Scrutable

JQH wrote: ↑

Fri Jun 26, 2020 6:43 am

El Pollo Diablo wrote: ↑

Fri Jun 26, 2020 6:30 am

JQH wrote: ↑

Thu Jun 25, 2020 10:13 pm

f.cking marvellous. Starmer has Johnson on the ropes in PMQs but RLB boots the ball into the back of her own net.

This is probably my favourite mixed metaphor I've spotted in the wild.

Pity I couldn't work a cricket metaphor in there too.

Well it's a good thing that Starmer didn't drop the ball on this one

lpm wrote: ↑

Fri Jun 26, 2020 11:24 am

Wait, I'm getting confused about time zones. Am I in 2015-19? That was when there were all the endless attempts at pretend antisemitism in Labour didn't exist. I thought it was 2020.

You are all a bunch of idiots for even talking about it.

Nobody here is saying there's no antisemitism in the Labour party.

secret squirrel wrote: ↑

Fri Jun 26, 2020 11:47 am

lpm wrote: ↑

Fri Jun 26, 2020 11:24 am

Wait, I'm getting confused about time zones. Am I in 2015-19? That was when there were all the endless attempts at pretend antisemitism in Labour didn't exist. I thought it was 2020.

You are all a bunch of idiots for even talking about it.

Nobody here is saying there's no antisemitism in the Labour party.

No, but there are people claiming that the interview that was retweeted didn’t contain any anti-semitism. Based on what they choose to feel rather than the words on the page.

Grumble wrote: ↑

Fri Jun 26, 2020 11:50 am

No, but there are people claiming that the interview that was retweeted didn’t contain any anti-semitism. Based on what they choose to feel rather than the words on the page.

None of us can separate the meaning of the words from how we feel about them. Peake voiced in an interview an idea which when taken extremely literally is quite silly, and that can be extrapolated from into the kind of thing an antisemite might say. I've argued against the idea that she should be interpreted extremely literally, and I've explained why bringing up Israel at all isn't as out of nowhere as some people seem to think. Now I can't control how you feel about my argument, but this has been my intention.

secret squirrel wrote: ↑

Fri Jun 26, 2020 12:10 pm

Grumble wrote: ↑

Fri Jun 26, 2020 11:50 am

No, but there are people claiming that the interview that was retweeted didn’t contain any anti-semitism. Based on what they choose to feel rather than the words on the page.

None of us can separate the meaning of the words from how we feel about them. Peake voiced in an interview an idea which when taken extremely literally is quite silly, and that can be extrapolated from into the kind of thing an antisemite might say. I've argued against the idea that she should be interpreted extremely literally, and I've explained why bringing up Israel at all isn't as out of nowhere as some people seem to think. Now I can't control how you feel about my argument, but this has been my intention.

“Shouldn’t be taken literally” is the defence of a scoundrel.

I've moved a post on language used to its own thread
It can be found here: viewtopic.php?f=10&t=1411#p38630

Grumble wrote: ↑

Fri Jun 26, 2020 12:15 pm

“Shouldn’t be taken literally” is the defence of a scoundrel.

Good faith communication literally requires not taking everything literally.

Yeah, RLB really f.cked up here and I don't think Starmer had a choice. It's incredibly easy to criticise Israel without appearing antisemitic, and it's important to do so, so if you do accidentally support or appear to support antisemitic ideas you need to apologise and clarify, not dig your heels in. Especially if you're trying to make an anti-racist point, and especially if you're a prominent public figure in a party with both genuine and perceived issues with antisemitism.

Since the George Floyd protests started, there have been multiple cases of Israeli forces killing unarmed Palestinian civilians (e.g. this unarmed autistic man), as well as shooting kids with rubber bullets and so on, that have received comparatively little public opprobrium, which is a hypocrisy that should be called out and rectified. There was also this case, where an Israeli soldier shot a fisherman during a ceasefire and got 45 days community service, not for the killing but because it was done without authorisation.

