# Owen Jones

Owen Peter Jones (born 8 August 1984) is a British newspaper columnist, commentator and political activist. He became a regular columnist for The Guardian in March 2014, after a period with The Independent.

## Quotes
### 2012–2013

* This generation of unemployed is forgotten, but not accidentally so. Much of the media enthusiastically backs the biggest cuts since the 1920s. They have little interest in exposing the human reality: after all, if it is widely realised that the deficit is being paid off with people's futures, then passive acquiescence to austerity can hardly be taken for granted. The Government is counting on the anger and despair of the forgotten generation to remain unseen, contained, confined to the dignified privacy of their homes. But if the forgotten and the lost organise, join forces, and make their voices heard, the Cameron Project could be sent hurtling into reverse.
** "My father, and the reality of losing your job in middle age", The Independent (9 March 2012)
* His great departure from Thatcherism was a desperately needed boost to spending on public services. Nothing remains of this as a principle in British politics. It is left to arch-critics of [Tony] Blair like myself to defend a big chunk of his government's economic record from his own supporters.
** "It's time to demolish the myth about Tony Blair", The Independent (1 June 2012)
* Galloway offered direct, clear answers; he spoke eloquently, and with language that resonated with non-politicos; he had enthusiasm, conviction and – to borrow a Tony Benn phrase – said what he meant and meant what he said. A lesson for Labour, then. Even a figure with a long-haul flight's worth of baggage can be cheered if they use populist language that connects with people and their experiences.
* Gorgeous George is one of the most charismatic politicians of our time, but also one of the most divisive, and still manages to win over the audience. You don’t have to like him; but, if you want to change the world, you do have to learn from him.
** "The Left should learn about plain speaking from George Galloway", The Independent (17 February 2013)
** George Galloway had appeared as a panellist on the 14 February 2013 edition of Question Time.
* [Jones' "favourite outed bigot"] That accolade goes to ­disgraced evangelical Ted Haggard, once a familiar fixture in America’s fundamentalist ranters' circuit: a highly well-paid gig, incidentally (it’s easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than a rich man to enter the gates of Heaven, but the Lord will always make the odd exception). Haggard was a leading backer of a Colorado amendment to ban same-sex marriage in 2006. You can see why that might have wound up Mike Jones, the male sex worker he'd been having sex with on a monthly basis for three years, who retaliated by outing one of Time magazine’s top 25 US evangelical preachers. If you’re going to get a bit sloppy with your interpretation of the scriptures, you might as well go the whole hog, which probably explains why Haggard added taking crystal meth to getting jiggy with a member of the same sex.
** "When anti-gay bigotry is just another lock on the closet" The Independent (24 June 2013)
* A few months ago, the BBC asked me to debate with Labour's Simon Danczuk, who supported George Osborne's proposal to make people thrown out of work wait an extra week for benefits. I say "debate", because Mr Danczuk turned up with a few prepared personal attacks, finding me guilty of having lived in "the posh part of Stockport". If it really matters, I grew up in the town's second-most deprived ward: a more accurate ad hominem attack would have been that I grew up in a middle-class family, because my dad was a white-collar local authority worker and my mother was an IT lecturer at Salford University.
** "Why do so many critics of those of us on the left assume we are consumed by class envy?", The Independent (7 November 2013)
** Simon Danczuk was the British Labour MP for Rochdale between the 2010 and 2017 general elections. Owen Jones' mother is Ruth Aylett.

