George Galloway on Palestine – video

February 3, 2008

1–2 minutes

Like most readers of this site my Saturday evenings are mostly spent in exclusive nightclubs drinking the finest champagne from the shoes of super models. Last night was slightly different. This video shows George Galloway speaking at a meeting organised in a week by Respect Youth. There were 120 plus people in a community centre in one of the poorest parts of the country listening to speakers who talked about Rachel Corrie, Tom Hurndall, the lessons of the coup against Allende, the Algerian revolution and the importance of mass action in defeating apartheid.

The quality of the video isn’t great but the soundtrack is very clear.

23 responses to “George Galloway on Palestine – video”

faceless

February 3, 2008 at 12:58 pm

cheers for this – do you know the exact date of it?

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DCM

February 3, 2008 at 2:23 pm

I take it this was the meeting from yesterday faceless.

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Martin Ohr

February 4, 2008 at 11:56 am

Galloway is hilarious but why did no-one laugh at his jokes?

the one about imperialists cutting the undersea cables to deny the muslim world the ability to watch his speak on youtube was the best

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Yeshiya

February 4, 2008 at 5:59 pm

George Galloway: –
“Palestine..where Jesus walked, where Lazarus rose, where the prophet Mohammed rose to heaven from the al Aksa Mosque”

Serious question:
How would Socialist Resistance, the British section of the Trotskysist USEC, deal with literalist religious views like this, being put forward at a political meeting of the organisation they are part of?

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Clive Searle

February 4, 2008 at 8:16 pm

Well I’m not part of SR but I would have thought they have no problem with it at all. I don’t. Afterall George wasn’t speaking on behalf of the Fourth International.

But what I do have a problem with is people who believe that the most important thing about a meeting on Palestine is whether George Galloway belives in God and the prophets rather than the terrilbe plight of the Palestinian people.

I don’t know who you are, Yeshiya, but you need a sense of perspective.

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andy newman

February 4, 2008 at 8:31 pm

There is another thing. I have visited Jeruslaem and Bethlehem, and Jericho, and the religious mythology of the landscape is all-pervasive. Iit is actually amazing how many of the reliegious sites are crammed into a tiny area – and after a while it just becomes too cumbersome to say “shephards’ fields where Christians believe the wise men visted the baby Jesus” and even as a non-belever yout start talking about “”shephards’ fields the wise men visted the baby Jesus” .

For a believer that mist be even more natural.

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Yeshiya

February 4, 2008 at 9:38 pm

Clive Searle “I don’t know who you are, Yeshiya, but you need a sense of perspective…..”

My name is Yeshiya ben Azriel.
I think my sense of perspective is better than yours.

Thing is, it stuck out at the beginning of the video, so I noticed it. Who exactly is saying the issue is *more* important than the plight of the Palestinians?
Galloway, speaking on behalf of Respect Renewal, actually refers to the “calvary where (the Palestinians) are being crucified” straight afterwards.

You, apparently think it’s completely unimportant, which makes me wonder how much else you’re prepared to sweep under the carpet.

I wonder why supporting the Palestinians requires gratuitous appeals to traditional Catholic antisemitism? Don’t deny it, that’s exactly what it is.

These are not isolated comments, they are part of a consistent political approach by Galloway, on a whole number of issues, including his call for a “government of all the talents” as a solution to martial law in Pakistan, his voting record on Abortion rights and his unaccountable actions in the mass media.

If you’re interested in solutions to the plight of the Palestinians, populism isn’t the answer.

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Yeshiya

February 4, 2008 at 9:42 pm

Yeah Andy, you’re beginning to suffer from ‘Jerusalem fever’. If you don’t get over it by the third trip, you start suffering from religious delusions as well.
Get over it.

I prefer to stick to history myself, and facts.

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andy newman

February 4, 2008 at 9:44 pm

Yeshiya:

I wonder why supporting the Palestinians requires gratuitous appeals to traditional Catholic antisemitism? Don’t deny it, that’s exactly what it is.

This is rubbish, and offensive rubbsh at that.

There is absolutely no reference in this speech to any anti-Semitism.

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Liam

February 4, 2008 at 10:36 pm

Occasionally I find myself wondering if some of the people who leave comments actually do politics in the real world with real people, most of whom are not fully formed Marxists.

It would have been better if GG had tried to persuade his audience to become atheist materialists. He didn’t. He used some pretty standard rhetorical devices to appeal to an audience with a lot of religious believers. In Catholic mythology Calvary summons images of Jesus’ suffering rather than anti-semitism.

