#Israel is not above judgement and criticism and the accusation of crimes on humanity because no state is
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Modern Zionism is an Israeli Nationalist movement. The arguments & defenses that Zionists use to justify the horrific actions taken by the state of Israel become much more clear when you start understanding it this way.
#.txt#free palestine#Zionism#anti-Zionism#I see a lot of anti-Netenyahu pro-Israel Zionists talk about Israel as a concept rather than as an already existing political state#Israel is not a collection of abstract ideas of self determination or community or safety. it is a Political state and we should judge#itâs actions & history accordingly#Israel is not above judgement and criticism and the accusation of crimes on humanity because no state is#Never again for anyone#when Zionists talk to you with broad ideas about community and safety always ask yourself#why is it that Israelis deserve the right to self-determination but Palestinians do not?#why is it that Israelis deserve a safe haven for community and religion but Palestinians do not?#you canât be leftist or even liberal and a Zionist. Zionism is a far right movement BECAUSE of its inherent nationalism#& because of Israelâs military/imperialism based economy
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Israel Is The Real Problem
New post https://is.gd/cNGYSI
Elite power cannot abide a serious challenge to its established position. And that is what Labour under Jeremy Corbyn represents to the Tory government, the corporate, financial and banking sectors, and the âmainstreamâ media.
The manufactured âantisemitism crisisâ is the last throw of the dice for those desperate to prevent a progressive politician taking power in the UK: someone who supports Palestinians and genuine peace in the Middle East, a strong National Health Service and a secure Welfare State, a properly-funded education system, and an economy in which people matter; someone who rejects endless war and complicity with oppressive, war criminal âalliesâ, such as the United States, Saudi Arabia and Israel.
In a thoroughly-researched article, writer and academic Gavin Lewis has mapped a deliberate pro-Israel campaign to create a âmoral panicâ around the issue of antisemitism. The strategy can be traced all the way back to the horrendous Israeli bombardment of Gaza in the summer of 2014. A UN report estimated that 2,252 Palestinians were killed, around 65 per cent of them civilians. The death toll included 551 children. There was global public revulsion at Israelâs war crimes and empathy with their Palestinian victims. Support rose for the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions movement (BDS) which campaigns âto end international support for Israelâs oppression of Palestinians and pressure Israel to comply with international lawâ.
As Lewis observes, BDS came to be regarded more and more as a âstrategic threatâ by Israel, and a campaign was initiated in which Israel and its supporters would be presented as the worldâs real victims. In the UK, the Campaign Against Antisemitism was established during the final month of Israelâs 2014 bombardment of Gaza. Pro-Israel pressure groups began to bombard media organisations with supposed statistics about an âantisemitism crisisâ, with few news organisations scrutinising the claims.
In particular, as we noted in a media alert in April, antisemitism has been âweaponisedâ to attack Corbyn and any prospect of a progressive UK government critical of Israel. Around this time in Gaza, there were weekly âGreat March of Returnâ protests, with people demanding the right to reclaim ancestral homes in Israel. Many were mown down by Israeli snipers on the border firing into Gaza, with several victims shot in the back as they tried to flee. According to the Palestinian Ministry of Health, a total of 155 Palestinians were killed in the protests, including 23 children and 3 women. This is part of the brutal ongoing reality for Palestinians.
Recently, much media attention has focused laser-like on the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism, including 11 associated examples. Labour adopted 7 of these examples, but dropped 4 because of their implication that criticism of Israel was antisemitic. As George Wilmers noted in a piece for Jewish Voice for Labour, Kenneth Stern, the US Attorney who drafted the IHRA wording, has spoken out about the misuse of the definition. It had:
  âoriginally been designed as a âworking definitionâ for the purpose of trying to standardise data collection about the incidence of antisemitic hate crime in different countries. It had never been intended that it be used as legal or regulatory device to curb academic or political free speech. Yet that is how it has now come to be used.â
Examples of the curbing of free speech cited by Stern in written testimony to the US Congress include Manchester and Bristol universities.