### 2015

* But how do men speak out about a form of oppression from which they benefit? Take this column. It is inherently problematic. There is no shortage of men offering their opinions on, well, everything.
* What a farce it would be if men began to dominate the debate about men's oppression of women.
* Men are so accustomed to various privileges – such as automatically being taken more seriously – that they are not even aware they exist. That’s why it is so crucial that men listen to women and their experiences, and learn.
** "Why more men should fight for women’s rights" The Guardian (24 February 2015)
* Three judges were recently sacked for watching porn on the job. None of it was illegal, but they were still publicly embarrassed and dismissed. Yes, there’s clearly a sound argument that judges should be doing their jobs, not getting off on porn. Fair enough, but there's all sorts of procrastination that goes on in the workplace. Who knows, maybe an otherwise tense judge seeking a quick bit of relief will concentrate better. Surely someone should at least commission some research into it.
** "Simon Danczuk MP has watched porn – why should we care?" The Guardian (30 March 2015)
* That doesn't mean [Russell] Brand shouldn't be criticised. He has acknowledged his own problematic attitude towards women; and, like all men, he surely needs to work on it. Sexism is often prevalent among progressive circles, all too frequently marginalised as a secondary issue; or leftish men convince themselves they can't be sexist because of their right-on politics.
** "Stop the sneering – Ed Miliband’s best route to young voters is Russell Brand", The Guardian (28 April 2015)
* He is the very antithesis of the negative caricature of an MP: he's defined by his principles and beliefs, uninterested in personal self-advancement, and determined to use his platform to further the interests of people and causes that are otherwise ignored.
* Corbyn would inject the substance so disastrously missing from the current contest.
* Unless 35 Labour MPs nominate Corbyn, this farce of a leadership contest will continue and the Labour party – and the country as a whole – will learn nothing from it.
** "Jeremy Corbyn is in the Labour leadership race. The real debate starts here", The Guardian (4 June 2015)
* There’s structural inequality, and then there are stitch-ups. The scourge of unpaid internships has helped turn professions (such as my own, the media) into playgrounds for the privileged. Want to become a journalist? You may well find yourself expected to work for free for months, or longer, with no promise of a job at the end of it. If you have parents with the financial means, you have a shot, but otherwise the idea of labouring for nothing in London – one of the world’s most expensive cities – is a non-starter. So is shelling out for an expensive post-graduate qualification, which is increasingly a must. The professions have built walls too high for most to climb, discriminating not on the basis of your talent, but on the basis of your parents’ bank balance.
** "How to pass the posh test: 'Do you know Marmaduke Von Snittlebert?'" The Guardian (15 June 2015)
* There is a long tradition of left figures who are charismatic and deliver rousing speeches but who – like George Galloway – are easily portrayed as demagogic. They can rouse the affections of the already convinced, but few others. When they are the object of personal attacks, they attract little sympathy, and tend to respond in kind. Corbyn, on the other hand, has a good shot at the title of most self-effacing and humble politician in parliament, and certainly for being the lowest expenses claimer among his colleagues. That helps shield him from the personal attacks that are normally dished out to figureheads of the left.
* But the test of the Corbyn campaign, for me, is the extent to which it can rebuild a left with popular appeal that offers a coherent, viable, attractive alternative to the status quo.
** "No wonder Jeremy Corbyn’s rivals for the Labour leadership are rattled", The Guardian (8 July 2015)
* But above else, Jeremy Corbyn will have to strike a conciliatory tone: which will not be difficult, given that's his default approach, in any case. When he is attacked – whether by the media or by his own party – they will be identified as the aggressor. An emphasis on conciliation and unity within his own party – building on his recent "unity statement" – will make it politically harder for those within the PLP who wish to undermine him.
* It will be very hard indeed, and those who wish the Corbyn movement well need to prepare for it now. At stake is the future of the left in this country, and outside Britain’s shores: so no pressure. But as hard as it will prove – and it will be formidably difficult – the challenges are not insurmountable with enough creativity and commitment.
** "(I)f Jeremy Corbyn wins, prepare for a firestorm", New Statesman (4 August 2015)
* But if the Corbyn-led Labour party is to be successful, its supporters have to communicate. It is difficult, with relentless hostility raining down on your head, but that means adopting an inclusive, cheerful, positive approach: love-bombing opponents, even.
* [O]utward-looking, willing to engage with the unpersuaded, hopeful, positive: that is the only way the left can thrive. We can't just want retweets and packed halls, after all, but to change the world.
** "If Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour is going to work, it has to communicate", The Guardian (16 September 2015)
* He [Corbyn] enjoys the support of a mass grass-roots movement of the kind that almost no politician ever has but no professionalised apparatus – and he will now meet one of the most aggressive media on earth.
* [T]he conventional media have to be engaged with, however horrible and nasty they are.
* An incredible political moment arrived over the summer. It would be a travesty if it was buried because of an all-out media offensive that wasn't checked.
** "Jeremy Corbyn faces a viciously hostile press – but shutting out the media won’t help", New Statesman (16 September 2015, updated 17 September 2015)
* All opponents of trans rights are on the wrong side of history, just as history has imposed harsh and unforgiving judgments on those who opposed gay rights in the past. The rights of gay men, lesbians and bisexuals were won by building coalitions, ranging from trans people to 'cis' straight people. Solidarity – based on the principle of "an injury to one is an injury to all" – is a precondition of social change. Trans people must be the key voices in the struggle of emancipation. To be an ally is to listen and learn.
** "You don’t have to be trans to be an ally against transphobia" The Guardian (20 October 2015)

