Armistice Day is the perfect day to march for a ceasefire. And there are marches on Downing Street most Saturdays, so there is probably one the day before every Remembrance Sunday. The Cenotaph is about 100 yards away, so only a very small march could avoid it.
In any case, 12,000 Palestinians fought for Britain in the Second World War. By fighting against us, then the future founders of Israel, and specifically of Likud, were actively on the other side. If you fight against one side in a World War, then you are fighting on the other one. Who told the Stern Gang that it owned the Cenotaph? Britain First, apparently. In joining the three per cent of the population that is strongly opposed to a ceasefire, then such is the company that Keir Starmer has chosen to keep. Not that anyone else would want him.
But when I tell you that there is going to be a hung Parliament, then you can take that to the bank. I spent the 2005 Parliament saying that it was psephologically impossible for the Heir to Blair's Conservative Party to win an overall majority. I predicted a hung Parliament on the day that the 2017 General Election was called, and I stuck to that, entirely alone, all the way up to the publication of the exit poll eight long weeks later. And on the day that Rishi Sunak became Prime Minister, I predicted that a General Election between him and Starmer would result in a hung Parliament.
To strengthen families and communities by securing economic equality and international peace through the democratic political control of the means to those ends, including national and parliamentary sovereignty, we need to hold the balance of power. Owing nothing to either main party, we must be open to the better offer. There does, however, need to be a better offer. Not a lesser evil, which in any case the Labour Party is not.
The Arab Legion. It went on to secure the West Bank against the Irgun and Lehi terrorists.
ReplyDeleteIndeed. The black and white keffiyeh was created by a British Lieutenant-General who was already a Companion of the Order of Saint Michael and Saint George, and who was subsequently also made a Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath.
DeleteHe had commanded one of the last great victories of an Imperial client princely state's British-led Army, namely the British-funded Arab Legion's securement of the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, in 1948. That securement was recognised immediately by Britain, and for that matter by the United States.
That state remains a key British ally, unlike Israel. Its next King will be a Palestinian, and its present one recently said, "From the River to the Sea." Well, in his imported Peninsula way, he wants them to stop at the River. But watch that space.
I suppose fighting for The Emirate of Transjordan was like fighting for an Indian princely state.
ReplyDeleteBut weren't the Jews also called Palestinians during the Mandate?
On the first point, quite so. Or for any other British protectorate or protected state.
DeleteOn the second point, I first came across that one at university. Just before the invasion of Iraq, having heard the then or recent Deputy Leader of Durham County Council lay most uncharacteristically into the Government Chief Whip with his memories of how a Labour Government had ordered him "to evict the Palestinians from their homes", I put it to him, and he flatly denied it. He had never heard the like.
My father also never mentioned it, and my old Senior Tutor has never done so. The Palestinians were the Arabs. According to the people who were there, and who remember which side were the anti-British terrorists.
Yes I've noticed that one creeping in, mostly from a journalist who I know you like but he has a record of making up things he wants to be true especially if they make him look important. His version of the miners' strike, something about the political levy, something about the last Red Army parade in Moscow, something about the international date line, and now the Palestinians were the Jews until the 60s, as you say all veterans from the Mandate days said "Palestinians" to mean the local Arabs and had no concept of any other meaning of the word.
DeleteThe parade and that thing with the dateline really happened, like a lot of his anecdotes. It is how, in themselves, they make him an authority on anything that I do not see. His political levy story and his thing about the Strike, like the related one about Solidarity, are just naïve. Poland supported the Thatcher Government during the Strike. There is chapter and verse as to why. But yes, on a lot of issues, I am glad that he is there.
DeleteThat "the Palestinians meant the Jews" line is from 1990s at the earliest. Mind you, it did not necessarily exclude them, either. On that, at least, it did depend who you asked. But notice that no one disputes that that country was called Palestine until 1948. So much for the idea that there was never any such place.
They sometime talk about the Palestine Regiment, one tenth as big as the Arab Legion but still 50% Arab. Perhaps 1500 Jews in Palestine fought for Britain. The founders of Israel fought against her and thus as you say on the other side.
ReplyDeleteAnd those against whom they fought never forgot. Come to that, nor did they.
DeleteThere were 2,800 men in the Palestine Regiment, so yes massively smaller than the Arab Legion, but 1,600 Jews to 1,200 Arabs. That's your lot though, 1,600. Of course plenty of other Jews fought for Britain and the Empire but only 1,600 in Palestine where as Mr. Lindsay says the Irgun and the Lehi were effectively on the other side.
DeleteThink of them like those Asian "National Liberation Armies" that fought for Japan before going on to provide the founding fathers of Indonesia and of independent Burma while also being counted among those of independent India.
DeleteCome to that, think of them like the 14th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS (1st Galician), and all the rest of those, long celebrated as the good guys of Eastern European history according to NATO propaganda.