One year on from 7 October - winning the Battle of Ideas
Tonight, the Battle of Ideas festival goes to Zurich to discuss the anniversary of Hamas's pogrom and the future for Gaza, Israel and anti-Semitism.
This is dedicated to 28-year-old British hostage Emily Damari, who remains imprisoned in Hamas hell after being kidnapped a year ago today. Along with another 100 hostages, the cry to #BringThemHomeNow still needs to be shouted from the rooftops.
TONIGHT, in Zurich, at a Battle of Ideas satellite event, a panel will debate: One year on: Gaza, Israel and anti-Semitism.
The festival in London aims to look at how these issues have crept into the nooks and crannies of both domestic and international politics. Scroll down to see the full listings.
One year ago today, the world witnessed the unspeakable horrors of the worst anti-Jewish pogrom since the Holocaust. For Israelis, the repercussions have arguably changed the world in ways we never imagined on that day. There are the geopolitical ramifications of war in the Middle East, which is intensifying as I write. There is the suffering of so many in Gaza and Lebanon, and the vicious rows in the West about whether the brutal actions that day by Hamas (and their supporters in Hezbollah, Iran and Yemen) are to blame, or whether Israel has become the culprit by an excessive response.
Beyond the Middle East, the issue of Gaza created a febrile atmosphere of intimidation and harassment in the build-up to the UK’s general election and is a key factor in America’s forthcoming contest between Harris and Trump. And as if to illustrate how polarised society remains over the issue, this weekend – on the eve of the anniversary – tens of thousands gathered, either to shout pro-Palestinian slogans and denunciations of Israel’s alleged ‘genocide’ or to commemorate those slaughtered by the Islamist terrorists and to demand that the remaining 101 hostages are released immediately.
The events of 7 October also unleashed – almost immediately – widespread examples of modern-day anti-Semitism in the West. Shockingly, Jew hatred has become normalised on the streets of cities in the US and Europe, on university campuses, even in parliament, under the guise of Israelophobic hostility to Zionism and the fashionable student banner of decolonisation.
The broader, existential crisis about the values of Western civilisation is brilliantly articulated by Battle of Ideas speaker Josh Howie in this monologue on GB News. Meanwhile, we recommend you buy and read Brendan O’Neill’s new book, a blistering takedown of the West's response: After the Pogrom: 7 October, Israel and the Crisis of Civilisation. As my colleague Mo Lovatt notes: ‘From the silence of the #MeToo set to the pogrom-denialism of the activist class, Brendan shows how our cultural elites rehabilitated the world's oldest hatred and revelled in the barbarism of Hamas. This response, he argues, demonstrates the moral disarray and drift towards unreason of the West itself.’
The following list of related sessions at the Battle of Ideas festival in London, on Saturday 19 & Sunday 20 October, may be of particular interest.
In fact we have politicians, journalists, doctors, teachers, professors who are promoting & honestly do believe that genocide is a “solution” except the modern term used is “decolonisation”
We’re raising a generation of children to commit genocide