freedom
Uni ‘urgently investigating’ pro-Israel professor who told Greenstein ‘all Jews should be gassed’
Justin Stebbing says he was clearly speaking ironically in attack on left-wing, pro-Palestinian Jew Tony Greenstein – but went on to say Greenstein would have been ‘thrilled’ to murder all Jews during WWII
A professor at Imperial College is being ‘urgently’ investigated by the university after sending emails to left-wing Jewish pro-Palestinian activist Tony Greenstein about ‘gas[sing] all Jews.
Greenstein is a Brighton-based human rights campaigner who received a suspended sentence last year in a farcical trial for criminal damage to an Israeli-owned weapons factor when no damage occurred and who has been further targeted by anti-terror police for saying he supports the struggle of Gazans for freedom. He told Skwawkbox that he didn’t know who Stebbing was when he first received an email, from a personal email address, linking to discredited claims of mass rape and mutilation by Hamas and saying that Stebbing ‘agree[d] with you [Jews] should all be gassed‘.
Greenstein reported the incident to police as hate speech, but then realised Stebbing is an academic and, assuming his email had been hacked, contacted him on his university address to let him know. Greenstein said he was astonished when Stebbing wrote back – from his official email – to attack him further.
Stebbing retorted that he was being ‘ironic’ when he made his comment – but claimed that Greenstein would have been ‘thrilled to gas all Jews’ if he had been alive during the Second World War:
“My e mail was pure irony, but as always here the response to the crime is blamed. I have zero doubt that in WW2, you ,would have been thrilled to gas all Jews. That was the point I was making.”
The email headers showed that the email was genuinely from an Imperial email account. Greenstein accordingly sent a complaint to the university, which received an email acknowledgment.
Skwawkbox contacted Prof Stebbing about his emails to Greenstein. He responded:
The reason I wrote to Tony Greenstein was him contacting several senior colleagues accusing them of being doctors for genocide. He was of course aware he had just written that e mail and would and should have understood my e mail as being ironic in that context. We have had previous contact. Tony Greenstein knew that he’d written that so would have understood the context and this affects the meaning of what I wrote and it was clear, as I’d said, I was being ironic.
On Stebbing’s allegation that Greenstein had previous contact with him, Greenstein said:
They were doctors opposing a BMA statement calling for a ceasefire and accusing Israel of having broken international law including his colleague at Imperial. Yes I accused them of being Doctors 4 Genocide. There was an article in the Jewish Chronicle (see below) naming them. However Stebbing wasn’t named and I didn’t contact him. So it’s a lie that we have had previous contact. I’ve searched my email and his name doesn’t come up and it’s an unusual name so I would see immediately.
All these doctors say they have resigned from the BMA which is a good thing. Good riddance as Ghada Karmi said.
He added:
I emailed Stebbing to let him know that someone was clearly impersonating him. You could have blown me down with a feather when he responded saying that I was wrong. He wasn’t being impersonated. It was him. An ultra Zionist lunatic.
An Imperial College spokesperson told Skwawkbox that it was ‘urgently investigating this case involving a Visiting Professor’:
There is no place for antisemitic or hateful behaviour of any kind at Imperial. We are urgently investigating this case involving a Visiting Professor.
The International Court of Justice is expected to give a decision on South Africa’s application under the Genocide Convention for an order to Israel to stop its slaughter, which has killed and maimed more than a hundred thousand Palestinians, mostly women and children, as well as 117 journalists and more than 150 United Nations staff.
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Palestine Action activist remanded to prison after Stock Exchange arrests
Anti-war activist Sean Middleborough
Palestine Action activist Sean Middleborough was remanded to prison yesterday following his arrest on Sunday morning over an alleged plan to disrupt business at the London Stock Exchange (LSE), charged with ‘conspiracy to commit public nuisance’ under the draconian Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022, after appearing at Wirral Magistrates Court. Five other activists were released from police custody without charges pending further investigation.
On his way into the custody van, Middlebrough was heard to shout “Free Palestine”. Lawyers will be submitting an application for immediate granting of bail.
Middleborough and five other activists are accused of having planned to blockade the LSE, which through its trading in bonds and shares plays a significant role in facilitating the occupation of Palestine. The LSE has raised over over £4.73 billion in bond sales for the apartheid state of Israel in the past six years. The exchange describes itself as “a key partner to Israeli businesses, by enabling them to raise capital internationally” and trades shares in weapons manufacturers arming Israel’s regime.
