Women
Even BBC admits Israel lied about slaughter of starving Palestinians gathered for aid
Broadcaster’s ‘Verify’ analysis concludes the obvious
Even the BBC – usually the epitome of ‘both-sidesing’ and the minimisation of Palestinian deaths and suffering – has had to conclude that Israel lied when it claimed that it did not slaughter well over a hundred desperate Palestinians and wound as many as a thousand more who were gathered in a street waiting for an aid delivery.
BBC Verify says it “examined social media videos, satellite imagery and IDF drone footage to piece together what we know… about what happened” – and it concluded:
We have examined exclusive Al Jazeera video filmed close to that second location at the rear of the convoy, about half a kilometre south of the roundabout.
Volleys of gunfire can be heard and people are seen scrambling over lorries and ducking behind the vehicles. Red tracer rounds can be seen in the sky.
Mahmoud Awadeyah said the Israeli vehicles had started firing at people when the aid arrived.
“Israelis purposefully fired at the men… they were trying to get near the trucks that had the flour,” he said. “They were fired at directly and prevented people to come near those killed.”
…There have been reports of casualties being taken to several hospitals.
Dr Mohamed Salha, interim hospital manager at al-Awda hospital, where many of the dead and injured were taken, told the BBC: “Al-Awda hospital received around 176 injured people…142 of these cases are bullet injuries and the rest are from the stampede and broken limbs in the upper and lower body parts.
Israel has claimed that a ‘mob’ – otherwise known as desperate civilians starving because of Israel’s blockade of food, water, fuel and medical supplies – stampeded and attacked the aid convoy, but Israel’s own drone footage shows that this did not happen and any ‘stampede’ was caused by the Israeli gun and tank fire, despite the IDF editing out at least three sections of the video that can be taken to show the Israeli troops’ attacks.
A still from the IDF’s drone footage, which shows people gathered but not attacking or stampeding until troops started firing
Israel also contradicted itself, with various spokespeople saying the Israeli soldiers did not fire at all, that they fired ‘warning shots’ and that they ‘only’ shot at the legs of the crowd.
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Video: pensioner among 3 peaceful anti-genocide protesters arrested in Hastings
State repression of civic rights and protection of weapons manufacturers continues to escalate
A pensioner and two other protestors were arrested by police on Thursday 29 February during a peaceful demonstration outside the General Dynamics arms factory in Hastings, East Sussex. The local people were among a broad coalition of community groups that came together to protest against Britain’s role in Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza.
The three were arrested and taken to Hastings police station where they were held for nearly fourteen hours before being charged with aggravated trespass and then released on bail. They will appear before magistrates on April 3.
Laurie Holden, 71, a retired train driver from Burwash, was one of those arrested at the demonstration. He said:
It is outrageous that the police are treating us as criminals. We are not the criminals here – we are highlighting the criminal complicity of our government and arms companies in continuing to supply arms to Israel which is in the dock for genocide in Gaza. We will always stand on the side of the people of Palestine.
The Hastings & District Palestine Solidarity Campaign [HDPSC] united with representatives of Jewish groups, trade union bodies, Quakers, climate justice groups, parent groups and political parties to draw attention to the part Hastings is playing in arming Israel.
HDPSC Chair Katy Colley said:
Our brave and principled friends have shown enormous courage in the face of disproportionate and heavy-handed policing of a peaceful, community-led protest.
In January, the International Court of Justice put Israel on trial for genocide in Gaza but since then the slaughter and starvation have worsened. Over 30,000 are dead and thousands more will die if this continues. Yesterday Israeli troops gunned down starving civilians in the north of Gaza as they waited for food – over 100 were killed and 700 injured in the ‘the Flour Massacre’. This latest horror underscores the urgency of stopping all arms sales to Israel. UN experts have warned that any arms transfers to Israel will breach international law and ordered all countries to stop all arms sales immediately.
Our government has refused to halt export licenses to Israel so it is our duty as citizens to stand up for peace, international law and human rights.
We will not stand by as the UK continues to arm this genocide of the Palestinian people. It must end now.’