The whole thrust of the evening was of consistent anti-imperialist solidarity. In fact Abjol Miah and Dawood Abdullah spent a fair bit of time talking about anti-Zionist activists in the Israeli state and singled out Jewish members of the Palestine solidarity Campaign in the room for special praise. The anti-semitic drivel does not stick.

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modernityblog

February 4, 2008 at 11:34 pm

I don’t think that socialists in Respect Renewal give George Galloway’s religious imagery a moment’s thought, 20 or 30 years ago they might have, but nowadays political expediency has taken over and so pandering to religious sentiment is par for the course, which helps to explain part of the decline of the British Left

perhaps Respect Renewal should go the whole hog
and release their own brand rosary beads?

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Yeshiya

February 5, 2008 at 12:21 am

Listen Liam, I’ve been doing “politics in the real world” for a lot longer than you have.
I helped build the StWC, including meetings addressed Galloway attended by many Muslims.
I wasn’t asking Galloway to use your meeting to convert people to Militant Atheism, or even make it a topic of disussion.
I was saying that the religious metaphor he used, whether it has a basis in fact or not, needlessly appeals to and reinforces traditional religious prejudices. These are a cruel mockery of the real history of the region.
Glad to hear about the anti-imperialist solidarity, but I’m not clear how this was taken forward by these dubious forays into religious dogmatism.
I totally reject the accusations of ‘drivel’ and ‘offensive rubbish’ of course, especially as you dodged my other points.

.

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redbedhead (nee Canadien)

February 5, 2008 at 4:48 am

In Canada – and the US – the social gospel movement was a key component of the development of a socialist movement on the continent. The NDP (our Labour Party) wouldn’t exist without the key role played by men like Tommy Douglas – a preacher – who led the party. And they used religious rhetoric – like the coming of the New Jerusalem – as a means to connect with their audience, using language that had resonance with them.
What’s more, English is saturated with religious allusions and metaphors, it structures our language in deep ways. There’s no escaping it and we shouldn’t fear it – it’s the actions towards which the words drive the listeners which are the key.

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Yeshiya

February 5, 2008 at 7:33 am

Yes Canadienne, but we’re living in the 21st Century, 150 years after the principles of scientific socialism were laid down.
The Social Gospel movement is now a conscious alternative to it.
Do I mind when Tony Benn talks about Jesus being the “first Communist”?
Not particularly, although I don’t think it’s a statement of fact.

Do I mind when Galloway refers to miraculous events as facts and uses references that anyone can see have deeply sectarian implications?
Yes, I do.
Not only because it’s an obstacle to a solution to solving the question of the opression of the Palestinians but because his religious views also have implications for his policies in Britain.

Should Marxists emulate his language?
Absolutely not.
Lenin and Trotsky attended religious services of British workers in the East End (check ‘My Life’)
Did they emulate them?
No.
They regarded the influence of religion in the unions and socialist movement negatively.
I concur with their approach and haven’t ever found it an obstacle to working with Muslims.
It’s just a question of having the guts to stick to your position.

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andy newman

February 5, 2008 at 9:11 am

Yeshiva.

Yur original accusation was not about religious language,m but anti-Semitism.

I have listened through twice, and there is not even the hint of the faintest shadow of anti-Semitism

AntiiJudaic bigotry in traditional Catholic ideology is based upon three precepts i) the Jews killed Christ, and the blood libel; ii) the Jews rejected salvation; iii) the Jews insult Christians by claiming to be a Special people – whereas in the Christian mind all men and women are decendents of Adam and Even , and Noah and his wife.

There is no reference by Galloway to any of these – he points out that the land of Palestine is incredibly rich in religious sites and significnace to the Peoples of the Book (in rival editions), and using evocative poetic imagary he says that in the land of calvary, the palestinians are still being crucified. there is absoluely nothing anti0Semitic about that.

I note that you have used bluff and bluster but you have not defended your original claim of anti-Semitism, and the ultra-Zionist implictaion that all Catholics are anti-Semitites.

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redbedhead (nee Canadien)

February 5, 2008 at 1:02 pm

“Yes Canadienne, but we’re living in the 21st Century, 150 years after the principles of scientific socialism were laid down.”

It’s a shame that nobody bothered to tell Martin Luther King Jr. or Malcolm X that obvious fact. Actually, it’s a shame that nobody bothered to tell the CPUSA that fact when they were very successfully organizing black sharecroppers in the deep south in the 1930s since a lot of their cadre were Baptist Ministers.

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Keith

February 5, 2008 at 2:31 pm

Now here’s a headline you didn’t expect to see.

‘Time for openness over Parliamentary expenses’ says Respect MP George Galloway

It relates to this

Luke 15 : 7.
Or what woman having ten pieces of silver, if she lose one piece, doth not light a lamp, and sweep the house, and seek diligently until she find it? And when she hath found it, she calleth together her friends and neighbors, saying, Rejoice with me, for I have found the piece which I had lost. Even so, I say unto you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner that repenteth.

