Kowtowing to Israel: The UK's Labour Government Has Embraced Genocide
Why did Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy host the far-right Israeli ambassador and say she understood Israel's 'serious concerns' about the BBC, Glastonbury, and Gaza?
Last week, UK Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy met with Israeli Ambassador Tzipi Hotovely, a senior representative of a government accused by UN experts of committing genocide in Gaza. Incredibly, the meeting wasn’t about condemning the mass killing of civilians, the starvation of children, or the targeted destruction of schools and hospitals. It was about Glastonbury.
In posting a photo with Nandy on Twitter, Hotovely thanked Nandy for her “recognition and understanding of our serious concerns” about the BBC’s and Glastonbury’s platforming of artists Bob Vylan and Kneecap. In return, Nandy gave a senior figure from a government responsible for unspeakable violence a political victory, when she denounced both the BBC and the UK’s largest music festival for allowing these artists to perform. The meeting also came after the BBC shamefully refused to air a documentary it commissioned about the systematic attacks on Gaza’s healthcare system – a film Zeteo has since acquired and published globally.
It is truly astonishing that this Labour government is more concerned with kowtowing to a genocidal regime than upholding international law, let alone protecting freedom of speech. But it’s also entirely consistent with the Labour Party’s trajectory under Keir Starmer.
Nandy’s support for Hotovely comes in the wake of the decision to proscribe Palestine Action as a terrorist organization. The bill in question designated Palestine Action as a terror group alongside Maniacs Murder Cult – a neo-Nazi organization – and the Russian Imperial Movement – a white supremacist group. This was a cynical move designed to prevent anyone from speaking out against this blatant abuse of state power.
Terrorist attacks are real and horrific, but ‘terrorism’ as a concept is notoriously nebulous, with no clearly agreed-upon definition. Authoritarian governments frequently exploit this lack of clarity to proscribe groups that threaten their authority under terror laws – and this is exactly what this Labour government has done. Alongside its proposed Crime & Policing Bill, which would make it even harder to organize peaceful protests, the Labour Party is showing itself to be a credible threat to liberal democracy.