#### "The left must put Britain's EU withdrawal on the agenda" (2015)

    "The left must put Britain's EU withdrawal on the agenda", The Guardian (14 July 2015)
* The more leftwing opponents of the EU come out, the more momentum will gather pace and gain critical mass. For those of us on the left who have always been critical of the EU, it has felt like a lonely crusade. But left support for withdrawal – “Lexit”, if you like – is not new. If anything, this new wave of left Euroscepticism represents a reawakening.
* The left's pessimism about the possibility of implementing social reform at home without the help of the EU fused with a progressive vision of internationalism and unity, one that had emerged from the rubble of fascism and genocidal war. It is perhaps this feelgood halo that has been extinguished by a country the EU has driven into an economic collapse unseen since America’s great depression. It was German and French banks who recklessly lent to Greece that have benefited from bailouts, not the Greek economy. The destruction of Greece's national sovereignty was achieved by economic strangulation, [...] this was all about crushing a rebellion.
* Let's just be honest about our fears. We fear that we will inadvertently line up with the xenophobes and the immigrant-bashing nationalists, and a “no” result will be seen as their vindication, unleashing a carnival of Ukippery. Hostility to the EU is seen as the preserve of the hard right, and not the sort of thing progressives should entertain. And that is why – if indeed much of the left decides on Lexit – it must run its own separate campaign and try and win ownership of the issue. Such a campaign would focus on building a new Britain, one of workers' rights, a genuine living wage, public ownership, industrial activism and tax justice. Such a populist campaign could help the left reconnect with working-class communities it lost touch with long ago.

### 2016

* Antisemitism is a menace. It is not simply the preserve of knuckle-dragging neo-Nazi skinheads; this centuries-old sickness infects progressive circles, too. There are people reading this and thinking "ah, but what about Israel?" I know this because whenever I tweet about antisemitism, someone replies with a sentence along those lines. Sorry to sound self-righteous here, but if that's you, then you're part of the problem.
** "Antisemitism is a poison – the left must take leadership against it", The Guardian (15 March 2016)
** The end of the quote is an allusion to "you're either part of the solution or you're part of the problem", an aphorism attributed to the American civil rights activist Eldridge Cleaver. See Antisemitism in the UK Labour Party.
* As Jeremy Corbyn is surrounded by cheering crowds, Labour generally, and the left specifically, are teetering on the edge of looming calamity.
* A snap election is entirely plausible, and – as things stands, thanks to the actions of all sides of the Labour party – Labour faces electoral oblivion.
* Call me a Blairite, Tory, Establishment stooge, careerist, sellout, whatever makes you feel better. The situation is extremely grave and unless satisfactory answers are offered, we are nothing but the accomplices of the very people we oppose.
** From a blog entry (31 July 2016), as cited in "Corbyn supporter Owen Jones labelled 'Blairite traitor' for criticising current leadership", Evening Standard (1 August 2016)
** The blog entry was published on Medium (not linked from the article) and entitled "Questions all Jeremy Corbyn supporters need to answer".

