Starmer: do not speak the truth about Israel and Palestine – or antisemitism

Amnesty International Report labelling Israel and Apartheid state

JVL Introduction

Keir Starmer insisted that Liverpool Riverside MP Kim Johnson apologise for the language she used in relation to Israel – and she did so in the House of Commons. This meant that she effectively apologised for speaking the truth in relation to Israeli apartheid and while Israel is not a fascist state, the new government has fascists in it.  Israeli critics are using both the words apartheid and fascism but this is not permissible in the UK Labour Party (or any other Party).  For us, a particularly important point made here by Jonathan Cook is that “Israel’s ever-greater extremism has been made possible precisely because it faces no opposition in the West.”

Liberal zionists are worried but, like Starmer and so many others supposedly on the left, they fail to see how, for example, the false and the exaggerated claims of left antisemitism, equating it with criticism of Israel and certainly labelling anti-zionism as “new antisemitism” has been a key part of creating the impunity that has facilitated the dreadful situation.

 

This article was originally published by Middle East Eye on Thu 2 Feb 2023. Read the original here.

Kim Johnson row: Starmer is ignoring Israel's slide into fascism

In slapping down an MP for decrying Israel’s new government, the Labour leader has left British supporters of Palestinian rights politically homeless

What’s become all too clear over the past three years is that Labour leader Keir Starmer tolerates no criticism of Israel whatsoever – even when such criticism accords with international law, the verdict of the human rights community or just plain common sense.

Israel gets a free pass from Starmer’s opposition Labour Party, just as it gets one from the ruling Conservative Party. Any Briton who believes that Palestinians are entitled to a state, or should not have their lands stolen to build illegal, Jewish-only settlements, or should be free from Israel’s apartheid rule, or should not be killed by trigger-happy Israeli security forces, is politically homeless.

That was underscored on Wednesday when the Labour leader forced one of his MPs, Kim Johnson, to apologise after she referred to the election late last year of a “fascist Israeli government”. She did so while putting a question on Israel’s well-documented human rights violations to Prime Minister Rishi Sunak in the Commons.

Starmer’s office called Johnson’s remarks “completely unacceptable” and insisted she withdraw them. In her apology, the MP said the use of the term “fascist” was “particularly insensitive given the history of the state of Israel”.

In slapping down Johnson, is he suggesting that Israel has the only political system in the world incapable of putting fascists into power? 

She also apologised for being “insensitive” by mentioning that Amnesty International and other major human rights groups had described Israel as an apartheid state – paradoxically, on the same day Amnesty issued a new statement underscoring that Israeli apartheid was a “cruel system of domination and a crime against humanity”.

Once again, only Israeli sensitivities count. Palestinian sensitivities – faced with the most nationalist, mostracist, most inciteful government in Israel’s history – appear to be of no interest to Starmer’s Labour Party.

But worse than that, Starmer’s whole approach to the Israel-Palestine conflict has been exposed as toxic. In slapping down Johnson, is he suggesting that Israel has the only political system in the world incapable of putting fascists into power?

Sweden’s leaders can be deemed fascist; Italy’s leaders too. Only Israeli politicians are exempt from such condemnation, even as they pass racist laws and oppress and kill another people in ways no politician in Sweden or Italy would ever dare to do.

And the suggestion that Israel has a get-out-of-jail-free card on fascism because Germany committed a genocide against Jews – not Israel – conflates Israel with Jews around the globe. It is antisemitic to believe that Jews are responsible for the crimes committed by Israel, or that any criticism of Israel tars Jews too. The two issues are separate, as attested to by the fact that many Jews call Israel an apartheid state and its new government fascist.

‘Fascism Is Us’

In fact, Starmer is barring his MPs from speaking about the new Israeli government in terms the Israeli media regularly uses. Recent headlines include: “Why Are Israel’s Streets So Quiet in the Face of a Fascist Takeover?”, “It’s Official Now: Fascism Is Us”, “The Fight Against Fascism Doesn’t End at the Green Line” and “Yes, Jews Can Support Fascists Too”.

Even more extraordinarily, Starmer has banned Labour MPs from describing Israeli government ministers in the very language those ministers use about themselves. Last month, Bezalel Smotrich, Israel’s new finance minister, was recorded privately characterising himself as a “fascist homophobe”.

Human rights groups have expressed grave concerns over the rapid escalation by the new Israeli government in physical, administrative and legislative assaults on Palestinian communities. They include not only a surge in violence, but “legalising” settlements, a wave of home demolitions, mass arrests, plans to revoke the “residency” of Palestinians, and the crushing of protests.

In truth, Johnson’s comment should not even be contentious. A former Israeli prime minister, Ehud Barak – of Israel’s Labor Party, with which Starmer’s party is formally aligned – warned seven years ago that Israel was rapidly sliding towards fascism. He did so long before Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu invited the openly and virulently anti-Arab Religious Zionism bloc into his coalition.

