Quote Originally Posted by jon1959 View Post
In my opinion the way any legitimate resistance to oppression, expropriation and persecution of Palestinian Arabs by Israel (either in Israel proper or the occupied territories or West Bank/Gaza) is hamstrung by the way all those criticisms and solidarity actions are labelled 'antisemitic' - the false conflation of Israel with Zionism with Jewish people. That is the intention and it works. Kier Starmer reinforced that when he described the Maxine Peake comment about shared 'restraint' techniques as an antisemitic conspiracy theory - and I believe that idea (which has gained more and more currency in recent years) is a betrayal of the Palestinian resistance. Choke holds are used in both countries (loads of photographic evidence) and both countries share training programmes for police and military. That is not disputed.

I agree with your second point. It was naive to retweet that article and even more naive not to expect the reaction RLB got. It hasn't helped the Palestinian cause at all. The Israeli government and other agencies in Israel and the USA have been denying for weeks that choke holds were part of the training programmes. In the absence of hard evidence the claim should not have been made, and if made and refuted (the Amnesty clarification) should have been withdrawn and an apology made. Maxine Peake did that but RLB seems not to have been given the opportunity.

I also agree with your last point. This sort of argument - even if only with Ronnie and his clones on a football message board - is not productive (is a side issue or distraction) and could drown out the more important things that impact on justice, peace and security in Israel/Palestine and the wider world. I don't think I have ever started a thread on this subject but I have been wound up enough to reply - and I don't want to go through a repeat of that dialogue of the deaf that we had last year before the election. It is like Groundhog Day.

I have spent all afternoon discussing this with family and friends - most of whom think Starmer has played a blinder - and none of whom are interested in whether the original claim made by Maxine Peake (and thousands of others) was right or wrong or a comment on current events or a sinister conspiracy theory. They all saw it as a PR move that was a stunning success. They are probably right.
One of those modern buzzwords that so annoy me is "optics", but I'm going to use it here because, for me, this issue is all about the optics whereby I believe the public at large (who, in a poll last year, were in favour of this country having a "strong" leader by a margin of almost two to one) will see Starmer's decision as being a "strong" one.

If people want to the contrast that with the actions of our "strong man" PM,who, laughably, told a Labour MP representing a Brighton constituency that the representatives of that city should "show some guts" and champion their constituencies at PMQs on the day before we saw those scenes at Bournemouth (there were also incidents at Brighton that day which have tended to be overshadowed by what happened further along the coast)

https://www.brightonandhovenews.org/...n-to-visitors/

then I wouldn't have thought the Labour leader will be too unhappy.