{"id":1257,"date":"2014-07-24T00:03:50","date_gmt":"2014-07-23T22:03:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jonathan-cook.net\/blog\/?p=1257"},"modified":"2014-07-24T00:03:50","modified_gmt":"2014-07-23T22:03:50","slug":"hypocrisy-over-british-mps-gaza-tweet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jonathan-cook.net\/blog\/2014-07-24\/hypocrisy-over-british-mps-gaza-tweet\/","title":{"rendered":"Hypocrisy over British MP’s Gaza tweet"},"content":{"rendered":"

It seems we expect our politicians to be more loyal to\u00a0Israel than Israel’s\u00a0own prime ministers.<\/p>\n

David Ward, a member\u00a0of the British parliament for\u00a0the Lib Dem party, which is part\u00a0of\u00a0the ruling coalition, has upset his bosses with a tweet. Here it is:<\/p>\n\"\"<\/a>\n

Ward was soon in hot water.\u00a0Douglas Alexander, the opposition\u00a0foreign\u00a0minister from the supposedly leftwing Labour Party, called\u00a0Ward’s comment “vile”, and the Board of Deputies \u2013 a kind of weak-kneed British version of AIPAC \u2013 said the Lib Dems should expel Ward.<\/p>\n

At first, Ward offered what was\u00a0described as a “partial apology”, stating the mind-boggling obvious:<\/p>\n

The comment was about understanding why people are firing rockets. I am not condoning that. In fact, yesterday in the House of Commons I condemned it. I’m saying I understand why people are so desperate that they are doing it.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

But then, under threat of disciplinary action, he was forced to\u00a0issue a more craven apology:<\/p>\n

I utterly condemn the violence on both sides in Israel and Gaza. I condemn the actions of Hamas, and my comments were not in support of firing rockets into Israel. If they gave the opposite impression, I apologise.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So what would Ehud Barak, a former prime minister of Israel and much-decorated war hero, make of Ward’s comment about firing rockets? Well, the Board of Deputies might be surprised to learn that he would wholeheartedly agree with the British MP.<\/p>\n

Here is what Barak\u00a0said in an interview in 1998:<\/p>\n

If I were a Palestinian, I would have joined a terrorist organisation.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

www.theguardian.com\/politics\/2014\/jul\/23\/lib-dem-david-ward-apology-gaza-tweet<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It seems we expect our politicians to be more loyal to\u00a0Israel than Israel’s\u00a0own prime ministers. David Ward, a member\u00a0of the British parliament for\u00a0the Lib Dem party, which is part\u00a0of\u00a0the ruling coalition, has upset his bosses with a tweet. Here it is: Ward was soon in hot water.\u00a0Douglas Alexander, the opposition\u00a0foreign\u00a0minister from the supposedly leftwing Labour […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[7],"class_list":{"0":"post-1257","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-uncategorized","7":"tag-israel-lobby"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jonathan-cook.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1257","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jonathan-cook.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jonathan-cook.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jonathan-cook.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jonathan-cook.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1257"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.jonathan-cook.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1257\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jonathan-cook.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1257"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jonathan-cook.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1257"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jonathan-cook.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1257"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}