Suppose I should add a comment on wreath thing. Usual disclaimer, not a Labour Party member, not Jewish, treat my opinions with the insignificance they deserve (thread alert):
1/ If you're a senior politician & you've been actively involved in the politics of Israel/Palestine on any side, then you've stood shoulder to shoulder with war criminals, with terrorists, with human rights abusers, with people whose politics are several miles short of ideal. >
Even the most respected liberal NGOs (Amnesty, HRW, Red Cross etc etc) have found themselves embarrassed by this stuff on multiple occasions. This is complicated further for supporters of Palestinian rights & justice as (even when being sympathetic) >
our prevailing hegemonic political ideology continues to position Palestinians as the other, the criminals, the terrorists, while the the Israeli state is the constitutional democracy trying to defend its existence, irrespective of details of any specific incident or issue >
or the broader history. As far as I can work out, the issue in Tunisia was that Corbyn attended a conference on behalf of the Morning Star & while there joined a large group who went to visit a cemetery to pay respects to fallen Palestinian martyrs or something similar. >
He may have been misled about who the memorials were for, or more probably he was just joining in with what everyone was doing & didn't have to give a second thought to which specific 'martyrs' were being honoured, >
coz it's not like he was ever going to be leader of the Labour party or anything similar so who is going to care, right? Now, if the objection to this is that Corbyn attended a memorial for fallen Palestinian martyrs in Tunis, then #IStandWithCorbyn. >
There's no such thing as innocent heroes in the I/P conflict, everyone has blood on their hands. It is also important to understand that those being honoured in Tunis were those who were (at the time) actively involved in efforts at reconciliation & peacebuilding. >
As others have said, Arafat was more personally responsible for more deadly Palestinian terrorist attacks than any other individual, and yet he was welcomed to the UN, to 10 Downing Street, to the White House. >
It is perfectly reasonable to visit what is effectively a war memorial for the PLO as part of the process of peacebuilding, just as it is perfectly reasonable for pro-Israeli visiting dignitaries to visit a Jewish war memorial in Tel Aviv or whatever, >
even though I would guarantee they would be standing by the graves of war criminals. If the claim is that Corbyn knew which graves he was honouring & actively wanted to pay tributes to Black September murderers or whoever because he thinks they're great guys, then >
in all honesty you are so blinded by your politics that you understand nothing about Corbyn. If the charge is that Corbyn should have been a bit more cautious about where he stood holding wreaths, I think you probably have a point but firstly >
I very much doubt if he even knew which graves he was standing near at any time & I very much doubt that he had made a league table of good graves & bad graves with accompanying map & notes. >
Secondly, it's not like he was ever going to be leader of the Labour party or anything, so who is going to care? But actually I suspect most of the fuss about this isn't about the specifics. >
People who are attempting to bring him down over this don't care about the specifics of the graves. They care that he was standing there in a large group with a large number of senior Palestinian / Fatah / PLO officials & veterans & physically standing shoulder to shoulder >
with Palestinian fighters. And on that, again, #IStandWithCorbyn. We have waited far too long for a British politician who will actually stand on the side of justice and rights for Palestinian people as part of a long overdue effort for peace & justice in the middle east. /thread
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