Author: Blazingcatfur

When I was initially invited to present this talk, I was asked to highlight the rise of antisemitism in Europe. Even then, I suspected it might be rather short, given the overwhelming evidence that antisemitism appeared to be growing more than any other racial prejudice. And then we had the attacks of October 7, 2023. Quite possibly the talk is now moot.

I would like to preface this address with a personal experience, which bears on all we are discussing, particularly from my perspective as a Catholic priest. Some know of my work during the last 9 years—full time since 2016—working for aid/advocacy for persecuted Christians throughout the world, especially in the Middle East. I am certainly the only Catholic priest in the English-speaking world doing this work full time, and I am grateful to the Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham for allowing me to pursue this ministry and vocation: allowing me but not paying me.

The terrorists were ‘on a mission’ to carry out sexual attacks on October 7. Campaigners have asked why the UN stayed silent

She had, he says, the face of an angel. Night after night Yoni Saadon, 39, wakes in anguish to the faces of women.

First, that of the young woman hiding next to him under the stage of the Supernova festival where he had been dancing to electronic music as the sun rose on October 7 and Hamas militants opened fire.

“She fell to the ground, shot in the head, and I pulled her body over me and smeared her blood on me so it would look as if I was dead too,” he said. “I will never forget her face. Every night I wake to it and apologise to her, saying ‘I’m sorry’.”

Dr Ghassan Abu-Sittah’s impartiality is in question

In the weeks since Israel launched its offensive against Hamas, one doctor’s reports from Gaza’s hospitals have proved more valuable to the media than any other: those delivered by Dr Ghassan Abu-Sittah, a British-Palestinian surgeon. Indeed, when Abu-Sittah held a press conference in London this week after a 43-day stint in Gaza, almost every leading outlet turned up.

So there I was, in the middle of the opening night of Tannhäuser at the Metropolitan Opera, when the shouting started. “Climate protesters,” or “climate activists”—the usual grotesques—were shouting “No opera on a dead planet,” and other such inanities. They placed themselves around the theater, timing it so that when one was arrested, another started shouting somewhere else. I counted five interruptions, though the first press reports say there were only four; did I get it wrong? The audience was displeased; I heard shouts of shame! and even, briefly from one member of the audience, U.S.A.! U.S.A.! The management finally announced that the program would go on no matter what, keeping the lights on so that security could remove people more quickly; either the thugs were exhausted, or the remainder figured that it wasn’t worth bothering with. So we finished the opera, with too much light, and (at least for me) some nervousness at every loud noise, thinking it might be another interruption.