### 2017

* Many others who wanted to make this unexpected victory work offered helpful advice. Yet it just wasn't listened to, it certainly wasn't implemented, and Corbyn's first impression was disastrous. A coherent strategy, a coherent vision and a clear message never emerged. Various terrible missteps played directly into the Tory narrative.
* If Corbyn decides he is unable to confront the multiple existential crises enveloping Labour, then an agreement should be struck where he can stand down in exchange for the guarantee of an MP from the new generation on the ballot paper who is committed to the policies that inspired Corbyn's supporters in the first place. It is up to both Corbyn and the parliamentary Labour party. They should both be aware that history is a savage judge.
** "Jeremy Corbyn says he’s staying. That's not good enough", The Guardian (1 March 2017)
* If [the Left] is overtaken by a loud minority who are, increasingly, bound by utter hatred towards anyone deemed to deviate from their sanctity of their cause, then there is no future. If they succeed, they'll turn the left into an ever diminished rump that, to the rest of the population, comes across as vicious, vindictive, and spiteful, and certainly not a cause they'll want to be part of.
** From a Facebook post (11 February 2017) cited in Niamh McIntyre "Owen Jones quits social media, blaming 'frothing keyboard warriors'" The Independent (11 March 2017)
* On a daily basis I have angry strangers yelling at me, on the one hand, that I'm responsible for the destruction of the Labour Party. [...] And on the other, I'm a right-wing sellout careerist who's allied to Tony Blair and possibly in the pay of the Israeli government.
** From the same Facebook post, as cited in "Owen Jones quits social media after being accused of being 'in the pay of the Israeli government'", The Jewish Chronicle (12 March 2017)
* We live in an age where in politics, people can't disagree with each other without good faith being questioned, there is always an ulterior motive - in it for the money, advance a career...
* I am part of the left; I feel loyal. I don't want to do things that will be damaging to what I believe in.
* It is a collective failure, not just him, the left, including people like myself, no clear strategy.
* [As a divisive figure] It doesn't help that I am young, but I also look like a 12-year-old. We live in a country where there is a lot of animosity. If your politics is radical it antagonises. People might think I am overconfident. I look petulant when I stand my ground.
** From an interview with Alastair Campbell, as cited in "Owen Jones vs Alastair Campbell: the full interview", GQ (15 May 2017)
* This is one of the most sensational political upsets of our time.
* Labour is now permanently transformed. Its policy programme is unchallengeable. It is now the party's consensus. It cannot and will not be taken away. Those who claimed it could not win the support of millions were simply wrong. No, Labour didn't win, but from where it started, that was never going to happen.
* I wasn't a bit wrong, or slightly wrong, or mostly wrong, but totally wrong. Having one foot in the Labour movement and one in the mainstream media undoubtedly left me more susceptible to their groupthink. Never again. Corbyn stays and – if indeed the Tories are thrown into crisis as Brexit approaches – he has an undoubted chance of becoming prime minister, and a fine prime minister he would make too.
** "Jeremy Corbyn has caused a sensation – he would make a fine prime minister", The Guardian (9 June 2017)
** In the 2017 general election, the Conservative's lost their small majority of seats in the House of Commons and the Labour Party had not done as badly as opinion polls predicted they would do.
* If 'TERF' [Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminist] is unacceptable, let's just use 'transphobe' and 'transphobic', problem solved.
** Tweet (14 November 2017), as cited in Julie Compton [https://www.nbcnews.com/feature/nbc-out/pro-lesbian-or-trans-exclusionary-old-animosities-boil-public-view-n958456 "'Pro-lesbian' or 'trans-exclusionary'? Old animosities boil into public view", NBC News (14 January 2019)

### 2018

* We have a moral duty to offer support and safety to LGBT people fleeing repression for which Britain shares responsibility. ... It is now Pride season in Britain. Members of the government will wrap themselves in the rainbow flag and issue self-congratulatory statements about how far LGBT rights have come. Don’t let them get away with it. Gay and lesbian refugees are being detained and deported to countries where their safety is at risk, even their lives. The Windrush scandal should lead to a much wider conversation about the persecution of migrants and refugees. ... The architects of the British empire helped construct anti-gay laws across the globe that still endure today. The victims of such persecution need our support. Instead, they are being terrorised. It is a national scandal – and the silence over it must end.
** "The government’s treatment of gay refugees shames Britain" The Guardian (7 June 2018).
* The British government arms Netanyahu's administration as it slaughters innocent civilians, just as it arms the Saudis as it massacres little kids in Yemen. Does a wreath have to be laid for this to be a national scandal.
* Let's be clear. Saudi Arabia is a terrorist state. It slaughters innocent people for political ends. It exports extremism. It is armed and backed by the British government. No one has [been] killed by a wreath. Countless civilians have been killed by British supplied bombs.
** From a series of tweets (13 August 2018), as cited in "Corbyn-supporting journalist demands lawyer apologise for saying he 'suggested it was fine to celebrate anti-Jewish terrorism'", The Jewish Chronicle (5 November 2018). The word "been" is missing in the original tweet.
** See Corbyn wreath-laying controversy.
* And here’s where moral clarity is needed. Antisemitism exists, it is a menace, and frightens Jews traumatised by the all too recent Holocaust. Labour must show far greater leadership in tackling antisemitism in the party and rooting out every and any antisemite. But that should not detract from the just cause of showing solidarity with the Palestinian people.
** "The Corbyn wreath ‘scandal’ is just an exercise in hypocrisy", The Guardian (14 August 2018)

