Kim Johnson row: Starmer is oiling Israel’s slide into fascism

Thursday, 2 February 2023 — Jonathan Cook

In slapping down an MP for decrying Israel’s new government, the Labour leader has left supporters of Palestinian rights politically homeless

Middle East Eye – 2 February 2023

What’s become all too clear over the past three years is that Labour leader Keir Starmer tolerates no criticism of Israel whatsoever – even when such criticism accords with international law, the verdict of the human rights community or just plain common sense.

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Iron Dome: Don’t be deceived – US aid to Israel is not about saving lives

6 October 2021 — Jonathan Cook

US funding for Israel’s missile interception system is part of its wider efforts to shore up a military system of global domination

Middle East Eye – 6 October 2021

Battles in the US Congress that erupted again this week, holding up an extra $1bn in military funding for Israel, underscored just how divorced from reality the conversation about US financial aid to Israel has become, even among many critics.

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In Wake of HRW Apartheid Report, Israeli Propagandists Launch Global PR Offensive

7 May 2021 — Mint Press News

      Astroturfing Apartheid

Much of the online anger at the Human Rights Watch report was actually manufactured by an Israeli government-sponsored app, Act.IL, which organized supporters of the Jewish state to act in sync to create an artificial groundswell of opposition to it.

How the IHRA antisemitism definition became a pro-Israel cudgel

27 April 2021 — Jonathan Cook

At the height of the attacks on Corbyn, IHRA officials joined UK Jewish groups in falsely claiming its antisemitism definition included examples that protected Israel, when delegates had specifically excluded the examples

Mondoweiss – 27 April 2021

New research charts a five-year campaign by highly partisan, pro-Israel lobby groups to mislead the international community about the nature of what has been widely described as the “gold standard” definition of antisemitism.

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Labour antisemitism allegations: How Corbyn and Starmer are judged by different standards

17 April 2021 — Jonathan Cook

Jewish groups that lambasted Corbyn’s code of conduct as antisemitic are now silent over revelations it is being used by Starmer

Middle East Eye – 17 April 2021

For years, allies of Jeremy Corbyn argued that allegations of antisemitism had been weaponised against the then-Labour leader and his supporters to undermine his socialist programme and stifle criticism of Israel.

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Starmer isn’t ‘too cautious’ – he is ruthlessly tearing Labour apart

5 April 2021 — Jonathan Cook

A year in, the British Labour leader is giving the Tories an easy ride while investing his energy in an all-out war on the party’s left

Middle East Eye – 5 April 2021

The completion of Keir Starmer’s first year as Labour leader might have passed without note, had it not been the occasion for senior party figures to express mounting concern at Labour’s dismal performance in opposition to Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s government.

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With this flawed antisemitism definition, Britain is closing down academic freedom

9 December 2020 — Middle East Eye

Sai Englert

By forcing universities to adopt the problematic IHRA definition, the government aims to criminalise the Palestine solidarity movement and roll back civil liberties

British Education Secretary Gavin Williamson leaves Downing Street in London on 30 September (AFP)

In October, British Education Secretary Gavin Williamson ordered universities in the country to adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA)’s working definition of antisemitism. They are to do so by Christmas or face government sanctions.

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Israel’s growing strategic threat to our freedom of speech

27 November, 2020 — Middle East Monitor

Israeli soldiers throw sound grenades at a group of people including journalists, near a gate leading to Hebron's main al-Shuhada street, closed by troops earlier in February, during an annual demonstration in memory of the 1994 Ibrahimi Mosque massacre, in the divided West Bank city of Hebron, on 22 February 2019. [HAZEM BADER/AFP via Getty Images]

Israeli soldiers throw sound grenades at a group of people including journalists, near a gate leading to Hebron’s main al-Shuhada street, closed by troops earlier in February, during an annual demonstration in memory of the 1994 Ibrahimi Mosque massacre, in the divided West Bank city of Hebron, on 22 February 2019. [HAZEM BADER/AFP via Getty Images]

Asa Winstanley AsaWinstanley

There is an old saying that you should not put the fox in charge of the hen house. It makes perfect sense, and yet that’s exactly what Western governments are increasingly starting to do when it comes to their freedom of speech policies. All bluster about “cancel culture” aside, the leading threat in the world today to freedom of speech is the ever-increasing crackdown on the right to speak out in support of the Palestinians.

