The human rights lawyer against the law
JVL Introduction
Ben Jamal, Palestine Solidarity Campaign director, tackles Keir Starmer’s betrayal of the Palestinian cause.
Apartheid is defined under the Rome Statute – and is a crime against humanity,
Starmer, as a human rights lawyer knows this.
He knows, too, that Amnesty International, B’Tselem, Human Rights Watch, and the, UN Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights in the Palestinian Territory have produced scrupulous and devastating reports on Israel’s practice of apartheid.
Yet to date, he has ignored all these reports.
In his view Jewish people can only feel safe in Labour Party if it not too critical of Israel. So if the reality is unpalatable, ignore it or buy into the narrative that telling the truth about apartheid is antisemitic.
And the democratic reality that the Labour Party itself overwhelmingly adopted the view of Israel as an apartheid society at its 2021 Conference.
This article was originally published by Tribune on Sat 9 Apr 2022. Read the original here.
The Human Rights Lawyer Against the Law
Keir Starmer’s refusal to recognise Amnesty International’s findings about Israeli apartheid isn’t just a betrayal of Palestinians – it shows that his appreciation for human rights extends only as far as it benefits his career.
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A great piece – but you omit two further damning pieces of evidence. Firstly the Labour party has deleted from its YouTube channel record of the 2021 annual conference the ‘historic’ motion calling for sanctions against ‘apartheid’ Israel that was overwhelmingly passed by Labour members and affiliated unions. Secondly an amendment to the 2022 rule book explicitly excludes any reference to fairness or the principles of natural justice when considering expulsion of members. If it weren’t for Skwawkbox, we’d all be in the dark on this….keep up the pressure, JVL and Tribune, but it’s going to be a long bumpy ride…https://skwawkbox.org/2022/04/06/starmer-abolishes-fairness-and-natural-justice-from-labours-expulsion-rules-in-as-many-words/
Can he be reported to some standards committee and struck off
Spot on.
So the penny has finally begun to drop that the right-wing of the Labour Party are nothing more than a servile, careerist wing of the Tories and the racist, Zionist, “Friends of Israel” brigade within the labour movement.
That’s why the Starmer crowd saw that the best way to rid the Party of Jeremy Corbyn, his “troublesome”, pro-Palestinian stance and his more leftist platform wasn’t to do what their fellow right-wingers did in the PLP by mounting headlong challenge after headlong challenge but were soundly rebuffed by the membership who had witnessed an unprecedented growth in Party numbers.
So, pose as “moderates”, willing to appear to “co-operate” with the new leader in the name of bogus “unity” and then politically knife him in the back, cheered on with complete approval from the Tories and the press barons, not to mention Blair and his gang of Iraq war criminals as well.
No need to wring one’s hands in surprise, shame or horror at Starmer’s treachery but what to do about it? That’s the important question still to be answered. It may have taken some time but nonetheless welcome to the world of political reality comrades!
Thankyou for this…makes me sad for Labour.
the question now is how do ww get rid of this antisocialist monster? The Isael lobby mounted a coup against him which Al Jazeera covered
. He seized all the power structures of the party preventing any expression of opinion other than his even forbidding any discussion on ]political issues and covering his misdoings by the bribing and silencing agreements which cost the LP hundreds of thousands of pounds. This is where he needs to be challenged – misuse of party funds in court. We need to know what was in the agreements and in the nonpublished, leaked investigation and what Forde has discovered. I mentioned before that Hannah Rose successfully filed at the ICC a complaint of genocide and murder against PM Johnson & Co. We need her to do the same against Starmer. It would be a much simpler task.
WE need Jeremy Corbyn to write a book: ‘ in place of fear?’ laying out a full alternative to the Tory plans ; and /or a new party that requires all its members to accept the UN Declaration of Human Rights as a condition of membership. We can’t go on like this while Starmer progressively .disgraces the LP as as well as himself
Have any leaders of the main political parties made a statement or commented – one way or the other – about the findings of Amnesty et al?!
Not that they need such reports to know exactly what is happening, and been happening for the past seventy years and more.
It should come as no surprise, the depths Starmer will plummet to prove his establishment credentials.
As Ben Jamal states, it is ” shocking”.
What is ‘democracy’ anyway? Starmer was elected to assert his pernicious influence in a ‘democratic’ political party, which is one of the two main parties in a ‘democratic’ state, which is claimed to be a gradually evolved ‘constitutional democracy’.
Yes, it could be worse, but it could be a heck of a lot better.
Yes, but politicians often hide behind a supposed electoral necessity to justify policies that they support for other reasons.
There are in the Labour Party, for example, some people who really like nuclear weapons. But that could be awkward and so they pretend that such a stance is necessary for electoral reasons.
Similarly, Tony Blair refused to support a top rate of income tax of 50%. He used electoral arguments (however implausible). In reality, he opposed it because he did not want to pay it himself on future earnings
I don’t think he needs to prove anything to the establishment Jim, or ever DID, and they knew he was ‘onside’ all along, and they wouldn’t have been endorsing him via their propaganda machine – the MSM – during the leadership contest if they’d thought otherwise. And had they REALLY believed that he was going to continue with Jeremy’s program – as he said he would – and that his Ten Pledges were for real, they would NOT have endorsed him, but they knew it was just a ruse – a deception – to dupe as many on the left as he could so as to get their votes (and divert them away from RLB) and guarantee that he won comfortably:
‘Keir Starmer’s 10 Socialist Pledges: Forensic Gaslighting?’
https://jewishvoiceforliberation.org.uk/article/keir-starmers-10-socialist-pledges-forensic-gaslighting/
Starmer is now engaged in telling members what they must think . The Party has always included people who had varying opinions on every subject under the sun. There have been consciences objectors who have held high positions. Thousands have been members of CND including Michael Foot who became leader. High profile members have opposed Nato . Nye Bevan wasn’t keen on that. In my long membership I have taken part in debates at local level on nuclear weapons. The last one , ,about 4 years ago , voted almost unanimously against maintaining a nuclear deterrent. The Labour Party is no longer a democratic institution. Perhaps a name change is necessary. Ingsoc would suit.
What is a ‘human rights lawyer’? Someone who consistently upholds human rights – or merely someone who specialises in that particular field – which is one of struggle? KS could give a very good lecture on “Human rights – what they are and how to fight them”. Of course, when it comes to Israel, KS takes the 1984 position: “Some are more equal than others”. So too with Russian-speakers in Ukraine; those who defend their language rights and create their own republics to do so, KS makes into UNPERSONS:
“The Donbass republics? They do not exist”
Here we have a fine account of a central part of multiple tales of shame.
Keir Starmer is utterly duplicitous. It is only the collusion of the right wing establishment media that saves Starmer from being widely known for what he is: a parvenuu self-interested cynical politician with nothing worthwhile.
A wider problem is that it is not only Starmer but a preponderance of self-perpetuating Conservative-style Labour MPs, self-perpetuating right-wing party staff, shallow thinking union bosses and, of course, the establishment media which supports them and ensures that the truth is not well known.
My colleague and friend, Nicola, who is at the top of the commenters here, was herself expelled from the Labour Party just before the last Conference for no actual reason other than she was one of our elected delegates.
The Labour Leadership is just nasty about whatever it thinks does not suit it.
As the Squawkbox has pointed out, the Starmer-led Labour Party’s hopes to run the country are contradicted by its treatment of its own best members.