Criticism of Israel Not Permitted if UK or USA Politician.
Freedom of speech? Here in the UK? Really? Not for Baroness Jenny Tonge. The ultimatum presented to her by the Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg was to retract her statement or resign.
In a recent debate in Middlesex University, in which the topic being discussed was whether Zionism equated to apartheid, Barones Tonge said, “Israel is not going to be there forever in its present form. One day, the United States of America will get sick of giving 70 billion a year to Israel to support what I call America’s aircraft carrier in the Middle East, that is Israel. One day the American people are going to say to the Israeli lobby in the USA, enough is enough. Israel will lose support and then they will reap what they have sown”.
Is this statement really anti-Semitic or was Baroness Tonge just attacking a country whose policies she didn’t agree with? She did not call for the destruction of the state. She merely stated that Israel would not continue in its present form. Israel is a country which has occupied another state for a number of decades, killed their women and children and still have a number of Palestinians in their prisons without trial or charge. Their crime is only that they are Palestinian and they will not give up their land to the oppressive regime.
Activist Ken O’Keefe, US Ex Marine who was also present at the debate in Middlesex University said, “I hope that she has no regrets, I hope that she sees what she said as an honour statement, a valid statement. As we sit hear perched on the verge of World War III and potential Nuclear annihilation, people must speak the truth, no matter what are consequences are. I don’t know what she thinks personally, it's I think a badge of honour because she said the truth and if she’s punished for that then so be it.”
Baroness Tonge was punished for using her freedom of speech to speak for the people of Palestine and she was forced to leave the Liberal Democrat Party.
Labour leader, Ed Milliband has said ‘that there is no space in British politics for questioning the existence of Israel’. Many Ministers echoed his rhetoric. Why is there never this outcry when Palestinians are being murdered? Their land has been stolen and many Palestinians have been living as refugees for decades and no Member of Parliament even dares to speak out on behalf of them.
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CIF Watch dot org delights in attempting to deride Trigger from the much loved TV series.
"It’s a shame when one of Britain’s best-loved comedy actors joins with the forces of darkness to come to the defence of one of the world’s most reviled regimes, but such is the fate of Roger Lloyd Pack who played Trigger in BBC’s Only Fools and Horses.
Lloyd Pack is a seasoned anti-Israel activist and so it is no surprise to find his signature among the usual suspects in a letter to yesterday’s Guardian supporting Stop The War Coalition’s Don’t Attack Iran Campaign.
Ironically, the BBC website even gives the following description of Trigger:
“Although initially a (relatively speaking) sharp-minded villain Trigger’s intellect has rapidly diminished over the years until it reached its current level of hilarious stupidity.”
Who said art doesn’t sometimes mirror life?"
A saucer of milk for the hostile CIF WATCH who further go on to slate The Guardian Newspaper, an award winning newspaper among one of the most respected newspapers in the UK.
CIF CONTINUE:
The Guardian website even generously links the letter to the Don’t Attack Iran Campaign website. Why take out an expensive ad in a national newspaper, hire an expensive London venue or print millions of leaflets when all you need do nowadays is write a letter to The Guardian who will give you free advertising space if you’re anti-Israel.
The familiarity of these hardcore anti-Israel signatories is positive in as much as it shows how so alone they are in their support for such an oppressive ideology:
Tony Benn,
Jeremy Corbyn MP
Brian Eno
Lindsey German
George Galloway
Kate Hudson,
Jemima Khan
Ken Loach
Roger Lloyd Pack
Lowkey
Len McCluskey
John McDonnell MP
John Pilger
Michael Rosen
Jenny Tonge
You’d have thought that after her forced resignation from her party after wishing away Israel’s existence they might have left Jenny Tonge off for once but, then again, her recent statements that “Israel is not going to be there forever” and “then they will reap what they have sown” ties in nicely with Ahmadinejad’s genocidal desire to wipe Israel off the map.
Some say Ahmadinejad was mistranslated and that he merely wanted to eradicate Zionism. It’s the same weak defence that commentators like The Guardian’s Michael White and The New Statesman’s Mehdi Hasan put up for Tonge.
Let’s forget that Israel and Zionism are not mutually exclusive and gloss over Ahmadinejad’s “mistranslation” and listen to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei who, as reported by Press TV, “described Israel as a cancerous tumor that must be removed”. It doesn’t get more unambiguous than that and straight from the fool’s and horse’s mouth.
And calling it an attack on Iran is like calling Operation Cast Lead an attack on Gaza or on the Palestinians when, in actual fact, it was a legitimate attack on the terrorist group Hamas in self-defence. Attacking Iran’s nuclear sites will also be a legitimate act of self-defence unless Iran opens itself up to a full nuclear inspection in accordance with its non-proliferation treaty obligations, something that it has so far proved suspiciously unwilling to do. --- Thank you CIF that's quite enough of that.
You have to wonder how many of those calling for such pre-emptive action will be putting their own lives on the line, or those of their children? None will be the answer. Personally I hope Obama is not just appeasing AIPAC as best as possible until after the election, to then give the green light for military action, rather hope the opposite is true.
