Peter Myers Digest: March 8, 2024 – Situation Report: The World

(1) Feb 29 massacre: more than 80% of patients had been struck by gunfire
(2) After opening fire, Israeli tanks ran over many of the dead and injured bodies
(3) Israeli forces shell Gaza crowd waiting for aid trucks
(4) Injured survivors say Israeli forces shot at them
(5) “Once we approached the aid trucks, the Israeli tanks and warplanes started firing at us”
(6) Evangelicals back Genocide in Gaza
(7) Archbishop of Canterbury ‘deeply horrified’ by Israeli bombardments of Gaza
(8) King Charles & Royal Family are Zionists
(9) Biden Hiding Weapons Shipments To Israel. Sent > 100 shipments, but declared only 2
(10) WSJ: Admin has sent > 100 shipments, but notified Congress of only 2
(11) A Crisis of Jewishness: Progressive Jews anguish over Jewish Genocide
(12) Jeffrey Sachs’ 2-State Solution: a Shotgun wedding
(13) George Galloway back in House of Commons, on Gaza protest & anti-Woke vote

(1) Feb 29 massacre: more than 80% of patients had been struck by gunfire

https://apnews.com/article/israel-hamas-war-news-03-01-2024-86ab114fc0036d0b4fa5a69ed21964c6

Gaza doctor says gunfire accounted for 80% of the wounds at his
hospital from aid convoy bloodshed

BY WAFAA SHURAFA AND BASSEM MROUE
Updated 11:01 AM GMT+10, March 2, 2024

RAFAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — The head of a Gaza City hospital that treated
some of the Palestinians wounded in the bloodshed surrounding an aid
convoy said Friday that more than 80% had been struck by gunfire,
suggesting there was heavy shooting by Israeli troops.

At least 115 Palestinians were killed and more than 750 others injured
Thursday, according to health officials, when witnesses said nearby
Israeli troops opened fire as huge crowds raced to pull goods off an
aid convoy. Israel said many of the dead were trampled in a crowd
surge that started when desperate Palestinians in Gaza rushed the aid
trucks. Israel said its troops fired warning shots after the crowd
moved toward them in a threatening way.

Dr. Mohammed Salha, the acting director of Al-Awda Hospital, told The
Associated Press that of the 176 wounded brought to the facility, 142
had gunshot wounds and the other 34 showed injuries from a stampede.

He couldn’t address the cause of death of those killed, because the
bodies were taken to government-run hospitals to be counted.

(2) After opening fire, Israeli tanks ran over many of the dead and injured bodies

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/2/29/dozens-killed-injured-by-israeli-fire-in-gaza-while-collecting-food-aid

‘Massacre’: Dozens killed by Israeli fire in Gaza while collecting food aid

More than 100 killed and about 750 wounded after Israeli forces fired at Palestinians trying to get flour for their families as famine stalks the Strip.

By Al Jazeera Staff

Published On 29 Feb 2024

More than 100 Palestinians have been killed and some 700 others wounded after Israeli troops opened fire on hundreds waiting for food aid southwest of Gaza City, health officials say, as the besieged enclave faces an unprecedented hunger crisis. …

People had congregated at al-Rashid Street, where aid trucks carrying flour were believed to be on the way. Al Jazeera verified footage showing the bodies of dozens of killed and wounded Palestinians being carried onto trucks as no ambulances could reach the area.

“We went to get flour. The Israeli army shot at us. There are many martyrs on the ground and until this moment we are withdrawing them. There is no first aid,” said one witness.

Reporting from the scene, Al Jazeera’s Ismail al-Ghoul said that after opening fire, Israeli tanks advanced and ran over many of the dead and injured bodies. “It is a massacre, on top of the starvation threatening citizens in Gaza,” he said.

The dead and wounded had been taken to four medical centres: al-Shifa, Kamal Adwan, Ahli and the Jordanian hospitals. Ambulances could not reach the area as the roads had been “totally destroyed”, said al-Ghoul.

“The numbers will rise. Hospitals are no longer able to accommodate the huge number of patients because they lack fuel, let alone medicine. Hospitals have also run out of blood.”

Reporting from occupied East Jerusalem, Al Jazeera’s Bernard Smith said the Israeli military “initially tried to pin the blame on the crowd” saying that dozens were hurt as a consequence of being crushed and trampled when aid trucks arrived.

“And then, after some pushing the Israelis went on to say that their troops felt threatened, that hundreds of troops approached their troops in a way they posed a threat to them so they responded by opening fire,” Smith added. …

One Palestinian man told Quds News Network the military attack was a “crime”.

“I have been waiting since yesterday. At about 4:30 this morning, trucks started to come through. Once we approached the aid trucks, the Israeli tanks and warplanes started firing at us, as if it was a trap. …

Jadallah al-Shafei, the head of the nurses’ department at al-Shifa Hospital, said that “the situation is beyond any words”, adding that “the hospital was flooded with dozens of dead bodies and hundreds of injured”.

“The majority of the victims suffered gunshots and shrapnel in the head and upper parts of their bodies. They were hit by direct artillery shelling, drone missiles and gun firing,” he told Al Jazeera. …

(3) Israeli forces shell Gaza crowd waiting for aid trucks

https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20240223-gaza-is-a-death-zone-who-warns-as-israel-continues-to-ban-entry-of-aid/

Over 100 killed as Israeli forces shell crowd waiting for aid in Gaza

At least 104 Palestinians were killed and 760 others injured when Israeli forces shelled a crowd waiting for humanitarian aid south of Gaza City on Thursday, the Health Ministry in Gaza said.

February 23, 2024 at 12:00 am

A screen grab captured from a video shows Israeli forces targeting Palestinians, surrounding humanitarian aid trucks, as Israeli soldiers receive them as a threat and open fire on the crowd in Gaza City, Gaza on February 29, 2024. [Stringer – Anadolu Agency]

(4) Injured survivors say Israeli forces shot at them

https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20240301-injured-survivors-of-gaza-aid-chaos-say-israeli-forces-shot-at-them/

Injured survivors of Gaza aid chaos say Israeli forces shot at them

March 1, 2024 at 8:22 pm

Some Palestinians injured in a Gaza aid delivery disaster said on Friday that Israeli forces shot them as they rushed to get food for their families, describing a scene of terror and chaos, Reuters reports.