A meeting on 8 February 2022 between UK government and Israeli investors, which included representatives from Israeli weapons companies Elbit Systems and Rafael, noted that “The London Stock Exchange has a strong and important relationship with Israel”. This includes the LSE holding capital market conferences in Israel and hosting Israeli business on the exchange with a combined market capital of $14.7 billion.
The arrests came after a Daily Express ‘journalist’ spied on the group in order to report on activities and hand information on alleged plans to the police. Most of the UK press and broadcast media have ignored Israel’s crimes and worked to manufacture consent for its ongoing genocide of Palestinians, which so far has killed almost 32,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, according to the latest Euro-Med Monitor report. If failing to report even the basic facts of Israel’s crimes – including against its own people on 7 October – wasn’t bad enough, ‘reporters’ have now gone as far as acting on behalf of the state to criminalise direct action movement opposing Israel’s war crimes.
The UK state has been taking ever more draconian measures to try to punish and deter activists who stand on the side of humanity and against genocide. Numerous activists seeking an end to bloodshed have found themselves detained by the British state and often charged, with varying levels of state success. Palestine Action has stated repeatedly that it will not be diverted from the struggle for Palestinian liberation and the ending of all UK arms production and shipments to apartheid Israel.
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Huge victories for humanity as German courts rule Gaza chants protected speech
‘From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free’ and other chants for freedom and against genocide are freedom of expression, despite government efforts to criminalise pro-Palestinian protest
Image: Die Linke
In a huge victory for human rights, for humanity and for the Palestinian people, the Münster Administrative Court in north-west Germany has ruled that chants and slogans frequently used in pro-Palestinian, anti-genocide rallies and marches are not illegal.
“From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” and “Child murderer Israel” are not only legal but are protected by freedom of expression laws. “Stop the genocide in Gaza” has already been ruled legal by the Cologne Administrative Court.
The German state, which has some of the most extreme laws protecting Israel from criticism of its actions, has used riot police and draconian action to try to quell the protests.
Palestinian legal advocacy group the European Legal Support Center, which has been fighting the cases on behalf of the movement, noted that:
In both decisions, the judge reiterated that criticism of the Israeli state is protected by freedom of expression, stressing that the slogans are directed against Israel & not against the Jewish population of Germany, thus rejecting any inflammatory allegations of antisemitism.
Both court decisions followed protest bans issued by the Police. We congratulate the activists and their lawyers who refused to be silenced and boldly challenged the bans!
The decisions come as the UK government continues to try to demonise protesters and to use anti-terror laws to persecute activists working for human rights and justice in Palestine and to stop Israel’s mass slaughter and ethnic cleansing of civilians, which has taken approaching 30,000 innocent lives so far, around half of them children. Many more have been hideously wounded and more than seven out of ten of Gaza’s 2.2 million people are reported to be in severe hunger.
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Exclusive: Greenstein arrested by anti-terror cops – for one tweet
Brighton-based Jewish human rights activist targeted for standing against genocide
Tony Greenstein in Wolverhampton
Jewish human rights – and therefore pro-Palestinian – activist Tony Greenstein has been arrested by police – for a single tweet supporting Palestinians against genocide and oppression.
In the 15 November post, Greenstein – responding to yet another right-wing attack on Black Jewish activist Jackie Walker – told the person baiting Walker that he supported Palestinians and preferred Hamas to the occupying Israeli army that is perpetrating genocide in Gaza:
The gaslighting pro-Israel troll was one of many attacking Walker for condemning Israel’s repeated bombing of hospitals in Gaza, war crimes that have taken hundreds and probably thousands of civilian lives and that Israel has invented evidence to try to justify:
Seized
Police arrived at Greenstein’s home at around 7am this morning, seized his phone and laptop and held him for around nine hours. His electronics were not returned on his release.
Greenstein was released around 4pm and has not, as yet, been charged with any crime. He was one of several Palestine Action supporters convicted of criminal damage against one of Israeli weapons-maker Elbit’s UK factories, despite no damage being done – and who received a suspended sentence at Wolverhampton Crown Court.
It seems the UK Establishment considers Greenstein to be supporting the wrong ‘terrorists’ against the ones who are actually perpetrating mass murder, including against their own Israeli citizens.
