Sir Keir Starmer - Labour Party Leader

[jeanmid]

As far as I can gather the article she retweeted was the interview with Maxine Peake in the Independent. And this is, I assume, the "anti semitic conspircay theory"



How the actual fuck is that anti semitic? I can see how it could be construed as a conspiracy theory, but it;s anti semitic because it involves Israel? Get to fuck with this shit

https://twitter.com/Daniel_Sugarman/...64014054260736

[ad hoc]

Well that tweet just says "criticism of Israeli government policy and action is by definition anti semitic"

It's utter shit. All truly progressive people are anti semitic by these ludicrous definitions. How does this remotely help us to eradicate actual anti semitism?

[Ray de Galles]

That is indeed the passage in question and I had the same question.

There are now claims that RLB has spoken about the role of the "Israeli Lobby" in Labour's election defeat and that her promotion of the Peake interview is " not an isolated incident".

This is going to get uglier, I'm afraid, and is manna from heaven for the Tories.

Do you think so? The initial reaction I've heard on radio coverage was to contrast Starmer's action positively with Johnson's indulging Jenrick. Though I'm willing to believe that may not be a universal or lasting response.

I must admit I didn't see the anti-semism in Peake's original claim, other people I know on social media (a few of them former OTFers) did and before the RLB issue blew up.

There is a lot of weight being placed on her being sacked for not deleting the tweet when asked to by Starmer/his people.

[fatbear]

Irrespecitve of whether or not this was anti-semetic or just anti-Israel, from what I have read RLB has been pretty stupid, and if I was the leader, I wouldn't want stupid people in my shadow cabinet .

[Nefertiti2]

the indepoendent are now condemning their own article

https://twitter.com/stephenburanyi/status/1276183251242160128?s=20

[Nefertiti2]

Jew here. Criticising Israel is not antisemitic.

[Nefertiti2]

Well, there'a a centrist gleefest going on over at FB over this. The project is becoming more and more apparent; the restoration of the party to the triumphant days of 2015.

no- they want the heady days in their imagination when the King over the Water, the right Miliband won the crown.

proper Labour values include not only PFI and privatisation, but going to war and torturing brown people for the USA

[Gangster Octopus]

And no immigration.

[Evariste Euler Gauss]

Believe it or not, it is possible to be a Corbyn sceptic, objecting for example to his promotion of Stalin apologist Andrew Murray to a key party role. and to his failure to resist Brexit, while nonetheless taking the view that Starmer has got this RLB thing badly wrong and that he has been spineless in pandering to those who deliberately equate criticism of the Israeli state's crimes against humanity with anti-Semitism. No way is Starmer's bad call on this specific issue any indictment of centrism, the two are entirely mutually independent issues.

[jeanmid]

Well that tweet just says "criticism of Israeli government policy and action is by definition anti semitic"

It's utter shit. All truly progressive people are anti semitic by these ludicrous definitions. How does this remotely help us to eradicate actual anti semitism?

No it doesn't read the tweet again.

[Nefertiti2]

If only they were.
U
Thanks for criticising Starmer on this but I think the number of the centrists prepared to speak out against Israel can be Counted on the fingers of one hand.

Indeed it’s fascinating how many defend the right to criticise Israel in the abstract but never get round to it
and desecribe anyone else’s criticism of Israel to be antisemitic.
Even now instead of criticising the fact that Israeli police train American police in crowd control using the lessons of learned in their illegal occupation the Talking point is Rebecca long Bailey and Maxine Peake’s anti-Semitism cr spoken out about it.


Israeli police do train US police. IN Some of the more gruesome crowd control techniques
https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/i...-neck-protests

[Nefertiti2]

Goysplain me, jeanmid.

[San Bernardhinault]

I may be parsing too narrowly here, but I think "centrist" used in these discussions really means "Labour Centrist". Not people who've come to some ideological position that's mostly laissez faire with the presence of a social safety. The Labour Centrist seems to have no ideological compass and instead is focused on winning power, and seems to believe that winning power depends on not being seen to pander to leftist causes (as defined by the idiot right), a need to triangulate that triangulates to somewhere on the right. Which leads to all kinds of disingenuous non-arguments.. "Of course not all criticism of Israel is anti-semitic. We absolutely must be allowed to criticise Israel, and we will criticise them when they do something wrong, but you have to understand that Israel must defend itself..."

[jeanmid]

Goysplain me, jeanmid.

https://twitter.com/simonmontefiore/...41708640731137

https://twitter.com/adamlangleben/st...84448917266438

I'm not a jew but those two are. Not to mention

https://twitter.com/adamlangleben/st...70154968641546

[ad hoc]

I've yet to see any explanation of how this is antisemitic. I've seen a number of people say (basically) "this is antisemitic because I say it is " (including jeanmid's quoted tweets) . But as yet no actual explanation. I would actually like to read one because if someone illustrates to me how and why this is antisemitic it would very much change my reaction

[Sporting]

Well, obviously it's antisemitic because it doesn't paint the state of Israel in the most positive light known to mankind. Silly you.

