Armchair politics

Haha, exquisite memes.

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I like that

It occurs to me on the Corbyn anti-Semitism thing that I’m pretty sure he’s not anti-Semitic, but he fell into the trap that a lot of left wingers did. It goes for Northern Ireland as well as Israel.

They supported Hamas and the IRA because they agreed with the cause, but in their support they chose to be blind to the methods used. They ended up supporting terrorists.

I think it’s a great shame, because pressure from others that share their cause could have moderated the terrorists’ methods. Instead they got support and legitimacy.

I’m trying to work out whether I have any sympathy for Corbyn on this. I think that the answer is no, because he has been a life-long adherent to the fundamental tenet of student politics: it’s the cause that matters, not the effect. In grown-up politics you need to be effective and get stuff done, and he has so far failed to be effective in any meaningful way, despite a government in regular disarray. He hasn’t really changed his approach, so I think he deserves everything he gets.

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I don’t know the history, so I really don’t know if his support for the IRA in any way encouraged the ‘secret’ dialogue which preceded the Northern Ireland Peace Process in the early 1990s.

Including well-known ‘terrorist’ Nelson Mandela and the ANC.

If only it was as easy as ‘terrorists’ and ‘good people’ …

https://timedotcom.files.wordpress.com/2015/11/yitzhak-rabin.jpg

VB

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Fair point but there is little doubt that the PLO ‘operators’ that attacked the Israeli Olympic team in Munich behaved in an utterly bestial fashion e.g. Yossef Romano was shot, tortured, castrated and left to die slowly of his wounds. It’s entirely inappropriate for Corbyn to be laying a wreath at the graves of these animals and in so doing honouring these men and their actions.

Corbyn’s pathetic weasel words laid bare by the photo. You’re holding the fucking wreath you lying cunt.

Final point, Corbyn claims he acted in the interests of dialogue and peace yet it strikes me that he prefers to engage only with the Palestinian side. I can’t recall Corbyn visiting Israel to meet the Israeli victims of Palestinian violence or to engage in dialogue with the Israeli opposition etc.

Peace by war is an oxymoron.

I think it’s quite interesting that Netanyahu has engaged with Corbyn over this because he now might have to respond to an unsavoury truth ie

“What deserves unequivocal condemnation is the killing of over 160 Palestinian protesters in Gaza by Israeli forces since March, including dozens of children.”

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He’ll just ignore the comment and keep pushing the supporting terrorists line.

It certainly doesn’t look good for Corbyn the photos and evidence do seem to suggest he was laying a wreath at the site of the black september memorial and not the one he claims.

But what are the facts ? Of the 8 Munich terrorists, 5 were killed there and their bodies were sent for burial not to Tunisia, where Corbyn was, but to Libya. Two of the remaining three, who had been detained by the Germans, were later traded, again to Libya, as part of a deal over a hijacked Lufthansa plane. It is believed that they were later assassinated by Mossad although it’s also claimed they died of natural causes.The fate of the last one is unclear. He may actually be in Tunisia but I don’t think anyone claims he’s buried where Corbyn was.

The people Corbyn’s accused of honouring were four Palestinian leaders believed to be connected to Black September, which carried out the terror attack on Israelis at the 1972 Olympics (I took that quote from the Guardian article that you lnked to). So not the actual killers.

Furthermore Corbyn is clearly holding a wreath. But your Guardian article also says Corbyn’s remarks … indicate that another wreath-laying took place at the memorial event. Two wreaths. Isn’t it a nuisance when life turns out to be complicated.

VB

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I thought that it was Yasser Arafat who controlled Fatah the PLO faction directing Black September to carry out the 1972 attacks. You remember him. He was once a guest of Conservative Prime Minister John Major in Downing St if memory serves. I hope Bibi steps in to admonish Major aswell.

You have to have dialogue or nothing ever changes.

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The leadership of Black September are equally guilty.

I have a lot of sympathy with that. But I literally don’t know whether or not they instructed the torture in advance. Without mobile phones the killers would have been making their own decisions and if one of them turned out to be more of a sadist bastard than his bosses realised then it’s hard to blame them equally for that. Nelson Mandela married a woman who personally and publicly advocated forcing car tyres over people, filling the tyres with petrol and then setting it on fire, thereby quite slowly burning them to death while everyone watched. All I’m saying is that if we start condemning everyone equally and indiscriminately we pretty quickly find ourselves condemning everyone equally and indiscriminately.

VB

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You make good points Graeme. The crux of the matter for me is that Corbyn has had plenty of opportunities to state that he was there solely to honour the victims of the 1985 Israeli bombing of the Palestinian HQ in Tunisia, had not intended to honour the Black September leaders and unequivocally condemn the Munich attack. Instead he has engaged in moral equivalence.

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Absolutely agree. Negotiation, understanding, reason, acceptance & change are all impossible without dialogue.

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I am more concerned and offended by May meeting and peddling arms with inhumane massacring cunts. Not by mistake, years ago but full frontal handshaking with a smile for the cameras. Boris in the mean time is barely bothering to hide his racist world view. On the sliding Cunt scale the conservatives overall achievements in recent years aford them a resounding ‘win’
I believe Corbyn is less likely to willfully cause death and suffering, he may be misguided, he may be an idealist but he is considerably less death/maimy in general. (Yes I know we will all be skint under Labour but seemingly the Conservatives will also afford us this great treat anyway.)

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You are both quite correct. My point is that Corbyn talks about dialogue but only engages with one side. I can’t recall him visiting Israel or engaging in discussions with the Israeli government, opposition or civil society. In fact in September 2016 he turned down an invitation from the Israeli labour party to visit Israel and visit the Yad Vashem Holocaust museum.

https://www.thejc.com/news/uk-news/jeremy-corbyn-in-meeting-with-israel-ambassador-mark-regev-1.60430

And this contributes to his failure to answer directly. He’s too much, “I am right and don’t need to justify myself” and not enough, “I’m the leader of the opposition. I HAVE to explain everything or will be accused by the hard of thinking of all manner of atrocities”.

This is his failure here and in his leadership.

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I agree to a point, it also seems integrity has very little value in the gammon mind.

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