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Video: Jewish Elders chain themselves to White House fence demanding ceasefire
At the same time, US Capitol police arrest dozens of Jewish peace protesters in Washington
Image: Jewish Voice for Peace Twitter account
A group of elderly Jewish people who want to see an end to Israel’s slaughter of Palestinian civilians have chained themselves to the fence of the White House, demanding immediate action from US president Joe Biden to secure a ceasefire and chanting, “Biden, Biden, pick a side, Ceasefire not genocide”:
On Twitter, the group said:
We are Jewish elders, bubbies, tetas, and grandmothers chaining ourselves to the White House, demanding the US stop funding and arming genocide against Palestinians. This is not complicated. Never again means never again for anyone.
As the elders chanted outside Biden’s residence, US police arrested dozens of Jewish and Palestinian peace protesters, who had mounted a sit-in at the Senate to call for a ceasefire and the abandonment of a Biden plan to send billions more in military aid to Israel.
A spokeswoman for one of the groups involved in the protest said:
Funding more death and destruction of human life.. makes no one secure and instead fuels hatred and continued war.
The Senate must heed our urgent demand to stop funding militarism and instead invest in life.
The action by Jewish protesters to condemn Israel’s actions and demand a ceasefire undermines the false narrative pushed by the UK media and Establishment that all Jewish people intrinsically support Israel and its aims and that anti-zionist Jewish groups are somehow ‘fringe’ elements who should not be allowed a voice. In the US, despite moves by Congress to equate anti-zionism automatically with antisemitism, very many Jews are non- or anti-zionist and are fully supportive of Palestinian freedom, self-determination and right of return. Jewish groups have also been prominent in pro-Palestinian marches here, though the UK media often tries to avoid showing them.
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Images/video: Thousands gather in Liverpool for biggest Gaza march yet
Corbyn, McCluskey and others speak to packed crowd that grew still bigger as it marched
The people of Liverpool gathered in their thousands today in solidarity with the people of Palestine and to demand a permanent ceasefire in Israel’s genocide of Palestinians, in what appeared to be the biggest rally and march yet.
Former Unite head Len McCluskey and former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn were among the speakers – and received a huge welcome, as well as praise for their clear solidarity with the oppressed compared with the dire performance of their replacements:
And as the march processed down Hope Street and then Leece Street toward its Derby Square rally point, it grew larger and larger:
Solidarity from Liverpool to Gaza and all Palestinians. Palestine will be free. Ceasefire now!
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Liverpool council bans Jewish woman from speaking on Gaza ceasefire
Read below for her full speech – and the council’s excuses for its attack on democracy and free speech
Helen Marks protesting for Gazans during October’s Labour conference (image rights S Walker)
Liverpool City Council has withdrawn Jewish resident Helen Marks’s speaking slot at tonight’s meeting of the council, where she had successfully applied to address the council to ask it to call for a ceasefire and peace deal in Gaza, where Israel has slaughtered around 15,000 people, half of them children, in a relentless campaign of bombing homes, hospitals and schools.
Ms Marks had been told by the council’s Principal Democratic Services Officer:
You will be able to speak for 3 minutes at the Council Meeting, would you be able to send me a statement as to what you are going to say to the meeting please?
We are also ticketing the meeting, so you will need to be sent a ticket via email for the meeting. You will be allowed 2 tickets if you need another one and I would also need the name of the person attending with you.
As requested, Ms Marks sent a draft of her planned speech. It reads:
My name is Helen Marks. I am secretary of Liverpool Friends of Palestine. I am from a Jewish family. My mother was brought up in mandate Palestine and my Polish Jewish father lost his parents, a brother, aunts , uncles and cousins in the holocaust.
I have asked to speak today to urge you to call for an immediate ceasefire . However, I want you to go further if a ceasefire is agreed and insist that it is accompanied by genuine peace talks to find a lasting solution to this endless cycle of violence.
When the holocaust took place during the 2nd World War most people in the world could justifiably say that they were unaware of what was taking place. They were also incredulous when they learned the facts. They couldn’t believe that any one or any country could behave in such a calculated, despicable way.
Fast forward to the current situation in Gaza. We have no such excuse. Every day we see on our TV screens Gaza being bombed and innocent men women and children being killed in the most calculated, brutal way ; thousands of body bags, children screaming for their mummy. An acronym has been coined. WCNSF Wounded Children No Surviving Family. There are now more than 33,000 Palestinian orphans living in Gaza.