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It is the equalities commission, not Labour, carrying out political interference

7 November 2020 — Jonathan Cook

I recently published in Middle East Eye a long analysis of last week’s report by the Equalities and Human Rights Commission into the question of whether the UK Labour party had an especial antisemitism problem. (You can read a slightly fuller version of that article on my website.) In the piece, I reached two main conclusions.

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The Lancet censors Gaza health letter after pro-Israel pressure

1 October 2020 — The Electronic Intifada

Omar Karmi

A doctor wearing a face mask is taking a boy's temperature

A doctor in Gaza City is using a temperature test machine to test a boy for coronavirus. Ashraf Amra APA images

With a fresh spike in the number of coronavirus infections, Gaza is yet again facing the very real prospect that its healthcare system will be overwhelmed.

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Scottish “friend of Israel” faked anti-Semitism for years

19 August 2020 — The Electronic Intifada

Asa Winstanley

Edward Sutherland monitoring Palestine solidarity activists. (SPSC)

A pro-Israel lobbyist in Scotland may lose his teaching job over a series of anti-Semitic posts he has admitted making.

Edward Sutherland is being investigated by the Scottish teaching regulator, The Daily Record reported on Sunday.

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Something Rotten at The Heart of UK Government

6 August 2020 — American Herald Tribune

The smell of pro-Israel bias in the Foreign Office is overpowering

By Stuart Littlewood

Dominic Raab b2549

As George Washington put it,“a passionate attachment of one nation for another produces a variety of evils”. He warned that sympathy for the favourite nation encourages the illusion of common interest where none really exists, risks participation in its quarrels and wars, and involves“concessions to the favourite nation of privileges denied to others which is apt doubly to injure the nation making the concessions by unnecessarily parting with what ought to have been retained… And it gives to ambitious, corrupted, or deluded citizens (who devote themselves to the favourite nation) facility to betray or sacrifice the interests of their own country.”

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UK Labour party teeters on brink of civil war over antisemitism

28 July 2020 — Jonathan Cook

New leader Keir Starmer spurns two chances to clear Jeremy Corbyn’s name, preferring instead to pay damages to former staff

Mondoweiss – 27 July 2020

Jeremy Corbyn, the former left-wing leader of Britain’s Labour party, is once again making headlines over an “antisemitism problem” he supposedly oversaw during his five years at the head of the party.

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Liberal Zionism begins the journey towards a one-state solution

17 July 2020 — Jonathan Cook

Peter Beinart, a bellwether for American Jews, has provoked a storm by renouncing the two-state solution and urging equality for all

Middle East Eye – 17 July 2020

Peter Beinart, an influential liberal commentator on Israel and Zionism, poked a very large stick into a hornets’ nest this month by admitting he had finally abandoned his long-cherished commitment to a two-state solution.

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Israel’s new UK ambassador will expose delusions of Britain’s Jewish leaders

10 July 2020 — Jonathan Cook

With Corbyn the bogeyman gone, Tzipi Hotovely will finally force Britain’s liberal Jews to confront truths about Israel they long ago buried

Middle East Eye – 10 July 2020

After years of successfully drawing attention away from Israel’s intensifying crimes against the Palestinian people by citing a supposedly growing “antisemitism crisis” in Britain’s Labour Party, Jewish community leaders in the UK are exasperated to find themselves unexpectedly on the defensive.

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Israel lobby loses latest appeal against American Studies Association

7 July 2020 — The Electronic Intifada

Nora Barrows-Friedman

A woman holds a sign

Palestinians have called for a boycott of Israeli academic institutions due to their central role in Israel’s military occupation, settler-colony enterprise and weapons industry. – Mohammed Zaanoun ActiveStills

An incessant Israel lobby-backed attempt to censor and punish the American Studies Association over its support of an academic boycott of Israel has once again failed in court.

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Outrageous! The EU spreads more lies about BDS

4 July 2020 — The Electronic Intifada

Ali Abunimah

Woman speaks into microphone and gestures

EU anti-Semitism coordinator Katharina von Schnurbein has a history of spreading smears and lies about Palestinian rights campaigners. – Andreas Gebert Reuters

A prominent European Union official is once again spreading lies about the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement for Palestinian rights.

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