Sir! Keir! Starmer!

You Starmer supporters are just like brexiteers. You won, get over it!

Somewhat predictably, You’re definition of ‘winning‘ is different to mine and that’s quite telling in itself. The Labour Party has won absolutely **** all!

The point is that they are now in with a serious chance of doing so next time out, which was never a realistic proposition under Grandad.

That was half the problem. The Corbynites classed taking over the leadership of the Labour Party as a final destination, rather than a staging post towards forming a government. They thought that in itself was ‘victory’. But then that’s what you get with all narrow-minded sects

The racism shown by police forces in the USA is not down to Israel.

I agree, US cops don’t need lessons from anyone when it comes to racism, they’re perfectly capable of that themselves. But you don’t think their links with a military organisation with a reputation for racist violence is relevant when there’s a spotlight on their racist behaviour? The fact that it’s Israel is irrelevant, it would be just as noteworthy if it was South Africa, Saudi Arabia or any other state with racist cops and soldiers.

As I’ve said before, there’s no evidence I’ve seen to support the specific allegation of kneeling techniques, and it’s quite possible that the allegation is being spread because of anti-semitism. On the other hand, it’s a matter of record that US police departments have received training from Israeli forces, organisations with a well-documented history of human rights abuses.

Peake said “the tactics used by the police in America, kneeling on George Floyd’s neck, that was learnt from seminars with Israeli secret services”.

Okay police share training round the world. But neck kneeling was not taught by Israeli secret services, and Amnesty International, cited as source didn’t say this – confirmed here: https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk/2020/06/amnesty-international-we-never-reported-neck-kneeling-taught-israelis-us

So why single out Israel as behind the killing? Loads of other forces use forceful restraint or whatever. Israel does some very bad things which should be challenged, but in a focused way for what they are. These sorts of smears do align with conspiracies about Jews being behind all sorts of stuff round the world. It’s not about not feeling antisemitic. I’m sure Peake doesn’t and isn’t, it’s about registering what your saying and seeing what’s in front of your nose. And yep, RLB really should have seen this.

Amnesty International

It was a blog post from Amnesty USA.

But then that’s what you get with all narrow-minded sects

Is this an irregular verb thing?

You are a narrow minded sect
I know the path to victory

from the NS piece I linked:

Amnesty International has now issued a clarification that its report does not show any evidence of “neck kneeling” as a technique taught by the Israeli secret services, nor evidence that the Minnesota police force received training from the Israeli secret services.

Is this an irregular verb thing?

You are a narrow minded sect
I know the path to victory

Is it a quiz? Do I get to phone a friend?

Is it a quiz? Do I get to phone a friend?

Take all the help you can get.

The great thing about all the die-hard Corbynites moaning about Starmer and his ‘Right Wing’ / Populist agenda is it doesn’t matter, they’re too politically active to stay away from the voting booth and nowhere else for them to go. Come the next election they’ll piss and moan, cry and wail but ultimately they’ll put their X in the Labour box.

This is patently untrue. I walked away from Labour when Blair was leader and only tentatively returned when Corbyn took over as leader. I will vote, but I have yet to be convinced about Labour under Starmer.

That was half the problem. The Corbynites classed taking over the leadership of the Labour Party as a final destination, rather than a staging post towards forming a government. They thought that in itself was ‘victory’. But then that’s what you get with all narrow-minded sects

Is there any evidence to support this, it sounds like utter codswallop to me. It’s also a bit rich calling them ‘narrow-minded’, when you’d constantly berate someone for having an allotment!

Looking at social media it seems the virtue-signalling, sixth form bed-wetters are up in arms and all apparently leaving the Labour Party, so it’s a win/win/win for him.

Don’t let the door hit your arse on the way out. Good luck with joining George Galloway and whatever his party is called nowadays. I’m sure the next election is in the bag

Clowns

You really have zero self awareness don’t you? Wasn’t that when Chuka Umunna and his Tinge buddies were the next big things destined for greatness amd you were cheering them on like a giddy schoolgirl.

You could teach Orwell a thing or two.

So it is a quiz and I do get to phone a friend then?

I’m calling the restless spirit of George Orwell or Seamas Milne. One of the two.

Which one do you reckon?

Is there any evidence to support this, it sounds like utter codswallop to me. It’s also a bit rich calling them ‘narrow-minded’, when you’d constantly berate someone for having an allotment!

No – none whatsoever

Its a shame but there are not enough left wing voters to win an election. Corbyn got absolutely loads of new voters (and new members) but not enough.