I abhor the killing of innocent Israeli civilians at the hands of Hamas on the 7th October and feel especially sad that some were from a Kibbutz where the residents were critical of the injustices suffered by the Palestinians. However the Israeli response is disproportionate, inhumane and must be stopped.
How can this be happening in this day and age? Did all this violence start on October 7th or must we put it in context ?
Hajo Meyer, holocaust survivor, spent his adult years warning us that holocausts don’t just appear. They happen because of a process of dehumanising the other and that is what successive Israeli governments have been doing in relation to the Palestinians, never calling them Palestinians just Arabs, labelling them all as terrorists, calling them human animals. When I was in Hebron in 2008 I saw daubed on the doors of Palestinian houses “ Kill all Arabs” with a star of David alongside. In 2014, Justice Minister Ayalet Shaked said that the mothers of Palestinian martyrs should go ,as should their homes “ otherwise more little snakes will be raised”.
It is much easier to kill your enemy if you view them as sub human.
In 2022 Amnesty International published a report based on 4 yrs of research which concluded that Israel was an Apartheid state according to the legally accepted definition. This report was backed up by reports by Human Rights Watch and the Israeli human rights organisation B’tselem. They saw the expansion of illegal settlements, the theft of land for military purposes, the denial of planning permission for housing, the restricted access to water, the numerous checkpoints that denied free movement, the imprisonment of adults and young people under military not civil law and the killing of Palestinians without proper investigations. Over 160 Palestinians have since been killed in the West Bank following 7th October.
What is happening now in Gaza, like the recent bombing of a school in the Jabalia refugee camp killing 200 children and staff is not self defence or helping to root out Hamas. It must stop.
If you fail to call for an end to the occupation a lifting of the siege of Gaza, a solution to the over 6,000 refugees languishing in camps in Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and Palestine itself then the cycle of violence will continue.
There were ceasefires after 2008/9, 2012, 2014, 2018 but the Western Powers continued to protect Israel, pretend it did not have nuclear weapons, backed the false PR that it had the most moral army in the world and was the only democracy in the Middle East and rewarded it with prestigious hosting of events irrespective of its behaviour. And the US and UK continue to send it arms .
I am sure as councillors you will not mistakenly conflate this criticism of Israel with antisemitism.
I call on you to demand an immediate ceasefire that is followed by a clear programme that delivers justice for the Palestinians.
However, this straightforward and factual speech fell foul of the council’s City Solicitor Daniel Fenwick, who claimed that it would breach the so-called ‘IHRA definition’ of antisemitism – a definition that does not actually define, and which has been criticised by Jewish legal experts and even its author as a means of chilling free speech on and legitimate criticism of Israel. Fenwick wrote, withdrawing Marks’s permission to speak at the meeting:
Dear Ms Marks,
Council Public Speaking Rights
I write with regard to your request to speak at the above meeting and your draft statement which has been passed to me as the Council’s Monitoring Officer for assessment under the Council Procedure Rules (rule 12).
Unfortunately, the Council already had three speakers registered to speak for the Council meeting by the time you registered to speak. For completeness, whilst you emailed the Council on 7th November, the Council replied to you on the same day advising you how to make your request to speak after the publication of the agenda on 14th November. A third and final request to speak was received on 17th November at 9.46am and your request was received at 10.54am on that day. I am sorry this was not communicated earlier to you but, unfortunately, having check the times of the emails, this is the correct order in which they were received and as Monitoring Officer I have no authority to waive this rule..
I believe you have tickets for the public gallery and we look forward to seeing you at the meeting.Your Statement
Thank you for the draft of your statement. For completeness, I have reviewed your statement under the Council’s procedure rules and thought it would assist you if I gave you my views for future reference, if you had been able to speak at the meeting. As currently drafted, your statement could not accepted as it breaches the following rules on the acceptance of public statements:
12.8 The Monitoring Officer may reject a request to speak if:
…
12.8.3 it is defamatory, frivolous or offensiveIt is my view as the Council’s Monitoring Officer that whilst it is legitimate freedom of expression to criticise the Israeli government’s policies and actions in Gaza, there are significant elements of the statement’s content that risks a breach the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of Anti-Semitism, which was adopted by the Council as its definition of anti-Semitism in January 2018. Your statement is therefore likely to be offensive to the Jewish community and others in the city and beyond. For this reason, the Council cannot place itself at risk of breaching its own policies and potentially discriminating unlawfully against any person by making a decision to allow it to be read in its current form.
