Thursday, 17 September 2009

Palestine debate - media feeding frenzy and a Times onslaught against TUC democracy

TUC: According to the Guardian, the debate on Palestine scheduled for yesterday was 'postponed until the last day of conference because of a behind the scenes row'
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/sep/16/tuc-delays-israeli-boycott-motion . UNISONActive: "Let's hope democracy, internationalism and unity prevail in today's debate and the Palestinian cause is not once again undermined by the Israel Lobby"

The BBC reports leads on 'acrimony' betweeen various union personalities.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8259922.stm

Sky goes even further into the gutter trivialising a crucial debate about apartheid style injustice as mere 'handbags' between senior union officials (who seemingly regard themselves a more important than the issue at hand).
http://blogs.news.sky.com/boultonandco/Post:b9623480-88dc-43e3-a2e2-80151b25c8c0

Typically, this morning's Times is not content on reporting developments but intervenes with a vicious attack on those unions faithfully implementing the democratically agreed policies of their union conferences
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/leading_article/article6837545.ece

Let's hope democracy, internationalism and unity prevail in today's debate and the Palestinian cause is not once again undermined by the Israel Lobby - which is so brilliantly exposed by John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt in their seminal book of that name http://www.lrb.co.uk/v28/n06/mear01_.html