You need the centre to win.

You also need the RW press not on your case!

The 2018 Basic Law established different rights for different ethnic groups under law, and this is apartheid. No-one, apart from the racists, would suggest to criticise apartheid in South Africa was an anti-white conspiracy. Clearly if you are going to deny people rights you need to dominate them physically and legally so apartheid states concentrate very hard on military solutions and it helps if you have a racist ideology to justify it. This investment can be defrayed by selling your kit or your training to other countries who see fit to treat people in this way and in the process train them into your way of thinking. ‘White zionism’ is a thing in the US and here, Tommy Robinson has spoken about it.
This has become ludicrous. Yes the evidence says police have been sent to learn new techniques but no, not kneeling on the necks, not that, everything but that. To criticise Israel is a conspiracy against jews? Most of my concerns about what’s going on the come from Ha’aretz and Naomi Klein supports BDS, the Jewish Voice for Labour backs RLB. It ain’t as simple as they’d like you to think.
The idea of a ‘trope’ is to delegitimise a criticism as in ‘you said that but you really mean this, and you are a …’ and so any criticism is a ‘racist conspiracy’ and you will shut up. Quick, switch from evidence to ad-hom. To point out training programmes for the police is therefore re-written as ‘jews killed George Floyd’. Much better if we confine the debate to insults, false conflations, ageism, allotments, being virtuous, then we’ll really get to the bottom of things.

This has become ludicrous. Yes the evidence says police have been sent to learn new techniques but no, not kneeling on the necks, not that, everything but that. To criticise Israel is a conspiracy against jews?

First of all were the Minneapolis police officers that killed Floyd trained by ISS?

Not seen any evidence they were, just conspiracy theory

2nd point is question of why Peake dropped it on there anyway, American police have been killing black people for some time now, they have not needed ISS help it added nothing to the narrative other than somehow attributing blame to Israel, for an obviously domestic problem

Was it anti-Semitic, not directly,but still in light AS problems labour have had & how it was weaponised against Corbyn, as well as alienating Jews away from labour even further

Making RLBs tweeting of the article A RIDICULOUSLY STUPID THING TO DO, especially with EHRC report coming in a few weeks

She’s a shadow cabinet minister, she has to be smarter than that

(And none of that’s to say some Isaeli policy hasn’t been an internationally recognised disgrace)

No, you’re absolutely right. No evidence that those officers had been in Israel, it would be very expensive and tricky to send the Minneapolis police force abroad. In today’s world you do come across ‘cascading’ where key people are sent for training and then share the benefits of their new skills with their colleagues.

The Police in the US have been torturing suspects and innocents for decades and decades, if anything, if you wanted to learn about the maltreatment of prisoners, I’d be sending troops to the Chicago PD rather than to the IDF

Jon Burge- Torturer in chief…

it is interesting to see how people will stick up for a state on the grounds of ‘anti-racism’ or ‘anti-anti-semitism’ and in that country:

* like the 1927 Immorality Act in South Africa, ‘inter-marriage’ is illegal
* the President refers to refugees as ‘infiltrators’, and he’s not being ironic
* the Chief Rabbi refers to Africans as monkeys
* communities can vote on racial purity and who they’ll let live in the houses
a temporary Covid hospital in Gaza was destroyed because it hadn’t been granted ‘permission’
a temproary hospital was built in the Golan Heights for ISIS fighters since they were fighting Iranian backed forces
* Desmond Tutu said the Israeli treatment of the Palestinians was worse that the treatment of blacks under SA apartheid.

I had to do a double take on Nick’s post. I once got a John Burghe to speak to my students, but he was a jewish refugee from the Nazis and had been head of the Arts Council. Bit different.

Ooops.
Think I just wandered into a thread about US Police…. thought it was the Keir Starmer one…..

Any way… any one else notice how the media is subtlety changing the reporting around him.
IMHO , started off as he couldn’t do anything wrong but now seems that they are keen to point more flaws….

Long bailey being an example
Originally great that he would take action around anti- semitism ( which was needed )
Now, still great that he did something, but not great as it could cost votes 🤔, as he didn’t do enough or sooner

The actuality’s seem irrelevant to a section of the press ( as always )

Yes Isreal is a disgusting apartheid state in effect and critism of Isreal is not anti semitism

However for RLB to retweet that is at best incredibly dimwitted. Refusing to apologise or delete it but doubling down instead is stupid and the idea that US police get their deadly action from training from the israeli police is certainly far too close to an antisemetic trope.

