bellaozzydog
rolling turds in glitter
Dp
Keir Starmer's time is up
- Thread starter agricola
- Start date
mauvais
on reddit or something
Heh. I could get into this (what you say about me is not true) but it's too hot. I'd just like to say that this post could have been written, "oh cool you finally agree with me", which to a large extent I do, but instead here you are trying to have a fight. On behalf of what?
The situation has changed in at least two major ways, but also I have learnt something from the last debacle.
SpookyFrank
A cheap source of teeth for aquarium gravel
Not sure anyone is defending it.
LDC
On est tous des pangolins
The 'secret services' bit was one part of what's wrong, since some people seemed unable to see the significance with claiming that specifically, but there are other issues with her sentence of course. Stupidity and inaccuracy being others.
FWIW I actually like Peake, and have met her briefly, and nowhere did I say she should be damned or written off, as I've said she might have made the statement out of stupidity or something else.
As you say some of this stuff is hard for many people to get why it's anti-Semitic, but that shouldn't mean so many of the (especially Labour) left just seem completely unable to say when it is a problem, and instead have a knee jerk reaction to justify it, go on about how bad Israel is, deny any problem, etc.
Again, here's her (now retracted) bit from the interview... "...she adds. “The tactics used by the police in America, kneeling on George Floyd’s neck, that was learnt from seminars with Israeli secret services.”
Anyway, enough of this for me. Said what I think, more important things to think on.
Struwwelpeter
Earthling
Epic fail by both RLB and KS, whatever truth might or might not exist within the retweeted article.
I’m not talking about what is morally right, just how to play the game:
RLB. Too dim to realise the extreme care needed before a Labour politician says anything about Israel.
KS. Overplayed and mistimed his move. Massive distraction from the blatant corruption in the Tory party when he could have (ab)used “due process” to pick his moment.
I’m not talking about what is morally right, just how to play the game:
RLB. Too dim to realise the extreme care needed before a Labour politician says anything about Israel.
KS. Overplayed and mistimed his move. Massive distraction from the blatant corruption in the Tory party when he could have (ab)used “due process” to pick his moment.
Smokeandsteam
Working Class First
She didn’t ‘say’ anything about Israel. She further clarified the purpose of the retweet. Whatever her failings she’s done absolutely nothing that warrants her sacking.
Jeff Robinson
Marxist-Lentilist: Jackboots and Jackfruit
This much at least should be fucking obvious. Wood for the trees, people.
platinumsage
HaveMyPassword123
It's surely every senior PLP member's responsibility to know all about antisemitism in it's various guises by now. Not only did she fail to do that when orginally reading the article, she has persisted in her denials that the article is problematic in that way.
She should have thought "ooh, a mention of Israeli secret services linked to racism, this feeds into the far-right conspiracy theories of Jews starting a race war and stoking anti-black racism."
You might think that is an unreasonable demand to put upon her, but in the position she is in and the recent history of antisemitism accusations against the Labour party, it really isn't.
Struwwelpeter
Earthling
I’m using the word “say” loosely to mean communicate to save typing. There, you’ve made me type it!
This:
This:
I agree with this ie. the problem is one of holding hands with horrible people not that Peake said something a bit daft because people say daft things all the time. There's the fact that there is a kernel of truth in what was said and it is not part of a larger pattern of behaviour from Peake (as far as I know). So I don't have reason to believe that this is evidence of Peake falling down some sort of loon rabbit hole or that she is promoting the idea that Israel is somehow behind police violence is the US (or elsewhere). I read her as saying in a slightly clumsy way that police from different countries learn from each other and that the problem is a global one. There's the problem and there's also the problem with overreaction to the problem.
Jeff Robinson
Marxist-Lentilist: Jackboots and Jackfruit
KS didn’t overplay anything. This is win-win for him.
Purge his one token left winger from the cabinet. Check.
Sow despair and division amongst the labour left, leading to more resigning. Check.
Appease rightwing and centrist media. Check.
Appease supporters of Israeli apartheid. Check.
Where’s the downside for him and his project?
platinumsage
HaveMyPassword123
Why can't she bring herself to mention antisemitism? Instead we get the vague "it wasn’t intended to be an endorsement of all aspects of the article".
Buddy Bradley
Pantheistic solipsist
Is that the reason it trips the anti-semitism alarms? I've never understood why any criticism of Israel is labelled anti-semitic, but I'm not really familiar with the subtleties of which keywords carry additional meanings.
mauvais
on reddit or something
The implication is that the US police can't/wouldn't murder people without the assistance of Israel, which is a version of 'the Jews are running the world'.
Buddy Bradley
Pantheistic solipsist
Ah, ok - so it's not so much about whether or not the assertions are true, it's the implications you can read into them.
Jeff Robinson
Marxist-Lentilist: Jackboots and Jackfruit
That’s an absurd extrapolation.
Treacle Toes
Time
Isn't it antisemitic to associate all Jewish people with the state of Israel, going on the IHRA defintion ?
