Daily Archives: 18 July 2025

Morning Star Editorial: Starmer’s punishment of Diane Abbott won’t quell the rising resistance

Spread the love

https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/starmers-punishment-diane-abbott-wont-quell-rising-resistance

 Diane Abbott speaking at the People’s Assembly Against Austerity protest in central London, June 7, 2025

DIANE ABBOTT is not so much guilty of thought crime as the crime of thinking. In her response to question put to her by Radio 4’s James Naughtie (and recorded in May before the present ructions in the Parliamentary Labour Party) she simply said: “Clearly, there must be a difference between racism which is about colour and other types of racism because you can see a Traveller or a Jewish person walking down the street, you don’t know.”

She then went on to remark: “I just think that it’s silly to try and claim that racism which is about skin colour is the same as other types of racism. I don’t know why people would say that.”

Keir Starmer’s reimposition of the verbot on Abbott’s membership of the Parliamentary Labour Party arrived without anything resembling a rational examination of the manifestly sensible things she said and without any reasoned argument against.

It is, and was intended as such, as an arbitrary act of punishment, designed to isolate her and render toxic a rational discussion of racism.

You might think that Starmer and his praetorian guard would think about the way this might be understood in black communities, particularly as this all occurs alongside a violent racist riot in a neighbouring constituency to hers.

…

Starmer sees it as another opportunity to buttress his complicity in the Gaza genocide to strengthen his police regime which has driven hundreds of thousands out of the Labour Party, shed millions of Labour voters and is creating something of a panic in a Parliamentary Labour Party whose members, if they lack the courage to confront him, still retain the capacity to count and thus know they face certain defeat.

…

Article continues

Keir Starmer chases Nigel Farage's racist bigot vote.
Keir Starmer chases Nigel Farage’s racist bigot vote.
UK Labour Party government ministers Keir Starmer, Angela Rayner and Rachel Reeves explain that they are partners complicit in Israel's Gaza genocide. The UK has provided Israel with arms, military and air force support. They explain that they don't do gas chambers but do do forced marches, starvation, destroy hospitals, mass-murders of journalists and healthcare workers.
UK Labour Party government ministers Keir Starmer, Angela Rayner and Rachel Reeves explain that they are partners complicit in Israel’s Gaza genocide. The UK has provided Israel with arms, military and air force support. They explain that they don’t do gas chambers but do do forced marches, starvation, destroy hospitals, mass-murders of journalists and healthcare workers.
Keir Starmer objects to criticism of the IDF. He asks how could anyone obect to them starving people to death, forced marches like the Nazis did, bombing Gaza's hospitals and universities,mass-murdering journalists, healthworkers and starving people queuing for food, killing and raping prisoners and murdering children. He calls for people to stop obstructing his genocide for Israel.
Keir Starmer objects to criticism of the IDF. He asks how could anyone obect to them starving people to death, forced marches like the Nazis did, bombing Gaza’s hospitals and universities,mass-murdering journalists, healthworkers and starving people queuing for food, killing and raping prisoners and murdering children. He calls for people to stop obstructing his genocide for Israel.

Onaquietday Exclusive: Angela Rayner’s support for murder

Continue ReadingMorning Star Editorial: Starmer’s punishment of Diane Abbott won’t quell the rising resistance

Labour accused of hypocrisy for suspending Diane Abbott on the same day as a far-right mob attacked police and anti-racists

Spread the love

https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/labour-accused-hypocrisy-suspending-diane-abbott-same-day-far-right-mob-attacked-police-and

 MP Diane Abbott addressing the People’s Assembly Britain is Broken national demonstration in central London, November 5, 2022

SUSPENDING Diane Abbott on the same day a far-right mob attacked police and anti-racists reveals Labour’s “rank hypocrisy,” Stand Up To Racism (SUTR) said yesterday.

The campaign group slammed the party for censuring Britain’s first black woman MP and leading anti-racist while its leader, Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, stoked anti-immigrant sentiment with a speech implying Britain was becoming “an island of strangers.”

