Defending Jews and Christians from persecution!

Campaign Against Semitism



Around two thousand people took part in the rally against anti-Semitism held outside the Royal Courts of Justice in Central London this afternoon. This was certainly the most peaceful and well behaved demonstration I have ever attended, only requiring a minor police presence. These were  ordinary people, mostly but not exclusively Jewish who don't normally take to the streets.

The absence of the various left-wing sects was noticeable. Only a lone oddly dressed man with a hand made placard demanding rights for the disabled/join the SWP made an appearance and I'm not actually convinced he knew where he was. But hey, it's a free country.

Speeches from the Chief Rabbi and others demanded action against the rise of anti-Semitism at home and abroad. "They shall not pass" was a call from one speaker.

The need for the Jewish community to campaign with others against this blatant rise in racism against Jews has never been greater,

At the same time we do not need help from idiots like the man who attacked George Galloway (who was not Jewish by the way, but the bigots won't care).

We need to be better than them. Period.

Meanwhile in Brighton:

Persecuted Christians around the World



It's not Jews, Christians are being persecuted and murdered around the world. And not just Iraq by ISIS. In Pakistan, Egypt, Sudan, Iran and elsewhere Christians are under threat.

A small but vibrant demonstration took place in Brighton this afternoon supported by Sussex Friends of Israel from whose page this photo and leaflet were taken.

The usual suspects also seem to be missing...

Where are the left when it comes to Christians and Jews?

Left Unity Party debates "critical support" for ISIS????

The relationship between the far left and the Islamists has long been a matter of concern. The recent article in Socialist Worker by Hassan Mahamdallie was rightfully described by Dave Osler as:

...among the most odious pieces I have come across in over 30 years of reading the far left press. Disgusting is the only word for it.

Trouble is we've come to expect this sort of thing from the SWP whose members were notorious for shouting "we are Hezbollah" on demonstrations despite the well known reactionary, misogynist and anti-Semitic homophobic nature of this terrorist organisation. Their uncritical support of Hamas is likewise a feature of SWP politics and much of the rest of the left. 

But with a few hundred anti-imperialists protesting in Wales this week against "NATO" Andrew Coates says:

The Stop the War Coalition urges people to ” Protest the NATO Summit” (? – Protest what? For, Against,?).

NATO in their view (see below) is responsible for "all" wars, Putin, Assad and ISIS of course are just "victims" of Western imperialism, and its "not their fault" of course.

Not to be left out the new Left Unity Party organisation has published an article by John Lubbock which muses that:

After ISIS’ capture of most of the North of Iraq, their statements indicated that their mission was to reverse the clumsy national engineering of the late colonial period:...

“Statements released by [ISIS] claimed that the assault on Mosul was the beginning of the end of the Sykes Picot agreement… Isis commanders say they are fighting to destroy the post-Ottoman nation state borders and restore a caliphate that submits to fundamentalist Islamic law.”

As well as the attempted establishment of this extremist new caliphate between Syria and Iraq, the chaos in the region is finally allowing the Kurds to establish their control over the oil rich region around Kirkuk.

The inference being that ISIS are amongst other things helping the Kurds is absurd.

One of their more deranged contributors in the thread below states:

You stop short of saying the Left should be supporting ISIS, yet your analysis (and mine) indicates that what is at stake for Obama, Cameron and ISIS is precisely the 1919-22 imperialist settlement of the Middle East and the weak, divided nation states on which it is based.

A clear cut call to support ISIS in the "struggle against the old order".

An argument of sorts does break out, but the fact that an organisation of supposedly "progressive" organisation actually contains "comrades" like this says a lot about the nature of anti-imperialism itself. 

So focused are these individuals on broad sweeping ideological visions to justify their existence the genocidal nature of the death cults known as ISIS seems to be of little importance.

Frankly that attitude seems to be firmly entrenched in the various sects of the far and sometimes not so far left. Their abstract notions of the "working class" and "oppressed peoples" leaves them with no perspective of the fate of the individual human beings that suffer in these "historical struggles".

The desire to get "the line right" and spin a few dialectics on the head of a pin leads to and will always result in these people excusing the worst of regimes.

Their demonstrations over NATO, over Gaza seem somewhat faux protests when their true natures are examined.

The far left, the anti-imperialists offer no future for humanity.

Of that we can be certain.  

NATO is not the enemy comrades

Supporters of the anti-imperialist brigade will be getting an early night tonight as they prepare to take their wares to Wales for a demonstration against…NATO. According to the propaganda put out by the acolytes of Putinism in the UK, NATO is responsible for all the conflicts in the world. Russia is a peace loving non-aggressive country, China does not covet a number of disputed Islands from her neighbours and the desire to help the Christians and Kurds from being murdered by ISIS is part of a “war on Islam”.

Of course not comrades. Life would be so much better if the West just sat back, disarmed, put up a few white flags and a border recording in Russian, Chinese and Arabic saying “we surrender”.

The countries woes, if not the worlds, would be resolved by whoever decided to overthrow or invade the few true democracies left in the world.

Of course such a scenario would never happen, but the blindness of the anti-imperialist brigade towards the true aggressors in this world beggars belief.

When the Kurdish community held a demonstration a couple of weeks back, Stop the War and their Marxist allies were nowhere to be seen. Oh, there was a lone individual selling The Socialist, but the rest were probably “too exhausted” from organising pro-Hamas marches to bother about the “far away Kurds as one anarchist claimed on the PCS union Face Book page . Imperialism doesn’t have the answer they tell us, whilst leaving all those civilians they claim to care about to die in the desert or mountains whilst trying to escape real, rather than imagined genocide.

As for arming the Kurds so they could defend themselves, the anti-imperialists won’t have that either. Its “Western War mongering” apparently.

Jerks.

The Times reports today that NATO estimates there are 1,000 Russian soldiers fighting with the separatists in the Ukraine. Would Stop the War like to know how many NATO troops are involved in the fighting. Would that be Zero comrades? Or is that fact uncomfortable for you.

Some American pro-Russian appeaser went to a meeting to listen to the Russian Ambassador and decided to intervene:

No one had uttered the word "NATO."

So I pointed out the upcoming NATO protests. I recalled the history of Russia being told that NATO would not expand eastward. I asked Kislyak whether NATO ought to be disbanded.

The ambassador said that he had been the first Russian to "present his credentials" to NATO, and that he had "overestimated" NATO's ability to work with Russia. He'd been disappointed by NATO actions in Serbia, he said, and Libya, by the expansion eastward, by NATO pressure on Ukraine and Poland, and by the pretense that Russia might be about to attack Poland.

"We were promised," Kislyak said, that NATO would not expand eastward at all upon the reunification of Germany. "And now look." NATO has declared that Ukraine and Georgia will join NATO, Kislyak pointed out, and NATO says this even while a majority of the people in Ukraine say they're opposed.

The ambassador used the word "disappointed" a few times.

The other way this could be seen of course is that Russia is expanding eastwards, trying to rebuild its’ own imperialist agenda and of course his excellency would be “disappointed” that those who escaped the Stalinist yolk might not want to return…like ever.

