More on the Del Singh award
Palestine: Del Singh family offended by award handed to JLM
Petere Lazenby, Morning Star
27 September 2017
[See previous report on this story a day or two ago: Family protest over giving the Del Singh Memorial award to Lousie Ellman MP & the JLM ]
International campaigner Del Singh was killed by a Taliban bomb in a restaurant in Kabul in Afghanistan in January 2014, aged just 39, along with 19 other people.
He had carried out peace missions with the European Union and United Nations.
His work took him to Kosovo, Libya, Sudan, Palestine, Afghanistan, Sierra Leone and other conflict zones.
He was selected as a prospective Labour candidate for Southampton in elections to the European Parliament.
The Del Singh Award was established in his memory.
Among many issues on which he campaigned, Mr Singh was passionate about the cause of the Palestinian people and campaigned on their behalf, leading in 2006 to his being banned from visiting Israel.
At the Labour Party conference in Brighton this week the Del Singh Award was presented to the pro-zionist Jewish Labour Movement and Labour MP Louise Ellman, its chair.
Mr Singh’s family has reacted furiously.
In a letter penned on Monday, his sister Dishi Kaur-Umfleet responded: “Images and social media posts celebrating those who opposed what Del stood for during his life were not easy to stomach.
“Those who have tirelessly defended the human rights abuses of the Israeli occupation, which Del spoke so passionately against.
“Those that attacked the very positions that Del advocated as part of Labour Friends of Palestine and the Middle East, for example, recognition of a Palestinian state.”
She said the family had not been consulted about who received the award in her brother’s name and that there were many causes he had supported which would have been appropriate, including campaigning against homelessness and poverty.
Ms Kaur-Umfleet said the family expected the award to be revoked and called for an explanation and apology from the Labour Party.
Labour had not responded to requests for comment as the Star went to press.
“Mr Singh was passionate about the cause of the Palestinian people”
He cared about it, just as we all do, but he certainly was not an anti-semite and did not have a problem with Jews, nor Zionism, nor Jews who want to be in the labour party so you are completely mis-representing a dead man and the JLM. The group received the award for their work campaigning against ant-semitism – it was deserved and had nothing to do with Israel. Further the JLM does NOT support the Israeli government – the clue is in the name.
Mr Smith throws up a cloud of dust to obfuscate the issue:Del Singh firmly opposed Israel’s oppression of the Palestinians – to the extent that he was banned from visiting Israel. So bestowing an award in his memory to a Zionist group that celebrates the state based on the 1947-8 Nakba catastrophe inflicted on the Palestinians and continues its oppression of them indefinitely, is indeed an insult to his memory.
The bankruptcy of Mr Smith’s position is well illustrated by his gratuitous introduction of the complete canard of ‘rebutting’ an allegation of anti-Semitism against Del Singh – an allegation invented by Mr Smith himself. Gratuitous? well perhaps not, since when bereft of argument, Zionists fling accusations of anti-Semitism about precisely to change the topic. Indeed, since JLM (amongst others) defines opposition to the Zionist colonial project as anti-Semitism, the basis of their award must itself be viewed with some scepticism. Mr Smith claims that he cares “just as we all do” about the cause of the Palestinian people; but what policies does he advocate for their succour? He also claims that JLM does not support the Israeli government; but how does he propose to stem – let alone reverse – the flow of settlers illegally occupying the West Bank? to equalize the land and migration/nationality laws between Jews and Palestinians? We await evidence of Mr Smith’s – and JLM’s – care in these an other regards with great interest. So far, it is Mr Smith who is misrepresenting the late Del Singh.
Yours fraternally
Ben Cosin
On a more matter-of-fact level, WHAT HAS HAPPENED? The family demanded the award be revoked and an apology given. One commentator on JEWS SANS FRONTIERE guessed that the family’s wishes wouldn’t be respected.
“Lansman, Corbyn, McNicol and Newmark will wish to avoid that at all costs. The family will be leant on very heavily.”