Comments on: Turning Tides: Clare Short Breaks the Silence on Palestine

By: Keith

Keith — Wed, 11 Jul 2007 05:31:21 +0000

Any ideas on how to help Claire Short “press Israel” to conform to its human rights obligations under the conditions set up in the privileged Israeli access to the EU market?

By: Arie Brand

Arie Brand — Tue, 10 Jul 2007 10:39:17 +0000

I know next to nothing about Clare Short but I disagree with the way “Freeborn” (deliberately?)detracts from her message by concentrating on the moral qualities, or otherwise, of the messenger.

I wish a few more European parliamentarians would follow Short’s example whether they are entitled to a moral high ground in “Freeborn’s” opinion or not.

By: Kebz

Kebz — Mon, 09 Jul 2007 08:26:19 +0000

Kim Howells illustrates that they know full well the illegality and brutality of their friends in the Israeli establishment who continue to brutalise Palestinians in the most despicable way. Frankly, if any muslim country was doing this kind of thing, sanctions would be imposed immediately, if not the threat of force. The excuses and soft-pedalling for Israel are pathetic. They have actively encouraged Israel by supplying money and weapons and giving them a green light. This is far more than ‘collusion’. It is active assistance on the ethnic cleansing of Palestine despite their lip service to Palestinian human rights. The Blair government have persued the same pro-Israeli policy for a decade with what achievement. The Israelis have taken that as a green light to murder, steal and persecute. How on earth can Howells say with a straight face that there are too many strictures on both sides. One population is being systematically starved whilst the other enjoys the full benefits of western support. Howells evasion on the issue of arming Fatah factions to cause a civil war against an elected government led by Hamas , is telling. He knows the truth but refuses to do or allow anybody to do anything about it. Shame on him and his new labour friends who are drenched in the blood of the arab people.

By: Freeborn

Freeborn — Mon, 09 Jul 2007 08:23:39 +0000

Howells is a notorious quisling who built his career around his betrayal of the miners back in 1984-85.

In this exchange with Short he is obviously obfuscating and dissembling.He knows the extent of the arms and trade between UK and Israel and he knows how this impacts disastrously on the Palestinian people.

He is also aware that Hamas is the legitimate government of the Palestinians so the cant about Abbas and Israel’s magnanimity in restoring revenues is vomit-making in its hypocrisy and moral cowardice.

As for Short the people throughout the region have paid a heavy price for the learning process she has undergone.Read her monstrously vain and self-serving autobiography to get a better idea for the woman’s capacity for self-deception.

This is a woman who allowed history to pass her by.When she had the chance to be in the vanguard of the millions opposing the attack on Iraq she chose to throw in her lot with the war-mongers in the bizarre hope that she would be the post-war minister for Iraq’s reconstruction.

Our Minister for Overseas Development clearly deemed it appropriate to first threaten and then destroy and dismantle the infrastructure of a sovereign state that had taken 85 years to rebuild after the earlier ravages wrought on it by Western colonialists.Short is no better than the avowed imperialists she backed in 2003 in assuming a God-given right for US/UK governments to consistently intervene and ultimately destroy a sovereign state when it was no longer pliant to Western interests.

Neither Short or Howells have any place on the moral high ground they like to so assiduously cultivate for themselves.

By: Keith

Keith — Sun, 08 Jul 2007 23:01:23 +0000

Amazing how ignorant i am about such things as our very own Minister for the Middle East (Dr. Kim Howells) is a former chair of the UK Israel lobby group, Labour Friends of Israel. Staggering although not at all surprising – a bit like reading that he feels holding Israel’s priveledged position to account on the basis of Israels human rights violations is not worth bothering with. As if such things are below him and would only get in the way (get in the way of what?)

When was the debate tabled?