The protest started at 7am at the Sidney Little Road factory, one of the two General Dynamics sites in Hastings, timed to coincide with workers as they arrived for work. Demonstrators held placards, sung songs for ‘Ceaefire Now’ and handed out leaflets which informed workers of their right to refuse to take part in handling components used in breach of international law.
Israel’s brutal campaign in Gaza has run for five months so far, killing almost 40,000 people and wounding and maiming double that number. The UN is now warning that a quarter of the population is at risk of death from famine and the World Health Organisation has said that more than a million are starving. Protests have been mounted outside arms factories all over the country, including in Kent, Leicester, Bristol, Bournemouth, Glasgow, Cambridge, Brighton, London, Lancashire, Belfast and Monmouthshire, to demand an end to UK’s ongoing complicity and enabling of genocide. This is HDPSC’s fourth protest at General Dynamics’ sites in Hastings since the campaign began.
According to the organisers, almost all of the ‘MK80’ bombs being dropped on Gaza are made by General Dynamics, which is the 5th biggest arms company in the world. The Hastings facilities provide avionic systems for fighter planes and tactical communications equipment for ground vehicles.
At the demo, Leah Levane of Jewish Voice for Labour said that Israel could no longer ‘act with impunity’.
It is shocking that the UK government is granting arms licences to Israel,’ she said. ‘This makes the UK partners in the occupation and the genocide in Gaza. As a Jewish organisation, we are one of several Jewish groups in the UK and the many more across the world who are protesting loud and clear – NOT IN OUR NAME.
Jen Rouse, representing Parents for Future Hastings & St Leonards, said:
We’re here today because as parents we cannot stand by and watch as our government supports a genocide of children.
The thought of our own kids having to live through even a fraction of the terror and trauma that Israel inflicts on Gazan children every day is unbearable. So the only right thing for all UK parents to do is to be here today, demanding an immediate end to the bloodshed. We will never give up until we see a free Palestine.
Simon Hester, Chair of Hastings & District Trades Union Council, added:
Hastings & District Trades Union Council supports the calls for end to all arms sales to Israel and for an immediate ceasefire to end the genocide in Gaza.
We demand that General Dynamics UK stop supplying equipment to the Israeli army or to get out of Hastings. We stand in solidarity with the people of Palestine.
Olivia Cavanagh of Hastings Community of Sanctuary and Hastings Supports Refugees said:
We continue to call for an immediate and permanent ceasefire in Gaza and the West Bank.
We support an embargo on arms sales from the UK to Israel and stand with the Hastings community to call on the local General Dynamics factories to stop supplying arms to Israel and to act to end the unprecedented killing of Palestinian civilians.’
Yunis Smith from Hastings Green Party said:
Years from now the children of the world will ask what did you do to stop this calamity? I for one hope I will have a good enough answer!
And Chris Goodchild of Hastings Quakers said:
The poor tell us who we are, the prophets who we can be. Yet we kill the poor and kill the prophets. We are all Palestinian and civil disobedience is divine obedience. Stop arming Genocide.
The arrest form part of an escalating campaign of repression and demonisation of peaceful protesters demonstrating against genocide. PM Rishi Sunak, who like ‘opposition’ leader Keir Starmer has constantly backed Israel’s murderous actions, has today smeared demonstrators as divisive and hateful and has threatened to deport those who fall foul of what he considers the limits of acceptable protest.
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Starmer challenger calls for new left mass movement outside Labour Party
Former ANC MP and arms trade campaigner will address activists from around UK tomorrow at Collective launch – and poses real threat to friend-of-genocide ‘Labour’ leader
Andrew Feinstein, former ANC MP under Nelson Mandela and leading critic of the global arms trade, will use a speech this weekend to endorse a new political alliance billed as the foundation of the first organised mass movement of the left outside of the Labour Party.
Feinstein’s speech will be the centrepiece of a conference called by dozens of former Labour councillors and other independent candidates. The event will take place in ‘Labour’ leader Keir Starmer’s home constituency of Holborn and St Pancras in London.
