ISRAEL’S announcement that it will “teach a lesson” to the United Nations by denying visas to its representatives only highlights its growing isolation — and that of its Nato allies.
Its brutal bombardment of Gaza has already killed at least 29 employees of the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the besieged strip, a tiny proportion of the civilian casualties but a telling sign of Tel Aviv’s contempt for international law.
The UN’s structure has prevented it from giving a clear moral lead with the United States vetoing calls for a ceasefire. But the remarks by secretary-general Antonio Guterres that have so riled Israeli leaders — that Hamas’s attacks on October 7 did not happen “in a vacuum” and must be linked to “56 years of suffocating oppression” of Palestine by Israel — were a statement of fact.
More could have been said. It is not just the decades-long denial of Palestinian statehood, the ongoing routine violence of the occupation or the siege of Gaza that set the scene for those terrifying events.
It is that the oppression of Palestinians has become rapidly more extreme in recent years, from Israel’s adoption of the racist Nation-State Law, through the massacre of unarmed demonstrators on the Gaza border during the March of Return protests, to the appointment of self-described fascist ministers who would have been beyond the political pale even five years ago.
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It is not Western peoples who are isolated, but our politicians, as the huge Palestine demonstrations and the growing backlash against Keir Starmer for endorsing war crimes show.
If world opinion is for a ceasefire, British public opinion is too. The gulf between people and politicians should be used to build an anti-imperialist movement strong enough to stop the war.
I didn’t invite him or even know who he was, says disgusted imam of South Wales Islamic Centre after outrage over Starmer photo stunt
Skwakwbox’s image of Keir Starmer attempting to ‘mosque-wash’ his comments supporting and encouraging Israeli war crimes against Gaza at South Wales Islamic Centre, Oct 2023.
Keir Starmer’s attempt to mosque-wash his support for Israeli war crimes against Palestinian civilians has backfired enormously, after Muslims reacted with outrage to his appearance in the South Wales Islamic Centre – and the centre’s imam disowned him and said he didn’t even know who he was when Starmer turned up.
In a conversation related on a socialist WhatsApp group, the imam said that he had not invited Starmer – Starmer’s team had called the centre and said he wanted to visit – and had no idea beforehand that it would be cynically exploited for a photo opportunity. Moreover, he was asking the mosque committee to put out another statement about the visit and would never ‘betray the Palestinians’ by knowingly associating with a supporter of Israel’s war crimes against the Palestinians.
The message relayed from the Muslim scholar who spoke to the imam was as follows:
Starmer has been trying to repair his relationship with the Muslim community through a surprise visit to a mosque in Wales. The following was shared by a scholar friend of mine this morning:
I spoke to the imam of the South Wales Islamic Centre, Shaykh Muhammad (Egyptian), over the phone about these images which are being used by Keir Starmer as propaganda and PR to dilute and sanctify his statement in support of war crimes and genocide. I don’t know this imam personally; I didn’t know anything about him and had not spoken to him before this telephone conversation.
I shared my thoughts on Keir Starmer and the South Wales Islamic Centre propaganda before my conversation with the Centre’s imam. My thoughts on this issue have not changed. We all know that mosque imams in the UK are employees of mosque committees and have zero decision-making powers.
Since my phone conversation with the Imam of South Wales Islamic Centre was private, I asked for his permission to share on Facebook and with others the details I am going to share now, and he granted me his permission to do so. He was crying and upset as he explained to me the following:
1) South Wales Islamic Centre did not invite Keir Starmer. He was in Wales and his people made a phone call to South Wales Islamic Centre expressing their desire to come and visit the Centre.
2) The imam did not know who Keir Starmer was before he met him at the South Wales Islamic Centre. He’s Egyptian, can barely speak or read English and doesn’t follow local politics. He was also not aware of what Keir Starmer had said in support of genocide and war crimes. He wishes he had researched online before agreeing to meet him. Even if he had, he doubt that he would have found anything in Arabic. [It seems that the old issue of imams who are not familiar with the local context has still not been resolved. With notable exceptions, Al-Azhar graduates have not always been known to be politically and socially literate and aware. So, I was not surprised]
3) The imam was unaware that this visit would be exploited for propaganda and public relations. He was shocked when the angry phone calls starting coming in from various communities, and disappointed to see how the pictures from the visit were being used by Keir Starmer on social media for propaganda purposes.
4) He will ask the mosque committee to meet and draft ANOTHER statement to clarify what happened and state South Wales Islamic Centre’s position.
5) He cried as he explained that he would never betray Palestinians by associating or collaborating in the propaganda of anyone who supports war crimes and genocide against them. I believe everything he told me. The South Wales Islamic Centre and its committee should clean this mess.
Keir Starmer is complicit in Israel’s murders and starvation of Palestinian civilians and in the whole oppression, occupation and apartheid inflicted on the people of Palestine. No amount of white-, mosque- or any other kind of wash can cover or erase that.
Just Stop Oil protesting in London 6 December 2022.
Many people will tell you that we have already reached the 1.5C ‘limit’ or target of increased temperature over the pre-industrial era. This is not strictly true because the target is an average. It will be passed imminently probably within a year or two but currently we are passing it on about 30% of days. Weather records are getting surpassed daily and monthly – the climate is in freefall.
