Labour’s disgusting stance on Israel’s invasion of Gaza is now ‘wait and see what happens’
On Sunday 29 October, Peter Kyle (shadow secretary for science, innovation, and technology) appeared on Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg. He was asked about Israel’s invasion of Gaza, and specifically about whether he supports it. Guest host Victoria Derbyshire asked Kyle:
do you support, then, Israel’s ground operation as the only way to eliminate Hamas?
Smirking and looking nervous, Kyle responded:
You are asking me to make judgements on military operations that are unfolding now.
That’s correct, yes. You are being asked to make judgements on things which are happening politically. Because you’re a politician. And you’re on a political talk show, being interviewed about the most important political story of the moment.
The question is this: is ‘wait and see’ Labour’s official stance on all conflict now, or was Kyle out of his depth and simply didn’t know how to justify his party’s terrible position?
Read on...
I knew he was bad, this is awful. No humanity.
— #StopStarmer#FreePaletine#FreeAssange (@Pampage95Page) October 29, 2023
Who is Peter Kyle?
Given the seriousness of the unfolding situation in Gaza, you may be wondering why Kyle – a guy you’ve likely never heard of – was sent out to answer questions. Could it be that no one else wanted to go out and defend Keir Starmer’s position? Given that he’s a vice-chair of Labour Friends of Israel, Kyle is one of the MPs who are most likely to agree with Starmer on this matter. According to Kyle himself, Labour is actually very united right now, as he said:
We are united as a party.
Derbyshire immediately responded:
Peter Kyle MP: "We are united as a party"
Victoria Derbyshire: "No you're not!" pic.twitter.com/gQMyqR6aGF
— Cllr Martin Abrams 🇵🇸 (@Martin_Abrams) October 29, 2023
Derbyshire had good reason to be so assertive, as she’d just noted:
You’ve just seen there the mayor of London Sadiq Khan, the leader of Scottish Labour Anas Sarwar, and your front bench colleague Yasmin Qureshi all calling for a ceasefire: why are they wrong?
Those of you with a basic grasp of the English language will understand that people who hold the opposite opinions to one another are not to be described as ‘united’. United in their disagreement, maybe, but that’s not what Derbyshire asked.
Pause for thought
Kyle waffled on about all the ways in which the Labour Party is allegedly united – none of which answered the question. Largely he talked about Starmer’s call for a ‘humanitarian pause’:
"They need food, they need water, medicine and they need fuel", says Peter Kyle calling for a humanitarian pause.
They need to be alive. They need the bombardment to stop. We need a ceasefire.#bbclaurak #CeasefireNOW
— Andrew Fisher (@FisherAndrew79) October 29, 2023
If you’re not sure what a humanitarian pause is, it’s a brief window in which the world will treat Palestinians humanely, to be followed by more of Israel’s inhumane treatment we’re witnessing right now. It’s unclear what the point of this would be other than to give Palestinians a misleading glimmer of hope between the airstrikes. Arguably the pause would be crueller than simply allowing the horror to continue unchecked. Clearly the only point would be to give the illusion that those calling for it have some shred of humanity:
"The IDF say civilian deaths are inevitable in order to elimate Hamsas. Do you accept that?"
Peter Kyle "I was an aid worker…"
"Its a yes or no"
"…[war is] barbaric, its unfair, thats why we should work to try & end this conflict"
So why aren't you calling for a ceasfire? pic.twitter.com/moBMMrSynh
— Saul Staniforth (@SaulStaniforth) October 29, 2023
Politically vacant
It’s probably not going to be Labour’s official stance that it will ‘wait and see what happens’ when one country invades another territory, because it already isn’t that. Just look at their criticism of Russia invading Ukraine. Starmer and Co. aren’t waiting to see what happens there, because it’s obviously wrong; much like it’s obviously wrong in Gaza.
Featured image via BBC – screengrab
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This is awful from Kyle. Look at the new Tory’s same as the old Tory’s. More treating the public like we are idiots , evasive deflection, no sign of straight forward honesty. Vote anyone but Labour or Conservatives at the next general election. We need much better than aloof twats treating us with contempt.
Whole families are being exterminated and when people resign, Labour calls it “shaking off the fleas”. Kick out every MP that failed to condemn apartheid Israel’s genocide.
Whichever of your writers thought it was “funny” to find moral equivalence between the genocide in Gaza, and Russia’s measured, careful and necessary denazification of Ukraine, which in 18 months of warfare over an entire country caused less civilian casualties than Israel did in a WEEK – a person so chickenshit they won’t even add their name(s), needs to check their moral compass. Why not add instead the truly “unprovoked” Western invasions of Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya & Syria?
No, it is not in fact “oviously wrong” to militarily intervene to prevent and actual slaughter, such as against the Donbass, and indeed against Gaza. If the moral superpowers, China and Russia militarily step in to thwart this open genocide, Israelis, and Israeli civilians, will obviously die. War is hell. Ask the Palestinians, who have had war waged them for the past 75+ years.
The Russian SMO was an attempt to PREVENT an occurance like this on their doorstep, once again planned, prepped and armed by the USA (And various poodles).
