Keir Starmer Labour Leader

Fearless

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Oh come on, it is not anti-Semitic because she referred to Israel but not France or the UK. Are we not allowed to draw attention to anything Israel does without referring to similar abhorrent practices carried out by numerous other countries? If so, it’s basically impossible to criticise Israel’s policies without being anti-Semitic. Israel is a state like any other. Criticising its policies does not inherently reflect on attitudes towards Judaism or Jewish people. Someone can be vehemently opposed to Israeli policies, as many Jews are, and frequently highlight them without being anti-Semitic.

It’s quite clear that Peake’s comments were problematic in that she made an unsubstantiated claim (based only on circumstantial evidence), but that itself is not anti-Semitic. I’ve posted earlier on here that I would query anyone’s motive if they appear keen to draw a line between Israeli influence and US police brutality/racism, but doing so in itself is not automatically anti-Semitic and it’s absurd to make that claim.
If 'Israel is a state like any other" then this thread simply wouldn't exist.
 

Fearless

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There's plenty of valid reasons to criticise the state of Israel, wish the left of Labour and indeed left wing activists that are leftist part of centre-left parties recognised that.
Because while the reactions around criticism of Israel can have disproportionate consequences a significant amount of criticism is based around conspiracy theorism that in other contexts you can be loose with (e.g. the "system") but can also be based in anti-semitic tropes

A lot of famous people - recently Roger Waters, Ice Cube engage in conspiracy theorism that some may perceive as anti-semitic tropes (although in the case of Ice Cube blatantly so). Politicians should stay away from that stuff with and not touch it with a bargepole.

The irony is that there is so much to talk about and criticise them for over including occupation, annexation etc that'll annoyingly get missed when we instead decides to focus our criticism on things that are bogus.
Which in turn hardens the Israeli position as it emboldens it's openly anti-semitic enemies who are in turn hiding and smiling behind the 'it's not antisemitism' crowd.
 

buchansleftleg

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Some say this technique of "knee on the neck" is from Krav Maga - an Israeli amalgum of various Martial arts practices. Given that Police forces around the world have also been trained using a variety of other Martial arts techniques where are the articles claiming that the American Police are being influenced by the governments of China / Korea / Japan / Brazil? Why could Israel be being singled out I wonder?

RLB won't be missed.
 

Smores

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You’ll have to take my word that I’m capable of arguing for myself and that I’m not using this case to attack RLB or the “left wing” of the Labour party because it’s convenient. However, I imagine you’re someone that sees conspiracies everywhere (or is that baseless assumption?).

Police brutality and racism is an issue within many police forces in the US and has been long before certain forces from the US attended training in Israel.

Conflating the two with George Floyd is purely an assumption and totally unwarranted. Therefore, anti-semitic because it’s bringing Israel into it for no reason. You can argue until the cows come home but it won’t stop being anti-semitic. Israel is far from a perfect country and deserves criticism for a host of reasons including multiple human rights violations, as well as it’s own serious issues with racism to the surprisingly large African community that lives there, but blaming it for training the US police, who then used that training to kill George Floyd specifically is far fetched, lazy and anti-semitic.
No point continuing this discussion as you've not addressed a single point.
 

Ramshock

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Two things.

Keir Starmer is a Tory cheerleader in disguise

Israel is above any and all criticism from anyone in the west and if anyone points out that its a murderous tyrannical state (which it is) then they are hit by the pro Israel machine and labelled anti semite.
 

That'sHernandez

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You’ll have to take my word that I’m capable of arguing for myself and that I’m not using this case to attack RLB or the “left wing” of the Labour party because it’s convenient. However, I imagine you’re someone that sees conspiracies everywhere (or is that baseless assumption?).

Police brutality and racism is an issue within many police forces in the US and has been long before certain forces from the US attended training in Israel.

Conflating the two with George Floyd is purely an assumption and totally unwarranted. Therefore, anti-semitic because it’s bringing Israel into it for no reason. You can argue until the cows come home but it won’t stop being anti-semitic. Israel is far from a perfect country and deserves criticism for a host of reasons including multiple human rights violations, as well as it’s own serious issues with racism to the surprisingly large African community that lives there, but blaming it for training the US police, who then used that training to kill George Floyd specifically is far fetched, lazy and anti-semitic.
It could also be lazy research, where the person expressing said opinion has not adequately fact check their claim. It's probably fair to say there may be implicit anti-semitism in the readiness to believe said claims but it's certainly not obvious....
 

