THE failure of the Irish and UK media to acknowledge the continuing hunger strike by remand prisoners in England is an eye-opening example of the propaganda that passes for journalism when it comes to the issue of Gaza and Israel.
Amy Gardiner-Gibson, also known as Amu Gib, was transferred to hospital on Sunday as she entered the 50th day of her protest. The remaining hunger strikers are Heba Muraisi, Teuta Hoxh, Kamran Ahmad and Lewie Chiaramello, who have been fasting for 53 days, 46 days, 45 days and 31 days.
As we know all too well from our history of prison protest, the four hunger strikers – who are all entirely innocent and have been subjected to punitively long remand detentions – are approaching the end if something is not done, and done quickly. But while the media – shamefully led by the BBC – continues to turn its back on the danger and urgency of the prison fast, this British government will do nothing. It has already refused to meet with those prisoners who are capable of meeting them – and has even refused to meet with their representatives.
Why is this? Well, this is happening for exactly the same reason that the UK continues to support and arm Israel as Gazans continue to die in the sham US ceasefire: This Labour regime is chock-full of Israel supporters and Israel apologists.
It would be bad enough if the British government was ignoring its own citizens for purely ideological reasons, but the Labour cabinet is a veritable who’s who of Labour Friends of Israel alumni and recipients of large amounts of money from pro-Israel and Zionist sources. And of course it is led by a man who was among the world leaders who back at the end of 2023 gave the green light to genocide in Gaza. In Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s case, it was by telling Israel that they had the right to withhold power and water from all of Gaza. And when the UK leader tells Tel Aviv that it perfectly entitled to withdraw the basic necessities of human survival from an entire people, is it any wonder that Israel went on to act in the way that it has? Is it any wonder that this genocide will go down in the annals of humankind as the first to be entirely carried out with the knowledge and complicity of the ‘civilised’ west?
And is it any wonder that Mr Starmer and his nodding-dog accomplices turn a cold eye to their own citizens who lie dying in a jail for their beliefs?
It is times infinity more important to this Labour government that it pleases Washington DC and Tel Aviv than it shows even a smidgin of humanity towards its own people. We saw up-close the cynicism and cruelty that Britain was capable of when it came to Irish people resorting to the only protest left open to them. Given the long history of Britain’s brutality and indifference towards the Irish, the death of ten hunger strikers was perhaps to be expected. But as we prepare to celebrate Christmas, the sight of a British government watching its own citizens die in order to please others is a grim sign of the times we live in.
