FOREWORD FROM THE EDITOR (Daniel Clarke-Serret)
Lincolnshire is famous for three things: Isaac Newton, Margaret Thatcher and the most famous case of blood libel in history.
It was here that the death of “Little Saint Hugh of Lincoln” was falsely attributed to the Jews of England. They had killed Jesus once before and now the blood-suckers had returned to feast in a child’s blood. It was the lie that spread like wildfire due to the personal intervention of King Henry III; and the flame he lit has never been extinguished. In the infamous account of the chronicler Matthew Paris, the Jews of England were collectively liable for this “sacrifice”:
This year [1255] about the feast of the apostles Peter and Paul [27 July], the Jews of Lincoln stole a boy called Hugh, who was about eight years old. After shutting him up in a secret chamber, where they fed him on milk and other childish food, they sent to almost all the cities of England in which there were Jews, and summoned some of their sect from each city to be present at a sacrifice to take place at Lincoln, in contumely and insult of Jesus Christ. For, as they said, they had a boy concealed for the purpose of being crucified; so a great number of them assembled at Lincoln, and then they appointed a Jew of Lincoln judge, to take the place of Pilate, by whose sentence, and with the concurrence of all, the boy was subjected to various tortures. They scourged him till the blood flowed, they crowned him with thorns, mocked him, and spat upon him; each of them also pierced him with a knife, and they made him drink gall, and scoffed at him with blasphemous insults, and kept gnashing their teeth and calling him Jesus, the false prophet. And after tormenting him in diverse ways they crucified him, and pierced him to the heart with a spear. When the boy was dead, they took the body down from the cross, and for some reason disembowelled it; it is said for the purpose of their magic arts.
Hugh was henceforth viewed as a Christian martyr and sites associated with his life, above all Lincoln Cathedral, became objects of pilgrimage.
It took until 1955 for the Church of England to apologise - tokenistically and tardily - through placing a plaque at Hugh’s former shrine. It bore these words:
Trumped up stories of "ritual murders" of Christian boys by Jewish communities were common throughout Europe during the Middle Ages and even much later. These fictions cost many innocent Jews their lives. Lincoln had its own legend and the alleged victim was buried in the Cathedral in the year 1255.
Such stories do not redound to the credit of Christendom, and so we pray:
Lord, forgive what we have been,
amend what we are,
and direct what we shall be.
In the end, the Anglican apology was very short-lived, if it were ever sincere at all. Only yesterday, the bishops of an unrepetant institution stoked up the blood libel machine once more:
“We have watched with horror and outrage as siege and starvation are used as a weapon of war in Gaza, and as hospitals and health facilities have been systemically targeted. Over the last three months, the Israeli government’s deliberate denial of food and medical aid to an entire civilian population is an atrocity that defies our common humanity. It is the very definition of collective punishment and has no moral justification….We note that the Israeli Government has been challenged before the International Court of Justice. Starving children cannot wait for legal rulings given that every country has an obligation to prevent crimes against humanity.”
But if the Church of England have returned to their natural state of blaming the Jew first, apologising centuries later, the United Nations did one better. They made a complete lie go viral. Their latest antisemitic representative Tom Fletcher informed the world that:
14,000 babies in Gaza could die from malnutrition within 48 hours.
Guess what: It wasn’t true. Over 48 hours have passed and those 14,000 babies are still alive (thankfully, but inevitably). Yet in true Henry III form, Keir Starmer, Mark Carney and Emmanuel Macron have given the libel their seal of approval.
It’s the lie as old as time:
Jews sacrifice babies.
Given the return to medieval antisemitism, it is only appropriate that we invite expert media analyst - and beautiful prose-poet - Francisco J Bernal to give his reaction. He hails from Seville, the land of genocide liar Pedro Sánchez, but he currently lives in the rural idyll of …you guessed it…LINCOLNSHIRE!