Trouble is the anti-imperialist brigade have this farcical assumption that “the enemy is at home” derived from the fanatical Leninist desire to protect the (long gone) Soviet Union. The BBC shows the protesters banner across the security fence which blathers on about George Bush (not sure which one), the “crusades” and the “war on Islam” (damn those unbelievers) showing how out of date and out of touch with reality they are.

Does it not occur to these “useless idiots” (to paraphrase Lenin) that Russia is expansionist, China is flexing its muscles and ISIS is imperialist in it’s desire to conquer the Muslim world plus Spain and Portugal to establish the death camp known as the Caliphate.

NATO is not the enemy. Our countries may not be perfect, but I’d like to see how long the comrades would last under Putin, Li Keqiang or ISIS. In the latter probably just marched into the desert like those poor soldiers we saw yesterday..

Western democracy is worth fighting for, not against comrades. Only in our societies are people like you allowed to speak, assemble and write freely. Something your aims would ultimately deny the rest of us.

Harvard Professor says Israel fabricated ISIS beheading (and the Holocaust)

These two short videos are eye openers about the nature of Islamism:



More evidence of ISIS brutality. I suppose that this is "fabricated by Israel" as well.



Meanwhile the anti-imperialist brigade think NATO is the main enemy.

No wonder people call them the "idiot left".

One law for all is not negotiable

A crime is a crime.

A victim is a victim.

A criminal is a criminal regardless of what sex, race, colour, religion or sexual orientation they are.

Child sex abuse is a vile crime that needs to be tackled where ever and when ever it appears no matter who the perpetrators are.

The victims must be rescued, the abusers punished.

Celebrity and religion cannot ever be used as an excuse or cover for such acts.

The men responsible for the reported abuse of some 1,400 children should have been brought to justice a long time ago. Those that knew and refused to act because of some perceived fear of being called "racists" or disturbing the fragile egos of so-called "communities" should be ashamed.

Covering for abuse is unacceptable whether it happens in the BBC or Rotherham.

For to long such crimes have continued unabated due to political correctness and probaly still continue somewhere and there are those that know.

The majority of paedophiles are not Muslims, but those that are need to be dealt with in the same way as any other abuser.

There can only be one law in this country.

One law that applies to all.

These criminals must be exposed. Only protecting the innocent should be our concern.

The guilty can rot.

Rot in whatever hell they supposedly believe in. After they have been stopped and punished on this earthly plane!

Campaign Against Anti-Semitism

Danger: Left wing appeasers at work!

The anti-imperialist brigade are hard at work to cover up the dangers of Islamism. The latest issue of the Socialist Worker rag interviews one Hassan Mahamdallie who informs us that:

It has been disheartening to watch establishment Muslim leaders apologetically rushing out with condemnations. They have pointlessly distanced themselves from “John the Jihadi”—who is alleged to have killed Foley—and declared that Isis is “un-Islamic”.

I much preferred the response of the spokesperson from south east London’s Lewisham Mosque.

The press asked him to condemn a tweet from a woman “Jihadi” in Syria who might have once attended the mosque.

He retorted, “The young woman’s desire to travel to Syria has nothing to do with the Centre. Unfortunately, the Muslim community are being subjected to a burden of proof based on a ‘guilty by association’ standard”.

Actually the Muslim community or at the very least its self appointed spokesmen do have a responsibility to condemn the potentially murderous actions of anyone heading off to support the murderous Jihadists in the name of the "religion of peace". 

Why the anonymous "spokesperson" could not simply say so is one of the very reasons "Islamophobia" is prevalent in society today. 

Socialist Worker focuses on condemning the West in the form of Nato for the current crisis in the Middle East, as does the equally pernicious "Counterfire" organisation that runs the laughably named Stop the War Campaign.

In one of their tediously repetitive articles blaming the West for everything wrong in the world they write:

Isis’s crimes, in repressing minorities and all those who disagree with them, are indeed great. It is a thoroughly reactionary movement. How they are worse than the other forces to intervene Iraq though is difficult to quantify. They certainly have a long way to go until the pain they have inflicted on the country can even start to compare to that inflicted by the United States.

Really? How convenient for the comrades they forget the brutal regimes of Assad in Syria and Hussein in Iraq which were backed by who exactly? 

Wouldn't be Russia would it comrades? The very country you give cover for in their invasion of the Ukraine and blame on non-existent Nato intervention?

Appeasers of oppression indeed.

The whole crisis in the Middle East was sparked off by Iraqi expansionism led by the "indefatigable" Saddam Hussein if George Galloway doesn't mind me plagiarising his well known anecdote. The invasion of Kuwait which if you recall was described by the anti-imperialists of the time as not being a "real country" and was "just" a product of imperialism. 

What the Kuwaitis themselves wanted was never a concern for the comrades and their ilk.

Have people really forgotten the mass murder committed by the Iraqi Baathists. The gassing of the Kurds, the constant use of torture, brutality and execution committed by the Iraqi regime.

Just an inconvenient footnote for the anti-imperialist brigade. 

The comrades have no answer to the dangers of ISIS and refuse to call for support to the Kurds fighting the Islamist death cultists.

The common mantra of Lenin's deranged followers is that "the enemy is at home". The fate of those abroad is only secondary to the defeat of what they call imperialism.

Except what they are really against ids democracy, freedom and equal rights. The anti-imperialists will excuse all and any "shibboleth" as Lyndsey German the leader of the Stop the war farce once said of women and gay rights when she was in the misnamed Respect Party.

The cause is all.

The individual is nothing.

The anti-imperialists are nothing but appeasers who would have seen the enemy at home even as Nazi troops marched up Whitehall if we had listened to their ilk the.

But Czechoslovakia was far away and of no concern to us.

Then it was a peice of paper.

Today its a website.

Its the Stop the War Coalition and their uber-allies.

Guilty before being proved innocent sounds more like "Sharia"

Following the rise of ISIS in Iraq and Syria establishment figures have started making suggestions as to how we might deal with "the enemy within", the young Jihadists hailing from these shores.

Some measures are eminently sensible and justifiable. Those proven of aiding abetting and joining ISIS in their barbaric and inhumane rampage should be treated as terrorists and pay for their crimes. Those who have been given asylum or naturalisation and are proven to be terrorists should have their right to remain in this country or citizenship removed.

This would form one firm measure that could be taken against the barbarian attention seekers going to Iraq and Syria to murder, maim and enslave.

The key to this this of course is proof.

Being innocent until found guilty is a basic human right under British Law.

If "proof" is not forthcoming, most people would not disapprove on the security services maintaining a discreet eye upon those they have firm suspicions on.

But Boris Johnson is wrong to argue that anyone going to Iraq or Syria should be seen as guilty of terrorism and then having to prove their innocence.

Writing in the Daily Telegraph Johnson says:

The law needs a swift and minor change so that there is a “rebuttable presumption” that all those visiting war areas without notifying the authorities have done so for a terrorist purpose.

This is not a minor change. Its bloody great big one.

