UK Labour Party Deputy Leader Tom Watson assures Zionist lobby of his unconditional support of Israel

Tom Watson
Nureddin Sabir, Editor, Redress Information & Analysis, writes:

Israel’s flunkies and flag wavers up and down the United Kingdom will be heartened to learn that the British Labour Party under veteran campaigner for Palestinian rights Jeremy Corbyn is no less Zionist than it was under the renowned stooges Tony Blair and Gordon Brown.

In fact, judging by a report in today’s Israeli news website Ynet, the party is set to rival the ruling Conservatives as Israel’s principal echo chamber in the UK.

That is if Labour Deputy Leader Tom Watson has his way.

Fresh from a trip to Israel, organised and paid for by the Israeli embassy in London, Mr Watson assured the Zionist lobbyists that he is their man at Labour’s top echelon, unmatched in his servility.

Addressing Labour Friends of Israel (LFI) on 29 November, he delivered “an impassioned pro-Israel speech” – so impassioned, in fact, that he burst into song, braying “The people of Israel live”, or Am Yisrael Chai in Hebrew.

He assured his audience that “The security of Israel and the safety of its people are non-negotiable.”

“We in the Labour Party,” he said, “stand by the people of Israel at this difficult time.”

But he had nothing to say about the oppressed Palestinians living in daily humiliation under illegal Israeli occupation in the West Bank or besieged from the land, air and sea in the Gaza Strip.

Perhaps sensing that his old fashioned support for apartheid and settler colonialism might be out of tune with the British public, especially the younger generation, Mr Watson turned his fangs on to the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, in a kind of pre-emptive strike.

“Those in this country who campaign for boycotts, divestment and sanctions seek to demonise and delegitimise the world’s only Jewish State,” he barked. “The BDS movement is morally wrong. It is failing. And it does nothing to advance the cause of peace or advance a two-state solution,” he added. He stopped short of mentioning the Jewish settlements in the West Bank – illegal under international law – which have rendered the “two-state solution” a non-option.

As stated on its website, the BDS

is a Palestinian-led movement for freedom, justice and equality. BDS upholds the simple principle that Palestinians are entitled to the same rights as the rest of humanity.

Israel is occupying and colonising Palestinian land, discriminating against Palestinian citizens of Israel and denying Palestinian refugees the right to return to their homes. Inspired by the South African anti-apartheid movement, the BDS call urges action to pressure Israel to comply with international law.

Which part of the above does Mr Watson not understand? If anyone is demonising and delegitimising the self-proclaimed “Jewish State”, it is that state itself, through its illegal occupation, its racism, its apartheid policies and its ongoing violations of international law and contempt for world opinion.

Mr Watson assured his Zionist audience of his determination to rewrite history, in order to put Israel in the best possible light.

“I will not be a bystander when the perpetrators of hate suggest that the founding fathers of the Jewish State collaborated with those who murdered six million Jews,” he bleated.

However, as the Israel-born Jewish writer Ruth Tenner reminds us in her article, “The truth behind the charge of anti-Semitism in Britain”, Zionist-Nazi collaboration in the 1930s and 1940s is an established fact which no amount of propaganda from a Zionist flunky such as Mr Watson can conceal.

Mr Watson’s slavish fawning over Israel was so complete and unconditional that the Ynet news site felt it necessary to remind us that he is not a Jew.

However, his lack of principle and his willingness to compromise himself should come as no surprise to Labour watchers.

During the attempted coup against Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn earlier in the year, Mr Watson pretended to act as party peacemaker while simultaneously scheming against Mr Corbyn. Eventually, he came clean with an open admission of support for war crimes suspect Tony Blair and his neo-conservative vision, prompting prominent union leader Len McCluskey to launch a withering attack on him.

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