This is but the appetiser, for later this “anti-Israel bias week” Francisco will be back. In his soon to be published in-depth analysis of a France 24 report, he will demonstrate how our biased media subtly - and not so subtly - tilts the scales against the Jewish State.
Francisco’s Substack The Lantern and the Void is a must read. Do subscribe.
In the meantime, sit back and rage against the lie machine; the lie machine which has beset the Jews since their were accused of the original Jesus-sacrificing blood libel 2000 years ago. Then it was the Catholic Church. After it was the Anglican Communion. Now it’s the United Nations and their media acolytes.
Each and every time, the Jews are accused of child murder, provoking in turn the real murder of Jews. It happened once again this week in Washington DC. It was the tragedy that was waiting to happen. Just when are they going to learn?
If you haven’t read our ground-breaking piece from Nachum Kaplan, click below. The much-awaited podcast interview will be released later this week:
“To the editors who printed the lie of 14,000 starving babies” by Francisco J Bernal
You knew it wasn’t true. You printed it anyway.
Fourteen thousand Gaza infants, starving to death within 48 hours. No source. No context. No verification. Just a number pulled from the fog and handed to the BBC by a UN official who later admitted it was a projection over twelve months, not a death count. A maybe. A model. A myth.
But you didn’t wait. You ran it as fact. You sold it as urgency. You turned it into banners, push alerts, Instagram tiles. A famine that didn’t happen, shouted from every screen.
You didn’t stumble. You didn’t miss a nuance. You made a choice. To believe a terror regime. To dress up propaganda as compassion. To make Hamas sound like UNICEF.
You did this because it felt good. Because it made Israel into the monster you needed it to be. Because rage gets clicks and facts get buried.
You ignored the correction. You buried the clarification. You never explained that the number was fantasy. You just moved on, like hit-and-run drivers.
You turned lies into currency. And you spent it freely.
This isn’t journalism. This is betrayal. Of your readers. Of the truth. Of the dead.
On October 7, Hamas stormed the border. They slaughtered 1,200 people. They burned families alive. They raped women beside their children. They took babies. They dragged the elderly into tunnels. They filmed it.
And you’ve spent the months since trying to tell the world that Israel is the problem. That the country trying to rescue hostages from beneath schools and hospitals is the aggressor. That the death cult hiding behind its own children is somehow the victim.
You fell for Hamas’s lies again and again. Or worse. You didn’t fall. You leapt.
You ran images from Syria. From Iraq. From staged photo shoots in Saudi Arabia. You showed empty pots and claimed famine. You shared graves and called it mourning. You cropped markets and called them ghost towns. Each time the lie spread, you watched. And said nothing.
You didn’t get it wrong. You made it wrong.
You became the mouthpiece of men who celebrate the murder of Jews. You quoted them like scholars. You platformed them like saints.
You wouldn’t print casualty figures from ISIS. But Hamas? You run their numbers on page one.
Why not quote someone who knows the region? Who speaks Arabic or Hebrew?
Why not Khaled Abu Toameh, an Israeli Arab journalist who’s reported from the ground for decades?
Why not Yossi Klein Halevi, Einat Wilf, or Lyn Julius? Because they wouldn’t give you what you want.
Because Khaled writes for an Israeli outlet. And that, for you, is disqualifying. Truth be damned.
They would tell you that Hamas is not a liberation movement. That it is an extermination project. That its charter is not a policy document. It is a call to genocide.
And that doesn’t make for good optics.
You’ve poisoned the public. You’ve abandoned the truth. You’ve made it harder for people to tell fact from fiction. You’ve made it easier for hatred to spread.
So here it is. Retract it. Not just the headline. The instinct.
Admit what you did. Admit you ran with a number because it suited the mood. Admit you cared more about outrage than accuracy. Admit you printed a blood libel in real time.
And if you can’t do that, then don’t call yourself a journalist. Call yourself what you are.
A narrator for the mob. A salesman for the lie. A mask for the oldest hatred on earth.