Feinstein, who has lived in the constituency for more than two decades since moving to the UK, has already signalled his willingness to stand against Starmer as an independent candidate and has been selected as candidate by the OCISA anti-Starmer group, attracting a groundswell of support both locally and nationally.
Local campaigners say there is real vulnerability in Starmer’s majority, established under Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership of the party, especially given the controversies embroiling Labour over the war in Gaza. Starmer looks even more vulnerable after yesterday’s landslide victory for Workers Party GB leader George Galloway in Rochdale and the collapse of Labour’s vote from over 50% to less than 8%, with Starmer’s support for Israel’s genocide in Gaza a major driver.
The new movement – dubbed ‘Collective’ – has been established following months of deliberation amongst grassroots campaign groups and prospective independent candidates for both council and parliamentary elections. Though it is not establishing a new party in time to contest this year’s election, it intends to do so onceit has grown a mass membership base.
Feinstein said:
It’s not just Labour Party members who were the victims of Starmer’s entirely fictitious campaign for leadership of the party. The people of Holborn and St Pancras also elected him twice on a socialist platform under the leadership of Jeremy Corbyn. Having lived in the constituency for over 20 years, I’ve been overwhelmed by the support and strength of feeling amongst local communities – and across the country – who are crying out for a response to the deeply corrupt, anti-democratic and out of touch Labour Party under Starmer. Under his leadership, the party has now completely abandoned working people and marginalised communities in an escalating effort to out-Tory the Tories.
But this election must do more than just provide an alternative to the pro-genocide, pro-austerity Sunak-Starmer circus. It must also mark the beginnings of a new mass movement of working people that can challenge the Westminster bubble once and for all. That’s why I’m proud to be joining Collective which is uniting sections of the left and will eventually transform into a new political party backed by an organised and democratic movement.
Feinstein also clarified regarding his parliamentary candidacy;
I have not declared that I am definitely standing. I’ve indicated my willingness to do so but am still consulting widely inside and outside the constituency.
Second, I believe that a new grassroots movement, built out of the extraordinary solidarity for Gaza, a rejection of permanent austerity, and the sclerotic, corrupt and elitist nature of establishment politics, is essential. The form that takes will be decided amongst people at the grassroots – a movement for the people, of the people and by the people.
Saturday’s event is about the councillors who have taken a stand against the indefensible role that the UK government and the Labour Party have taken in support of the genocide in Gaza.
Collective spokesperson Pamela Fitzpatrick, independent candidate for Harrow West:
Our political system – and now the Labour Party itself – is fundamentally anti-democratic and rigged against new parties, especially on the left. The only way to address this is to build a mass movement outside of the Labour Party as a foundation for a new political party that is truly free of vested interests and which can offer a real alternative to the pro-austerity and pro-war two party system. All around the country, independent candidates have and are coming forward to fight this election on a common platform calling for an immediate and permanent ceasefire in Gaza, a real pay rise and decent housing for all, higher taxes for the rich, an end to privatisation of the NHS, and an end to unnecessary and unjust war. That is the foundation which Collective will build on, and eventually transform into a political party that will change the face of British politics.
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Well over 100 civilians murdered as Israeli tanks, gunboats fire on crowd waiting for aid delivery
Terror and chaos in Gaza City after IDF ‘trap’
Injured wait on lorries and a donkey cart (social media image)
More than a hundred Palestinian civilians have been slaughtered and many more injured, after Israeli tanks, gunboats and armoured vehicles opened fire on a crowd of people waiting for a scheduled aid delivery to arrive. The Israeli military has admitted opening fire, claiming that troops felt ‘endangered’. The IDF also tried to blame the civilians for their own deaths, saying some were trampled – presumably as terrified people tried to escape the fire zone.
Some reports have put the death toll at 170, with more than a thousand wounded. Social media posts show the carnage and the attempts to evacuate the injured. The Al Jazeera news service reported that the victims had fallen into a ‘trap’ set by the Israeli military:
Palestinians who witnessed the Israeli attack on aid seekers in Gaza city say it was a trap.