Acting against the Islamist fanatics will take time, and the current Government has been just as lax as previous ones in dealing with Hate Preachers and their ilk. The left has to take some of the blame, if not more for its over the top and ridiculous campaign against any criticism of Islam or some its followers.

They called it Islamophobia.

Many warned have of the danger growing within, but were ignored leading to growth of right-wing extremist organisations like the EDL.

This country has allowed the growth of radical Islamism in its schools and universities where Islamic Student Societies have been found to be promoting gender segregation and worse.

If we as a society are to beat this threat, then we do actually have to be better than them.

Boris may have his eye on the premiership, but the rule of Law must be maintained against opportunist politicians using the Islamist threat for their own ends.

The key to all this is integration, something that has spectacularly failed with the Muslim communities around the country.

The use of so-called Sharia Courts in the UK must be ended.

Women's rights must be campaigned for inside the somewhat conservative Muslim community.

Most of all campaigning against "hate speech", the use of derogatory terms for non-Muslims must be at the forefront of such work.

Multiculturalism has failed. We need to find a new way.

Urgently.

Rally Against Anti-Semitism

Rally to Demand Zero Tolerance of Anti-Semitism

Join the fightback!

Sunday 31st August at 14:00

Royal Courts of Justice, London

More info: https://www.facebook.com/events/1485391318385133/

Condemn Councillor Ben Duncan's motion to make Brighton an "Israel Free Zone"

Cross-post from Sussex Friends of Israel



In the next few weeks, Councillor Ben Duncan, an independent Councillor sitting on Brighton and Hove Council, will make a motion that, in all effect, will make OUR home City of Brighton and Hove, an Israel free-Zone!! Councilor Duncan is suspended from the Green Party (for Tweeting; "Armed Forces Day has certainly brought the hired killers onto the streets of Brighton today!!") However as I am sure you will be aware Brighton has a Green Council and the UK's only Green MP (Caroline Lucas).

We need your help to stamp on this motion and sentiment from the highest place and with as much force as possible. Please take a second to write to Brighton and Hove Councillors (particularly the Green ones) and express your abhorrence at even the talk of this bigoted motion.

Full list of Councillors here:

http://present.brighton-hove.gov.uk/mgMemberIndex.aspx?bcr=1

Full story here;

http://www.theargus.co.uk/news/11426483.Councillor_calls_for_boycott_Israel_goods__services_and_companies/

There will be more details of Sussex Friends of Israels and the Sussex Jewish Representative Councils response next week but in the mean time, we could REALLY do with your help.

Update: One of the Green Party councillors Liz Wakefield (whose party controls Brighton at the moment) has announced her support for the bigoted motion. 

The Greens should remove the whip immediately.

From BNP to SWP and a denial

From time to time there are those who suddenly have conversions in their way of looking at the world, take Saul on the road to Damascus for example:

17 Then Ananias went to the house and entered it. Placing his hands on Saul, he said, “Brother Saul, the Lord—Jesus, who appeared to you on the road as you were coming here—has sent me so that you may see again and be filled with the Holy Spirit.”18 Immediately, something like scales fell from Saul’s eyes, and he could see again. He got up and was baptised, 19 and after taking some food, he regained his strength. (Acts:1 to 19)

I suppose being "cured" of blindness would be an incentive.

Then there are others.

Hope not Hate reports:

There was somewhat of a surprise and a shock for long term antiracist and antifascist activists in Leeds yesterday.

Long time activists were horrified to see on the protest for Gaza the notorious neo-Nazi thug of Redwatch, BNP and C18 infamy Tony White.

White was one of the founders of the infamous Redwatch website which targeted innocent individuals including Trade Unionists, antifascists, and school teachers for violence, harassment and intimidation.......

White was also a close associate of members of the Aryan Strike Force and British Freedom Fighters. Members of the group were sentenced for terrorist related offences in 2010. One of the men, Mike Heaton was particularly close to White. As was Nazi paedophile Marty Gilleard who was jailed for 16 years in 2008.

There's no denying that White has been one of the most active and violent Nazis on the British scene.

So it came as some surprise that when confronted by antifascists in Leeds yesterday, White claimed he was now an activist with the SWP and that he is regularly attending SWP meetings.

Perhaps people in the local SWP are unaware of White's past in threatening, intimidating and attacking their members. When pressed further on his claims that he is no longer a violent Nazi, White claimed he is working for Searchlight. A likely story.

Sources say he has attended at least one meeting, so what have the SWP got to say for themselves?

Leeds SWP have issued the following statement:

Contrary to the allegations of Hope Not Hate, we would like to make it clear that Tony White is not ‘linked’ to the SWP either locally in Leeds or nationally. Lets build a united anti-racist and anti-fascist movement where serious debate about how the movement should respond to individuals like White who claim to have broken from their violent fascist past can take place without resort to smears and gossip against other anti-racists and anti-fascists.

That doesn't actually clear anything up at all.

Their statement neatly skirts around some of the more uncomfortable questions that the comrades have to answer.

One SWP loyalist posted a comment on the HnH website saying:

This is another in a series of smears against against the party. The last set of lies did not defeat us and neither will this.

Erm that wouldn't be a reference to the well documented Comrade Delta affair would it......

Stoppers

"God" and electoral malpractice

There has been much controversy in the East London Borough of Tower Hamlets over the recent and hotly contested local elections. The Times reports today that Lutfur Rahman is facing allegations of exerting unlawful "spiritual influence" over voters, forcing them to vote for him or "face punishment in the next world" if they didn't.

This is an almost unheard of electoral malpractice (in this country at least) but such corrupt practises are now defined by the Representation of the People Act 1983 and included:

exerting undue influence on a voter through threats (including threats of "spiritual injury" as well as physical injury, damage or harm), whether to influence their vote or as a result of their voting

Of course this isn't the only allegation that Rahman is facing, there's actually quite a long list submitted from a cross party group of complainants. 

The High Court will no doubt rule on these matters in due course. 

However there is no doubt that the influence of Islam(ism) in Tower Hamlets and beyond is a worrying development. Even today we can see the running scars of religious division in Northern Ireland after years of strife between Catholics and Protestants. 

Do we really want to see the further rise of religious based politics in our cities?

There's been enough damage caused by the self-appointed anti-imperialist left who have encouraged separatism in the Muslim community through the setting up of organisations like George Galloway's misnamed Respect Party.

At the same time radical extremists have bullied their way into the limelight by precisely using threats of spiritual injury and have infiltrated and taken over mosques and schools.

The number of these fanatics now known to be fighting for the death cult known as ISIS runs into the hundreds, and that doesn't include the support and recruiting network still at work inside the Muslim community in this country.

The struggle against such extremism begins at home.

That means fighting for more secularism in society and pushing aside religious intolerance.

"God" and politics is a dangerous mix. There is no reasoning with religious fanatics. 

Just see what is happening in Iraq.

There no doubt that religion played and still plays too much a role in political life in Tower Hamlets. How far this has become "malpractice" is for the courts to decide.

For the benefit of a modern integrated society however, religion should not be pivotal in aligning communities politically.

