Sometimes the road to hell isn’t paved with good intentions. It is paved with lies, deceptions and bad intentions. Accompanied by an enormous dose of self-delusion.
It is now only a couple of weeks since the prime minister of Britain took a lectern out in front of Number 10 to bravely announce … not the general election that so many of us know we need, but a new policy of getting tough on extremists. He keeps on telling us that things have reached such a pitch that MPs aren’t safe, and he has launched a constant stream of attempts to limit the right to protest. In direct contradiction to the proudest boasts of this country about freedom of speech.
Can party donors be too extreme?
At the first test of his willingness to actually do something about an extremist openly stating a British MP made him “want to hate all black women” and “should be shot” and Rishi Sunak decided to duck the issue. It turns out that it is fine for a hefty donor to his party to openly advocate that someone should kill Dianne Abbott provided he apologises afterwards. While if Abbott gets rebuked for remarking that Jewish people’s experience of discrimination differs from black people’s, that can’t be excused even if she apologises, she must be kicked out of the Labour Party.
Those double standards seem to be doing a lot of heavy lifting right now. The actions of Hamas on 7 October have been widely and correctly condemned. Hamas really is a nasty terrorist organisation and it harbours some outright horrible views about women’s rights. Some on the left have struggled to say that, whereas others like Peter Tatchell have been clear and accurate. It is not necessary to endorse one set of murderers just because you are opposed to another set.
Turning a blind eye to Gaza
Murder is the only accurate word to describe some of the actions of Benjamin Netanyahu’s government. Not the Jewish people. Not the whole nation of Israel. The Israeli prime minister and his cabinet carry the responsibility and it is a cabinet that contains ministers who have openly advocated ethnic cleansing and have convictions for links to extremism from Israeli courts. Together with a string of convictions for corruption.
If it weren’t for the war, Netanyahu would be in court defending himself against compelling charges of outright corruption. Instead he is spending his time informing anyone who will listen that he is overseeing a restrained operation that is entirely aimed at removing Hamas and that doesn’t target civilians. The pictures of the ruined buildings, the images of dead children and the starving refugees tell a very different tale. An entire people are being bombed out of their homes, in what UN experts have described as collective punishment and then they have been denied adequate supplies of food and water. That is a direct and obvious war crime with every bit as much certainty as the worst actions of Hamas.
Faced with daily images of starvation, regular and highly plausible films of some Israeli soldiers mistreating and killing captives, constant destruction of homes and even bombing of storage centres for aid, many Western leaders have utterly failed to step up to the mark and take serious action to control Netanyahu. Both the prime minister of Britain and the leader of the opposition have been reluctant to speak out early enough, clearly enough or forcefully enough.
UK sends Gaza aid – and arms
At the same time as Britain is putting a lot of effort into getting a tiny supply of aid shipped from Cyprus to Gaza there are Israeli air force trainees being taught how to bomb targets, by the UK, in the UK. At the same time as the British government and the British opposition is asking nicely for a cease fire, both major parties have said almost nothing about stopping the sale of arms by Britain to Israel. Throughout this conflict many of the weapons that have been used have come from the UK and the US. The sooner Joe Biden and Sunak announce that they will cease supplying those weapons, the sooner there will be a serious cease fire and the start of a proper peace process.
There is something sickening about hearing people express their outrage about the bombing of civilian targets when they are authorising the supply of bombs that do it.
As our elected leaders fail the simple moral test of understanding that collective punishment is wrong whichever side is inflicting it, enormous numbers of ordinary people have been coming out onto the streets to express their frustration. They have done so with remarkable restraint. Hundreds of thousands of people have marched in protest about mass murder and done so peacefully and with dignity and posed little problem for the police. Many of whom agree with the protestors.
Protest isn’t extremist – it’s defending democracy
If ever there was a time when we needed the right to speak and protest openly about the actions of our government then surely this is it. If our government watches the images of those mass protests and decides to continue supplying the arms that enable the mass killings then some very simple questions should occur to any right thinking person.
Who are the real extremists? Where is the real threat to freedom of speech coming from? Who represents the real danger to British traditions of toleration and individual liberty?