Health authorities in Gaza said 115 people were killed in the incident on Thursday, attributing the deaths to Israeli fire and calling it a massacre.

Israel disputed those figures and said most victims were trampled or run over.

However, one Israeli official also said soldiers fired warning shots in the air and then fired at those who did not move away and were seen as a threat, adding when asked how many people were shot that this was “limited fire”. …

(5) “Once we approached the aid trucks, the Israeli tanks and warplanes started firing at us”

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/2/29/dozens-killed-injured-by-israeli-fire-in-gaza-while-collecting-food-aid

‘Massacre’: Dozens killed by Israeli fire in Gaza while collecting food aid

More than 100 killed and about 750 wounded after Israeli forces fired at Palestinians trying to get flour for their families as famine stalks the Strip.

By Al Jazeera Staff
Published On 29 Feb 2024

‘Beyond words’

One Palestinian man told Quds News Network the military attack was a “crime”.

“To the Arab states I say, if you want to have us killed, why are you sending relief aid? If this continues, we do not want any aid delivered at all. Every convoy coming means another massacre.”

Famine

On Wednesday, Carl Skau, deputy executive director of the World Food Programme (WFP), told the United Nations Security Council more than 500,000, or one in four people, were at risk of famine, with one in every six children below the age of two considered acutely malnourished.

“The risk of famine is being fuelled by the inability to bring critical food supplies into Gaza in sufficient quantities, and the almost impossible operating conditions faced by our staff on the ground,” he said.

He described dangerous conditions for WFP trucks trying to get food to the north earlier this month. “There were delays at checkpoints; they faced gunfire and other violence; food was looted along the way; and at their destination, they were overwhelmed by desperately hungry people,” said Skau. …

(6) Evangelicals back Genocide in Gaza

During Gaza war, evangelicals have become Israel’s best friend

During Gaza war, evangelicals have become Israel’s best friend

As criticism against Israel mounts and pressure for a ceasefire rises, Israeli leaders are working to shore up evangelical support.

February 28, 2024
By Bob Smietana, Yonat Shimron

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (RNS) — … Evangelical Christians have long been the backbone of U.S. support for Israel and are arguably among Israel’s most ardent advocates. They travel to Israel in great numbers. They donate vast sums of money and advocate for Israel in Republican Party circles.

After the Oct. 7 Hamas attack in southern Israel killed an estimated 1,200, evangelicals jumped to defend Israel and raise money to rebuild its border communities. The Southern Baptist Convention’s public policy arm issued an <https://erlc.com/resource-library/statements/israel/> “Evangelical Statement in Support of Israel.”

Evangelist Franklin Graham donated 21 new ambulances to Israel’s EMS fleet, known as Magen David Adom, becoming the national nonprofit’s largest donor, said Catherine Reed, CEO of American Friends of Magen David Adom.

“The evangelical community loves Israel,” said Reed, who brought her team, including an Israeli ambulance and a series of short videos about the nonprofit, to the exhibition floor of the National Religious Broadcasters meeting as a way to thank evangelicals for their support.

Reminders of the Oct. 7 attacks were everywhere at the conference. Not far from the exhibitors hall, conference attendees could watch “Bear Witness,” a three-minute video of the Hamas attacks using virtual headsets. The exhibit where the video was being shown was flanked by Israeli flags and Nashville Metro police officers providing added security.

A few floors up, a 45-minute version of the video — taken from footage filmed by Hamas — was being shown to groups of pastors, broadcasters and other attendees. After watching the footage, the groups heard from families of hostages and IDF officers. The videos have also been shown around the country to build support for Israel <https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/community/miami-dade/downtown-miami/article282726593.html> after the attacks.

There is good reason for Israel to woo evangelicals. They are mightier in numbers than Jews, said Dov Waxman, professor of Israel studies at the University of California, Los Angeles.

“Many people, when they think about Zionists in America, think about Jewish Americans,” said Waxman. “But in actual fact, there are many, many more Christian Zionists than there are Jewish Zionists in the United States.”

Exactly how many is hard to estimate. Mordechai Inbari, a professor of religion at the University of North Carolina, Pembroke, found of the estimated 80 million U.S. evangelicals, between 50% to 70% support Israel.

By contrast, there are close to 8 million Jews in the U.S. Those Jews tend to be far more liberal and vote Democratic. Far-left U.S. Jews have been among the most passionate critics of the war in Gaza, calling for a cease-fire in petitions and protests.

Christian support for Israel has often been rooted in beliefs about the end times. For some evangelicals, the creation of the state of Israel in 1948, and its ability to capture the West Bank and Gaza in the 1967 Six-Day War, reinforced the belief that Israel is the culmination of prophecies recorded in the Bible and may presage the second coming of Jesus.

However, that belief seems to hold less sway in the current conflict than larger claims about God’s promises to Israel.

“The most common argument right now would be that God made a covenant with Abraham and his offspring and this is why they need to support Israel,” said Inbari, the co-author with Kirill Bumin of <https://global.oup.com/academic/product/christian-zionism-in-the-twenty-first-century-9780197649305?cc=us&lang=en&> “Christian Zionism in the Twenty-First Century.”

During NRB, several speakers cited a passage from the Book of Genesis where God tells Abraham, one of the patriarchs of Israel, “I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse.” A similar claim is found in the Book of Numbers.

But younger evangelicals are more skeptical about ties to Israel and have become more supportive of Palestinians. In three waves of a survey that examined evangelical views of Israel, Inbari and Bumin found that among evangelicals aged 19-29, support for Israel dropped by more than half, from a high of 69% in 2018 to 29% in July 2021….

(7) Archbishop of Canterbury ‘deeply horrified’ by Israeli bombardments of Gaza

https://www.aa.com.tr/en/europe/top-english-cleric-deeply-horrified-by-israeli-bombardments-of-gaza/3158619

Top English cleric ‘deeply horrified’ by Israeli bombardments of Gaza

‘I renew my commitment to stand in solidarity with our Palestinian Christian brothers and sisters and with the people of Gaza,’ says Archbishop of Canterbury

Burak Bir |08.03.2024 – Update : 08.03.2024
The Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby leads during the Palm Sunday celebration on April 02, 2023, in Canterbury, Kent, UK.

LONDON

England’s top cleric, the archbishop of Canterbury, said Thursday that he is “deeply horrified” by Israel’s bombardments and siege of Gaza and condemns the killing of Palestinian civilians.