In an interview on Sky News last weekend, one pro-Israeli commentator stated openly that the aim is to push Corbyn out of public life. As The Canary observed, Jonathan Sacerdoti, a former spokesperson for the Campaign Against Antisemitism (mentioned above) was:
  âclear that his motivation for wanting Corbyn gone is, in part, opposition to his position on Israel.â
Lindsey German, national convenor of the Stop the War Coalition, reminds us of something crucial that the corporate media has been happy to downplay or bury:
  âWe should not forget either that the Israeli embassy was implicated in interfering in British politics last year when one of its diplomats was recorded as saying that he wanted to âbring downâ a pro-Palestine Tory MP, Alan Duncan. While he was sent back to Israel in disgrace, the matter went no further â disgracefully given that this was blatant interference in the British political system.â
In 2017, an Al Jazeera undercover sting operation on key members of the Israel lobby in Britain had revealed a ÂŁ1,000,000 plot by the Israeli government to undermine Corbyn.
German continued:
  âAre we seriously supposed to imagine that this was a maverick operation, or that there is no other attempt to influence British politics, especially when both Labour and Conservative Friends of Israel organisations have strong links with the embassy? The present ambassador is Mark Regev, the man who was press spokesman in 2009 when he defended the killing of Palestinians through Operation Cast Lead, and who has defended the recent killings of Gazan Palestinians by Israeli forces.â
For shared elite interests in Israel and the UK, there is much at stake. Historian and foreign policy analyst Mark Curtis highlights âthe raw truthâ rarely touched by the corporate news media:
  âThe UKâs relationship with Israel is special in at least nine areas, including arms sales, air force, nuclear deployment, navy, intelligence and trade, to name but a few.â
Indeed, arms exports and trade are increasingly profitable to British corporations doing business with Israel. Moreover, senior government ministers have emphasised that the UK-Israel relationship is the âcornerstone of so much of what we do in the Middle Eastâ and that âIsrael is an important strategic partner for the UKâ. As Curtis notes:
  âThe Palestinians are the expendable unpeople in this deepening special relationship.â
A Shameful Outburst
Unsurprisingly, then, the Israeli lobby have been trawling through Corbynâs life, trying to find past incidents they can highlight as âsupportâ for the ludicrous and cynical claim that he is âsoftâ on antisemitism or even himself antisemitic. Hence the manufactured controversy of Corbyn hosting an event in 2010 during which Auschwitz survivor Hajo Meyer compared Israelâs behaviour to that of Nazi Germany.
An Independent editorial, titled âCorbyn has been found wanting on antisemitism â now he must actâ, asserted that he was âa fool to lend his name to this stuntâ. It was:
  âsuch an egregious error of judgement that Jeremy Corbyn, an extraordinarily stubborn man, has had to apologise for it.â
Under a photograph of Corbyn sitting at the 2010 meeting with Meyer, Times political correspondent Henry Zeffman said that:
  âCorbyn has led Labour into a nightmare of his own making. The veteran left-winger will never recant the views on Israel that he formed over decades in the political wilderness.â
In the Daily Mail, the caption to the same 2010 photograph of Corbyn sitting with Meyer led with the word, âOffensiveâ.
And on and on it went in the âmainstreamâ media.
Adri Nieuwhof, a Netherlands-based human rights advocate and former anti-apartheid activist, was a friend of Meyer, who died in 2014. In an article for Electronic Intifada, she wrote:
  âThe 2010 Holocaust Memorial Day event took place the year after an Israeli assault on Gaza [Operation Cast Lead] that killed more than 1,400 Palestinians and injured thousands more.
  âMeyer was very upset by the assault because Palestinians were trapped in Gaza due to the blockade on the territory that Israel imposed starting in 2007.
  âHe could not help but compare the situation of Palestinians trapped under Israeli occupation and bombardment with Jews caged by the Nazis in ghettos like the Warsaw Ghetto.â
She added:
  âThose attacking Corbyn today have no restraint and no shame. They will even call a man who survived Auschwitz and lost his parents in the Holocaust an anti-Semite if they believe that is what it takes to shield Israel from consequences for its crimes.â
Nasty abuse flung at the Labour leader has even come from supposed colleagues. Last month, rightwing Labour MP Margaret Hodge called Jeremy Corbyn âa fucking anti-Semite and a racistâ. The corporate media gleefully lapped up her outburst â the Guardian moved swiftly to grant her space to declare Labour âa hostile environment for Jewsâ â and stoked the âLabour antisemitism rowâ for weeks afterwards, with over 500 articles to date according to our ProQuest newspaper database search.
