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October 2025

ANTI-SEMITISM, WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Ireland has fallen to the cult of Israelophobia If Catherine Connolly becomes president, hating Israel will become the new state religion. Brendan O’Neill

By on October 20th, 2025

https://www.spiked-online.com/2025/10/20/ireland-has-fallen-to-the-cult-of-israelophobia/

“Israel has become a Satan substitute for post-Catholic Ireland – the new devil against which godless moralists measure their decency. And if Connolly wins, this fervour will be all but institutionalised: Israelophobia as the new state religion. Of course the gurning theatre kids of Kneecap who once hollered ‘Up Hamas’ have given her their Guardianista blessing. A president who doesn’t understand biology, doesn’t care about working-class concerns over immigration and doesn’t seem to know that no amount of ‘history’ can excuse the rape and murder of Jews – good luck, Ireland.”

If the polls are to be believed, Ireland is about to get a president who is more extremist on Gaza than the Palestinian Authority. Where the knackered old PA at least says Hamas should ‘have no role to play’ in post-war Gaza, this lady who looks set to be Ireland’s next head of state thinks that’s poppycock. Hamas is ‘part of the fabric of the Palestinian people’, she croons. Israel and its Western allies should not have ‘any say about Hamas’, she insists. Hamas should not be ruled out from a government role, she said. Yeah, so what if a Jew-hating caliphate rules the rubble of Gaza? No biggie.

Her name is Catherine Connolly. She’s standing as an independent. She’s a former mayor of Galway and has been TD (member of parliament) for Galway West since 2016. She’s one of those wooden old socialists who wishes it was still 1973: think Jeremy Corbyn in a pantsuit. And according to pretty much every poll, she’s a dead cert to take over from the Western world’s smuggest pipsqueak of a politician, Michael D Higgins, in the presidential election later this week. One Israelophobe leaves, another even madder one enters.

No one better embodies the stratospheric aloofness of the Irish ruling class than Catherine Connolly. She has guzzled every flavour of woke Kool-Aid. Naturally she thinks you can have a pair of bollocks and be a woman. She says she has an ‘absolute’ belief that there are more than two genders. When asked how many more, she said: ‘I think that’s up to the person deciding.’ Forget 72 genders – Connolly thinks there are infinite genders. Science be damned, let a million faux sexes flourish! Though I bet if the ‘person deciding’ said there are only two genders, Connolly’s wet-wipe relativism that she dolls up as tolerance would swiftly evaporate.

She was recently asked if ‘trans athletes’ who’ve been through male puberty – ie, blokes – should be allowed to compete against women. She said it’s complicated – the slippery reply of every hack of a politician who is chill about the trashing of women’s sporting glory to appease the hulking tossers in leotards who want to nick their medals. How remarkable, said Brenda Power in the The Times (Ireland), that Connolly is ‘very clear’ that ‘medieval Hamas’ is part of ‘the fabric of the Palestinian people’, but she ‘does not know whether males should compete in female sports’.

Listen – if you are firmer in your belief that a neo-fascist militia should not be ruled out from ruling Gaza than you are about the fact that a person with a schlong is a fella, then you have well and truly fled the realm of reason. Can we pause to reflect on how flat-out mad it is that this once great republic looks set to get a president who thinks Hamas is a democratic organisation and the man tucking his ballbag between his legs before punching the hell out of females in a boxing ring is possibly a woman? It’s morally consistent, I guess. Hamas is virulently misogynistic, and so is the idea that men can become women.

Connolly is high-status opinion made flesh. She wangs on about the ‘existential threat posed by climate change’. She slams the ‘disturbing and unacceptable’ language used by Irish campaigners against uncontrolled immigration, seemingly blissfully unaware of what a burning topic this is among ordinary Irish people.

Like Corbyn, she has even sacrificed her one principled position – her old leftish Euroscepticism – in order to get the keys to Áras an Uachtaráin. There recently emerged a nine-year-old clip where she praises us Brexit voters for ‘exposing the EU’ and having ‘stood up to’ the Remainer elites. Her opponents damned her old words as ‘horrifying’. Horrifying?! What a testament to the obsequious kowtowing of Ireland’s elites to the new empire of Brussels that they think it’s ‘horrifying’ to praise a democratic vote across the Irish Sea. Connolly is backtracking. ‘I wasn’t pro-Brexit’, she said, in tones not heard since those girls of Salem swore they had not consorted with the devil. You can make sympathetic noises about Hamas in Irish politics, but Brexit? Don’t even think about it.

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Martin Gurri Socialism with a New York Face A thought experiment

By on October 20th, 2025

https://www.city-journal.org/article/new-york-city-socialism

Suppose socialism came to New York City for the long term. What would life look like under a leadership wholly committed to that vision?

