You’re right, it’s a craven abdication of moral responsibility. We all know the background, and we all understand Starmer’s reasoning, but who really believes that once in government, Labour will do the right thing and confront the evil being perpetrated by the Israeli government and military?
The UK needs a new party in government, but if it’s just the same thing in different clothes, it’s not going to improve things at all.
A story in the New York Times that suggests incompetence rather than duplicity.
Duplicate of 1
Page not found
A report reporting on the story in 1
Doesn’t mention Israel knowing about the attacks.
A general timeline of the conflict Oct-Nov with no mention of Israel knowing about the initial attacks.
Another piece using the NYT article as a primary source. Again, it references that Isreal dismissed the intelligence as not credible, rather that suggesting that it was used to provide the pretext for genocide.
Analysis of how Hamas carried out the attack. Nothing about the allegation.
Another discussion of Hamas tactics. Nothing about the allegations
Another article about failures in Israeli leadership, pointing out that intelligence was dismissed as not credible.
So that’s the top ten articles from your ‘Google search’. Half of them aren’t relevant, two of them are circular reporting, and the ones that do suggest that Isreal knew about the attacks claim the intelligence was dismissed as lacking credibility, rather than being strategically used to justify the attacks.
Not one of those stories backs up the allegation. Suggesting that Isreal ignored intelligence that Hamas was planning an attack is interesting. Suggesting that they did so on purpose, sacrificing their citizens lives to justify a genocide is in the realms of conspiracy.
Labour are understandably nervous about the Palestinian situation, but there is rightly no space for a candidate spreading conspiracy theories.
My point was that a simple dumb-arse like me can find 10 links in no time at all which all come from more respected side of western media without any hint of far-right or anti-semetic extreame sites. So imagine the information that one of the countries top lawyers and someone with fairly wide security clearence could find if they bothered.
Instead he chose to bow down to the scare mongerers, tories and right wing newspapers out of fear.
Certainly differentiate between ordinary Jews wherever they are and Netanyahu. They should never allow such a self-serving criminal individual to speak for an entire people.
The UK Labour Party has longstanding links to the Israeli Labor Party. The Israeli side is rather weak now but has, at least, supported the peace process. I think that sort of diplomatic channel is far more useful than hollow sloganeering.
Honestly find this excusing and equivocating heartbreaking, as we witness the massacre of innocents. Is there no room for integrity at all? For humanity? They’re fucking cowards. They should stand against the Zionist lobby’s continued conflation of criticising Israeli government/IDF genocide with antisemitism.
It’s not understandable. I honestly feel like I live on a different planet. If 13,000 white children had been killed anywhere else the entire world would be outraged and intervening. It’s blatantly racist and astounding how otherwise reasonable people can’t see their own unconscious bias
I think you’ve moved the goalposts a bit there mate?
I don’t think there is any room for a political candidate to be spreading conspiracy theories that Israel allowed the killing of over a 1000 Israeli citizens so it could launch its campaign against Palestinians.
That isn’t a legitimate criticism of the state of Israel - it’s just nonsense, with more than a whiff of antisemitism about it.
The problem is that none of the links you posted said anything close to what you were suggesting. So what websites are you suggesting I look at? How deep down the rabbit hole do I have to go to find the content you are inviting me to look at?
It is heartbreaking. And let’s be clear that the current leadership of the Labour Party is partly complicit in the mess they have got themselves into over Gaza. They saw an opportunity to boot the previous leader, so played along with accusations of antisemitism. They didn’t think about the long term consequences of weaponising this issue - that at some point they would have to have take a critical position of Israel’s foreign policy.
There is undoubtedly a very successful operation by supporters and Lobbyists for Israel to conflate criticism of the states foreign policy with antisemitism. These voices have been emboldened and now hold a lot of sway in politics and the media.
By saying it’s understandable that Labour feel boxed in on the issue, please don’t think that I’m excusing the political opportunism and the short-term thinking that got the party into this mess.
I do think Corbyn could have been stronger and properly called it out, rather than trying to please everyone which was never going to happen. Sad in hindsight
I think he missed a huge chance to actually educate people, both about antisemitism and the wider middle-east issue. I think there were plenty of Jewish Labour members who would have been more than happy to help. It rather comes back to what I always thought about Corbyn, which was that he wasn’t a very effective leader.
Leading British Rabbi speaks out against Rafah invasion, but the Labour Party run scared of antisemitism claims
I can’t be the only one sick to death of hearing the phrase antisemitism?
The conduct of Israel since the horrific terrorist attacks by Hamas has been fucking attrocious.
And anyone & everyone has the absolute right to criticise that conduct without being accused of being antisemetic
There are plenty of Jewish voices critical of the actions of Israel in Gaza, but I just don’t think Starmer feels that the Labour Party can get involved. It only took a problem with a prospective candidate who quickly had his support withdrawn, for Tory Press to start screaming ‘Look!! they haven’t changed!!!’ BBC asking ‘Does Labour still have a problem with antisemitism’, prominent Jewish voices weighing in to criticise the Party.
When Corbyn was leader of the party, there was polling done on the issue of antisemitism in the party. The public were asked what percentage of Party members were under investigation for antisemitism. On average people thought about 34% - a guess 300 times greater than the actual figure.
It is really not hard to see why Labour just don’t want to get involved. Antisemitism has been very successfully conflated with criticism of Israel, and Labour have really struggled with that.
I wish that the Labour Party could be more bold on the issue, but the sole objective of the party right now is to get into power. Starmer is criticised for a lack of principled stance on a range of issues, but unless he is in power a principled stance is virtually worthless.
I remember a quote from a rabbi that was along the lines of: antisemites used to be used to describe people who hate Jews; now it seems to be used to describe people Jews hate.
That’s not to say that it’s not a thing. There are people who will spread all sorts of nonsense about Jewish people. There are even those that will assault people simply because they “look a bit Jewish”.
Clearly we have to protect those who may suffer from anti-Jewish sentiment. The best thing is to call out those who are committing atrocities my name, not ethnicity.
He would, but would have achieved nothing with it. He would not have altered israeli calculus or in any way shape or form made a cease fire more achievable.
He would however never have sent weapons to Ukraine for them to defend against an actual revanchist empire currently invading one of Europe’s actually largest states, which by far is the most destabilizing factor in the entire world today. He would instead have been in favour forcing Ukraine to capitulate, be partitioned and forever lose their political sovreignty. He would be in favour of the establishment of old school imperial spheres of influence de facto.
I think that is significantly worse myself and in particular since Starmer calling for a cease fire would not actually bring one about. Otherwise I agree and want a cease fire myself.
The word that @WeeJoe used was could not would. In other words Corbyn should have but didn’t…
Yes I know…
I get your point, but
Israel have already killed triple the number of civilians than Russia. Should we similarly be arming Palestinians to defend themselves? No we arm the aggressor instead. I just can’t get my head around the dissonance in how people think and talk about these two invasions
What a sad indictment of UK politics
A sad indictment of politics in general, as loathe as I am to make it one of those “they’re all the same” things. Long-termism rarely wins out.
This is the comment that in part prompted a wave of handwringing vitriol directed at Labour.
I’m sure when world leaders go home, like me, pardon my French they say ‘fucking Israel’ again.”
That’s all it took for this to kick off again.
If Starmer came out and criticised Israel, even in the terms used by the UN, I think it would be used as a stick to beat him.
Yes, he is. But that cuts across lots of issues. Starmer is currently jettisoning anything that can be used to attack the party. Take the 28bn green pledge as an example. Taking firm positions on policy and directions can only hurt Labour. It’s totally in Starmer’s interests to keep his mouth shut.