{"id":286638,"date":"2016-12-21T16:58:56","date_gmt":"2016-12-21T15:58:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/stifling-the-debate-on-israel\/"},"modified":"2016-12-21T19:45:19","modified_gmt":"2016-12-21T18:45:19","slug":"stifling-the-debate-on-israel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/latest-news\/stifling-the-debate-on-israel\/","title":{"rendered":"Stifling the Debate on Israel"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p>The British government of Theresa May officially adopted on December 12 a new definition of anti-Semitism that includes legitimate criticism of Israel.<\/p>\n<p>The definition was <a href=\"http:\/\/www.independent.co.uk\/voices\/anti-semitism-theresa-may-new-definition-jewish-council-holocaust-society-israel-criticism-palestine-a7470166.html\">adopted <\/a>earlier in the year by a pro-Israeli group IHRA, although it was considered but abandoned by the European anti-racism agency in 2005.<\/p>\n<p>It is also a rather dangerous move which will most likely lead to an expanding chasm between British civil society and Britain\u2019s political elite.<\/p>\n<p>Israeli and pro-Israeli groups in the West have always been keen on conflating genuine racism and genuine criticism of the state of Israel, which stands accused of violating scores of United Nations resolutions and of war crimes in the occupied territories, especially Gaza.<\/p>\n<p>Adopting the new definition comes on the heels of a <a href=\"https:\/\/electronicintifada.net\/content\/how-israel-lobby-manufactured-uk-labour-partys-anti-semitism-crisis\/16481\">manufactured crisis<\/a> in British politics, in which the Labor Party under Jeremy Corbyn was falsely accused of being \u2018soft\u2019 on anti-Semitism among its members. This \u2018crisis\u2019 was engineered by pro-Israeli groups to detract from genuine campaigning among Labor supporters, in order to bind Israel to its international obligations, and end the siege and occupation of Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem.<\/p>\n<p>Last October, a cross-party group <a href=\"http:\/\/mondoweiss.net\/2016\/10\/calling-someone-lawmakers\/\">issued a report<\/a> that contributed to the confusion of ideas, condemning the use of the word \u2018Zionist\u2019 as pejorative, and claiming that such a use \u201chas no place in civil society.\u2019<\/p>\n<p>While efforts to protect Israel from freedom of speech in Britain&#8230;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/dissidentvoice.org\/2016\/12\/stifling-the-debate-on-israel\/\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The British government of Theresa May officially adopted on December 12 a new definition of anti-Semitism that includes legitimate criticism of Israel. The definition was adopted earlier in the year by a pro-Israeli group IHRA, although it was considered but abandoned by the European anti-racism agency in 2005. It is also a rather dangerous move [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2525,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[519,18],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-286638","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-newswire","7":"category-latest-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/286638","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2525"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=286638"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/286638\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=286638"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=286638"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=286638"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}