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Bob Geldof blasts Labour’s deadly inaction on Gaza

Bob Geldof has spoken out against Labour’s inaction on Israel’s continuing genocide of the Palestinian people:

It’s an important message that more people need to hear, because some may be fooled into thinking that Labour is backing away from supporting Israel.

Cynical politicians

As a result of Israel cutting off aid, famine is now wiping out the Palestinian population of Gaza:

 

This dark turn of events means that even supportive Western politicians feel forced to speak out. While you could argue there’s no practical difference between using bombs to eradicate Palestinians and using starvation, there’s something about the latter that cynical Western politicians find harder to defend. This is why politicians like Keir Starmer are now releasing messages like the following:

You’ll notice that Starmer isn’t clear on who or what is causing the famine, treating it like a natural disaster (“humanitarian catastrophe”) rather than the ideological genocide it is. Consequently, many believe that Starmer and others simply want Israel to return to the more easily-ignored form of genocide that we saw over the past few years.

Many Labour MPs have now called for the government to recognise the Palestinian state, but unlike France’s Emmanuel Macron, Starmer seems unwilling to even make this gesture.

One person cutting through Labour’s cynical bullshit is Bob Geldof, who responded as follows when Trevor Phillips asked what he thought of Labour’s response:

this is a distractive thing about, ‘oh, let’s recognise the state’. Absolutely. It should’ve been done ages ago…  it’s not going to make any material difference. Please, Labour MPs, stop signing your letters.

He continued:

Guys, focus on the issue to hand. It isn’t the recognition of the state that will come inevitably, and the sooner, the better. But that isn’t the issue with what you are telling us nightly, Trevor. …

[As the Financial Times] reported today, children are taking a teaspoonful of salt and as much water as they can drink to fill their bellies. Who are we? Who are we? In Bristol this week, they created the fourth largest computer that can do 23 quintillion deductions in a second. And children are taking a teaspoonful of salt and a belly full of water down the road.

Shut up. What have we become that we can do this miracle and perpetuate this agony. Honestly, Trevor, seriously like, you know beyond our arguments, can we all just focus on what’s important?

Bob Geldof: lying politicians

Bob Geldof also cut through the constant propaganda being spewed by Israel:

As reported by Sky News:

Sir Trevor asked the Live Aid organiser: “The Israeli view is that there is no famine caused by Israel, there’s a manmade shortage, but it’s been engineered by Hamas.

“I guess the Israelis would say we don’t see much criticism from your side of Hamas.”

In response, Geldof said “that’s a false equivalence” and “the Israeli authorities are lying”.

The singer then added: “They’re lying. [Benjamin] Netanyahu lies, is a liar. The IDF are lying. They’re dangling food in front of starving, panicked, exhausted mothers.

“And while they arrive to accept the tiny amount of food that this sort of set up pantomime outfit, the Gaza Humanitarian Front, I would call it, as they dangle it, then they’re shot wantonly.

“This month, up to now, 1,000 children or 1,000 people have died of starvation. I’m really not interested in what either of these sides are saying.”

He added: “If the newsfeeds and social feeds weren’t so censored in Israel, I imagine that the Israeli people would not permit what has been done in their name.”

False impartiality

As many have said before, the job of a journalist isn’t to publish that one person said it’s raining and another said it isn’t; it’s to cut through the noise and figure out if it’s actually raining. This is why it needs to be called out every time a journalist utters a phrase like “the Israeli view” in relation to Israel’s ongoing genocide of the Palestinian people.

It doesn’t take a genius to work out that Israel is the cause of this problem, and nearly two years into the genocide even shit-for-brains British media figures should be able to figure that out. And it’s not just cutting off aid, either – Israel Defense Force (IDF) troops are literally massacring Palestinians seeking aid:

And this isn’t even something they’ve just started doing:

The point of the ‘boy who cried wolf’ is that if you keep lying, no one will believe you. This is a story that children readily understand; why can’t big boys like Trevor Phillips grasp the concept? How far does Israel have to go before the British media will stop both-sidesing the situation? At this point, so-called British journalists are unarguably participating in genocide denial, and while we’ve long been critical of these people, this is a level of perversity that shocks even us.

Britain’s shame, as Bob Geldof highlighted

Britain’s political establishment has provided ongoing political and financial to Israel’s genocide, and our media has been a willing disseminator of genocidal propaganda. Even now, when there’s no way for them to openly defend this situation, they are still doing what they can to lessen the resentment against Israel, but ultimately they’re failing to achieve anything besides turning more of the British public against them.

Bob Geldof is right.

It’s time for politicians to shut the fuck up and take action.

Featured image via Alfred Weidinger (Wikimedia) / Number 10 (Flickr) – all images cropped

By The Canary

This post was originally published on Canary.