Support for Labour has collapsed among Muslim voters according to a new poll commissioned by the Labour Muslim Network (LMN), with a huge majority citing Keir Starmer’s support for Israeli genocide as a decisive factor.
In the 2019 general election, 86% of Muslims voted Labour – but that has now dropped to 43%. 85% of those surveyed said that Palestine was either very important (70%) or somewhat important (15%) in deciding how they will vote at the next general election. The poll showed support among Muslims for the Greens, who have made clear calls for an end to the slaughter in Gaza, has rocketed by 900%.
LMN has repeatedly identified huge issues with the rampant Islamophobia in the party under Starmer and reported in 2022, long before Israel’s genocidal assault in Gaza, that more than two thirds of Muslims don’t trust Labour to sort out its anti-Muslim bigotry.
The crew of a U.S. aircraft carrier direct warplanes conducting airstrikes against Houthi fighters on January 22, 2024. (Photo: U.S. Central Command)
“We urge you to prioritize diplomatic pathways to de-escalation, which must include urgently pressing for and securing a permanent cease-fire in Gaza,” the groups said in a letter to the president.
As U.S. forces on Friday launched intense airstrikes against Syria and Iraq in retaliation for this week’s deadly drone strike on an American outpost in Jordan, scores of advocacy groups urged President Joe Biden to avoid a wider Mideast war by pressing Israel for a cease-fire in Gaza.
According to U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM), American warplanes struck Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) Quds Force and “affiliated militia groups” in Syria and Iraq—countries that have suffered various degrees of U.S. bombardment since 2014 and 1991, respectively.
This, after U.S. and U.K.-led airstrikes last month targeted Houthi fighters in Yemen amid attacks on commercial shipping in the Red Sea.
“We fear that, as tensions continue in this escalatory spiral, the U.S. could become engaged in a protracted new war that spans across the entire region.”
“U.S. military forces struck more than 85 targets, with numerous aircraft to include long-range bombers flown from United States,” CENTCOM said Friday. “The facilities that were struck included command and control operations, intelligence centers, rockets and missiles, unmanned aired vehicle storages, and logistics and munition supply chain facilities of militia groups and their IRGC sponsors who facilitated attacks against U.S. and coalition forces.”
Anti-war voices condemned the latest bombings in the 22-year, open-ended U.S. War on Terror, during which millions of lives have been lost and trillions of dollars spent. A coalition of 80 advocacy groups sent a letter to Biden imploring his administration to eschew war by “leading with diplomacy.”
“We fear that, as tensions continue in this escalatory spiral, the U.S. could become engaged in a protracted new war that spans across the entire region,” the groups wrote. “To avoid such an unacceptable outcome, we urge you to prioritize diplomatic pathways to de-escalation, which must include urgently pressing for and securing a permanent cease-fire in Gaza.”
Stephen Miles, president of Win Without War—one of the signatories to the letter—said that “while these strikes come in response to the recent tragic loss of three U.S. service members, there is little reason to believe that they will be any more successful at halting the growing spread of violence across the Middle East than multiple previous rounds of similar U.S. bombing.”
“Instead, the president should do everything in his power to immediately secure a cease-fire in Gaza, the fire at the core of this regional inferno, while leading robust, regional diplomacy aimed at a genuine de-escalation of violence,” he continued. “More war will only put U.S. forces and people in the region at greater risk than they already are.”
“Finally, we remain concerned about the clear lack of appropriate legal authorization for this prolonged military engagement,” Miles added. “While the president always retains the constitutional right to engage in self-defense, planned retaliation and prolonged bombing campaigns are not self-defense.”
As the U.S. and its allies drop bombs on Syria, Yemen, Iraq, Somalia, Palestine, and beyond, remember that the U.S. military routinely covers up civilian casualties by labeling innocent people as "militants" or covering them up altogether. pic.twitter.com/q3rZzsp1I8
Both Republicans and Democrats in Congress have been demanding that Biden attack Iran in retaliation for Sunday’s drone strike on the Tower 22 outpost in northeastern Jordan that killed three soldiers serving in the Army Reserve’s 718th Engineer Company and wounded dozens more.
The Islamic Resistance in Iraq (IRI)—a coalition of Shia Islamist militant groups backed by Tehran—said it carried out the attack on the U.S. base. Iran denies any involvement in the strike, and the Biden administration admitted Monday that it has no proof that Tehran ordered the attack.
