You can be pro-Palestinian without being anti-semitic – Layla Moran
Well said, Layla Moran:
My plea to those who feel they need to step up for the Palestinians: Please do that, my God do we need it but also please don’t do it in a way that stokes antisemitism.
You can do both. You don’t have to be pro-Palestinian and antisemitic.
Clear & unequivocal. RT @SAs115thDream: .@LaylaMoran
“As a Palestinian”……
“You can be Pro-Palestinian without being #antiSemitic”
“Saying Israel is a racist state IS ANTISEMITIC”
THANK YOU LAYLA (but not sure @johnmcdonnellMP was listening) pic.twitter.com/LxRtYOXdBU
— Jon Sacker (@jsacker) March 1, 2019
As the Evening Standard previously reported:
[Layla Moran is] this country’s first British-Palestinian MP – her mother is from Jerusalem – but she wades into the Israel/Palestine debate sparingly “because it’s so emotive”. She made an exception for John McDonnell on Politics Live earlier this month though. “I had to mansplain anti-Semitism to him,” she says. Moran was upset about posters saying that Israel is a racist state. “The people who put it up were called London Palestine Action. As a Palestinian they don’t speak for me, and they are blatantly racist signs. You don’t say a whole country is racist. McDonnell said he’s ‘on a journey’.” She does a droney impression of him. “I was like ‘really?’ You’re 60 something years old, come on. If you haven’t realised by now that this is anti-Semitism no wonder there’s a problem in the Labour Party.”
“I’ve been attacked by people who say you’re not a real Palestinian and your mum’s not a real Palestinian for raising you that way. But when I see someone who is ‘on a journey about being anti-Semitic’ I’m sorry but I’m intervening. Calling out anti-Semitism doesn’t make me any less Palestinian.”
Thanks for saying this Layla Moran and for posting Mark Pack.
I witnessed for myself, just a few weeks ago, many examples of the bullying tactics of the Israeli Government and Military against Palestinians.
I met some extraordinarily dignified Palestinians whose resistance is acted out in a non-violent way.
And I met several Israelis who were quite abhorrent of the behaviour of their government.
This is not about race; and we should be calling it out.
Its all a matter of interpretation. Israel defines itself a a Jewish state. Therefore anyone living within its borders who isn’t Jewish has to be considered and treated differently. Arabs aren’t conscripted into the military for example.
This presents a problem because non-service in the military then is used as an excuse or a reason for denying certain civic benefits afterwards.
I realise I’m straying onto dangerous ground here because anyone who uses the word ‘apartheid’ which just the Afrikaans word for a policy or system of segregation or discrimination on grounds of race and/or religion is deemed to be guilty of anti-semitism according to the IHRA definition.
But it’s not me that’s discriminating! I’m not a racist no matter what anyone might say.
Yes indeed. And my Jewish friends are the ones most agonised and appalled by the anti-Palestinian policies of the hard-right Netanyahu governments over the years. It’s the hard right we have to fight, not any countries, races or peoples.
Absolutely spot on Layla.
My mum was Jewish. Supporting a Palestinian State and abhorring some of the actions of the Israeli government doesn’t make me anti-Semitic either.
Any solution to this dreadful and seemingly endless conflict will require compromise – 0n both sides – something neither government seems willing to contemplate. It will also mean calling out states like Saudi Arabia who sponsor terrorism to keep eyes off the sorry state of their own regime.
Well said Layla Moran, 🙂