But for some reason, Starmer cannot mention the C-Word: almost in an echo of Doctor Radcliffe in The Ipcress File, the word cannot come out, as if the speaker has been prevented from uttering it, except to deny its validity. Nor would he say that Israel had committed war crimes, even though he did not hesitate in the case of Ukraine and Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin.
Politicians, he now says, should not make such pronouncements. So, let’s see how the BBC has reported it. “Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer has said he understands calls for a ceasefire in Gaza, but argued it was not the ‘correct position’ at the moment”. What’s the “correct position”, then? Wait for a few more thousand corpses to be generated? But there was more.
“More than 60 Labour MPs have called for a ceasefire, but Sir Keir insisted his stance of calling for a humanitarian pause was ‘the only credible approach’ … He said a pause would allow aid to get in to Gaza and for civilians to leave … He argued that a ceasefire would leave Hamas's infrastructure intact, enabling them to carry out future attacks”.
A “humanitarian pause”, to use Starmer’s happy phrase, IS a ceasefire. Using the P-Word, rather than the C-Word, is just being pedantic and driving it round the houses. In any case, if it’s long enough for aid to get in, and civilians to leave, it’s a ceasefire. And whether the Israelis, some of whom claim all who live in Gaza are terrorists, will allow anyone out is uncertain.
Starmer may feel constrained by the stance taken by the likes of Home Secretary Suella Braverman, who has mischaracterised marches in solidarity with those in Gaza as “hate marches” and attempted to smear concerned citizens as anti-Semites. He may also worry about criticism of Israel being used by our free and fearless press as a stick to beat him with.
Chris Dillow, not a raving right-winger, has concluded “For me, this justifies Starmer's position. Any criticism of Israel would be misconstrued by these liars & their agents in the media as antisemitism & support for Hamas. We cannot have honest, reasonable debate under these conditions”. He’s right. And those liars are the ones like Ms Braverman and her fellow Tories.
The problem, though, is that once again Starmer is not only behind the curve of public opinion, he has disregarded the second part of Galbraith’s dictum on leadership: “A leader can compromise, get the best deal he can. Politics is the art of the possible. But he cannot be thought to evade”. Starmer is evading.
And the result, as Deltapoll has told, “Net approval for [Keir Starmer] has fallen by twelve percentage points and is now negative. Net approval for [Rishi Sunak] has fallen by eight percentage points”. What else can be causing that fall, except the inability, or unwillingness, to call out Israel for busting international law, and being frit of calling for a ceasefire?
No use thinking the media will cover for him. The voters have him sussed.
https://www.patreon.com/Timfenton
4 comments:
What else to expect from a "Zionist without qualification"?
The man and his fellow travellers are disgusting liars, hypocrites and extreme right wing spivs. There's nothing "centrist" about that gang.
There was a time long, long ago when it was possible to consider the Labour Party had a conscience. That no longer applies.
Think that's bad?.....Wait until he's let loose on domestic policies.......
Until recently there has been a widespread view that Labour will win the next General Election. I think this is now very unlikely.
Active support of Israel (perhaps for fear of being called anti-Semitic) is not going to win anybody any elections in the UK.
So we should be working out how we will cope with yet another Tory government next year.
In the same way we should be planning now for many metres of sea level rise caused by global warming. Perhaps a 50-metre high sea wall all round the UK? We have about 100 years to get it finished - so it should be done before HS2, and might be cheaper.
Labour doesn't have people like Gerald Kaufman around anymore.
The 'Criticism of Israel' section of his Wikipedia entry makes very interesting reading in the light of current events (and even has walk-on parts for our old friends John Mann and Louise Ellman).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerald_Kaufman
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