www.tanstaafl.co.uk

We moved my son into his accommodation at Oxford, where he’s starting a DPhil (PhD for anywhere else). There was a “mobile” already in the kitchen made of origami birds.

I gather from the news that the Writers’ Week at a major Australian festival has collapsed in the last few days because a Palestinian author was “disinvited” at least in part because of the recent horrifying events at Bondi Beach, leading many other participants to drop out.

It is being reported that a senior member of the Jewish Community Council for South Australia has said “I think for everyone who has dropped out that it’s rather pathetic because that means they agree with what Dr Fattah is on about… Namely, that Israel should not exist.”

What an absolute load of bollocks.

The two issues are clearly in no way connected. Whether someone should be allowed to speak in public or not is completely different issue from agreeing with their views or otherwise and those people who have dropped out of the festival as a result are quite capable of disagreeing with deplatforming the author in question without supporting views that she may or may not even present were she to appear. To suggest otherwise is the act of an idiot or a blatant attempt to misrepresent reality, presumably in order to stoke up further dissent and division to their own benefit.