According to human rights group Euro-Med Monitor, Israeli forces have killed almost 40,000 Palestinians in Gaza since 7 October last year, the vast majority of them civilians and a large majority women and children, and have wounded more than 70,000 others, many of them severely. The World Health Organization and others have reported that more than a million people are in, or at imminent risk of, starvation because of Israel’s blockade and military assault, and victims of starvation have already died.
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Israel supporters shamelessly smear Bushnell with ‘dead jews’ claim. It’s an outright lie
US serviceman whose self-immolation resonated around the world did not say ‘Palestine will be free when all the jews are dead’, as multiple pro-Israel accounts have claimed
Supporters of apartheid Israel’s genocidal assault on Palestinian civilians have begun spreading a claim that Aaron Bushnell, the US serviceman who died this week after setting himself on fire outside Israel’s embassy in Washington, posted a comment to his Reddit account that ‘Palestine will be free when all the jews [sic] are dead’.
The image has been touted by accounts well known for dismissive and often racist commentary about Palestinians as a means of trying to justify Israel’s war crimes. ‘Comedy’ writer Lee Kern was one of the most prominent:
Kern not only propagated the fake claim but described the whole of Palestine as a ‘racist hate movement’
Kern described the whole of Palestine, not just a resistance group, as a ‘suicide death cult’
Writer Kern’s 2021 comment appears to have been deleted but was commented on as early as 2021 and he does not appear to have made a denial to the many times it has been thrown at him
A careful examination of Bushnell’s Reddit account by fact-checker Snopes, over a wider period than the two months ago that the image shows – including using a service that records deleted posts – showed that no such post had ever been made by Bushnell and the image is completely fake. A reverse image search also revealed no other instances before the image began to be circulated by propagandists.
Bushnell’s shocking protest has focused even greater attention on Israel’s slaughter of tens of thousands of innocent Palestinian civilians, mostly women and children. The attempt by supporters of the slaughter to divert from his aim in his terrible protest by posting an outright lie about him after his death is shameful and entirely unsurprising.
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Turning Waste Into Charcoal in Uganda
This story originally appeared in Earth Island Journal.
It’s mid-morning in Uganda’s Mabira rainforest. Godliver Businge stands outside her home, full of good spirit and ready to get to work. Around her, a gathering of women steadily forms, creating a circle around an outdoor stove, as the sweet aromas of barbecue rise into the tree canopy. At first glance, this is a familiar scene — women preparing a meal for their families and community. Yet, within this seemingly routine gathering, a quiet revolution is taking shape.
Each woman here is participating in a training course, learning to craft and cook with charcoal briquettes made from organic waste — part of a grassroots conservation effort aimed at protecting Uganda’s last standing forests. Uganda’s Mabira Forest spans 74,000 acres of forests, hilltops and verdant stream valleys. In the forest, wide-eyed, gray-cheeked mangabey monkeys hang from the branches, while flocks of tit-hylia songbirds flit through the leaves and violet-winged butterflies perch on flowering plants. The Mabira forest is one of the only places in the world to host these rare species of monkeys, birds, and butterflies. The survival of these species, however, depends on the survival of Mabira itself.
The richly biodiverse Mabira reserve is the largest remaining block of semi-evergreen rainforest in the Victoria Basin. It is also home to settled human enclaves that depend on the forest.
Charcoal briquettes from organic waste have a number of benefits, including burning cleaner and slower and saving women valuable time. Credit: Axel Fassio / CIFOR-ICRAF
Today, the prevalence of deforestation threatens the forest’s longevity, along with the communities, human and otherwise, living in or around it. “One of the biggest rainforests in Africa — the Mabira Forest — is now a forest just by the roadside,” says Businge, the Women’s Earth Alliance (WEA) Uganda program lead and a co-founder of the Uganda Women’s Water Initiative (UWWI). “But if you go behind it, the forest has been cut down.” (WEA is a project of Earth Island Institute, which also publishes the Journal.)
Uganda is home to the highest density of primates of any country in the world. According to the Convention of Biological Diversity, the country’s forests harbor at least 7.8 percent of the world’s known mammal species and 11 percent of its bird species.
