The Politics Thread
- Thread starter Wandering Yid
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The Lincoln Project is an organisation formed by Republicans.
So which happens
a.) Nandy is sacked for antisemitism
b.) Margaret Hodge calls Nandy "a ****ing antisemite and a racist"
c.) Nothing
a.) Nandy is sacked for antisemitism
b.) Margaret Hodge calls Nandy "a ****ing antisemite and a racist"
c.) Nothing
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Over to you, Keir...
There is rather a big difference between objecting to specific illegal behaviour by Israel and making a general assertion about Israeli involvement in events in another country.
This is the problem: no there isn't, as both tend to get shouted down with the exact same baseless assertion
Case in point...
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Just because people deliberately fudge the difference between fact and prejudice doesn't mean there isn't one.
Accusing Israel of being implicated in the police murder of George Floyd just because their police trained US officers and have used similar force is pure prejudice similar to the reasoning used for stop and search.
I understand that Israel does bad things, I understand why it is likened to an apartheid regime I really do. What I don't get is why wrath is not evenly distributed toward all governments that have a poor record of treating their citizens. And if that is so, why is Israel a "special case". No I am not calling those that condemn Israel to be anti-semites. Absolutely not, and I completely agree that it is possible to criticise the government of Israel without criticising Jewish people. But too often these things cross over, and if the news carries a disproportionate number of stories of Israel treatment of the Palestinians, is there some bias when so many other stories are not covered to the same extent?
So I ask this, is a Palestinian death worth more than, say, a Syrian death. Because for example the Syrian civil war has been raging for many years concurrent with problems of the West Bank and perhaps half a million people have been killed. Has the reporting been in proportion to that fact? Let's narrow this down to Palestinians. Apparently 235,000 Palestinians have been displaced as a result of the Syrian Civil War, and 4,000 have been killed. Can you imagine the news stories had Israel done the same thing? How many were killed in the Egyptian civil war and associated uprisings? So yes, boycott Israeli goods if you must. I have no problem with people that have a moral stance on such matters. But what about boycotting the goods of other countries that abuse their citizens? Do you boycott goods from Syria? Do you boycott goods from Saudi Arabia and other middle eastern countries - they're pretty brutal to many of their citizens - perhaps you shouldn't use their petrol. And another big abuser is of course China. Perhaps you should boycott their goods too.
So I ask this, is a Palestinian death worth more than, say, a Syrian death. Because for example the Syrian civil war has been raging for many years concurrent with problems of the West Bank and perhaps half a million people have been killed. Has the reporting been in proportion to that fact? Let's narrow this down to Palestinians. Apparently 235,000 Palestinians have been displaced as a result of the Syrian Civil War, and 4,000 have been killed. Can you imagine the news stories had Israel done the same thing? How many were killed in the Egyptian civil war and associated uprisings? So yes, boycott Israeli goods if you must. I have no problem with people that have a moral stance on such matters. But what about boycotting the goods of other countries that abuse their citizens? Do you boycott goods from Syria? Do you boycott goods from Saudi Arabia and other middle eastern countries - they're pretty brutal to many of their citizens - perhaps you shouldn't use their petrol. And another big abuser is of course China. Perhaps you should boycott their goods too.
Syria is a very poor country which is under EU and UK sanctions. Its GDP per person is about a tenth of Israel's. Israel gets all sorts of help and is pretty much a special case in that regard.
Nobody implicated Israeli police in the death of George Floy. One again, here's the full quote: "The tactics used by the police in America, kneeling on George Floyd’s neck, that was learnt from seminars with Israeli secret services."
Note how that doesn't say Mossad agents killed George Floyd, yet that's how the David Colliers of the world have tried twisting it - and, as I also said before, if the Independent's retraction wasn't patently untrue the Streisand Effect wouldn't have more people pointing out that, oh yeah, Israeli forces do kneel on the necks of Palestinians, which wouldn't have happened if Starmer wasn't looking for an excuse to get Long-Bailey out of the way
And let;s talk about that last point for a moment: the fact that Long-Bailey has been replaced by the chairperson of the chicken coup really says a lot about the narrow seminary that Starmer's running, doesn't it? The real question is how long before he tries to find an excuse to get Angela Rayner and Emily Thornberry out the door
I think you are missing my point. I'll try an analogy. If it said
"The shoot to kill tactics used by the police in America, that were learnt from observing black gangsters."
Surely you would think that was racist?
The point is that Maxine Peake had no need to mention Israel at all in her piece and the fact that she did implied prejudice. It was very harsh on Long-Bailey to get sacked for retweeting but I suspect Starmer was looking for an opportunity to take action that would contrast with Johnson.
The point is that not only do Israeli police use tactics where they kneel on necks but they have taught these methods in the US, meaning that the Indy's retraction is patently false
In terms of Long-Bailey, what really sticks out is that in recent weeks she's been sidelined in favour of Rachel Reeves (yes, the same Rachel Reeves who has not been disciplined for tweeting in support of noted antisemite Nancy Astor...) and Jess Phillips on education in spite RLB being shadow education secretary, and what makes that stick out more that the obvious is that while RLB stood firm in saying that pupils shouldn't be rushed back into school, both Reeves and especially Phillips were of the "Everything's fine, go outside!" camp - and what really sticks out about this is how de Pfeffel got a few good shots at Starmer at PMQs a couple of weeks ago over his shift from keeping pupils at home until the threat level drops to 1 to bundling pupils back into classrooms even though it's still at 4, a position Starmer wouldn't have even taken if he wasn;t sidelining RLB for the gruesome twosome
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...and on the subject of being ****ing stupid, perhaps the Electoral Commission would like to take a look at what Mark Francois has been posting on Parler
...I notice that none of you were surprised to learn that Mark Francois is on Parler
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...I notice that none of you were surprised to learn that Mark Francois is on Parler
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The interesting thing is the original comment appears to have been deleted
It's almost as if Francois didn't realise Parler isn't WhatsApp...
How many stores sell mostly stuff made in China? I bet it's impossible to count.Not bad for a Communist country that will stab you in the back.
Yes indeed, Israel is treated as a "special case", but how justified is that? More special than Syria clearly (although 500,000 deaths should make it particularly special), more special than Saudi Arabia, more special than China? How about more special than Turkey - whose reason for intervening in the Syrian Civil War might have something to do with their desire to kill more Kurds - the Turkey-Kurdish conflict has resulted in at least 40,000 deaths since 2012. There are a lot of horrible things going on and only a limited amount of news "bandwidth" to report them. So why is so much of it concerned with Israel?
I meant it actually is a special case. There is no other country that has been founded in the last 100 years on land that used to belong to others, had an influx of rich European settlers and has received billions of aid from Europe and the US. I think that civilised behaviour is the least that can be expected in return. As I pointed out Syria is already subject to sanctions. Saudi Arabia ought to be subject to sanctions. Not so sure about Turkey and China. While their behaviour is reprehensible in many ways it is little different from what we did recently in Ireland.