The latest campaign against British Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn centres around the veteran anti-racist campaigner’s alleged anti-Semitism. Among the ongoing claims, Corbyn is denying allegations he laid a wreath at grave the killers of Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics.
As well as the latest attack on Corbyn, it is clear the allegations are also aimed at demonising all solidarity with Palestine and support for a genuine peace based on justice.
Gaza’s fuel crisis remained unresolved a week after a United Nations humanitarian official warned on August 8 that hospitals and water sanitation facilities would soon shut down as a result.
As the numbers of Palestinians killed and injured while participating in mass non-violent resistance on the Gaza border continues to mount, Israel has sought to deflect culpability by blaming "Hamas and other Palestinian terror organisations" of "igniting a violent confrontation with Israel" through these protests.
Turkey has condemned Israel’s slaughter of unarmed Palestinians, but the Turkish regime commits the same atrocities against Kurdish people.
The jingoistic festivities to mark the centenaries of the Battle of Beersheba (in present day Israel, October 31, 1917) and the Balfour Declaration (November 2, 1917) are being accompanied by an orgy of myth-making.
They mendaciously promote the story that Australia, through its mythological role in the battle with the Australian Light Horse Brigade, led to the foundation of the State of Israel.
FIFA, the governing body of world football (soccer), has capitulated once more to intense pressure from the Israeli government. It has removed from the agenda of its upcoming congress the issue of teams from Israel’s illegal settlements on occupied Palestinian land playing in Israel’s national league.
Fans of Glasgow’s Celtic football club showed their support for more than 1500 Palestinian prisoners on hunger strike in Israeli jails, with large banners and Palestinian flags at Celtic’s May 6 football (soccer) match against fellow Scottish side St Johnstone FC.
Members of Celtic’s “ultras” fan group, the Green Brigade, along with Celtic Fans for Palestine, lifted a huge Palestinian flag, as well as large banners with the slogans “Freedom and Dignity” and “Hungering for Justice”.
Leaders of Palestinian political party Hamas, which governs the Gaza Strip, released a document outlining their guiding principles at a press conference in the Qatari capital Doha on May 1.
Much coverage focused on the document’s acceptance of Israel’s 1967 boundary as the basis for establishing a Palestinian state alongside Israel. The document also includes pronouncements on how Hamas views the roots of the conflict, the role of Palestinian resistance and its position towards Jewish people.
The demands of the hunger strikers are for basic civil rights. There are 6500 Palestinian prisoners held by Israel, including 300 children. About 500 are being held under “administrative detention” — meaning they are held without trial by court orders that can be renewed indefinitely.
Despite the scale of the hunger strike and huge popular support enjoyed by the prisoners and their campaign for “freedom and dignity”, Israel shows no signs of acceding to any of the prisoners’ demands to end their ill-treatment.
Disengagement from mainstream politics is so widespread that when the marginalised and poor start getting engaged the establishment, and its media, hits back.
This explains the corporate media's sexist-tinged blitzkrieg against Sue Bolton and Roz Ward, both Melbourne-based activists. Both women have come to prominence recently for their determination to stand up for the most marginalised and dispossessed sectors of society and involve others in the process.