The statement if read out would further place the Council at risk of breaching its public sector equality duty under s.149 of the Equality Act 2010. The Council must have due regard to the achievement of this duty and, as one example, the statement as worded is also unlikely to foster good relations between Jews, Palestinians, Arabs, Muslims and with those without those protected characteristics under the 2010 Act in Liverpool and beyond, noting the context of the horrific rise of anti-Semitic and Islamophobic attacks since 7 October.
Thank you for showing an interest in speaking at the Council meeting.
Skwawkbox wrote to Fenwick to ask him to be specific about why he was taking this action and exactly what in Marks’s speech he considered to breach the ‘definition’:
Mr Fenwick,
You contacted Jewish activist Helen Marks by email informing her that she would not be able to speak at tonight’s council meeting – despite, though your email did not acknowledge this, her having received confirmation of a 3-minute slot from the council’s Principal Democratic Services Officer. You claim there are too many speakers and that her speech might breach the IHRA ‘definition of anti-semitism’, but do not say why. I have seen the statement and it is self-evidently legitimate criticism of Israel for its actions and merely being offensive to someone is not a breach of the IHRA, which in any case has been criticised by legal experts and even its founder for its chilling effect on free speech.
Apologies for the short notice, but as the meeting takes place at 5pm I will be covering this imminently so ask for your response no later than 2pm on the following – as you have already made these deliberations before writing to Ms Marks, it should not be onerous to provide the information:
- Why are you denying a Jewish resident her right of democratic expression on a matter of obvious public importance concerning Israel and Gaza?
- What precisely in her planned statement do you think breaches the IHRA and why?
- Were you instructed or pressured by anyone inside or outside the council to withdraw permission?
He did not answer the questions, instead saying only that the council meeting will be livestreamed and directing the enquiry to the council’s communications team, who did not respond even well after the press deadline. Opponents of Israel’s genocide in Gaza are mounting a protest outside Liverpool’s City Hall before the 5pm council meeting.
Ms Marks, who was one of two Liverpool Jewish party members smeared by Labour officials in a widely-condemned 2019 BBC Panorama programme, told Skwawkbox that the council’s manoeuvres were ‘feeble but predictable’:
I was given permission to make a 3-minute statement at today’s council meeting but this permission was withdrawn for very feeble but predictable reasons. I was speaking in support of Alan Gibbon’s motion calling on councillors to vote for an immediate ceasefire. I have since sent all councillors the statement I would have read out.
Labour’s betrayal of Palestinian civilians continues even in a city whose people have shown strong solidarity with those Gazan women and children facing genocide and ethnic cleansing.
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Maritime Union of Australia joins Sydney protest for Gaza ceasefire
Seafarers and ports union joins global surge of unions backing Gaza freedom and branch supports Palestinian justice protest at Australia’s biggest port and campaign for boycott
The Maritime Union of Australia, via its Sydney branch, has backed a protest at Port Botany – Australia’s largest sea port – against an Israeli shipping company involved in the delivery of weapons to Israel.
In a statement, Sydney branch secretary Paul Keating said that the union ‘joins the community’s call for an immediate ceasefire’ and ‘will always stand with the oppressed, the colonised and the exploited, including the Palestinian community’ – and accused the Australian government of ‘complicity’ in the slaughter and oppression of Palestinians. The full statement is below:
Maritime Union of Australia Sydney Branch joins worldwide call to stop the war on Gaza and Free Palestine
The Palestinian Justice Movement Sydney has announced that the community will be leading an action in Port Botany in protest at the Israeli owned ZIM shipping line which frequents Australia’s largest container port.
Maritime Union of Australia Sydney Branch Secretary Paul Keating said that “the MUA joins the community’s call for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza. The MUA will always stand with the oppressed, the colonised and the exploited, including the Palestinian community and a broad coalition of peace and justice organisations calling for freedom and justice for the Palestinian people as a long-term solution to the cyclical violence, death and destruction for all people living in both Palestine and Israel.
This community-led action in Sydney is part of the escalating actions by communities and unions around the world. In the USA, Italy, Belgium and elsewhere, communities and unions are escalating actions including to target Israeli owned vessels in ports in an effort to put a halt to the carnage unfolding in Palestine.“We will always defend the community’s right to stand up and fight for what is right. These community-led actions have for decades assisted movements fighting for justice including an end to Apartheid South Africa, against unjust wars in Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq and innumerable others, against nuclear war, for First Nations rights, women’s rights, workers’ rights amongst others and act as bulwarks against discrimination, war and environmental destruction.
