Part one on Zionism in West London can be read here.

At Kensington & Chelsea (RBKC)’s January Full Council meeting, the final agenda item was independent councillor Dr Mona Ahmed’s motion calling on RBKC to immediately divest its staff pension fund from companies profiting from Israel’s crimes and endorse a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip. Presenting the motion, Cllr Ahmed offered eye-watering statistics on the scale of the destruction of life in the besieged Palestinian enclave. The councillor raised the Genocide Convention and the obligations it imposes on the British government and local authorities, including that they must refrain from investing in companies complicit in the crime. Councillor Ahmed also called for RBKC “to provide the same humanitarian support to Palestinian refugees as they have to Ukrainian refugees” including pressing the British government to medically evacuate injured people from Gaza. What followed was typical of local and national politics and their commitment to Zionism.

Motion Sickness

Independent councillor Emma Dent Coad seconded the divestment motion and voiced the concern of council staff who want to speak out against the use of their pension contributions to support Israel but are afraid of potential repercussions, such is the climate of fear in Britain. Dent Coad contrasted the conduct of RBKC regarding Israel with the council’s stated aspiration to become “the best” council.

Liberal Democrat Linda Wade was first to respond. We understand Wade was warned by a Conservative councillor that the call for divestment from war profiteers and for a ceasefire amounted to ‘a disgusting antisemitic motion.’ Despite this, Cllr Wade drew a comparison between Gaza and Auschwitz and talked about the “dehumanising” effect of war, especially on children.

Independent councillor Eva Jedut then described Hamas’s “onslaught on Israel” and went on to blame the victims and their supporters in Britain in a heavily propagandised intervention that inverted the reality of the situation in Gaza.

The Tories – Greener, Safer, Fairer

Cllr Tom Bennett of the Conservatives had indicated that he wanted to contribute to the debate but was apparently told to keep shtum by fellow Tory Councillor Greg Hammond. It was left to Cllr Johnny Thalassites, Chief Whip of the Conservative Group, to speak for his party. He offered the “strongest condemnation” of Palestinians militants’ brief escape from the Gaza Strip on October 7^th 2023. In contrast, Cllr Thalassites offered just “deep regret for events that unfolded thereafter” including the “tragic” death toll. At the time of writing, the death toll in Gaza has passed 48,000, mostly women and children.

Having just staked out a position on global affairs, Cllr Thalassites claimed that it was not the role of the council “to stake out positions on global affairs” and explained that because councillors can’t debate all international crises, they should not debate any of them. The primary responsibility of elected councillors, said Cllr Thalassites, is to serve local residents with the services they need (including very frequent bin collections, a key Tory campaigning pledge that Cllr T wisely did not mention, although he might have been thinking about it). The Tories’ position was consistent with that of RBKC’s Investment Committee, premised on the twin beliefs that international law does not apply to this council, and the views of staff members should not affect where their money is invested.

The council’s priorities, captured in the slogan Greener, Safer, Fairer, should be every councillor’s focus, continued Cllr Thalassites. It could be argued that support for Israel’s wars is detrimental to all three of those priorities, but perhaps Tory politicians think that Gaza, Jerusalem and Beirut are a long way from Hornton Street and that the 12% of the borough’s residents that are Muslims are a small constituency. The same logic could be used to argue that the council should avoid involvement in “global affairs” by withdrawing funding and support for Israel’s wars, thereby washing their (blood-stained) hands of the whole messy business of complicity. But Cllr Thalassites pre-empted this by explaining that RBKC’s Investment Committee’s primary duty “is its fiduciary duty” – in layman’s terms, getting maximum bang for its buck.

Cllr Thalassites just about forced out the platitude that there are “strong and deeply held views from all perspectives.” The Tory councillors’ strong and deeply held view seems to be that when it comes to Israel’s genocidal expansionism, we should look the other way, even when we have a chance to do something about it.

Thalassites’s speech was consistent with the way the British political and media establishments have responded to Israel’s genocide – choosing strong, active language to describe Palestinians’ actions, in contrast with the passive language they employ to whitewash Israel’s violence; the willingness to decontextualise events, and framing the epic suffering of indigenous Palestinians and other Arabs as the natural way of things. At Kensington Town Hall this profoundly racism manifests in the majority party’s sudden re-focus on local issues, fiduciary duties, and an instinctive, disdainful pushback against voices representing the victims, which seems to get stronger when those voices arrive armed with facts and come from the same demographics so often portrayed in political rhetoric as dangerous and less valuable.    

No Labour councillor spoke.

The Silence of Friends

Mayor Will Lane then offered Cllr Ahmed, who quit the Labour Party in 2023 in protest at its support for Israel’s genocide, the chance to respond to what she had heard: “It’s the silence of friends and not the words of your enemies can be the most alarming,” Cllr Ahmed told the meeting.

To Cllr Jedut, Cllr Ahmed pointed out the obvious fact that the conflict did not start in 2023, but in the 1940s.

To Cllr Thalassites, Cllr Ahmed highlighted the glaring contrast between RBKC’s response to Russia invading Ukraine and its indifference to Israel’s victims. Cllr Ahmed pointed to the “whole raft of resources and advice on the council website for residents on how they can support Ukrainian refugees,” along with the council’s ongoing practical support, telling the Tory Chief Whip “it doesn’t wash.”

On the notion that councils should ignore major international issues that are of critical importance to thousands of residents, Cllr Ahmed referred to the tradition of “apartheid-free zones” established by local authorities in Britain to help topple the white supremacist government of South Africa.

Cllr Ahmed told councillors, “it’s a very clear, deliberate choice to look away from what is happening in Gaza…It’s a choice that you are failing to condemn Israel’s war crimes.”

On Cllr Thalassites’s choice of language, Cllr Ahmed told the Tory Chief Whip that to offer mere “deep regret” was “appalling, and it’s an insult to many people in the community who are hurt and feeling extremely distressed and disgusted by the hypocrisy they are witnessing.”

There was then a vote on the motion, resulting in defeat for Cllr Ahmed’s motion, with the Conservatives voting against and Labour councillors abstaining.

A man in white gloves then picked up a giant gold mace and solemnly led the Mayor and Deputy Mayor away from the Chamber. The meeting was over and the Zionist movement had won. But the Zionist movement fears motions such as Cllr Ahmed’s that highlight international law and humanise the victims that Zionists and their allies across western societies work so hard every day to dehumanise. As Zionist fanaticism spirals deeper into genocidal psychopathy, their supporters and enablers in parliament and in council chambers sink deeper into complicity, corruption and cognitive dissonance. We’ll have more on Zionism and the national and local political duopoly soon…

by Tom Charles @tomhcharles
@urbandandyldn

All images from youtube/kensingtonandchelsea