Yes, in the same sense that I deny the existence of unicorns. I’m also a unicorn-denier.

He’s said a lot since October 7th and before it.

A selection of more recent ones by running a search for his tweets using the word ‘Hamas’

https://x.com/richimedhurst/status/1802965814053670956

Hamas’ Qassam Brigades are guerilla fighters engaged in armed struggle against an occupying power, which is their right under international law.

https://x.com/richimedhurst/status/1795133769172623378

The only men on this planet willing to do something about children being murdered in Gaza are to be found in Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Resistance Axis. So obviously the Western Zionist media have no answer but to frame these Resistance fighters as “terrorists”

https://x.com/richimedhurst/status/1794489366276194554

Hamas have just captured a group of Israeli soldiers

LOL

https://x.com/richimedhurst/status/1792472920029012293

Iran’s president and foreign minister have died.

If it is an act of God, there is naught we can say. If it was an act of treachery, this will not deter or hinder the Resistance.

Iran, Hamas, Hezbollah have always become stronger after losses like this.

The struggle continues.

https://x.com/richimedhurst/status/1785809457194188820

Why do you denounce Hamas and Hezbollah?

Do you also denounce the French resistance when you condemn the Nazis?

I’m so bored of Westerners comparing the only armed front that Palestinians/Arabs have to their oppressors, and acting like this is some kind of nuanced comment

https://x.com/richimedhurst/status/1781613656238620939

They hate Iran, Syria, Hamas, Hezbollah, etc. because they fight back. Because they refuse to roll over when the Israelis and Americans snap their fingers.

That is the only reason, and nothing else.

He also regularly writes for and appears on Al Mayadeen (Hezbollah affiliates), the Iranian Regime’s Press TV, and Russia Today.

And yes, you would be correct if you guessed his views on Syria’s Bashar al-Assad based on this information.

Also if committing massacres made the PLO a terror group

No, it’s when you commit terrorist acts that you become a terrorist group. Like the PLO did, repeatedly, over many many years, and bragged about.

Terrorists are by definition non-state actors.

And yes I’ve seen the Pallywood stuff coming out of Gaza just like everyone else has. It’s the same bullshit they pull every time they cross a line and find their shit getting pushed in by Israel like in Lebanon in 1982.

receives billions in funding and weapons from the US and UK

In 2023 total UK arms exports to Israel totalled £18.2 million. We do not provide them with foreign financial assistance.

So you were only off by a little bit.

In 2023 Israel received approx. £3.3 bn in foreign assistance from the USA, the large majority loaned to purchase US supplies of both defensive and offensive munitions. That same year, Egypt also received about £1.5 bn in foreign assistance from the USA, Jordan £1.7 bn, etc.

As I said it is a form of political repression.

Yes, that’s why it’s good

The PLO was a terror group.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Munich_massacre

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ma’alot_massacre

Two examples off the top of my head of a terrorist group engaging in terrorist violence.

Only a handful of countries consider Hamas a terror group. Funnily enough these are the same countries that are complicit in Israel’s genocide in Gaza.

Those are also more or less the only countries I’d trust to be able to correctly identify a terrorist group.

This is a “leopards ate my face” law. It’s fine until you get caught up in it however unlikely that appears now.

I simply don’t support terrorist organisations. It isn’t difficult.

I don’t have a problem with any element of that law.

I’m profoundly comfortable with people being arrested and imprisoned for substantial sentences for expressing support for Hamas and similar Jihadi terror groups.

Good, for months now he’s openly expressed his support and encouragement for a proscribed terrorist organisation, i.e. Hamas. He’s not ambiguous about this: he thinks October 7th was great and that Hamas should do it again. He literally travelled to Iran and posted photos next to IRGC rockets and missiles with the caption “Long live the resistance”.

He’s not a journalist. He’s a vicious antisemite who takes pleasure in attacking Jews and is a proud and unrepentant promoter and supporter of terrorism.

Throw away the key. I don’t know why he’s allowed into the country at all.

There really is no plausible ‘fetish outfit’ that could possibly under any circumstances be appropriate for work at the Civil Service.

I cannot believe this even needed to be clarified in the first place

Yeah probably. Most ‘big’ accounts aren’t on Mastodon anyway though, they’re on Threads.

Neither Mastodon or Bluesky ever really clicked with me, although I’ve tried and will continue to use both, but I enjoy using Threads because there’s so much cool non-political content there. My feed is archaeologists or astronomists, historians writers and photographers. It being able to connect up to the Fediverse is cool too.

One obvious reason the author doesn’t explore is that neither Wales nor Scotland has ever experienced mass immigration nor profound demographic changes in their population.

Scotland remains 92.87% white (2022), Wales 94.2% (2021), compared to England at 81% (2021).

In Scotland, 2.2% identity as Muslim, 0.4% as Hindu, 0.1% as Jewish.

In England, 6.7% identify as Muslim, 1.8% as Hindu, 0.5% as Jewish.

Scotland and Wales are therefore much more homogenous as populations. They’re whiter, less religious, and from similar backgrounds. They’re not as diverse as England is and therefore don’t have the challenges of community cohesion and social solidarity that England does.

It therefore doesn’t have the levels of intra- and inter-communal diversity which can provoke the kinds of tensions we’ve seen playing out in the streets of England over recent years, whether in Hindutva-Muslim ethnoreligious violence in Leicester or these anti-Islam and racist riots in recent weeks.

Scotland’s sense of its national identity has also not been challenged to the same extent as in England. Nor has a patriotic attitude towards Scottishness been derided as hateful, bigoted or xenophobic, as it has in England. (This sometimes leads to highly funny events, though, like when ScotNats try to claim they were victims of the British Empire.)

Personally, Threads is the only social media platform where the content on it generally improves my mood by showing me lots of funny, cute or interesting content. It’s the only one where I don’t feel frustrated or angry or outraged by the content the algorithm surfaces or baited. It feels like the feed wants me to smile and cheer up or learn something new, rather than baiting me into getting angry and shouting at people. That counts for a lot, to me.

Interestingly, the European Union has been doing exactly this for about a year now on an experimental basis.

https://commission.europa.eu/get-involved/engage-eu-policymaking/social-media-connect-european-commission_en

https://uk.pcmag.com/social-media/140088/eu-joins-mastodon-social-network-sets-up-its-own-server

https://www.edps.europa.eu/press-publications/press-news/press-releases/2024/edps-decentralised-social-media-pilot-end-successful-story_en

Squeeze 'em til the pips squeak.

Our cities are literally on fire and literally anyone is pretending to give a shit about this virtue-signalling shite?

despite islamic terrorism literally, by definition, being right wing.

It’s neither right-wing nor left-wing. This sort of claim always strikes me as fairly cheap politics by people on the left. ‘When people do bad things it’s right-wing, when they do good things it’s left-wing.’ etc

The law only applies to people I disagree with.

I am definitely a person who should be taken seriously

_/s

I think bundling the two together obscures more than it illuminates. I don’t think it’s any less serious (in fact in some regards it’s more dangerous), just that it doesn’t fit with normal far-right characteristics. To take one important difference, the far-right are ultra-nationalists, while Islamic fundamentalists are strictly anti-nationalist – they don’t recognise the legitimacy of nation-states to exist at all. They also tend to be pretty unconcerned with race or ethnicity in themselves, whereas that’s obviously a major thing for Neo-Nazis and other Fascists. And it makes it harder to identify and address the problem, because the sources and drivers of far-right extremism are separate and often unrelated to the sources of Islamic fundamentalism and radicalisation.