The following article is a comment piece from Jewish Network for Palestine (JNP) on the Labour Party government, Keir Starmer, and British state using anti-terror laws against journalists and activists.
Ever since the coming to power of the Labour Party government in June 2024, headed by a famous ex human-rights jurist, the British government has used police forces in the UK and its dependencies in a highly controversial, arguably illegal, and deeply damaging manner, to support Western imperialist interests rather than using its influence to oppose Israel’s illegal and immoral genocide against the Palestinians, and now also against other countries in the Middle East.
The British state: bending to the will of genociders
Highly respected journalists, academics, and retired politicians were arrested through the improper use of the Terrorism Act 2000, and in Jersey under the Terrorism Act 2002.
The arrest few days ago of a senior civil servant, Natalie Strecker, is but the latest legal atrocity enacted against public figures who are acting for the end of the genocide in Gaza, the release of the hostages on both sides, and a peaceful, just, and negotiated solution to the colonial conflict in Palestine.
Strecker, a lifelong peace activist supporting Palestinian human rights, joins a long list of well-known and respected others who have been intimidated by the unlawful use of the Terrorism Act, both the UK and its dependencies.
Journalist Richard Medhurst, former ambassador Craig Murray, respected journalists Sarah Wilkinson and Asa Winstanley, the Israeli activist and second-generation Holocaust survivor Yael Kahn, author and activist Tony Greenstein, historian and author Prof. Haim Bresheeth-Zabner, and now Natalie Strecker, were all arrested on false pretences and a misuse of the anti-terror legislation.
Are all these people terrorists, or do they support terrorism in any manner? Why are so many of the arrestees Jewish anti-Zionist peace activists? We find this behaviour totally uncalled for, unacceptable and illegal, an abuse of the legal system, and an undermining of the rights of the British people.
Why is all this taking place such a short time after the coming to power of the famous jurist, Sir Keir Starmer?
The answer was provided by Keir himself, more than once.
Keir Starmer must stop this campaign against peaceful activists and journalists
Starmer is a committed and unreconstructed Zionist, as he keeps telling us all.
He has been using a new approach against critics of Israel by using the law for illegal purposes of silencing, intimidating, punishing, and criminalising a totally legal, moral, and principled position taken by these people, and many thousands of others. It is a position mandated by international law, International humanitarian law, UN numerous resolutions, and the Genocide Convention of 1948, requiring us all, everywhere, to act against genocide or attempted genocide in every way they can, and against those who support and abet genocide.
As a committed Zionist, Starmer chose NOT to conform with the law, but to oppose it.
Instead of accepting the view of the International Court of Justice – the highest UN court on earth – he denies their interim ruling in March 2024 that Israel is committing ‘plausible genocide’ and demanding it puts a stop to the mass murder in Gaza.
We call on the government to stop this campaign of besmirching and hounding peaceful activists such as Strecker, to stop supplying arms to states under genocide investigation, and to actively support international law and international humanitarian law.
Featured image via the Canary