I acknowledge that this will likely never happen. Too many legal and political obstacles stand in the way. Property rights remain sacrosanct and propertied interests too powerful to dislodge, and cities aren’t autonomous political bodies. The human material may also be lacking: any elected leader could prove an incompetent lightweight, unable to translate ideological commitment into practical governance.

But let’s wave all that aside and conduct a thought experiment. Imagine, in some parallel universe, a brilliant and effective socialist mayor who sweeps into office in a landslide—and discovers, to his amazement, that no higher authority, local or national, stands in his way. We don’t need to strain our imaginations: socialism has been tried before, and sharper minds than mine have analyzed the results. The recommended guide through this purgatory remains Friedrich Hayek’s The Road to Serfdom.

What follows is a tale told in the future tense, an attempt to imagine how the “unconstrained vision” of socialism might play out in an unconstrained New York. It’s speculative fiction, not prophecy. No actual socialists were harmed in the making of this experiment.

What is socialism, truly and really? Allow me to begin with that basic question. The constitution of the Democratic Socialists of America defines it as “a humane social order based on popular control of resources and production, economic planning, equitable distribution, feminism, racial equality, and non-oppressive relationships.” The weightiest words here are “equitable” and “planning.” Every form of socialism known to history has fixated on absolute equality as the political end—achieved through scientific planning and enforced by the rational application of state power.

Our imaginary new mayor is a proud member of the Democratic Socialists. His first order of business, upon taking office, will be to turn the organization’s ideas into reality. Profit-making, for example, will be deemed criminal. Property will be regulated so thoroughly that it will, in effect, belong to the city. A new planning body—staffed by experts and technocrats—will be established under the mayor’s office. Let’s give it an evocative name: the Central Planning Authority, or CPA. Its mission will be to craft the practical blueprint for socialism with a New York face.

Almost immediately, we run into a contradiction. Socialism promises to place resources under “popular control”—so that, for example, tenants rather than landlords take charge of the buildings they occupy. Yet implementing a “planned economy” requires concentrating immense power in the hands of a small group of government specialists. The two approaches are incompatible. So which path leads to equality?

This contradiction is an intellectual phantom that vanishes in a puff of smoke on first contact with reality. “The public” is an amorphous entity, incapable of organizing anything. Socialism has always been a top-down system, in which a far-seeing vanguard, acting on the public’s behalf, commands the resources needed to achieve the proper degree of equality. The mayor and his planners will embody this new class of visionary leaders. Their mandates will fill the vacuum left by the abolition of the private economy. Tenants who once dreamed of ownership will find that they’ve traded their landlord for a political commissar.

The CPA will set out to control the means of production; it’s the first commandment of socialism. But the means will quickly overwhelm the ends. You can’t control New York’s material resources without also controlling the direction of its 8.5 million private lives. Individual goals and plans must be suppressed. Individualism is hateful to the socialist because it breeds inequality. So if you dreamed of opening a little bodega in Washington Heights, the mayor will say, “Sorry, no.” And if you already own one, you’ll be made, in effect, an employee of the CPA.

Resistance is expected and even welcomed. It will flush capitalist grifters into the open, where they can be preached at and admonished into extinction. Inevitably, a certain amount of conflict will accompany the equalizing process, as hordes of homeless individuals invade formerly private homes and the poor appropriate the goods they need. Violent criminals, the existence of whom the mayor has dismissed as a “capitalist construct,” will seek to settle scores, no doubt through a series of Socratic dialogues with the police.

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ANTI-SEMITISM, WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

When Jews are targeted by hate mobs, it’s the Jews who get the blame The planned ban by West Midlands Police on Maccabi Tel Aviv fans from Aston Villa is showing off Britain at its worst Zoe Strimple

By on October 20th, 2025

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/10/19/when-jews-targeted-by-hate-mobs-jews-get-blame/

Parasites, diseases, and bugs all steadily work away, boring into their hosts, often unnoticed or brushed aside until the tipping point. Then the damage suddenly explodes, makes itself seen to all, unignorable, catastrophic and very rapid-moving. The chaos mounts fast. Panic stations and urgent action is taken to save the host, restore order, safety and stability. Sometimes it’s too late to do so.

I am reminded of this process of steady poisoning, followed by rapid breakdown, by events of the past few weeks showcasing Islamist and Islamo-Leftist anti-Semitism in this country. 

Barely two weeks after the terrorist attack on Jews heading into the Heaton Park synagogue in Manchester on Yom Kippur came the decision by Birmingham police and the Safety Advisory Group, the body responsible for the safety and security of football in Britain, to ban Maccabi Tel Aviv fans from Aston Villa on November 6. 

This decision followed a campaign by anti-Israel pressure groups, and most shockingly of all, Members of Parliament. 

