Rayvin

FFS. Ok Phil, I'm a xenophobe. You got me. Which way is the queue for supporting Brexit and voting Tory?

Fuck off.

And my prejudice is what, exactly? I believe Jews should have a homeland and that Palestine has partial responsibility for the neverending nightmare that the whole situation over there has become. Firing rockets does warrant a response to protect your citizens. I do not believe they "run the world", I do not believe they are "responsible for all the world's problems". I believe America is the answer to both of those, broadly speaking. I would also argue that the Israel/Palestine issue is really Britain's fault anyway. Now that we've established I'm not the cardboard cutout of a radical left winger you so dearly wish I was, can you please fuck off with your strawman arguments?

There were people earlier in this thread discussion who were effectively claiming that Israel had been pulled in out of nowhere for absolutely no reason. The training programs demonstrate quite clearly in my view that this isn't the case. Israel has not necessarily been thrown into this from the position of innocent bystander who was blamed solely because they are Jewish. In effect there are two considerations here: 1 - RLB believes that Israel was involved in this because Jews are behind all the world's evils. 2 - RLB missed an uncited section about Israel training US police because, due to the brutality the state of Israel uses day to day in controlling their land, and the fact that they actually do carry out training programs, this was a believable statement that didn't warrant challenge. In my view, it is far, far more likely to be the second one. Which would of course, not be antisemitic. As I have said earlier, yes, as she isn't a layman but a front bench member of a Labour party mired in antisemitism scandals, she should have known better. She should have been sacked. It was an excellent political move on a number of fronts to sack her. I approve of all of that. But to believe she was being antisemitic you have to believe point 1 above, and with the awareness that Israeli training programs for police in the US do exist, it's not possible to be 100% confident in the statement, and in my view it tends much more probably over to point 2. EDIT - just to head it off before it happens, I'll return to my bold and underlined caveat from earlier posts: I do not believe that Israel taught that training technique in question here, and even if they did it still wouldn't be their fault that the US used it.

Have you read all my posts on this? If not, please do. "Surely I can see..." yes, I can. Which is why i posted about these exact points too.

It probably is as Phil says on this. Israel have a ruthless and no nonsense approach to most things, along with quite a lot of perpetual experience in quelling unrest. As I've mentioned repeatedly though, it doesn't look like they've actually trained in this technique. And I still feel that even if they had, it would be on the US' head nonetheless.

Finding myself able to believe something is not equivalent to suggesting it happened. Basic comprehension ffs. I will concede to have used Israeli police and special forces interchangeably in this but i hardly see that it's relevant.

If you can point out where I suggested that the Israeli military have a technique that involves kneeling on anyone's neck, I'll be impressed.

They give seminars apparently, including in the state Floyd was killed. There is loads of reporting on this, idk why you've decided to challenge me on it. https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/jun/25/long-baileys-sacking-sparks-renewed-focus-on-us-and-israeli-police-links "There is no doubt that there are many programmes involving Israeli officials offering training to US police forces. Some programmes are conducted on US soil in conjunction with the Israeli embassy, such as a 2012 event where 100 officers from Minnetonka – a city 8 miles from Minneapolis, where Floyd was killed – were trained on how to combat terrorists. Other programmes, often organised by pro-Israel organisations based in the US, involved flying small groups of officers to Israel for training programmes. Such police exchanges are not uncommon."

I mean if you're gonna delete the post it's just not fun

Blair was a dude.

I guess third time might be the charm for the moderate wing, you never know. I still think they're fucked next time out, but not as fucked as they would have been under RLB.

Also my view. Or at the very least what I hope. The far left were going to hate anyone who came forward who wasn't from their team. They've been absolutely pathetic since he came in, article after article trying to undermine the guy. Pointless.

Yep, well said. Starmer is absolutely carrying on the right way. It's also, tbf, a fantastic opportunity for him which demonstrates a good reading of politics. He's made Johnson look weak as shit (Jenrick), made a clear statement on antisemitism, and neutered the remaining elements of the Corbynite faction. It's just a great move.

It's circular now anyway really. RLB is a twat in general, I won't miss her, and I think this was the right move by Starmer. Whether it's "fair" is another question entirely, but not one that really matters in politics.

Even if Israel special forces had taught this, it's still the US' fault. The point is, it's not as if Israel have been plucked out of thin air on this. As you can see quite clearly at this point, I suspect.

Are any other non-US special forces training the US police?

This much I agree with.

What isn't? The technique? I mean I don't think that matters, if special forces from any country are training US police, then why would we look at who invented it? It has no relevance when talking about where the US learned it from. Also, another key fucking point here - even if Israel did teach them this (and again, as I have said, I don't believe that), that doesn't mean the US just has to accept everything they're told by foreign actors. The US bears total responsibility for the actions of their forces.

It does also appear that the US police work very closely in training with the Israeli military, so while this technique is presumably not part of the training (and therefore flagging it as such is ignorant and sowing misinformation), it is also not as if Israel has been plucked out of nowhere as such. "Police all over the world" might use this technique, but how many of them are training the US police force? I'm going to outline again that I support this decision even if it turns out that the Israeli police did train the US police to do this (not that I believe at present that they did) - mostly because it's good politics, makes it clear which side Starmer is on, and has the benefit of forcing the issue away from the leadership.

RLB didn't though. It was just one sentence in an otherwise detailed article, written by someone else, about a separate issue. All I'm saying is, I can see many people gliding right over that without even taking it in, and then tweeting that they support the article. I fully agree that we need to stop talking about Israel, I'm just saying that I think this is probably more a mistake/oversight than an endorsement of the view. Not that this changes the fact that politically, Starmer has made the right choice.

I mean, I could believe that it's an Israeli police technique - not because they're Jewish, but because Israel has a reputation based on decades of oppressive violence against Palestinians. I do accept that making the claim without it being true, coming from a left winger, IS antisemitic. But I suspect I wouldn't have picked up on it from reading the article given that, based on how Israel goes on, it's entirely believable. However, I'm not a politician in a party that should be on high alert for antisemitism.

On reflection I think it's probably more that he wanted to make a firm statement on antisemitism. RLB is probably only a secondary concern. EDIT - I mean she's not exactly a threat, she's very mediocre.

I think this was the right move by Starmer, but he was clearly just looking for an excuse because there's really nothing in that. It does make a very clear statement though. This will be it for the far left in Labour - they'll leave in droves and then we can see what the remainder looks like I guess. I won't miss them but I hope they don't turn on us next time out...

Is he actually unhinged? Like, not in a joking way, in a serious and concerning way?