Apart from the US, Israel is the only "western democracy" where state-sanctioned racist murder is commonplace, so bringing it up is entirely reasonable as part of a general point about racism being an international problem. Plus, there is a lot of interplay between US and Israeli forces (and politics in general), sharing training, with the US providing military aid and a UN security council veto and Israel aiding US hegemony in the middle East. Where Peake was wrong was to suggest that the Floyd case in particular owed anything to Israel; both countries are perfectly capable of coming up with their own methods and motivations for killing civilians of the wrong ethnicities. Peake and RLB have both acknowledged that was wrong, so a proper apology should have been forthcoming.

ETA and Israel's planned annexation of yet more Palestinian territory does give a certain urgency to proceedings.

Is it still possible to express support for the plight of the Palestinians or is anything that criticises Israel now considered anti-semitic?
It would be very easy to claim that ANY criticism is inherently anti-semitic

Gentleman Jim wrote: ↑

Fri Jun 26, 2020 12:20 pm

Is it still possible to express support for the plight of the Palestinians or is anything that criticises Israel now considered anti-semitic?
It would be very easy to claim that ANY criticism is inherently anti-semitic

I think secret squirrel's posts on this thread show that it's perfectly possible to criticise Israel (or more accurately Israeli policy) without appearing to be antisemitic. There will always be some people making spurious accusations for one reason or another, but I think as long as you're reasonably sensitive you can avoid problems. It's also perfectly possible to make a mistake, in which case the right thing to do is apologise and clarify.

Bird on a Fire wrote: ↑

Fri Jun 26, 2020 12:23 pm

Gentleman Jim wrote: ↑

Fri Jun 26, 2020 12:20 pm

Is it still possible to express support for the plight of the Palestinians or is anything that criticises Israel now considered anti-semitic?
It would be very easy to claim that ANY criticism is inherently anti-semitic

I think secret squirrel's posts on this thread show that it's perfectly possible to criticise Israel (or more accurately Israeli policy) without appearing to be antisemitic. There will always be some people making spurious accusations for one reason or another, but I think as long as you're reasonably sensitive you can avoid problems. It's also perfectly possible to make a mistake, in which case the right thing to do is apologise and clarify.

I don't notice antisemitism in your strident criticism a few posts earlier in the thread.

Woodchopper wrote: ↑

Fri Jun 26, 2020 12:26 pm

Bird on a Fire wrote: ↑

Fri Jun 26, 2020 12:23 pm

Gentleman Jim wrote: ↑

Fri Jun 26, 2020 12:20 pm

Is it still possible to express support for the plight of the Palestinians or is anything that criticises Israel now considered anti-semitic?
It would be very easy to claim that ANY criticism is inherently anti-semitic

I think secret squirrel's posts on this thread show that it's perfectly possible to criticise Israel (or more accurately Israeli policy) without appearing to be antisemitic. There will always be some people making spurious accusations for one reason or another, but I think as long as you're reasonably sensitive you can avoid problems. It's also perfectly possible to make a mistake, in which case the right thing to do is apologise and clarify.

I don't notice antisemitism in your strident criticism a few posts earlier in the thread.

That's good to hear. In my head, I think I'm fairly clear about where the line falls between criticising a country and criticising an ethnic group. However, it's also possible to get it wrong, in which case I'd like to think I'd do my best to understand, apologise and change my thinking.

Grumble wrote: ↑

Fri Jun 26, 2020 12:15 pm

secret squirrel wrote: ↑

Fri Jun 26, 2020 12:10 pm

Grumble wrote: ↑

Fri Jun 26, 2020 11:50 am

No, but there are people claiming that the interview that was retweeted didn’t contain any anti-semitism. Based on what they choose to feel rather than the words on the page.

