Apartheid
US unis even arresting TEACHERS as Israel lobby group demands anti-Palestine crackdown
Students and teachers targeted by police as ADL demands government breaks student anti-genocide protest movement
At least one US university has called in police to arrest faculty members as well as students, as the so-called ‘Anti-defamation League’ (ADL) demanded a crackdown on the spreading anti-genocide protest movement among US students.
NYPD officers took NYU teachers as well as students away from a demo against Israel’s genocide in Gaza, as demonstrations spread to universities around the country. Columbia University, also in New York, has seen further student arrests as a sit-in demo by students against Israel’s slaughter of innocents continues undeterred.
In a tactic reminiscent of the recent rigged stunt in the UK by the Israel-linked, so-called ‘Campaign against Antisemitism’ (CAA), the ADL has claimed Jewish students are unsafe and demanded the immediate suspension of anyone who dares protest against mass murder:
Innocent women and children in Gaza are being slaughtered by the tens of thousands by Israel – and Palestinian students have been attacked, leaving at least one paralysed, by morons whipped up by the Islamophobic speech of politicians and pro-Israel lobbyists – but it seems we are meant to treat the feelings of the friends of genocide and apartheid as more important, on both sides of the Atlantic.
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She Who Struggles: Revolutionary Women Who Shaped the World – review
In She Who Struggles, Marral Shamshiri and Sorcha Thomson compile a selection of essays about women’s (often overlooked) contributions to revolutionary causes around the world, with particular focus on the Global South. According to Lydia Hiraide, the book is an accessible and stimulating read exploring the role of women and feminist thought in building transnational and anti-colonial and social movements.
As the title of Marral Shamshiri and Sorcha Thomson’s edited collection affirms, revolutionary women have shaped our world in various ways. This collection of thirteen chapters pays homage to the militant efforts of women revolutionaries whose efforts are often underacknowledged in the dominant narratives of historical and contemporary revolutionary movements. Each chapter is dedicated to one or more women and/or the movements in which they participated, providing space for their stories to be told and for scholars, activists, and students to learn from them.
Each chapter illuminates an example of radical grassroots politics with a fiery militant edge, focusing particularly on the Global South.
This book strikes a tone which departs from the various forms of ‘Lean In’ liberal feminisms, which remain common across the Global North. Each chapter illuminates an example of radical grassroots politics with a fiery militant edge, focusing particularly on the Global South. The movements and histories that the contributors celebrate highlight women’s leadership and deep personal sacrifice in revolutionary movements, paying tribute to women who have lost their lives and loved ones in the struggle for liberation. Maurice J. Casey’s chapter focuses on Mary Mooney, a working-class Irish woman whose campaign for the liberation of political prisoners sprang from the imprisonment of her son, trade unionist Tom Mooney. What started as a personal experience of state violence for Mooney grew into a transnational campaign across the African and Irish diaspora, joining up with the campaigners and mothers of the Scottsboro boys. These stories remind us that the personal losses of women can spur the genesis of transnational solidarity.
In relation to violence, women are not only its victims; they have also been its agents.
But, in relation to violence, women are not only its victims; they have also been its agents. Jeremy Randall’s chapter on Japanese communist Shigenobu Fusako and the Japanese Red Army (JRA) invites us to reflect on women’s capacity for violence in revolutionary settings. Shigenobu, who started out as a student activist, was militant in her commitment to the liberation of all peoples – and particularly, the people of Palestine. She and the JRA in fact relocated to Palestine as a key site from which to foment revolution, in collaboration with organisations such as the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. Under Shigenobu’s leadership, the JRA exploited “violence as a revolutionary tactic” (83). This is, of course, an approach which invites fundamental questions around the legitimacy of violence in the face of violence. Scholarship on the lives and work of figures like Shigenobu Fusako thus grapple with some of the key problematics at the heart of revolutionary political thought and practice. Such is the essence of the burning questions raised by other thinkers and activists, like Frantz Fanon, whose work and life addressed such themes in the context of colonial Algeria.