Anti-racists were surrounded by masked far-right thugs on Thursday night after staging a counter demonstration to an anti-immigration protest outside a hotel in Epping, Essex.

Riot police swarmed the streets after police vans were vandalised and officers assaulted by groups of men trying to reach the hotel.

SUTR co-convener Sabby Dhalu said: “On the same evening as a violent racist riot targeting asylum-seekers erupted outside the Bell Hotel in Epping Forest, Labour decided to suspend Diane Abbott, Britain’s first black woman MP and a leading anti-racist.

“The government has lost its bearings on racism.” 

Article continues

Keir Starmer chases Nigel Farage's racist bigot vote.
Keir Starmer chases Nigel Farage’s racist bigot vote.
Continue ReadingLabour accused of hypocrisy for suspending Diane Abbott on the same day as a far-right mob attacked police and anti-racists

UN says more than 737,000 newly displaced in Gaza since March amid Israeli strikes

Spread the love

This work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. 

Palestinian families begin fleeing again from shelters near the Al-Mawasi area as the Israeli army expands its ground offensive and tanks reach southwestern Khan Yunis, Gaza, marking their first displacement in nearly a year and a half, on July 10, 2025. [Hani Alshaer - Anadolu Agency]
Palestinian families begin fleeing again from shelters near the Al-Mawasi area as the Israeli army expands its ground offensive and tanks reach southwestern Khan Yunis, Gaza, marking their first displacement in nearly a year and a half, on July 10, 2025. [Hani Alshaer – Anadolu Agency]

The UN said Thursday that more than 737,000 people have been displaced in the Gaza Strip since an escalation of Israeli attacks in March, underscoring the scale of the humanitarian crisis facing the population, Anadolu reports.

Citing the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), spokesperson Stephanie Tremblay reported at a news conference that “between the 8th and the 15th of July, more than 11,500 people were newly displaced.”

“That brings overall displacement since the latest escalation of hostilities on March 18th to over 737,000 people – that’s about 35% of Gaza’s population. And over the past 21 months, nearly everyone has been displaced, typically multiple times,” she noted.

Tremblay said Israeli strikes in the last 24 hours hit sites sheltering displaced Palestinians, with reports of injuries and fatalities.

Despite mounting needs, she said that only a limited amount of humanitarian aid is reaching the enclave.

Tremblay described the delivery of benzene for the first time in more than 135 days as a “small but important step forward,” noting that benzene is essential for powering ambulances and critical services.

“But it’s not enough,” she stressed.

READ: Israel refuses to renew visas for heads of 3 UN agencies in Gaza

On the Israeli strike against a church in Gaza, Tremblay said UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres “strongly condemns today’s reports of an Israeli strike on the Holy Family Church in Gaza, a place of worship and a sanctuary for civilians.”

“Attacks on places of worship are unacceptable. People seeking shelter must be respected and protected, not hit by strikes,” she added, reiterating demands for an immediate ceasefire.

She reiterated Guterres’ call “on all parties to ensure that civilians are respected and protected at all times and allow humanitarian aid to flow into the Strip at scale.”

In response to a question by Anadolu on Israel’s reported reassignment of administrative control of the Ibrahimi Mosque in Hebron to a settler council, Tremblay said the UN had not seen the report, but emphasized: “We always call for the protection of all religious sites.”

On Tuesday, Israeli media reported that Tel Aviv removed the Hebron municipality’s administrative authority over the Ibrahimi Mosque and reassigned it to a settler council.

The Ibrahimi Mosque, also known as the Tomb of the Patriarchs, is a site sacred to Muslims and Jews. Tensions over control and access have long made the mosque a flashpoint in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The Israeli move marks the first major shift in the status of the mosque since the 1994 recommendations of the Shamgar Commission, which divided access, allocating 63% of the site to Jewish worshippers and 37% to Muslims.

