I find almost nothing in this to disagree with:
When will the UK government oppose genocide?
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It has been profiled ad nauseum that the two main parties are heavily lobbied*/controlled* ( * delete as seen fit) by the Israeli government – & have been for decades. The current gov’ did a bit of tokenism (a few odds and ends weapons export licenses were cancelled) but goes along more or less with what israel does. What would focus minds is pull the embassy, stop all flights to Israel and tell the Israeli gov to close its embassy. That is what should happen. It won’t.
For myself, I look closely when buying anything. If there is even a hint that it comes from Israel, it goes back on the shelf. There should be a total economic boycott until such times as those Israelis complicit in genocide are standing trial in the International Court in the Hague.
Not just the parties but much of the media.
The irony is support for Israel is of little or no benefit to the West and there is much which is antithetical.
They will not.
People are expendable because our government now has a corporatist view on things. They are 100% owned due to funding.
‘People’ just get in the way of corporations having THEIR way and meeting THEIR objectives.
Our government does not care at home that its people have been cast into the markets without proper protections and regulations and increased our exposure to risk – including death. We are nothing but units of exploitation and financial return.
Similarly our government feels even less responsible for those awful deaths in Gaza (those in Gaza don’t vote for our government you see).
The long game in the middle east is about oil which the West covets in order to keep it lifestyle choices going. And then what?
Well, the rich will just walk away, pull up their drawbridges and leave the politicians they have used to sort out what is left when they have got as much as they want. Hasn’t this been the basis of Western capitalism all along? This is just another iteration. Besides the weapons, there is no difference between (say) the red Indians who got in the way at Wounded Knee and the Palestinians in Gaza in principle.
And what is this I hear of a Christian community being hit by Israel? This is a real estate war, like most wars, the Israeli version of ‘Lebensraum’, copied itself from the American internal expansion into the lands of indigenous peoples . It will not matter who is in the way, the Israeli government has made its own reality, created enemies and used language to justify slaughter. And most of the West I think will sit back and cross their fingers.
As for Britain – well, apparently the intelligent thing to do is to go along with all this in the hope that our loyalty will leave us some crumbs from the table that will keep our unsustainable way of life going.
The whole thing is an appalling mess but I charge the United States of America whose protection of Israel at the UN has done nothing but emboldened them to this point and created revenge in organisations like Hezbollah and Hamas.
There is too much blood under bridge for a peaceful world now. That is my fear.
PSR said “People are expendable because our government now has a corporatist view on things. They are 100% owned due to funding.”
That’s my view, exactly. I’ve felt it for a long time, but it seems to have come into sharper focus under this government. It’s all of a piece with their general incompetence that they’re so c**p at hiding their vile underpinnings.
I’m sorry to say Richard this government never will and neither will either party of opposition.
The strangle hold of the US, Israel, right wing donors, and the far right MSM have on power in this country is all encompassing.
Jeremy Corbyn had to be stopped at all costs in case he brought about change,
A change that would have undermined all of these powerful interests and their cash flows.
The entire world now seems to be in the grip of morally depraved people without a scintilla of conscience, a large group who share a complete and utter disregard for climate change and the ensuing collapse of eco systems which before killing all life on earth will create billions of refugees.
To these people Gaza is simply an opportunity to exploit the resources and fossil fuels in Palestine in a bloodthirsty land grab.
Let’s not kid ourselves its not only that they couldn’t give a fuck it’s that they can smell money and power for themselves and in the case if Netanyahu in the hope that he can avoid the wrath of the Israeli electorate and a lengthy prison sentence.
Sorry for the language Richard but I am enraged by this.
The establishment of Labour Together, the organisation formed to remove Corbyn and which chose Starmer to succeed him, was funded by Trevor Chinn who is a an established conduit for funds from Israel. The very foundations of this government were set with the help of Israel. Bought and paid for.
When Starmer says “The UK stands with Israel” he most certainly does not speak for me.
Thank you, Richard A.
Although Labour Together Company Limited was founded in 2015, the group had existed since soon after Blair’s ouster and undermined Brown and Miliband so as to facilitate a Blairite resurgence and prevent the Labour left from organising.
Thank you. I note that current No.10 CoS, Morgan McSweeney, was also a director from 2017. Now resigned.
It’s not ‘moral and political cowardice’ that stopped Sunak and stops Starmer from behaving like normal human beings and withdrawing all support for the Israeli state.