Chapters explore, for example, the active solidarity of figures like Madame Bình and Madame Nhu in Vietnam, Palestine and Iran as well as Shigenobu Fusako and the JRA across North Korea, Palestine, and Japan. These women’s histories remain startlingly relevant in today’s world
Though each chapter focuses on a different woman or women in their respective geographical and temporal contexts, several clear themes emerge throughout the book. Firstly, the exploration of women revolutionaries, past and present, affirms the central, rather than tangential, importance of women’s politics to nurturing and developing a revolutionary Left politics. Secondly, the book speaks back to dominant narratives which erase the names of women revolutionaries. More than recognising the role of women in general in revolutionary struggle, it names specific women and recounts their contributions. By doing so, it reminds us that these women were “all autonomous people with histories, feelings, dreams, desires and families” (152), while taking their work as serious sites from which to generate political thought and emancipatory action. Thirdly, a striking majority of the chapters emphasise the power of radical transnationalism in the revolutionary efforts of women worldwide. Chapters explore, for example, the active solidarity of figures like Madame Bình and Madame Nhu in Vietnam, Palestine and Iran as well as Shigenobu Fusako and the JRA across North Korea, Palestine, and Japan. These women’s histories remain startlingly relevant in today’s world, as we witness the unfolding of tragedy, resistance and waves of solidarity with Palestinian struggles, many led by women. In this regard, Jehan Helou’s chapter, “TESTIMONY: The Power of Women’s International Solidarity with the Palestinian Revolution” demands the recognition of women’s efforts as an important force in the struggle for Palestinian liberation.
Additionally, the book offers an interesting and welcome engagement with the arts as an important medium of resistance, in particular, poetry. The chapter by Marral Shamshiri offers an articulate exploration of Marzieh Ahmadi Osku’i’s poetry across the contexts of Iran, Afghanistan and India. Shamshiri examines poetry’s permanence in the context of life’s precarity and impermanence: the words of women poets live on in revolution, even when they themselves do not. This chapter is one of several that reminds us that “[f]or women, poetry is not a luxury,” but rather, “a vital necessity for our existence” and resistance. Kebotlhale Motseothata’s chapter “Lindiwe Mabuza: Culture as a Weapon of Resistance in South Africa” likewise deals with poetry and the arts as crucial instruments used in the struggle against Apartheid. Motseothata affirms the creative, visionary ways in which women have articulated the pain, struggle, and politics they face in living and resisting the intersections of racial capitalism and patriarchy.
This important book undertakes the vital work of recording and examining the contributions of women revolutionaries, whose stories are too often obscured in the mainstream imaginary
Overall, this is an exciting, informative and timely book. The chapters are relatively short and self-contained, making them ideal materials to assign in politics or history courses exploring ideas around revolution, feminism, anti-colonialism and transnational social movement organising. They are written clearly and dynamically, allowing complex themes and histories to be explored in an intellectually stimulating and accessible way. This important book undertakes the vital work of recording and examining the contributions of women revolutionaries, whose stories are too often obscured in the mainstream imaginary.
Note: This review gives the views of the author, and not the position of the LSE Review of Books blog, or of the London School of Economics and Political Science.
Image credit: thomas koch on Shutterstock
Sky deletes its video of Falter claiming he was only trying to cross the road
Page now gives 404 result after overwhelming evidence challenging claims emerged
As Skwawkbox reported earlier today, ‘Campaign against Antisemitism’ (CAA) chief executive Gideon Falter’s claim that he had been prevented by police from crossing a road after just happening to ‘come across’ a pro-Palestine march looks to have fallen apart after a huge volume of eyewitness, photographic and video evidence emerged challenging the veracity of the claim.
Falter, whose CAA group has been shown to have taken large amounts of funding from a ‘quasi-governmental’ Israeli organisation and featured prominently in the campaign to take down then-Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, has also been shown to have made false claims of antisemitic speech – leading to the prosecution, conviction and unanimous acquittal on appeal of a Foreign Office official. His claim about Saturday’s events fuelled calls for the banning of pro-Palestinian marches and the removal of Met Police Commissioner Mark Rowley – who just happens to have previously refused the demands of right-wing, pro-Israel campaigners and politicians for the marches to be banned.