Do I think RLB is an antisemite – the jury is out. do I think she proved herself unworthy of a shadow cabinet seat? without doubt

RLB is certainly no sharp cookie but she’s not alone. Jess Phillips on the front bench?

To criticise Israel is a conspiracy against jews?

it is interesting to see how people will stick up for a state on the grounds of ‘anti-racism’ or ‘anti-anti-semitism’

I don’t think anyone is ‘sticking up for’ what the Israeli government does and has done, we are pointing out that if your take on recent racist killings by police in the USA is ‘look to Israel’, then you are perpetuating conspiracy theories about subjugation based on race in the USA being down to the Jews. If when someone refuses to apologise for spreading conspiracy theories like that, your response is “you can’t even criticise Israel these days”, you are wrong, and you are part of the problem. You can criticise Israel. You can criticise its government. [ I would advise making a distinction between the two though ]. All the worlds ills do not however lead to Israel.

Whoever suggested that? All we’re doing here is trying to unpick what evidence is available.

You did 4 posts above

Yes Isreal is a disgusting apartheid state in effect and critism of Isreal is not anti semitism

Hmmm, One could make a pretty good case against the accusation of Israel being apartheid, as strictly speaking it isn’t. (it’s laws and so on don’t recognise any difference in skin colour or race for example), and denial of a Jewish state on the grounds that it is by definition apartheid is probably anti-Semitic. It’s clearly paradoxical.

This isn’t the thread for it though, and we should stop discussing it here.

Not at all. All I was pointing out was the irony of claiming that to criticise Israel is to criticise jews, the definition of anti-semitism that Corbyn signed up to, leads otherwise anti-racist people to defend an apartheid state. Trying to put words into people’s mouths is exactly what a trope is.

it’s laws and so on don’t recognise any difference in skin colour or race for example),

I’d say The Law of Return certainly does !

And TBF the quote was that ‘in effect’ it is , which you could certainly argue re land rights, security

None of this detracts from RLB being an idiot for posting the article

One could make a pretty good case against the accusation of Israel being apartheid, as strictly speaking it isn’t. (it’s laws and so on don’t recognise any difference in skin colour or race for example),

Aside from the fact that many consider Judaism to be an ethnicity, apartheid means “segregation” and is therefore not limited to skin colour or race. Given that the Israeli constitution clearly gives supremacy to Jewish people, how else would you describe it?

Can we have all the critique of Israeli law and governance in another thread?

You can criticise Israel.

You can as long as you’re prepared to be seen as an anti-semite or a racist. I don’t much care what people think of me but it’s a fact that I’ve recently refrained from discussing Israeli policy towards the Palestinians either here or in real life for this very reason. On the rare occasions I do I try extremely hard to qualify everything as a comment on Israeli government policy but it’s never quite enough. It’s another result of culture war politics. If you can’t win or engage with the argument, go straight to name-calling and abusive stereotypes. And we wonder why everything is going to shit.

…and to bring it slightly back on topic, that’s why I don’t think Starmer has made a good decision on this. He’s so far done a very good job of bringing back rational and informed debate as a thing to aim for, but this just plays to culture war sensibilities which won’t do him or labour any favours because they can’t win the culture war.

I’d suggest starting a new thread about Israel.

The point here is that that linking Israel to a brutal murder in the US is dog-whistle anti semitism. RLB should have seen this. Starmer was right to act, so we’re having this discussion after rather than before her inevitable sacking.

Possibly Peake didn’t know she’d blown that whistle, but whatever…

Is this an anti-Semitic headline?

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/jun/25/robert-jenrick-faces-questions-over-meeting-with-israeli-mining-heir

No

Is this an anti-Semitic headline?

No because it’s in relation to the tories, not labour. That’s exactly the point I’m trying to make.

@dazh – so if it had been a Labour figure, not honest Bob, you think the headline would have been anti-Semitic? Really?

Dazh has a point. antisemitism has been used as a stick to beat Labour with despite far more prevalent racism in the tories

Agreed, but that’s not what his previous post says. And all the more reason not to hand anyone the stick.

so if it had been a Labour figure

Not quite the point I was (clumsily, addmittedly) making, which was that if someone on the left of the labour party was highlighting the dealings of corrupt Israelis, they’d probably be accused of anti-semitism in some form.

kelvin
Subscriber
Can we have all the critique of Israeli law and governance in another thread?

Indeed, a lot of whataboutery

None of which detracts from RLB being foolish tweeting that article, refusing to remove it & giving Starmer no choice but to sack her.