Raven

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Some say this technique of "knee on the neck" is from Krav Maga - an Israeli amalgum of various Martial arts practices. Given that Police forces around the world have also been trained using a variety of other Martial arts techniques where are the articles claiming that the American Police are being influenced by the governments of China / Korea / Japan / Brazil? Why could Israel be being singled out I wonder?

RLB won't be missed.
Because there is a huge amount of info about Israeli forces training American police? I've yet to see anything about them being trained by the Chinese, Koreans, Japanese or Brazilians. If you have any information on this, I'm happy to check It out.
 

Ramshock

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You’ll have to take my word that I’m capable of arguing for myself and that I’m not using this case to attack RLB or the “left wing” of the Labour party because it’s convenient. However, I imagine you’re someone that sees conspiracies everywhere (or is that baseless assumption?).

Police brutality and racism is an issue within many police forces in the US and has been long before certain forces from the US attended training in Israel.

Conflating the two with George Floyd is purely an assumption and totally unwarranted. Therefore, anti-semitic because it’s bringing Israel into it for no reason. You can argue until the cows come home but it won’t stop being anti-semitic. Israel is far from a perfect country and deserves criticism for a host of reasons including multiple human rights violations, as well as it’s own serious issues with racism to the surprisingly large African community that lives there, but blaming it for training the US police, who then used that training to kill George Floyd specifically is far fetched, lazy and anti-semitic.
Absolute bollocks. I am anti Israel i am NOT anti semite. You do not want to distinguish one from the other because it negates any criticism of Netanyahu and his fascist state.
 

Fluctuation0161

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I'd feel more outrage that she was essentially a mouthpiece for the teachers unions instead of representing pupils, parents and generally looking to improve education holistically as well as representing teachers - that and the fact shes useless and I hope come that glorious day of reckoning with the EHRC we can get her out of the party along with all the other antisemites and anybody else who tries to smear the report and defend them
Laughable post.
Stay off Guido.
 

Buster15

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Two things.

Keir Starmer is a Tory cheerleader in disguise

Israel is above any and all criticism from anyone in the west and if anyone points out that its a murderous tyrannical state (which it is) then they are hit by the pro Israel machine and labelled anti semite.
Both bizarre statements are completely incorrect.
 

decorativeed

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I'd feel more outrage that she was essentially a mouthpiece for the teachers unions instead of representing pupils, parents and generally looking to improve education holistically as well as representing teachers - that and the fact shes useless and I hope come that glorious day of reckoning with the EHRC we can get her out of the party along with all the other antisemites and anybody else who tries to smear the report and defend them
You realise teachers unions are made of of 100% teachers, right?
 

Wolverine

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As an aside, anti-semitism exists on the right of the political spectrum too.
A lot of centrists who single out the Corbyn wing of Labour do not engage in pile ons when the right expresses alt-right talking points. An example of this is the conspiracy theories around George Soros which are blatantly anti-semitic

Which includes MP for Hastings Sally-Ann Hart who has liked a Nazi slogan on Facebook and shared a video implying Soros controls the EU and Lee Anderson for Ashfield was a member of a facebook group where anti-semitic tropes were shared.

Also who can forget Boris' novel in 2004 which was, of course, titled Seventy Two Virgins which amongst its many questionable portrayals of ethnic minorities described jews as being able to control the media and Jewish "oligarchs" being able to "fiddle" with elections. In addition he described a Jewish character in there as an unethical businessman with a "proud" nose, who exploits immigrant workers and black women. I don't wanna be the "imagine if corbyn did that" guy but come on.

Thats our Prime Minister. I remember reading that in the JC around December but it was kinda just not mentioned throughout the debates. I suppose it was lost amongst all of the other offensive shit he has done and said.
 

Spark

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Absolute bollocks. I am anti Israel i am NOT anti semite. You do not want to distinguish one from the other because it negates any criticism of Netanyahu and his fascist state.
What are you on about? I’ve said criticising Israel isn’t necessarily anti-semitic. We all know there are countless human rights abuses to be angry about.

But linking Israel with things that have nothing to do with it is. George Floyd is one of those examples, which is why the person who did it has apologised.

And to previous points @Smores that I seemingly ignored - they have nothing to do with why this is anti-semitic. Israeli policing tactics didn’t have a bearing on why Chauvin knelt on Floyd’s neck for eight minutes until he was dead. No training tells you to do that. Why single out Israel? It’s completely unwarranted and that is why it’s controversial.
 

Shamwow

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This was an interview that was recorded, the independent added an editors note that made the claim sound sourced.
 

decorativeed

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No problem.
For the record, I agree with many of the points you've made in here. I'm not a huge Starmer fan, but I was not particularly a fan of Long-Bailey. I think that people in general should be a bit more circumspect about what they post online, Labour politicians especially.

