As the Guardian has noted:
Nearly 60 Labour MPs have demanded the UK immediately recognises Palestine as a state, after Israel's defence minister announced plans to force all residents of Gaza into a camp on the ruins of Rafah.
The MPs, who include centrist and leftwing backbenchers, sent a letter to David Lammy on Thursday warning they believed Gaza was being ethnically cleansed.
There are three questions.
First, why has it taken so long?
Second, why only 60? Are the rest happy with what is happening in Gaza?
Third, why is Labour's right wing so complacent about genocide? Does ethnic cleansing not matter to them, or would they rather not associate with those who are 'left wing'?
Opinion polls make it clear where the country is on this issue. Why can't Labiur get its cat together?
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Silence in the face of atrocities is not neutrality.
You rightly put the word “genocide” into your headline.
I notice the Guardian sub-editor didn’t. Not even “ethnic cleansing”, not even “war crime”.
So the visible material on the online front page of the Guardian, is simply “Nearly 60 Labour MPs call for UK to immediately recognise Palestinian State”.
Not the most clickable headline is it?
That omission is a calculated one.
It was made at a high level. It is inexcusable.
As is the complicity of our government MPs, and silent backbenchers.
“What did YOU do to stop the genocide, Mummy/Daddy?”
“Nothing darling. Nothing at all. LFI wouldn’t let me. It’s complicated.”
The Guardian deletes any comment that uses the word ‘genocide’ in connection with Gaza, however, reasonable and evidenced it might be – even when it’s in a quote from Wikipedia, in turn quoting independent legal and human rights authorities.
The Guardian is complicit.
I think they’ve sacked any journalist who’d dare to write anything management might consider to be too close to the bone. They are establishment boot-lickers. More a comic than a newspaper. They disrespect their readership by deleting anything controversial in comments or “disappear” comments altogether.
To be fair, they’ve quite possibly been scared into this sort of behaviour by the threat of SLAPP injunctions.
I think that you meant to say ‘act’ not ‘cat’ – although trying to herd to herd cats certainly would mean that you would not be able to get your act together and is not lost on me!!
My view is that there has been a lot of fear created about anti-Semitism in the Corbyn era that still lingers in Labour. The pro-Zionist lobby use their own history of being persecuted very well for their own means – the cynicism here is without borders.
No one believed at first that Jews were being exterminated in WW2 – it took a while to be taken on board and believed – some times for racial , anti-Semite reasons and other times because it had not been seen before (well it had – the Armenian genocide, but that was under reported I believe).
What complicates Gaza is that HAMAS did attack Israel and that attack served as a cloaking operation for the Israeli response. Initially it all looked very black and white.
I also believe that at the root of all this is good old fashioned racism. The poor Gazans are not white Caucasian. Being a brown Caucasian these days is like having a target on your back I imagine. It makes me sick to be honest.
Apologies for the typo.
And much to note.
I’m surprised PSL had time to notice your type. He seemed to be twice as busy trying “to herd to herd cats”
Sorry sorry sorry sorry
Apologies to all
I couldn’t help myself.
Without doubt, Hamas did attack Israelis. But that was never the start of the issue. The Israel government, by concentrating on that attack invites people to ignore their illegality
Indeed. As I recall, from numerous sources, the French Resistance (all of the Resistances) employed violent and terrorist tactics against the occupying Germans. The result was a series of atrocities in which, for example, a number of French villages were wiped out in revenge. Nobody thinks those war crimes were justified because Germans had been attacked.
Agreed
Their consciences are untroubled? Perhaps they don’t have consciences?
Alternatively, it’s easier to ignore if it’s not happening to them and theirs or happening in their country.
Just theories. I don’t understand such people and never will.
I categorically do not understand the weste4rn world’s support for Israel. I have never understood it, I don’t understand why one country can get away with breaches of UN resolutions, why their treatment of other human beings, which was disgraceful before the current nnihilation, has been, not only tolerated, but encouraged. I understand and agree that Israel has a right to self defence. But so does Palestine. I understand and agree that the people of Israel should be able to live without fear of violence. But so shoud the people of Palestine.
I don’t understand. But I like the ideas of Labour getting its cat together. 🙂
Cyndy
Interesting response.
Consider this:
Support for Zionism in the West is nothing more but an expression of a mixture of anti-Semitism and NIMBYism, because the anti-Semitists want the Jews to live anywhere but next door to them. The fact that a bunch of Palestinian Muslims and Christians and whatever are in the way does not matter, helped along by a significant dose of racism.
