Year 12s: what will be the first way you research your future options? >>

Why can't Corbyn just come clean about his Hamas/Hezbollah links?

Corbyn was, once again, pushing his dishonest, shifty line at the Question Time debate that when he met with Hamas and Hezbollah and called them his friends, he was actually meeting them as part of some kind of peace process. Why does he keep telling this lie? Well, I guess probably because some people are too lazy to research it, and others will defend him no matter what so they just need a patina of justification.

This "peace process" that Corbyn says he was taking part in with Hamas and Hezbollah, at this particular meeting where he called them his "friends", was called "Meet the Resistance" (hardly sounds like a peace meeting... were any Israelis invited? Of course not; the point of the meeting was to applaud the "resistance" :wink:

.

At no point in that meeting did Corbyn call for those organisations to put down their arms and come to the negotiating table. In fact, he praised their "dedication to peace and social justice". Really? Hamas is a practitioner of "social justice"? Here's the video of old Corbo "seeking peace"

[video="youtube;pGj1PheWiFQ"]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pGj1PheWiFQ[/video]

There has never been a single day of peace, anywhere in the world, as a result of anything Corbyn has done. His consistent position over 30 years was to meet with armed groups like the IRA and Hamas, and to give them moral and rhetorical support.

He claims sometimes for peace you "have to talk to people you don't agree with". But Corbyn completely agrees with Hamas and Hezbollah. For Corbyn to talk to people he didn't agree with, to cross that uncomfortable 'fence', he would have to go to speak to perhaps people on the Israeli settler right-wing. That would be an act that sought to create bridges of understanding.

Just as Corbyn claims that he was part of the Northern Ireland peace process. But he was never part of the peace process; he wasn't involved in a single meeting of the Good Friday Accords. Senior IRA members have confirmed Corbyn was a supporter of the 'armed struggle', he never told them they should put down their guns and come to the negotiating table.

Corbyn claims that he was ahead of his time in talking to the IRA and the government later did it, and you have to talk to get peace. This is about as dishonest as it gets. It's not as though the UK government was fighting the Northern Ireland conflict against the IRA, and then suddenly one day in the mid-90s thought, "Hey, maybe we should try talking to them. That Corbyn guy told us we should".

What actually happened was that starting around the early 1980s, after Thatcher ordered the SAS, MI5 and the RUC to take the gloves off and really hit the IRA hard, the UK security forces started to get the upper hand over the IRA. The IRA was being completely infiltrated, their cells were being rolled up, and the SAS was being used to devastating effect against IRA terrorists in incidents like the shoot-out at Lough Gall where the SAS ambushed an IRA cell who were trying to demolish a police station with explosives. Eight IRA terrorists were killed. The SAS continued this shoot to kill policy, and HMG generally got their act together after being quite ineffectual in the 1970s. By the early 1990s, Martin McGuinness and Gerry Adams had concluded that it was no longer possible to win by military means, and they contacted the UK gov through a backchannel (MI6 officer Michael Oatley) who had been a conduit for secret messages between IRA leadership and the UK government since the early 1970s.

The UK government's response was the same it had always been; (1) Northern Ireland will remain part of the UK unless a clear majority of the Northern Irish decide otherwise, (2) there will be a continued UK military presence in Northern Ireland, and (3) the IRA will not be allowed at the negotiating table until they put down their guns and bombs and ceased violent attacks on the army and police. This had basically been the UK positions for three decades. And in the end, the IRA accepted it. In the end, the IRA accepted Northern Ireland remaining part of the UK and gave up their arms (basically admitting they had killed thousands for nothing).

If Corbyn had his way in the 1980s, none of that would have happened. Without the hard military and intelligence gains of the 1980s in the war against IRA, they wouldn't have come to the negotiating table and we wouldn't have had the Good Friday Agreement where the IRA basically conceded every major point to the UK government. Corbyn wanted the UK government to surrender and withdraw from Northern Ireland. He encouraged the IRA to continue the military conflict, he praised their "courage" and mourned fallen IRA terrorists. If anything, Corbyn's actions (along with people like him) served to prolong the conflict, not end it early.

As such, it is not only dishonest for Corbyn to claim for himself the mantle of peacemaker, it's actually obscene because people like him and Ken Livingstone probably prolonged the conflict by giving the IRA false hope of political support in the UK. But Corbyn will never come clear about this because he is such a pathological liar, so inauthentic, that he has probably convinced himself that he is Saint Jeremy, peacemaker of the world.

***Oh and inb4 whiney Corbyn supporters start bawling about "Wahhh, you're just a hater, why are you always criticising my beloved leader". Corbyn's record (and his lying about his previous positions) is a perfectly justifiable basis on which to debate whether he is worthy to become Prime Minister. Those whose posts are some variation of, "Wahh, you're just a hater" shouldn't expect a substantive reply.

(edited 6 years ago)

Scroll to see replies

Reply 1

JMR2021_

Debate & Current Affairs Helper

Reply 2

ghibli2

tl;dr

Don't really care much about what you say either tbh. If you're bringing in corbyn's past, let's also bring in the tories past.

Also your proof of malicious intent is the name of the organisation. Wtf? All I see is a bunch of assumptions.

Reply 3

AlexanderHam

Original post by ghibli2

I didn't read it, but it criticises Corbyn so it must be wrong

FTFY

Reply 4

Siliaz

All speculation above. Here's fact...https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maria_Gatland actual ex IRA Tory Councillor

Reply 5

AlexanderHam

Original post by JMR2017

And that means what? Being against apartheid means it's okay for him to pal around with homophobic murderers?

Being against apartheid in the 1980s doesn't make him some exceptional person; pretty much everyone was.

Reply 6

AlexanderHam

Original post by Siliaz

All speculation above. Here's fact...https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maria_Gatland actual ex IRA Tory Councillor

Is that person seeking to become Prime Minister?

I'm glad you admit that IRA links are obscene and disgusting, though.

Reply 7

ghibli2

Original post by AlexanderHam

FTFY

Keep moaning. The Hamas/IRA smear simply doesnt work.

Reply 8

ghibli2

Original post by AlexanderHam

Im a squabbly bi*ch with no life.

Did not read.

Original post by AlexanderHam

Is that person seeking to become Prime Minister?

I'm glad you admit that IRA links are obscene and disgusting, though.

The IRA had a valid cause.

Reply 11

AlexanderHam

Original post by zazzyhazzy

Did not read.

You exalt in your ditzy ignorance. Good to know.

Reply 12

AlexanderHam

Original post by ghibli2

you seem to be getting quite angry :lol:

Reply 13

username2647535

Original post by AlexanderHam

You exalt in your ditzy ignorance. Good to know.

Yes I shall exalt in my ditzy ignorance, if only that is fine by you, my friend.

Reply 14

yudothis

What's the problem here? Good video.

Reply 15

ghibli2

Original post by AlexanderHam

you seem to be getting quite angry :lol:

Me? Pls, look at the little essay you wrote that no one bothered to read, thinks it's you that's angry :lol:

Reply 16

AlexanderHam

Original post by ghibli2

Me? Pls, look at the little essay you wrote that no one bothered to read

thinks it's you that's angry :lol:

The internet equivalent of "I know you are, you said you are, but what am I?".

Well played, sir. You are truly the acme of wit and clever banter.

Reply 17

ghibli2

Original post by AlexanderHam

Just because you find it hard to read more than 140 characters doesn't mean other people are the same. When you see green gems next to OP... well, you're not bright but I'm sure even you can work out what it implies.

The internet equivalent of "I know you are, you said you are, but what am I?".

Well played, sir. You are truly the acme of wit and clever banter.