{"id":14841,"date":"2018-09-26T19:41:29","date_gmt":"2018-09-26T19:41:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/?p=14841"},"modified":"2018-09-26T19:41:29","modified_gmt":"2018-09-26T19:41:29","slug":"uks-labor-party-passes-motion-to-ban-arms-sales-to-israel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/uks-labor-party-passes-motion-to-ban-arms-sales-to-israel\/","title":{"rendered":"UK\u2019s Labor Party Passes Motion to Ban Arms Sales to \u00abIsrael\u00bb"},"content":{"rendered":"

Local Editor<\/strong><\/p>\n

Delegates of the UK Labor Party voted Tuesday to ban arms sales to the \u201cIsraeli\u201d entity over its abuses against the Palestinians. This party policy that could be translated into official government policy if and when the party is elected to lead the United Kingdom.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The motion was passed at the party\u2019s annual conference in Liverpool.<\/p>\n

The unprecedented resolution noted that \u201cthe majority of Palestinian people were forcibly displaced from their homes\u201d during the Nakba and condemned the \u201caggressive attempt to rewrite history and erase the victims of the 1948 war.\u201d<\/p>\n

It called for an \u201cindependent international investigation into \u2018Israel\u2019s\u2019 use of force against Palestinian demonstrators,\u201d an \u201cimmediate and unconditional end to the illegal blockade and closure of Gaza,\u201d and \u201ca freeze of UK Government arms sales to \u2018Israel\u2019\u201d.<\/p>\n

The motion noted that amongst those martyred during the Palestinian protests of recent months are paramedics, journalists, women, and children, while than half of the injured were hit with live fire by snipers as they approached the border with the \u201cIsraeli\u201d entity.<\/p>\n

Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) Chair Hugh Lanning said: \u201cWe have witnessed extraordinary scenes of solidarity today and the Labor Party has done the right thing by recognizing the longstanding injustice of the entity\u2019s violation of Palestinian rights.<\/p>\n

PSC handed out more than a thousand Palestinian flags at the conference. In remarkable scenes, many hundreds of delegates stood and waved their flags inside the conference hall when the motion was debated and chants of \u201cFree Palestine!\u201d were clearly heard.<\/p>\n

PSC director Ben Jamal said: \u201cThis incredible show of support and this historic motion demonstrate the strength of feeling at the grassroots of the party. Labor members want to show real solidarity with Palestinians<\/p>\n

The issue was in the top four of all issues discussed Tuesday in Liverpool. The vote to debate Palestine was fourth after housing, school systems, and justice for the Windrush generation. It gained more votes than the issues of Brexit, and the National Health System (NHS).<\/p>\n

During the debate on Palestine, the party deliberated on UK arms sales to the \u201cIsraeli\u201d entity, voting to end them until an independent investigation into the murder of more than 180 protesters in Gaza since March 30 can be carried out.<\/p>\n

Though conference votes are not binding on leaders, Jeremy Corbyn, a supporter of the Palestinian cause, has promised to recognize Palestine as a state if his party comes to power.<\/p>\n

The anti-Semitism charges against Corbyn were rejected by him, his supporters, and Palestinians citing the entity\u2019s attempt to shut down any criticism of its policies and abuse against Palestinians and its occupation of their land.<\/p>\n

But not all Palestinians are overjoyed with the new policies. Some are critical of the UK\u2019s stand on the Oslo agreement which supports the creation of two states. For UK-based Palestinian author and academic, Ghada Karmi said during a Palestine Solidarity meeting that Labor cannot go on supporting a \u201cdefunct idea\u201d. She also asked the party to stop being apologetic about the \u201cIsraeli\u201d entity\u2019s atrocities and to confront the entity and call out its actions against Palestinians.<\/p>\n

According to Hazem Jamjoum, a Palestinian-American academic, the British empire helped create the so-called \u201cstate of \u2018Israel\u2019\u201d; hence, it has a greater responsibility to support Palestine. He also warned that the entity\u2019s impunity regarding apartheid, racist laws and ethnonationalism is creating precedents all over the globe, which is witnessing an increasing identity-based nationalism in many countries.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Local Editor Delegates of the UK Labor Party voted Tuesday to ban arms sales to the \u201cIsraeli\u201d entity over its abuses against the Palestinians. This party policy that could be translated into official government policy if and when the party is elected to lead the United Kingdom. The motion was passed at the party\u2019s annual …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":14842,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":2,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14841","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","","category-news-and-analysis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14841","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14841"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14841\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14843,"href":"https:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14841\/revisions\/14843"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14842"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14841"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14841"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14841"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}