The Labour Party is being urged by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) to “confront the reality of Israel’s practise of the crime of apartheid” after it is claimed that Labour decided to forbid the PSC from using the word “apartheid” on its booth at the next Labour conference.
The limitations imposed by Labour also apply to the PSC’s October 10 fringe event, “Justice for Palestine: End Apartheid.” As a result, the title on the Labour Party Conference app is currently shown as “Justice for Palestine”.
Ben Jamal, the director of the PSC, claims that when the PSC appealed the ruling, a senior party official declared that the party would “not publish a description of Israel as an apartheid state” while also reiterating that the party would not publish material that was “we believe to be detrimental to the party.”
Even yet, the meeting would go, according to Jamal, “regardless of how it is advertised in Labour’s conference brochure.”
The PSC has criticised the conference’s stance in addition to charging that the Labour leadership has “watered down a clear commitment to recognise a Palestinian state” and is “seeking to avoid engaging with the reality lived by Palestinians for decades.”
Israel’s apartheid is “a reality that the Labour party leadership not only refuses to accept, but is willing to take active steps to suppress,” Jamal continued, noting that the party “simply prefers not to face a reality which it finds politically inexpedient.”
Any future Labour administration, according to Jamal, should be “fully committed to the upholding of international law” and “such a commitment would mean holding Israel to account for its practise of what amounts to a crime against humanity.”
Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch are only two of the organisations that have compared Israel’s policies in the occupied territories to apartheid. Similar views have been expressed by a small but growing number of well-known Israelis, notably Tamir Pardo, a former Mossad director.
According to the Labour Party spokesperson, “Keir Starmer has been clear that this is not the position of the Labour Party.”
Liverpool will host the annual Labour Party Conference from October 8–11.