“I condemn the killing of Palestinian civilians, the destruction of homes and neighborhoods, and pushing people to the brink of starvation – there is no moral justification for this,” Justin Welby said on X.

His remarks came after his conversation with Munther Isaac, a Palestinian Christian pastor and theologian.

“In listening to him, I continue to be deeply horrified by Israel’s bombardment and siege of Gaza.

“I renew my commitment to stand in solidarity with our Palestinian Christian brothers and sisters and with the people of Gaza,” Welby added.

Welby reiterated his call for an immediate cease-fire, for aid to reach all those in desperate need, and for the release of all hostages.

“I continue to pray for all Palestinians caught up in this terrible violence, and for hostages and their families. I pray for a different path towards a just and lasting peace for all,” he added.

Israel has waged a deadly military offensive on the Gaza Strip since an Oct. 7 attack by the Palestinian group Hamas, which Tel Aviv said killed nearly 1,200 people.

More than 30,700 Palestinians have since been killed and over 72,000 others injured amid mass destruction and shortages of necessities.

Israel has also imposed a crippling blockade on the Gaza Strip, leaving its population, particularly residents of northern Gaza, on the verge of starvation.

The Israeli war has pushed 85% of Gaza’s population into internal displacement amid acute shortages of food, clean water and medicine, while 60% of the enclave’s infrastructure has been damaged or destroyed, according to the UN.

Israel stands accused of genocide at the International Court of Justice (ICJ). An interim ruling in January ordered Tel Aviv to stop genocidal acts and take measures to guarantee that humanitarian assistance is provided to civilians in Gaza.

(8) King Charles & Royal Family are Zionists

https://thecradle.co/articles/the-united-kingdom-zionisms-covert-nerve-center

The United Kingdom: Zionism’s covert nerve center

Britain’s century-long commitment to Zionism and collaboration with Israel today plays a frequently overlooked role in perpetuating the oppression and genocide against Palestinians.

Kit Klarenberg

MAR 5, 2024

Britain’s role in sustaining the Zionist entity

<https://www.declassifieduk.org/u-k-is-training-israeli-military-in-britain/> On 9 February, British Defense Minister James Heappey informed parliament that Israeli military operatives are “currently … posted in the UK,” both within Tel Aviv’s diplomatic mission “and as participants in UK defense-led training courses.” This hitherto unacknowledged arrangement amply demonstrates how, despite <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5y-R7u7ite0> recent calls from officials in London for Benjamin Netanyahu’s government to exercise restraint in its genocide of Gaza – if not institute a ceasefire – the UK remains international Zionism’s covert nerve center.

Mere days earlier, Heappey <https://questions-statements.parliament.uk/written-questions/detail/2024-02-01/12729> likewise admitted that nine Israeli military aircraft landed in Britain since Operation Al Aqsa Flood on 7 October last year. Investigations by independent investigative website Declassified UK show that Royal Air Force aircraft <https://www.declassifieduk.org/u-k-is-training-israeli-military-in-britain/> have flown to and from Israel in the same period, along with 65 spy plane missions launched from the UK’s vast, little-known military and intelligence <https://commonwealthchamber.com/associated-territories/sovereign-base-areas-of-akrotiri-and-dhekelia-on-cyprus/> base in Cyprus.

The purpose of those flights and who and/or what they carried are a state secret. Freedom of Information requests have been denied, Britain’s Ministry of Defense has refused to comment, and local media is by and large silent.

Nonetheless, in <https://twitter.com/declassifieduk/status/1681202286612082695?s=12&t=36dTnOCYhvcJ2igaIuakuA> July 2023, British ministers admitted that the UK’s training of Israeli military personnel includes battlefield medical assistance, “organizational design and concepts,” and “defense education.” It is unknown if that “education” has in any way informed <https://reliefweb.int/report/occupied-palestinian-territory/nearly-30000-palestinians-killed-during-82-day-israeli-genocide-gaza-enar> the slaughter of more than 30,000 Palestinians since 7 October.

British military presence in occupied Palestine

Yet, indications that London has long provided a highly influential guiding hand to Tel Aviv in its oppression and mass murder of Palestinians are unambiguous, even if hidden in plain sight. For example, in <https://ukdefencejournal.org.uk/israeli-fighter-jets-to-take-part-in-exercise-over-british-skies/> September 2019, the Israeli air force participated in a joint combat exercise with its British, German, and Italian counterparts.

The Israelis deployed F-15 warplanes for the purpose, which have been blitzing Gaza on a virtually daily basis since 7 October, indiscriminately flattening schools, hospitals, businesses, and homes and killing untold innocents.

A year earlier, in October 2022, it was <https://questions-statements.parliament.uk/written-questions/detail/2022-10-18/66031/> quietly admitted in parliament that London maintains several “permanent military personnel in Israel,” all posted in the British Embassy in Tel Aviv:

“They carry out key activities in defense engagement and diplomacy. The Ministry of Defense supports the HMG Middle East Peace Process Programme in the Occupied Palestinian Territories and Israel. The program aims to help protect the political and physical viability of a two-state solution. We would not disclose the location and numbers of military personnel for security reasons.”

‘Joint activity’

Netanyahu and other Israeli officials have openly and repeatedly boasted of their personal role in blocking Palestinian statehood. We are thus left to ponder what these British operatives are truly concerned about – it certainly isn’t protecting “the political and physical viability of a two-state solution,” as that entire project was evidently never “viable,” by design. It could be those “permanent military personnel” who are present under the auspices of a highly confidential <https://www.declassifieduk.org/the-icc-must-investigate-british-ministers-for-gaza-war-crimes-heres-how/> December 2020 military cooperation agreement inked by London and Tel Aviv.

British Ministry of Defense officials describe the agreement as an “important piece of defense diplomacy,” which “strengthens” military ties between the pair while providing “a mechanism for planning our joint activity.”

Its contents are nonetheless concealed not only from the public but also from elected lawmakers. Speculation can only abound that the agreement compels Britain to defend Israel in the event it is attacked. Such suspicions are only compounded by the <https://www.kitklarenberg.com/p/britains-sas-abetting-gaza-genocide> visible presence of the UK’s elite SAS forces in Gaza today.