That is a road to sectarian disaster and must be opposed.

Time for Julian Assange to face justice

Its been two years since that jumped up little twerp Julian Assange bolted to the Ecuadorian embassy to avoid being deported to Sweden to face charges of rape and sexual assault. According to The Times he is now apparently considering leaving as "some loophole" has been created in British law recently that would help "end the stalemate" over the deportation order.

Like most people I have no idea of his innocence or guilt in these allegations by the two women who have made them.

But I do see a man trying to avoid court.

Sweden is one of the most civilised countries in the world. Assange would be assured of a fair trial. 

He should face his accusers.

Only then will justice be served.

Kosher food targeted by anti-Semites

When 9/11 happened we explained that not all Muslims were responsible.

When 11/7 took place we said ordinary Muslims should not be blamed.

The anti-imperialists began campaigning against "Islamophobia".

The left began an alliance with aspects of Islam and we saw the largest left wing group the Socialist Worker Party team up with the opportunist popinjay George Galloway to form a "Respect" Party.

The anti-imperialists "tail-gated" various Islamic groups.

The SWP in particular became notorious (along with various other faux-protesters for shouting "We are Hezbollah" on demonstrations.

This despite the open misogyny, homophobic and anti-Semitic nature of Hezbollah.

They do the same for Hamas.

Islam became a religion that could not be criticised in any way without the anti-imperialists denouncing even atheists as Islamophobes.

Then the Middle east erupts into conflict.

Its the Zionists they say.

But its Jews that get targeted, not just abroad but here. In Tescos. In Sainsburys.

Kosher food is destroyed by the anti-imperialists regardless of origin.

Shoppers and staff are intimidated by the anti "war" movement

Sainsburys hides its wares in Holborn.

Can you imagine their outrage if such actions were perpetrated against Halal food? 

There would have been widespread protests.

Not for Kosher though.

There is silence.

Fight back against anti-Semitism. You will be next.

Musical Interlude from Japan with Scandal

Since this has been one of those days where things haven't gone to plan here is a musical interlude from Scandal, a Japanese "girl" band and I do mean mean band.

Please say hello to Haruna Ono (lead vocals/guitar), Mami Sasaki (lead guitar), Tomomi Ogawa (bass) and Rina Suzuki (drums).

And no, I do not know what they are singing about, but I do like the tunes!



This is as far as I can ascertain their latest offering:



Their official website is here: http://www.scandal-4.com/

"Socialists" put ideological purity before saving lives

 


Members of the Kurdish and Yazadi community marched in London today against ISIS. As expected it was ignored by the anti-imperialist left, and the only visible left wing groups were those from within the Kurdish community.

The event was much smaller than those marching in support of Hamas over recent weeks as the anti-imperialists remain seemingly opposed to any intervention to save the lives of Christians in Iraq as we have previously seen in the appalling analysis and articles published by the Stop the War Coalition.

So what about the rest of the left? The Socialist Workers Party managed to dig up an unnamed Iraqi Socialist who mused:

“The US and Western media are again shedding crocodile tears and using a humanitarian catastrophe in Iraq to realise imperialist objectives and pour petrol on the fire.”

The SWP (who usually tail end Islamists like Hamas) are forced to admit that ISIS are barbaric:

The Islamic State’s tactics are brutal and sectarian. It has massacred prisoners, and sent thousands of refugees fleeing its advance.

However they offer no immediate solution on how to help the Christian and other minorities fleeing these brutal Islamists.

The Socialist Party (nee Militant Tendency) also takes a similar view in a lengthy article published on their in an article Iraq: Only united action can stop sectarian war. They advise the Kurds not to accept any help from imperialists and muse that:

The key to stopping the unfolding sectarian war is building a resistance amongst working people, a resistance that fights against the sectarian attacks by forces like ISIS and the Shia death squads operating in and around Baghdad while, at the same time, defending the rights of peoples like the Kurds to self-determination.

This can only be based upon building democratically-run, non-sectarian bodies as the basis for popular defence, which would be able to appeal to those Sunnis who have rallied to ISIS as a means of defending themselves from sectarian Shia attack.

How the Socialist Party intends to carry this out (given it has neither the means nor the munitions to do so) is not explained. But they do have advice for those facing immediate destitution and possible death:

However, military setbacks or defeats for ISIS will not be the end of the crisis gripping both Iraq and Syria. In both countries the fight against oppression, dictatorship and poverty requires the creation of a movement of working people. Only such movements can struggle for democratic rights (including full freedom for religious and non-religious alike), oppose further imperialist intervention and fight for governments led by genuine representatives of the working people and poor, which are prepared to break with the capitalist system that has failed the peoples of the Middle East and begin the socialist transformation of the region.

So there you have it. Refuse aid and armaments from those in the West trying to help, become a socialist and all will be well.

Except it obviously won't.

These "comrades" have shown how deluded they really are.

And frankly dangerous.

Stalinism is alive and well at the Morning Star!

It should come as no surprise to anyone that the Communist newspaper the Morning Star doesn't think that the "public have no right to know" about issues that may affect the standing of a leading trade unionist in a union that the Star wishes to remain on good terms with.

This is a reference to the departure of journalist Rory McKinnon  fro the Morning Star as now reported on a number of blogs, including Another Angry Woman who had the temerity to ask questions about the domestic violence allegations made against RMT Deputy General Secretary Steve Hedley.

The allegations which surfaced last year caused some major consternation on the left, especially in the light of the "comrade delta" affair that was causing Britain's largest Trotskyist organisation to fall apart. In order to not cause the rival Socialist Party embarrassment he "resigned" membership but retained a roll in their Trade Union & Socialist Coalition running as a candidate in the recent round of local elections.

These allegations remain unproven but the handling of the case by the RMT leadership remains subject to criticism. MacKinnon states:

In March of this year I went as a Morning Star reporter – with the RMT’s approval – to cover its women’s conference in Glasgow. Women I knew of in the RMT were still talking about Leneghan’s case, and it made sense to me as a reporter to follow it up in the public interest, so I took advantage of a Q&A session with the union’s national organising co-ordinator Alan Pottage – a session on recruiting women organisers and combating sexism in the workplace – to ask whether he thought the lack of formal investigation into the allegations against Hedley had affected women members’ perceptions of the union. Pottage declined to comment and the session continued, but when delegates reconvened for the afternoon session the union’s equalities officer Jessica Webb and executive member Denis Connor approached my seat and forcibly ejected me from the conference. (You can find my full statement on the incident here).

The very next day the Morning Star’s editor Richard Bagley informed me that I had been suspended following allegations of gross misconduct and that any public comment I might make “could risk bringing the paper into disrepute and could have a bearing on [my] case”. (You can see the letter here and subsequent charges here.)

McKinnon faced a disciplinary hearing for raising these awkward questions and as a result found out that:

“After three years at the paper you should reasonably be expected to be familiar with the paper’s news priorities, which do not include reporting internal union rows or personal controversy. Your actions suggest a fundamental failure to grasp the Morning Star’s news focus, and by extension the role of any journalist employed by it.”