“Minimising the right to protest atrocities, war crimes and breaches of international law undermine the capacity for working class people and civil institutions to speak truth to power, which plays into the hands of the those who profit from war.”
“Any politician in NSW that supports these protest laws and opposes the right to protest should be ashamed of themselves; would they have prevented the anti-apartheid movement from protesting against South Africa? The anti-protest laws being used to suppress these peaceful and legitimate protest actions are a disgrace and should be abolished.”
“MUA calls for an end to war crimes in Palestine
The latest reports show the situation is catastrophic. Israel’s retaliatory attack on Gaza has resulted in unimaginable carnage. There have been more than 5500 Palestinian children slaughtered since the siege upon the people of Gaza. This is a war crime.“Israel alone made the decision to fire barrage after barrage of missiles into one of the most densely populated cities on earth, and Israel alone is responsible for the deaths of more than 10,000 people who’ve been slaughtered during the sustained and indiscriminate aerial bombing of residential buildings and civic infrastructure.
Much of the rest of the world is turning a blind eye to these massacres in a heavily biased attempt to justify the murder of one child whilst condemning the killing of another. We unequivocally condemn all violence directed at innocent civilians whether they are Palestinian or Israeli.
“The MUA expresses deep alarm at the escalation of violence in Gaza and Israel and condemns the targeting of all civilians on both sides by Hamas and Israeli forces.
“Even in the face of the illegal occupation and a 16-year blockade of Gaza, there are obligations under international humanitarian law that must be upheld. We condemn the indiscriminate attacks on civilians and taking of civilian hostages by Hamas and other armed groups, which amount to war crimes under international law. All those responsible for war crimes should be dealt with under international law.
“We also condemn the attacks from Israeli forces, including the shelling of residential buildings and civilian infrastructure by the Israeli Defence Forces. Israel’s stated intention of imposing a complete siege on Gaza, which involves cutting electricity, food, medical and water supplies, amount to
collective punishment; a grave violation of international humanitarian law, which everyone who believes in justice should oppose without any equivocation. War crimes are war crimes no matter who is committing them.“The MUA calls on Hamas to immediately release the 220 Israeli hostages and we call on Israel to release the thousands of Palestinian workers from Gaza who were working in Israel when the war started, that have been detained without charge in military facilities. We call on Israel to release the 5000 Palestinian political prisoners taken hostage by the Israeli state since October 7. We call on Israel to release the 20 Palestinian women detained in the West Bank: female writers and journalists that have been taken to be used as bargaining chips in a potential prisoner exchange with Hamas”.
Australia must end its complicity
“Australian politicians have lined up to parrot the phrase ‘Israel has the right to defend itself’ while willingly ignoring the historical context and root causes that have contributed to the current crisis – including the 16-year blockade of Gaza and its devastating social and political consequences.
“We support the call from Palestinian Human Rights Groups for the Australian Government to release to the public a full list of weapons exported to Israel since this war began. The time for secrecy surrounding Australian complicity in these military assaults on civilians is over.
The MUA Sydney Branch completely backs the Palestinian General Federation of Trade Unions (PGFTU) call to tear down the apartheid wall, end the blockade of Gaza and support the BDS campaign.
We support the statement issued by Progressive International including:“We join the global call to reject the false equivalence of colonizer and colonized, recognize that the violence of the oppressed is a response to the original condition of their oppression, and uphold the Palestinian people’s inalienable right to resist, enshrined in UN Resolution 2625, as ‘the legitimacy
of the struggle of peoples for independence, territorial integrity, national unity and liberation from colonial domination, apartheid and foreign occupation by all available means’.Nationally, the MUA has resolved to “Support campaigns for Palestinian self-determination and a
State that complies with UN Resolutions, particularly ending the illegal Israeli occupation of Palestine and ending the blockade of Gaza; tearing down the apartheid wall; call upon Australia to endorse and support all UN Resolutions relating to Palestine and Israel;”Throughout its history, the MUA Sydney Branch has stood shoulder to shoulder with all oppressed peoples and for this we have often been wildly attacked by conservative media and politicians with all manner of hysterical ravings about our political stance, yet we have repeatedly been proven to be on the right side of history and we offer our support and solidarity with the incredibly brave and courageous Jewish people in Israel and around the world who have stated that this violence is “not in our name”.
