Merrye England and Its Jews

I've just posted how French Jews are under attack from without.

In England, the Jews are under attack also from within.

I've received this:

Dear Ed (that's Labour head, Ed Milliband),

RE: Meeting between Ken Livingstone and Labour supporting Jewish Londoners

On the 1st of March 2012 a substantial number of Labour-supporting members of the Jewish community met Ken Livingstone at a private meeting in order to explore ways in which Ken could re-connect with Jewish voters in advance of the May 3rd m ayoral election. We believe that it is vitally important that Labour win in London, not just for our city, but also for the future success of the Party.

The meeting was not part of the official Jewish calendar; however it was carried out with the full support of the London Jewish Forum, Board of Deputies of British Jews and the Jewish Leadership Council with party members from each organisation attending. Also present were key people from Labour Friends of Israel, Jewish Labour councillors from five London Boroughs and also by the religious leadership of all streams of the Jewish Community.

The meeting was not open to the wider press; Jonathan Freedland of the Guardian and Jewish Chronicle was present although in a personal capacity. The meeting was held under Chatham House rules, understood as what was said can be repeated, though the individuals saying things cannot be attributed. Ken, at the beginning of the meeting however, made it clear directly that he was happy to have anything he said attributed.

This meeting partly followed up on a meeting held two years previously with a similar group of Labour- supporting London Jews, which was acrimonious. At that time we did not follow the meeting up with the party leadership in any way. A number of us having attended the meeting have concluded that as loyal Party members, in this instance, considering our collective desire to see Labour win in London, it would be remiss of us not to raise these issues now, rather than in a post-mortem of a failed mayoral bid. We still believe that Ken has every possibility of reconnection with Jewish Labour voters. For the good of the Party and for London we would ultimately like to see this happen.

It is worth mentioning that it was made very clear to Ken the mood amongst Jewish Labour Party supporters. Despite his seeming obsession with Israel, which gives some quarters cause for concern, many of us had just about managed to vote for him in 2008. Today, many of us who would otherwise normally vote Labour are finding it harder and harder to consider voting for Ken, despite agreeing with his policies for London. Many of us are actively working for local GLA Labour candidates, and in particular Andrew Dismore in Barnet and Camden, where grassroots efforts are being made to ensure he wins.

A key focus of the discussion centred on Ken's discourse when discussing Zionism. It is not an uncontroversial thing to say that for the vast majority of British Jews, Israel plays an important part in their core identity, in the same way that family, language and cultural ties continue to bind BAME (Black, Asian and minority ethnic) communities with India, Pakistan etc.

This is certainly a conversation that has taken place with Ken on numerous occasions. Ken determines Jews as a religious group but does not accept Jews as an ethnicity and a people, and did not respond on this other than to say as an atheist he found this hard to comprehend.

In the same way that Black, Irish, Women and LGBT groups are afforded the right to determine their own identity, many of us feel that Ken doesn't afford Jews that right. Just as we do not have a right to tell Ken what he thinks about Israel despite our many disagreements, Ken doesn't have the right to define who we believe we are.

At various points in the discussion Ken used the words Zionist, Jewish and Israeli, interchangeably, as if they meant the same, and did so in a pejorative manner. These words are not interchangeable and to do so is highly offensive, particularly when repeated over and again as was done. For example, when discussing Sheik Yusuf al-Qaradawi's extreme views on homosexuality, Ken said "one would expect the same views on homosexuality from extreme Christians, Muslims and Israelis" and using the word "Zionist" as an adjectival negative to criticise much more widely than what can be attributed to the ideology of Zionism. He also stated "I am not against Israel, I am against Zionists", which we also find impossible.

Ken's relationship with radical Islamist politics was also raised in the context of him accepting a paid role presenting on the Iranian state-controlled Press TV and his continued defence of the City Hall reception for Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi.

When challenged over whether it had been appropriate to publicly embrace an individual who holds racist, misogynistic and homophobic views, in addition to his justification for suicide bombings in Israel, Ken again reinforced his view that al-Qaradawi is a moderate voice to be engaged, and that he was encouraged to do so. Ken stated that as al-Qaradawi was not advocating suicide bombings in the UK, and as he had apparently been the victim of a smear campaign by the British press, Ken would gladly embrace him as he would anyone being attacked by the Murdoch empire. Given the scenario of hugging Nick Griffin, Ken quickly backed off this comment.

