Israel: The double standard

So here we are once again. Once again British unions are attempting to boycott Israeli goods creating what can only be described as a de facto boycott on Israelis in general. This comes at a heightened time of anti-Semitism (not Just in Europe and Arabia but across the world) following the anti-Israel bias that so many media outlets adopted throughout the recent Israeli war against Hamas in Gaza. However, this time the anti-Israel disease has spread. Oxfam, the much loved and supposedly pro-libertarian organisation, has already confirmed they will be attending the next meeting which aims to encourage the boycott of Israeli Goods, which will focus on trying to gain the backing of Tesco (of all places) and Waitrose. All of the organisations and unions in the UK that love to play this game on Israel, on what seems to be an annual basis, fail to see the far greater humanitarian abuses that occur in Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Venezuela, Sudan and Zimbabwe-where are the attempted boycott of those countries?

But it doesn’t stop there; was it ever likely to? This is after all, Israel we’re talking about. After many years of promises and clearly hypocritical and contradictory messages the British Government has finally got in on the act. It announced this week that it will no longer pursue the necessary legislation which would prevent senior Israeli IDF officials from being arrested when stepping foot on British soil on the charges of war crimes-whoever they may be and where/whenever they may have served. This comes only weeks after the right-wing Dutch MP Girt Wilders was banned from entering the UK and detained upon his entry for supposedly inciting ‘Anti-Islamic’ hatred. Funny isn’t it, how in between both of these anti-libertarian and worryingly outright anti-Semitic moves, representatives of the Lebanese terrorist organisation Hezbollah were allowed entry into the country. Funny isn’t it, how last year the dictatorial, oppressive, misogynistic and anti-Semitic King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia was allowed to freely walk around the streets of London without so much as a statement of defence from the British government (not that such a double standard is defensible in any way). Funny isn’t it how last yeah Mahmud Ahmadinejad was invited to speak at Oxford University and the British government didn’t so much as blink an eyelid. Funny it ISN’T that MP George Galloway can now be described as a financial backer and supporter of global (not just Palestinian) terror. This week he donated £25,000 of his own money to the terrorist organisation Hamas, stating that he ‘will always stand by the Palestinian cause and that their historical hope will never be lost’. Surprise, surprise, he was NOT arrested when he re-entered the UK. He has not been detained on the grounds of supporting terrorism. He has not been banned from the supposedly pro-Libertarian haven that is meant to be the Westminster, mother of all parliaments and modern democracy. Mr Galloway should be proud of himself. He can now be described as the first ever active terrorist to sit in a western parliament. Congratulations to you Mr. Galloway, you’ve managed to highlight yet another double-standard that the UK just loves to adopt when it comes to Israel.

In fact, in spite of all these RECENT blatant instances of anti-Israel (or anti-Semitic – whatever label you like to attach to the demonization of the only Jewish state) the Scottish Parliament has today began voicing its wish to have the Israeli envoy to the UK, Ron Proser, banned until ‘Israel realises it is not above international law’. Maybe Scotland would like to explain why it has troops in Iraq that were sent there on false pretences and answer the exact same question. Maybe the North East of England should start the firing of 7,500 rockets at Edinburgh and wait and see how long it takes before the Scottish government gives the go-ahead for ‘war crimes against humanity and acts above international law’ against cities like Newcastle and Middlesbrough.

Oh, and one more thing. On the BBC website today and in fact in Jonathan Freedland’s article in the JC on the 28th March, Israel was accused of shooting innocent Palestinian civilians on the grounds that they ‘could have’ been suicide bombers and that this illustrates the brutality of the IDF. Let’s journey back shall we: London, July 2005, Stockwell tube station. A total of 5 suicide bombs have gone off across the capital killing 52 people, injuring hundreds. The Met Police see a suspicious man running down the tube. They run after and follow him. They shoot him 5 times in the head and he dies on the spot. He had no bomb. He was a Brazilian traveller with no visa. The policemen? Well, they got off scot free on the grounds that it was an ‘unfortunate incident’.