[NevTheSweeper]

Why isn't the UK parliament being recalled? The war in the Middle East is already having international consequences. Both Gaza and Lebanon are being bombed into the dark ages, and we just sit there in our echo chambers, witnessing the killing and displacement of innocents. We need to put our collective pressure on our government to call a permanent and lasting ceasefire, otherwise, it will lead to the total destruction of human kind and of the planet.

[Oboogie]

Why isn't the UK parliament being recalled? The war in the Middle East is already having international consequences. Both Gaza and Lebanon are being bombed into the dark ages, and we just sit there in our echo chambers, witnessing the killing and displacement of innocents. We need to put our collective pressure on our government to call a permanent and lasting ceasefire, otherwise, it will lead to the total destruction of human kind and of the planet.

What evidence do you have that Netanyahu, Hezbollah or Hamas will obey orders from the UK government?
My best guess is that none of them give a flying fuck what anyone in the UK thinks and therefore such action will not save a single life. The countries with the ability to wield effective influence in the region are Russia, China and the USA but the US won't do anything so close to an election and war in the Middle East serves Russia's interests. Eventually China may get fed up with Hezbollah buggering up their trade routes and intervene, but I wouldn't hold your breath.

[Abernathy]

Why isn't the UK parliament being recalled?

Parliament is back next Monday. What would be the point of recalling it 3 days early?

We need to put our collective pressure on our government to call a permanent and lasting ceasefire, otherwise, it will lead to the total destruction of human kind and of the planet.

The world and his/her dog has been calling for ceasefire for months now. David Lammy barely does anything else. If the total destruction of the planet is really imminent (it isn’t), would continuing to call for ceasefire really prevent it ?

[Crabcakes]

It’s just so fucking absurdly transparent is what annoys me. The escalation is to help Trump and keep Netenyahu in office. The Israeli leadership is fucking awful…as is Hezbollah’s leadership, Hamas’s leadership, Iran’s leadership etc. who are all well up for a fight for their own ideological reasons and all of them - Israel and its foes - claiming to, but clearly in no way, care about the people living under them who are the ones getting bombed. And this conflict is doing nothing but getting resentment and hatred baked in for a good few more generations. While over here you have hawks on one side keen to get in on the action, and tiresome Corbyn types determined to not see the grey areas of the situation and just say Israel should be immediately abandoned as if that would magically stop everything as opposed to making the eyes of any dubious leader anywhere in the world light up.

All this over a couple of bits of land that in geological terms haven’t even been around that long and won’t stay round much longer still, which they only even want because their imaginary sky beard says it’s more important than other bits of near-identical land.

21st century my arse. This level of boneheaded endless warmongering makes Game of Thrones look like Downton Abbey.

[Philip Marlow]

It’s a joy to me that the dumbest, most noxious motherfucker on the planet when it comes to gender issues is branching out.

[The Weeping Angel]

I see Cold War Steve has gone mask off

[Crabcakes]

Yikes. That’s a shitty take.

(The other guy, not CWS. Is it more complex than everyone just folding to Netenyahu? Yes. Does someone still need to seriously dress down Netenyahu and get him to realise he lives in a tiny country surrounded by potential and actual enemies that runs almost purely on input of foreign arms and capital? Also yes. And would Netanyahu being out of power immediately improve things? Almost certainly also yes. So is CWS demonstrating a very common feeling that many of us are sick of seeing Netenyahu’s Israel do largely whatever it wants and *still* not being properly reined in? Yes.)

[Malcolm Armsteen]

The original. I like Steve's updating.

[Crabcakes]

Also, I think it’s VERY important to point out that CWS’s version is having a go at Netanyahu and *not* “the Jews”. Not even Israel, even. There are no flags or symbolism.

That Tomos guy did the same leap of logic with his comments on gender issues - reading between the lines and then replying on what he thinks was said and not was actually said. Not a good habit to get into.

[The Weeping Angel]

No it's the same old blame the Jews mentality just updated and made more palatable to modern day audiences. In fact it's very familiar to how right wingers go on about Foreign aid shouldn't we be spending our money on our people not on these foreginers instead?