As a <https://thecradle.co/articles/secrecy-shrouds-british-military-actions-in-lebanon> December 2023 investigation by The Cradle revealed, this apparent deployment is protected from media and public scrutiny by a dedicated Ministry of Defense-issued D-notice, as are other ominous indicators Britain is shaping the theater and setting the stage in West Asia for a full-blown, protracted region-wide war.

This included an as-yet-failed effort <https://thecradle.co/articles-id/13215> to pressure Beirut into allowing armed British soldiers total, unrestricted freedom of movement within Lebanon, along with immunity from arrest and prosecution for committing any crime.

The monarchy’s departure from neutrality

At <https://twitter.com/AlanRMacLeod/status/1713498386018582881> countless protests the world over in solidarity with Palestinians since last October, demonstrators have brandished banners and signs imploring US President Joe Biden to impose a ceasefire in Gaza, if not order Netanyahu to seek peace. It is a noble demand, yet potentially misdirected. The true power to halt Tel Aviv’s current push to fulfill Zionism’s genocidal founding mission may not lie in Washington DC but in London – specifically, Buckingham Palace.

An extraordinary and largely unremarked upon development since Israel’s military assault on Gaza began has been the British monarchy’s shameless abandonment of “political neutrality” over Israel.

Queen Elizabeth II, publicly at least, refrained from commenting on current affairs or appearing to take “sides” on any issue throughout her 70-year reign. However, her recently coronated son has apparently, without fanfare, comprehensively shredded that longstanding convention.

King Charles the Zionist

Within hours of Operation Al-Aqsa Flood’s eruption, King Charles <https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/uks-king-charles-appalled-by-barbaric-acts-israel-spokesperson-says-2023-10-11/> openly condemned Hamas, saying he was “profoundly distressed” and “appalled” by the “horrors inflicted” by the resistance group and its “barbaric acts of terrorism.” Hamas is not recognized as a terrorist entity by a majority of countries internationally, while the BBC – which has relentlessly <https://english.almayadeen.net/articles/analysis/western-media-manufactures-consent-for-gaza-genocide> manufactured consent for genocide in Gaza every step of the way – rejects the <https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-67083432> designation’s use.

In the years immediately prior to taking the throne, Charles made his Zionism <https://www.timesofisrael.com/the-royal-familys-800-year-relationship-with-britains-jews-in-7-historical-tidbits/> abundantly clear, breaking with his mother’s unspoken policy of not visiting Israel, secretly attending the funerals of former Israeli leaders Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres. In the latter instance, in 2016, he also <https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-716906> visited the graves of his grandmother, Princess Alice, and her aunt, Grand Duchess Elisabeth, in a cemetery on Jerusalem’s Mount of Olives, near the world’s largest Jewish cemetery. Both were Christian Zionists.

The Jerusalem Post <https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-716906> approvingly dubbed Charles’ Zionist sympathies and familial connection to the Mount “a problem for Palestinians,” arguing he has a clear view of “who the city and the country belong to.” Meanwhile, the Times of Israel <https://www.timesofisrael.com/king-charles-iii-a-friend-to-uk-jewry-with-special-and-historic-ties-to-israel/> has hailed him as “a friend” to Jewry “with special and historic ties to Israel.” One such “tie” was an <https://www.timesofisrael.com/prince-charles-mourns-uks-rabbi-jonathan-sacks-he-spanned-sacred-and-secular/> intimate friendship with Britain’s former chief Rabbi and President of United Jewish Israel Appeal, Jonathan Sacks.

Educational indoctrination

Among other proselytizing acts, <https://ujia.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/5742-UJIA-Annual-Report-2018-2019-SP-ONLINE.pdf> Sacks oversaw and advocated a number of operations intended to indoctrinate schoolchildren of all ages in Zionism, often under the bogus aegis of countering “antisemitism” in classrooms and on campuses. It may well be no coincidence then that the Department for Education has <https://www.contractsfinder.service.gov.uk/Notice/79abdcb2-29af-481d-ae0e-deab2c90c285> softly unveiled a multimillion-pound effort to train “staff and learners” at British schools, colleges, and universities to “identify and tackle incidents of antisemitism.”

A noble endeavor, one might argue. But it is evidently in keeping with Sacks’ pet projects. Among the program’s key stated objectives is “providing education staff with the necessary tools to hold and facilitate discussions on the historic and current conflicts [in West Asia] and tackling disinformation … including on the situation in Israel following the terrorist attacks on 7 October.” It also intends for universities to “demonstrate practical commitment to the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism.”

Manufacturing and maintaining the Zionist entity

Most British universities have accepted the highly controversial IHRA definition under <https://www.theguardian.com/education/2023/sep/13/antisemitism-definition-used-by-uk-universities-leading-to-unreasonable-accusations> direct government threat of funding cuts if they refused. The definition’s validity and legitimacy have been widely challenged, including by academic David Feldman, one of its authors. In 2017, he expressed <http://blogs.bbk.ac.uk/bbkcomments/2017/01/03/will-britains-new-definition-of-antisemitism-help-jewish-people-im-sceptical/> grave concerns that “this definition is imprecise,” falsely equating Judaism and Israel with an overwhelming focus on the latter, producing “a danger that the overall effect will place the onus on Israel’s critics to demonstrate they are not antisemitic.”

The initiative is unambiguously concerned with stifling criticism of Israel and its occupation while ensuring British youth are, from the earliest, most formative age, propagandized in its support.

His Majesty’s government clearly believes in Tel Aviv’s future endurance, and is in for the long haul, in terms of helping preserve the Mephistophelian project. There can surely be no greater proof that the current crisis in West Asia was made in London.

(9) Biden Hiding Weapons Shipments To Israel. Sent > 100 shipments, but declared only 2

https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/biden-hiding-weapons-shipments-israel-ignores-illegal-west-bank-settlements

Biden Is Hiding Weapons Shipments To Israel & Ignores West Bank Settlements

BY TYLER DURDEN
FRIDAY, MAR 08, 2024 – 02:25 AM

<https://mishtalk.com/economics/biden-is-hiding-weapons-shipments-to-israel-and-ignores-illegal-west-bank-settlements/>Authored by Mike Shedlock via MishTalk.com,

Weapons shipments that exceed a certain amount require notices to Congress. Biden’s solution is to make the shipments smaller and send hundreds more of them.