None of us can separate the meaning of the words from how we feel about them. Peake voiced in an interview an idea which when taken extremely literally is quite silly, and that can be extrapolated from into the kind of thing an antisemite might say. I've argued against the idea that she should be interpreted extremely literally, and I've explained why bringing up Israel at all isn't as out of nowhere as some people seem to think. Now I can't control how you feel about my argument, but this has been my intention.

“Shouldn’t be taken literally” is the defence of a scoundrel.

Irrespective of the rest of the debate this is a thoroughly ridiculous point and one that needs to be stopped. Pretending people always speak literally is the argument of scoundrel. It’s the also, fwiw, frequently the argument of bigots.

EACLucifer wrote: ↑

Fri Jun 26, 2020 9:36 am

secret squirrel wrote: ↑

Fri Jun 26, 2020 9:09 am

EACLucifer wrote: ↑

Fri Jun 26, 2020 8:33 am

It was a retweet of an article including an antisemitic canard.

The antisemitic canard of accusing Israel of doing the kind of thing they do in fact do but may not have done specifically on this occasion? The antisemitic canard of using Israel as a reference point for brutal oppression of a minority carried out under the banner of democracy?

The antisemitic canard of rushing to blame the world's only Jewish state for something done by non-Jews far away from Israel, yeah. There's been tiny amounts of cross training between US and Israeli police, and US police have also cross trained with a number of other countries police, and yet the article blames an unnamed "Israeli secret service", rather than, say, the French Gendarmerie.

^ This.

bjn wrote: ↑

Fri Jun 26, 2020 12:55 pm

EACLucifer wrote: ↑

Fri Jun 26, 2020 9:36 am

secret squirrel wrote: ↑

Fri Jun 26, 2020 9:09 am

The antisemitic canard of accusing Israel of doing the kind of thing they do in fact do but may not have done specifically on this occasion? The antisemitic canard of using Israel as a reference point for brutal oppression of a minority carried out under the banner of democracy?

The antisemitic canard of rushing to blame the world's only Jewish state for something done by non-Jews far away from Israel, yeah. There's been tiny amounts of cross training between US and Israeli police, and US police have also cross trained with a number of other countries police, and yet the article blames an unnamed "Israeli secret service", rather than, say, the French Gendarmerie.

^ This.

That said, France isn't world-renowned for killing its own population for being the wrong ethnicity, unlike the USA and Israel. France and its police do have big problems with racism, but not on anything like same level, so there are valid reasons for singling Israel out in this way. However, the specific allegation - that the particular police who murdered George Floyd were trained by Israeli forces - does look like its taking for granted the antisemitic canard of some kind of pervasive Israeli/Jewish influence in US politics, which IMHO puts it beyond being merely incorrect and into the territory of problematic.

Did anyone else see the article saying that Long Bailey refused Starmer's calls? I cannot find it anymore.

jimbob wrote: ↑

Fri Jun 26, 2020 1:17 pm

Did anyone else see the article saying that Long Bailey refused Starmer's calls? I cannot find it anymore.

https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/ ... ab283efcb2

Long-Bailey was asked to take down her tweet and to apologise. Instead, she retweeted her original message with a clarification that she had not endorsed the entire Peake article. This was a form of words that she later claimed was agreed with the leader’s office (which is disputed). But this only caused more anger, and she was repeatedly told that Starmer wanted her to delete the message and issue a full apology.

HuffPost UK has been told Long-Bailey refused to take phone calls from the leader’s office, and after being given four hours to comply with his wishes, Starmer decided enough was enough. Having given her a way out, he felt he was left with no option but to fire her as shadow education secretary. After informing his deputy Angela Rayner, he rang Long-Bailey in person and said he was removing her from her post.‌

Starmer’s allies in the shadow cabinet stressed there was no grand strategy to jettison the most senior leftwinger in his top team. “She was diligent, willing to work with others on a common task,” one said. “But there are no shades of grey in zero tolerance. That’s the point.” One insider added that Long-Bailey had impressed the leader with her behind the scenes work on summer free school meals, a campaign which was picked up by Marcus Rashford to force a memorable government U-turn.