Israel is a symbolism of repeated failures to live together and I can see why it got into existence. And without a two-state solution, even more will it signify failure. The Alt-Right who talk of ‘Judo-Christian unity’ in opposition to Islam are pure fantasists ignoring repeated evidence of the intolerance ingrained in Christianity (where forgiveness reigns and is abused). But even Islamic societies can have their moments of madness.
FWIW I have lived with Jews, Muslims, Sikhs etc., all my life. They are different which is refreshing and colourful and interesting. Having been made to sing hymns and pray to God all my life I cannot say the same of Christianity which I see as repressive and also hypocritical. Christianity’s greatest gift to me has been Jesus – a bloke I could go to the pub with and vote for in equal measure. But he did not die for my sins. Jesus died because he opened his mouth and spoke the truth about man’s stewardship of his affairs which comes up well short of what he stood for.
I am sorry, PSR, But the first part of your assessment does not add up. There are far more Jewish people in Western countries than there are in Israel. I hope very much that continues. Conflating thr war crimes of the Israeli government with Jewish people does not make sense.
And, aqs far as any and every organised religion is concerned, I think that forcing a child to be a part of any organised religion should be considered child abuse and they should all be banned. Speaking as someone who genuinely believes nothing should ever be banned.
Some of my thoughts:
You wrote: ‘Second, why only 60?’ There was a recent post on Facebook (I think) listing many thousands of pounds donated to about 10 cabinet members by Israeli interests – including a very large sum donated to Yvette Cooper – all allegedly.
If true, then – answer 1- bribery!
More questions than three!
Why is *any* MP ‘accepting of what is happening in Gaza?’ Why is any parent – anyone who has ever loved a child ‘accepting of what is happening in Gaza?’
Answer 2: Weariness of so much bad news, a lack of conviction that their voices and actions matter, an unwillingness to go against the wishes of ‘leaders’.
Prime Minster Edward Heath explained the intensity of his commitment to the European project. He had been an artillery officer in WW2. Though he had never seen any death that they had caused, he had seen the damage to property done by his unit – and he was determined to do what he could to prevent anything like it in future.
Answer 3 – No experience of the horrors of war. Distracted by sport and entertainment – and limited imagination.
At the election in 1945 after ‘Victory in Europe’ the overwhelming number of voters – including two of my uncles who had been in the army – wanted a fairer, more compassionate society. A huge majority voted in Attlee to create the NHS and the welfare state. The press had been subject to war-time censorship. They thought Churchill would win so they were more muted than they have been since – God help us!
Answer 4 – the right wing press bears heavy responsibility for the evil of genocide in Gaza and the ethnic cleansing campaign in the West Bank etc. Very rich proprietors appear to be manipulative and short sighted. They seem not to connect with ordinary human values.
What keeps them there?
Kompromat and ambition?
That, and fear of deselection for stepping out of line.
Labour seems to be complicit in Israeli activities. They don’t look complacent. I believe they know that what they are seeing is wrong. Though they may believe that their actions are not illegal. Milosevic always maintained that he was never guilty. Politicians do not think that they are. They have the mentality of Nixon.
Labour politicians are exactly the sort of people that right thinking voters should never have elected.
Given how successfully Zionists have captured our Politics who else has managed to do the same and to what extent?
Neolibtards & bankers – brainwashed the politicos over 45+++ years. This also links to the zionists, ref Col Smithers comment about Goldman Sachs meeting with the BoE once per month & wondering if e.g. the unions had similar access. @ a public meeting he was heckled by two journalists claiming the comment was antisemitic.
The backlash against all this (and there will be one) will be interesting & it will go very very hard with some sections of society.
When you see wrongdoing and injustice and don’t act, when you allow lies to become your truth your soul corrodes.
We need right thinking politicians, like these 60 Labour MP’s, to head off ‘zombie leadership’.
I think probably the answer lies in the degree to which the Israeli /Zionist lobby has infiltrated the Labour Party, especially at the top. If younger ambitious MPs want to get on politically, and receive preferment and political promotion, if they perceive how pro-Israel and indifferent to the Palestinian cause is to the movers and shakers at the top of Labour, they behave accordingly. It is not by any coincidence this number of hitherto quiet-on-Gaza MPs have found their voice now they have noticed what collective action against the Labour leadership can achieve ( in the partial revolt against the welfare bill reforms)
I would recommend the book by Asa Winstanley of the Electronic Infada titled “Weaponising Anti-Semitism: how the Israel lobby brought down Jeremy Corbyn” – one of the most chilling, fully documented examples of a foreign power interfering in the politics of a Parliamentary democracy, and getting away with it. Al-Jazeera also broadcast a four-part series “The Lobby” which covers some of the same ground, and includes covert & incriminating recordings of Labour figures plotting with diplomats from the Israeli embassy to undermine Corbyn. It is alarming and depressing in equal amounts, how fragile our democracy is to being subverted by malign foreign powers. And the press all along kept reporting it was Russia that was interfering.