Ken, towards the end of the meeting, stated that he did not expect the Jewish community to vote Labour as votes for the left are inversely proportional to wealth levels, and suggested that as the Jewish community is rich, we simply wouldn't vote for him. When we pointed to research undertaken by the Institute of Jewish Policy Research that demonstrates the Jewish community in the UK has a propensity to vote much more radically than its wealth, and this is attributed to Jewish values and sociology and history and also alluded to Democrats in the USA, Ken begrudgingly accepted this.

The real and more pressing issue is that of the strong perception that Ken is seeking to align himself with the politics of the Muslim Brotherhood and the Iranian regime, whilst at the same time turning a blind eye to Islamist antisemitism, misogynism and homophobia, even when overt and demonisation of Zionism and the derogatory use of the word Zionist and use of antisemitic memes.

We are concerned that this is more about infantile far left politics, being seen to take a stance against whatever the anti-establishment or anti-imperialism cause of the moment is. Boiled down, it's hard to interpret this in any other way than Ken basically having no sympathy for those that he perceives as bourgeois , which is why he isn't really attempting to appeal to, and perhaps why he is losing progressive as well as Jewish votes.

Whilst we do feel somewhat despondent that we are covering the same arguments and reaching the same conclusions as we have done before, we do feel that it is now more important than ever, given the closeness of this election, given the election's significance to the Party nationally, and to the growing unease amongst Jewish Labour voters, its time to resolve the matter once and for all.

This private note is to Ken and Ken's senior team, the party leader's office, the shadow London Minister's office, Ed Balls' office and to a very limited part of the Jewish communal leadership, who will meet Ed Miliband later this month.

We firmly believe that Ken can turn this situation around, and can count on Jewish voters to help him be elected Mayor of London. But he does however desperately need to face up to the issues we raise.

Andrew Gilbert
Adam Langleben
Judith Bara
Rabbi Danny Rich
Neil Nerva
Jem Stein

That noise you hear is that of the rustling of the League of Trembling Israelites.

^

Peres Reformed? Or Flip-flopping?

I noted Shimon Peres' silly words on peace the other day being like marriage when one needs to keep his eyes closed at time. Here:

"making peace is a little bit like marriage [and] you have to close your eyes and accept what is possible to accept."

Last night in England, though, he had a different idea - here's what he had to say:-

To one heckler who claimed to be representing "thousands of farmers who had their land taken away by Israeli settlers" he said: "It's not bad to open the eyes and ears and keep the mouth for a later occasion."

Flip-flopping.
Now, perhaps, some of those out there who can't understand why I and my friends have little respect for the man.

But, wait. He went on at another opportunity to deal with the Jewish communities located in Judea and Samaria, saying:

West Bank settlements should not be criticized, President Shimon Peres said at a press conference in the UK, Army Radio reported on Wednesday.

Peres explained that after Israel evacuated tens of settlements in the Gaza Strip, the Palestinians began firing rockets into Israeli territory.

My, my. That's a change-about.

And together with this

...Business Secretary Lord Mandelson, who extolled Britain's financial ties with Israel. Lord Mandelson's speech was closely parsed by the Israelis for any diplomatic signals. In line with Britain's newly tough position on the settlements, Lord Mandelson said: "Israel will have to take down settlements and share Jerusalem and that will be very painful but the prize will be much greater." A senior Israeli diplomat offered instant analysis: "He said 'settlements,' not 'the settlements,' that is a sign that the British understand that we will not be pulling back entirely."

I can but exult, my oh my.

But this below is from two years ago and shows a certain, if remarkable consistency clarity for Peres:-

Vice Premier Shimon Peres said on Thursday that "the government cannot evacuate more settlements in Judea and Samaria," given that Israel has continued to suffer rocket attacks since last summer's withdrawal from Gaza...Peres said that when it comes to further construction in the territories, homes are being built to support the natural growth rate.

"There is natural growth of settlements. The government does not fund this, it is privately financed. We cannot stop the children [of settlers from] building homes for themselves," said Peres. His spokesman added that it had been the policy of the Israeli government to allow for natural growth construction in Judea and Samaria.