Paul Keating
Sydney Branch Secretary
Maritime Union of Australia
The MUA joins Belgian, Italian, Spanish and South African dockworkers in taking action against Israeli shipping lines’ shipment of weapons to Israel that will be used against Palestinians. The United Auto Workers union in the US, the Central TUC in India, the United Tech and Allied Workers in Northern Ireland and unions in Canada, Japan, Poland and Colombia have also called for a boycott.
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Recap of ‘The Rise of Neo-Liberalism and the Decline of Freedom’
In her book fellow YSI member Birsen Filip makes an important and timely contribution by telling the story of neoliberalism and its dramatic rise over the past four decades. She traces its impact on our contemporary way of living, thinking, and being and in so doing demonstrates its elevation to a near law of nature that permeates nearly every aspect of our society. Many of us will be familiar with many aspects she touches upon, but it is galvanizing to see how deeply neo-liberal thinking has penetrated and reshaped our way of being.
Birsen starts by expounding the pillar upon which neo-liberal thinking rests: negative freedom (chapters 2 and 3). Friedrich Hayek and Friedman developed the idea of negative freedom by defining it as ‘freedom from coercion’ – the liberty to consume, produce and exchange voluntarily – which stands in contrast to positive freedom (i.e. improving individual self-determination by investing in individuals, communities, environments by the government). It purports that economic freedom in the marketplace (‘freedom to choose’) is a precondition for political and civic freedom (‘right to assembly, freedom of speech, freedom of religion’ etc). A threat or coercion on economic freedom would mean an infringement on political freedom as well. This expresses itself in the primacy of the marketplace, free individual choice, free fluctuation of prices and not allowing the government or any central entity to infringe on this economic freedom for an apparent collective good (freedom from coercion).
How this concept of freedom limits the scope of government is treated in chapter 4. Chapter 5 treats the rise of transnational corporations which have been able to take advantage of an ever-increasing scope of the market. In chapters 6 and 7 we vividly see the effect of mass consumption culture on the environment. How private interest stands over public interest in innovation policies is described in chapter 8. Chapter 9 and 10 illustrate the decline of unions and organized labor and the rise of inequality, and chapter 11 the decline of moral and ethical values. In chapter 12, Birsen returns to the realm of ideas to show how neo-liberal thinking has become entrenched with the academy.
At the core of the book’s message, Birsen demonstrates a disastrous paradox: the supposed freedom which neo-liberalism promotes is indeed a trap. What Birsen describes is a vortex in which more and more spheres of our lives become caught in. ‘Freedom from’ indeed is not indeed liberating. On the contrary, it is contributing to the decline of freedom; it imprisons and destroys our capacity for imagining alternative pathways and collective action and in doing so it destroys our ability as individuals and societies to confront our problems. We can all sense the writing on that wall, namely the steady decline and destruction of societies and our environment, and yes, of individual freedom.
What the book offers is how deeply neo-liberal ideas have taken hold of our thinking and penetrated how we perceive ourselves as individuals, how we relate with others. Moreso, it offers a glimpse of how we are eroding our social fabric and destroying our environment by extending the sphere of the market to nearly anything and exploiting the resources of our environment. More deeply it also sheds light on the current malaise and inability to address our global challenges since neo-liberal thinking discounts the ability of collective action (state and unions).
Birsen offers a hopeful plea that recognizing these entrappings which we all intuitively sense may help lead to a change in mindset and an affirmation vision of our global society and the environment in which we live: Positive freedom.
Birsen Filip holds a Ph.D. in philosophy and master’s degrees in economics and philosophy. She has published numerous articles and chapters on a range of topics, including political philosophy, geopolitics, and the history of economic thought, with a focus on the Austrian School of Economics and the German Historical School of Economics.
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Jay Pocklington is the Manager of the Institute for New Economic Thinking’s Young Scholars Initiative (YSI). He received B.Sc. and M.Sc degrees in economics from Freie Universität Berlin.
Streaming IS Downloading
The way that this issue is framed, even by people who should know better, is profoundly misleading. These are not "anti-downloading measures". Viewing data from a remote machine without first downloading it would be a very neat trick.
It is therefore nonsensical to ask "Is it okay to download this video without the creator's permission?" in this context. The creator has given you this permission. The question we should ask is "Is it okay for the creator (or some intermediary) to take control of my computer in order to delete some data after I've acquired it perfectly legally?"