These high concentrations of biodiversity, as well as the environmental and human health benefits provided by these forests, are threatened by the rapid, dramatic loss of forest cover. In the past 20 years, Uganda has lost over one million hectares of tree cover — nearly a third of the country’s total. “The forests are being turned into gardens,” Businge says.
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While the expansion of agricultural land and illegal logging have indeed contributed to forest loss, charcoal production is the primary destructor of Uganda’s forests. Charcoal is made by heating wood (logged from forests) at high temperatures and in the absence of oxygen. Today, Ugandans remain highly dependent on charcoal for cooking: nearly a quarter of the country’s 46 million people rely on charcoal to cook their meals, based on UN data. To meet this demand, charcoal producers have engaged in the illegal clearing of protected forest reserves, resulting in the loss of critical animal habitat and sustainable food resources, including fruit trees. This not only jeopardizes biodiversity but risks Ugandan food security.
Unlike neighboring countries Kenya and Tanzania, which have stricter conservation laws, Uganda “is such an open market that you can do anything, you can trade in anything,” Businge says. The availability of charcoal in Uganda puts additional pressure on its forests, as non-Ugandan loggers cross borders to cut trees.
Credit: Axel Fassio / CIFOR-ICRAF
Making the briquettes involves mixing char from carbonized organic waste with a starch or clay-based binder. The mixture can then be molded by hand, or using a machine, into round briquettes.
Uganda’s Ministry of Water and Environment says it is committed to “avoiding, minimizing, and mitigating adverse environmental and social impacts associated with its projects,” and to “zero tolerance to fraud and corruption,” but in reality, many forest crimes continue.
Businge described how loggers bribe the government’s Climate Change Department, which operates under the Ministry of Water and Environment and in theory, is responsible for enforcing regulations, “[but] actually allows you to cut trees — uncontrollably.” While “the existing laws say cut one tree, plant two,” Businge says, “those laws are not enforced.”
To address the environmental concerns surrounding charcoal use, then, women leaders in Uganda have developed an alternative: the use of organic waste — mostly food scraps that would otherwise go uneaten — instead of wood, to make charcoal briquettes.
Making charcoal briquettes from organic waste provides a number of benefits. “Organic waste is free,” says Comfort Hajra Mukasa, WEA’s East Africa regional director at WEA and a leader and educator at UWWI, who trains women to make the briquettes. “It’s readily available. The mixture of vegetables, carbs, and proteins, offers a ‘balanced diet’ for the charcoal briquettes. The charcoal burns slower, [so] you use less to cook more.”
Ugandans remain highly dependent on charcoal for cooking: nearly a quarter of the country’s 46 million people rely on charcoal to cook their meals. Credit: Axel Fassio / CIFOR-ICRAF
It also saves women valuable time. “Nowadays, bio [wood from trees] is really scarce,” Hajra Mukasa says. “Forests are not near, so someone has to really walk. Also, firewood is expensive. We are working with rural women. These are women who are walking long distances going to look for firewood. A lot of time is wasted in looking for firewood and bringing it home.”
Waste briquettes offer a realistic alternative to wood charcoal that does not force people to sacrifice their livelihoods. “If I’ve been selling firewood for an income [and] you do not give me an alternative income, I will continue to sell firewood, even if I see the importance of not cutting trees,” Hajra Mukasa says. “I am going to weigh between protecting the environment and protecting my children from dying from hunger. And I’ll ultimately go for protecting my children from dying.” But with waste briquettes, she explains, people can both protect their families’ well-being and gain income. They keep their livelihood, but they don’t cut trees to do it. And the waste briquettes burn cleaner. “It produces the best quality briquettes at the cheapest cost.”
For UWWI, Businge and Hajra Mukasa both train women in how to make charcoal briquettes from organic waste. “Our venues are not hotels,” Hajra Mukasa says. “Our venues are a woman’s home. So, we are very local.”
The briquette making process is fairly simple. Businge and Hajra Mukasa mix char from carbonized organic waste with a starch or clay-based binder. The mixture can then be molded by hand, or using a machine, into round briquettes. After drying, the briquettes are ready for cooking.