It is a big failing of hers that she showed such poor judgement and allowed herself to be the victim of trial by Twitter. If the promising socialist polititians that we need during times like these had any sense, they'd employ an aide to run their twitter feed. They'd run it purely as a means of communicating with their constituents and totally eradicate the possibility of silly but hugely damaging mistakes like this.
 

decorativeed

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When both sides are absolute scum, I'll not bother getting involved.
Hang on a minute. That is blatently untrue and is a big part of why this country and others are in the shit situations we are currently in. I'd have prefered the vision of the country that was in the last Labour manefesto, and I've no doubt that ship has sailed, but to think that we'd be no better off at all under a Starmer Labour government than the current shit show is ludicrous.
 

decorativeed

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That's suddenly not allowed, despite being called for at the last two elections (one GE and one MEP) by the very same people using this line today.
What exactly is the point you are making here? The disingeniusness of this line of thought really irks me. Lets lump everyone with a range of views into one homogenous mass of people to perpetuate a myth, eh?

It's like people in the Covid thread saying that the families crowding onto the beaches are same people keeping their kids way from school for fear of the virus. In actual fact, nobody knows whether there's any overlap between the two, but it's just fun to decry masses of people as hypocrites.
 

sun_tzu

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You realise teachers unions are made of of 100% teachers, right?
indeed and that they are only one of multiple stakeholders in the education system and whilst they are an important stakeholder they are not the only one to actively engage with and listen to
P.S. the leadership of most unions is actually made up of full time trade union professionals a number of whom are former teachers though some are from other trades - notably lawyers and generally career union officials - plus retired teachers also form a proportion of teaching unions as well - plus of course teaching assistants, headteachers and other school staff are all stakeholders as well
 

berbatrick

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For the record, I agree with many of the points you've made in here. I'm not a huge Starmer fan, but I was not particularly a fan of Long-Bailey. I think that people in general should be a bit more circumspect about what they post online, Labour politicians especially.

It is a big failing of hers that she showed such poor judgement and allowed herself to be the victim of trial by Twitter. If the promising socialist polititians that we need during times like these had any sense, they'd employ an aide to run their twitter feed. They'd run it purely as a means of communicating with their constituents and totally eradicate the possibility of silly but hugely damaging mistakes like this.
if you're serious, you need to rid yourself of the notion that this was avoidable by better tweeting. the transparency of kicking her out while more straightforward examples of anti-semitism fester - in both parties - is obvious. not mentioning israel ever might make it easier to not get kicked out, but it won't stop the purge. there will be some other pretext.
starmer has decided not to submit that dossier on the party's internal sabotage of handling anti-semitism complains to the body that is going to judge the party. there's no broad commitment to truth or to fighting anti-semitism here, it is factional party politics. if the mood was right he could have kicked her out for saying she isn't friends with tories, and everybody here would hav e accepted that too - he needs to look serious while boris looks divisive, if he didn't kick out a divider like her how can he attack boris for the same, etc.
 

Raven

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For the record, I agree with many of the points you've made in here. I'm not a huge Starmer fan, but I was not particularly a fan of Long-Bailey. I think that people in general should be a bit more circumspect about what they post online, Labour politicians especially.

It is a big failing of hers that she showed such poor judgement and allowed herself to be the victim of trial by Twitter. If the promising socialist polititians that we need during times like these had any sense, they'd employ an aide to run their twitter feed. They'd run it purely as a means of communicating with their constituents and totally eradicate the possibility of silly but hugely damaging mistakes like this.
I'm not a fan of most politicians, I'm a fan of common decency and equality. So far Starmer has failed on both counts.
Hang on a minute. That is blatently untrue and is a big part of why this country and others are in the shit situations we are currently in. I'd have prefered the vision of the country that was in the last Labour manefesto, and I've no doubt that ship has sailed, but to think that we'd be no better off at all under a Starmer Labour government than the current shit show is ludicrous.
It's a matter of principle, I wouldn't support people who use antisemitism and bigotry for their own shady purposes whilst completely neglecting the real victims. Unfortunately, that is precisely what Starmer has done and, I'm sure, will continue to do. I'd rather Starmer is a total failure and whoever gets it next has a little more integrity.
 

NinjaFletch

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You can look at the results - Corbyn and Bernie are losers, RLB is out, while Orban, Trump and Bolsanaro are in power.
There are neither votes nor structural support to be won from it in most western countries. And rightly so since it is anti-semitic.
Well I'm not sure RLB's an important enough person to materially alter that balance any further!