Peake's interview didn't mention Jewish people. The bit that is being focused on was a criticism of the racist policing tactics of the IDF and the disturbing similarities in the use of those tactics are use against Palestinians and Black Americans. Yes, it can be argued that she is wrong to assume that the knee choke method was specifically learnt during the training US cops receive, but that assumption isn't antisemitic IMO. If people think the absolute worst of the IDF i'm pretty sure it's more to do with what they actually do do rather than the majority of Israeli citizens being Jewish.
Peake's interview didn't mention Jewish people. The bit that is being focused on was a criticism of the racist policing tactics of the IDF and the disturbing similarities in the use of those tactics are use against Palestinians and Black Americans. Yes, it can be argued that she is wrong to assume that the knee choke method was specifically learnt during the training US cops receive, but that assumption isn't antisemitic IMO. If people think the absolute worst of the IDF i'm pretty sure it's more to do with what they actually do do rather than the majority of Israeli citizens being Jewish.
Buddy Bradley
Pantheistic solipsist
I believe it's also true that the majority of Jews are Israeli. Something like 70%, iirc.
Edit: Never mind, apparently I wasn't remembering correctly - Wikipedia says 30%, with 50% in the US.
Whagwan
.
Yup, everyone doing a massive antisemitism to accuse opponents of antisemitism.
mauvais
on reddit or something
In isolation maybe but I don't think it is, given the world it exists in. 'It woz Mossad' comes up all the time in absurd conspiracy theories and anything like it is tarred by association. It (e.g. Mossad) being the state of Israel is much less important than it being Jews in these contexts.
Fundamentally, why is it necessary to bring Israel/Palestine into the discussion of George Floyd? Even if the claim were literally and demonstrably true, why is it important or relevant?
Yes, and much more using AS as a political tool rather than giving a fuck about it. But the above is why it's a small hop away from not actually being about Israel.
Treacle Toes
Time
What's you point? I said 'majority' (happy to be corrected if wrong) & was making a clear distinction between the actions of the state and the religion of it's citizens. You can criticise one of those things without attacking the other.
SpookyFrank
A cheap source of teeth for aquarium gravel
Yes but by the same definitions it is also antisemitic to criticise the Israeli state, or at least that is one of the 'examples' of antisemitism included with the definitions.
rekil
to menny cranks
I was looking at what the loons were saying and this is literally the pathetic gotcha line that they're taking. Who are the real anti-semites etc. There is only one reason that Israel, and only Israel, will get dragged into a discussion about systemic racism and police violence in the US.
Brainaddict
slight system overdrive
I think Peake was just a bit careless in what she read/said, and her apology seems decent enough. RLB is a professional politician, should know how to talk about politics carefully and shouldn't have been such an idiot. But it illustrates what the fringes of leftist discourse so easily edge into. A friend went to her first labour party meeting and had to call someone out on referring to 'Israeli-controlled media' in the UK. I think most leftists in the UK would be well advised to SHUT THE FUCK UP ABOUT ISRAEL except when specifically talking about the Palestinian struggle, and even then think carefully about their language and emphasis. Israel is not the problem in the world. The Palestine conflict is one manifestation of a certain set of problems, but there are many other manifestations. There are even other militarised colonial projects supported by the Western powers. I'd also say that e.g. the war on drugs has caused as much suffering and degraded human rights much more globally than the Israel-Palestine conflict, yet somehow I hear more from leftists about Israel than I do about the war on drugs. I'm sick of it. Obviously there's nothing wrong with expressing solidarity with Palestinians, and people should do that in a thoughtful way where they actually try to work out how they can be helpful, but being anti-Israel has become this performative marker of leftism and engaging in that without thinking is bullshit.
Buddy Bradley
Pantheistic solipsist
I agree with you - nobody is accused of being anti-Taoist for criticising China's actions against the Uighur Muslims. But, as rekil points out above, if it's only Israel that is getting mentioned in this context, perhaps you have to wonder why that is. Seems you can be right and wrong on this topic simultaneously.
Nobody has said anything about Israel being to blame or anything about Mossad. Israel does not just police its civilian population it also occupies the West Bank where it uses the military and military courts to police the Palestinian population. Amnesty International mentions training from Israel's national police, military and secret services. I'm guessing that's Shin Bet not Mossad. This is not a conspiraloon theory and it is the US police who are to blame for learning from a military occupation.
NoXion
Craicy the Squirrel
You know that arguments can be used in bad faith by certain people while still being correct, yes? Loons are gonna loon, but that doesn't change the fact that criticism of the state of Israel is twisted into AS by some on the pro-Israel side.
Bullshit. The US is a (if not the) big player in the global military/"security"-industrial complex, and Israel is a junior partner in that venture. Systemic racism and police violence doesn't just exist in the US, it's a global problem. I think it's disingenuous to pretend that these two facts are entirely disconnected.
Treacle Toes
Time
Oh really? So nothing to do with the widespread use of Israeli/IDF training orgs/exchanges by the US police service? Nothing to do with them being touted as 'the best in the world' , nothing to do with these being sponsored by US & Israeli orgs? Just 'loons' making it up. Right-O.
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