And now Sky News, which had run hard with the false claims and the ensuing narrative, has deleted its video of Falter’s staged stunt. Footage and photographs shot by bystanders strongly suggest that Falter was at the site of the march for some time before the incident – and that he was there with bodyguards and had already tried to disrupt it, a stark contrast with his narrative that he had just bumped into the march on his way home from synagogue.
While emails containing the link will still show a preview of the original content, clicking through to the link leads to a ‘404’ ‘page not found result, as the combined screenshots below show:
It will be interesting to see whether the rest of the so-called ‘mainstream’ media follow suit, or leave up the misleading video and claims despite the flood of contrary evidence.
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Evidence, eyewitnesses challenge Falter’s claims he was stopped for just crossing road
Apparent campaign to discredit pro-Palestine marchers – and remove police commissioner who won’t ban marches – undermined by evidence and eyewitness accounts, including one from before Falter complained
Gideon Falter, pro-Israel chief executive of the so-called ‘Campaign Against Antisemitism’ (CAA), made headlines last week when he posted a video claiming that he had been stopped by the Met Police for simply trying to cross a road, on his way back from synagogue, during a pro-Palestine protest on the grounds that he was visibly Jewish.
Falter and his supporters have used the claim to demonise peace protesters as a threat to Jews – and to demand the resignation of Met Police Commissioner Mark Rowley. Coincidentally, Rowley has refused calls by right-wingers to ban pro-Palestine marches.
But eyewitnesses – including Jewish bystanders – and photographic evidence appear to contradict Falter’s claim. Importantly, one account of the actions of Falter and an entourage with him was posted before the ‘scandal’ became a thing – and describes Falter with a security detail clearly creating an incident:
Other bystanders saw the same – and added that the group had been around for a while, trying to disrupt the protest:
The bodyguard can be seen in video footage of the incident shot by photographer Tom Bowles:
Gideon Falter, CEO of Campaign against antisemitism is seen in discussion with the police during the Pro Palestine March on Saturday. He brought his own security detail. pic.twitter.com/U6HlA89yOD
— Tom Bowles (@tomsdinner) April 19, 2024
Sadly nobody asked so the question remains. https://t.co/f0y8e3ukqf
— Ferret (@Ferretgrove) April 21, 2024
A group consisting of a Holocaust survivor and descendants of Holocaust survivors, who were on Aldwych Road only a few metres away from Falter’s stunt, contacted Skwawkbox with their account of events and their significance:
It has been widely reported that Gideon Falter, chief executive of the Campaign Against Antisemitism, was threatened with arrest when he approached a pro-Palestine demonstration on 13 April in the Aldwych area of London.
Mr. Falter is reported to have said that his interactions with police officers “show that the Met believes that being openly Jewish will antagonise the anti-Israel marchers and that Jews need protection, which the police cannot guarantee. Instead of addressing that threat of antisemitic violence, the Met’s policy instead seems to be that law-abiding Jewish Londoners should not be in the parts of London where these marches are taking place. In other words, that they are no-go zones for Jews.
We are writing to disagree strongly with these claims. This is because throughout his interactions with the police we were standing only a few yards away from him, yet we experienced nothing but warmth and solidarity from the pro-Palestine demonstrators and not a hint of antisemitism.
Our group was “openly Jewish” in that we all wore placards saying that, as descendants of Holocaust survivors, we oppose the ongoing genocide in Gaza. Indeed, one of us, Stephen Kapos, is a child survivor of the Holocaust who was interviewed by Sky News at the time.
Every major pro-Palestine demonstration in London has included a large Jewish bloc which has received nothing but support and warmth from their fellow demonstrators. Claims that these protests are no-go zones for Jews are completely untrue.