[Nefertiti2]

Thanks for researching that jeanmid

Sebag Montefiore is stretching the concept of the blood libel- (which used to mean that Jews killed children to use their blood in religious ceremoniesm which was prominent in Hungary until the late 19th century, and is sadly reviving in Hungary now)

It was first moved to mean the Israeli army or police have participated in the killing of children, now that they participated in killing of anyone.

Clearly the American police learned something in those seminars, and the Israeli police are in daily action in urban warfare. if you really cared about israel you would want to find out why the seminars were taking place and what. was being taught

Police exchanges in Israel provide American forces with valuable information on how to "prevent and respond" to attacks as Micky Rosenfeld uisrael polic spokesperson put it,

The aim is to prevent criticism of Israel and mean that any criticism of Israel can be dismissed as antisemitic.

it Works.

[Nefertiti2]

Ad hoc I think there are two arguments which go like this

1. there are many kinds of international co-operation on police training- therefore singling out American forces being trained in Israel is anti-semitic.

2. There is no evidence that the chokehold which was used to kill George Floyd was taught in Israel. Suggesting it is antisemitic since it invokes particular Jewish responsibility for George Floyd's death, which is anti-semitic in that it suggests the Jews control everything, and that it's a blood libel because it suggests that Jews are involved in killing.... which is kind of like the blood libel.... because there's blood.

Note that both arguments mean the undisputed facts that a) Israeli police/law enforcement use techniques which are responsible for the control and occasionally the killing of Palestinians. b) Israeli police train US police in those techniques. cannot be discussed.

Handy

[ad hoc]

Saw a brilliant set of statements by JVP today, that were being presented by the tweeter (the same Daniel Sugarman quoted above in a different tweet) as being evidence of JVP's anti semitism, yet, in fact they were such beautifully and thoughtfully worded and intelligent statements of fact that they ended up making the opposite point than Sugarman wanted to make.

[ad hoc]

I've also seen a number of pieces and comments by people talking about how they were learning "counter-terrorism" tactics from Israeli police, and there is always this continuation of that comment with something along the lines of "unfortunately, Israel has a lot of experience in this area", with the implication that terrorism as experienced by Israel is akin to heavy rain or earthquakes or some such. It's just "unfortunate".

[Nefertiti2]

Well it is unfortunate that Israel was situated on territory where some intransigent indigenous people who lived there (but sadly hadn’t been given the land either by G-D or Balfour) believed that not only did they have rights to the land and homes they had prior to 1948, but also believed they could demand human & civil rights justice and self determination.

The only possible response to those kinds of unreasonable demands is military force.

[jeanmid]

Thanks for researching that jeanmid

Sebag Montefiore is stretching the concept of the blood libel- (which used to mean that Jews killed children to use their blood in religious ceremoniesm which was prominent in Hungary until the late 19th century, and is sadly reviving in Hungary now)

It was first moved to mean the Israeli army or police have participated in the killing of children, now that they participated in killing of anyone.

Clearly the American police learned something in those seminars, and the Israeli police are in daily action in urban warfare. if you really cared about israel you would want to find out why the seminars were taking place and what. was being taught

Police exchanges in Israel provide American forces with valuable information on how to "prevent and respond" to attacks as Micky Rosenfeld uisrael polic spokesperson put it,

The aim is to prevent criticism of Israel and mean that any criticism of Israel can be dismissed as antisemitic.

it Works.

You will also notice that Anmesty International themselves have said that the Isreali police don't teach US police neck kneeling

https://twitter.com/PronouncedAlva/s...44100224860162

For some reason I'm going to take their word over that of Middle East Eye.

[ad hoc]

You will also notice that Anmesty International themselves have said that the Isreali police don't teach US police neck kneeling

Oh I'm entirely prepared to believe that the US Police needed no training in how to kill or brutalise those who are less than human in their eyes. But why are the US Police getting any form of training from a force which has a well earned reputation for racist brutality? This is a relevant question in the current discussion.

[Nefertiti2]

What do you know about Middle Eastern Eye, Jeanmid which makes you consider they are an unreliable source?

how do you feel about Jewish Voice for Peace?

I have to say that I’m rather astonished that the undisputed fact that thousands of US police have been trained in Israel is not considered more newsworthy than whether or not one particularl technique did or did not form part of their training

The really shocking thing is that no one seems to know what the training consists of

[S. aureus]

You will also notice that Anmesty International themselves have said that the Isreali police don't teach US police neck kneeling

https://twitter.com/PronouncedAlva/s...44100224860162

For some reason I'm going to take their word over that of Middle East Eye.

That's not what AI said, they said that "the precise nature of the training offered to US police forces by Israeli officials is not something we’ve documented."