U.S. support for Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza—which has left more than 100,000 Palestinians dead, wounded, or missing—has stoked intense outrage throughout the Muslim world. IRI warned following Sunday’s strike that “if the U.S. keeps supporting Israel, there will be escalations.”
“Nothing in the region is likely to de-escalate unless there is de-escalation in Gaza.”
Trita Parsi, executive vice president of the letter signer Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, said Friday that “Biden’s strategy appears more focused on reducing the militias’ capability to strike the U.S. than reducing their interest in targeting Americans.”
“This is ultimately a suboptimal strategy. It would be more effective to reduce their interest in striking against the U.S. since that would render their capacity a lesser problem,” Parsi warned. “What would reduce their interest? A cease-fire in Gaza.”
“But Biden is doing everything he can to avoid putting any real pressure on Israel. He is accepting significant risk to U.S. soldiers—even willing to risk a regional war—just to make sure he doesn’t cross the Netanyahu government on the issue of a cease-fire,” Parsi continued, referring to far-right Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
“Regardless of how Biden’s campaign is choreographed and calibrated not to elicit lethal retaliations from the militias or Iran itself, there is no escaping this reality: Nothing in the region is likely to de-escalate unless there is de-escalation in Gaza,” he added.
Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) walks through the Senate subway after a vote in the U.S. Capitol on January 9, 2024. (Photo: Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc. via Getty Images)
“After years of working to block and undermine diplomatic alternatives, these people may be closer than ever to realizing their dream of war with Iran.”
Warhawks in the United States wasted no time agitating for direct military conflict with Iran after a drone attack on a military base just inside Jordan’s border with Syria on Sunday killed three American troops and injured dozens more.
Both Republican and Democratic members of Congress called on U.S. President Joe Biden to quickly respond with strikes inside Iran, which denied any connection to Sunday’s attack.
“The only answer to these attacks must be devastating military retaliation against Iran’s terrorist forces, both in Iran and across the Middle East,” said Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), a longtime supporter of war with Iran. “Anything less will confirm Joe Biden as a coward unworthy of being commander-in-chief.”
Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-Fla.) called Iran “an existential threat to the U.S. and our allies in the region” and said Tehran “must be held accountable for the murder of three U.S. soldiers.”
United Against Nuclear Iran, a group chaired by former Sen. Joseph Lieberman, also demanded “a decisive U.S. military response against targets inside Iran.”
“The U.S. should attack and destroy Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) military and intelligence targets in Iran, as well as missile and drone bases where the Iranian regime’s proxies are trained,” the group said.
“Those who have consistently counseled only violence to address the crisis unleashed on October 7 should be ashamed of the disastrous outcomes they have so far reaped.”
Biden claimed in a statement Sunday that “radical Iran-backed militant groups operating in Syria and Iraq” were responsible for Sunday’s drone attack, but acknowledged that the U.S. is “still gathering the facts.”
“Have no doubt—we will hold all those responsible to account at a time and in a manner [of] our choosing,” the president said.
U.S. forces stationed in the Middle East have faced increasingly frequent attacks since Israel launched its large-scale war on the Gaza Strip following the deadly Hamas-led assault on southern Israel on October 7. Sunday marked the first time since October that American troops have been killed in a Middle East attack.
The Biden administration has blamed the attacks on Iran-aligned militias and responded with airstrikes in Iraq and Syria, intensifying concerns that the U.S. is fueling a regionwide conflict. The administration has also launched a series of unauthorized strikes in Yemen in response to Houthi attacks on commercial shipping in the Red Sea.
Despite the above, the Pentagon continues to insist that the U.S. is “not at war in the Middle East.”
Contrary to the growing calls for a military response to attacks on U.S. troops, analysts and progressive lawmakers have argued that the only way to halt the escalating violence in the region is to secure a cease-fire in the Gaza Strip, where Israeli forces armed by the U.S. have killed more than 26,000 people in less than four months. The Biden administration has repeatedly stonewalled international efforts to secure a cease-fire.
“I am heartbroken by the loss of the servicemembers killed in Jordan,” Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.), a U.S. Senate candidate, wrote in a social media post on Sunday. “Like I feared, the violence is spiraling out of control. President Biden must demand a cease-fire in Gaza now.”