Barak clearly saw where Israel was heading long before Religious Zionism’s lawmakers were sitting in government as the third-largest faction.

Given Israel’s relentless lurch rightwards over the past 15 years, Israeli pundits have struggled to find new ways to describe Israeli governments’ ever-greater Jewish supremacism. There are only so many “ultras” and “fars” that can proceed “nationalist” and “right”, before the only word left is fascist.

Even a former senior official at AIPAC, Israel’s main lobby group in Washington, pronounced Religious Zionism’s politicians “fascistic forces” – and he did so in the Netanyahu-friendly newspaper the Jerusalem Post.

Inciting racism

Itamar Ben-Gvir, a settler leader and key player in the Religious Zionism alliance, leads its most extreme component party, Jewish Power, whose ideological wellspring, Kach, was outlawed by the Israeli parliament back in the late 1980s.

Ben-Gvir’s mentor, Rabbi Meir Kahane, established Kach on a platform calling for the annexation of the occupied territories; mass expulsions of Palestinians; and the outlawing of marriage – and all sexual contact – between Jews and non-Jews, with prison sentences of up to 50 years. He was committed to the use of specifically Jewish violence to effect such changes.

So extreme were Kahane’s views that the US classified Kach as a terrorist organisation in 1997. That designation was only lifted last year, apparently because Kach was viewed as “inactive”.

But if it is inactive, it is only because the adherents of its ideology have changed their branding. As one US scholar, William Lafi Youmans, told Al Jazeera: “Rather than removing the designation, the State Department should have updated and expanded it.” Ben-Gvir himself was convicted in 2007 of supporting a terrorist organisation and inciting racism.

Given the rapid rise of the Kahanists in Israeli politics, under a different label, there must at least be a suspicion that the move by US authorities was designed to avoid an embarrassing confrontation with the very Israeli government we have now.

Ben-Gvir is now the police minister, with unprecedented powers over the paramilitary wing of the police operating inside both Israel and the occupied territories.

Proceeds of crime

Starmer’s reaction to Johnson’s “fascist” remark is part of a pattern of behaviour since his election as Labour leader that neuters any criticism of Israel and smothers any solidarity with Palestinians.

In 2020, he reprimanded one of his MPs, Stephen Kinnock, for criticising Israel over its illegal settlements. Kinnock, who was at that time standing down as the chair of the all-party parliamentary group on Palestine, had called for a ban on settlement goods. He noted: “Profiting from these products is tantamount to profiting from the proceeds of crime.”

Starmer was reported to have been “infuriated” by the speech and gave Kinnock a “dressing down”. But the MP was expressing a view that fully accords with international law and has supposedly been the consensus among the international community for decades.

Israel’s ever-greater extremism has been made possible precisely because it faces no opposition in the West

Jewish settlements constitute a war crime because they require the forcible transfer of the population of the occupying power into Palestinian territory. To support these settlements, Israel has to steal Palestinian land and resources, institute a system of apartheid between the two populations, and use violence to crush resistance. Settlement goods are sustained by the proceeds of those crimes.

Kinnock was entirely right to make his comment. Even the pro-Israel, disunited European Union – backed by the European Court of Justice – has agreed that settlement products must be labelled so shoppers can avoid them.

A year later, Starmer was at it again. This time, he declared opposition to Zionism, Israel’s official ideology, as antisemitic. He espoused a preposterous political position – one that effectively applies this label to the main western human rights groups, such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, as well as Israeli rights groups, such as B’Tselem. They have all classed Israel as an apartheid state, a position supported by every anti-Zionist Palestinian and those in solidarity with their struggle for statehood and the right to live in dignity.

Neither Starmer’s office nor Johnson had responded to Middle East Eye’s request for comment by the time of publication.

A blind eye

Labour MP Dame Margaret Hodge, a stalwart of Labour Friends of Israel, has added her voice to this week’s row, calling Johnson’s remarks an “insult” to the legacy of Dame Louise Ellman, who was Johnson’s predecessor as Liverpool Riverside MP. Ellman stepped down in 2019, saying it was over the party’s handling of allegations of antisemitism under Starmer’s predecessor, Jeremy Corbyn.

But it should not be “insulting” to Hodge, Ellman or other Labour Friends of Israel that a Labour MP pointed out a simple fact: that a fascist party is at the heart of the new Israeli government. Rather, if they care so much about Israel, they should be angry that fascists are in power. They ought to be at the forefront of those speaking out against Israel’s descent into fascism.

But here we get to the rub. Israel’s ever-greater extremism has been made possible precisely because it faces no opposition in the West. Israel apologists dominate the left and right in western capitals.

