Labour’s anti-Palestine stupidity just peaked!

Right, so at this moment in time, when we think about protests, we’re probably minded towards the rioting happening in the UK, or perhaps comparing that rioting to actual protest rather than just violence and shoplifting by the far right, such as the Just Stop Oil protesters that have just been locked up for a combined 21 years, more than any rioter has thusfar got. But I want to take you back a few months to the protests on the other side of the pond, the US University campus student protests, condemning the actions of the Biden administration in arming Israel, demanding Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions and just as the events of Southport proved a trigger for the far right to tear up our country, in the US, campus protests at Columbia University in New York triggered similar protests across the US, it was the first and one of the most infamous as it turned out too given the overly authoritarian clampdown that was attempted there, some of which I’ve covered previously, but now news has broken that Columbia University’s anti-Palestinian President has finally resigned, good news you would think, until you find out that our Netanyahu hand-shaking shill of a Foreign Secretary David Lammy has offered her a job and that actually it is that that has prompted her to leave.
Right, so before I come onto Labour’s role here and what they’ve done, let’s refresh our memories a bit and talk a little about what happened at Columbia University specifically, because the context as always is crucial. So student protests in the US, we recall these don’t we? It wasn’t that long ago and amongst the most notable was of course the first campus to see these happen, Columbia University in New York.
The New York Times put out an article at the time reading: ‘College Protesters Make Divestment From Israel a Rallying Cry’, using the chant ‘Disclose, divest, we will not stop, we will not rest,’ demanding the school administrators do just that, the D from BDS, possibly the least understood word amongst Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions, to divest is simply the opposite of invest, so pull all financial interests they might have in the state of Israel out and this then spread of course from Columbia, to Yale, Harvard, University of Southern California, Cornell and more. It became a nationwide movement, though the divestment demands might vary slightly as this excerpt from the NYT shows:
‘What it actually means has varied in scope, and level of detail. At Yale and Cornell, students have called on the universities to stop investing in weapons manufacturers. Columbia students are demanding the sale of holdings in funds and businesses that activists say are profiting from Israel’s invasion of Gaza, and the longer-term occupation of Palestinian lands — including Google, which has a large contract with the Israeli government, and Airbnb, which allows listings in Israeli settlements on the occupied West Bank.’
So the school administrators at Columbia were overseeing investments in businesses that were involved in illegal settlements, hugely appalling, move your investments elsewhere, it never struck me as the biggest of asks actually, it’s not a case of abandoning the Universities money is it? Just move it, so you’re investing in something far less, genocidal shall we say?
Columbia’s reaction, the reaction of the University, was of course as you might well remember, to not consider what I view as a reasonable demand given the investments in a rogue apartheid state, but instead send the police in to break up the protests and this was in no small part arguably because of Israeli influence on the University.
How many times have we heard accusations, usually from pro Zionist sources that Hamas have infiltrated bodies to push their nefarious end goals? They were accused of infiltration the UN aid agency UNRWA as a very well known example of course, not that Israel could present any evidence in that example as a for instance
If we look towards the university campuses where, particularly in the US we’ve seen scenes of horrendous violence perpetrated by the police against students, there have also been claims that some of these students are indoctrinated and are acting as proxies for Hamas, but in a shock announcement relating specifically to Columbia University that came from New York’s mayor at that, the violence meted out by police on students seen on that particular campus, was instigated by a member of the University’s own faculty, who it turned out seems to be herself to all intents and purposes to be an Israeli spy! So who were really the infiltrators here?
The staff member in question here was a woman called Rebecca Weiner, who was an Adjunct Professor of International and Public Affairs, at SIPA, which is the School of International and Public Affairs, part of Columbia University. However last year, Weiner was also made Deputy Commissioner for Intelligence and Counterterrorism of the NYPD, putting her in the unique position of literally being able to police Columbia University and those on it, seemingly in the interests, it can certainly be argued, of the Israeli state. How do we know that? Well according to Weiner’s blurb on the SIPA website, she:
‘Develops policy and strategic priorities for the Intelligence & Counterterrorism Bureau and publicly represents the NYPD in matters involving counterterrorism and intelligence.’