Bewildered wrote: ↑

Fri Jun 26, 2020 12:40 pm

Grumble wrote: ↑

Fri Jun 26, 2020 12:15 pm

secret squirrel wrote: ↑

Fri Jun 26, 2020 12:10 pm

None of us can separate the meaning of the words from how we feel about them. Peake voiced in an interview an idea which when taken extremely literally is quite silly, and that can be extrapolated from into the kind of thing an antisemite might say. I've argued against the idea that she should be interpreted extremely literally, and I've explained why bringing up Israel at all isn't as out of nowhere as some people seem to think. Now I can't control how you feel about my argument, but this has been my intention.

“Shouldn’t be taken literally” is the defence of a scoundrel.

Irrespective of the rest of the debate this is a thoroughly ridiculous point and one that needs to be stopped. Pretending people always speak literally is the argument of scoundrel. It’s the also, fwiw, frequently the argument of bigots.

Of course people don’t always speak literally, and I would never make such a claim, but secret squirrel is making contortions to claim that a reasonable reading of the words is “extremely literal” and from there try to discredit the argument that it was a wrong thing to say.

secret squirrel wrote: ↑

Fri Jun 26, 2020 9:38 am

EACLucifer wrote: ↑

Fri Jun 26, 2020 9:36 am

The antisemitic canard of rushing to blame the world's only Jewish state for something done by non-Jews far away from Israel, yeah. There's been tiny amounts of cross training between US and Israeli police, and US police have also cross trained with a number of other countries police, and yet the article blames an unnamed "Israeli secret service", rather than, say, the French Gendarmerie.

It's probably because Israel brutally oppresses a big part of its own population.

When voters are abandoning your party over antisemitism and you endorse a message that essentially says "You see that Floyd murder? Israel taught them to do that." it's not a good look. And it's definitely not a good look to defend it by saying "OK they maybe didn't actually do that but it doesn't really matter because the important message is not the facts, it's that Israel is simply awful".

Grumble wrote: ↑

Fri Jun 26, 2020 1:38 pm

Of course people don’t always speak literally, and I would never make such a claim, but secret squirrel is making contortions to claim that a reasonable reading of the words is “extremely literal” and from there try to discredit the argument that it was a wrong thing to say.

The full quote is this though

“Systemic racism is a global issue,” she adds. “The tactics used by the police in America, kneeling on George Floyd’s neck, that was learnt from seminars with Israeli secret services.”

While the idea that American police needed Israeli special forces to teach them how to kneel on people's necks is very silly, that Israel is notorious for the brutal oppression of a significant minority of its own population is well documented, as is the fact that selling consulting on law enforcement and counter-terrorism training is something the Israelis are famous for (if I recall correctly there's a chapter in the Shock Doctrine about it, though I may have misremembered). It is known that part of the Minneapolis police specifically received training in restraint techniques from some branch of the Israeli military in the past. So there is a true and relevant statement to be made about similarities between what Palestinian activists claim are restraint techniques used by Israeli forces (instances of which have been documented), and the restraint used to murder George Floyd. Unfortunately, Peake fluffed it and presented it in a form that made it sound ridiculous. It seems like a lot of people here are committed to the idea that she wanted to blame the Israelis (aka the Only Jewish State in the World) for something they were not involved with because she's prejudiced against Jewish people. On the other hand, I think she was trying to raise awareness for the plight of Palestinians in Israel by making the true and relevant statement I alluded to earlier, got her facts a bit wrong, and ended up saying something prima facie daft. I don't see what contortions are involved in this.

Martin Y wrote: ↑

Fri Jun 26, 2020 3:13 pm

When voters are abandoning your party over antisemitism and you endorse a message that essentially says "You see that Floyd murder? Israel taught them to do that." it's not a good look. And it's definitely not a good look to defend it by saying "OK they maybe didn't actually do that but it doesn't really matter because the important message is not the facts, it's that Israel is simply awful".