I was placed on a final written warning with twelve months’ probation, then went on to appeal (dismissed, ruling here), but that’s procedural stuff that isn’t strictly relevant.

What’s relevant, to my mind, is that readers cannot trust the Morning Star’s current leadership to report on abuse allegations and failures to formally investigate when they concern favoured figures in the trade union movement, even when those figures are elected officials. As the edition for 24 July shows, however – coincidentally the same day I had decided to give my notice – those Nasty Tories cannot expect such discretion. Feminist principles are a weapon with which to attack the right, but not an end in itself for the left.

Rory McKinnon has resigned from his position at the Star.

Things are far from well within the Stalinist paper as Shiraz Socialist is now reporting:

An extraordinary crisis has erupted at the Morning Star (de facto mouthpiece of the British Communist Party), resulting in the resignations of the editor and the company director. It stems from reporter Rory McKinnon’s questioning of the RMT leadership over allegations of domestic abuse against the union’s assistant general secretary Steve Hedley

Yet another split in the micro world of the far left of British politics, this time in the remnants of the Communist Party and guess what lesson we have learnt:

The Morning Star cannot be trusted!

Why is it I am not surprised?

Another nail in the coffin of one of the "57 varieties!

The sooner Communism is confined to the dustbin of history the better I say.

Demonstration against ISIS in London

The Kurdish Peoples Assembly UK have called a demonstration in London tomorrow to oppose ISIS,which I only found out about this morning and have been unable to notify readers about until now. Please try to attend if you can (and bring a friend or two!)

Saturday 16 August 2014, 13:00

Assemble at BBC Broadcasting House, Portland Place, W1A 1AA; marching towards the US embassy 

and later to Marble Arch

Organised by: The Kurdish People’s Assembly UK.

For more information or media inquiries contact: aysemeleti@gmail.com / 07540 156019

The shame of the anti-war movement

This spoof Stop the War coalition poster sums up the reactionary attitude of the so-called anti-imperialist left. (H/T James Bloodworth)

The growing US, British and French intervention to help save the Yazadis and Christians in Iraq is beginning to save lives and halt (for now) the advance of the self appointed Islamic State (ISIS) in Iraq.

More help is urgently needed, especially as the reports of massacres, enslavement of women (and children) along with the Islamists well known savage brutality continue to emerge.

Thousands of people remain at immediate risk, with countless others suffering away from the medias attention.

CNN reports:

.....a senior commander with the Islamic State, formerly known as the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, claimed ISIS fighters abducted more than 100 Yazidi women and children from Sinjar.

The ISIS commander, who has knowledge of the events that unfolded, said the fighters killed a large number of men when they took over the town more than a week ago.

"At that time, they took Yazidi women and children, and I can confirm those women and children have entered Mosul," the commander said by telephone. "...The Islamic State is taking this opportunity to call them to Islam."

Meanwhile the appeasers of clerical fascism, the Stop the War Campaign begin their analysis with this unbelievable statement:

A false story of a massive Yazidi crisis and a largely mythical siege is now being used to justify a new war in Iraq.

False?

What part of thousands of Yazadis fleeing from baying barbarians and being threatened with mass extermination as "satanists" do the StWC campaign not understand?

The comrades continue:

It turns out there were Yazidis already living on the top of the mountain, and while there were some refugees who fled up there, the humanitarian crisis was never what it was made out to be..

Who wrote this errant nonsense? The ISIS Press Bureau? No someone called Jason Ditz who like Commissar Lyndsey German, the Trotskyist leader of the StWC has pursued a anti-Western, pro Russian appeasement campaign over Ukraine.

Remember they blamed non-existent "Western" intervention for the Ukraine crisis, when it was Russian jackboots invading the country. No one else in sight!

Goebbels would be proud of the StWC who organise pro-Hamas marches and have wilfully ignored the massive loss of life in Syria. 

The anti war movement cannot be trusted.

There is a very real and massive humanitarian crisis in Iraq organised by the worst humanity has to offer. And in the case of the ISIS savages I use the term "humanity" very loosely indeed.

The need to save the Yazadis, Christians, other Muslims and minorities needs to be addressed now.

The West MUST intervene. The Kurds MUST be armed. ISIS MUST be stopped.

The anti-imperialists are from the Neville Chamberlain tradition of appeasement.

Supporters of ISIS are already here as leaflets handed out by Islamist students and by fanatics in Oxford street show.

The fight back against this death cult needs to take place on all levels at home and abroad.

Don't listen to the appeasers.

Democracy and freedom are worth fighting for. 

Wahhabi Cleric Explains Proper Way of Beheading to his Followers: You Should enjoy it...

This video from al-Aalam TV shows the sort of people we are up against. Call this religion? Death Cult is what it is.

A video has recently emerged that shows a Wahhabi cleric explaining to a group of his followers the proper way to behead people. He points out that it is different from slaughtering animals. He states that the sword should be placed on the neck and then moved back and forth while slitting the throat. He said that people performing the killing should enjoy themselves while doing it.

Pro-Palestinian activists call for anti-semitic boycott of Jewish businesses

Spot the difference.... 




Blatant and ignorant anti-Semitism. In their own words...



There is no difference!

Fight back against anti Semitism!

ISIS must be stopped. Islamism must be opposed.

There was some good news from Iraq for a change this morning as the Guardian reported:

At least 20,000 Iraqi civilians who were besieged by jihadists on a mountain have managed to flee after US air raids on Islamic State (Isis) forces, officials have said.

Shawkat Barbahari, an official from the autonomous Kurdish region of northern Iraq, said 30,000 people had escaped to Syria and then been escorted back into Iraqi Kurdistan by Kurdish forces. A spokesman for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) in Iraq said officials had been reporting to the UN that 15,000 to 20,000 people had escaped the siege. Fears had been growing for the civilians, mostlyKurds of the Yazidi faith, trapped on Mount Sinjar in north-west Iraq in the searing summer heat with little to eat or drink.

The breakthrough coincided with US air raids on Isis fighters in the Sinjar area on Saturday. Barack Obama, who sanctioned the air strikes on Friday, has said the US is in it for the long-haul, warning "this is going to take some time".

A good job the shrill calls of the anti-imperialist brigade in countries like Britain were ignored. The Stop the War Coalition doesn't want any intervention. They, like most of the left and the pro-Hamas crowd have either remained silent or (as we saw in the post below this one) become hostile to the Kurds.

But then the StWC has done nothing about the war in Syria, except condemn the one thing that could have helped the situation which was to arm the now almost sidelined democratic opposition. In fact looking at the StWC page you'd think there was just one war in the entire world. In Gaza, where the comrades and the Islamist allies have been backing the aggressors, Hamas.

Islamism is a threat, of that there should be no doubt. 

Organisations with an Islamist agenda like ISIS, Hamas, the Muslim Brotherhood or their likes need to be opposed wherever they appearing the world.

Then there's the threat from within. The Daily Mail publishes the now infamous photo that appeared on Twitter:



The young son of an Australian jihadist has been photographed gripping the severed head of a slain Syrian soldier.