Being a Labour MP is simply a job and a career for most MP’s. It’s been that way since the 90’s when the right wing of the party won the argument that power, not principles was the WHOLE point of being in the Labour Party. They triangulate every issue, genocide included, in terms of whether it makes Labour more or less likely to hold power, and on a personal level as to how it affects their career. I am sure like NHS staff many are genuinely upset about Palestine, but like NHS staff woe betide anyone who brings that shit up in the workplace.
And it’s a class issue. Being a Labour MP is a middle class career, and like everything else the middle classes will sacrifice literally anything to retain their status, including accepting fascism as in America, or turning a blind eye to genocide as happened in Germany and now happens with Palestine.
Like every other horrible issue in our late-fucked-capitalism, until ordinary people act as a group to change history in our own best interests these horrors will continue and worsen
Stevie Anderson would be better not making such sweeping generalisations.
I worked for several Labour MPs: just to mention two: one was a workers’ educational association teacher, the other an industrial chemist for British Steel.
David
You appear very keen on attacking people who make reasonable claimns here. Stevie Anderson’s claim was fair – and, I honk, fair criticism of many Labour MPs.
This is your final warning – breach it and you will be blocked.
You can offer counter evidence, and you can reason. But referring to past Labour MPs is no evidence of anything now. So, you are the person who needs to retract here.
Richard
Neoliberals and the CIA have been responsible for the overthrow of democratically elected leaders of several countries since the Second World War, and replaced them with far-right or fascist governments, in order to divert resources and minerals to US multinationals.
1953: Iran, Mohammad Mosaddegh
1954: Guatemala, Jacobo Árbenz Guzmán
1961: Congo, Patrice Lumumba
1964: Brazil, João Goulart
1973: Chile, Salvador Allende
At least Britain’s left-wing parties, and public service utilities are safe. Oh wait…
Source:
Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, 3rd Edition (2023) by John Perkins
https://amzn.eu/d/69vy3yg
John Perkins: Exploiting the developing world as an economic hit man | The InnerView
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8pGnv9Xk-i0
Torture ‘for your amusement’: How Thatcher’s government misled MPs and public about its dealings with the Pinochet regime (2020)
https://www.declassifieduk.org/torture-for-your-amusement-how-thatchers-government-misled-mps-and-public-about-its-dealings-with-the-pinochet-regime/
I think this is accurate. Student at the University of Edinburgh staged a walk-out of their graduation ceremony in protest against the university’s financial ties to companies involved in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Number of mainstream news reports: 0.
Sources
The walk-out (on X): https://x.com/hippyygoat/status/1943933371798733237
UoE must act on UN report (3 July 2025)
https://www.ucuedinburgh.org.uk/blog/7nhe6nfect3a9djkczclnakgp6m9zc
I have seen Reels showing this – real courage.
Looks like the McEwan Hall where I graduated nearly 50 years ago, and where I heard student Rector Gordon Brown make a few noisy speeches.
Well done Edinburgh!
There is an interesting confluence (is that the right word?) between the number of Labour MPs (just under 60) signing a letter to the PM about recognising a new state in the Middle East, and the number of terrorism arrests (60) in one day, today, involving the use of cardboard and marker pens, across the UK.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jul/12/arrests-for-second-week-running-at-london-event-that-references-palestine-action
We are obviously going to need a statement from the government about this unprecedented surge in terrorist incidents, I can’t remember it being this bad during my lifetime. Some of them are even vicars! I hope tomorrow’s sermons are all going to be monitored for terrorist content.
Meanwhile, something that merely produces “concern” and handwringing from our Foreign Secretary, children being murdered as they try to obtain food. This is now a daily event, and doesn’t even get to the front pages.
https://www.itv.com/news/2025-07-10/children-queuing-for-aid-at-medical-centre-in-gaza-killed-in-israeli-strike
Jack Straw once promised us that terrorism legislation would never be used to suppress protest. Thanks Jack. Got any observations on the current wave of cardboard terror sweeping the country?
Thanks
My favourite example of BBC Israeli- speak was on the News bulletin which reproduced uncritically the Israeli description of their proposed concentration camps for Gazans as creating “confined spaces”!
To avoid confusion
By “right thinking” I mean sensible