<https://www.zerohedge.com/s3/files/inline-images/israelsoldierleb.jpg?itok=d2vVQknL> Via Reuters

The Arms Pipeline to Israel

The Wall Street Journal notes <https://www.wsj.com/world/how-the-u-s-arms-pipeline-to-israel-avoids-public-disclosure-e238de75>How the U.S. Arms Pipeline to Israel Avoids Public Disclosure

The U.S. has sent tens of thousands of weapons including bombs and precision guided munitions to Israel since Hamas’s Oct. 7 attacks using procedures that have largely masked the scale of the administration’s military support for its closest Middle East ally, according to current and former U.S. officials.

The administration has organized more than 100 individual transfers of arms to Israel, but has only officially notified Congress of two shipments made under the major foreign weapons sales process, which are usually submitted to lawmakers for review and then publicly disclosed, U.S. officials said. In both cases, the administration used an emergency rule that avoids the review process.

The rest of the transfers have been approved using less public mechanisms available to the White House. Those include drawing from U.S. stockpiles, accelerating previously approved deliveries and sending weapons in smaller batches that fall below a dollar threshold that requires the administration to notify Congress, according to current and former U.S. officials.

“While the State Department has no legal obligation to notify below-threshold arms transfers, using this process to repeatedly end-run Congress—as sales of this quantity suggest—would violate the spirit of the law and undermine Congress’s important oversight role” Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D., Md.), a member of the Foreign Relations Committee, told The Wall Street Journal. …

(10) WSJ: Admin has sent > 100 shipments, but notified Congress of only 2

https://www.wsj.com/world/how-the-u-s-arms-pipeline-to-israel-avoids-public-disclosure-e238de75

How the U.S. Arms Pipeline to Israel Avoids Public Disclosure
Weapons transfers underscore Biden administration’s balancing act amid some lawmakers’ concerns about Gaza war

By
Jared Malsin
and
Nancy A. Youssef

March 6, 2024 5:57 pm ET

(11) A Crisis of Jewishness: Progressive Jews anguish over Jewish Genocide

https://www.informationliberation.com/?id=64326

WashPost Column Tells Progressive Jews to Support Israel or Get Excommunicated

Chris Menahan

InformationLiberation
Mar. 07, 2024

The Washington Post ran a column from Noah Feldman on Tuesday telling progressive Jews to get with the program and back Israel’s genocide campaign in Gaza or face excommunication.

After paragraph upon paragraph aimed at building rapport with the progressive Jews Feldman is targeting, he finally got to the point at the end of his column.

From <https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/03/05/noah-feldman-jews-israel-progressive-justice-theology-politics/> The Washington Post, “To be a Jew today: The aftermath of Oct. 7” (<https://archive.is/hxulK> Archive):

[Young progressive Jews] believe in the teachings of social justice that compel them to social action. But they also find that they cannot avoid what they see as the broken reality of Israel.

[…] Their solution — their Jewish, progressive, sincerely felt solution — is to express their belief in social justice by criticizing or condemning Israel for its failures of equality, liberty, dignity and human rights.

[…] As today’s college students become adults and gradually assume leadership of their movements, progressive Judaism will have to work out its long-term attitude toward Israel. One possibility is for progressive Jews to tack away from the focus on Israel, to engage their Jewishness in other ways — familial, spiritual and personal. This would entail real theological change.

But so would embracing simultaneously a God of loving social justice and a state that rejects liberal democracy. Israel will not change just because progressive American Jews want it to. They will have to find their own answers to the looming crisis facing them — and soon, before a new generation finds itself alienated from a Jewishness whose inner contradictions it cannot reconcile.

At the individual level, Jews who want to think less about Israel also face serious challenges because Jewishness is a collective identity. If most Jews self-define in relation to Israel, positively or negatively, it is hard for any Jews to choose not to do so.

Yet a turn to a Jewishness that is more personal, familial and spiritual and less national-political may be the inevitable result, even if no formal movement within Jewish life consciously adopts such a policy. If this happens, Jews will have to draw more than ever on their rich traditions of faith, doubt, struggle and love — and do so as families, rather than as a nation.

Translation: get with the program and back Israel’s genocide campaign or face excommunication. Israel’s not going to change anything — and you will never be given any national-political power — so you need to change yourself to get in line with Israel (or become a hermit and stay the hell out of our way).

ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt said similar in the wake of October 7, <https://www.informationliberation.com/?id=64046> stating that “every Jewish person is a Zionist” and <https://www.informationliberation.com/?id=64062> labeling anti-Zionist Jews (whom he stripped of their Jewishness) as a “hate group.”

Noah Feldman, who is a professor at Harvard Law School, is the same writer <https://www.informationliberation.com/?id=64314> who had the cover story in Time Magazine last week on “The New Anti-Semitism” which argued that the entire world was antisemitic for opposing Israel’s genocide of women and children in Gaza.

Israel is going to have to come to terms with the fact that young people are seeing through their lies.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/03/05/noah-feldman-jews-israel-progressive-justice-theology-politics/

5 Mar 2024 14:47:41 UTC

Opinion To be a Jew today: The aftermath of Oct. 7
By Noah Feldman
March 5, 2024 at 6:00 a.m. EST

Noah Feldman is a professor of law at Harvard University, a columnist for Bloomberg Opinion and the author, most recently, of “To Be a Jew Today: A New Guide to God, Israel, and the Jewish People,” from which the following is excerpted.

Since the 2023 Hamas-Israel war broke out, almost no subject has garnered more global attention than Israel. For many Jews, both outside and inside Israel, the Gaza conflict feels pivotal. Since Oct. 7, Jews everywhere, whether sympathetic to Israel or critical or some combination, have found they have no choice but to deal with Israel’s impact and significance on their lives and feelings — whether they want to or not. This experience calls for a new account of what Israel means for being a Jew today.

To avoid oversimplifying would take a whole book — and in fact this essay is drawn from a book about being a Jew today that I’ve been writing for the past three years and thinking about most of my adult life. In it, I argue that the Jews are like a big, loving, sometimes dysfunctional family, united in their struggle to make sense of their relationship to God (whether He exists or not) and one another. Indeed, what makes the Jewish way of seeing the world distinctive is precisely that love and struggle are inextricably intertwined in it, as they are in most families.