Khaled Sharrouf’s son, believed to be aged seven, used both hands to hoist the decapitated head up as he posed for a chilling photo.

His proud father, one of Australia’s most-wanted terrorists and a suspected war criminal, posted the photo to Twitter on August 8 with the caption: ‘Thats my boy!’.

Disgusting, and proof that these people are death cults.

And we need to be vigilant of the dangers within as these Islamist cults are active and bullying their way around within our own society.

The Times (no link£) reports that these extremists have been attacking festivals playing music at the end of Ramadan in East London and ISIS flags have been placed at the entrance to a council estate.

These men are dangerous.

Their next step will be actual violence if you do not obey their edicts.

They must be stopped. Islamism must be stopped.

The world needs to intervene against ISIS.

And that means cracking down on their recruiters in western countries now.

Pro-Hamas Arab Canadians try to drown out pro-Kurdish rally in Toronto

On Saturday, August 9, Kurdish Canadians and their allies staged a rally in solidarity with Yazidi Kurds who face a genocide at the hands of Islamic State Arab jihadis in Iraq. Unfortunately, pro-Hamas Islamists staged a counter rally across the street and tried to drown out the Kurds, who were visibly disturbed that instead of joining them, these mostly Arab Canadians were mocking them and taunting them with slurs of being 'Zionist agents' and 'American agents'.

Prime Minister threatens to 'strangle' trade unionists

A LabourStart Appeal



The Prime Minister of Swaziland, Sibusiso Barnabas Dlamini, threatened that the trade union and human rights leaders who attend the African Summit in Washington, D.C. should be 'strangled' upon their return.

The threat was made when the Prime Minister was being questioned by parliamentarians as to the government's plan to maintain trade benefits under the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), which the US will suspend on 1 January 2015.

The decision to suspend the benefits was taken because the government has for years engaged in serious and systematic violations of workers' rights.

These include the jailing of trade union leaders, the deregistration of the union federation (TUCOSWA) and the banning of strikes and demonstrations.

In January 2014, the ILO High-Level Fact-finding Mission to Swaziland found that "no concrete, tangible progress has been made on the various matters concerning [freedom of association], some of which have been pending for over a decade."

Please take a moment to support this campaign, called by the International Trade Union Confederation

Thank you -- and please spread the word!

Eric Lee

What is the matter with these people?

Thousands of Christians and in particular members of Iraq's Yazidi community are literally facing extermination at the hands of ISIS, the latest death cult to emerge out of Islamism. The West in the form of the US Gulf fleet have finally intervened to save a group of some 40,000 men, women and children from immediate danger. Some aid is also being flown in.

That should be welcome news to everyone.

It isn't. Take Mehdi Hasan who tweeted this:



Distract? Saving lives is a distraction? And who exactly is this "us".

Hasan doesn't like the fact that "pro-Israeli" types (what ever that means, you'd probably have to ask George Galloway, see post below) are raising this issue.

Erm some of us have been raising this issue from well before the current Gaza crisis and in any case why aren't your pious co-religionists at the forefront of raising this issue?

Just asking.

Meanwhile if you think that's bad just listen to this pillock from the now totally discredited Stop the war Campaign. Sami Ramadami writes (in all seriousness) that:

It is clear to me that ISIS is serving Israeli and US economic, political and military objectives in the region. The US is also using ISIS terrorism as a stick to impose conditions on Baghdad, i.e. to cut links with Iran and Syria

Lets think about that statement.

ISIS is a US/Zionist conspiracy.

I have heard this before and posted an article on the idiocy of the Iranian Government backed Press TV who also see a conspiracy between the US and the Zionists:

The so-called Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) is a plot by the Israeli regime to drive away revolutionary forces from Israeli borders and provide a safe haven for the Zionists, a high-ranking Iranian military commander says.

More to the point the StWC don't want western military intervention. Only "aid" from "humanitarian" organisations or the UN.

One problem with that line comrades is the people you say need aid will be dead if someone doesn't stop ISIS and if the US is prepared to act I am sure the thousands of people camping in the mountains as you read this will be grateful for the help.

Meanwhile the StWC comrades and their allies can sleep easy in their beds tonight knowing they have saved their "revolutionary integrity".

Anti-imperialism is a bankrupt ideology and the left should be ashamed of themselves.

Oh by the way they are on a demo tomorrow, hearts on their sleeves on a pro-Hamas demo in London.

Or is Hamas the real distraction here?

Ask Medhi Hasan, he might like to have a think about that.

Blinkered that he is.

George Galloway is a disgrace

Only last night I posted on the question of racism, some real and some imagined. I left out another sort, opportunist.

There were times in Britain not that long ago when guest houses would have notices that said "No Blacks, No Irish, No dogs". Such things are no longer acceptable ..

Except George Galloway thinks its OK to put up a notice in Bradford saying no Israeli's. He told a meeting of his remaining followers:

“We have declared Bradford an Israel free zone. We don’t want any Israeli goods. We don’t want any Israeli services. We don’t want any Israeli academics, coming to the university or the college. We don’t even want any Israeli tourists to come to Bradford if any of them had thought of doing so. We reject this illegal, barbarous, savage state that calls itself Israel. And you have to do the same.

Right.

That's discrimination against a whole people. Not even just "Zionists". All Israeli's. 

When he opposed the Iraq War did he say the same about US Citizens?

Of course not.

Nothing to gain from such a notion.

But Israeli's. Hmm.

Might help him retain a few votes in Bradford by appealing to base prejudice.

Oh and can someone remind us of his views on Assad in Syria where the death toll is in the hundreds of thousands......

And "Gorgeous" George should know all about oppressive and brutal regimes. He once worked for Press TV, the propaganda outlet for the Iranian Clerical Fascist government and now has a programme on Russian TV.

Ukraine, Gay Rights, murdered journalists, just to think of a few things that one might be concerned about under Commissar Putin.

However complaints have been made and according to the BBC:

Calls by George Galloway for Bradford to be "declared an Israel-free zone" are being investigated by West Yorkshire Police.

Officers said two complaints had been made about a speech he made urging the city to reject all Israeli goods, services, academics and even tourists....

Jonathan Arkush, vice president of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, described the remarks as "odious".

"What about an Israeli who is a supporter of the Palestinian cause? He doesn't differentiate between an Israeli who supports the Israeli government or an Israeli who doesn't," he said.

"He doesn't differentiate between an adult or child - most people are apolitical. This man is so intolerant he can't bear to have someone with an opposing view in his town - how ridiculous is this."

Ridiculous indeed.

And prejudiced.

Time for a Galloway free Bradford instead.

Racism, both real and imagined at the BBC

Having no interest in motor cars means that Top Gear is never on our TV set unless we channel surf through it. The missus dislikes Jeremy Clarkson in any case and will only just tolerate his occasional appearances on Have I Got News For You which is a household favourite. So when his remarks about a "slope on the bridge" were broadcast our awareness was only raised by the complaint that the remark was racist.