Yours Sincerely,
Haim Bresheeth (son of two survivors of Auschwitz)
Mark Etkind (son of a survivor of the Lodz ghetto and Buchenwald)
Stephen Kapos (survivor of the Holocaust in Budapest)
Peter Kapos (son of a Holocaust survivor)
Yosefa Loshitzky (daughter of survivors of the Holocaust in Poland)
A Holocaust survivor and descendants of Holocaust survivors, photographed during Falter’s altercation with police
An image of the entrance to Bush House on Aldwych Road shows how close the group (red) were to Falter (blue) during the incident
A set of photos posted by another bystander shows the Holocaust group and Falter, confirming how close the ‘openly Jewish’ peace demonstrators were to Falter’s supposed ‘no-go zone’:
I too was there and they were definitely not there to just “cross the road” they were lurking around looking for provocation just a few 100 yards from the Israeli counter protest! Note there were other Jews supporting the march such as holocaust survivors pic.twitter.com/aU2aeh3EqC
— Eli786110 (@Aliwala786110) April 21, 2024
Falter had told the Times that he simply ‘came across’ the Palestine protest and tried to cross the road ‘as the front of the march got to us’:
At Aldwych, we came across the pro-Palestine protest and we started to cross the road as the front of the march got to us. Suddenly I felt hands on me. I looked around to see a police officer who was shoving me onto the pavement.
This was contradicted by the photos taken of him and his group before the march got there – and by subsequent responses and video clips from others who were there, including a Jewish police officer:
I forgot that I actually did take a short video of the Gideon Falter incident on the Palestine march last weekend. He had clearly come over from a small pro Israeli protest to try to antagonise people with his video guy to capture it. pic.twitter.com/VBQ5HHAFZo
— John Lubbock (@jwsal) April 21, 2024
They literally were there to provoke and cause an issue by walking literally head on with the peaceful protestors. SO DESPERATE FOR ATTENTION pic.twitter.com/LVRspnXD99
— Zubair (@zubairb02) April 21, 2024
Few if any UK ‘mainstream’ media outlets have covered the contradictory evidence, of which the above is only a small selection.
Gideon Falter has been found at least once to have made untrue accusations of antisemitic conduct. In 2009 he accused Rowan Laxton, a Foreign Office official of shouting ‘F***ing Jews’ in response to incidents in Palestine, leading to Laxton being convicted of ‘racially aggravated public disorder’. The appeal court judges, however, unanimously agreed that Laxton had not said any such thing:
Last year, he was also filmed driving a van ‘very close’ to pro-Palestine protesters and tried to get police to force them to move because ‘they are obstructing the highway’ – as the footage showed other vehicles moving freely past:
Gideon Falter ….. filming looks like more than a hobby. It’s obsessional https://t.co/u8WQ5TWE0a
— Jackie Walker – HRH, MP, MBE, ABC (@Jackiew80333500) April 21, 2024
According to Electronic Intifada last year, the CAA – which has taken ‘credit’ for forcing the Unite union to ban book talks and film showings exposing the weaponisation of antisemitism to attack the pro-Palestine left – is or has been funded by an Israeli ‘quasi-governmental’ group:
the CAA has been given almost half a million dollars by the UK partner of the Jewish National Fund, Israel’s quasi-governmental settler-colonial agency.
The donations were hidden in obscure Charity Commission documents uncovered by our research. In an email to The Electronic Intifada, the CAA confirmed it had been in “past receipt of donations from JNF UK” but denied current JNF funding.
“JNF UK has never exercised or sought to exercise any influence over our activities,” the CAA claimed…
…In 2018, the CAA declared in its accounts disclosed to the Charity Commission that a donation of almost $220,000 had come from a “related party.”
This amounted to nearly half of its income for that year.
Funding a “crisis”
The following year, the CAA declared that $230,000 had come from a similarly undisclosed “related party.”
The 2019 figure amounted to 20 percent of its income but 60 percent of its expenditure.
In 2019, JNF UK declared expenditure of the exact same amount as the donation declared by the CAA that same year.
JNF UK paid $230,000 “for grants provided to a UK charity, which has a trustee who is also a trustee of JNF Charitable Trust.”
According to its website, “JNF Charitable Trust” is simply the official name of the JNF UK charity and they “are the same” group.
The 2019 JNF UK accounts also stated that in 2018 it had made a donation of almost $220,000 to the same unnamed “UK charity.”
Skwawkbox approached the CAA for comment, providing examples of the above counter-evidence and details of the Rowan Laxton incident. The group had not responded by the time of writing.