But yes, I take your point, and it's actually what I was trying to get at. Doing so is clearly a fraught, difficult minefield and it has become a topic which is almost guaranteed to be controversial. If it's a debate Labour feels that its voice needs to be heard on, then it needs to be careful, considered and measured (and I think there's at least as good an argument that Labour's track record is now so toxic that it's a debate which they cannot get involved with at all) and not one that they accidentally walk into because their MPs haven't read articles properly that they're endorsing.
 

berbatrick

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Well I'm not sure RLB's an important enough person to materially alter that balance any further!

But yes, I take your point, and it's actually what I was trying to get at. Doing so is clearly a fraught, difficult minefield and it has become a topic which is almost guaranteed to be controversial. If it's a debate Labour feels that its voice needs to be heard on, then it needs to be careful, considered and measured (and I think there's at least as good an argument that Labour's track record is now so toxic that it's a debate which they cannot get involved with at all) and not one that they accidentally walk into because their MPs haven't read articles properly that they're endorsing.
Strategically the correct thing is to never say the name. But medium-term it is not a workable strategy.
 

Dobba

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"You and your paper can feck off."
What exactly is the point you are making here? The disingeniusness of this line of thought really irks me. Lets lump everyone with a range of views into one homogenous mass of people to perpetuate a myth, eh?

It's like people in the Covid thread saying that the families crowding onto the beaches are same people keeping their kids way from school for fear of the virus. In actual fact, nobody knows whether there's any overlap between the two, but it's just fun to decry masses of people as hypocrites.
Not voting for Labour has gone from being acceptable, because it's the party to blame and in no way 'letting the Tories in' at the last two elections (GE/MEP), to making you a definite Tory today. Sir Keir has gone out of his way to publicly try and woo the most famous of those people back to the party, with no questions about him doing the Tories work for them asked. Some twat on a United forum decides he doesn't want to vote for Sir Keir's version of the Labour Party and suddenly they're absolutely doing the Tories work for them.

People who actively worked against the party for the last five years are being welcomed back with open arms and if the report hadn't been leaked one of them would almost certainly be the party's General Secretary as we speak. If you're worried about a lack of loyalty, you're all being extremely quiet about it.
 

jeff_goldblum

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Clarify - are you anti-Netanyahu (which is fine) or anti-Israel?
I think 'anti-Israel' is too vague and certainly too emotive a term to be useful in these debates.

On one hand, a lot of leftists might self-describe as 'anti-Israel' because they have significant issues with longstanding Israeli government policy (in the same way they might self-describe as anti-USA), whilst at the same time being fully supportive of Israel's right to exist. On the other hand, Israelis, and Jewish people with an affinity with Israel, live in a world where 'anti-Israel' voices, including the leaders of other regional powers, are often arguing that the country should be wiped off the map.

I think those critical of Israel need to be awake to the fact that it is not uncommon for antisemites to co-opt legitimate criticism of Israel to spread hate, and that Israelis and Jewish communities more generally know this all too well and are understandably wary. They also need to be wary that it isn't always easy to tell when this is happening, and that in societies where anti-Jewish conspiracy theories have existed for millennia, they need to be mindful of unconscious bias in themselves and in their sources. At the same time, it's not uncommon for people with an interest in defending Israeli policy to intentionally conflate criticism of that policy with antisemitism to stifle debate, and there's understandable anger about people being tarred as antisemites because their attempts to hold the Israeli government accountable for their actions are inconvenient.

Basically, in the interests of people being able to have a nuanced and adult conversation about a sensitive topic, it isn't useful for either side throw around terms like 'anti-Israel' because they can mean very different things to different people. Tagging @Ramshock here too as the post pertains to his post.
 

Silva

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why is anyone bothering to reply to fearless, he's a racist who has called palestinians subhuman, there is no reason to engage this person in good faith
 

jeff_goldblum

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why is anyone bothering to reply to fearless, he's a racist who has called palestinians subhuman, there is no reason to engage this person in good faith
Can you link to that post so I can report it? People have been (justifiably) banned for less.
 

Raven

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Just came across a video of the IDF training Czech police. Have a look and see if anything looks at all familiar.
 

Maticmaker

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Perhaps its just me, but I don't think Starmer's sacking of RLB as anything to do with antisemitism, that is an excuse, he's just clearing the decks behind him making sure there is no 'etu Brutus' moment in the future. Everyone knows Starmer's view of Labour and RLB's view are at different ends of the spectrum. Using the antisemitism card to complete his coup, gets Sir Keir brownie points as well with certain sections of the party.