Who is responsible for the Middle East conflict? And how do we help resolve it? We can do no worse than to begin by looking at Labour’s own history. On this day in 1944, Labour’s annual conference was taking place in London. A week before D-Day and two weeks before V1s started hitting London, the Allies […]
Posts Tagged ‘Israel/Palestine’
Labour and the Jews: from ethnic cleansing to truth and reconciliation
May 30th, 2016 by Jon Lansman.Why the Left must stop talking about ‘Zionism’
May 2nd, 2016 by Jon Lansman.There is every justification for talking about the rights of Palestinians, for campaigning against the profound injustice that has been done to them and for criticising the actions and policies of the Israeli government but there is no defence for antisemitism, whoever makes the accusation. As the Jewish Socialists’ Group (JSG) has rightly argued, “accusations of antisemitism are […]
Corbyn and the Israel/Islam/Putin/Trident critique
Jan 29th, 2016 by David Osland.An entire journalistic cottage industry now exists (such as here and here and here and here) devoted to making the claim that Jeremy Corbyn is an overgrown adolescent CNDer harbouring a lingering atavistic attachment to Russian nationalism, with participants frequently coming as close as libel laws permit to averring outright anti-semitism on the Labour leader’s part. […]
What hope for Gaza?
Jan 25th, 2016 by David Pavett.In 1993 the Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Palestinian President Yasser Arafat shook hands on the lawn of the White House to seal the deal of the Oslo Accords (Oslo I). The terms of the accord were vague but gave rise to hope and received support from both Palestinians and Israelis. The accord envisaged […]
Labour Friends of Israel continues to whitewash war crimes
Jul 1st, 2015 by James Elliott.One year on from the tragic events in Gaza last summer, and the British Israel lobby is still trying to distract us from Israel’s crimes by highlighting perceived wrongdoing by other sides. In her piece for Left Foot Forward, Jennifer Gerber makes a number of claims which require refutation: Hamas’ responsibility for provoking ‘the conflict’; […]
Israel cannot trample on human rights and expect “business as usual”
Dec 4th, 2014 by Cat Smith.The shocking events of this summer, with the civilian population of Gaza once again finding themselves attacked with no chance of finding a place of safety, shows how tragically little 20 years of peace process have achieved. There has been much process, but precious little peace. The tragedies that have affected all of Jerusalem’s communities […]
Jerusalem: the unholy city
Nov 28th, 2014 by Uri Avnery.In its long and chequered history, Jerusalem has been occupied by dozens of conquerors. Babylonians and Persians, Greeks and Romans, Mamluks and Turks, Britons and Jordanians – to mention just a few. The latest occupier is Israel, which conquered and annexed Jerusalem in 1967. (I could have written “East Jerusalem” – but all of historical Jerusalem […]
Israel/Palestine: UK MPs may seek 2 states but history seems to be leading elsewhere
Oct 23rd, 2014 by Antony Lerman.On Monday 13 October, MPs voted by 274 to 12 in support of the following motion: That this House believes that the Government should recognise the state of Palestine alongside the state of Israel, as a contribution to securing a negotiated two state solution.” The vote has symbolic significance, but does it amount to anything more […]
It is vital that the House of Commons today recognises the Palestinian state
Oct 13th, 2014 by Michael Meacher.It is significant that today’s vote in the Commons for Britain to recognise the Palestinian state alongside the Israeli state comes not at the behest of the government, but on the initiative of an MP (the redoubtable and resourceful Labour MP, Grahame Morris) under the relatively new procedure that allows backbenchers to choose the issue […]
Labour and Palestine – when is a whip not a whip
Oct 12th, 2014 by Phil Burton-Cartledge.Picking a fight with one of your party’s most powerful lobbies is a risky affair. When so doing having a clear objective in mind helps, as well as a strategy that shows off your leadership virtues. Think Tony Blair and the unions. Think – yes – Dave and equal marriage. Which brings us to the […]