Labour “friends” have consistently turned a blind eye to the oppression of Palestinians. However much the situation worsens, they keep quiet – and impose that silence on others by accusing them of being antisemites or “insensitive” if, like Johnson, they dare to speak out.

Corbyn, Starmer’s predecessor, understood this danger only too well. An Israel that could not be criticised was one that would dial up the suffering of Palestinians with impunity, and one that could be armed by Britain with little scrutiny. The relentless campaign to vilify Corbyn as an antisemite, and to oust him as leader, cleared the way for Starmer’s current targeting of party members, including Jews, who fear where Israel is heading.

Israel won’t move away from apartheid or fascism when there is no political, diplomatic or financial price to pay for oppressing and ethnically cleansing Palestinians. It will simply rush down that road even faster.

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Eye.

Jonathan Cook is the author of three books on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and a winner of the Martha Gellhorn Special Prize for Journalism. His website and blog can be found at www.jonathan-cook.net

 

Comments (15)

  • John says:

    Reminds me of Galileo!
    I never thought I would live through such a period, avoidance, yes, but recantation?

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  • Linda says:

    Levers again … weak ones sadly.

    The Israeli government may limit its misdeeds if it’s put under pressure by the American government.

    The US government is more likely to exert that pressure if it’s pushed by young US Jews (who seem more disenchanted with Israel than their elders) coming from families with clout in US politics, business, academia and their faith community.

    So who do we know individually who have contact – directly or indirectly – with American Jewish families who have social clout in their community and agree that the behaviour of the Israeli government should be curbed?

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  • Anthony Sperryn says:

    It seems to me that what Starmer is doing is totally contrary to Labour values and to the values of the British people. I, for one, absolutely refuse to vote for any organisation connected with him. I can’t see he is going to get far with his authoritarianism. He’s not exactly spreading love for himself amongst people and creating a community of well-wishers. What’s in it for the voters????

    If the British people understood what is going on and that they are being screwed by bogus austerity politics, and understood that what is said about Hamas is nonsense, with the collective punishments imposed on Gaza and the Palestinians being war crimes, we might open up the discussions a bit.

    It is not for me to tell Kim Johnson how to react, but were she to have refused to apologise, given up the whip and showed that at least one Labour MP stood for decency, the country might have a chance of getting rid of the ghastly mess we have at the moment.

    A proper people’s movement is what is needed, because Britain deserves better than what we’ve got. At least, the trade unions have been getting their act together and I hope they keep their nerve and don’t allow themselves to get divided. Both Starmer and Sunak must be got rid of.

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  • Sabine Ebert-Forbes says:

    And I would like to add that the oppressed Palestinian people have the right to live in peace just like everybody else. It is the duty of everyone,to stand up for the oppressed. We need to avoid a repetition of any government and country being taken over by fascists.
    I am concerned that people like Starmer and others within Right wing LP and Tory party are enabling this to potentionally happen here and abroad. We cannot let that happen.

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  • John Coates says:

    I find it hard to add anything to Jonathan Cook’s excellent article.
    It would have been heartening if Kim Johnson had stood by her guns.
    Someone needs to say the things she is saying.
    The Labour Party is placed in a ridiculous position when its leader openly supports an Apartheid and oppressive state and uses bogus arguments about anti-Semitism to support his view.
    He then imposes his false analysis in an authoritarian manner that has no place in our Party.
    We must continue to support and advance the cause of Palestinian rights and openly oppose Starmer’s support for Apartheid Israel.

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  • Allan Howard says:

    Anthony, seriously, after seven-plus years of the Establishment”s propaganda machine demonising and vilifying and smearing the left every-which-way they can think of, do you really believe that if Kim Johnson had refused to apologise etc that ‘the country might have [had] a chance of getting rid of the ghastly mess’ etc??

    Dream on!

    Needless to say, not only would it NOT have made the SLIGHTEST bit of difference, but the right-wing fascists who own and/or control the MSM would have just used it to demonise and vilify the left en masse yet again, as they more-or-less did anyway, despite her apology:

    ‘Labour MP Kim Johnson sparks outrage by branding Israeli government ‘fascist’ and referring to country as ‘apartheid state’ in ‘disgraceful’ comments at PMQs’

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11701175/Labour-MP-Kim-Johnson-sparks-outrage-branding-Israeli-government-fascist.html

    NB And I can’t help but wonder why the Mail closed down the Comments section after just eight comments had been posted, all of which I’ve seen posted in their comments section on numerous occasions, and ALWAYS at the top of the Best Rated comments.

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  • keith with says:

    I agree with the general comment but I have a couple of reservations. For one, what people call fascism is the norm in colonial occupation. I do not object to the use of fascism as such: but it should be made clear that this is a colonial norm: one that Britain itself operated all round the world.
    And I think that the Israeli governments that instituted the state and mass expulsion of Palestinians were just as right-wing and equally reactionary as the current one.

