LUSH & “the right side of History”

[NitroNine]

LUSH’s Dublin branch (on Henry Street) have decided to effectively announce their support for Hamas despite it being a proscribed organisation in the EU, UK & US. Jaysus.

To just run through some of their greatest hits as discussed on MN:
• in 2012 they ran a hugely sexualised campaign to oppose animal testing
• they foist a guide on “How To Be A Trans Ally” on customers (2018)
• donations from November 2019‘s Charity Pots go to Trans Media Watch (controlling the media narrative doesn’t come cheap)
• the Edinburgh branch announce they wouldn’t serve anyone in a “woman: adult human female” t-shirt (2020)
• facilitating providing binders to children without the knowledge of parents in 2021
• refusing funding to lesbian groups (2021)
• the 2022 “trans kids belong” campaign

Even living in London & despairing utterly of the Met Police as I do I still think their 2018 Spy Cops campaign was cynical, manipulative, & just a marginally more sophisticated way to say “ACAB” rather than a genuine attempt to address the incredibly serious issues that had been uncovered.

”The right side of history” indeed 🤨

I'm out now. I'm not here for a discussion of the politics or history.

I've done that for years.

Now is a time for seeing evil and naming it. And not putting victim blaming signs in shops.

Hamas are the elected govenement of Gaza they have not been imposed on them. They chose them. I'm sure many regret it now they see how eveil they are.

there hasn’t been an election since 2006, even then they got in with a narrow margin. The majority of people now living in Gaza won’t have voted for them. None of the million children will have. Quite possibly many who did will have believed false promises and regretted their choice.

I mean I never voted Tory but have to cope with their shit show policies, etc. thankfully Brexit is about the worst and even though that’s bad it pales into insignificance with what Gaza inhabitants have had to cope with in the last 15 years.

Collective punishments are barbaric

There are innocent victim's on both sides here

I don't know who shops there? Maybe they will virtue signal their way out of business eventually as many people don't have the money now for their expensive products

It was reported by a single reporter for the i24 news channel who said she got it from a soldier.
International news agencies picked it up and amplified it seemingly with no corroboration.

So the truth is no one knows.

Another reporter who was in the same place has tweeted the following:
1/5 I'm getting a lot of question about the reports of "Hamas beheaded babies” that were published after the media tour in the village. During the tour we didn’t see any evidence of this, and the army spokesperson or commanders also didn’t mention any such incidents.
2/5 During the tour, journalists were allowed to speak to the hundreds of soldiers on site, without the supervision of the army's spokesperson team. I24 reporter said she heard it “from soldiers”.
3/5 Soldiers I spoke with in Kfar Aza yesterday didn't mention "beheaded babies”. The army's spokesperson stated: “We can not confirm at this point… we are aware of the heinous acts Hamas is capable of”
4/5 This doesn't mean that war crimes were not committed. The scene in Kfar Aza was horrific, with dozens of bodies of Israelis
murdered in their homes.
5/5 Sadly, Israel will now use these false claims to escalate the bombing of Gaza,
and to justify its war crimes there.
Update: this story is still unfolding and information is still coming in that needs to be verified. I will update when I have more.
x.com/OrenZiv_/status/1712038436910055925?s=20

EmpressaurusOfCats · Today 14:08

I get most of my toiletries from a small mother-daughter-run business in Wales

The Shetland Soap Company are bloody excellent, too. Last time I was in Lerwick, they had a young man assistant with Downs. I can thoroughly recommend their stuff.

https://shetlandsoap.co.uk/

I would be quite surprised if the people at Lush approve of beheading babies.

I think they are foolish, preachy, self-important, and don't think for themselves. They give the approved right on message.

I imagine most of the young staff are earnest and woke. The leadership may well be completely cynical.

More and more I hate shops and businesses telling me about their politics.

The Nazis didn't behead babies.
Only gassed them.

And lots of babies died in the air raids on the Germans.

So both equally bad.

We were too hard on those Nazis and should have been more conciliatory in our response.
After all lots of Germans weren't Nazis and they were harmed in the response.

For the first time ever. I think evoking the Nazis and what they did to the Jews is the correct response.

Sometimes evil has to be stopped.
And it's not a coincidence it's the Jews again.

'I still boycott Israel though. Choosing to cut off electricity, water, and not allow medicines in, whilst bombing is just as deliberate a slaughter of innocents. '

And why hasn't Egypt provided Palestine with electricity, water and medicine? Is it because Hamas are funded by Iran and they don't want to inadvertently support Hamas by supporting Palestine?

And why won't Egypt open the border for refugees?
Israel have asked them too.

Israel have warned civilians to get out and asked Egypt to open the border.

Everyone is holding Israel to standards no one else would ever be expected to demonstrate:

Raid our homes and kill our babies.
Then expect you to continue to supply us with food and electricity.
Then warn us before you attack so we can escape.
Arrange our route for escape.
We use our children and elderly as shields and expect you not to target us even when we've just killed your children.

There is a complicated history, but the moral equivalency argument here is now gone.

I suppose at least - unlike the Golders Green Graffiti - it wasn’t a targeted attack on Dublin’s Jewish community.

Choosing, as an individual, to boycott the State of Israel is of course valid; lots of people have done so for years, just as people variously boycott Belarus; China; Dubai; Iran; Iraq; Myanmar; Russia; Saudi Arabia & assorted other countries. (Incidentally, the UK’s proposed Anti-Boycott Bill is a heinous piece of legislation - I desperately hope it won’t be passed.)

A business deciding to stick that sign in its window right now, however, is sending a very different message - ie, as I said in my OP they decided to effectively announce their support for Hamas.

