Category: Palestine

  • Labour bans CLPs from links with string of human rights/peace/health groups incl PSC, JVL, Corbyn’s PJP

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    Original article and image republished from The Swawkbox for non-Commerical use.

    Email to CLPs warns them that any existing affiliations with groups campaigning for abortion rights, minority human rights, disarmament and a fully public NHS are cancelled

    Image thanks to The Skwawkbox

    The Labour party has banned local parties (CLPs) from affiliating with an array of groups supporting the human rights of ethnic minorities or campaigning for a public NHS, in yet another Stalinist move to limit members’ freedom of expression.

    And local parties are being notified by email that any affiliations they already have in place are unilaterally cancelled – and that if a right-wing group is affiliated with the party nationally, they have no say over whether that group affiliates with them locally.

    One such email reads:

    Organisations that are nationally affiliated to the party are eligible to affiliate to any CLP provided they pay the appropriate fee and the CLP cannot debate or decide on their affiliations.

    …The following affiliations are therefore no longer valid and the CLP may not renew its affiliation without approval from the NEC. To do so would breach party rules. These are:

    Palestine Solidarity Campaign, Labour Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, Stop the War Coalition, Republic, London Irish Abortion Rights Campaign, Jewish Voice for Labour, Somalis for Labour, Sikhs for Labour, All African Women’s Group, Health Campaigns Together, The Campaign against Climate Change Trades Union, Peace & Justice Project.

    Yes, you read that right: a group campaigning for peace, human rights, women’s rights, disarmament and to protect the environment are not welcome in Keir Starmer’s Labour party and party member groups risk disciplinary action if they try to associate with them.

    The news should come as no surprise in Starmer’s racist, pro-privatisation, pro-apartheid party where his promises to renationalise the NHS and public utilities, protect the climate and empower member rights and democracy were binned almost the instant he got his backside into Corbyn’s office and his claim to be on the side of domestic violence victims masks a shameless cover-up of abuse of them.

    And of course, given recent appalling comments by the leadership and its agents, Jews who believe in the human rights of Palestinians are particularly unwelcome – and indeed are being disproportionately targeted by the regime in a campaign of blatant (but ignored by the media) antisemitism and discrimination.

    Original article and image republished from The Swawkbox for non-Commerical use.

  • About Starmer following Blair and Corbyn

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    https://johnwight1.medium.com/jeremy-corbyn-is-a-better-man-than-starmer-and-starmer-a-lesser-man-than-blair-a300c7ba116b

    Image of Keir Starmer sucking up to the rich and powerful at the World Economic Forum, Davos
    Image of Keir Starmer sucking up to the rich and powerful at the World Economic Forum, Davos

    …

    Shakespeare himself could not conceive of the dramatic fall from grace experienced by Jeremy Corbyn, under whose leadership between 2015 and 2019 the UK Labour Party could boast a mass membership of 600,000 to make it the largest political party in Europe, and under whose leadership Labour came within just under 2500 votes of winning the 2017 general election on a transformational programme of wealth redistribution, meaningful policies to end homelessness and poverty, and a foreign policy placing a priority on peace over war and hope over fear.

    That his outstanding performance in 2017 came in the face of a concerted attempt by Labour Party officials to undermine his leadership and election campaign, and despite a treacherous PLP of unreconstructed bastards, this only makes the question of ‘What if?’ all the more salient and also tragic.

    His successor, Starmer, went out of his way to court Corbyn’s supporters in order to get himself elected as leader, while announcing with the sincerity of a mafia boss that “Jeremy is a friend as well as a colleague.”

    …

    The issue of antisemitism has again been weaponised to demonise the most principled anti-racist politician in Britain, again at the behest of an establishment of bastards in the eyes of which the Palestinian people are deemed children of a lesser God.

    The issue within a Parliamentary Labour Party stacked full of apologists for apartheid and white supremacist Zionist ideology that underpins it, has never been antipathy towards Jewish people; it has and continues to be the thoroughly dishonest smearing of those who dare stand in solidarity with the Palestinians and their just struggle against occupation, siege, and the most sustained apparatus of injustice in modern history.

    …

    https://johnwight1.medium.com/jeremy-corbyn-is-a-better-man-than-starmer-and-starmer-a-lesser-man-than-blair-a300c7ba116b

    23/2/23 The quote “Jeremy is a friend as well as a colleague.” appears not quite correct. Unless it’s quoting a different occasion it should be “I want to pay tribute to Jeremy Corbyn, who led our party through some really difficult times, who energised our movement, & who’s a friend as well as a colleague”. I wouldn’t truncate it like that without making it clear, that’s your academic rigour eh? Can be watched here

    Apologies, this one

    https://twitter.com/RedCollectiveUK/status/1627670270847639552
  • Nine Palestinians killed by Israelis in the occupied West Bank

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    https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/w/nine-palestinians-killed-israelis-occupied-west-bank

    NINE Palestinians were killed by Israeli forces and at least 20 others wounded today during a raid in the West Bank.