The groups included Game Over Israel, one of whose members is the vile rap group Bob Vylan (of “death to the IDF” chant fame), and the Hind Rajab Foundation. A damning report on the alleged bad behaviour of Maccabi Tel Aviv fans was produced. This, boasted a member of Game Over Israel to Telegraph Sport, “laid the groundwork” for getting Maccabi fans proscribed.

The MP Ayoub Khan was the frontsman of this campaign. He wrote in a letter, topped with the cringe-making heading Barrister Ayoub Khan MP, that “I welcome the Safety Advisory Group’s decision to advise that Maccabi Tel Aviv fans will not be permitted to attend Villa Park on November 6.” He continued with a masterclass in the craven reasoning that has come to define the public statements of the anti-Israel crowd.

“From the moment that the match was announced, it was clear that there were latent safety risks that even our capable security and police authorities would not be able to fully manage,” went Khan’s statement. “With so much hostility and uncertainty around the match, it was only right to take drastic measures. Sports entertainment events should be enjoyed by all, regardless of their race, ethnicity and background. But there are rare instances where the political dynamics surrounding such spectacles cannot be ignored…”

Sane people the country over will read this screed and give a collective howl of embarrassment and disgust. This is the sort of person who sits in the House of Commons? Someone who says with open smugness and “celebration” that Jewish football fans numbering a few hundred pose “latent safety risks” that the “capable” police could not “manage”? There are “rare instances”, are there, where some people are not welcome?

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FOREIGN POLICY, ISRAEL Comments turned off

Trump’s Finest Hour Everything was stacked against Israel. by Jenny Beth Martin

By on October 20th, 2025

https://www.frontpagemag.com/trumps-finest-hour/

The international establishment, with its long history of being wrong about such matters, didn’t think it could be done. Just two months ago, Foreign Affairs magazine heralded in the title of an article, “Israel Is Fighting a War It Cannot Win.” And only weeks ago, as world leaders gathered in Manhattan for the meetings of the General Assembly of the United Nations, France, the United Kingdom, and Canada, among other nations, took the extraordinary step of recognizing Palestine as an independent state, throwing in the towel on Israel. Publications around the globe offered dreary assessments of Israel’s war against Hamas as a lost cause, and as both a military failure and as the reason for a humanitarian crisis. It seemed that everything was stacked against Israel.

But Israel always possessed significant advantages in its war with Hamas.

The Israeli population is singularly committed to peace and to protecting innocent life, and has remained resolute that the hostages – including the bodies of those whose lives were brutally extinguished by Hamas – must be returned.

National resolve matters very little, though, without a strong leader. In this area, Israel is blessed by the steadfast leadership of Binyamin “Bibi” Netanyahu, the long-serving prime minister who always articulated clear war aims.

Israel, with a total population of less than 10 million, was fighting an unfair war against a terrorist regime that follows no laws or human decency in its plot to destroy Israel. Declining public support around the world, made much worse by biased media, made Israel’s war more complicated and even lonelier.

But Israel had another advantage in this war.

As President Trump made clear in his speech celebrating the peace deal before the Knesset earlier this week, Israel had a secret weapon in this fight. The strength of the United States, with its friendship to Israel and its arsenal of the world’s most devastating military weapons, made the peace deal possible.

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Is Political Violence Ever OK? Americans Overwhelmingly Say ‘No’: I&I/TIPP Poll Terry Jones

By on October 20th, 2025

https://issuesinsights.com/2025/10/20/is-political-violence-ever-ok-americans-overwhelmingly-say-no-ii-tipp-poll/

Political violence has waxed and waned throughout U.S. history. Today, there’s a very clear upswing. But is it widely accepted? No. In fact, Americans overwhelmingly oppose using violence to achieve political goals, and mostly blame major political parties as equal threats to use violent tactics for the sake of political power, the latest I&I/TIPP Poll shows.

A representative sample of Americans were asked: “Do you believe that using violence to achieve political goals is ever justified?”

Respondents made clear they didn’t like violence by either party. Overall, only 9% of those taking the poll said violence for political goals was “always justified,” while sometimes be justified, while 19% said violence was “sometimes justified.” But a significant majority — 62% — said violence was “never justified.” Another 10% weren’t sure.

So overall, 28% believe political violence can be justified, while 62% say never.

This national online I&I/TIPP Poll was conducted from Sept. 30 to Oct. 2, with 1.459 adults participating. The poll has a margin of error of +/- 2.7 percentage points.

This is another case where the political affiliations don’t matter as much. Democrats (9% “always justified,” 14% “sometimes justified,” and 68% “never justified”) aren’t too far away from Republicans (13% “always justified,” 22% “sometimes justified,” and 58% “never justified”) and independents (4% “always justified,” 22% “sometimes justified,” and 63% “never justified”).

Age is a different matter. The younger the respondent, the more likely they are to support political violence as justified. For those ages 18 to 24, it’s 37%, while for those 25 to 44 its 45%; that plummets to 21% for those 45 to 64, and just 9% for those 65+.

