In Jo Cox's memory: Expel those who defame the White Helmets

I have a question for John Prescott.

If you are a Labour Party member who defames the White Helmets should you be expelled?

On Friday my friend the Times columnist Oliver Kamm retweeted my throw to him of the Snopes post debunking Eva Bartlett.

She is a Russia Today promoted woman whose shtick is that media reports of atrocities in Syria are staged.

Her shtick has been as widely distributed as the one about the Odessa Massacre, and by the same people.

Her shtick has been distributed in the same way - and often from the same sources - as was the notion that the Sandy Hook massacre of Connecticut small school children was staged.

The lunacy, the internal contradictions, of this shtick has not been better mocked than by Jim Kovpak.

My timeline since Oliver's RT has been bloated with conspiracists. I have hit 'mute' a lot.

Flying Monkeys.. descend!

I am way far from alone in being assailed by such Flying Monkeys. Someone still obsessed with complaining about Hilary Benn* thinks the RAF is bombing Aleppo. Someone who has a ton of followers. Many of those same people are busy defaming the White Helmets.

It is all the same to them - Syrians are lying, a white person knows better than a brown one.

This is the truth they keep yelling about. The I Know Better truth.

The White Helmets are the civilians busy pulling Syrian people from the rubble. Their reality is documented times over but their treatment by sections of the supposed liberal/left, emblematic of the defamation in general heaped on Syrians, including our comrades, trying to do something against fascism, is not featured by liberal media. For four years we have had this. Liberal media failing to expose these people.

This is from the David Icke website. All Civilian protectors in Syria must be in service to the great lizard.

According to the Internet the White Helmets are part of a false flag operation. Or they are AL-Queda. You can find it all endlessly repeated online.

The campaign against the White Helmets went quiet after Jo Cox, the British MP who was a great friend to Syrians, was assasinated. It has ramped up since. That their selfless acts are questioned, by anyone, should - should - be incredible. Yet those who distort are seemingly allowed to get away with it.

My response to all this earlier was:

a/ conspiracists gonna conspiracy
b/ some need excuse to ignore suffering
c/ some deliberately promote (Russia)
d/ fuel for some politics https://t.co/dJMx7We74P

— Paul Canning (@pauloCanning) December 17, 2016

All this is not 'Labour'

 

A timeline telling me that a Tweeting seven year old Aleppine is a CIA invention should be a joke - F'yes - but when it comes to the Syrian civil defence organisation the White Helmets it should be different, for anyone in the Party. As far as Labour is concerned you should - should - never dare touch the White Helmets.

The White Helmets were joint recipients of the Jo Cox memorial fund. When you hurt that you hurt Labour.

They are as 'Labour' as the Welsh Dulais Valley miners and families I visited in 1984. Labour is Internationalist and Jo Cox embraced that meaning.

Social media is flooded with defamation against the likes of the White Helmets. Labour has seen this before. Jo got this. We should too.

If Jo Cox's life meant anything it was that we enfolded these Syrians within Us. If we respect Jo we listen to those she listened to.

But, is there is a block between Us embracing the likes of the White Helmets?

Are We the White Helmets or Not?

All that keeps us from this is conspiracism. Or straight up silencing of Syrians, as Stop The War Coalition does.

One or the other Labour has to reject both. It is not who we are.

How many of those who I just engaged with, via Oliver Kamm, are Labour? Who else are here in Labour who would reject those who Jo embraced?

The point is, Mr Prescott and everyone else, whether we heard Jo or not, whether she represents us or not, Labour must decide. Who Are We.

Jo Cox's embrace of the White Helmets faces Labour with a stark choice. Whether Labour likes it or not.

Are we those who defame the White Helmets - or are we not? John? Others?

So do we expel those who defame the White Helmets?


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*Hilary Benn is the Labour MP who stood up for Labour's internationalist tradition a year ago in the House of Commons in a widely applauded speech. For this the Flying Monkeys descended and he now faces being forced out of Parliament.