A Bishop is told off

+It’s not everyday one gets to congratulate a C of E Bishop, but the Bishop of Gloucester, Rachel Treweek ‘said she wanted to “boldly” stand with those comparing Israeli treatment of Palestinians to how black people were treated in South Africa’ and described Israel as an apartheid state. (Daily Telegraph, 27 July). Bishop Treweek spent a lot of time in South Africa in the apartheid era so she probably has a grasp on the realities. The over the top reaction from the Zionist camp is perhaps predictable: ‘Jonathan Turner, the chief executive of UK Lawyers for Israel, said: “Reading the Bishop’s article and much else these days, we feel like Jews of the Middle Ages, accused of poisoning wells and murdering Christian children to make unleavened bread for Passover.”’  To imply that the Bishop is an anti-Semite of the worst kind is surely the kind of reaction which can only raise temperatures on all sides, further isolating the cause the likes of Jonathan Turner presumes he is defending. And as regards wells, how many Palestinian wells have the Israelis stolen (along with the best part of the West Bank)? It is Turner and Co. who are living in the Middle Ages.
 
Having left the Labour Party, I have been taking stock of whether I made the right decision. The answer remains ‘yes.’ One is tempted to have doubts when one reads the onslaught of nonsense peddled by the right wing media about Labour’s plans, which suggest that a Bolshevik revolution is taking place, as opposed to a slight shift in managerial policies. It’s true that, e.g. ‘rail will be renationalised,’ but this refers only to the rail operating companies, which can be brought back into public ownership at no cost. Still, I approve of that. But today we learn that new hospitals proposed by the Tories will not go ahead because they were ‘unfunded.’ The only difference I can see here is that the Tories didn’t really mean to fulfil their hospital building promises, and now Labour is simply saying they won’t build them. Who will notice the difference? On the other hand, there’s talk that Starmer will not oppose the issuance of an international arrest warrant for Netanyahu. We’ll see how that pans out. Starmer’s backers won’t be in the least bit happy about it.