Two days ago, Jewish Voice for Labour delivered a letter of complaint to the BBC, condemning a âlack of impartiality and inaccuraciesâ in its reporting of Hodgeâs allegations against Corbyn. Her accusations were ârepeated numerous times without denial or opposing viewsâ by BBC News. Moreover, Hodgeâs assertion that she represents the entire âJewish communityâ has been allowed to pass unchallenged.Â
Trashing A Dedicated Anti-Racist
Last month, the UKâs leading Jewish papers â Jewish News, Jewish Chronicle and Jewish Telegraph â all carried the same front page on âthe communityâs anger over Labourâs anti-Semitism rowâ. They had taken this unprecedented step because of:
  âthe existential threat to Jewish life in this country that would be posed by a Jeremy Corbyn-led government. We do so because the party that was, until recently, the natural home for our community has seen its values and integrity eroded by Corbynite contempt for Jews and Israel.â
These outrageous claims were rejected by Stephen Oryszczuk, foreign editor of Jewish News. He told The Canary:
  âItâs repulsive. This is a dedicated anti-racist weâre trashing. I just donât buy into it at all.â
He made three vital points:
  1) Jeremy Corbyn is not an antisemite, and the Labour Party does not represent an âexistential threatâ to Jewish people   2) The International Holocaust Remembrance Allianceâs (IHRA) definition of antisemitism threatens free speech, and Labour was right to make amendments   3) The âmainstreamâ Jewish media is failing to represent the diversity of Jewish opinion
The corporate news media itself is undoubtedly âfailing to represent the diversity of Jewish opinionâ. Worse, it has, in fact, been a willing accomplice in promoting and amplifying the pro-Israel narrative of a âLabour antisemitism crisisâ. Consider a recent powerful piece by Manchester Jewish Action for Palestine, published in Mondoweiss:
  âAs Jewish people in Manchester, England, we resent the despicable racism shown towards the Palestinians by Guardian stalwarts such as Jonathan Freedland, Polly Toynbee, Jessica Elgott, Eddie Izzard, Nick Cohen, Marina Hyde and Gaby Hinsliff among others, all saturating comment sections on mainstream news websites with attacks designed to bring down the UK Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn, and to protect Israel from accountability.â
They added:
  âUK commentators take the morally defunct option of backing right wing mainstream Zionist organisationsâ outrageous cries of âanti-Semitismâ the moment Corbynâs Labour get ahead in the polls, or the moment there is a risk of serious public condemnation of Israelâs horrific crimes against the Palestinians.â
The article continued:
  âWhy were Palestinians not consulted on the whole debate about Israel and anti-Semitism, when they are the people being slowly squeezed out of existence by Israel? Where are the Palestinian voices in the Guardian?â
Where indeed?
  âWe, as Jews, will not mindlessly pretend that protecting the Jewish people and protecting Israel are the same thing, on the hopeless say-so of a crew of establishment hacks at the Guardian.â
The Manchester-based Jewish group singled out one prominent Guardian columnist, and former comment editor, for particularly heavy criticism:
  âJonathan Freedland, one of the UKâs most effective propagandists for Israel, while giving Palestinians occasional lip service so he and the other liberal elitists can make doubtful claims to âimpartialityâ, has been the most relentless in his attacks on Corbyn. Freedland routinely uses his opinion editorial position in the Guardian to do more than most to âstrong-armâ the Labour Party into backing the whole IHRA definition, flawed examples and all. It is unsurprising that he would push for the guideline, âclaiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavourâ to be included as anti-Semitic trope, given he is on record excusing the crime against humanity that was Israelâs foundational act â the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian population in 1947/1948.â
One of Freedlandâs Guardian articles that the group must have had in mind was published last month under the title, âYes, Jews are angry â because Labour hasnât listened or shown any empathyâ. Leon Rosselson, a childrenâs author and singer-songwriter whose Jewish parents were refugees from Tsarist Russia, argued that the article:
  âis a devious, dissembling, dishonest piece of special pleading that shames both Freedland and the Guardian.â
Earlier this month, Corbyn himself had a piece in the Guardian in which he wrote:
  âI do acknowledge there is a real problem [of antisemitism] that Labour is working to overcome. [âŚ] We were too slow in processing disciplinary cases of antisemitic abuse, mostly online, by party members. And we havenât done enough to foster deeper understanding of antisemitism among members.â
