There is a classic media-political storm at the moment in the UK. A rap singer at a music festival apparently led the crowd in chants of “Free Palestine” and “Death to the IDF”. The BBC broadcast it live. A huge storm ensues; the Prime Minister weighs in and condemns it, the BBC issues a typically “we cannot be blamed for anything but it won’t happen again” statement, and so on. The usual performative hysteria.
Meanwhile, in Gaza, babies continue to die from Israeli induced hunger. Starving people continue to be shot at in their hundreds as they try to get food from the Mossad psy-ops feeding points. The war crimes and seeming genocide continue unabated.
Keir Starmer and the UK political class condemn in the strongest terms a stupid and immature stunt by a rap artist at a pop festival. Everyone is agreed it cannot happen again. After 50,000 dead and injured children in Gaza they just about manage to bring themselves to criticise the excesses of the Israeli army. They barely mention the ongoing ethnic cleansing in the West Bank. And they say nothing at all, as far as I can see, about the Israeli policy of shooting children dead for throwing stones at armoured vehicles. Such are our values. Such is the power of the Israeli lobby.
The BBC statement includes this line: “The antisemitic sentiments expressed by Bob Vylan [the rap artist] were utterly unacceptable and have no place on our airwaves. ” [1] I don’t know; but if all he said is the reported “Free Palestine” and “death to the IDF” it becomes incumbent on the BBC to explain what is antisemitic about that? It would appear that the BBC is totally onboard with the Israeli ploy to conflate antisemitism with criticism of Israeli; a ploy whose purpose is to deflect all criticism of Israel and allow them a free hand to starve babies, shoot children, and bomb civilians in tents. Again; such are the values in the political and media classes in the UK. Such is the fear of the Israeli lobby.
Update: it seems the rapper also referred to a “fucking Zionist”. Since Zionism is a particular expression of Jewish identity that veers in the direction of antisemitism, though, technically, it is not. (Logically if A -> B and A -> n then to abuse B is not to abuse A). One can be politically against Zionism, the idea of a unique homeland in Palestine exclusively or primarily for Jewish people, while not being antisemitic. Some Jewish people are not Zionists. Nonetheless, even if we regarded this remark as antisemitic, the striking contrast remains between the loud condemning of a few nasty remarks to the muted criticism of the mass slaughter and deliberate starvation of children in Gaza, and the ethnic cleansing and murder of children for throwing stones in the West Bank. Offensive remarks are more troubling to the UK’s sensitive political class than genocide and starving babies.
On this theme; it seems the UK government is considering banning a group called Palestine Action, following a ‘direct action’ where they damaged some UK military equipment. Personally, I am against direct action for the obvious reason; direct action bypasses the law and the processes of democracy. Who is any one group to make the determination that their cause is so absolute that it trumps this system? If you allow it for one group then any group could make the same claim. The whole idea of democratically made laws is to obviate just such self-selection of what is right and wrong. Nonetheless; vandalising military aircraft as a political protest, for example, has a long history in the the UK. There was a time when even the mainstream regarded this kind of action as misguided but essentially decent. In the 1980s no one talked about proscribing the Greenham Common women, who protested against US nuclear bases in the UK, as terrorists. This development shows just how far the UK is slipping into a police state. Once again; it seems that the Israel lobby has been hard at work. [2]
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