This love-struggle is the key to understanding what’s going on for many Jews today, in the aftermath of Oct. 7. To understand it, you have to go back to what the classical, secular Zionists who dreamed up and first built Israel wanted it to mean. The Zionists wanted the Jews to be a sovereign nation, not a feuding family. For them, a Jewish state was not supposed to be an event in Jewish history. It was supposed to be the end of Jewish history, understood as a tale of suffering in the diaspora. Israel was meant to transcend and replace religious Jewishness and begin a new national era — picking up where Israelite sovereignty had ended at the hands of Rome, 2,000 years before.

In this way, the original Zionist idea of Israel intended to secularize the old Jewish idea of the messiah into a modern nationalism disenchanted with outmoded religious faith. The utopian, secular-messianic age and the ingathering of the exiles would put an end to the vicissitudes of Jewish survival and suffering that marked God’s intermittent reward and punishment of the Jewish people. A secular state would make the world’s Jews into an ordinary, normal nation, like France or Italy, not a far-flung people doomed to live as an oppressed, neurotic minority wherever they might wash up.

It didn’t work out exactly as planned. Over the years, bolstered by military success, economic growth and skillful statecraft, Israel grew increasingly secure. Yet, notwithstanding its nuclear weapons, it did not fully achieve the Zionists’ aspiration of being independently capable of protecting the Jews who lived there, much less all Jews everywhere. Israel remains partly dependent for its security on a close relationship with the United States, and this relies in no small part on the support of the American Jewish community.

As you read these words, the community of progressive American Jews is going through a painful generational conflict — a family struggle tinged by love and pain. On one side are the people roughly my age: the Gen X leaders of the movement, rabbis and lay people alike. They are, for the most part, center or center-left Democrats.

On the other side of the conflict are the kids, whose views on Israel are often very different. Some Gen Z progressive Jews participate in campus organizations like Students for Justice in Palestine, a “collective of organizers that supports over 200 Palestine solidarity organizations on college campuses across occupied Turtle Island (U.S. and Canada).” On Oct. 12, as Israel began its response to Hamas’s attack on Israeli civilians, SJP’s national office posted on social media “condemning the Zionist project and their latest genocidal attack on the Palestinian people.”

Jewish Voice for Peace is a group that supports the campaign for boycott, divestment and sanctions and works alongside SJP. Its website boasts of 60 chapters, 200,000 supporters and 10,000 donors. The organization says it “is guided by a vision of justice, equality and freedom for all people.” It follows, for JVP, that “we unequivocally oppose Zionism because it is counter to those ideals.” On Oct. 14, the organization posted: “As U.S. Jews [we] believe that never again means never again for anyone, and that includes Palestinians. Never again is now.”

It seems probable that a relatively small proportion of Gen Z progressive Jews has been radicalized to the point of outright anti-Zionism. Many are conflicted about what they should think about Israel. Others would prefer not to focus on Israel at all. Yet it is fair to generalize by saying that many have been moved by the analogy, widespread on college campuses, between Israel and apartheid-era South Africa.

Today, Gen X and Gen Z progressive Jewish leaders and activists find themselves at odds with each other about Israel. The disagreement is painful for both sides, the way generational arguments often are. The middle-aged progressives think the kids have failed to learn how important Israel should be for them as Jews. The kids think the old folks are mired in a discredited ideology.
I want to suggest that the generational rift reflects not two different conceptions of progressive Jewishness but two different visions of Israel, refracted through a common commitment to social justice. Progressive Judaism gives expression to what it considers the biblical values of justice, equality, freedom and the like. When the Holocaust and Israel became part of this social justice theology, both had to accord with it. The Holocaust became a moral lesson of Never Again on par with the Hebrews’ slavery in Egypt. Israel became a model of aspirational redemption, a role it could play only because it was possible to imagine the Jewish state as liberal and democratic.
If Israel does not embody the values of liberal democracy, however, it cannot serve as a moral ideal for progressive Jews whose beliefs mandate universal human dignity and equality. In the starkest possible terms, a God of love and justice cannot bless or desire a state that does not seek to provide equality, dignity, or civil and political rights to many of the people living under its authority.
To progressive Jews, a state that denies equal treatment to its subjects is neither democratic nor properly Jewish. Nor is it democratic in the American progressive political sense. From this it follows that for sincere, committed progressive Jews, it would be a betrayal of their Jewish commitments to remain Zionists if Israel does not match the ideals of liberal democracy.
Zionists who are shocked by this development have forgotten that progressive Judaism was long skeptical of Zionism because Jewish progressives historically saw Jewishness as a set of moral teachings, not a national identity. Israeli Zionists often assume that progressives are irreligious (in Hebrew, hiloni), as secular Israelis typically describe themselves. This is mistaken. Today’s Israeli Zionists sometimes think and act as though American Jewish progressives owe Israel a duty of loyalty. For Jewish progressives, however, the higher duty of loyalty is owed to divine principles of love and justice.
One can feel sympathy for the generation of Jewish progressives who made Israel central to their theology. On one hand, the association is as powerful as ever: Images of Israelis murdered and taken hostage recall the horrors of the Holocaust. On the other hand, Israel is a real-world nation-state populated by Israelis whose beliefs and views differ from those of American Jewish progressives. With its geopolitical and domestic political struggles, Israel has driven the older generation of progressives into turmoil that can be resolved only by holding fast to an interpretation of Israel’s form of political governance that might not convince their own grandchildren.

The most thoughtful of the young progressives also face a deep challenge. They believe in the teachings of social justice that compel them to social action. But they also find that they cannot avoid what they see as the broken reality of Israel.

Their great-grandparents, if they were Reform Jews, had the option of de-emphasizing Israel, almost to the point of ignoring Zionism. Before the state of Israel existed, they did not need to reconcile their beliefs about Judaism as a private, diasporic religion with the aspirations of Zionist Jews. Even after the state arose, it was possible for a time to treat it as separate from Jewish thought, practice and identity.

The young progressives do not have this luxury. They inherited a form of Judaism that already incorporated Israel into its theology. They do not know how to be Jews without engaging Israel. Yet the content of their broader theology — their beliefs about Jewish morality and tikkun ‘olam — make support of Israel difficult or even repugnant.

Their solution — their Jewish, progressive, sincerely felt solution — is to express their belief in social justice by criticizing or condemning Israel for its failures of equality, liberty, dignity and human rights.