The training begins in the late morning, typically around 11 am, so that women have time to work in their gardens in the morning and attend to their other responsibilities. “We are cognizant of the fact that our women are wives and mothers,” Hajra Mukasa says, “and we always emphasize that we want you to be empowered women, but we want you to still remain African women who value family. We do not want to create a disconnect between culture and our movement.”
Credit: Axel Fassio / CIFOR-ICRAF
The plan takes a peer-to-peer approach, in which each woman that has been trained continues to train other women in the community.
UWWI also ensures that the entire community feels included in the process. They meet with as many people as possible, including men in the community, to help them understand the importance of the training and what to expect. “The politicians [also] need to know that this is not a rebel group or a government opposition group,” Hajra Mukasa says.
At the end of the training, program participants create action plans. “We make a commitment with the women to go and transfer the same knowledge to at least five other women,” Hajra Mukasa says. The plan takes a peer-to-peer approach, in which each woman that has been trained continues to train other women in the community. “We normally train 30 people and trust them to train another 150 people,” Hajra Mukasa says.
In addition to saving women time, the waste briquettes are a source of income. Women sell the briquettes at a variety of venues, including at events and by going door-to-door. Typically, women offer a few pieces to sample, and customers often quickly come back for more. “People know how badly they’ve damaged the environment,” Hajra Mukasa says. “Especially when the floods come. But this is an alternative.”
That choice is important now. “Gas as an alternative in rural communities [will be possible] maybe 100 years from now,” Hajra Mukasa says. The briquettes are better, allowing a healthy, environmentally sustainable lifestyle now and for generations to come. “In Uganda we are still rural, but we love being rural,” Hajra Mukasa says. “There is a lot of peace being rural, but we also want to live healthy.”
The post Turning Waste Into Charcoal in Uganda appeared first on Reasons to be Cheerful.
Cartoon: 'Cryogenic nursery'
In a case involving the accidental destruction of frozen embryos, the the Alabama Supreme Court disturbingly referred to the embryos as "extrauterine children" kept in a "cryogenic nursery." Needless to say, this is wreaking havoc on Alabama's IVF clinics and upending the plans of many would-be parents.
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Starmer admits spoke to Israeli president before torpedoing SNP Gaza motion. Sky deletes vid
Starmer’s admission too hot for Sky News to handle?
Keir Starmer admitted today that he had spoken to Israeli president Isaac Herzog before embarking on the parliamentary manoeuvres – including alleged threats to Commons Speaker Lindsay Hoyle, though Starmer has since denied it – that torpedoed the Scottish National Party’s motion calling for a full ceasefire in Gaza and condemning Israel’s war crimes.
Starmer quickly attempted to row back on his comment to Sky’s interviewer and tried to replace it with ‘to the people who are actually involved’ – which means the same thing, since Starmer certainly didn’t get the Palestinians’ ok to his betrayal – but the words were captured loud and clear:
The short clip was published by musician and pro-Palestinian campaigner Lowkey, but a fuller excerpt shows that it was not misleadingly edited:
It seems the admission was too explosive for the ‘mainstream’ broadcaster, since the clip appears to have been deleted.
Starmer may well deny ever saying this – after all, he denied saying Israel had the right to cut off food, water and fuel from the people of Gaza, even though he said that on camera too. He went on to say that Hoyle did the ‘right’ thing in caving to his bullying urging. Hoyle was, of course, breaking Parliamentary protocol and depriving the SNP of a vote on their motion, even though it was their ‘Opposition Day’, so that Starmer could replace their clear wording with a spineless, Israel-friendly version that gave the apartheid state a veto over any ceasefire and made the whole thing about Israel’s rights instead of Israel’s war crimes. Hoyle now rightly faces a no-confidence motion by SNP and Tory MPs.
Israel has murdered some 35,000 civilians in Gaza so far and maimed tens of thousands more, with 1.5 million on the verge of famine and dying from disease after the destruction of their healthcare system. The regime is on trial for genocide at the International Court of Justice.