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  • Rory O'Kelly says:

    The fact is that virtually nobody now disputes the apartheid nature of the Israeli state and few deny that its present government is, to say the least, strongly fascistic. What has become what one might call the official line is to say that any criticism of Israel is an attack on all Jews and is therefore by definition antisemitic. The substance of the criticism and the facts on which it is based are simply irrelevant.

    It is notable that Starmer’s attack on Johnson’s comments included words like ‘completely unacceptable’ but not ‘false’ or even ‘exaggerated’. Similarly her rather bizarre apology did not include any acceptance that she had said anything untrue. What she accepted was that in today’s Labour Party people no longer have the right to tell the truth.

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  • Angie Birtill says:

    Very informative and helpful article. Thank you.

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  • Stephen Richards says:

    The fruits of THE IHRA Definition………..even self evident truths must be denied.

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  • Starmer `s hypocrisy is staggering. He has no interest in Jews or Judaism but only in Israel. Starmer uses his alleged support for Jews as a screen for his obsession with Israeli as a political construct and this obsession is purely based on Israel`s importance as a strategic power source of Western imperialism. Why else would the US pour such mega dollars into the country each year. To help the “poor persecuted Jews”? I think not!!

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  • Allan Howard says:

    Regards the NB in my above comment, I have little doubt that all of the eight comments were written by one of the Mail’s shills – and probably written BEFORE the article was posted – and then, one by one, quickly posted in the Comments section, and then closed immediately after the last one was added. I mean apart from one of them – which was designed to discredit Starmer – they were all saying, or implying, that what Kim said was anti-semitic AND, in effect, that that’s the left for you. And the Mail didn’t want their ‘message’ – and one that had a consensus of opinion you see (that the left are ALL anti-semites) – SPOILT by posters agreeing with and supporting what Kim said AND detailing what the Palestians have been subjected to for decades etc, etc, and educating and enlightening the Mail’s readers, as such.

    And a dead giveaway – and a ruse/subterfuge/blind – that shills often use, is to spell something wrong, as in the first comment (in the Newest listing, which it’s set to initially) where they spell anti-semitism >anti-sematism<, so as to have readers believe that even people who are not so well educated think the left are all antisemites.

    It's all about influencing their readers AND keeping the anti-semitism/antisemite tag/characterisation of the left alive.

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  • Bernard Grant says:

    Oh dear, I’m raging inside at Starmer and his support for Israel. I shall be increasing my posts on Facebook and Tweets on Twitter, emphasising his dictatorial position as LP leader (small L). He’s broken many LP rules since becoming leader and is getting away with it, mostly because he has expelled or suspended thousands of Socialists (the Left) in the Party, including MPs, those that still remain, still believe he’s better than the Tories, which in turn means he isn’t being criticised, although Momentum are starting to react to his dictatorial ways.
    Before Starmer all LP policies were voted for by the Members, that has now changed, Starmer is ignoring resolutions that were voted on at Conference. How I haven’t been expelled is a mystery, I’ve called him a Liar, a Fraud and a Traitor to Socialism and the People, with evidence to back it up. Time to increase the pressure on his support for Israel and reminding people that he took £50.000 from Trevor Chinn, a well known Israeli Lobbyist, for his Leadership Campaign.
    My next phase of attack is going to be his condemnation of Kim Johnson’s speech in Parliament, calling Israel’s Government Fascist, (which the evidence for calling it Fascist is overwhelming).

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  • SB says:

    Starmer’s Party have made it abundantly clear that they do not want the votes of socialists.

    They have also made it abundantly clear that as far as Israel is concerned, fascism, racism and misogyny in government is acceptable.

    Moreover, Trade Unionists don’t count, Remainers don’t count and the belief in self-determination for all peoples does not, however, include the desires of Palestinians or Scots.

    Apparently, they don’t want my vote whilst simultaneously asserting that for me to vote for anyone other than ersatz Labour is a vote for the Tories.

    Of course, they dismiss the possibility that some of us, after long contemplation, have concluded that the difference between ersatz Labour and the Tories is negligible anyway.

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  • Ali H says:

    Help! I’ve tried so hard to obliterate any sense of empathy towards those pesky Palestinians but my conclusions about the Israeli State just won’t go away. I’m not particularly keen on other states or the kind of people that clamour to run them, but that doesn’t affect my virtue my reputation or my employability. Can you recommend some reading material so I can learn to dismiss any sense of Palestinians being human? I need to immerse myself in their loathesomeness! I need to put an end to all this uncontrollable anger I have about being so very thoroughly lied to for so long and my inability to dismiss the humanity of Arabs whose existence is so inconvenient. It must be deep seated. What must i do? Can I ever be forgiven? The cure for racism – is racism! But it’s not working….. Help!

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