North Korea trash politics sky-high while our pollies are distracted

Guard Post at YP-Do, 3 June 2024

From Baengnyeongdo, South Korea: Here at what the Americans call PY-Do in the Yellow Sea, we are closer to North Korea’s capital than we are to the South’s capital, Seoul. PY-Do is an ‘island outpost at freedom’s frontier’. It is home to over 4,000 South Koreans and exists in an administrative afterthought of the Korean Armistice Agreement in an area known as the Northwest Islands.

The United Nations Command (UNC) established a Northern Limit Line (NLL) in 1953 at a time when the North’s navy was barely existent. In effect, South Korea stays below the NLL while North Korea does not recognise it. The five Northwest Islands, of which PY-Do and Yeonpyeongdo (YP-do) are a part, remain a flashpoint for hostilities between the two nations.

PY-Do is the site of annual South Korean and US military drills designed to ‘bolster their readiness against North Korean nuclear threats’. Technically, North and South Korea remain at war, but general hostilities ceased in 1953. The threat of tit-for-tat skirmishes, however, is ever-present.

Writing in the Unfiltered newsletter, Alexandra Marshall had this to say about my article:

I was chatting to Michael de Percy before Speccie TV the other day and he was telling me all about his trip in South Korea. ‘You should be our foreign correspondent!’ I unfairly badgered him on air. Michael was kind enough to dutifully reply with an excellent story of what it’s like in the demilitarised zone. He writes: ‘It is confronting and gives one a sense of gratitude for the lifestyles we enjoy in the West. But it also makes me realise how important it is that we actively defend our way of life and celebrate the achievements of the West.’

My latest in The Spectator Australia, North Korea trash politics sky-high while our pollies are distractedNorth Korea trash politics sky-high while our pollies are distracted.

North Korea trash politics sky-high while our pollies are distracted
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I’ve been exploring the Demilitarised Zone (DMZ) between the two Koreas for the last few years to understand what it is like to live at the frontier of freedom. The contrast between the North (which… pic.twitter.com/Jpn2q3DOmo

— The Spectator Australia (@SpectatorOz) June 9, 2024

Anti-Israel stance emboldens anti-Semitism

 

Sydney University Pro-Palestinian Encampmment 24 April 2024. Photo: Bookish Worm [CC BY 4.0] 

Students and their hangers-on at the pro-Palestinian ‘glamping’ protest camps at our Group of 8 (G8) universities reveal an underlying falsehood that has grabbed the hearts and minds of our young people. This is a deliberate strategy of Hamas, the proscribed terrorist organisation that is a puppet of Iran, to weaken not only the support for Israel’s fight for survival since October 7 last year but also the West in general. Our young people have fallen hook, line, and sinker for the cognitive warfare that is intensifying as terrorists’ confidence grows as a direct result of student protests in the West.

Writing in the Unfiltered newsletter, Alexandra Marshall had this to say:

Michael de Percy and Sascha Dov Bachmann express their frustration with the behaviour and messaging of top Western universities when it comes to protests. They argue that the openly anti-Israel stance taken by university management has empowered anti-Semitism amongst the student body.

Writing in the Morning Double Shot newsletter, Terry Barnes had this to say:

Closer to home, Michael de Percy and Sascha Dov Bachmann make the simple but telling point: being reflexively anti-Israel emboldens anti-semitism. If only those attacking Israel and her people at every turn, and denying her right to exist, would at least have the decency to denounce the Hamas atrocities of 7 October, demand those who planned and executed them be rooted out and dealt with, and call for the release of all Israeli hostages as a precondition to any Gaza ceasefire. But no.

My latest in The Spectator Australia with Professor Sascha Dov Bachmann, Anti-Israel stance emboldens anti-Semitism.

Anti-Israel stance emboldens anti-Semitism
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Our young people have fallen hook, line, and sinker for the cognitive warfare that is intensifying as terrorists’ confidence grows as a direct result of student protests in the West.https://t.co/ebJHvs0Pms

— The Spectator Australia (@SpectatorOz) June 4, 2024

Hamas is being supported by TikTok diplomacy

Solidarity for Palestine protest in Cardiff, Wales, 4 November 2023 [CC0]

On May 20, the International Criminal Court’s prosecutor, Karim Ahmad Khan KC (a British national), called for the arrest of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the Minister of Defence Yoav Gallant for alleged war crimes alongside Hamas’ leaders. Equating democratically elected politicians with terrorists is morally wrong and will further weaken the legitimacy of the ICC.

Israel is defending itself against Hamas, which is an internationally and nationally proscribed terrorist organisation and an enemy whose explicit aim, as captured in the chant ‘from the river to the sea’, is the genocide of the Jewish people. The Israeli civilians who were butchered during the surprise October 7 attacks are a testament to the aims of Hamas.

The ICC prosecutor’s application for arrest warrants still needs to be reviewed by a panel of ICC judges and will only become binding once a confirmation has taken place.

My latest in The Spectator Australia with Sascha Dov Bachmann and Andrew Fox, entitled 'Hamas is being supported by TikTok diplomacyHamas is being supported by TikTok diplomacy'.

Hamas is being supported by TikTok diplomacy
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Israel’s war of self-defence against Hamas has been turned on its head by the cognitive warfare currently being waged by the terrorists. Cognitive warfare in this case refers to extreme propaganda designed to turn the West… pic.twitter.com/fo2rKzPi1y

— The Spectator Australia (@SpectatorOz) May 30, 2024