Pro-genocide lobby exploits prejudices towards Muslims to shield themselves from accountability

London - This week, Lindsay Hoyle, the Speaker of the House of Commons in Parliament, provoked outrage after he broke centuries-old convention to help the pro-Israeli leader of the Labour Party, Keir Starmer, avoid a rebellion in his party. The vote was to call for a ceasefire in Gaza where a genocide has been unfolding for the last four months.

After Hoyle’s dishonesty was published widely he chose the age-old Islamophobic trope of claiming terrorist threats towards parliamentarians. This is a well known tactic used by the security state and pro-war lobbies over the last 30 years in order to manufacture consent for the killing of millions abroad and acquiring authoritarian powers at home.

Israel, alongside its partners, seeks to quash independent Muslim dissent and civil society. The terrorism and counter-extremism infrastructure serves this purpose, which explains recent comments from William Shawcross that sought to cast the pro Palestine movement as a terror threat.  

Subsequently this narrative was exploited by right-wing and mainstream commentators, and through the disingenuous grandstanding from MPs like Robert Jenrick, Penny Mordaunt and Suella Braverman. The fallacy that ‘Islamists’ have seized control of Parliament and British streets, is a callous attempt at masking the fact that the Friends of Israel have far more influence on policy matters than is considered healthy for a pluralistic society.

Anas Mustapha, head of Public Advocacy at CAGE International, said: 

"The continuing mass street protests and global condemnation of Israel have sent shockwaves through the Permanent Wars and Friends of Israel circles, prompting panic. In response, they’ve resorted to age-old tactics of inciting and exploiting prejudices to suppress widespread condemnation of those complicit in and supportive of live streamed genocide."