It emerges that young progressive Jewish critics of Israel feel an unstated connection to Israel even as they resist and reject it. They feel no commitment to the existing state. But they do feel a particular need to criticize Israel because it matters to their worldview as Jews. They cannot easily ignore Israel, as early Reform Jews ignored Zionism. So they engage Israel — through the vehicle of progressive critique. The phrase “not in our name” captures the sense of personal implication in Israel’s conduct that both marks and challenges their sense of connection.

This is why many young progressive Jews are at the forefront of the pro-Palestinian movement on college campuses. Difficult as it is for older generations to accept, the cause is not self-hatred. It is, rather, that criticism of Israel and support for the Palestinian cause is the essence of their progressive Jewish self-expression.

As today’s college students become adults and gradually assume leadership of their movements, progressive Judaism will have to work out its long-term attitude toward Israel. One possibility is for progressive Jews to tack away from the focus on Israel, to engage their Jewishness in other ways — familial, spiritual and personal. This would entail real theological change.

(12) Jeffrey Sachs’ 2-State Solution: a Shotgun wedding

https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/two-state-solution-gaza-2667433791

Achieving the Two-State Solution in the Wake of Gaza War

Peace can come through the immediate implementation of the two-state solution, making the admission of Palestine to the United Nations the starting point, not the ending point.

JEFFREY D. SACHS &
SYBIL FARES

Mar 05, 2024

The two-state solution is enshrined in international law and is the only viable path to a long-lasting peace. All other solutions—a continuation of Israel’s apartheid regime, one bi-national state, or one unitary state—would guarantee a continuation of war by one side or the other or both. Yet the two-state solution seems irretrievably blocked. It is not. Here is a pathway.

The Israeli government strongly opposes a two-state solution, as does a significant proportion of the Israeli population, some on religious grounds (“God gave us the land”) and some on security grounds (“We can never be safe with a State of Palestine”). A significant proportion of Palestinians regard Israel as an illegitimate settler-colonial entity, and in any event distrust any peace process.

How then to proceed?

The usual recommendation is the following six-step sequence of events: (1) ceasefire; (2) release of hostages; (3) humanitarian assistance; (4) reconstruction; (5) peace conference for negotiations between Israel and <https://www.commondreams.org/tag/palestine> Palestine; and finally (6) establishment of two states on agreed boundaries. This path is impossible. There is a perpetual deadlock on steps 5 and 6, and this sequence has failed for 57 years since the 1967 war.

Two sovereign states, on the boundaries of June 4, 1967, protected initially by UN-backed peacekeepers and other guarantees, will be the starting point for a comprehensive and just peace…

The failure of Oslo is the paradigmatic case in point. There are irreconcilable differences, such as the status of East Jerusalem. Israeli zealots would force from power any Israeli politician who dares to give up East Jerusalem to Palestinian sovereignty and Palestinian zealots would do the same with any Palestinian leader who gave up sovereignty over East Jerusalem. We should relinquish the continuing illusion that Israel will ever reach agreement, or that Palestine would ever have the negotiating power to engage meaningfully with Israel, especially when the Palestinian Authority is highly dependent on the US and other funders.

The correct approach is therefore the opposite, starting with the establishment of two states on globally agreed boundaries, notably the boundaries of June 4, 1967 as <https://news.un.org/en/story/2024/01/1146097> enshrined in UN Security Council and UN General Assembly resolutions. The UN member states will have to impose the two-state solution, instead of waiting for yet another Palestinian-Israeli failed negotiation.

Thus, the settlement should follow this order: (1) establishment of Palestine as 194th member state within two-state solution framework on June 4, 1967 borders; (2) immediate ceasefire; (3) release of hostages; (4) humanitarian assistance; (5) peacekeepers, disarmament and mutual security; and (6) negotiation on modalities (settlements, return of refugees, mutually agreed land-swaps, and others; but not boundaries).

In 2011, the State of Palestine (now recognized by 140 UN member states but not yet as a UN member state itself) <https://www.un.org/unispal/document/auto-insert-184036/> applied for full UN member status. The UN Security Council Committee on New Members (constituted by the UN Security Council) recognized the legitimacy of Palestine’s application, but as is utterly typical in the “peace process,” the US government prevailed on the Palestinian Authority to accept “observer status,” promising that full UN membership would soon follow. Of course, it did not.

The Security Council, backed by the UN General Assembly, has the power under the UN Charter to impose the two-state settlement. It can do so as a matter of international law, following decades of relevant resolutions. It can then enforce the solution through a combination of carrots (economic inducements, reconstruction funding, UNSC-backed peacekeepers, disarmament, border security, etc.) and sticks (sanctions for violations by either party).

The only conceivable border for creating the two-state solution is that of June 4, 1967. Starting from that border, the two sides might indeed negotiate a mutually agreed swap of land for mutual benefit, but they would do so knowing that the “best alternative to a negotiated agreement” (BATNA) is the June 4, 1967 border.

It is quite possible, indeed likely, that the US would initially veto the proposed pathway. After all, the US has already used its veto <https://research.un.org/en/docs/sc/quick/veto> multiple times to block merely a ceasefire. Yet, the process of eliciting the US veto and then securing a large majority vote in the UN General Assembly will be salutary for three reasons.

First, US politics is shifting rapidly against Israeli policies given the US public’s growing understanding of Israel’s war crimes and Israel’s political extremism. This shift in public opinion makes it far more likely that the US leaders will sooner rather than later accept the basic approach outlined here because of US domestic political dynamics. Second, the increasing US isolation in the UN Security Council and UN General Assembly is also weighing heavily on US leaders, and forcing the US leadership to reconsider its policy positions in view of geopolitical considerations. Third, a strong vote in the UNSC and UNGA for the two-state solution on June 4, 1967 borders will help to strengthen international law and the terms of the eventual settlement as soon as the US veto is lifted.

For these reasons, there is a realistic prospect that the UN will finally exercise its international legal and political authority to create the conditions for peace.

