏♥️✡️

Free Palestine mob uses the word Occupation as a silver bullet, an argument to counter all arguments, that if Palestinians live under occupation, their misery is explained and their reaction to occupation, even if criminal, is justified under international law. Now the catch here is that the Free Palestine mob never specify which part of the land is exactly occupied. Those who wanted to put October 7 "in context," mentioned 1948, just like those who celebrate nakba every year. If 1948 is the disaster, then Israel itself is the occupation (not the West Bank Israel captured from Jordan and Gaza it captured from 1967). Under international law, Israel on 1948 is not an occupation. It is a sovereign state, recognized by the UN and over 150 countries. Arabs who live in Israel are Israeli citizens. If they have issues with the state, that's not occupation. Now the disputed 1967 land. Palestinians were never, throughout history, sovereign over this land or had a state there (for it to be occupied). Egypt and Jordan conceded 1967 landed to Israel in peace treaties and their status became disputed pending final agreement between Israelis and Palestinians. Israelis entered into 1993 Oslo Accord that partially conceded control to Palestinians on the way to a full state. Hamas suicide bombed the peace process during which Palestinians refused three offers to construct their state on 1967 land, insisting on demands that infringe on Israeli sovereignty (such as return of Palestinians to Israel or other issues). Still, Israel conceded more 1967 territories to Palestinians, in 2005, when it Israel shrank its control by handing Gaza strip over to the Palestinian authority, vacating settlements in Jenin and other spots in West Bank. Had Palestinians exploited Israeli withdrawal to build their state on the land they control, they could have expanded their state through agreements with Israel to get more of the occupied land. But what did Palestinians do? They elected Hamas, which calls 1948 land, Israel, occupation, and shouts from the River to the Sea Palestine will be Islamic Arab. Hamas missed a chance of creating a state by turning Gaza into a spot that just killed 1200 Israelis a month ago. So when you say occupation, don't think that everyone would bend over backwards and take the rest of your arguments as being error proof.

“No human society has ever cornered the market on absolute truth. The truth is that everything changes, people are never satisfied and identities are fictional. What it means to be Christian or Spanish or even a man or a woman depends on the stories people believe. It’s changed many times in the past, and will keep changing in the future. You won’t find the truth by killing people who disagree with you – you’ll just sink into ignorance.” - from 'Sapiens: A Graphic History' #quote #change #identity #humanity #history #sapiens #discourse #quotes #conflict #embracechange #tolerance #lifelonglearning #truth

We hear you Alana and we are thinking of your family, and all those stolen from their homes every day, hoping and praying for their release #FreeTheHostages

It's almost four weeks since the horrific terrorist attack on #Israel. A lot has happened, the public debate has become heated and confused. Find thoughts from Vice-Chancellor Robert #Habeck in the video, putting the events in context. 📣With English, Hebrew and Arabic subtitles.

A deep-dive into the painful war between Hamas and Israel – the complex context, the dangers and possibilities – with @RoryStewartUK and @campbellclaret on @RestIsPolitics. Watch the full conversation on bit.ly/YNH-RestIsPoli…, or listen on your preferred podcasting platform.