Peace in Gaza?
It’s got the right buzzword, “Peace”. Everyone is welcome. How can Open Newham be critical of such an event? Everyone in their right mind must hope, and if they have a deity in their lives, might even pray for peace in Gaza. You’d have to be cruel to wish otherwise.
So, is that what Newham Muslim Forum, the Mayor’s favoured Muslim organisation, is doing?
(From Newham Labour Party Facebook page)
Let’s start with the most obvious. There is a large Palestinian flag and in large bold lettering “Peace March”.
You might be forgiven for thinking that this was an expression of support for attempts to build bridges between Arabs and Israelis, Muslims and Jews. It may be that the organisers have taken note of the dictum of that former Israeli prime minister, Golda Meir, to the effect that “you make peace with your enemies, not with your friends”.
Except that the Jews/Israelis are absent. There is no picture of Israeli flag which might suggest the organisers were trying to build bridges. Actually, there is no mention of Israel at all.
Then there is a reference to remembering “the Martyrs”. Just who comprises “the martyrs” is not specified, but if the word is translated into ‘shahid’, that might help. It is a word co-opted by jihadists across the globe to refer to their fallen fighters. However murderous they be, if they die killing Jews, opposing western imperialism, or bombing other Muslims, they are shahid. If there are some civilians killed by Israeli airstrikes (or errant missiles from Islamic Jihad or Hamas), then they can be martyrs too.
We may be wrong, it may be that the organisers consider Israelis murdered by terrorists or killed by missiles to be martyrs too. It may be. But we don’t think so.
Back to the march.
Having met in Plashet Park they marchers, a significant number we are told of around 500, ambled down the High St to East Ham Town Hall, where the mayor appears to have given them permission to assemble in the Town Hall grounds.
The organiser appears to have been Anas Khan one of the ousted Tablighi’s from Temple Mills and co-leader of Newham Muslim Forum.
Khan was one of the key activists in getting Fiaz selected as the Labour candidate having been prominent in Newham People’s Alliance and as such, important in mobilising votes for Fiaz. In his role in the NMF he is important in shielding Fiaz from other conservative Muslim party members who have rallied against her under the East Ham Momentum umbrella.
Speaking in favour of normalisation of relations between the Palestinians and the Israelis (or not!) was one Sybil Gertraud Cock, of the Palestine Solidarity Committee (PSC). Her association with Crossfire suggests that she is ex SWP. And whilst the comments of some PSC members seem ambiguous on the issue of Israel, there are undoubtedly some (most?) who feel that the solution to the Palestine/Israel problem is to get rid of Israel. Ms Cock’s support for the Boycott, Disinvest and Sanction (BDS) campaign suggests that she is in this latter group.
Prominent in the placards we see “Freedom for Palestine” and you begin to get the idea that this was less about “peace” and rather more about support for the regime in Gaza, which if readers recall is the regime which took power when the Israelis left Gaza, by killing off all of the local Fatah leaders. It is an organisation which requires the elimination of Israel in its charter and it is the organisation which began the recent cross-border conflict by launching the first of nearly 3000 missiles into Israel.
This rally seems to have been less about peace and much about hatred of Israel.
So why would the mayor allow such a sectarian association into the grounds of Newham Town Hall? We can only speculate. Elsewhere we have written about how it appears that the mayor is using her own ‘dog whistle’ to appeal to very conservative Muslim sentiment. Having lost considerable support because of disastrous local policies, she is using the Palestine issue to bolster her support locally.
The benefit of this is that it costs nothing. Literally, no cash.
The political cost is low, 300,000 Muslims in Newham, less than 1,000 Jews. The numbers speak for themselves.
Somebody else does the work (NMF) and she gets the credit and if necessary, there is sufficient space between the council and NMF to say “it wasn’t me, it was them”.
It looks like a win-win-win for Fiaz. Unless of course there are some councillors with the balls to call her out on this.
Elsewhere in Newham we see evidence of the same issue. Forest Gate Life is a forum which has been running for years. Gaza has recently been a topic where we see two names familiar to the readers of Open Newham and supporters of the mayor.
Shagufta Nasreen is active within PSC and has been active in the forum. So it appears, was one Dice McCairn. Dice and Shagufta seem to have taken opposing views with regard to the conflict in Gaza. (Well done Forest Gate Life for hosting a diversity of views.) So it was with a sense of sadness that we discovered that Dice McCain had been removed from Forest Gate Life at the instigation of Donna Guthrie, (another ex-SWP in the Labour Party). It seems that the FG Life commitment to free-speech is somewhat less robust than we had imagined.