The division followed the 1994 massacre by extremist settler Baruch Goldstein, who killed 29 Palestinian worshippers during dawn prayers.

The mosque is located in the Old City in an area under full Israeli control where roughly 400 illegal settlers live under the protection of 1,500 Israeli soldiers.

READ: UNICEF: Israeli attacks killing 28 children daily in Gaza

Continue ReadingUN says more than 737,000 newly displaced in Gaza since March amid Israeli strikes

Israel refuses to renew visas for heads of 3 UN agencies in Gaza

Spread the love

This work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. 

Daily life continues at Al-Shati refugee camp in the shadow of war in Gaza City, Gaza on June 19, 2025. [Mahmoud İssa - Anadolu Agency]
Daily life continues at Al-Shati refugee camp in the shadow of war in Gaza City, Gaza on June 19, 2025. [Mahmoud İssa – Anadolu Agency]

Israel has refused to renew the visas of the heads of at least three United Nations agencies operating in Gaza, a move linked by UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, Tom Fletcher, to their efforts to protect Palestinian civilians in the war-torn Strip, according to Associated Press.

 “Visas are not renewed or reduced in duration by Israel, explicitly in response to our work on protection of civilians,” Fletcher said.

UN spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric confirmed in recent months that visa renewals had not been granted to the local heads of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), and the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA).

Speaking before the Security Council on Wednesday, Fletcher said the UN’s humanitarian role is not only to deliver aid and report what its staff witness, but also to advocate for international humanitarian law, “so that you, this Council, can take action.”

READ: UNICEF: Israeli attacks killing 28 children daily in Gaza

Continue ReadingIsrael refuses to renew visas for heads of 3 UN agencies in Gaza

Pope Leo calls for ‘immediate ceasefire’ in Gaza as Israeli warplanes strike Catholic church

Spread the love

This work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. 

Pope Leo XIV attends general audience in St. Peter's Square at the Vatican, on May 21, 2025. [isabella Bonotto - Anadolu Agency ]
Pope Leo XIV attends general audience in St. Peter’s Square at the Vatican, on May 21, 2025. [isabella Bonotto – Anadolu Agency ]

Pope Leo XIV on Thursday renewed his call for “an immediate ceasefire” in the Gaza Strip and expressed his “profound hope” for “dialogue, reconciliation and lasting peace in the region,” following an Israeli attack on a Catholic church sheltering civilians, Anadolu reports.

The appeal came in a telegram signed by Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin after the Church of the Holy Family in Gaza was hit during an Israeli military raid.

The pope said he was “deeply saddened” by the assault on the parish, which has provided refuge to more than 500 people since the beginning of the war.

Among those injured was the parish priest, Father Gabriel Romanelli, who sustained a light leg wound and was treated at Al-Ahli hospital in Gaza City.

The pontiff addressed Father Romanelli directly in the telegram, assuring him of his “spiritual closeness” and offering prayers to the entire parish community.

READ: UNICEF: Israeli attacks killing 28 children daily in Gaza

“Entrusting the souls of the deceased to the loving mercy of Almighty God,” the pope said he is praying “for the consolation of those who mourn and for the healing of the wounded.”

In the course of its deadly offensive on the Gaza Strip, the Israeli army has bombed several worship places, including the Gaza Baptist Church and the Greek Orthodox Church of Saint Porphyrius, the oldest in the Gaza Strip and the third oldest in the world.

The Holy Family Church is the only Catholic church in the Gaza Strip, which has been sheltering many displaced Christian and Muslim Palestinians since October 2023.

The Israeli army, rejecting international calls for a ceasefire, has pursued a brutal offensive against Gaza since October 2023, killing nearly 58,600 Palestinians, most of them women and children.

Last November, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.

Israel also faces a genocide case at the International Court of Justice for its war on the enclave.

READ: Several injured as Israeli warplanes strike Catholic church in Gaza City

Continue ReadingPope Leo calls for ‘immediate ceasefire’ in Gaza as Israeli warplanes strike Catholic church