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Breaking: 55 MPs (so far) sign motion of no confidence in Speaker Hoyle
Wednesday’s farce and chaos after Speaker allowed Labour to ‘hijack’ SNP’s opposition day motion calling for Gaza ceasefire leads to ‘Early Day Motion’
Fifty-five MPs – and counting – from the SNP and Conservative parties, plus one independent, have signed a motion of no confidence in Commons Speaker Lindsay Hoyle this morning, including more than half of the SNP’s Westminster MPs, after last night’s fiasco in which Hoyle broke parliamentary protocol to allow a Labour amendment to enter the debate and derail the SNP’s ‘Opposition Day’ motion calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza.
Labour’s amendment, which watered down a motion condemning Israel’s war crimes in Gaza into an Israel-friendly version that gave the apartheid regime an effective veto over any ceasefire, should have been ruled out by the government’s own attempted amendment, leading to a straight fight between the SNP and Tory versions. But Hoyle – allegedly under threat by Labour whips of removal under a Labour government – allowed Labour’s amendment to stand. It passed without a formal vote after Tory and SNP MPs stormed out in protest amid chants calling for the return of Hoyle’s predecessor John Bercow. SNP Westminster leader Stephen Flynn said last night he would ‘take significant convincing’ to believe it was tolerable for Hoyle to remain in the role.
The Speaker position is held during a parliament until death or resignation, but a large proportion of the Commons signing the motion would be likely to put immense pressure on Hoyle to step down. His position already looks untenable after he allowed Keir Starmer to hijack a vote on a situation in which some 34,000 Palestinian civilians have been murdered and hundreds more are being killed each day.
Update: in the few minutes since this article was published, the number of MPs has risen to 57.
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Starmer tries to make SNP Gaza ceasefire motion all about Israel’s feelings
Labour amendments betray Gaza’s murdered and oppressed civilians and uses classic asymmetric language to value Palestinian life less than Israeli
Keir Starmer – after days of posing to try to bring Muslim and other decent voters onside by mouthing ceasefire language – has yet again betrayed the two million people in Gaza suffering violence and starvation and the more than 100,000 people murdered and maimed by Israel.
While the ‘mainstream’ media speculated whether Starmer would order MPs to support the SNP’s motion demanding a ceasefire, which is being debated in Parliament tomorrow, more realistic observers knew it was inevitable that Starmer would do the minimum he hopes will fool voters opposed to Israel’s genocide in Gaza, while protecting the interests of the pro-Israel right.
And so he did: Labour has tabled amendments to the original motion that gut it of its impact and has gone as far as making the motion more about Hamas’s supposed guilt and the feelings of Israel and its supporters. And the amendment uses the classic tactics of politicians and ‘mainstream’ media to present Israeli lives and suffering as more valuable than Palestinian.
In Starmer’s worldview, Palestinians are not being murdered by Israel – their lives are just ‘lost’, as if to a natural disaster and not to a campaign of mechanised mass murder. The sheer number of their deaths is presented as ‘intolerable’, but the loss of Israeli lives to Palestinian resistance is ‘horror’. Israelis have the ‘right to assurance’ against attack, but there is no mention of a Palestinian right not to be murdered by the occupation regime. Israel ‘cannot be expected’ to stop fighting if Hamas does not stop – but there is no acknowledgement that Hamas’s violence takes place against a backdrop of decades of wanton violence and oppression by the occupiers. Israel must be ‘safe and secure’ – but a Palestinian state only merits ‘viable’.
The SNP motion is an exemplar of directness and simplicity and rightly focuses on the many tens of thousands of civilians slaughtered by Israel, as well as on the forced displacement of 1.5 million Palestinians into Rafah, where they remain under constant bombardment and the threat of an all-out ground assault:
Labour’s lickspittle version calls resistance ‘terrorism’ but does not mention the Israeli terror state’s genocide and other war crimes, or the fact that so many are dying in Rafah because they were forced to cram there under bomb and bullet – and clearly hasn’t even been proofread, calling for ‘the UN Security Council to be meet urgently’:
Starmer is trying to mask his support for Israel’s war crimes and hoping that the millions in this country disgusted by that support will be fooled. His disregard for the true plight of Palestinians and his complicity in the war crimes being perpetrated against them by Israel is beyond contemptible.
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