[Crabcakes]

It really isn’t. It’s not blaming “the Jews”. It’s blaming one very specific Jew who has a hell of a lot to answer for, and whose religion is nothing to do with what a bloodthirsty, power-obsessed ghoul he is.

[Malcolm Armsteen]

In the original it is Mars, god of war, who is being fed at the expense of the arts, science, medicine and education.
In CWS's version it is Netanyahu as Mars. Not Jews, not even Israel.
That is the cleverness of it.

[The Weeping Angel]

It really isn’t. It’s not blaming “the Jews”. It’s blaming one very specific Jew who has a hell of a lot to answer for, and whose religion is nothing to do with what a bloodthirsty, power-obsessed ghoul he is.

Yes it does. It says that our leaders are betraying us by giving all these weapons to Israel, they're the reason why our public services are so underfunded. If only we stopped giving all this money to a foreign country then we could spend it on the NHS in fact Steve could put that on a side of a bus.

[The Weeping Angel]

There's also this ad from the Times from the 70s.

[Crabcakes]

Did Cold War Steve write that advert? Because otherwise it’s totally irrelevant. One is a piece of satire calling out western leaders who continue to arm a horrific warmonger who simply doesn’t listen to them. One is a decades old blatant bit of generalised racism that conflates a person (Meir) with a people (Jews) and a movement (Zionism) and a nation (Israel) - the *exact thing* that is not present in the CWS piece.

CWS did not create an antisemitic work. That Twitter guy you quoted clearly doesn’t like him anyway, so I imagine just decided to have a go at him for something he hasn’t actually done but if you’re not really looking could just about pass for what he claims it is - basically a reverse Corbyn mural scenario, only instead of ignoring what is there it’s seeing what isn’t.

That’s his and your prerogative, but it doesn’t make it true.

(Though it is notably tragic that, in general, things are little changed from 50-odd years ago.)

[The Weeping Angel]

It's the same sentiment and so what if Tomos doesn't like CWS. I never thought he was all that good anyway, Photograhing Cilla Black into everything isn't the height of satire.

[Crabcakes]

The guy effectively says “inevitably, someone I thought wasn’t worth much has turned out to be a bad guy”. So him then not being objective about the piece itself is hardly a surprise. But CWS not being good (in someone’s opinion) doesn’t mean you can start reading whatever you like into what they create when it isn’t there.

As I say though, that’s his and your prerogative to feel otherwise.

[Philip Marlow]

It may be a shade unfair but I’ve never been able to take Doran entirely seriously since he admitted trying to wind up people by rocking up at Palestine Solidarity demos in an IDF hoodie despite a) not being Jewish and b) obviously never having served (and that’s before we get to the time he was asking whether it would be a good idea to wear a kippah in public as a gesture of solidarity; I may be, as Tony Kushner once put it, a deeply secular Jew but seriously man, it’s not a fucking costume). Purely a personal thing of course - there are those who disagree - but goyische Israel groupies of that sort have always given me the creeps.

[Crabcakes]

It may be a shade unfair but I’ve never been able to take Doran entirely seriously since he admitted trying to wind up people by rocking up at Palestine Solidarity demos in an IDF hoodie despite a) not being Jewish and b) obviously never having served (and that’s before we get to the time he was asking whether it would be a good idea to wear a kippah in public as a gesture of solidarity; I may be, as Tony Kushner once put it, a deeply secular Jew but seriously man, it’s not a fucking costume). Purely a personal thing of course - there are those who disagree - but goyische Israel groupies of that sort have always given me the creeps.

Seriously? What a prick. Being opinionated online is one thing. Provocation and appropriation just says he’s desperate to be seen as a hero and doesn’t mind actively starting a row to do it.

[Philip Marlow]

I vouch not for the collector, but this is quite the collection.

My joint favourites are the one in which he describes a small demo as ‘The Cardiff Intifada’ and the one about a possibly funny look he might’ve gotten from ‘the Muslim bloke who works in this cafe.’