As the FT noted a couple of days ago:
Minouche Shafik, the president of Columbia University in New York, has resigned following months of criticism over her handling of student protests after the outbreak of war between Hamas and Israel.
Shafik's handling of this issue was utterly unacceptable, conflating anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism, when they are in no way the same thing. The response she authorised was decidedly heavy-handed.
But as the FT also notes:
Shafik angered faculty members by revealing the names of academics who were still under investigation for alleged antisemitism while being questioned in Congress, and drew condemnation for suspending students and calling in New York police to break up encampments on campus.
Her hardline stance triggered copycat protests and clashes between students and police at other campuses across the US and in other countries.
Shafik, a former senior figure at the World Bank and Bank of England who has been at Columbia for about a year, said in her letter she had been asked by the new UK government to chair a review of “its approach to international development and how to improve capability”.
Note the last paragraph to learn all you need to know about Labour's approach to genocide and Zionism. Unbelievably, a person effectively dismissed because of her gross mishandling of responses to these issues is now to advise Labour on its approach to international development. You cannot make up something so utterly inept.
Never forget Stamer's Labour's biases, I now say. They are readily apparent and ugly in their international consequences, as well as for people around the world.
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However, this response by the UK at the UN is a lot better than what we have seen recently from the previous govt.
We’ve not heard this sort of criticism of Israel before.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TBMy6EQdaNs
Repeating myself, we know hundreds of officials in the EU, Uk and US, back in February signed a letter saying we were at grave risk of complicity in war crimes. There may well be an internal struggle between the political classes and the civil servants.
and I note the University of St Andrews sacked a Rector. https://www.heraldscotland.com/opinion/24494936.shame-st-andrews-must-reinstate-sacked-rector/
We still have no decision on Israeli war crimes though
Where’s the Labour Party membership in all of this? Oh yes they’ve been vapourised!
When one considers the reality of modern Israel, we know – or should – that it is more than the Israel of Netanyahu and his henchman. There are those citizens of Israel who do not like their country’s treatment of Palestine and do not want forever wars.
My only conclusion is that Labour must be playing to the monied side of the international and England based Jewish pro-Zionist establishment and keeping in with them should a few coppers come their way for party funding from the redevelopment of Gaza and wherever else Israel is stealing land from Palestinian people.
And, for reassurance ,there is nothing anti-Semitic (but probably heretical to some) that I have just said. I only opine based on what I see – a huge opportunity for internal expansion in real estate that will generate huge revenues for developers and the Israeli state and the rich who fund and invest in real estate there – following the usual Western economic dream.
The ‘Promised Land’ is no longer a spiritual project. It is now merely an exercise in real estate, although a lethal one, both in the short and the long term.
I feel that I must point out that when I mention the internationalism of pro-Zionism I am not in anyway using a trope of the Nazis or other Antisemitism. Absolutely not.
All I am referring to is the ability of movements (any denomination or ideology, whether for good or ill) to move influence and money fluidly around the globe. That is all.
Our interest in these matters should always be in what are the consequences of that internationalism.
I could not identify anti-Semitism what you wrote
Dera PSR
You are right in that there are some brave people in Israel (and Jewish people in the rest of the world) who are opposed to Netanyahu and the Likud agenda. People like Gideon Levy and Ilan Pappe ( at Exeter University). Whether there are enough in the state of Israel is another matter.
I suspect the support in western capitals is about more than Near Eastern real estate. It is probably as much about systems of power and influence in the west. AIPAC and CFI come to mind.
I read a number of posts which assume ‘behind the scenes control by various groups or people’. Things are assumed to be almost monolithic. But in the real world, the people trying to control things get replaced as they retire , die or fall our with the others. People in those situations are usually ambitious and wanting to advance their agenda.
The last 10 months has brought the whole context of the situation to the attention of many people and brought new people into the issue. We have heard of some open dissent in the establishment. There will be more of which we don’t hear. Change often happens incrementally out of sight but there comes a tipping point and a sudden (over months possibly) collapse. Of course, it might be crushed by the system but my feeling is cracks are appearing.
Ian
I agree.
Watch the documentary ‘Two Blue Lines’ (2015) – it is a real eye opener, although HAMAS attack in October may have changed things substantially.
Also, ‘The U.S. and the Holocaust’ (2022) – it is amazing that a country with such rampant antisemitism is also Israel’s biggest ally. Who is using who I wonder?
[…] Never forget Labour’s ugly biases Funding the Future […]
Just for the record; Most people in the USA do NOT understand the difference between anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism.
Zionism is anti-Semitic.
Absolutely it is.
I agree as I know the definition of both terms.
I was just making the point that many people in the USA do not understand the definition differences, may use the words interchangeably and therefore do NOT know what they are speaking of.
Agreed
Only reported in Scottish press? I haven’t seen anything elsewhere yet.
https://www.thenational.scot/news/24524719.foreign-office-diplomat-quits-israel-arms-sales/
Good for the National, I say
Well done Mark Smith, that’s a chink of light at least. It’s also been reported by Yahoo and some indies, but conspicuous silence elsewhere.
