Here is Andy Slaughter, Labour’s choice for Justice Minister, talking about a debate in Parliament (6:19)
[The] debate that took place over questions, was over the issue of rockets being fired from Gaza into southern Israel. And sadly, 4 or 5 MPs – and this is true, MPs get both sides – who wished to put forward the Israeli perspective on this, made that a main issue. Had I been called I would have said this (*smiles*) –
Since rocket attacks from Gaza begun in 2004, 21 people have been killed in Israel, and yes of course we regret that. 4594 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza. That figure is already out of date because 2 more were killed yesterday. And I don’t think you need to say very much more than that. The extraordinary disaparity in quality of arms which is not reflective – and I’m afraid, some of my colleagues was guilty of this, as the British media and the Israeli propaganda machine, that the whole impact in talking about rocket attacks in Gaza, in talking about alleged offenses by Palestinian side, is to mask that disparity, is to in some way obfuscate what is happening, so that some people who are uninformed but who would be sympathetic to the Palestinian cause, are not allowed to do so.””
I think it is a no-brainer, as to whose side you are on.”
“The Israeli propaganda machine tries to vilify the PSC… That is a sign of weakness.”
The Shadow Justice Minister concludes:
“We must work every day to ensure that justice is achieved.”
But this is not really justice.
I know that many if not most Labour activists are appalled at this kind of rhetoric, but they are losing a battle that they have to win.
Labour ought to be brought back on course, and there are those in the Labour party working within the party mechanism to take Labour away from extreme or sectarian politics.
However, at the same time, there are many working to render the Labour party to be precisely the opposite – extreme and sectarian.
I have described the Labour party as institutionally racist, because it is not able to deal with clear concerns about naked antisemitism, in a satisfactory manner. I fully understand that people disagree with the term sincerely.
All this could change if people of good will, are able to influence Labour decision-making, and convince Ed Miliband to take action against the likes of Andy Slaughter and Jeremy Corbyn – a ‘strong supporter’ of an inquiry into alleged Jewish interference in the UK immigration system.