Capitalists caused the climate crisis and are unwilling to tackle it. Instead of tackling it they are ramping up fossil fuel dependecy that will accelerate climate destruction. In UK, the Blue Labour Party’s policy is indistinguishable from the Conservative climate destroyers. We have to reject the Neo-Liberal Capitalists responsible for climate destruction and Keir Starmer is every bit engaging in anilingus with the fossil fuel industry as Prime Minister Rishi Sunak.
Image of InBedWithBigOil by Not Here To Be Liked + Hex Prints from Just Stop Oil’s You May Find Yourself… art auction. Featuring Rishi Sunak, Fossil Fuels and Rupert Murdoch.
I expect these Neo-Liberal Capitalist shits to be deposed, the problem is how quickly, how much damage will they do before then? People will come to realise that their knee-jerk reaction of hostility to Just Stop Oil is mistaken and that they are instead their saviours. How angry are they going to be then? Individual acts targeting superyachts, private planes and excessively expensive cars are happening now. What’s going to be happening in 5 or 6 years time? It is the rich that are responsible for destroying our planet and I expect them to be held to account when many people start realising that their own and their childrens’ lives are fekked.
28 Oct 23:
Another reason that we need a new politics, that we have to ensure that neither Conservative or Starmer’s Labour are in power is that supporters of war crimes in Gaza should be prevented from being in positions of authority. They should properly be prosecuted for their complicity.
In 2022, the average global temperature was about 1.15 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels. According to the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), the cyclical weather phenomenon La Niña recently contributed to temporarily cooling and dampening the effects of human-induced climate change. La Niña lasted for three years and ended around March of 2023.
In May, the WMO issued a report that projected a significant likelihood (66 percent) that the world would exceed the 1.5 degrees Celsius threshold in the next four years. This breach would likely be driven by human-induced climate change, combined with a warming El Niño — a cyclical weather phenomenon that temporarily heats up ocean regions and pushes global temperatures higher.
This summer, an El Niño is currently underway, and the event typically raises global temperatures in the year after it sets in, which in this case would be in 2024. The WMO predicts that, for each of the next four years, the global average temperature is likely to swing between 1.1 and 1.8 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels.
Though there is a good chance the world will get hotter than the 1.5-degree limit as the result of El Niño, the breach would be temporary, and for now, would not have failed the Paris Agreement, which aims to keep global temperatures below the 1.5-degree limit over the long term (averaged over several decades rather than a single year).
Thousands sign letter of no confidence as leader continues to back Israeli war crimes
Zionist Keir ‘Kid Starver’ Starmer. Image thanks to The Skwawkbox.
LABOUR-supporting Muslims told Sir Keir Starmer to quit today as the row over the Labour leader’s backing for Israeli war crimes deepened with more councillors leaving the party.
Thousands of British Muslims across society signed an open letter telling Sir Keir that they had lost confidence in his leadership after he backed Israel cutting off food, water and power to Palestinians in Gaza, in breach of international law.
In another blow to the Starmer leadership, Labour MPs backed a Commons motion tabled by Socialist Campaign Group secretary Richard Burgon expressing “deep alarm at the Israeli military bombardment and total siege of Gaza and the resulting deaths and suffering,” and calling for an immediate ceasefire and an “end to the total siege of Gaza.”
Sir Keir tried to slither back onto the high ground today, using Prime Minister’s Questions to partially recalibrate Labour’s position.
He said that “food, fuel and water must get into Gaza immediately” — the very things he had endorsed the Israeli government cutting off.
But neither he nor PM Rishi Sunak backed calls for a ceasefire, instead emphasising Israel’s “right to defend itself” through continuing attacks on Gaza “within international law.”
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Labour is facing large-scale resignations among councillors irate about Sir Keir’s pro-war crimes stance and the ban on attending solidarity marches.
Further departures were reported today in London, Cambridge, Gloucester and Gedling in Nottinghamshire, joining colleagues in Manchester, Stroud and Oxford who quit earlier.
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A Labour official, believed to be a member of the party’s executive, has described these councillors as “fleas” to be shaken off.
Palestinians evacuate a child after an Israeli air strike on Khan Younis, Gaza Strip, October 17, 2023
SOCIALISTS had limited expectations of New Labour when it won in 1997. But they did not anticipate Tony Blair’s bloody record in foreign policy, expressed above all in the word which will haunt him to his grave — Iraq.
International affairs were scarcely on the political radar in the years before the Blair landslide.
Labour supporters today have no such excuse. It is now clear that any government led by Sir Keir Starmer will be in the vanguard of international aggression and will be marked by the same indifference to international law and insouciance regarding war crimes as characterised the Blair administration.
Starmer himself has put the question beyond doubt with his comments regarding the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians.
He signalled his firm approval of the Israeli decision to cut off supplies of water, food and power to the besieged millions living in the Gaza Strip. He was indifferent to the fact that such collective punishment drives a coach and horses through international law.
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Labour leader Keir Starmer (centre) with then US secretary of state Mike Pompeo (R) and then US ambassador to Britain, Woody Johnson, in London, 21 July 2020. (Photo: US State Department)