Update: Sky News has now published a 13-minute video of the entire interaction between Falter and the police – and, unlike Falter’s edited version, it shows the officer telling Falter that he had already observed him trying to provoke the pro-Palestine protesters and was not falling for Falter’s ‘disingenuousness’:
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Victorious smear victim takes aim at ‘antisemitism’ lawyer who misled court
Zionist Mark Lewis panned by James Wilson in series of Twitter posts
Earlier this month, university lecturer James Wilson won substantial damages from two so-called ‘antisemitism campaigners’ who had foully smeared and endangered him and his family in their efforts to discredit him as an opponent of the ‘left antisemitism’ narrative that supporters of Israel have weaponised for almost a decade now against supporters of Palestinian human and political rights.
Now the victorious Wilson has taken aim in his social media feed at Zionist lawyer Mark Lewis, who at one time represented at least two of the defendants. Lewis, a pro-Israel activist who spoke about ‘unapologetic Zionism’ at the launch of a UK pro-Israel group considered by many to be far-right and boasted of wanting to make people whom he considered ‘antisemites’ homeless, has been lionised by the Zionist right for his pursuit of their opponents.
He has also been sanctioned by the Solicitors Regulation Authority for abusive conduct on social media – and wished a young Jewish supporter of Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour dead – and was heavily criticised by a judge in a different case for his conduct of the case and his lack of proper research on behalf of his clients:
a matter of very real concern that the Claimants put evidence before the Court, on an ex parte application, that was not true…
…he had simply failed to carry out sufficient (or any) research or to take adequate instructions from his clients.
And, as James Wilson has pointed out – alongside much more – Lewis was forced to apologise to the court for providing misleading information in Wilson’s suit about the financial health of one (by the time of the hearing, apparently former) client, Edward Cantor who, he had claimed, did not own property that could be sold to pay any penalty levied by the court:
As Luke Turner, who responded to Wilson’s posts, pointed out, Lewis’s distaste for ‘antisemites’ did not prevent him representing two extreme right-wingers – described by the judge in the case as bullying and ‘whiffing’ of antisemitism – when they wanted to sue Turner for posts about them:
The irony of that particular quote is really quite something, given who he was representing in my case, and the "whiff of threat and antisemitism" described by the judge in their "aggressive" course of "bullying" towards me. https://t.co/Dly6C3Aqwb
— Luke Turner (@Luke_Turner) April 20, 2024
And in a pair of posts showing screenshots of communications from Lewis, Wilson – himself a now non-practising solicitor – showed that Lewis demanded thousands of pounds, from the victim of the smear, to settle Lewis’s case against them, while expressing his and his clients’ expectation of victory in the case and repeating that Cantor owned nothing that could be used to pay any penalty. The tactic and the refusal to accept Wilson’s settlement proposal racked up enormous legal costs for the failed defendants:
I am worried about recovering my costs. I do not want to bankrupt Mr Mendelsohn or make Mr Cantor and his family homeless.
But if Mark Lewis @MLewisLawyer), Daniel Berke (@DanielBerke1) and Beth Grossman (@DoughtyStreet) refuse to pay my costs, then I may have no choice.— James Wilson (@per_incuriam2) April 21, 2024
And Wilson concluded his posts – for now at least – by taking aim at Simon Myerson, a supporter of Israel and part-time judge recently sanctioned for abusive comments on social media. Myerson had shared a post calling Wilson the ‘scum of the earth’, which the judge in Wilson’s case described as:
abuse of the same dehumanising kind as was used of Jewish people by the Nazis in the 1930s.
The judge also rejected the defence’s claim that Wilson’s correspondence with Myerson about his sharing of the abusive post demonstrated any kind of aggression or unreasonableness on Wilson’s part.
As Jewish author Michael Rosen, who was also targeted by some of the same people, pointed out, perhaps with his tongue firmly lodged in his cheek, it is noteworthy that the UK ‘mainstream’ press – which will run for weeks with any allegation against a left-winger or supporter of Palestinians – has shown no interest in covering the outcome of the Wilson case or the abusive conduct of those on the losing, pro-Israel, side:
However, Skwawkbox has covered the case in full and a timeline of it can be found here.