    The latest surge of violence against Palestinians was the heaviest death toll in years in the occupied territory.

    A gun battle broke out when the Israeli military conducted a daytime operation in the Jenin refugee camp that it said had been aimed at preventing an imminent attack on Israelis.

    …

    Israeli violence has intensified this month after the country’s new far-right government took office and pledged to take a hard line against the Palestinians.

    …

    https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/w/nine-palestinians-killed-israelis-occupied-west-bank

  • Israel kept over 600 Palestinians children under house arrest in 2022

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    Original article republished from peoples dispatch under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 (CC BY-SA) license.

    The data published by the Commission for Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs does not include all the children arrested by Israeli occupation forces this year, which, according to some sources, is above 750December 27, 2022 by Peoples Dispatch

    More than 600 Palestinian children were kept under house arrest by Israeli occupation forces in 2022, according to the Commission for Detainees’ and Ex-Detainees’ Affairs, a prisoners’ rights body, which issued a statement on Monday, December 26. Minors were detained by the Israeli state for periods ranging between a few days and, in some cases, years, Wafa news agency reported. 

    The detained children are not allowed to move freely, or even go to school without an escort. They are also forced to wear tracking devices throughout the detention period. 

    The commission describes two kinds of detention of Palestinian children. One is in which the child stays with their family while an Israeli court decides on the case. This often takes months, and the family is often forced to pay a heavy amount as surety. To access such large sums of money, families often have to take loans or sell their property. In the second category, Israeli forces make Palestinian families take their children outside the city or town during the period of the trial, and arrange for their own stay there while the court decides the matter.  

    The commission notes that such Israeli detention leaves prolonged physiological effects on both the children and their families. It deprives the children of their right to education and creates a constant feeling of fear, anxiety, and deprivation. 

    Israel’s treatment of Palestinian children violates the provisions of international humanitarian law, which specifically addresses protecting the interests of children while setting the conditions of their detention. 

    Until 2009, when Military Order 1644 was promulgated by Israel in the West Bank, Israeli courts would try Palestinian children as young as 12 in the same courts as adults, and with no specific protections in place. Military Order 1644, however, set up separate military courts for the trials of children, and determined the Palestinian age of maturity to be 16. Israel does not classify Palestinians over the age of 16 as children, despite the age of maturity for Israelis being 18 years.  

    Deadly year for Palestinian children 

    At least 54 Palestinian children have been killed by Israeli forces or settlers in the occupied territories in 2022. Out of these, 35 were killed in the occupied West Bank, and 19 in the occupied Gaza strip. At least 958 Palestinian children were wounded by Israeli forces or settlers across the occupied territories in the same period, and over 750 have been arrested or detained. 

    At least 150 Palestinian children, below the age of 18, are in different Israeli prisons serving various sentences. 

    Some sources quote a higher number of children killed by Israeli forces this year in the West Bank. According to Defense of Children-Palestine, one of several Palestinian human rights groups the Israeli government has branded as “terrorists” and banned, “Israeli forces repeatedly and systematically shoot to kill Palestinian children in violation of international law.” It claims that 13 Palestinian children were killed in Jenin alone this year.

    The youngest Palestinian child killed by Israeli forces was 7-year-old Rayan Suleiman. He was being chased by Israeli forces, who were threatening to arrest him near Bethlehem, when he died of cardiac arrest. 

    2022 was also the deadliest year for Palestinians in the occupied West Bank since 2005, when the UN started recording daily deaths. According to the UN, more than 166 Palestinians were killed in the West Bank this year.  

    Jenin, in the northern occupied West Bank, has been particularly targeted by occupation forces this year under the so-called “break the wave” operations launched in March. In near daily raids, Israeli forces have killed 59 Palestinians in Jenin alone this year. 

    Apart from Israeli armed forces, illegal settlers in the occupied West Bank have also killed at least four Palestinians this year, and carried out numerous attacks on Palestinian villages, their farm lands, and their businesses. 

    Original article republished from peoples dispatch under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 (CC BY-SA) license.

  • Al Jazeera asks ICC to investigate Israel over the killing of journalist Shireen Abu Akleh

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    https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/w/al-jazeera-asks-icc-to-investigate-israel-over-the-killing-of-journalist-shireen-abu-akleh

    NEWS channel Al Jazeera formally asked the International Criminal Court (ICC) today to investigate the fatal shooting of journalist Shireen Abu Akleh as she was reporting from a Palestinian refugee camp in May.

    Al Jazeera has accused the Israeli government of specifically targeting its journalists, calling Ms Abu Akleh’s death a war crime.

    The news outlet wants ICC prosecutor Karim Khan to include the reporter’s killing, as well as last year’s Israeli air strike on Al Jazeera’s offices in the Gaza Strip, in his ongoing investigation into allegations of war crimes in the West Bank and Gaza.

    …