So when Adolf Eichmann was lifted from his bolthole in South America, yes, that was OK. Hunting down those responsible for the Munich Olympic Games massacre was also nodded through. Those were understandable and arguably justifiable actions. Even the lifting of Mordechai Vanunu, still forbidden from leaving Israel, generated little in the way of complaints.
But the treatment, especially the recent treatment, of the Palestinians, has become a running sore for Israel, one that has progressively tarnished its reputation. Talk of a “two state solution” is meaningless while more and more settlements, in violation of international law, are built on the occupied West Bank, and Gaza has been, for decades now, an open air prison camp.
Worse, the arbitrary arrest of Palestinians across the West Bank, together with allegations of torture, and high rates of death in custody, accompanied by excessive use of force against those not deemed to be yet suitable for arrest, long ago took the shine off the supposedly “most moral army”. So now that free pass is no longer on offer to Israel. Its supporters are not happy.
And so the fight back has gathered momentum, but sadly, has had little success. Smearing peaceful protests as “hate marches” has not worked, nor has any attempt to deflect from the large and growing Jewish contingent within those marches. Recently, a Green Party councillor has been called out for anti-Semitism … for saying Allahu Akhbar. He said God Is Great.
Worse for the complainant, this was someone in the Jewish Labour Movement. I say, Green Party people, pay attention, do as we say, don’t get uppity with us, or else. Someone is displaying their assumed entitlement just a little too obviously. And getting ridiculed for it: Israel and its supporters are increasingly being judged on the merits of their behaviour. Or lack thereof.
The responses have shown how that free pass is a thing of the past: Shola Mos-Shogbamimu, who you can tell as she’s a doctor, put it directly. “Israel’s persistent, pervasive, cruel, genocidal collective punishment on Palestinians is with deliberate intent and depraved indifference to life & liberty. Israel wants Palestinians completely & utterly destroyed. This is genocide”.
And now has come an intervention from a previously unexpected quarter, Match of the Day lead presenter Gary Lineker, who, in conversation with Mehdi Hasan, has told “The minute you raise your voice against what [the IDF] [are] now doing [in Gaza], you get accused of being a supporter of Hamas … So there is … a lot of heavy lobbying on people to be quiet. So I understand why most people refrain.” And there was more.
“But I’m getting on a bit now … I’m fairly secure, and I can’t be silent about what’s happening … I think it’s just so utterly awful. And now they’re talking about ‘Oh, it looks like it’s happening, going into Rafah’, when they’ve sent everybody down there … It’s not anti-Semitic to say that what Israel is doing is wrong”. He is right. And the entitled of the JLM are plain flat wrong.
Plus the UN General Assembly has, despite all that lobbying, voted in favour of granting full membership to Palestine, granting the state new rights and privileges, by 143 votes to 9, with 25 abstentions. The Guardian noted that the vote signalled “Israel’s growing isolation on the world stage”. Many EU member states are moving to recognise an independent Palestine.
Sadly, the leadership of the Labour Party, and in an election year most likely, has been caught out. Excusing the inexcusable shows a lack of empathy from shadow cabinet figures. It drives yet more voters away from the fold. It may not lose the party the General Election, but it will shrink its majority. Over time, this will only go one way. And not the way those heavy lobbyists want.
Israel has lost its free pass. Maybe for ever. Maybe not what they wanted.
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7 comments:
Oh the ironic tragedy of it all.
That the government of Israel should deploy the same failed murderous methods as those who tried to mass murder Jews in the last century.
The people of Gaza and their descendants will never forget. Nor will the current young generation of the West.
Call it by a name many will recognise - apartheid.
Israel is an apartheid state.
The current government would/is gladly doing to the Palestinians what Nazi Germany tried to do to Europe's Jews. Anyone else see the irony?
Further, Netanyahu cannot stop until Hamas is wiped out for fear of his governing coalition collapsing as the far right wing extremists withdraw. That the world's government's would rather support Netanyahu than stop genocide is a thing of great shame to us all.
The western worlds leaders sees the Palestinian cause as a pain in the arse they'd happily see go away. Its seen (by them) as the 'last great cause celebre of the left' and theres nothing the dominant neo liberal political hierarchy would love to see smashed than the left.
After all, it's simply not cricket to keep holding up their endless failings, cynicism, corruption and greed to them, now is it?
Lineker is spot on. This is genocide, perpetrated by a faction, Zionists who want to dominate Judaism. If a Jewish person speaks out, they are dismissed as self-hating Jews and that in itself reveals how institutionally racist Zionists are. They do not represent Judaism. For civilisation to occur we must be all pillars of equal height, real Jewish people understand this, along with Christians and Muslims etc.
In every aspect of humanity, you will get right wing elitists who want to be an exception, and dominate others. Zionists are Judaism's and are on par with Britain First/KKK, the Taliban etc.
That is the narrative we must stand by in order to make it clear to them, they might have the backing of the rightwing British and American politicians but not us, the civilians of our nation's. We see them as a menace to Judaism, on par with a threat to Islam and harmony.
Spot on Anonymous, 11th and 12th May.
Neoliberalism is the cause of our nation's decline.
It is indeed. Not just ours. It's often dismissed as a crackpot theory, but its actually the product of cynical minds steeped in the belief system of fixed hierarchy. Hence it was fed into by NAZI thinkers by the mid 40's. Essentially its modern feudalism, but without the elite having any of the social and legal obligations of the past.
Money is shovelled upwards, and remains locked there by off shore investments, banking and by buying up land. Private Eyes excellent map of who owns what (taken from land registry data) reveals just how much land has been bought up by so few.
The poor hindered by increasingly cynical changes to the benefit system, refusal to make meaningful changes to the rental system, and weak employment law, and ineffectual unions, remain locked in a vicious cycle.
Meanwhile the middle earners, terrified of falling into poverty, but increasingly unable to social climb due to debt, support the establishment purely to maintain their status.
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