Now I have to admit that this expression is not one I was familiar with and would not have noticed even if I had watched the programme. However one person, actress Somi Goma did and her complaint was upheld. The Daily Mirror reports:

Her complaint was last week backed by Ofcom which ruled the BBC was in breach of its code.

Somi claims Clarkson’s remark was scripted and not just “banter”. The jibe came on the Burma Special when the Top Gear team were challenged to build a bridge over Thailand’s River Kwai.

At the end, Clarkson surveys his work, saying: “That is a proud moment, but there’s a slope on it” as an Asian man walks over the bridge......

Ofcom ruled: “Jeremy Clarkson deliberately employed the offensive word to refer to the Asian person crossing the bridge as well as the camber of the bridge.”

Such remarks are unacceptable and Somi was justified in raising her complaint.

However another BBC programme has come under fire, that hotbed of political discussion, Gardeners Question Time on Radio 4.  The Times reports that the programme is a "seething cesspit of racial hatred". The reasoning (if you can call it that) is:

Dr Pitcher believes it is saturated with racist language and that conversation about "native" and "non-native" plants is nationalist

Race Equality Firsts chief executive, told The Times that the accusation was absurd.

"We deal with a vast amount of overt and covert racism to know when a racist slur, comment or terminology is being used and the words "native" and non-native" species or soil in the context of gardening are not racist terms"

Dr Pitcher thinks such terms are employed to find ways of of talking about "White identity" through gardening so as not to appear to be racist.

Alex Raites of Stand Against Racism and Equality said: There is enough racism in the world without looking for it in places where it doesn't exist.

Quite.

The University of Westminster (called a Polytechnic when I went there) is a fine place of learning. His Departmental head should take Dr Pitcher aside and tell him to get a grip on reality.

Such nonsense undermines the real struggle against the all too real racism that exists in the world.

Anyway my veggies are green.....

Is mankind ready for the next step?

Last year I mused on whether the world was going backwards with the rise of Islamist fundamentalism around the world. The Taliban, Al-Qaeda and others were trying to take life back to the stone age. Since then they have been joined by Boko Harem and ISIS who in imposing the will of their imaginary friend upon mankind in the most brutal way. The twenty-first century seems to be becoming the age of the death cult.

And yet humanity’s propensity for technological advance continues unabated. Who would have thought in 1939 when old fashioned bi-planes were still flown by the worlds advanced nations, that within six years just one plane carrying just one bomb could wipe out a whole city?

Since then we as a species have developed the capacity to not only wipe ourselves out several times over but probably destroy all life on this fragile planet of ours.

I am no conspiracy theorist, but I am sure that further technological advances have been made by governments and corporations that remain secret because of military and commercial considerations, and such advances continue every day.

The space race has already been entered into not just by new countries such as India, China and Japan but also private corporations as satellites and even space travel itself become more than just possibilities but reality.

Virgin Space Ways anyone?

Two articles in today's issue of The Times (no link £) gave food for thought. James Dean writes:

Artificial super intelligence could pose more of a danger to the human race than nuclear weapons, Elon Musk, the technology entrepreneur has warned.

The boss of Telsa Motors, the electric car maker suggested it was increasingly likely that human beings were unwittingly preparing the world for take over by highly intelligent, insentient beings.

He doesn’t mean aliens, he means machines. These comments came on Twitter following the his reading of a book by Nick Bostrom, Director of the Future of Humanity Institute in Oxford.

The professors theory is that the first artificially super intelligent being will probably wipe out all humans.

Shades of Terminator? Science fiction? Apparently not. The Times continues:

Technology futurists have long predicted that artificial intelligence will surpass human intelligence at a point known as “the singularity”.

I wonder what such an intelligence would make of the human race? We are a very sorry sight, unable to live with each other or protect the planet we rely on for life. One doesn’t need to delve into the realms of science fiction to see what logical solution such a intelligence might reach.

This also comes at a time when the possibilities of mankind taking the next step off this planet to exploit the mineral resources of the moon are actually becoming more practicable, though not quite yet.The Times runs an editorial raising the question mining on the Moon and asks who owns it?

Competition for these resources will arise, and when someone actually tries to develop a mining expedition, the nations will have to abide by the UN Outer Space Treaty (no I didn’t know we had one either). However The Times asks how does this apply to private companies? Soon this will be more than a “fairy tale” as the paper puts it.

The question we have to ask ourselves as such technologies and prospects grows, are we the human race ready for the challenge ahead.

A logical mind might think not.

That mind might not be human.

So we need to learn to live together and treat our world with more respect or is that idea the real science fiction?

100 years since the war started

A Poem from Kevin Higgins

Historically Sensible

You knew for a fact, they’d never
allow a pair of mad eyes with a pistol
near the Emperor and his wife;
and when they did, knew
the war would be done
before the Christmas tree went up
in Chichester town square;
and when it wasn’t, that the Germans
must be forced to pick up the bill,
so they never did this again.
You knew for a fact, the Tsar
had a special place in the Russian peasant’s heart;
and when he hadn’t, that the Bolsheviks
wouldn’t last five minutes.
And when they did, they were what
you’d been praying for all along.
Hitler was a joke with an Austrian accent
who’d never amount to anything,
and when he did, you knew for a fact
he had no interest in Warsaw, Kiev, Coventry.

You knew when the turbulence
had done its worst, the Shah
would still be sat on his Peacock throne,
looking taller than he actually was. Khomeni?
In five years’ time no one
would remember his name.
And that cowboy actor was never
going to win the White House.

The hijackers you envisaged
always landed the plane
and let the passengers go.

Kevin's latest collection of poetry:

Can be obtained here: Salmon Poetry.

The selective protests of the far left

A small number of demonstrators held a vigil outside Parliament yesterday trying to highlight the very real plight of Christians in Iraq. There had been a somewhat larger one the week before but this was supposed to be part of a world-wide campaign which included demonstrations in both New York and Sydney.

Last week of course there was the Gaza protest organised by the usual suspects. They can't be in two places at once can they?

Except there was no sign of the left as the photo above (taken from a short video) shows.

Where were the comrades?

The Christians are facing genocide in Iraq and are persecuted in Egypt, Iran, Pakistan and most of the Muslim world.

However the the comrades silence is deafening.

This weeks Socialist Worker rag contains no less than 7 articles on Gaza plus one about what they call the "Trojan Horse Fraud". The paper of the old Militant Tendency, The Socialist also covers Gaza. The new organisation Left Unity says nothing. The Socialist Unity website remains silent.

It doesn't seem to be on their priority list.

Only a small part of the left which mainly boils down to one group, AWL plus the Shiraz Socialist and Tendance Coatsey blogs care to tackle this and related issues.

But why am I surprised?

Hundreds of thousands of people, children included have been massacred in Syria. Where were the protests by the so-called left?

Oh, they carried minuscule articles but march to the Syrian embassy? Of course not.

The worst culprit has to be the misleadingly named Stop the War Coalition which not only supports Assad but also took sides with Putin as Russian Troops marched into the Ukraine.

No demo over the Ukraine either. Or did I blink and miss it?