Well actually it relates to this.

Respect MP George Galloway has written to the House of Commons authorities disassociating himself from legal moves to overturn a ruling by the Information Commissioner in favour of greater disclosure of MPs’ expenses.

Mr Galloway was named as one of the high profile MPs information about whose expenses a member of the public wanted disclosed. “I have no reason to hide the information,” says Galloway. “The House authorities have pursued a particular route in opposing the Information Commissioner’s ruling. Whatever the claimed merits for that on the grounds of privacy, there is no way it can be justified, especially in the new climate of public concern over these issues.
“Whatever other parliamentary colleagues decide, I have told the House authorities that I have no objection to the disclosure of the information pertaining to me. I don’t claim for a second home; I don’t have family members on the payroll and I don’t claim for travel.”

For further information contact Kevin Ovenden on 020 XXX XXXX or 07XXX XXX XXX

Everyone knows about Galloways long struggle with lost coins. His history of missing accounts and abusing his Parliamentary Office goes back a long time.
Only last summer the Parliamentary Standards and Privileges Committee
found:

Mr Galloway’s use of his Parliamentary office and staff, provided from public funds, in support of the Mariam Appeal constituted therefore, in my view, a further breach of the Rules of the House.

The report also sheds light on the relationship between Mr Galloway, financial records and his staff. The Charity Commission investigation found “proper accounts were not available”. What happened to the accounts remains unclear

The commissioner for Parliamentary Standards wrote to Galloway.

In their letter of 13 April 2004 to the Charity Commission your solicitors, Davenport Lyons, said on your behalf:
“. . . the majority of the documents relating to the Mariam Appeal and the treatment of Mariam Hamza are not currently in the possession of Mr Galloway or Dr Amineh Abu-Zayyad. The documents were handed to Fawaz Zureikat by the Mariam Appeal’s Vice Chairman, Stuart Halford, when he took over the role of Chairman from Mr Galloway and the Appeal’s London office was closed down and moved to Baghdad in mid 2001. The documents are now in either Baghdad or Amman and are not currently traceable due to the unsettled political situation in Iraq and Jordan.”

However The Commissioner continues:

In a letter to me dated 23 February 2006, Mr Halford said:
“I would like to reiterate that at no time were the records of the Mariam Appeal handed over by me to Fawaz Zureikat or indeed sent by me to him. As far as I can recollect only two or three A4 envelopes were ever sent by me to Fawaz Zureikat by FedEx to his business address in Jordan. These contained letterheads and basic campaign literature but nothing that could be deemed ‘records’ of the Mariam Appeal. As I previously said Mr Galloway himself may well have handed over records/documents of the Mariam Appeal to Fawaz Zureikat but again I reiterate that if this was the case the records/documents in question did not include any material that I ever knew about or was in my possession.”

Galloways second account makes an attempt to clear it up

Several of your questions about the campaign’s expenditure must therefore be beyond the scope of your rights as Parliamentary Commissioner. This must include what I did with paperwork relating to the campaign except where this touches on the provenance of its income. Nonetheless I have tried to be helpful to you in explaining that upon his assumption of the position of chairman of the Mariam Appeal I caused to be passed to Mr Fawaz Zureikat such documentation as I described in my last letter to you and in subsequent answers in our meeting. Exactly who passed the documentation to Mr Fawaz Zureikat is less relevant than the fact that I take responsibility for its having been done.

Is that clear now?

So, is yesterdays press release a delayed response to the exposure of Galloways abuse of offices, staff and facilities? Perhaps not. In the weeks that followed the report George was busy setting up a new media business. Miranda Media Limited. Miranda Media was arranging Galloways “Mother of All Talk Shows Annual Convention” in Blackpool.

And what a surprise. His business was using Parliamentary Staff, offices and facilities. And his constituency office was being used as a forwarding address for cheques. Telephone enquiries regarding the business to his constituency office were referred on to one of his Parliamentary Staff. Enquiries regarding Miranda Media business to his Westminster office were handled remarkably efficiently by one of his Parliamentary staff. Emails answered within 30 minutes. A surprise, as Galloway’s office is notoriously poor at that sort of thing as a survey into MPs offices showed:

George Galloway, the Respect MP who was accused of neglecting his constituents while taking part in Celebrity Big Brother is among the worst, listed as responding to only 7.6% of messages, leaving him ranked 681st in a league table of 688 MPs.

