All too predictably, the pro-Israel right has thrown a huge tantrum after Pope Francis praised film-maker Ken Loach and a gathering of artists in the Sistine Chapel last week as ‘prophets’ who tear down propaganda and sacred cows. The right has tried to ostracise Loach and the Keir Starmer regime has used even the loosest association with the renowned socialist maker of films such as Kes, Sorry We missed you and I, Daniel Blake as an excuse to bar even the most successful and competent left-wingers from standing as Labour candidates.
Those who want to quell criticism of Israel’s apartheid regime and its atrocities and criminality against Palestinians want to silence Loach and any others who speak out in support of Palestinian rights, so it was entirely unsurprising to see the right resort to a propaganda assault on Francis – a Pontiff who has been relentlessly outspoken against exploitation, racism and cruelty since he took up the role – and Catholics generally in their eagerness to discredit his comments.
The first step, of course, was to tar Francis, by association, as an antisemite, with TV ‘personality’ David Baddiel among the examples who didn’t fare too well:
Of course, Mr Baddiel was not the only one to try to use this tar-brush and other examples abounded:
Alongside those efforts, some attempted to smear Francis – again by association – as a paedophile or protector of paedophiles:
There are at least two glaring problems with this shameful smear: first, since becoming Pope Francis has made it his mission to end the cover-up of abuse, even changing the Catholic church’s law to require punishment of paedophile priests, in line with submissions made to him by victim groups; and second, Keir Starmer – support for whom overlaps almost 100% with those attacking Francis and whose own support for Israel is ”without qualification’ – has just said that Blairite Peter Mandelson will remain as his top adviser and is fit to do so, despite Mandelson’s well-documented and extremely close relationship with professional paedophile and child sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein.
And while Francis’s praise for Loach and his fellow artists is clearly eating up those who wish to perpetuate the ‘Labour antisemitism’ smear scam and protect the apartheid Israeli regime, the UK media has resorted to its usual tactic of simply pretending the Pope’s comments never happened – just as they have done with the award-winning Al Jazeera documentaries exposing Israeli interference in British politics and the Labour right’s sabotage, racism and crimes against democracy, along with the recent ‘Oh Jeremy Corbyn/The Big Lie’ documentary, in which Ken Loach and others testify about the antisemitism scam and the right’s assault on truth, democracy and decency.
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