Amid the corporate media’s ‘get Corbyn’ campaign, a brilliant video is re-emerging on social media. And it’s one that Jeremy Corbyn’s enemies would probably prefer you didn’t see.
In 2016, journalist Mehdi Hasan shared the following video. In it, he reveals the hypocrisy of Israel apologists who try to smear their opponents as terrorists. And his argument is the perfect response to the smears Corbyn is currently facing over his consistent support for Palestinian rights.
‘Terrorism’ is an incredibly emotive word. That’s precisely why unscrupulous politicians and media outlets often use it to smear their opponents – just as they have against Corbyn in recent days. And they’ve been using that tactic ever since Corbyn became Labour Party leader in 2015.
But more and more people are learning to see through the spin. And challenging it – like Hasan does above – is precisely what Corbyn supporters need to do to fight back against the constant media attacks.
All war is terrorism
War is always horrific. The Nazis’ Holocaust was one of history’s biggest acts of terrorism. Western governments, meanwhile, once thought it was fine to kill up to 25,000 people in three days (Dresden, 1945) and almost 200,000 people with just two nuclear strikes (Hiroshima and Nagasaki, 1945). And there have been numerous acts of state terror and non-state terror ever since.
Israeli apartheid and occupation of Palestine, of course, is one of the world’s biggest political controversies. And there have been numerous acts of terror from both sides. From Israel’s 2014 assault on Gaza (which killed at least 1,483 Palestinian civilians) to the Black September group’s murder of 11 members of the Israeli Olympic team in 1972, and from the right-wing Zionist attack on the King David Hotel in 1946 (which killed 91 people) to the Coastal Road Massacre of 1978 (when Palestinian militants killed 38 civilians), the suffering seems endless.
As Hasan points out, we must not allow the Israeli government to manipulate and dominate the debate. Because it will always seek to portray itself in a positive light whilst demonising its opponents. And as Jeremy Corbyn insisted this week:
You cannot pursue peace by a cycle of violence; the only way you can pursue peace [is] by a cycle of dialogue.
Corbyn sympathisers: the point of the media’s cemetery narrative is that no British politician should commemorate ANY Palestinian deaths. In Israeli terms: all Palestinians killed by Israel are terrorists.
— Michael Rosen 💙💙🎓🎓 (@MichaelRosenYes) August 15, 2018
The anti-Corbyn smears will keep coming. So fighting back is more important than ever.
It’s often easy to pick a side in wars (especially if they’re ‘invaders vs invaded’, ‘colonisers vs colonised’, or ‘occupiers vs occupied’), but it’s much harder to stand up against all violence – including when the people responsible are fighting for a cause we support. But Jeremy Corbyn is someone who has consistently done that. And that’s why he has won numerous peace prizes. In 2017, for example, he received the Séan MacBride Peace Prize for:
his sustained and powerful political work for disarmament and peace
As Corbyn has insisted himself:
"The only way we achieve peace, you know, is by bringing people together and talking to them…
That's been, frankly, the whole point in my life."#JC9 #jc4pm #Corbyn4PM https://t.co/GxhPizstnt
— Ed Sykes (@OsoSabioUK) August 13, 2018
He’s right. We need to oppose all political violence, wherever it may be and whoever carries it out. And to end such violence, we need to stop smearing our opponents and start talking to them instead.
The smears will keep coming. But we can, and must, fight back. And in that fight, the most effective weapon is the truth.
Get Involved!
– Support Campaign Against Arms Trade, Jewish Voice for Labour, and Jewish Voice for Peace. Also support the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, and find out more about the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement.
– See previous Canary articles on Israel and Palestine, and join The Canary so we can keep holding the powerful to account.
Featured image via Sophie Brown – Wikimedia
