Kemi Badenoch Condemns “Disgusting” Guardian Article Claiming Opening of Gail’s Bakery Near Palestinian Café is “Heavy-Handed Aggression”
Kemi Badenoch has branded an article in the Guardian “disgusting” and “antisemitic” after it claimed the opening of a Gail’s bakery near a Palestinian café is “heavy-handed aggression”. The Mail has more.
The Conservative Party leader condemned the opinion piece today, saying it is “appalling”, “ridiculous” and “antisemitic”.
It follows a storm of accusations on social media after the column suggested the presence of the new Israeli-founded bakery near the independent cafe was “symbolic” of the war in Gaza.
The Israeli embassy’s spokesman in the UK, Alex Gandler, said the piece, published on Saturday, was “an astonishing exercise in bigotry disguised as moral commentary”.
Badenoch has now waded in on the debate, telling the Jewish News it is “extraordinary that Gail’s bakeries are being attacked now, supposedly because they are Israeli-owned”.
She said: “This is just a cover; it’s antisemitism. It is disgusting. We need to stamp out this culture.
“We need more enforcement, more punishment for people who carry out these violent acts… they are trying to intimidate people.
“I think it was an utterly ridiculous column… appalling, actually.” …
In this weekend’s feature, Guardian columnist Jonathan Liew described the arrival of Gail’s 20 metres away from Palestinian-owned Café Metro as “symbolic” and “an act of heavy-handed high-street aggression”.
Liew wrote: “Critics accuse (Gail’s) of accelerating gentrification and squeezing out smaller outlets. Campaigners point out that its parent company, Bain Capital, invests heavily in military technology, including Israeli security companies.”
He added: “And so even though Gail’s describes itself as ‘a British business with no specific connections to any country or government outside the UK’, its very presence 20 metres away from a small independent Palestinian café feels quietly symbolic, an act of heavy-handed high-street aggression.”
Worth reading in full.
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I wonder if the Guardian partly don’t like Gail’s because of Luke Johnson’s involvement – horrid far right covid denying conspiracy theorist and free speech advocate…
What is a “Palestinian café”?
Maybe a money-laundering operation in aid of Hamas?
Don’t know, perhaps similar to a Kurdish Barber’s. We have one here, it’s always empty.
one in which Israel provides all the facilities and pays all the bills.
I think Nutella will feature heavily on the menu.
An oxymoron?
I think it is a misspelling for ‘Palestinian Keffiyeh’.
An old rag worn on the head by a goat-herder with an AK47.
So multiculturalism and diversity is heavy handed aggression, not Strength™️.
I am inclined to agree.
Maybe they don’t like the fact that Irael has muredred between 50 – 100, 000 innocent civilians. – Might be a bit less, so that’s OK?
So to the inevitable morally bankrupt downticker,s how on God’s earth can you justify that?
And please none of the usual “antisemetic” tripe.
Please give me a coherent argument for the palpable genocide which has been happening since 1948.
You’d think with genocide happening for 78 years their population might decline a wee bit!
Your point is what?
The Jewish population in Europe didn’t grow between 1930 and 1945.
I wonder if Kemi Badenoch is disgusted by the killing of so many innocent Gazans, displacement of Palestinians and the total destruction of the Gaza Strip?
50 – 100 000 =50 big margin of error = made up numbers.
Facts (and figures) are the first casualties of War. So, unless your figures of civilian deaths can be independently verified and don’t come from either the Palestinians or the Israelis, how can you possibly know for certain that the figure is correct?
What happens when a fly falls into a cup of coffee?
The Italian – throws the cup and walks away in a fit of rage
The Frenchman – takes out the fly, and drinks the coffee
The Chinaman – eats the fly and throws away the coffee
The Israeli – sells the coffee to the Frenchman, the fly to the Chinese, buys himself a new cup of coffee and uses the extra money to invent a Device that prevents flies from falling into coffee.
The Palestinian – blames the Israeli for the fly falling into his coffee, protests the act of aggression to the UN, takes a loan from the European Union for a new cup of coffee, uses the money to purchase explosives and then blows up the coffee house where the Italian, the Frenchman and the Chinaman are trying to explain to the Israeli why he should give away his cup of coffee to the Palestinian.