### 2020–2021

* Some within Labour want to establish a year zero, which simply consigns the last five years to a dustbin labelled "Never to be repeated", but while that might suit factional ends, it advances no debate about the party's future in an era of unprecedented social turmoil. The need for a transformative political agenda is far greater now than when Corbyn first stood: but without a balanced understanding of the last five years it will prove impossible.
** "Only an honest conversation about the Corbyn era will help us learn from it", The Guardian (17 September 2020)
* I certainly learned in great detail what we were up against. The parliamentary Labour party meetings were just brutal and gruesome. A lot of those people in the parliamentary Labour party – I'm just going to say it – are jumped-up thugs. Vicious, horrible people. They would sanctimoniously stand up and talk about the authoritarianism of Corbynism as they screeched like disturbed teenagers, spraying spittle at anyone with the temerity to support the elected leadership of the party of which they were members. I really don't know what they are driven by.
* Yes. I think there was a lack of very basic emotional intelligence in some sections of the left in terms of engaging with the collective trauma of the Jewish people. And the same with Israel. There is an emotional connection that many Jewish people have with Israel and you just cannot ignore that.
** From an interview, as cited in "Owen Jones: 'A lot of people in the parliamentary Labour party are horrible'", The Guardian (19 September 2020)
* And Galloway – a toxic demagogue who campaigned alongside Nigel Farage and voted Tory earlier this year – succeeded both in eating into the party's Muslim vote, and driving other residents into Labour's camp in opposition.
** "Batley and Spen gives Starmer a second chance – will he take it?", The Guardian (2 July 2021)
** In the Batley and Spen by-election, in which Labour retained the seat, Galloway stood as the Workers Party of Britain candidate and gained 21.9% of the votes cast. For the 2021 Scottish Parliament election, Galloway, a Unionist, had announced he would vote Conservative tactically in the candidate vote to keep out the Scottish National Party (SNP) and, in the list vote, Alliance for Unity (A4U), a party he founded.
* There is nothing to recommend [Keir] Starmer's leadership. He is, as we have seen, unprincipled. He is not honest. Where Blair and Neil Kinnock were talented orators, Starmer lacks any charisma or warmth.
* That more Labour voters than not desire his resignation, that more than six in 10 people do not see him as a prime minister in waiting, and that he lost the Hartlepool byelection – a seat Labour retained even in the landslide defeat of 2019 – shows he is unelectable. Starmer is Labour's version of Theresa May – who was originally lauded as a serious, public-spirited politician before being undone by her own cynicism and woodenness.
** "Breaking promises won't get Keir Starmer into power", The Guardian (30 September 2021)
* BDS is an entirely peaceful strategy and yet it is still dismissed as beyond the pale, raising the question: what exactly is a legitimate form of Palestinian resistance?
** "Denied a state, Palestinians are now denied a say in their own future", The Guardian (19 November 2021).
** BDS refers to Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions against Israel.

### 2022–2024

* The past and the present offer an obvious truth: the fate of women – of all sexualities – and LGBTQ people are bound together. While women are the principal targets of patriarchy (that is, a society rigged in favour of men), this system also punishes those seen to deviate from rigid gender norms. Improving the position of women will probably be accompanied by progress for LGBTQ people; likewise, rolling back women's rights will also mean those of LGBTQ people deteriorate in tandem. This underlines why it is wrongheaded to claim that trans rights and women's rights are on a collision course.
** "This terrifying backslide on LGBTQ rights is a threat to women's rights too" (5 July 2022)
** Passage follows an outline of recent developments internationally.
* It remains the case that the most interesting ideas are bubbling away on the left: banishing them from Labour's future is an act of self-harm. If a meek Starmer administration disappoints, a now cowed left may find an audience willing to listen. Starmer's team is buoyant now, and understandably so: but history tell us where hubris leads.
** "Starmer's banishment of Corbyn is one more step in eradicating the left from the Labour party", The Guardian (17 February 2023)
** Written after an announcement Jeremy Corbyn would be prevented from standing as a Labour party candidate at the next general election. Corbyn had the parliamentary Labour whip withdrawn in 2020 following his comments about the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) report into Antisemitism in the UK Labour Party.
* This week in Manchester, [Nigel] Farage strode around the conference like a hungry crocodile, sizing up his prey. The rock-star reception he attracted suggests the faithful would quite like to be eaten.
** "Tory conference revealed a party that’s crumbling – and with Nigel Farage laying siege to its future", The Guardian (5 October 2023)
* A principled position Scottish Labour could long have adopted is to wholeheartedly back the right of Scotland to national self-determination, without requiring any embrace of independence. In the here and now, that means championing new devolved powers, but also handing Scotland the right to choose the timing of any potential independence referendum.
** "Can the Union survive Keir Starmer?", The National (20 January 2024).

