How Israel’s propaganda war has silenced Europe
The Israeli flag carried during a demonstration against antisemitism, Parliament Square, London on 26 March 2018
Gideon Levy writes in Middle East Eye:
The UK Labour Party’s shadow education secretary, Rebecca Long-Bailey, was recently sacked after sharing an article on social media saying – among other things – that Israel had trained US police in the knee-on-neck choking method used on George Floyd.
This claim has been circulated widely in recent weeks among the global left. Labour leader Keir Starmer accused Long-Bailey of posting an article containing an “antisemitic conspiracy theory”. Evidently, the winds of change have come to Labour after Jeremy Corbyn stepped down – and the change does not portend well.
Middle East Eye on 25 June published details of the controversial article, with fact-checking. The accusation that it was from Israel that US police learned the choking method that led to Floyd’s death is unfounded. Police in the US have been frighteningly trigger-happy for decades where Black citizens are concerned – since long before the state of Israel was founded and its police force established.
US police certainly do not need Israeli expertise to be capable of killing innocent Black civilians in shockingly large numbers.