He even went so far as to urge listeners to his radio show to send cheques “made out to Miranda Media” to him at Parliament from where they would be “forwarded on to those organizing the Convention”
An odd choice of words given that Galloway,who is the only director of the company and the company secretarywho was handling enquries about tickets were working in his Parliamentary Office.

None of Galloway’s staff have declared an interest in Miranda Media Ltd in the Parliamentary register.

I am sure there is an innocent explanation for all of this. Perhaps in his new spirit of transparency Mr Galloway could tell us what was going on in his offices.

Then we can rejoice that George has found the coin.

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CHAB

February 5, 2008 at 3:25 pm

Well, I did expect to see it as this has been repeatedly posted on the left-wing blogs by AWL-Galloway hunters

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jj

February 5, 2008 at 4:04 pm

what I saw of GG’s speech at this meeting was mainly about him speaking with regards to….himself.

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Yeshiya

February 6, 2008 at 7:35 am

Andy Newman:-
‘I note that you have used bluff and bluster but you have not defended your original claim of anti-Semitism, and the ultra-Zionist implictaion that all Catholics are anti-Semitites’

There’s no bluff and bluster involved at all.

I asked a simple question about Galloways use of religious imagery and no one saw any problems with it, which is just evidence of the left’s lack of understanding on the question. You can’t treat this as some smear against Galloway and Respect(R) because you’ve got Canadienne on your side too!

You yourself have pointed out the strong hold of religious believes in the area, which is true. So it’s quite a serious issue and it’s a question of how you deal with that.

I don’t believe in a literal interpretation of any religious texts, including the Jewish ones. On the other hand Galloway’s religious references, are literalist and selective.

Let’s say he’d wanted to religious imagery to reflect history and current realities more accurately.
He could have also mentioned Akiva ben Joseph, who welcomed martydom, along with hundreds of thousands of others, as a result of his support for the 2nd Jewish revolt, “whose flesh (was) flailed from his body with iron combs and then drawn and quartered”.

Whatever the exact historical truth about the individual, the events surrounding him are undoubtedly true. At the time the Jewish peasantry, rather like the Palestinians were fighting dispossession in their homeland.
Akiva remains a central figure in Rabbincal Judaism today, so had Galloway made such an allusion, the parallel would be quite telling. It would also point to the need for equitable a solution which can encompass all the religions and ethnicities in the area.
That points towards a bi-national socialist state with freedom for all religious beliefs and none.

When I hear Galloway take that line, I’ll withdraw my criticisms.

BTW, his Islamic theology is a bit out, because the “Night Journey”, concerning Mohammed (dreaming of?) travelling to the “Outermost Mosque” has always been interpreted in the Hadiths as referring to the Dome of the Rock not al Aqsa.
al Aqsa didn’t even exist when Mohammed was alive.

As to the ‘all Catholics are anti-semites’ argument . No I don’t think that, but the argument that elements of the Gospels are Judeophobic is hardly “ultra-zionist”.
It’s been quite widely accepted for a long time, including by scholars of theology.
Most of the Catholic and Protestant Churches have accepted it too.
So why is this such a big deal?

Canadienne:-
“It’s a shame that nobody bothered to tell Martin Luther King Jr. or Malcolm X that obvious fact. Actually, it’s a shame that nobody bothered to tell the CPUSA that fact when they were very successfully organizing black sharecroppers in the deep south in the 1930s since a lot of their cadre were Baptist Ministers.”

Yes, but I wasn’t arguing that it was wrong to work with religious believers or even recruit them to a socialist organisation. I’m not even arguing that socialists shouldn’t participate in Churches, Mosques, Synagogues, Gurdwaras, or Hindu Temples.
It’s a question of programmatic political accomodation.

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andy newman

February 6, 2008 at 12:13 pm

yeshiva: this is frankly dissembling on your part now.

You originally wrote:

I wonder why supporting the Palestinians requires gratuitous appeals to traditional Catholic antisemitism? Don’t deny it, that’s exactly what it is.

So you did not ask a question about religious imagery, you said he was making an appeal to catholic anti-Semitism.

You just posted more bluff and bluster, but nothing that addresses what was supposedly anti-Semitic.

You concede that you don’t think that all Catholics are anti-Semitic, so what on earth was anti-Semitic about referring to Calvary?

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Yeshiya

February 7, 2008 at 8:30 am

“…..more bluff and bluster”

The challenge remains open, I rest my case.

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andy newman

February 7, 2008 at 10:34 am

Yeshiva, you say galloeay is anti-Semitic becasue he didn’t mention Akiva ben Joseph, a historicall figure I have never heard of, and who has no cultural resonance in Britain.

It is quoite clear that you cannot defend your accusation of anti-Semitism.

You should withdraw it and apologise.

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