Labour's Rebecca Long Bailey Has Been Sacked for Sharing an Interview Highlighting Israeli Oppression as the Apartheid State's Policies of Racial Supremacy Come Under New Scrutiny
The Labour Party have sacked Rebecca Long Bailey for promoting an “antisemitic conspiracy theory” despite the fact that what was shared is verifiably true simply by doing a quick Google search.
Via Twitter, Long Bailey shared an Independent interview with the actress Maxine Peake which claimed that “the tactics used by the police in America, kneeling on George Floyd’s neck, that was learnt from seminars with Israeli secret services.”
The article received a torrent of indignation from the usual far-right and pro-Zionist chatterers, outraged that the vile and murderous tactics of the apartheid state should be publicly called out in this way. Open discussion of police tactics was “antisemitic”.
The Labour left has rallied to the defence of Long Bailey, pledging solidarity.
However, what has really been declared “antisemitic” is, in fact, both existing as a Palestinian and speaking the truth.
In 2016, in response to a report which revealed “widespread constitutional violations, discriminatory enforcement, and culture of retaliation” within the Baltimore Police Department, Amnesty International revealed that the BPD received training on crowd control, use of force and surveillance from Israel’s national police, military and intelligence services.
“Amnesty International, other human rights organizations and even the U.S. Department of State have cited Israeli police for carrying out extrajudicial executions and other unlawful killings, using ill treatment and torture (even against children), suppression of freedom of expression/association including through government surveillance, and excessive use of force against peaceful protesters.”
Amnesty International
Indeed there are cases all across America of Israel training U.S. police forces, including in Florida, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, California, Arizona, Connecticut, New York, Massachusetts, North Carolina, Georgia, Washington state as well as the DC Capitol police. Thousands of others have received training from Israeli officials in the U.S.
In 2018, Jewish Voice For Peace stated that “what American law enforcement learn from Israeli policing is an official policy of marking entire populations as suspect, a model that is in direct opposition to efforts to end the racial profiling that has long been constitutive of American policing”
On June 9, Durham Council in North Carolina banned its police force from undertaking any training by Israel’s military, in the aftermath of the murder of George Floyd.
“The Israel Defence Forces and the Israel Police have a long history of violence and harm against Palestinian people and Jews of colour. They persist in using tactics of extrajudicial killing, excessive force, racial profiling, and repression of social justice. These tactics further militarise US police forces that train in Israel, and this training helps the police terrorise black and brown communities here in the US”
Demilitarize! From Durham2Palestine petition
Since the killing of Floyd, the tactics of Israel and their state-endorsed policies of racial supremacy have been coming under increasing scrutiny as commentators increasingly draw parallels between the brutality of U.S. police oppression and the oppression of the Palestinian people in occupied Palestine.
Israel, a de facto apartheid state, has been frightened by the Black Lives Matter movement and the increasing scope and influence of their campaign for racial justice and an end to police brutality.
“We’re seeing the oppressors united with their training, their same techniques. Between the Black Lives Matter community and the Palestinian community, and other communities across the world, we need to unite to fight against these systems. It’s the same systems of oppression that are affecting all of these communities…we must fight back together.” Ammori said.
Palestinian activist Huda Ammori of the Apartheid off Campus group
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