Peres's statement ran counter to the agreement Israel has with the US under the road map, which calls on Israel to freeze all construction in the territories, including natural growth.

Still, when quizzed by a reporter at a press conference in London [two years ago], Peres made sure to clarify that "there is no expansion" in the West Bank and to remind reporters that Israel had dismantled four settlements in the West Bank last summer. He added: "We cannot punish ourselves twice, once by the rockets of the Palestinian and the other by fighting the settlers."

Maybe it's the English weather that clears up his mind?

But then again, he goes fawning in Parliament on the history of the Mandate period yesterday, even missing the date of the infamous White Paper which was in 1939:

When discussing Israeli-British relations, we must always look to history. It affected our past, it may guide our future. [didn't he once say history doesn't exist anymore? yes, he did: I have become totally tired of history, because I feel history is a long misunderstanding. The Wall Street Journal, Sept. 30, 1994]

The British people were early to adopt the Bible, to explore it, teach it to their children. Biblical values were integrated into their lives and prayers. They served as a moral compass. The Ten Commandments resonate in the Magna Carta: "To no one shall we sell, to none deny or delay, right of justice" [so why can't we use the Bible to explain our rights to Shiloh, Hebron and Bet-El?]

Israel would not have a vibrant democracy if it hadn't been for the British legacy. The way in which Great Britain ran the Mandate, and its courageous fight against the Nazis, inspired the state of Israel...Our relationship was mostly illuminated, though shadows were cast from time to time, like the white paper of 38 [May 17, 1939].

The great light of the Balfour declaration will never be dimmed.

We shall remember the many British leaders who stood by Israel even in hard times. [can we remember Bevin and other more minor Foreign Office and Colonial Office clerks who almost ruined the Zionist enterprise besides helping Arabs and nazis kill Jews?] As Churchill told the Parliament during a debate about the Jewish National Home in Israel: “You have no right to support public declarations made in the name of your country in the crisis and heat of war and then afterwards, when all is cold and prosaic, to turn around.” This was the voice of Great Britain - a bastion of reason throughout human history.

The United Kingdom shaped the modern Middle East. I am not certain the story about 'divide and conquer' is right. Rule in spite of division might be a more accurate description. [like partitioning "Mandate Palestine" and removing from the Jewish National Home 78% of its territory?]

The heavens united the Middle East as the origin of the three monotheistic religions. Earth, however, divided it. Ethnic differences, old prejudices and tribal divisions have deep roots. While prayers united, swords wounded.

We never stopped praying. There was never a war without regret. Missed opportunities were lost with no return.

Peres should get his act together.

Deja Vu?

A description of England, or better, London, on the ve of World War Two, from the new book by Lynne Winston, "'Troublesome Young Men,': Friends of Winston":-

It had been a brilliant summer. On that point everyone agreed.

Children floated toy boats on the Serpentine in Hyde Park, while young lovers lay on deck chairs nearby and basked in the sunshine. At the Ritz, middle-aged women in flowered hats lunched on salmon and strawberries. In the evenings, crowds gathered outside stately mansions in Knightsbridge and Belgravia, as debutantes in satin and silk and young men in white tie and tails emerged from taxis and rushed, laughing, into the houses' brightly lit interiors. In those brief seconds before the butler shut the door, spectators could hear the faint strains of "Love Walked In" or "Cheek to Cheek" and imagine, just for a moment, that they were young, titled, and rich, and whirling around on the dance floor.

There was racing at Goodwood and Ascot, cricket at Lord's, tennis at Wimbledon, the regatta at Henley. There were dances and dinners, nightclub outings, and house parties in the country. But the highlight of the 1939 London season, in the opinion of those fortunate enough to have been invited, was the gala coming-out ball at Blenheim Palace for the seventeen-year-old Lady Sarah Spencer-Churchill, daughter of the Duke of Marlborough. The palace's massive stone facade had been floodlit for the occasion, its baroque beauty visible for miles. Tiny colored lights twinkled in the trees and shrubs of Blenheim's twenty acres of gardens; its lake, also floodlit, seemed bathed in gold. A band played in a pavilion on the vast lawn, as footmen in powdered wigs and yellow and blue Marlborough livery handed out champagne to more than seven hundred guests, including Winston Churchill, who had been born at Blenheim and was a first cousin of the honored debutante's late grandfather Sunny Marlborough. Most of those present danced until dawn. The scene, said one dazzled guest, was "gay, young, brilliant, in short, perfection."