The case is not the first conducted by Lewis against supporters of Palestinian rights that ended poorly for his clients. In 2020 Jane Heybroek, a human rights barrister, won a stunning victory when actress Tracy-Ann Oberman and TV presenter Rachel Riley dropped their libel claim against her over an article retweeted by Heybroek criticising their behaviour and contributed toward her legal costs defending the action.
Mark Lewis was asked for comment about Wilson’s comments and analysis but had not responded at the time of writing. He was also ‘tagged’ by Wilson at the start of his Twitter analysis about Lewis’s involvement in the case:
Since one of the Defendants’ solicitors, Mark Lewis (@MLewisLawyer) of Patron Law (@LawPatron), is mentioned in the statement, I am tagging him here. If he wishes to reply, I’ll post his reply below my statement.
— James Wilson (@per_incuriam2) April 13, 2024
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Pics/vid: Liverpool comes out three times for Gaza – Grand National, city and Waterloo
City sees whole weekend of solidarity and activism
Liverpool and Merseyside saw a whole weekend of solidarity with the Palestinians against Israel’s genocide over the last couple of days – beginning with a demonstration at Aintree racecourse for the Grand National.
Protesters, including members of Merseyside’s Jewish community, received a positive reaction from most racegoers as they braved windy weather to wave banners and Palestinian flags:
Sunday saw a large march through the city centre – numbers that have remained undiminished through the long months of Israel’s ongoing war crimes against Palestinian civilians – including a group of women holding ‘bloodied’ bundles representing the around eighteen thousand children murdered in Gaza:
And on Sunday night, around a hundred activists – gathered at Da Gurka restaurant in Waterloo to share food, lift spirits and raise thousands of pounds for Medical Aid for Palestinians.
Israel is losing the PR war badly, its murderousness and arrogance as it slaughters tens of thousands of civilians, mostly women and children, and tries to starve two million more, appalling the world and prompting millions to turn out on the streets every week. The flailing of its far-right regime is now putting the whole world in danger as it tries to provoke a regional war and bring the US into open aggression against the Muslim nations around it.
Free Palestine. Justice for Gaza and the West Bank.
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Video: friend of Israel Hodge says ‘very few dare’ in Labour to support Palestine
Newly-uncovered video from Labour’s last conference shows shocking comment – and Hodge falsely claiming fellow right-winger Luciana Berger needed ‘police protection’ to move around 2018 conference
A Times Radio video clip reveals right-wing Labour MP Margaret Hodge – who has continued to accept funds from Labour Friends of Israel to visit the country even during Israel’s genocide of Palestinians – telling interviewer John Pienaar that ‘very very few’ people within the Labour party ‘are daring to express support’ for Palestinians.
The clip, which does not appear to have been circulated before now, was posted by Steve Powers after he found it couched in a much longer video from the Murdoch station. Hodge then goes on to repeat the long-debunked claim, still (of course) widely circulated by right-wingers and the so-called ‘mainstream’ media, that former Labour/Tinge party/LibDem MP Luciana Berger needed a police escort to ‘get around’ the 2018 party conference, the last one she had attended before deserting the party:
Merseyside Police confirmed at the time that there was no special police detail for Berger, whom Keir Starmer has welcomed back into the party despite her efforts to prevent a Labour victory in 2019.
But even more damning is the arrogance of the claim – no doubt accurate under Starmer’s Stalinist, pro-genocide regime – just as Israel was preparing to launch its genocide, that ‘very very few’ would now ‘dare’ to show support for Palestinians.
Within the rotting shell that now passes for Labour, that may be correct – but the millions marching every weekend for freedom for Palestinians and an end to Israel’s war crimes make clear that Starmer’s Labour, like the blue version of the Tories, is utterly out of touch with the three quarters of the UK public who despise the murderousness that has killed and maimed more than 100,000 civilians, mostly women and children, and the apartheid states’s contempt for international law and want the genocide to end.
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Exclusive: Foreign Office has not summoned Israel ambassador over murder of UK food workers
7 World Central Kitchen workers murdered in air strike as they delivered food to starving Palestinians – but while Australia has summoned ambassador over killing of its citizen, UK has not
The UK government has not summoned the Israeli ambassador to account for the murder of seven food charity workers, including British citizens.
