Akehurst of Labour First Supports Hewlett Packard’s Supply of Technology under the guise of ‘Anti-Terrorism’
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| Akehurst comes from a long tradition of Labour imperialists |
The dictionary.com definition
of execrable is either:
1.
utterly detestable;
abominable; abhorrent or
2.
very bad:
By way of
contrast the OED
defines execrable as ‘Extremely bad or unpleasant.’
I suspect
they all describe Luke Akehurst even if they miss out the vital ingredient of
what makes someone who is obviously intelligent support the most reprehensible
aspects of Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. I refer to his right-wing pro-imperialist politics that sees little or nothing wrong with the imperialist presence in the Middle East.
Akehurst until recently worked for the British
Israel Committee’s We Believe in Israel
department. In Hewlett
Packard stands with Israel – stand with HP against the boycotters Akehurst defend Israel’s use of Hewlett Packard’s technology
to maintain its police state methods of repression. Everything is excused under the rubric of ‘terrorism’.
Let us recall what Ronnie Kassrills,
a Jewish member of the ANC’s Executive Committee for 20 years and Intelligence Minister
for 4 years in the ANC government said
about Israel’s benign occupation, whose methods Luke Akehurst is so committed
to defending:
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| Protestors staging a die-in at HP headquarters |
‘Ronnie Kasrils on
Apartheid Israel, 2007:
“Travelling into Palestine's West Bank and Gaza Strip, which I visited recently, is like a surreal trip back into an apartheid state of emergency. It is chilling to pass through the myriad checkpoints -- more than 500 in the West Bank. They are controlled by heavily armed soldiers, youthful but grim, tensely watching every movement, fingers on the trigger… The West Bank, once 22% of historic Palestine, has shrunk to perhaps 10% to 12% of living space for its inhabitants, and is split into several fragments, including the fertile Jordan Valley, which is a security preserve for Jewish settlers and the Israeli Defence Force. Like the Gaza Strip, the West Bank is effectively a hermetically sealed prison. It is shocking to discover that certain roads are barred to Palestinians and reserved for Jewish settlers. I try in vain to recall anything quite as obscene in apartheid South Africa.”
In 2002 Anglican Archbishop and Nobel Peace Prize winner Desmond Tutu
wrote a series of articles in major newspapers, comparing the Israeli occupation
of the West Bank to apartheid South Africa, and calling for the international community to divest support
from Israel until the territories were no longer occupied. In an April 2010
open letter to the University of Berkeley, Tutu wrote
“I have been to the Occupied Palestinian Territory, and I have witnessed the racially segregated roads and housing that reminded me so much of the conditions we experienced in South Africa under the racist system of Apartheid. I have witnessed the humiliation of Palestinian men, women, and children made to wait hours at Israeli military checkpoints routinely when trying to make the most basic of trips to visit relatives or attend school or college, and this humiliation is familiar to me and the many black South Africans who were corralled and regularly insulted by the security forces of the Apartheid government.”
In 2011, Tutu wrote an article for the Tampa Bay Times, arguing
that Israeli apartheid is now so bad that only an international boycott can
force Israel to change its policies. [Earlier this month, Tutu said, : “It is not a Muslim or Jewish
crisis. It is a human rights crisis with roots to what
amounts to an apartheid system of land ownership and control.
It is a crisis that fuels other crises…”
Both Desmond Tutu and Ronnie Kassrills were aware of the close
economic, political and military links between Apartheid South Africa and Zionist
Israel. Luke Akehurst, as a racist
supporter of Israel’s settler colonialism is determined to ignore the reality
of Israel’s occupation. The wonder is
how this creature managed to become a runner-up in Labour’s NEC elections this
year and to have even served as a CLP representative previously.
It is an example of the depths to which Labour’s Right and the Zionist lobby
will sink that such a man, who makes his living by working for an Israeli propaganda
organisation, is the best they can find.
A man without any sign of moral scruples.
In
Akehurst’s rant below he has even put up a petition for people to sign
supporting this mega American multinational.
One wonders whether, if he had been alive at the time, Akehurst would
have summoned up support for IBM’s involvement in providing a basic
computerised card index for the Nazis in order that they could classify Jews more
efficiently? The methods of operation of
IBM and Hewlett-Packard are much the
same – providing electronic services to regimes of oppression.
Edwin
Black’s book IBM & the Holocaust recounts how
‘The 1933 census, with design help and tabulation services provided by IBM through its German subsidiary, proved to be pivotal to the Nazis in their efforts to identify, isolate, and ultimately destroy the country's Jewish minority. Machine-tabulated census data greatly expanded the estimated number of Jews in Germany by identifying individuals with only one or a few Jewish ancestors.’
Akehurst’s
arguments can be boiled down to these:
i.
The
information technology supplied to Israel is to prevent ‘terrorism’
ii.
This
protects not only Israeli (for which read Israeli Jewish) civilians but Palestinians
too. Perhaps the most nauseous of
Akehurst’s statements is where he says that:
iii.
‘Boycotts
are harmful to peace, as they stop dialogue and coexistence between Israelis
and Palestinians.’
As the article The case against Hewlett-Packard shows, Hewlett Packard’s systems
have nothing to do with preventing ‘terrorism’ but have everything to do with
enabling the Israeli state to maintain its coercive and repressive regime of
Occupation. The idea that HP’s
technology makes it ‘easier for Palestinian workers and others to travel into
Israel, as they can prove their identity’ is simply a lie. Palestinian lives are completely disrupted by
the hundreds of Israeli checkpoints which makes a short journey take
hours.
