I agree, and a ceasefire was achieved with the GFA over twenty years ago. That's why there are no sides anymore. The "cause" on whatever side is mainly just a "legitimising" cover for criminal enterprise. The assassination in Bangor last month was of a UDA member, by a UDA member, over an internal feud relating to drug-dealing turf.
So here's my challenge: show me evidence of all these things that Corbyn is alleged to have done. And I don't mean opinion pieces by the Torygraph or the S*n etc, I mean factual reporting from the time. We can all throw around accusations and allegations until the cows come home, but without any solid evidence behind it we're no better than bickering children.
Well count me out, i can show you some evidence that he didn't but when it comes to proving he did i struggled to find any, the closest i got was him saying it was a mistake to call, was it Hezbollah or Hamas, our friends.
Since you won't read the Telegraph https://www.theguardian.com/comment...labour-leadership-foreign-policy-antisemitism https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/mar/18/labour-antisemitism-jews-jeremy-corbyn
I'll read the Telegraph i just don't care much for the opinions of people who write articles for newspapers, TBH i don't like newspapers full stop. However lets break down the claims in the first link you posted. 1) That he chaired an organisation that supported attacks on British troops. From what i gather the article is referring to the Stop the War Coalition, IIRC Corbyn was indeed a member, probably even the chair, but i fail to see where the supporting of attacks against British troops comes from. 2) That Corbyn’s apparent proximity to antisemitism is of concern. Are we saying guilt by association is a thing now, because if we are then that would condemn more than just Corbyn and it would make any peace talks rather tricky as whether we like it or not sometimes we have to talk to people we don't like. 3) That Corbyn described it as an honour and pleasure to host our friends from Hamas and Hezbollah. Yes he did indeed say that and later said his use of the term friends was, in hindsight, a mistake, however like I've already said at some point you have to start the process of talking to terrorists and other nasty people, if not you're just perpetuating the endless cycle of killing. And to show how that talking to people we don't like works Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal stated just 1 year after that meeting in parliament that that the Charter is... And only this year for the first time ever the charter accepted the idea of a Palestinian state within the borders and rejects recognition of Israel which it terms as the "Zionist enemy". It advocates such a state as transitional but also advocates "liberation of all of Palestine". The new document also states that the group doesn't seek war with the Jewish people but only against Zionism which it holds responsible for "occupation of Palestine". Mashal also stated that Hamas was ending its association with the Muslim Brotherhood. It may take time but personally i prefer political engagement and talking to people we disagree with over the endless cycle of killing each other, we tried the killing each other for almost a 100 years in Ireland and it didn't work. I've only had the time to respond to the points the first article raised down to where it starts bullet pointing them, if i get the time I'll try to respond to the other points James Bloodworth raised in his article.
I'll quite happily read the Telegraph too. I won't trust it on it's own merit, but that'd be my attitude for any newspaper. That is an opinion piece, but as it makes specific claims I'll go through them and see what I can find. Not right now though, because I have cats to feed and groceries to shop for...
Carrying on from the bullet pointed accusation in the first article. 1) Yes he meet with Raed Salah and he does appear to be a rather sick and hateful person, however like most ongoing conflicts there's no innocent party and Israel isn't blameless, people from the Jewish community even said, in essence, that there's something deeply unpleasant and dishonest about your McCarthyite guilt by association technique. While Corbyn has indeed meet with some very unsavory people, in the case of Raed Salah he claims he was unaware of any conviction for anti-Semitism at the time, that's all they seem to be, meetings, are we really comfortable with guilt by association? 2) Yes he wrote a letter defending Stephen Sizer who posted a question on his facebook page asking if a 9/11 conspiracy theory entitled "9/11 Israel did it" was anti-Semitic, but so did Rabbi Professor Dan Cohn-Sherbok, emeritus professor of Judaism at Aberystwyth University, and going on Stephen Sizer's wiki page people appear to be of the opinion that he repudiates anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial. Are we suggesting that people like Corbyn and Stephen Sizer shouldn't be asking difficult, often controversial, questions, that we should just ignore people we don't agree with, that we should just see the world in black & white, Israel good, Palestine bad. I would go on but all the accusations in the first article seem to use the same line of attack, that people are guilty by association and that no one should talk to "bad" people (bearing in mind that good & bad is just a matter of perspective)
I think the problem is that he does see one side as good and the other as bad and will have time for anyone on his side no matter how extreme they are.
If anything the impression I've formed is that he does anything but that, he sits on the fence even when i personally think one side is worse than the other, and I'll admit that I'm wrong in judging one side to be worse than the other as that isn't the attitude if you're wanting to get both sides to sit down and talk about how to stop killing each other. I can honestly say i consider Corbyn to be a better person than me, i couldn't do what he's done for 35 years, i couldn't remain impartial if i had to sit down and talk to people who've used violence.
I still plan to go through the points in that article. But, you know, that stuff takes time and I'm busy . I'm with Corky on this. I don't think it's quite so black and white as "these guys = good, those guys = bad". Recognising and accepting that is an extremely difficult task for the average person, especially when you're talking about people who carry out any kind of attacks. It's far easier to say "He sat down with the IRA, he called Hezbollah and Hamas "friends"; ergo, he is a terrorist sympathiser". For context: I don't believe that there is any such things as an inherently "good" or "bad" person, and I certainly don't believe that people are "evil". I also believe that no act, no matter how deplorable, should be punishable by death. We're all products of our genetics, our upbringing, and our backgrounds. We all have desires, motivations, drives, etc. Someone who feels driven to kill innocent people has a completely different perspective to you, regardless of whether you agree with that. I'll emphasise this bit because it often seems to be ignored: that does not excuse, validate, or legitimise the actions they take and they should be punished appropriately. It doesn't make that person an inhuman evil monster, it makes them a person with whose motivations, drives, etc, have driven them to do bad things. We are all equally capable of horrific acts against one another; we've got a good dozen thousand years or so experience of it by now. All it takes to turn the average person into a suicide bomber or a mass murderer is the right motivation, and maybe an opportune nudge here and there by a third party. As we see so often in the news you don't need access to a firearm or explosives to attack or kill people: got a hammer or a knife? You're all set.
For the record i believe the sitting on the fence trait i described would/does make him a pretty awful leader, there comes a time as a leader when you have to take sides and make a judgment, and based on Corbyn's behavior it seems he all but incapable of taking a side.
Better sitting on the fence than falling off it and shattering into a thousand pieces. All the King's horses and all the King's men, Couldn't put Theresa May together again...