It seems to be - as with the binder incident - another example of an individual store just deciding to do their own thing: blinded by that belief they are “on the right side of history”; & unable to understand what an absolute nonsense that phrase is 🫤

And if you murder my baby I won't give you stuff you need anymore seems a pretty obvious response. Even saintly pacifists wouldn't do that.

Exactly. Fuck them.

They are their own country. They could have used that copious aid money to provide their own services. And look what they did with it instead.

And we are supposed to feel sorry that Israel isn’t doing enough to help the raping murderous animals? Or to be shocked that they aren’t allowed free rein to kill every man, woman and child in Israel?

Why the fuck should Israel (or anyone for that matter) help them now?

I saw the civilians cheering Hamas and the bleeding battered bodies of gang raped and murdered women being paraded. Grinning at the torment of child captives. I saw those bloodied car seats and cribs.

I saw the street parties and celebrations of the sick barbaric fucks in ‘civilised’ cities like London, Birmingham and New York.

I can’t even comprehend what it must be like for a Jewish person living in a supposedly safe country to see that.

Will the apologists be so quick to defend their TikTok videos when they start murdering children live on air?

They are being celebrated by Palestinians and Arabs outside Gaza.
Some Palestinians are obviously condemning Hamas but not enough.
Not the PA.

The Palestinians need to reject Hamas openly and en mass.

I pray they will & will see they have been lead into supporting a path to evil.
I understand the history and how it's happened but I will not support evil.

And the Israelis can't wait for that they have to act in the face of evil. Just as the allies had to.

Hamas has huge support in Palestine (and outside it too).

To pretend otherwise is just wishful thinking. Or wilful denial.

It’s far easier to paint most Palestinians as poor helpless civilians just being dragged along for the ride when really all they want is to live in peace with the Jews.

Easier than recognising your own antisemitism I guess.

Years ago their was a gender- critical feminist on Twitter (I think she may have been banned) who also tweeted about her experiences as a former Lush employee. One of the incidents that stuck in my mind was a promotion where staff were expected to wear a white t-shirt and to allow customers to put on lip products and then kiss the t-shirt. Cue a load of lairy male customers getting to kiss the bodies of the female staff. There was also a promotion where the staff were asked to be naked except for an apron.

I used to really like lush but actually all they do is give you thrush and an attitude problem.

Hmm. I've been boycotting Israel for ages and I'm no fan of Hamas. But....why do I need to know their politics anyway?

Lush - and Bodyshop - have forgotten what business they are in. This won't end well.

I wonder if Lush believes in boycotting other countries? I wonder where they source their ingredients and sell their products? Do they boycott Russia, China, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Brunei, Turkey ..... I could go on. What is uniquely bad about Israel?

Singling out Israel - boycotting the only Jewish nation on earth - and not boycotting other countries with human rights abuses such as China, is anti-semitic. Do you buy products made in China?

I am so angry and sad and scared. I am a British Jew, we are all checking in on family, asking others about theirs. Schools in the UK have increased (the already in place) security, telling kids to take off their blazers so people are less likely to recognise them as Jewish.

Jews are a small community, still recovering from the holocaust but also the years of pogroms and ethnic cleansing before that.

I've always had moderate views, I'm not a zionist, I felt for the Palestinians and didn't agree with actions of the Israeli government. I wanted a peaceful solution where both sides could have safe, self-governed land.

I still feel for the civilians who will die in the war on both sides.

That said. I wish that for just a few days we could mourn for the people murdered without people blaming anyone but the murderers. That people could just shut the fuck up about how much they think Israel has done wrong or how oppressed Palestinians are and just let us mourn.

Start their own threads about how to support civilians in Palestine, think about how to get more aid in through Egypt, whatever. But just give us a little bit of space.

And Lush can just fuck off with their poster. They are an over priced soap shop who have no place in politics.

@MalagaNights If Egypt opens the border there is no right of return for Palestinians , as we have seen from previous expulsions in 48 and 67 and ongoing. An Israeli , Saul Cohen , has suggested that Egypt could extend the borders of Gaza and ease the pressure on the inhabitants. They certainly have plenty of territory. Perhaps with help from the wealthy Arab states. It would require a lot of money and goodwill as part of a comprehensive peace deal.

However , Ariel Sharon always insisted ' Gaza first'. Basically because most Zionists just gave up on it and would rather focus on annexing the West Bank.

I agree with the point being made but it is nigh on impossible to boycott China.

I'm not singling anyone out. I try not to buy products made in the occupied territories. Then I'm unlikely to buy anything made in Hamas controlled Gaza. Not buying anything from Amazon. I'm not aware of Azeri products but certainly wouldn't buy any.

We had all these arguments about South Africa for decades. Why do you hate South Africans when xyz country is a craphole blah blah. There are lots of cultural connections of course. SA was in the Empire / Commonwealth. The British governed Palestine.

Can one boycott China , is it feasible? Yanis Varifakous says there is China and the US . Tech giants , the rest of us are screwed. But I digress

"They are their own country. "

Gaza is not really a country, not a nation state recognized by the UN or by our Government. Israel invaded it on 1967 creating this hell of a mess.

Women, children, babies, the elderly, the medically fragile, young people who love music, innocent men have been kidnapped, separated from family, raped, murdered at close range, beheaded and paraded naked to cheers of Hamas and their supporters.

To commit these kind of strategic depravities up close and en masse TO INNOCENT CIVILIANS can only be done if you are deeply brainwashed and filled with unimaginable hate. This is ISIS level barbarities.

Boycotting Israel after these very atrocities have been committed against its people is either extraordinarily naive and filled with hubris or plainly cruel. Fuck Lush and the people defending them.