Azhar Ali

There are some aspects of the Azhar Ali incident that I find rather disturbing.

He was suspended for expressing an opinion that the Israeli government knew about and encouraged the Oct 7th attack by Hamas as a pretext for going in hard on Gaza. Given what's been coming out of the Israeli government, I don't find that particularly hard to believe, especially when the NY Times published an article last December saying the Israeli government knew about the plans over a year previously, but refuted it as implausible. The article was written by Ronen Bergman and Adam Goldman.

The article can be found here.

What Azhar Ali said may possibly be incorrect, but it is entirely plausible. Where he goes a bit off piste is where he uses the phrase; "...people in the media from certain Jewish quarters.." But it's fact that there are some British Jews who fully support Israel's actions in Gaza. The Jewish Chronicle, for example, while not 100% in support of Netanyahu, has certainly published pro-Netanyahu articles. It's also evident that the Israeli government is keen on portraying any criticism of them as anti-Semitism.

Let's get this straight - criticism of Netanyahu's government is not anti-Semitism, despite the Israeli government pressing for changes that make it such.

I think this is more about Starmer not wanting to give the Tories a stick with which to beat him. He seems intent on removing anything that could lead to attacks in the run-up to the election.