We are all being smeared over Gaza
JVL Introduction
In a biting critique, Jonathan Cook highlights the ways in which any and everyone who protests against the slaughter in Gaza is being smeared with the terrorist brush.
After Jeremy Corbyn became leader it was largely just the left wing of the Labour Party, traditionally critical of Israel, that faced demonisation. Now large parts of the British public are finding themselves being smeared too – and for the same reason.
Only 13 percent of the public believe that Israel is justified in continuing to take military action. But neither the government nor Labour is prepared to even give airtime to this overwhelming, majority viewpoint.
Instead, the speaker of the House of Commons is wildly suppressing free speech as equivalent to “intimidation”, and talking of the possibility of MPs being “murdered by terrorists” – no doubt wild-eyed Muslims or left wingers.
There is no hint of a justification for these slurs.
We live in dark times and Labour is abjectly capitulating to this shabby language and assault on our democratic right to speak out and to express the bizarre view that our representatives should actually represent our views in parliament.
RK
This article was originally published by Middle East Eye on Fri 1 Mar 2024. Read the original here.
First it was Corbyn. Now the whole British public is being smeared over Gaza
The smearing of Corbyn over his criticisms of Israel worked. But gaslighting much of the public as a dangerous “mob” for opposing even more egregious Israeli crimes may yet backfire
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Stanley Cohen conceptualized the concept of “Moral Panic”, whereby particular groups or organizations were described by others, such as politicians, as a threat to moral values and, for instance, “our” way of life (?). Moral panic is created by instilling fear in the population, using outright lies and unscrupulous messengers, to detract from real issues and impose authoritarian laws and censorship upon the population. This is a clear strategy of Sunak, Starmer, Hoyle, Braverman, and the rest of the Establishment. It intends to demonize and repress our support for the Palestinians against the rotten Zionist entity. But, we are hardened veterans now and the antisemite label has worn very thin. We are all antisemites now. The real issue is that real anti-Semitism is being ignored whilst the Zionists weaponize it for their own evil purposes. We are the protectors of truth. That is why they are coming for us, but we won’t give in, come what may.
Five months on, it’s been fascinating watching the snail’s pace journey of – some of – the MSM from Denial, to Acceptance.
Even now, some resist the truth of what’s been happening in Palestine, while, at the same time – knowing – what is happening.
When this is over, many journalists will have an awful lot of soul-searching to do.
Cue an avalanche of books, being used as therapy.
This brilliant article appears to say it all. It expresses my own feelings.
Even I have been worried that I could be victimised for openly stating facts contrary to the fiction of the ruling establishment of politicians and media.
Thank you, JVL, for re-publishing this article and for your comradeship.
‘After Jeremy Corbyn became leader it was largely just the left wing of the Labour Party, traditionally critical of Israel, that faced demonisation. Now large parts of the British public are finding themselves being smeared too – and for the same reason.’
Yes, and millions of people are being woken up to the malevolent political and media establishment and seeing them for who and what they are.
Lindsey German also posted an excellent appraisal of the situation:
‘Extremism, racism, undemocratic? Look in the mirror, Sunak’
https://www.counterfire.org/article/extremism-racism-undemocratic-look-in-the-mirror-sunak-weekly-briefing/
What it amounts to in effect is Sunak and the rest of the British mafia trying to terrorise Jo/Joe public by concocting and manufacturing a completely bogus threat and pretending there’s a national emergency.
And in case anyone missed it, this Sky News interview with George Galloway (from last Friday) is totally hilarious, and George is in his element. First off George is asked what his response is to Rishi Sunak saying that his election ‘is beyond horrifying’:
George Galloway: ‘I despise the prime minister’ (9 mins)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J7p7CAyxHgg
Every few years I re-read 1984, which at one time I thought of as a shallow piece of fiction, and have now come to see as a political document of immense prescience. Every tendency Orwell noted is applicable to our current situation.
1984 was written in 1948. In the 75 years since then, the popular shibboleths have migrated and even flipped identities, but plus ca change, plus c’est la même chose. It would have amused Orwell to see how the treacherous figure of Emmanuel Goldstein (socialist and Jewish) has been replaced with that of Jeremy Corbyn (socialist and allegedly antisemite) in the poisonous imagination of the establishment. A similar process has seen the apartheid and now genocidal state of Israel become a beacon of virtue, to be defended at all costs, no matter what crimes it commits. However the names change, those we are instructed to think of as our heroes are as ever the super-rich (cartoon villains like Bezos), aged warmongers (Biden) and establishment puppet-politicians (Sunak, Starmer). Those we are taught to see as our enemies also remain in essence the same: socialists of enduring principle, and the colonised peoples, exploited, persecuted, robbed and driven out of their resource-rich homelands, to be supplanted by the rapacious agents of western capitalism.