A Telegraph editorial typified the corporate mediaâs reaction to Corbynâs article:
  âhe respond[ed] with Soviet-esque institutional lethargy⌠just the latest in a long line of obfuscations that betray a central fact: Labourâs leader is unhealthily obsessed with Israel, and tainted by association with fanatics.â
Corbyn cannot do anything right in the eyes of the corporate media. As Rosselson said:
  âCorbyn concedes and Corbyn apologises and the more he concedes and the more he apologises the weaker his position becomes and still the pressure grows and the attacks continue because this is not really about antisemitism and definitions but about getting rid of Corbyn or undermining him to the point where he is powerless.â
Sadly, the Labour leader has failed to properly address this relentless and vicious campaign, focusing instead on trying to fend off accusations of antisemitism. By sticking within this narrative framework set up by the powerful Israeli lobby, a twisted framework that can only be maintained with corporate media connivance, he and his colleagues have made a serious mistake. Asa Winstanley put it bluntly back in March:
  âJeremy Corbyn must stop pandering to Labourâs Israel lobby.â
Winstanley pointed out that the campaign has been going on for years, and he expanded:
  âToo many on the left seem to think: if we throw them a bone by sacrificing a few token âextremists,â the anti-Semitism story will die down and we can move on to the real business of electing a Labour government.
  âBut years later, Labour is still being beaten with the same stick.
  âAny close observer of Israel and its lobby groups knows this: they cannot be appeased.â
Other commentators have made the same point. An OffGuardian article in April, titled âCorbyn should learn his lesson: compromise with the devil is not an optionâ, observed:
  âCorbyn seems to think a few little compromises will get him accepted in the mainstream media. It pains me to say it, but this is fundamentally untrue. You canât compromise with someone who wants nothing but your total destruction. Hopefully Corbyn has learned this lesson by now.â
Sadly not, it appears. A Morning Star editorial correctly observes that Corbyn and his advisers:
  âfail to appreciate the ruthlessness of his opponents or the unrelenting nature of their goals.â
Earlier this week, Winstanley published an article revealing yet another element of Israelâs intense campaign against Corbyn: the use of an app to promote propaganda messages via social media accusing Corbyn of antisemitism. The app is a product of Israelâs strategic affairs ministry which âdirects Israelâs covert efforts to sabotage the Palestine solidarity movement around the world.â
As Jonathan Cook cogently explains on his website:
  âLabour is not suffering from an âanti-semitism crisisâ; it is mired in an âIsrael crisisâ.â
To those who bemoan that Corbyn and his team are not sufficiently âmedia-savvyâ, that he has not done enough to present himself as âPM materialâ via the press and television, David Traynier has written a strong rebuttal. Two essential facts need to be understood, he says: first, the corporate media âfilterâ and distort the news as described by Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky in their âpropaganda modelâ of the media, introduced in âManufacturing Consentâ. Second, journalists and editors are themselves subjected to a âfilteringâ process as they rise up the career ladder. They are selected for positions of ever-increasing responsibility only if they have demonstrated to corporate media owners, managers and senior editors that they can be trusted to say and do the ârightâ things; even think the âright thoughtsâ. As Chomsky famously said to Andrew Marr, then the young political editor of the Independent and now with the BBC:
  âIâm sure you believe everything youâre saying. But what Iâm saying is that if you believed something different, you wouldnât be sitting where youâre sitting.â
In short, says Traynier:
  âthe idea that a socialist party simply needs to manage the press better is a nonsense. The corporate media is not there to be won over, it canât be âmanagedâ into giving Corbyn a fair hearing. In fact, once one understands how the media works, the burden of proof would rest with anyone those who claimed that it wouldnât be biased against Corbyn.â
Despite the intense campaign against Corbyn â and perhaps, in part, because of its obviously cynical and manipulative nature â many people are perceptive enough to see what is going on. Israel is the real problem.
â IT
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