Wes Streeting MP, who’s on the All Party Parliamentary Committee Against Antisemitism, and who is the constituency MP directly responsible for the school, has answered us on why Leanne Mohamad was coached to lie about and denigrate Israel. He can’t see a problem with what she said. He’s just put a statement on Facebook.
I have been concerned by the treatment of Leanne Mohamad, the Wanstead High pupil who won the local Jack Petchey Speak Out Challenge with a passionate speech about Palestinian human rights. Leanne has received appalling abuse online and has also been accused of using antisemitic language and hate speech.
I took the time to watch Leanne’s speech via the Ilford Recorder website. Her speech was a powerful argument about human rights, drawing on her own Palestinian heritage and arguing against discrimination based on nationality, race and culture. I saw nothing in it that could reasonably considered to be antisemitic, or hate speech. Her underlying message was one about peace and I think that’s something we can all support.
I’ve been over it before. In depth. First with a video and then with a written post. I suspect Wes Streeting watched or read either of those. If he can’t see even a small problem in what this girl said, and he’s on the committee looking for Jew hatred, then the problem in the UK is just as I suspected.
And what right does this man have to decide what is and what isn’t antisemitic? We’ve had over 700 signatures on our petition, they think it is. Strangely it seems only Jews are not allowed to decide what is hatred directed at them.
Of course, many people will argue that her speech was one-sided. Speeches in debates so often are. All the more reason to engage in the debate – rather than shut it down.
I specifically didn’t want her speech shut down. Neither did the other people who worked on the petition we put forward. Specifically we were calling for a full rebuttal of her speech to be given in her school. This wasn’t a debate, she was just allowed to tell unanswered lies.
I’ve spent a lot of time in recent weeks and months condemning antisemitism within the Labour Party and wider society. Some of this antisemitism arises from the language people use about the debate surrounding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. I see so often on social media. But the campaign against antisemitism is not helped by those who make baseless accusations about people like Leanne to shut down debate and discussion.
Please, Wes, answer the charge, are claims of 30,000 DELIBERATELY targeted dead children which is what we must infer from her invocations of random and ongoing bombing of civilian populations, a blood libel against the Jewish State? And the claim that we deliberately allowed her 1 year old cousin to die BECAUSE he was a Palestinian?
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is something that I take a close personal interest in. I get more mail about this than any other foreign policy issue – often from people with directly opposing views. I am strong supporter in the right of Israel to exist and to exist free from terrorism. I am also a strong supporter of an independent and viable Palestinian state: safe, secure and prosperous. Over three visits to Israel and the West Bank during the past ten years I’ve met Israeli and Palestinian families affected by the conflict and politicians on both sides. I’ve seen first hand the injustice of illegal settlement expansion and demolitions of Palestinian homes, Israeli military courts that hand out the most absurd sentences to young people for the most minor offences and attempts to silence civil society and human rights groups by the current Israeli government. I’ve met Israeli children who’ve had to shelter under their school tables and parents who run with infants to their air raid shelter because of rocket attacks from Gaza. I’ve met medics whose efforts to construct a hospital facility in Gaza City have been frustrated by unnecessarily punitive restrictions on access for key materials. I’ve been exasperated by the failure of political leaders on both sides to engage in serious peace talks and the failure of successive international efforts to bring about peace. I returned from the West Bank in March feeling more pessimistic than ever about the state of Israeli politics under a terrible right wing government and the quality of Palestinian leadership.
What should be the sentence for an unrepentant 15 year old girl who runs toward a soldier with a knife? She has been indoctrinated FROM BIRTH, rather like poor little Leanne Mohamad. The little Arab knife wielder, if she survives, is hailed as a hero for trying to kill Jews. What should we do with her? How can we deprogram that little killing machine. And the mechanism of programming these little killing machines is the same “education” it seems is being handed out in a school in the UK to a girl who’s never set foot in Israel!
And you don’t see the problem?
This is one of the most intractable and complex conflicts on earth. Perhaps it doesn’t lend itself to the simplicity of a three minute speech by a school student. One of Leanne’s most powerful lines was “if war can happen in 24 hours then so can peace”. It’s a sentiment that should be applauded, not denigrated.
I don’t post this to start (another) acrimonious online debate about the Middle East, just to stick up for a principled 15 year old and to encourage a more thoughtful debate about this conflict.
The only “peace” that can happen in 24 hours is the “Peace of Islam” if Jews lie down and submit to Muslim law and Dhimmitude.
We’ve been there, done that, never again.
Jews in Israel will continue to fight and control our Jewish destiny thank you. You in the UK and Europe can enjoy your impending Dhimmitude.
If you don’t know what Dhimmitude is, you should educate yourselves. Try google. Or ask the 15.3% of your marginal constituency who are Muslims. They may know but they may also choose not to tell you.
If you think my tone is a little angry, you’re right. These people are trying to kill me. What’s really sad is that your pandering to them, your inability to see how you’ve been manipulated, is directly responsible for many more Arabs being killed. They will continue their ridiculous attempt to unseat Jews from what is so obviously our Indigenous home, directly because YOU and others like you give them encouragement. Your words will kill more Arabs than mine.
I’d be happy to debate you, properly, without anger, but you really need to think deeper into this than you have up to this point.
Finally a personal note: I left the UK because I came to realise how poisoned many people around me were on Israel and Jews. Their protestations that “their story” needs to be respected and “their voices” heard fell flat once I knew more about what actually happens here. I’m so glad I left the UK, every day comes more confirmation for me.
Feel free to leave a comment on Facebook for him. You can also tweet him or RT my tweet:
Local MP for Leanne Mohamad @wesstreeting can’t see problem with what she said. And he’s an “expert” on Jew hatred https://t.co/9rsmABsyZn
— Dr Brian of London 🇮🇱 (@brianoflondon) June 6, 2016