Even Israel’s hard-line cabinet minister, Uri
Ariel, himself a settler, condemned the conditions that Palestinians face at
checkpoints where they are forced to wait for hours in the burning sun whilst
Jewish settlers pass through a different entrance without problems. Hard-right minister:
Conditions at West Bank checkpoints ‘disgraceful’
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| Elor Azaria, the Kahanist Israeli soldier who shot a severely injured Palestinians lying on the ground in the head has become an Israeli national hero |
If it is
terrorism that concerns Akehurst then there is plenty of terrorism that HP
assists the army in committing. For
example the shooting in the head of a severely injured Palestinian who was
lying comatose on the ground by a far-Right soldier Elor Azarya who is a
national hero with over 60% support from the Israeli Jewish public. [Most Israelis Say Army Medic Who Killed Wounded Suspect
Is Not a Murderer]
Or
another example of the terrorism that Akehurst doesn’t see is the murder, one
of very many, of an 18 year old college student Hadil Al-Hashloumon. Eyewitness To Hebron IDF Murder of Hadil
Al-Hashloumon: ‘I Never Saw Any Knife’. There is of course the mundane terrorism that
has seen over a thousand Palestinian homes demolished in the West Bank this
year in order to make way for settlements.
But the only time Akehurst understand’s terrorism is when the Palestinians
under occupation resist. Otherwise it is
simply a case of law and order, maintaining the racist peace and that of course
is what the absurd ‘anti-Semitism campaign’ of the Zionists in the Labour Party
is about. As Akehurst says, he is not Jewish
but he is a Zionist. Thus it ever was.
Akehurst’s Puff Piece on Hewlett Packard
Here’s
our latest campaign – please sign this petition:
Anti-Israel
campaigners have called on people to boycott the information technology company
Hewlett Packard (HP) and its successor companies, because they provide
biometric identity systems for Israeli security checkpoints. They also provide
IT systems to the Israeli Navy, Army, Defence Ministry and prison service, all
of which help Israel combat terrorist threats such as Hamas and Hezbollah. With
6,000 local employees, HP is the second biggest investor in IT in Israel. Just
to confuse things, HP recently demerged into two companies – HP Inc. which
makes computers and printers, and HP Enterprise which provides IT services and
software to governments and companies – but the boycotters don’t care, they are
boycotting both!
The call
to boycott HP would harm both Israelis and Palestinians because the HP-supplied
security systems at IDF checkpoints help prevent terrorist attacks such as
suicide bombings against Israeli civilians, whilst making it easier for
Palestinian workers and others to travel into Israel, as they can prove their
identity.
HPE’s
security system is used as a result of the Wye River Accords, signed by the
Palestinian Authority and Israel.
Boycotts
are harmful to peace, as they stop dialogue and coexistence between Israelis
and Palestinians. The boycott movement demonises Israel. It is particularly
reprehensible to seek to stop Israel obtaining technology that protects its
citizens from terrorism, and to attack companies that are involved in Israel’s
security.
As
Hewlett Packard Enterprise helps protect Israeli civilians from terrorism, we
want to encourage it to continue to provide technology to Israel, and to let HP
know there is global public support for its role there.
Therefore
we would like you to sign our petition thanking Hewlett Packard Enterprise for
their continued investment in Israel and support for Israel's security, which
we will pass on to the company’s management:
What is
Hewlett-Packard?
Hewlett-Packard
Company (HP) is a US multinational information technology corporation. It is a
global provider of computer products and IT services. It is also one of the top
25 defence contractors with the US Pentagon.
Why is
Hewlett-Packard a BDS target?
Palestinian
movement within the West Bank is tightly controlled by Israel through the use
of checkpoints. The major checkpoints use what is known as the BASEL system.
This system uses scanners with hand and facial recognition to collect biometric
data about every Palestinian who uses the checkpoints.
The
biometric data of nearly every Palestinian over the age of 16 is held by the
Israeli authorities as part of Israel’s system of control and repression.
HP
Enterprise Services, a division of HP, is responsible for developing,
integrating and maintaining the BASEL system.
HP not
only profits from developing systems to racially profile Palestinians and track
and control their movements, it is also complicit in the Israeli apartheid
which limits the parts of the West Bank which they can access, and which
restricts their freedom of movement.
As such,
it is complicit in the breach of Article 13 of the Universal Declaration of
Human Rights, which states that: “Everyone has the right to freedom of
movement…within the borders of each state.”
HP is
also contracted to provide the Israeli navy’s IT infrastructure. The Israeli
navy is used to enforce the illegal blockade of Gaza from the sea, to prevent
Palestinian fishermen from carrying out their trade, and to bombard Gaza during
major assaults.
Israel’s
blockade of Gaza constitutes collective punishment. Article 33 of the Fourth
Geneva Convention prohibits collective punishment and designates it as a war
crime. By contracting with the Israeli navy, HP becomes complicit in the
Israeli state’s war crimes against Gaza.
HP has,
in the past, supplied PCs to the Israeli army, which enforces the lethal
occupation of Palestinian land.
Boycott,
Divestment and Sanctions – don’t buy HP products!