Starmer’s UK government knows Israeli’s actions are morally wrong and illegal. He is 100% complicit in those murderous actions. He’s close to cheering Israel’s actions on. To do so openly would see him kicked out of office which is the only reason he comes up with the odd gesture to try to appear even handed. He’s nothing of the sort. He, and many others are bought and paid for. They should move to the Israeli state; it’s where their black hearts belong.
The UK public should take a stand against these genocidal maniacs. A general strike would hit their, and their backers’, profits. The pursuit of money is the only thing they understand.
We’re told Starmer was a humanitarian rights lawyer. Some who voted Labour might have thought him a socialist too. He’s not that either.
On a different matter altogether, I read your lovely National piece on Alex Salmond and thank you for it.
Thanks
I’ll share it here in a day or two
We are repeating the mistakes of the 1930’s.
But this time, we have no excuse. Genocide has been livestreamed round the world (mostly by gleeful members of the Israeli Defence force).
We cannot say, “We didn’t know”. Because we DO know.
The attack in N Lebanon, was on Aitou, a Maronite Christian village. 21 dead in an apartment block being used by displaced persons.
Meanwhile the massacres in Gaza, the torture in Israel’s detention centres, the murders and destruction in the West Bank, the disposessions in E Jerusalem continue on a daily basis.
One slightly hopeful legal ruling, from February, was published yesterday, by the employment tribunal that ruled “anti-Zionism” is a protected belief, and that being dismissed for expressing anti-Zionist views in England & Wales, is unlawful. https://www.gov.uk/employment-tribunal-decisions/dr-d-miller-v-university-of-bristol-1400780-slash-2022
The original blog / letter and the 7 responses so far have all been spot on. My fear is I don’t see a resolution or a way out from this horror.
Of the people burnt alive in Gaza one was a medical student who had been doing his best for the bombed children and others during the last year of random slaughter.
It has got to the point when the news ‘goes on to the next item’ almost makes one sick -. State sponsored war crimes and massacres, and as ICJ says danger of genocide – are not just an ‘item’.
This must be Germany in the thirties – ‘how could they let this happen’?
And Labour and Tories can be bought with a few tens of thousands pounds of donations – even a hundred thousand would be around two pounds per palestinian life.
What else can we do – writing to MP’s , going on demos with tens of thousands seems utterly ineffective.
‘General strike’? isnt going to happen . Chaining oneself to a van Gogh – get banged up for 5 years?
Hunger strikes?
Maybe we are all just letting it happen.
I fear we are in 30s Germany
But, when I took my sons to Dachau aged 16 and 15 the eldest suggested I would have been in there pretty early on.
Note, too, that when we do get reporting there is massive disparity in emphasis, e.g.:
* 4 Israeli soldiers are killed, we get: Names, ranks, potted life history, described as teenagers (19), smiling photos;
* Dozens of Palestinians (almost entirely non-combatants including actual children) are killed in a variety of horrific ways, we get: X Palestinians we killed.
Usually the Plestinians ‘died’: it is niot said they were killed
There is not even an acknowledgement that they were killed
I can’t, politely, say how I view the disparity in reporting you refer to.
It’s almost as if an Israeli life is worth 50 Gazan lives.
There is not much we can do. This has been building up for years if I recall correctly which I think that I do.
We – Jews, Muslims, Christians – whatever – are all of the same species and all we can do I feel is to bear witness to it.
And witness it we must.
Thank you, Richard.
That letter, although well meaning, may backfire. Why? Many people, including the MSM, see Corbyn and people with foreign, not British, names and are (encouraged by the MSM to be) put off. I’m sorry that this has to be said.
Have readers and Richard noticed the subtle racism and portrayal of, often and for example, people on benefits? “They don’t look like me…” Reagan and Clinton continued Nixon’s southern strategy in their campaigns.
I remember this in France as early as 1981. Front National posters around Provence said: “Je paye. Tu payes. Ils touchent.”
When working in Switzerland from 2007 – 14, I noticed, too. One Swiss government TV news report about STDs showed a naked mixed couple, black man hugging and kissing a blonde.
It’s uncomfortably commonplace, I agree
I refuse to be bowed by it
Thank you, Richard.
“When will the UK Government oppose Genocide?” Quite frankly, when companies in the UK stop making money off Genocide. War is not really political at its roots but economic, it is fought over access to resources and funded by profiteers who grow fat on the deaths of the innocent.