Yes, it's not a good look because disingenuous conservatives and idiots will latch onto it with glee.

secret squirrel wrote: ↑

Fri Jun 26, 2020 3:29 pm

Martin Y wrote: ↑

Fri Jun 26, 2020 3:13 pm

When voters are abandoning your party over antisemitism and you endorse a message that essentially says "You see that Floyd murder? Israel taught them to do that." it's not a good look. And it's definitely not a good look to defend it by saying "OK they maybe didn't actually do that but it doesn't really matter because the important message is not the facts, it's that Israel is simply awful".

Yes, it's not a good look because disingenuous conservatives and idiots will latch onto it with glee.

It's a gift to anyone who wants to bash Labour and Labour is not going to attract anyone back by insinuating that at anyone who points out how f.cking stupid that is must either be a disingenuous tory or an idiot. Good work.

secret squirrel wrote: ↑

Fri Jun 26, 2020 3:26 pm

Grumble wrote: ↑

Fri Jun 26, 2020 1:38 pm

Of course people don’t always speak literally, and I would never make such a claim, but secret squirrel is making contortions to claim that a reasonable reading of the words is “extremely literal” and from there try to discredit the argument that it was a wrong thing to say.

The full quote is this though

“Systemic racism is a global issue,” she adds. “The tactics used by the police in America, kneeling on George Floyd’s neck, that was learnt from seminars with Israeli secret services.”

While the idea that American police needed Israeli special forces to teach them how to kneel on people's necks is very silly, that Israel is notorious for the brutal oppression of a significant minority of its own population is well documented, as is the fact that selling consulting on law enforcement and counter-terrorism training is something the Israelis are famous for (if I recall correctly there's a chapter in the Shock Doctrine about it, though I may have misremembered). It is known that part of the Minneapolis police specifically received training in restraint techniques from some branch of the Israeli military in the past. So there is a true and relevant statement to be made about similarities between what Palestinian activists claim are restraint techniques used by Israeli forces (instances of which have been documented), and the restraint used to murder George Floyd. Unfortunately, Peake fluffed it and presented it in a form that made it sound ridiculous. It seems like a lot of people here are committed to the idea that she wanted to blame the Israelis (aka the Only Jewish State in the World) for something they were not involved with because she's prejudiced against Jewish people. On the other hand, I think she was trying to raise awareness for the plight of Palestinians in Israel by making the true and relevant statement I alluded to earlier, got her facts a bit wrong, and ended up saying something prima facie daft. I don't see what contortions are involved in this.

As mentioned above, the thing which sends it into conspiracy theory territory is the suggestion that ordinary US police officers were taught tactics by the Israeli secret services.

It is striking that you changed 'secret services' to 'special forces' in the above paragraph, presumably because you also don't think its plausible.

Woodchopper wrote: ↑

Fri Jun 26, 2020 3:46 pm

As mentioned above, the thing which sends it into conspiracy theory territory is the suggestion that ordinary US police officers were taught tactics by the Israeli secret services.

It is striking that you changed 'secret services' to 'special forces' in the above paragraph, presumably because you also don't think its plausible.

Yes, 'secret services' does sound very silly, but I put it down to Peake garbling the facts in the interview. I mean, we're not talking about Noam Chomsky here.

Martin Y wrote: ↑

Fri Jun 26, 2020 3:39 pm

It's a gift to anyone who wants to bash Labour and Labour is not going to attract anyone back by insinuating that at anyone who points out how f.cking stupid that is must either be a disingenuous tory or an idiot. Good work.

It's a gift to people who want to bash the Labour party because said idiots fall over themselves to agree with them that Long-Bailey approvingly tweeting an interview were Peake says something a bit silly about Israel is exactly the kind of terrible antisemitism that Labour is notorious for.