News and Views 22nd October 2025 

Antisemitism

• Spain has succumbed to Palestine mania. Oscar Clarke, a writer based in Spain, has made the deeply disturbing observation that virtually “every facet of Spanish public life is dominated by a fierce loathing of Israel.” This summer in Spain, he notes, “there was hardly a single public event that wasn’t dedicated, in whole or in part, to the cause of Palestine.” Whether it’s exhibitions, film festivals, bicycle races, public holidays, education and political rallies – there is almost nothing that happens – culturally speaking – that isn’t mainly about Palestine. Barcelona, he writes, has been the epicentre of recent Israelophobic hysteria in the country; this also the city from which Greta Thurnberg’s anti-Israel flotilla began its journey a few weeks ago. Clarke concludes, “Palestine activists’ obnoxious takeover of every facet of Spanish culture is now complete.”

Israel

• Hamas breaks ceasefire but the headlines blame Israel. Hamas broke the Gaza ceasefire this week by killing two Israeli soldiers — yet many outlets, including the BBC, Sky News, The Times and Reuters, framed Israel’s response as the cause of the escalation. Major media used sceptical language or omitted Hamas entirely, relying instead on Hamas-run “government offices” as sources. “By blurring responsibility for the ceasefire breach,” Honest Media conclude, the world’s media continue to “shield Hamas from accountability and mislead audiences about who the aggressor really is.”
• The legal foundations of Israel and origins of ‘Palestine’. The Centre for the Study of Political Islam International has released a landmark study (read here) on the legal foundations of Israel and the origins of the name ‘Palestine.’ Drawing on a wealth of historical documents and archaeological evidence, this comprehensive study examines the millennia-long presence of the Jewish people in the land that now constitutes the State of Israel – beginning as early as 1200 BC – and traces developments up to the issuance of internationally recognised legal documents affirming Jewish sovereignty. The study concludes there is overwhelming evidence for a continuous Jewish presence in the territory of modern Israel, and no evidence of a people known as ‘Palestinians’ as defined by enduring territorial, linguistic, or cultural attributes. For further information and to view the complete study, watch the full 1.5 hour presentation here.

Society and Politics

• Asylum seekers baptised in migrant hotel bathtubs. Carelinks Ministries, a registered charity linked to the Christadelphian sect, has been visiting hotels across the country to baptise Muslim migrants in bathtubs in taxpayer-funded asylum hotels. This, despite longstanding concerns that migrants are only going through the motion to gain a ticket into the UK - migrants having long sensed that supposedly converting from Islam to Christianity was an effective method for bolstering an asylum case. In recent years several migrants who became Christadelphian after arriving in Britain have won asylum under the European Convention of Human Rights by arguing they would face persecution and harassment if returned to their home countries. Chris Philp, the shadow home secretary, said that bathtub baptisms were “insanity” and proved the asylum system needed to be “completely dismantled”.

Church Issues

• God: The Science: The Evidence. In a new book, two French mathematicians have distilled insights from 62 Nobel Prize winners and more than 100 leading scientists to pinpoint the scientific discoveries that could prove God is real. “Until recently, believing in God seemed incompatible with science,” say the authors. “Now, unexpectedly, science appears to have become God's ally.” These discoveries include:

                • The Big Bang;

                • A fine–tuned universe;

                • DNA and the human genome;

                • Einstein's theory of relativity; 

                • Quantum mechanics.

• Overall, the authors insist that the evidence for God's existence is “abundant, clear and rational”, and their arguments are grounded in “reason and careful analysis”.

Christian Persecution

• Wave of anti-Christian bigotry hits Germany. As a new 125-page report reveals that anti-Christian hate crimes across Europe are being downplayed or overlooked, reports are emerging that Germany in particular — once the heartland of Christendom — is facing a continuous alarming wave of anti-Christian bigotry and desecration. Across the country, churches are being vandalised, sacred statues mutilated, Bibles burned, and worshippers harassed — all while politicians and media downplay the growing hostility toward Christianity in the name of ‘tolerance’ and ‘diversity.’ Politically motivated anti-Christian acts rose by more than 20% from 2023 to 2024, with 337 anti-Christian acts recorded in the latter year. It is believed that Germany’s open-border experiment - fuelled by imported Islamic intolerance, protected by left-wing politicians, and ignored by Germany’s media, have led to the current wave of anti-Christian prejudice.

• In the Netherlands, the desecration of Christian symbols has become almost routine; the latest incident involving a man in the once-peaceful city of Utrecht, walking into a large church in broad daylight and smashing a statue of Jesus Christ.
• In Afghanistan, the Taliban is enjoying growing international acceptance despite intense ongoing persecution, including of Christians.
• The biggest crackdown on Christians by China’s communist regime since 2018 has led to dozens of pastors from one of the largest underground churches in China being detained.
• Turkey’s government is expelling hundreds of Christians from the country on “national security” grounds.
• A bishop and 12 clergymen of the Armenian Apostolic Church have been detained amid a deepening standoff between the Church and the government.