To subscribe to Guerre and Shalom, click here:
To subscribe to Francisco’s Substack, click here:
The year long conflict between military and paramilitary forces in Sudan is causing one of the world’s worst hunger crisis. About a third of the country’s population, or 18 million people, face acute hunger, the U.N. food agency says, with the most desperate trapped behind the front lines. They include 5 million who face starvation, the U.N.’s World Food Program has said.
CAIRO (AP) — A ruinous conflict raging for about a year between rival generals in Sudan risks creating the world’s largest hunger crisis, the top U.N. food official warned Wednesday as global attention has been focused on the Israel-Hamas warin Gaza.
This is textbook antisemitism because Gaza has received 200,000 tons of food which either Hamas or other tribes in the area commandeered to either keep for themselves or to sell - & - yet Israel is as always blamed for & held accountable for a situation that’s not within their control.
👏👏👏 These were outstanding pieces by Daniel and Francisco! The blood libel of Little Saint Hugh of Lincoln started by King Henry III of England has been reincarnated in modern times as the big lie of 14,000 starving Gazan children. Every news outlet in the world simply ran with it and Mark Carney, Keir Starmer and Emmanuel Macron repeated in breathlessly without bothering to check into whether it was really true or not. The Anglican Church was unsurprisingly, more than happy to accept and repeat this blatant blood libel to their flock.
The Anglican Church never made a sincere apology for the blood libel of Little Saint Hugh. There was no murder of a gentile child by Jews and all these events were made up out of thin air. Just as there are no 14,000 starving Gazan babies, it is a lie invented whole cloth by Hamas. But once again, gentiles fall for it hook, line and sinker and spread the myth of the babies those ruthless, crafty Jews starved far and wide.
Israel and the international community have sent truckload after truckload of aid into Gaza most of which Hamas, organized crime families and bands of thieves have stolen. The majority of it never gets to the people who need it. Plus the distribution of it is a complete mess. So if your wondering why many people in Gaza are starving that’s why. Hamas will sell it back to them on the black market at ridiculous prices. People underestimate just how evil and devious Hamas is.
Love or hate Donald Trump, he was right to back Israel all the way and make no mistake about it, Israel had no choice but to resume the war. Hamas violated the ceasefire several times and wouldn’t release anymore hostages. Negotiating with these people without applying the proper force necessary to make them do so, is a waste of time.
Voting Mark Carney and Keir Starmer out of office and pushing Emmanuel Macron to resign should be a top priority of their country’s respective peoples. They are all three a disgrace to humanity. The Canadian, British and French people stand with Israel I can assure you. History will remember their lack of moral courage and their uncritical acceptance of a modern blood libel. As to the Anglican Church it’s long since past time to sack Justin Welby and de-wokeify. While their at it, a formal apology for the blood libel of Little Saint Hugh of Lincoln is in order as well.
The lie of the 14,000 starving babies led directly to Elias Rodriquez’s brutal murder of Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Milgram outside the D.C. Jewish Museum. Every single news outlet that ran this blood libel needs to retract, apologize and recognize they are in part guilty of Yaron and Sarah’s murders. Carney, Starmer and Macron need to do their respective countries and humanity a favor…and resign their posts after issuing a formal public apology for repeating those totally made up numbers. You guys wanna serve your country? Then resign! You guys are three of the worst leaders the world has ever seen!
Sir Keir Starmer I’d argue makes a case for the worst British PM ever. He’s up there with the likes of Alec Douglas-Home and Liz Truss. The Labour Party is also a hot mess. It’s in the worst shape it’s ever been in. If the best they’ve got is the likes of Starmer, David Lammy and race hustler extraordinaire Dawn Butler they are dead in the water. Mark Carney is a clown who couldn’t govern his way out of a paper bag. Macron is a poor man’s version of Charles de Gaulle…a very poor man’s version. I’d suggest Emmanuel Macaron 🍪 do France a favor and retire from public life and never open his mouth again. Everytime he does he looks like a complete idiot.