The people who are enacting the massive civilian deaths in Ukraine are the US & NATO – forced conscription of civilians, who are then sent to die in “meat waves” without training or equipment, rather than the obvious first step of starting negotiations.
The “West” will happily watch another million Ukrainians be killed uselessly, than admit their poxy proxy war has failed.
On the other hand, Russia has made ENORMOUS efforts to minimise Ukrainian civilian casualties – many of who have been actually killed by defective Western-supplied missiles hitting civilian buildings. These are just facts.
As for the humanity-free Kyle and Starver, I am not the slightest surprised after seeing the behaviour of his loyal fanbase in Hove online, “Blairite” and “delusional” sums them up – along with “dishonest”, – which is of course a subset of “Blairism”.
Who do they actually think they are FOOLING with that oh-so-carefully trained “Pretend-to-care” voice, all these nunuLabour apparatchiks and talking heads? I suppose the folk who WANT to believe there is more than a total moral vacuum in the PLP, and will clutch at even the remotest straws.
So this is the Establishment’s Plan B?
A different wing of the Tory Party, and nothing more.
Oh dear, one of those rare Russian sympathisers who doesn’t quite understand the situation or care to report the facts from both sides. Within your extensive essay, you forgot to mention the random bombings of schools, playgrounds, hospitals, and civilian residencies by the Russians; Russian tank operators shorting ‘point blank’ at civilians fleeing their hometowns.
PS. You forgot to add your name. Does this make you chicken**** too? Why not?
How marvelous! The Canary is lucky to have one of the 5 idiots who still manage to believe the Western Corporate media, post on it today!
But I’m surprised you didn’t mention the “Bucha Massacre”, where professional Russian soldiers marched those Ukrainians who sported the pro-Russian armbands into the street, and executed them as a warning to other Ukrainians not to support Russia. I suppose it COULD instead have been the Azov militia who entered Bucha after the Russian forces had peacefully left according to the Mayor, but I’m sure you’d agree that western corporate media would NEVER lie and spread disinformation about such matters, right?
Or you could also have mentioned the “Maternity Hospital Attack”, which I’m sure had you on the edge of your seat while pinning the Putin image to your dartboard. Although if your dart-throwing accuracy is anywhere near as good as your mental ability to differentiate between facts and outright western propaganda, a Banksy you will not be creating. But about that “Maternity Hospital Attack”… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6sFVtTvjCm8
Why yes, it was indeed a planned disinformation campaign.
On and on and on and on. Now, terrible things happen in WARs, just ask the 2.5+ MILLION so far victims of the Wars on Terra, but of course you’ll have to use a ouija board to do so.
Some Ukrainian civilians have died, and undoubtedly, Russian forces have made errors. But WITHOUT A SHADOW OF A DOUBT, Russian troops have behaved with astonishing restraint and professionalism, certainly far better and morally than British troops have in recent decades… or centuries. Ask the Irish, Africans, and Native Australians and Americans.
So you are just frothing, frankly, BS. As would be expected by a Western-apologist.
The extremely likely probability that most, if not all of those attacks on “random” civilian targets were not expensive Russian guided missiles aimed at fucking PLAYGROUNDS, but the extremely high failure rate of Western-supplied AD missiles that WOULD land randomly. But I understand in your added wits, rational thought probably emigrated a long time ago. It’s not your fault, clearly you allow the western corporate media to do your thinking for you. No, I will take that back – it IS your fault for being so stupid. Didn’t the non-existent WMDs wake you up? The non-existent Iraqi Babies in Incubators thrown onto floors? The non-existent massacre in Misrata? Donald Trump admitting they were in Syria to “Steal the oil”? FFS. Corbyn’s “deep racism” didn’t ring alarm bells?
As for your truly PATHETIC shot about “It’s not under your name either”, it may have escaped your two brain cells, who don’t talk to each other anymore anyway, but this is the COMMENTS section, and not the actual article, by a paid member of the Canary staff. Are you able to comprehend that difference?
I take the implied compliment, that my comment is as good as the proper article, so you got all mixed up, on board. Thank you.
Still, don’t you have some Murdoch, or GB ‘Schnews’ to imbibe, so you know whether to hate Eurasia or Eastasia today? You wouldn’t want to get it wrong!!!
Do us a favour and move to Moscow and report from the far superior and transparent press in Russia.
Typical of your type, luxuriating in the west’s freedom spouting absolute drivel that would see you in jail for a long time were you to speak out about your beloved Putin in Russia.
@M James : You might well find it enlightening to visit the Moon Of Alabama forum every day – up to the minute, non-western MSM spun news on both Ukraine and Palestine.
And all the claims of Russian atrocities against civilians are usually swiftly debunked, as well as the stuff our MSM wont report – like incidents of Ukrainian civilians actually being killed by Ukrainian anti-aircraft missiles returning to Earth.
And yet again we are faced with the annual hypocrisy-fest that is every single swinging **** on television sporting a red poppy. The UK supports arming nazis in Ukraine and an apartheid regime intent on destroying a people in the middle east and people still have the temerity to wear the badge of dishonour that is the red poppy. The hypocrisy is enough to make you vomit.
As commented above, put your money where your mouth is and move to Russia and enjoy the enlightenment of the Putin regime you admire so much. They are looking for volunteers for the front line.