## About Jones

    In alphabetical order by author or source.

### 2016–2020

* Jones was its foremost advocate and proponent. He was thrilled by Corbyn’s against the odds victory. He predicted and then witnessed at first hand the cruel ferocity of the assault upon Corbyn from within and outside the Labour party and defended him to the hilt. Now he faces the political crisis of a lifetime. The leader whom he defends will lose the battle that matters. What if his staying silent about this means, if only by default, that Owen Jones helps the Tories turn the country into "a jingoistic, foreigner-hating free market colony"?
** Anthony Barnett "Owen Jones, Jeremy Corbyn and England", openDemocracy (28 June 2016)
* Progressive head scratching as to what word might project the same corrective menace as terf (originally a small group’s chosen acronym, now applied at random), seems to have ended officially with this offering from my Guardian colleague, Owen Jones. "If," he mused last week, "TERF" [Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminist] is unacceptable, let’s just use 'transphobe' and 'transphobic', problem solved." Given that this guidance comes from the man who admirably closed down "chav" because it "demonised" the working classes, there seems every chance that "transphobe" will become the approved term for people who think, for instance, that there might be one or two arguments for preserving certain women-only spaces.
** Catherine Bennett "Bullies everywhere delight in coming up with new insults", The Observer (19 October 2017)
* Self-appointed "feminist allies" such as the Leftist poster boy, Owen Jones seem to get a thrill out of screaming "transphobe" at those of us who make it clear we do not believe men can be women simply because they say they are.
** Julie Bindel "Transgender activists are fanning the flames of misogyny" The Telegraph (21 September 2018)
* Jones, Britain’s best-known left-wing commentator, was born in Sheffield in 1984. His parents, both members of the Militant Tendency, met while canvassing for Labour in the late sixties; his father was a trade-union shop steward, his mother a prominent computer-science academic. Other relatives were Labour councillors and radical preachers ... After reading history at Oxford and a stint as a trade-union lobbyist he worked for two British left grandees: archiving the papers of Eric Hobsbawm, and serving as a parliamentary researcher to John McDonnell.
** Oliver Eagleton "Vicious, Horrible People", New Left Review (ii/127, January-February 2021)
** From a review of This Land: The Story of a Movement (Allen Lane, 2020)
* Owen Jones was passionately committed to the cause, living and breathing every moment of Corbyn’s leadership.
** Steve Richards "The Accidental Leader", Literary Review (490, October 2020)
** From a review of Jones' This Land: The Story of a Movement and another book on Labour's Corbyn period.

### 2023–present

* When Jones was later asked why he is so sceptical about the multiple reports of Hamas terrorists raping Israeli women – indeed, reports that they were specifically instructed to rape Jewish girls and women - he replied with a quote from a Washington Post article: "It's unclear whether authorities have accounts directly from rape survivors." That quote does indeed exist in that article, but it also makes clear that this is because Hamas almost certainly killed all the women they raped yet accidentally left many witnesses, including one who said a Hamas terrorist killed a woman while still raping her and a morgue worker who described female bodies so brutally assaulted they had shattered pelvises. But I guess he missed those details.
** Hadley Freeman "Owen Jones isn’t a journalist — he’s a propagandist", The Jewish Chronicle (5 December 2023)
* Even a screening of October 7 footage collated by the Israeli government, much of it filmed by Hamas, didn't convince the Guardian columnist Owen Jones. In his little YouTube video ... [h]e notes a charred female corpse "has no underwear on and this has been offered as evidence of rape. But that is not what you would consider conclusive evidence ... If there was rape and sexual violence committed we don't see this on the footage."
* Some relatives chose not to share footage, as the screening was told. But if Jones had seen even one such withheld clip — of a girl being gang-raped and murdered, then Hamas pissing on her corpse — maybe he'd still dispute details that chip away at the whole, parse dead women’s ripped knickers to propagate doubt. Such a simpleton cheerleader cannot compute believing Jewish women since it would cast moral shadows on "his" side.
** Janice Turner "Why’s the #MeToo crowd silent on Hamas rape?", The Times (1 December 2023)
** The atrocities on 7 October 2023 (2023 Hamas-led attack on Israel) began the 2023 Israel–Hamas war. The Washington Post reported: "Hamas denies that its fighters use rape or assault against women as a weapon of war". Jones has said Hamas committed war crimes.

## External links

* Articles in The Guardian
* Articles in the New Statesman
* Articles in The Independent
* YouTube channel
* Authority control: WorldCat search