The left has always had a problem with things like democracy and human rights when it comes to anti-imperialism. Whilst Tariq Ali and his comrades marched to the American Embassy during the Vietnam war, Ho Chi Min had already wiped out Ali's  fellow Trotskyist co-thinkers.

Since the Rushdie affair the far left has been accommodating itself to Islam and finding reasons to ally themselves with some of the most brutal and reactionary elements in the Middle east and beyond.

The SWP would not even condemn 9/11.

As for anti-Semitism that's an inconvenience to their anti-imperialist agenda, which should be seen as an anti-Western agenda.

Attacks on Christians? Another inconvenience it would seem.

As the far left and their rabid allies prepare for yet anther pro-Hamas demonstration on Gaza perhaps we should remind them.

The Islamists and their allies would see them go the same way as the Vietnamese Trotskyists if they get the opportunity.

The comrades agenda is dangerously flawed.

Take a stand against the genocide of Christians and rising anti-Semitism comrades, when we're gone you'll be next.

Labour party equality statement excludes non-religious people

Cross-Post from the National Secular Society




Labour's policy making body – the National Policy Forum – has come under fire for adopting an equality statement that appears not to cover non-religious people.

The equality statement, adopted as a commitment to the way the party will implement policies and its manifesto states 'religion' but omits 'or belief'.

Both the Equality Act 2010 and human rights law use the term 'religion or belief' to cover both non-religious and religious people.

Labour Humanists, who campaign for a more secularist and rationalist approach to policy making within the party, say the statement needs "urgent amendment" and have written to representatives at Labour's policy making body asking for it to be changed to state 'religion or belief'.

A spokesperson for Labour Humanists said: "'Religion' clearly should not be used as shorthand or a catch-all for 'religion or belief' – few non-religious people would be happy to have their beliefs described under the banner of religion when they are atheistic, humanist or philosophical but distinctly not religious."

Keith Porteous Wood, executive director of the National Secular Society, said: "The omission runs the risk of leaving non-religious citizens feeling that they are less worthy of protection from discrimination than the religious. Equality means non-believers and those with other philosophical beliefs have the same rights and protection as those who identify with a religion. Clearly this should be reflected in the Labour Party's statement."

Hamas has been defeated - Now Israel should seize the intiative

Cross-post by Eric Lee

That headline will seem premature to post people, but any strictly military analysis of what’s happened in the last month confirms Hamas’ defeat.

This was supposed to be a war that would see Tel Aviv go up in flames, and Israeli cities were to be flattened by thousands of Hamas rockets. That didn’t happen. Israel’s “Iron Dome” missile defence system worked exceptionally well.

And though Hamas started the war with its missile attacks, it soon lost the initiative to Israel, which attacked Gaza in force. The result was the destruction of hundreds of missiles, the capture of large numbers of Hamas fighters, and the killing of hundreds more.

Hamas’ “secret weapon” — the vast network of attack tunnels to allow its fighters to enter Israel — has been exposed and largely destroyed.

If this had been any other war, at any other time, the results would be clear to all. Israel’s military has won; Hamas has lost.

But this is war in the age of Twitter — and politics has become the extension of war by other means.
While Israeli forces have routed their Hamas opponents on the ground, in the battlefield of global public opinion, Hamas has the upper hand.

This has happened largely because of Israel’s failure to minimize the number of civilians killed on the Palestinian side.

Israel has made huge efforts to do this, including dropping leaflets from the sky, sending text messages to Palestinian families, and even the practise of hitting buildings that are about to the struck with dud warheads, as a warning. No doubt this has reduced the number of civilian deaths. But it has not been good enough, and that’s not me saying that, it’s President Obama. And he is right.

There can be no more civilian deaths on either side; this has to stop now.

I believe that a ceasefire will happen, sooner or later, even if all the ceasefires so far have been failures. When that ceasefire does come, its terms will confirm what I have already said.

The latest ceasefire (already broken) saw Hamas back down from all its preconditions, agreeing to quiet in exchange for quiet. It accepted that Israeli forces could remain in place, inside Gaza, during the ceasefire. It agreed that they could continue to destroy tunnels, if those tunnels were behind Israeli lines.

That was a massive capitulation by Hamas, and evidence of its military weakness.

The question now is, what next? What happens after a ceasefire?

This is where the Israeli leadership needs to show courage, and to take some risks. Because in the immediate aftermath of the eventual ceasefire we’re going to get, we have an historic opportunity to break the deadlock.

Netanyahu and the Israeli right are not going to like this, but this will be the perfect moment for Israel to make some big changes to its policies.

• Instead of refusing to talk to the Hamas-PLO unity government, Israel should join the USA in welcoming its formation, and welcoming it to peace talks. Israel should apply an updated version of the old Shemtov-Yariv formula which allowed negotiations with any Palestinians who recognised Israel and repudiated terror.

• Israel should encourage the Palestinian Authority (PA), possibly with Egyptian help, to immediately take control of security in Gaza and to bring a permanent halt to missile attacks on the Jewish state.

• Israel and Egypt should end the blockade of Gaza, and together with the PA ensure that the flow of weapons from Iran and elsewhere to Gaza ceases immediately. The same measures that are in place today in the West Bank (where no one speaks of a blockade) should be in place in Gaza as well.

• Israel should welcome the PA’s application to become full members of the United Nations, and should offer to be the first state in the world to welcome a full Palestinian ambassador to present his credentials to the Israeli President in Jerusalem.

• Israel should announce that it embraces the principles of the Geneva Accordand welcomes the Arab Peace Initiative, is prepared to give up land for peace, and to close down the settlements.

I admit that it’s hard to imagine Netanyahu and his right-wing allies embracing any of these points. But that doesn’t mean it can’t happen. Netanyahu’s party represents a small fraction of Israeli voters (only 20 of the 120 seats in the Knesset are held by the Likud). Alternative ruling coalitions are possible, with or without new elections.

It is not guaranteed that Netanyahu will continue to benefit from high levels of public support. Just as there are signs in Gaza of ordinary people growing tired of Hamas, most Israelis want peace and quiet too.

Whoever leads Israel needs to show the same courage that its soldiers have always shown, and to take risks for peace. Because the alternative — endless war — cannot be allowed to happen.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

A LabourStart appeal

Palestine/Israel: Say No to union-busting of Palestinian workers organizing in Mishor Adumim settlement

An attempt to unionise Palestinian garage workers in the West Bank is being busted by an Israeli employer working together with police.

Workers at the Zarfati Garage organised in the independent WAC-MAAN union, called a strike to defend their rights and the employer retaliated by fabricating “security” charges against the union leader, Hatem Abu Ziadeh (pictured) using the war in Gaza as a cover. Israeli police have now revoked his work permit, which meant his actual dismissal.

WAC-MAAN and the workers at Zarfati Garage are determined to struggle against this arbitrary persecution of Committee Chairperson Hatem Abu Ziadeh.

Please support their demand to cancel all charges against Abu Ziadeh and allow the workers to freely organise and demand their rights. Support them by sending a message of protest -

http://www.labourstartcampaigns.net/show_campaign.cgi?c=2410