The statement from the FCDO at the end echoes an equivocating reply I recently received from Hamish Falconer, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Middle East, via my MP:
“The UK operates a robust system of export controls, set out in the Strategic Export Licensing Criteria. It states that items may not be exported where there is a clear risk that they might be used to commit or facilitate a serious violation of International Humanitarian Law (IHL). The Foreign Secretary has commissioned a comprehensive review of Israel’s compliance with IHL. That review process is underway. It is complex and requires careful consideration. The Foreign Secretary will make public his decision as soon as that process is complete.”
Complex and requires careful consideration… They’re clearly living in a parallel moral universe.
Agreed
(sent here from nakedcapitalism)
I see you’ve rather changed your tune since I was last here. At that time, Jeremy Corbyn criticising Israel was anti Semitic and you knew it was because as an Irish person you’d experienced the same sort of racism. You invited people who disagreed to leave and not return to your writings, which I faithfully did until following a link today from NC without checking the provenance.
Perhaps now we can both agree that Jeremy was exactly right on the subject and was the victim of a scurrilous smear campaign by the same people who have now installed Starmer.
Or are pro Palestine readers still unwelcome?
Yes, I have changed my mind
What do you do when the evidence changes?
Despite what I had seen of Labour close up I did not believe it was as rigged as it clearly was. I got that wrong. We all make mistakes.
It takes a confident person to admit they were wrong and an intelligent person to explain why they were wrong.
Sir, I tip my hat to you. I would give a curtsey but Yanks do not do curtsies.
Thanks
Curtsies never required
Thank you Richard, I appreciate that reply.
I will make it a habit again to read your blog, which I had always found interesting and insightful.
Geoff
Thanks
Good to note.
I know it’s your blog. I think it is ok to disagree. But we (inc you) should always try to treat folk (even if we disagree) with respect. I know you get trolled. I don’t suffer that. But not everyone who disagrees with you is a troll ….. Yada Yada yada.
Glad you can be gracious. But the real issue is establishing arguments for progress. You do a lot of that well.
I discussed this with my wife yesterday, who as a former GP knows a bit about mental health.
She reckons given the abuse I get (you don’t see most of it and I do not look at replies on some social media platforms precisely because of it) the fact that I am only a bit brusque on occasion after suffering this for so long is amazing.
Sure, I sometimes appear annoyed. But the reality is that’s the way to survive doing this. Sorry.
Thank you, Richard.
Shafik is the ex wife of PIMCO’s Mohammed El Erian and, along with her ex, part of the Ed and Andrew Balls and Yvette Cooper gang. Luckily, China and Russia have supplanted the colonial powers and their Bretton Woods proxies as the preferred development partners of choice.
“a former senior figure at the World Bank and Bank of England” a safe pair of hands an important person & not somebody that will rock the boat.
Her reaction to the on-going genocide/murders in Gaza & those protesting are in line with LINO policy & thus she fits in perfectly.
What is clear is that our views and thoughts and those of other UK serfs and peasants don’t count, they never have, they never will, pace – some change.
The view in LINO is that it is all very unfortunate that some brown people are being murdered enmass – but nothing to do with the Uk gov, its arms suppliers…. and we wouldn’t want our nice relationship with Israel upset would we?
In the time I have written this, another Gazan has been murdered by the IDF – all in self defense – natch.
I fear that The Labour Party is in the pay of supporters of the current Government of Israel, which will not do either Israel or the UK any favours
Many now hold that opinion
Might « Labour’s ugly biases » approximate to « Labour’s connections with the Establishment/the Deep State »?
Uncensored truth.
The Zionist-inspired Israeli government is intent on complete elimination of Palestinians, whether by bombs and bullets, provided by Israel’s allies, and famine or disease, resulting from obstruction of essential supplies and services.
By contrast with the muted reporting by Western media outlets, Al Jazeera is providing a 24/7 flow of verifiable verbal and graphic information on the unrelenting genocidal massacre of Palestinians, along with the destruction of the socio-economic structures in Gaza and the Occupied Territories.
This information is being provided through social media by both victims and perpetrators, as well as by observers that include personnel of relief agencies, aghast at the circumstances and events they are witness to, while a handwringing international justicial system stands apparently impotent.
But it need not be this way, even if the US government insists on backing for the unconditional right of the ‘sovereign’ state of Israel to defend its citizens and territory.
Before it was admitted to the UN, Israel had been founded in the period leading up to 1947-8 by genocidal acts of terrorism, murder and mass expulsion of Palestinians from their homeland. If Hamas’ acts of terrorism and murder cannot be legitimised, nor can those perpetrated in the establishing of an Israeli territory in Palestine.
The UN should suspend recognition of Israel as a sovereign state, pending cessation of current hostilities and blockade of essential supplies, and commencement of ‘good faith’ negotiations about it’s future between the current occupants of the territory of Palestine.
I see no benefit from not recognising Israel.
It needs to be held to account for its government’s genocide.
No government of any state should be permitted to do what it is doing. Period.
If you ‘cancel’ a country, you make the citizens essentially citizens of nowhere – with no rights or status and then horrible things can happen.
History is full of examples of this.
In have no desire at all to cancel Israel
So not very bright people get to the top in american universities , not only in the UK