[Lord Snooty]

Amnesty have now denied ever saying that.

[Ska'dForLife-WBA]

In it she said that U.S. cops got the method of kneeling on necks from the Israeli secret service, which they have denied. Well they would if they're a secret service, wouldn't they? Amnesty International though say it's true. So are they anti semitic as well?

1. As far as I'm aware, Amnesty International haven't said it's true at all. All I've seen is a single blogpost written in 2016 by one employee of Amnesty USA claiming that high-level US police execs (not ordinary street cops) have done some training in Israel, and Israel is bad, therefore we should all be very angry about it. That's it. No interviews, no hard data, nothing in the post to suggest that what they went over there for was to learn how to strangle people more effectively. And Peake herself has now admitted that the claim was unevidenced bollocks.

2. I'm quite happy to state that anyone who spends their life claiming at the drop of a hat that the Israeli secret services are behind any old bad thing that happens anywhere in the world, irrespective of evidence, is (at the very least) a monomaniacal crank. And yes, that includes the Amnesty employee who wrote that blogpost. Whether they're an *anti-Semitic* crank largely depends on how far they've dived down that particular rabbit-hole.

[0762]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-53183085

Yep! Good comments LS. So RLB is the latest casualty of Sir Starmer and the establishment Labour Party. His motive is clearly to ensure the Labour Party is "squeaky clean" and this is one huge "stain" that needed to be cleaned out AT ALL COST! Forget common values and good ethics! Also I despair observing the normalised "state of affairs" in this country when it comes to criticising the State of Israel (not the Jewish community!!!!!) or anything to do with the State of Israel. We are now at a point where anyone of any kinda political standing is shit scared to say what they should be saying in criticising Israeli criminals like Netanyahu, his extreme accomplices and other religious fanatics who don't "give a fook" re the human rights of the indigenous people in the occupied territories. It is just another confirmation that the Israelis, prob through Mossad and other covert agencies, have won the propaganda war in the likes of the UK and the USA (god knows what they have on Trump!!!) and I despair while all big western countries are "standing back" again while the Israeli govt "rides ram shod" all over the Palestinians and other minority ethnic groups for the umpteenth time even in the face of another UN condemnation (one of many in the past 50 years!!) of their unlawful partitioning of settlement land that, under international law, they have no legal standing re ownership!!

[hibeejim21]

I feel a wee bit sorry for RLB, because I don't think she meant anything malicious in that at all. But twitter and politicians are a dangerous mix, especially with a subject as sensitive as that for the Labour Party. Starmer had to act decisively - plus it draws a line under the Corbyn era and makes him look good while Boris is slithering around the corruption of one of his own ministers. Thats politics. Thats 'optics'.

Of course it's entirely possible the IDF supplied that kind of training to US police, there are plenty of images of them treating Palestinians to that particular knee on throat hold. Proving it is another thing though.

[hibeejim21]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-53183085

Yep! Good comments LS. So RLB is the latest casualty of Sir Starmer and the establishment Labour Party. His motive is clearly to ensure the Labour Party is "squeaky clean" and this is one huge "stain" that needed to be cleaned out AT ALL COST! Forget common values and good ethics! Also I despair observing the normalised "state of affairs" in this country when it comes to criticising the State of Israel (not the Jewish community!!!!!) or anything to do with the State of Israel. We are now at a point where anyone of any kinda political standing is shit scared to say what they should be saying in criticising Israeli criminals like Netanyahu, his extreme accomplices and other religious fanatics who don't "give a fook" re the human rights of the indigenous people in the occupied territories. It is just another confirmation that the Israelis, prob through Mossad and other covert agencies, have won the propaganda war in the likes of the UK and the USA (god knows what they have on Trump!!!) and I despair while all big western countries are "standing back" again while the Israeli govt "rides ram shod" all over the Palestinians and other minority ethnic groups for the umpteenth time even in the face of another UN condemnation (one of many in the past 50 years!!) of their unlawful partitioning of settlement land that, under international law, they have no legal standing re ownership!!