Twenty-two years ago, Arab and Islamic leaders affirmed in the <https://www.kas.de/c/document_library/get_file?uuid=a5dab26d-a2fe-dc66-8910-a13730828279&groupId=268421> 2002 Arab Peace Initiative that that the only pathway to peace is through the two-state solution. On February 7, 2024, the <https://www.mofa.gov.sa/en/ministry/statements/Pages/The-Ministry-of-Foreign-Affairs-stated-that-regarding-the-discussions-between-Saudi-Arabia-and-the-US.aspx> Saudi Ministry of Foreign Affairs reasserted that a comprehensive peace will only be achieved by recognizing an independent Palestinian state on the 1967 borders and East Jerusalem as the capital. The Arab states and the world community generally shouldn’t buy into another vague peace process that is likely doomed to fail, especially given the urgency caused by the ongoing genocide in <https://www.commondreams.org/tag/gaza> Gaza and the bad-will accumulated over the past 57 years of a fruitless “Peace Process.”

Peace can come through the immediate implementation of the two-state solution, making the admission of Palestine to the UN the starting point, not the ending point. Two sovereign states, on the boundaries of June 4, 1967, protected initially by UN-backed peacekeepers and other guarantees, will be the starting point for a comprehensive and just peace not only between Israel and Palestine—and also a regional peace that would secure diplomatic relations across the Middle East and end this conflict that has burdened the inhabitants, the region, and the world, for more than a century.

(13) George Galloway back in House of Commons, on Gaza protest & anti-Woke vote

George Galloway’s Workers Party campaigns “for the workers not the wokers”

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/commentisfree/2024/mar/03/writing-off-george-galloway-ignores-his-dangerous-appeal-to-both-far-left-and-right

Writing off George Galloway ignores his dangerous appeal to both far left and right

Michael Chessum

Muslims angry over Gaza and white conservatives joined in electing the new MP for Rochdale. Those who see him as a fringe figure do so at their peril

Sun 3 Mar 2024 21.00 AEDT

George Galloway’s <https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2024/mar/01/george-galloway-wins-rochdale-byelection> victory in the Rochdale byelection has been greeted with a shrug of complacency by most commentators. After all, Galloway has a habit of pulling off shock byelection wins only to disappear quickly afterwards, and his success this time owed much to happenstance. Perhaps if Labour had not been forced to <https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2024/feb/12/labour-withdraws-support-for-rochdale-candidate-after-israel-gaza-remarks> suspend its candidate after he was recorded at a public meeting claiming that Israel had planned the 7 October attacks, Galloway would not have won. Perhaps the whole episode tells us little about the outcome of the forthcoming general election, let alone the future of British politics. Then again, perhaps not.

Things would be more straightforward if we could take Galloway, and the Workers’ Party of Britain (WPB) that he leads, at face value. They claim to be a leftwing outfit that won Rochdale on a surge of <https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2024/feb/11/the-ultimate-protest-against-labour-george-galloways-bid-to-win-rochdale> pro-Palestinian sentiment in the wake of Israel’s brutal assault on Gaza. But the truth is murkier. During this campaign, Galloway’s team sent out more than one set of correspondence. One, addressed to Muslims in the constituency, urged voters to “use your vote to send Keir Starmer and the Labour party a message – stop supporting genocide, stop supporting Israeli aggression, and stand with Palestine”.

His other election address, targeting a different demographic, tells another story. It trumpets Galloway’s record of backing Brexit, opposing Scottish independence and supporting family values. A whole paragraph is dedicated to outlining his opposition to transgender rights and his conviction that “God creates everything in pairs”. “I believe in law and order,” the letter reads. “There will be no grooming gangs in Rochdale. Even if I have to arrest them myself.” It ends with a deliberate nod to Donald Trump, promising to “make Rochdale great again”. Alienated white voters were a key part of Galloway’s winning coalition.

The WPB is as much about social conservatism as it is about leftwing economic policies. It promises decent housing, better-funded public services and workers’ rights. But it also promises to combat the “ridiculous intersectional ideology of radical liberals”, and to put a stop to net zero. Perhaps this is why Nick Griffin, Britain’s most famous far-right leader, called for a vote for Galloway in Rochdale, saying Galloway “understands the position of working-class white Britons on immigration”. Chris Williamson, a former <https://www.theguardian.com/politics/labour> Labour MP and now the WPB’s deputy leader, was asked on the BBC’s Today programme if he would like to distance the party from Griffin’s endorsement. He declined to do so.

Galloway’s political shift can be measured in organisational terms. When he was expelled from the Labour party in 2003, he joined Respect, a broad leftwing party that emerged from the movement against the Iraq war. Galloway last stood for Respect in 2015, when <https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/may/08/george-galloway-loses-bradford-west-seat-labour-naz-shah-respect> he lost Bradford West to Labour. By 2020, he had shifted gear entirely, founding All for Unity, an unsuccessful attempt to bring together Scottish unionists, including Tory and Ukip figures, before the 2021 Scottish parliament elections. Now, Galloway leads the WPB, which campaigns, in its words, “for the workers not the wokers”. Whereas Respect often relied on the activist work ethic of the Socialist Workers’ Party (SWP), the WPB was until recently backed by the Communist party of Great Britain (Marxist-Leninist), an explicitly Stalinist organisation. The authoritarian, socially conservative group made excellent bag-carriers for Galloway’s long march away from the left.

Across Europe, figures are toying with the same strategy. Sahra Wagenknecht was until recently a prominent spokesperson for Germany’s Left party. She <https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/oct/23/german-politician-sahra-wagenknecht-leaves-die-linke-to-set-up-new-party> split last year to found her own project and is now polling at about 7% before May’s European elections. Like Galloway, she espouses an explicitly conservative agenda on culture war issues and opposes environmentalism. She has long called for a rolling back of Germany’s acceptance of refugees, once warning that “there should be no neighbourhoods where natives are in a minority”. Like Galloway, she was critical of Covid lockdowns, playing to an audience otherwise courted by the far right. And, like Galloway, Wagenknecht has spoken about Putin’s right to push back against “Nato aggression”.

There are plenty of caveats to Galloway’s success in Rochdale. The demographic coalition he is trying to unite – Muslim voters angry about Gaza and socially conservative white working-class voters – are not obvious bedfellows. It is more than possible that Labour will regain the seat at the general election. But politics is about more than election results, and after a decade of upsets it is unwise for anyone to write off what Galloway represents. Received wisdom has him down as a fringe left figure whose moment in the sun will pass. The opposite is the case: Galloway is no longer bound by the left, and freed from it he is dangerous.

Michael Chessum is a freelance writer and socialist activist