The group also included Palestinians, an Australian, a US-Canadian and a Polish citizen, as well as British. The convoy of three vehicles was bombed despite World Central Kitchen (WCK) coordinating its departure with Israeli forces, according to the Charity’s spokesperson.
All three trucks, which were spaced at least 500m from each other, were hit.
Israel has admitted carrying out the attack, which it claims was an accident. WCK has now suspended its operations, leaving Palestinians even deeper in famine after Israel blocked all deliveries by UNRWA, the UN’s relief agency for Palestinians.
According to the UN and World Health Organization, approaching two million Palestinians in Gaza are in, or at risk of, starvation because of Israel’s blockade.
The Australian Prime Minister has ordered the Israeli ambassador to attend an urgent meeting to account for Israel’s murder of the charity workers. However, the Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) press office told Skwawkbox, in response to an enquiry whether the UK had done the same, that the FCDO had nothing to add to David Cameron’s tweet. Number 10 said the matter was being dealt with by the FCDO).
Cameron’s tweet has been shared by the FCDO, but that’s all
The UK government has been exposed covering up the legal advice of its own lawyers that Israel is committing war crimes in it’s mass slaughter of over 40,000 Gaza civilians, it’s wounding of 80,000 more and its imposed famine.
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Graham tells staff/organisers Unite will always put arms jobs before fighting Gaza genocide
‘Unhinged’ letter to all staff, organisers and officers includes ‘disgusting’ section about Palestine
Unite general secretary Sharon Graham has sent a letter to all the union’s staff, organisers and officers that has been described as an ‘unhinged’ attempt to counter criticisms. Skwawkbox will publish analysis of the various sections separately – and will first cover what Unite figures have described as Graham’s ‘disgusting’ comments on Israel’s slaughter of Palestinian civilians in Gaza.
The letter claims that Graham and Unite have led on opposition to the mass murder in Gaza – despite Graham being widely criticised for her silence on the issue and insiders saying that she had to be pressured into a proper statement on Gaza at all.
And the section, which is titled ‘Palestine’, goes on to make clear that while Unite has given a one-off donation (one that Skwawkbox understands was given suddenly and without approval by Unite’s elected executive) to Doctors without Borders, Ms Graham and the union under her will always prioritise defence industry jobs above any outside issues, despite the union’s official, democratic position in support of sanctions and a boycott against Israel.
The full section reads:
Palestine
Of all the issues that have been used in these attacks, probably the most abhorrent is the attempted weaponisation of the conflict and the deaths of thousands of innocent civilians and the collective punishment of the people of Gaza.
Unite, through the General Secretary and the Chair of the Union and the Executive Council, was the first major union to publicly and unambiguously call for a permanent ceasefire in Gaza. We were very clear. We have watched on with horror the bombardment and destruction of Gaza, and the unbearable terror, suffering and death of its innocent civilians. We have been unequivocal that the deliberate killing of civilians, hostage-taking and collective punishment are war crimes and should be identified as such.
Unite has also donated £50,000 to Médecins Sans Frontières/ Doctors Without Borders specifically to help the many victims of this horrific conflict. Most recently the General Secretary has written to the Palestinian General Federation of Trade Unions (PGFTU) offering our solidarity after the horrific bombing of their Gaza headquarters which, alongside providing services to workers, was also functioning as a kindergarten and bakery.
However, we cannot and will not endorse any organisation which decides unilaterally and without any discussion (let alone agreement) with the workers themselves, to support the targeting of our members’ workplaces or their jobs. To be clear, this will not happen. No outside body, no matter what their political position, will be allowed to dictate terms to our Union and our members.
It is important to highlight here that it is a core principle of Unite that as a trade union the ‘first claim’ on our priorities is always the protection and advancement of our members’ interests at work. It is very simple. Unite cannot and never will advocate or support any course of action which is counter to that principle. We are a trade union, not a political party or single-issue campaign group.
Therefore, there is no contradiction for a trade union to hold a position of solidarity with Palestinian workers, while at the same time refusing to support campaigns that target our members’ workplaces without their support. Similarly, we cannot be expected to affiliate to organisations that actively work against our members and their jobs.