You might be interested to know therefore that according to news website The GrayZone, the NYPD Intelligence and Counterterrorism Bureau maintains an office in, of all places, Tel Aviv. This Tel Aviv office apparently acts as a liaison between the NYPD and Israeli security, with Weiner as the go between.
So we have protests calling for BDS at Columbia University, withdraw your investments in pro Israel businesses and invest them elsewhere please and the police response to those protests, heavy handed and ridiculous as that was, had been seemingly instigated by someone ostensibly loyal to Israel who allegedly called the police in, though apparently wasn’t the only one to do so, which I’ll come onto in a moment, so offended by the idea people should protest against Israel, all of which invited accusations of pro Israel bias and infiltration by the Columbia University faculty.
Top of the faculty obviously would be the President of the University, overseeing all of this having happened since the person holding that role at the time, Minouche Shafik, had been in post since July of 2023. That was until yesterday, when it was announced she was taking another job, a job offered to her by our Foreign Secretary, David Lammy. I can’t imagine what drew you to offer a job, to this person who has overseen such appalling scenes as we had witnessed at Columbia University during those protests, but the job offered really is the icing on the cake. Here's what Shafik herself said in her resignation letter on the matter:
‘I write with sadness to tell you that I am stepping down as president of Columbia University effective August 14, 2024. I have had the honor and privilege to lead this incredible institution, and I believe that—working together—we have made progress in a number of important areas. However, it has also been a period of turmoil where it has been difficult to overcome divergent views across our community. This period has taken a considerable toll on my family, as it has for others in our community. Over the summer, I have been able to reflect and have decided that my moving on at this point would best enable Columbia to traverse the challenges ahead. I am making this announcement now so that new leadership can be in place before the new term begins.
My whole professional life has been devoted to public service and my time at Columbia has been an important part of that commitment. In terms of next steps, I am honored to have been asked by the UK’s Foreign Secretary to chair a review of the government’s approach to international development and how to improve capability. I am very pleased and appreciative that this will afford me the opportunity to return to work on fighting global poverty and promoting sustainable development, areas of lifelong interest to me. It also enables me to return to the House of Lords to reengage with the important legislative agenda put forth by the new UK government.’
Yes, David Lammy has appointed a person who oversaw an ostensibly pro Israeli faculty, which invested in businesses connected to Illegal Palestinian settlements, to head a review on international development. Oh and did I neglect to mention she also already happens to be a peer in the House of Lords? How careless of me, Baroness Shafik as she is. The optics are scandalous and David Lammy must think we’re idiots for thinking we’d miss this.
Shafik herself called the police in to clear the campus of protesters, leading to the arrest of 100 students on the 22nd April, this was a week prior to the actions of Rebecca Weiner, where some 300 people were arrested. Shafik’s actions were condemned by the American Association of University Professors, PEN America, who campaign for rights to freedom of expression in the US, the student council at Columbia obviously condemned it, but given hundreds of their Professors at Columbia staged a walkout too over Shafik’s heavy-handedness too, an open letter by them was signed putting the boot in. Conversely, she was also attacked for not doing enough to combat antisemitism on campus resulting in condemnation and withholding of donations from pro Zionist Columbia donors and condemnation has come from both Democrats and Republican politicians for both being too heavy handed and for not clamping down on the allegations of antisemitism, risible as such accusations are, hard enough.
So now she’s on her way back to the UK, her pro Israel anti Palestine protest track record, her failure as Columbia President in the face of such protests apparently qualifying her to work on a review in David Lammy’s department, it seems clamping down in dissenting views makes her an ideal fit for Starmer’s Labour and on that score who can possibly disagree? I’ll look forward to her review with interest, especially where it comes to Israel and Palestine, because any attempt at Labour hiding behind her crossbench status in the Lords and as an impartial voice where matters relate to the situation in the Middle East, well, the receipts are all here implying otherwise.
For more on the role of Rebecca Weiner in this story, do check out this video recommendation here and I’ll hopefully catch you on the next vid. Cheers folks.