It’s high time growing numbers of critics speak out forthrightly.

Israeli high crimes against peace are too egregious to ignore.

It’s essential to maintain a steady drumbeat of truth. It’s crucial to enlist growing numbers to demand accountability.

Israel’s 20% Arab population is effectively disenfranchised. Their fundamental rights are systematically denied.

Their few Knesset members are treated like potted plants. Like enemies of the state.

They’re scorned. They’re denounced. They’re persecuted. They’re treated like fifth column threats.

Occupied Palestinians face daily state terror. Gaza’s blockade remains despite repeated Israeli promises to ease things.

It’s invaded, bombed and shelled preemptively at Israel’s discretion.

Palestinians are wrongfully blamed for Israeli high crimes against peace. West Bank communities face multiple daily incursions.

Homes are ransacked. Property is damaged, destroyed or stolen. Families are terrorized. Children are traumatized. Dozens of lawless arrests are made.

Gazan fishermen are attacked at sea. Israel does so despite its Operation Protective Edge ceasefire agreement pledge not to do so.

Israeli promises aren’t worth the paper they’re written on. They’re systematically spurned. It works the same way every time. Rogue states operate this way.

Farmers are shot in their fields. Israeli border guards shoot Palestinian children for target practice.

Peaceful protesters are attacked with tear gas, stun grenades, batons, rubber-coated steel bullets and live fire.

Steven Salaita refused to be silent. He acted responsibly. Doing so cost him his tenured University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign American Indian Studies professorship.

His Twitter comments pulled no punches. They touched vital nerves.

He called Israel “a great example of how colonization impairs ethics and compels people to support shameful deeds in the name of atavistic ideals.”

He said “Hamas is the biggest red herring in American political discourse since Saddam’s ‘weapons of mass destruction.’ ”

Claiming “Hamas makes us do it…isn’t new,” he explained. “American settlers used (similar logic) in slaughtering and displacing Natives.”

“Forget biting the hand,” he said. “Israel just devoured Obama’s arm to the shoulder blade.”

It’s the only nation mass “murder(ing) (hundreds of Palestinian children) and insisting it is the victim.”

It’s gets away with murder and mass destruction. It does so because Western leaders able to make a difference do nothing.

They don’t intervene. They don’t give a damn about doing the right thing.

They support Israeli lawlessness. They back its genocidal high crimes. They ignore Palestinian rights. Israeli ones alone matter.

Few outspoken people anywhere match George Galloway. He’s a British politician/broadcaster/writer. He’s a Respect Party Bradford West MP.

He gained prominence in Scottish politics. In 1983, he became London-based War on Want charity general secretary.

He won a Labor party parliamentary seat the same year. He represented Glasgow Hillhead. He later represented its successor Glasgow Kelvin constituency.

He retained the seat until 2005. In October 2003, he was expelled from Labor for opposing Bush/Blair’s naked aggression on Iraq.

Shameless Labor leaders said he brought disrepute to Britain’s Labor party. At the time, he said he’d stand as an independent MP.

He “consider(ed) his position…” He “consult(ed) (anti-war) movement” members.

“I will definitely defend my position in parliament,” he said. “I am not leaving politics.”

He called his expulsion “a travesty of justice, a politically motivated kangaroo court. The verdict was written in advance.”

“It is clear now that Mr. Blair intends to go after” likeminded anti-war advocates. “His response to the disaster is to attack those who opposed” it.

In April, he said if he was “sacked,” what message will (British people) take about the nature of Mr. Blair’s regime from that?”

“If necessary I will defend the new Glasgow Central constituency on a platform of real Labor values, and I believe I shall win.”

In a 50-page deposition, he argued he was wrongfully singled out for punishment. He voiced legitimate criticisms.

Other Labor party members shared them. They included former cabinet members Robin Cook and Clare Short.

At the opening of proceedings against him, he called them a “political show trial.” He said it was more like how Saddam ran things than modern-day Britain.

Former Labor MP Tony Benn defended him. He said Blair described peace protesters disgracefully. He stressed they had “blood on their hands.”

“Serious things were said on both sides,” he added. Labor has no internal appeal process against expulsion.

Galloway was with Labor from age 13. He was saddened to leave party ranks. Labor would “rue the day” it expelled him, he said.

National constitutional committee panel chair Rose Burley issued a statement, saying:

“Following the case brought by the national executive committee of the Labour party to the national constitutional committee and after a two day hearing the unanimous decision of the panel of the national constitutional committee found four of the five charges brought against Mr Galloway proven and the decision of the panel was that Mr Galloway be expelled from membership of the Labour party forthwith.”

Stop The War coalition leaders called his expulsion an “absolute disgrace.”

Coalition convenor Lindsey German said he “told the truth before, during and after the war with Iraq, whereas Tony Blair has told nothing but lies.”

“It is disgraceful that the Labour party is penalizing (him) and giving Blair a standing ovation because that does not reflect the British people’s views.”

London Unison convenor George Martin said:

“This will drive more people away from the Labour party and will make it more difficult to maintain the link between the party and trade unions.”

Labor MP socialist campaign group members called for an emergency NEC meeting. They urged overturning “this contemptible decision and reinstat(ing) Galloway with immediate effect.”

Waging war on Iraq was illegal, Galloway stressed. He urged British troops to disobey “illegal orders.” He asked:

“Why don’t Arabs do something for the Iraqis? Where are the Arab armies? We wonder when the Arab leaders wake up? When are they going to stand by the Iraqi people?”

Galloway remains passionately anti-war. He’s unapologetic about where he stands.

In May 2005, he bested US senators on Capitol Hill. He exposed them. He embarrassed them. He made fools of them.

He gave far more than he took. He accused them of manufacturing “the mother of all smokescreens.”

He did so in refuting wrongful charges about profiting from Iraqi oil sales. He told Senate subcommittee members they conducted a “schoolboy howler” in investigating illicit oil sales.
SNIP to the end

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