Examples include groups that look to build networks inside trade unions to undermine the defence industry or demand the disbandment of NATO and AUKUS. Whatever anyone may think personally about those objectives is irrelevant. We are a trade union with thousands of members employed in the defence industry. It is the views of affected members that take precedence in a trade union. That will not change and nor should it. Unite members have recently been attacked directly, been spat at and called “child killers”. We cannot and will not endorse this.
Emphases added
One furious senior insider told Skwawkbox:
She’s effectively saying members working in defence don’t care if what they make ends up killing women and children in Gaza – only jobs matter. Has she bothered asking any of them?
Another said:
Unite’s official position, democratically reached repeatedly at conference and confirmed again just last summer, is that it supports Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions against Israel. We didn’t add ‘except where it might affect defence jobs’. We’ve also voted for the end of trade agreements with Israel. This is disgusting by Sharon.
Sharon Graham has been alleged by insiders to have:
- banned Unite officials and national banners from pro-Gaza protests
- banned and smeared films and books exposing the ‘Labour antisemitism’ scam
- placed an official under investigation who refused to cancel a Palestine solidarity fringe event at Labour’s 2023 annual conference
- told her chief of staff to threaten a soon-to-retire official with the loss of a pension bonus if he did not soften his support for Palestinians
Her supporters also prevented debate and votes on Gaza at a meeting of the union’s elected executive earlier this month.
According to human rights group Euro Med Monitor, since 7 October last year Israel has killed over 40,000 Palestinians in Gaza and wounded more than double that number, overwhelmingly women and children and many of them with life-changing injuries, while Gaza’s health and school systems have been bombed into collapse, often using US- and UK-made weapons and systems. More than a million people have been forcibly displaced and Gaza is in famine because of Israel’s blockade of food and vital supplies. Israel is formally on trial for genocide before the International Court of Justice and ordered to stop its slaughter – and has been found by UN human rights investigators to be committing genocide.
Unite was contacted for comment but did not respond by the press deadline.
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Video: Israeli Knesset member mocked and called liar by UN-linked parliament gathering
Hard right advocate of ‘levelling’ Gaza derided for repeating debunked atrocity propaganda to 148th Assembly of Inter-Parliamentary Union
Danny Danon, a hard-right Likud member of Israel’s Knesset, has been derided as a liar and jeered by attendees at the 148th Assembly of the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU), a UN-linked gathering of the world’s parliaments, which is taking place in Geneva.
Danon, who advocated for the ‘levelling’ of Gaza almost ten years before the Hamas raid on 7 October last year, blamed Hamas for Israel’s actions in Gaza, ignored the seventy-five years of illegal occupation and slaughter by Israel and regurgitated atrocity propaganda about child rapes and murders, which has been discredited for months – and was booed by delegates and angrily confronted by the Palestinian delegate, before being carpeted by Ireland’s representative for his ‘lots of lies’ on behalf of a ‘failed’ regime:
In 2013, Danon, an opponent of immigration from Africa to Israel – where discrimination against Black Jews is rife – advocated for punishment attacks against Palestinian civilians and infrastructure, including a suggestion that Israel “delete” one whole neighbourhood in Gaza in response for every rocket launched by the Palestinian resistance, an act of collective punishment that is a clear war crime under international law.
A year later, Danon advocated cutting off all electricity and fuel supplies to Gaza, prefiguring the blockade by Israel that has pushed hundreds of thousands of Palestinians into famine. A month later, Danon said that Israel should respond to the kidnapping of an IDF soldier by “levelling Gaza”. Since the resistance raid, he has been a prominent advocate for the ‘voluntary’ removal of all Palestinians from Gaza to other countries, yet he clearly thinks he has the right to demand obedience and belief from the global community.
The IDF has admitted that the number of its own people that it killed during the Hamas raid was ‘immense’ – an admission ignored entirely by the UK media. Israel has murdered over 40,000 Palestinians since 7 October and wounded double that amount in its levelling of Gaza, mostly women and children. It is using starvation as a weapon of war and has killed dozens of Israeli hostages while taking thousands of Palestinian hostages and, according to the UN, carrying out summary executions of civilians and raping and abusing Palestinian women and girls.
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