Clearly, political violence isn’t a selling point for any party’s message to its followers. And violence as a political tactic wanes as U.S. voters age.

A second question asked the following: “Which group do you believe poses the greater threat of political violence in America today: left-wing extremists, right-wing extremists, both equally, or neither?”

Here the answer is more or less equally split.

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ISRAEL Comments turned off

Who or What Will Finally End Hamas? Hamas is an irredeemable terrorist cartel that subverts Gaza, uses civilians as shields, and must be dismantled and barred from power before any genuine peace can begin. By Victor Davis Hanson

By on October 20th, 2025

https://amgreatness.com/2025/10/20/who-or-what-will-finally-end-hamas/

Hamas was born and exists to kill Jews, seek the destruction of Israel, and, to some extent, overthrow or subvert pro-Western Arab governments. Period.

For those ends, it diverted billions of dollars from the people of Gaza to build a vast subterranean labyrinth of military headquarters and arsenals. It expropriated hospitals, mosques, and schools for use as tunnel entries and exits, using expendable civilian shields to protect its rich terrorist hierarchy. Hamas always counted on plenty of collateral damage to sway the Western left to become active enablers of its murderous causes—in a way, it is also stone silent on other “occupied land” and “refugees,” from the recent ethnic cleansing in Azerbaijan and Nigeria to the long-standing illegal occupations of Northern Cyprus and swaths of the Congo.

Hamas was willing to execute its Palestinian Authority rivals, cancel all elections after its first and only victory, hold kangaroo death courts to murder dissidents, and steal hundreds of billions of dollars in Western and international relief. It has already violated the ceasefire, attacking and killing Israelis, and now claims it has “lost” the remains of Israeli hostages, whom it likely murdered (and thus does not want more physical evidence of their barbarity).

Hamas will never give up power, despite the fact that its ruling elite is all but wiped out, thousands of its foot soldiers are dead, and it is now loathed by most nations of the Middle East. The subtext of every negotiation over the future of Gaza is that almost every Arab regime privately wants the U.S. or Israel to eliminate Hamas. It is likely more popular at American college campuses, or in Dearborn, Michigan, and New York City—than in the Middle East.

Nonetheless, the remnants of Hamas are already in public view, in SS fashion, publicly executing any alleged critics or rivals. And it hopes to be reinvigorated by the recent release of 1,700 convicted terrorists, most with Hamas ties and many flush with cash for their past killing of Jews.

Hamas’s current strategy?

It hopes first to crush any internal Gaza opposition by liquidating critics, particularly oppositional clans and tribes, before mounting terrorist operations against Israel.

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ISRAEL, WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

The Implications of Hamas’s Public Executions and the World’s Silence by Khaled Abu Toameh

By on October 20th, 2025

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/21998/hamas-public-executions

Hamas, in short, has decided to eliminate any Palestinian opposed to terrorism and supportive of coexistence with Israel.

Hamas’s actions also demonstrate that the terror group is determined to exploit the current ceasefire to reassert its control over the Gaza Strip.

The silence, or apathy, of the international community, including so-called pro-Palestinian groups and individuals, towards Hamas’s crimes only encourages the terror group to proceed with its crackdown on its own people. The silence of the world, in addition, sends a message to the Palestinians that they should refrain from rising against Hamas and other terror groups in the Gaza Strip.

We have not yet heard of a single Hamas terrorist talking about recognizing Israel’s right to exist. In the eyes of Hamas leaders, the Trump peace plan is just another temporary ceasefire that should be used for rearming, regrouping, and preparing for massacring more Israelis.

In recent months, Hamas has been quoting a famous statement by its former leader, the late Ismail Haniyeh, to confirm that the terror group will never recognize Israel’s right to exist: “We said it five years ago and we say it now… we will never, we will never recognize Israel.”

No transitional government or “Board of Peace” will ever be able to enforce law and order as long as Hamas terrorists feel free to murder any Palestinian who wants peace and coexistence with Israel.

De-radicalization will happen only after Palestinians see that Hamas has been totally defeated, disarmed and removed from power…. Failure to eradicate Hamas will only pave the way for another October 7 massacre against Israel.

US President Donald Trump’s plan for ending the Hamas-Israel war states that “Gaza will be a de-radicalized terror-free zone that does not pose a threat to its neighbors.” His plan also stipulates that “Gaza will be redeveloped for the benefit of the people of Gaza, who have suffered more than enough” and that “once all [Israeli] hostages are returned, Hamas members who commit to peaceful co-existence and to decommission their weapons will be given amnesty.”

Although Hamas has released the 20 living hostages and, since the announcement of Trump’s plan in early October, has handed over the bodies of some of the fallen, the Gaza Strip remains anything but a “de-radicalized terror-free zone.”

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