Peake is obviously right that systemic racism by security forces is an international issue, and pointing out how one racist security force has learnt violent population control techniques from another to me is not a conspiracy theory. Are we right in saying that if Peake had been more precise, and used well-documented examples of racist policing by Israeli security services – like the ones Amnesty had pointed to - of say extrajudicial execution, ill-treatment and torture (including those of children), excessive use of force against protestors then RLB wouldn't have got sacked ? It feels a bit 'off'.

Israel is set to illegally annex a large part of the West Bank next week. That is real modern-day colonialism, and happening now. Anti-racists and internationalists should be united in opposing it, without fear of the social media bullying and 'gotcha' style politics.

But thats the particular rabbit hole we appear to be down at the moment.

[ritchiebaby]

I feel a wee bit sorry for RLB, because I don't think she meant anything malicious in that at all. But twitter and politicians are a dangerous mix, especially with a subject as sensitive as that for the Labour Party.  Starmer had to act decisively - plus it draws a line under the Corbyn era and makes him look good while Boris is slithering around the corruption of one of his own ministers. Thats politics. Thats 'optics'.

Of course it's entirely possible the IDF supplied that kind of training to US police, there are plenty of images of them treating Palestinians to that particular knee on throat hold. Proving it is another thing though.

It just goes to prove that "re-tweeting" is a lazy way of getting a point across. I'm sure that Rebecca LB didn't mean to indicate that she agreed with all of the original post. but the fact that Maxine Peake withdrew the Israeli Secret Service allegation wouldn't help her case.

I'll just add that during my youth, I remember the race riots in America in the 60s and, judging by recent events, absolutely nothing has changed, so violence is not the answer. Racist parents will produce racist children, unless the school system can somehow intervene to lessen any prejudices. To me, that is the only positive way forward. But I'm not expecting any movement on that front, given the chasm between the two extremes.

[hibeejim21]

Labour leader Keir Starmer has overtaken Boris Johnson as the public preferred choice for Prime Minister, according to the latest Opinium poll for The Observer.

Starmer is preferred to lead the country by 37% of voters polled on Thursday and Friday last week, compared with 35% who say Johnson would be the best Prime Minister.

While the Tories remain four points ahead of Starmer’s party on 43% to Labour’s 39%, the gap has closed from over 20% in February and early March when the Tories enjoyed a regular commanding lead as the country rallied behind the government, and Jeremy Corbyn was reaching the end of his time as Labour leader.



The writings on the wall for bunter. Starmer is popular with the country.

[hibeejim21]

Latest You Gov polling
We also have Keir Starmer leading Boris Johnson on our Best PM question by more than the margin of error for the first time.

Keir Starmer - 35%
Boris Johnson - 31%
Don't know - 31%


Latest Westminster voting intention (18-19 Aug)

Con - 40% (-4 from last week)
Lab - 38% (+3)
Lib Dem - 6%
Green - 6%
Brexit Party - 4%
SNP - 5%


I think generally speaking the numbers are going the right way for Starmer.

[0762]

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/uknews/co...d=msedgdhp

So SKS not "sitting on the fence" this time and making a curious move to suspend Corbyn for violating what Labour Party rule? It "looks good on paper" - strong leadership etc but could this actually be a "Kinnock moment" for SKS? One can only wait and see how the left side of the party reacts to this move. Personally I thought Corbyn should've "taken a deep breath" and read the content of this damning EHCR report on antisemitic behaviour within the party. Then possibly respond if necessary after taking it all in.

[hibeejim21]

Corbyn as ex leader would have had sight of it earlier . He's tried to fight his corner when like you say he might have been better taking some time before responding.

Suspending him seems pretty harsh and will almost certainly start off a major rift in the party just when things were starting to come together. And what for anyway ? JC and his allies were already sidelined. It seems a bit a needless.

I don't think corbyn is antisemitic at all. Just a weak leader who didn't know how to deal with the parties mechanisms well enough, and his office interfered wrongly and dragged their feet in dealing with a small proportion of nastiness to preserve criticism of Israel at all costs. Reading the report it looks like they did eventually try and sort it but the damage was already done.