“This is what the U.S. has been doing for literally decades in this region, responding to violence with more violence…and it has not worked,” @mattduss responds to growing calls from the GOP to attack Iran after militia groups linked to the country killed U.S. troops in Jordan. pic.twitter.com/HT3djtxDmq
Jamal Abdi, president of the National Iranian American Council, warned in a statement Sunday that “the U.S. and Iran are now closer to the brink of being pulled into a full-blown regional war by the vortex of violence that was unleashed by Hamas’ attack on Israel on October 7th and Israel’s assault on Gaza.”
“Those who have consistently counseled only violence to address the crisis unleashed on October 7 should be ashamed of the disastrous outcomes they have so far reaped,” said Abdi. “We are disgusted by calls for more escalation from opportunists like Senators Lindsey Graham, Tom Cotton, and John Cornyn who are urging yet again for the U.S. to directly attack Iran. After years of working to block and undermine diplomatic alternatives, these people may be closer than ever to realizing their dream of war with Iran.”
“President Biden must show leadership and recognize that there is no military solution to this crisis that has only been expanded and prolonged by military escalation and a dearth of diplomacy,” he continued. “The president must calibrate his response so as not to condemn the U.S. and region to an intractable war and instead work to end this conflict. The most impactful thing Biden can do to prevent further deaths across the region and prevent a full-blown war is to secure an immediate cease-fire between Israel and Palestine.”
Trita Parsi, executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, similarly argued that “to truly protect our troops and avoid both war and more needless American deaths, Biden should begin withdrawing troops from Iraq and Syria and press Israel for a cease-fire, since its slaughter in Gaza is fueling four fronts that put the U.S. at risk.”
“There will be understandable calls for revenge and counterstrikes,” Parsi said. “Biden will almost certainly go down that path. Know that this is how America gets dragged into endless war. Retaliations, which in the moment may feel justified by the unacceptable attacks of these militias, put us on a path toward a war that doesn’t serve our interests and that we cannot afford—one whose victory we cannot define and whose exit we cannot envision.”
Israeli soldiers take up positions near the Gaza Strip border, in southern Israel, December 29, 2023
BRITAIN’S sick decision to suspend funding for Palestinian refugees while they face famine and mass displacement in Gaza shames our country in the eyes of the world.
We will not escape blame simply because, alongside other wealthy countries such as Germany, Italy and Canada, we are falling into line behind the United States, the first to freeze funding for the UN Relief & Works Agency (UNRWA) following allegations that 12 of its 30,000 employees were involved in Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel.
This act of inhuman cruelty further underlines the divide in international politics between the West and the rest. Since Israel’s invasion of Gaza began the gulf between the handful of US allies who facilitate its mass murder of Palestinians and the huge majority of countries which back an immediate ceasefire has yawned ever wider.
UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini rightly calls this collective punishment. Innocent Palestinians will starve to death because of an unproven Israeli accusation that a tiny number of its staff may have played a role in Hamas’s raid. An accusation UNRWA immediately pledged to investigate, with survivors among the named 12 already sacked.
But the collective punishment of Gaza’s population is nothing new. Over 25,000 people, mostly women and children, have been killed as Israel’s merciless bombardment flattens neighbourhoods and its rampaging soldiers shoot their way into hospitals, a collective punishment for Hamas killing over 1,100 Israelis on October 7.
Labour Party leader Keir Starmer speaking during the Labour and Civil Society Summit at St John’s church in Waterloo, south London, January 22, 2024
… KEIR STARMER was accused of hypocrisy yesterday as he vowed to defend civic institutions from “Tory McCarthyism.”
The Labour leader criticised the Conservatives for targeting organisations such as the Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI) and the National Trust as part of their “war on woke.”
Jewish Voice for Labour’s Mike Cushman, however, said that Sir Keir is an expert when it comes to McCarthyism — named after the infamous US senator responsible for spreading fears and persecuted leftwingers in the postwar “red scare.”
He told the Morning Star: “We welcome Starmer’s recognition of the Tories’ McCarthyism: freedom of action by civic groups is important to protect, but we would wish he would recognise the McCarthyism within the Labour Party, which attempts to police legitimate discussion of Palestine and Israel by falsely labelling it as anti-semitism, in a clear McCarthyite attempt to shut down needed discussion.”