In that magical setting it was easy to forget that half a continent away, hundreds of thousands of German troops were massing on the borders of Poland, that in Warsaw residents were digging zigzag trenches in their parks while loudspeakers boomed out practice air-raid warnings. Europe stood on the brink of war. If Hitler invaded Poland, as seemed likely now, Britain had pledged to take up arms in defense of the Poles.

Yet as the summer wound down, there was little sense of crisis in that sea-girted country. Foreign visitors marveled at the calm of the British, their seeming insouciance in the face of peril. "Taxi-cab drivers, waiters and porters went about their work as though they were oblivious to the fact that soon they would be caught up in one of the greatest storms the world had ever known," recalled Virginia Cowles, a young Boston socialite who had just begun work as a reporter for The Sunday Times, London. "The most you could get out of anyone was a short comment such as 'Things aren't too bright, are they?' and you suddenly felt guilty of bad taste for having referred to it."

...Helen Kirkpatrick...a correspondent for the Chicago Daily News, wrote, "We knew it was coming-there it was ahead. Nothing could stop it. But life went on just the same as usual."

Even with war looming, there would be no disruption of the social routine. The final days of July marked the end of the glittering season. By August 2 the annual late-summer exodus from London was well under way. Brighton and the other English seaside resorts were already jammed. Members of the upper class were en route to their country estates for a bit of grouse shooting or to the beaches and casinos of southern France...

Neville Chamberlain prepared to follow his countrymen's example. Bone-weary, the seventy-year-old British prime minister was looking forward to a few weeks of salmon fishing in the Scottish Highlands. But before he could make his escape, he had one last duty on his schedule: to preside over the formal adjournment of Parliament for its traditional two-month summer break.

A number of members of Parliament, however, were appalled at the idea of a long vacation. This was not, after all, a typical desultory August. War could break out at any moment. What on earth was the prime minister thinking? Was he trying to get Parliament out of the way so he could renege on Britain's promises to the Poles? Chamberlain had seemed unequivocal in March, when he pledged to defend Poland against German aggression. Yet disquieting reports were circulating of intense British pressure on the Poles to make concessions to Germany, of secret talks with German officials about a possible deal. According to The New York Times, London and Paris were now privately warning Poland not to antagonize Hitler. And earlier in the summer, when Polish officials sought credits from Britain for arms, they were told by the Treasury that the matter was not considered "of great urgency."

To some MPs, such reports were unpleasantly reminiscent of Chamberlain's appeasement of Germany a year earlier. Was he now preparing to betray the Poles as he had betrayed the Czechs at the Munich Conference the year before? The prime minister's decision to embark on his personal diplomatic missions to Hitler in September 1938 had violated all precedent, having been made without consulting his own cabinet, much less the House of Commons. Indeed, when Chamberlain began his pilgrimages to Germany, Parliament was in its two-month summer recess, a fact that anti-appeasement MPs remembered only too well in August 1939. The House of Commons, representing the British people, was supposed to guide and control the executive. Instead, complained the Conservative MP Harold Macmillan, "we are being treated more and more like a Reichstag, to meet only to hear the orations and to register the decrees of the government of the day."

The forty-four-year-old Macmillan was one of a small group of Tory MPs who had been scathingly critical of the Munich agreement and who had banded together, under the ostensible leadership of former foreign secretary Anthony Eden, to resist any further appeasement. At a meeting in late July the dissidents, whom Chamberlain and his men dismissively referred to as the "glamour boys," decided to oppose the long summer recess. Separately, Winston Churchill, the best-known Tory foe of Chamberlain's foreign policy, made the same decision. Over lunch at Chartwell, his country house in Kent, Churchill told Edward Spears, an old friend and a member of the Eden group, that the prime minister's adjournment plans would simply encourage Hitler in the belief that Britain would not go to war if Germany invaded Poland.

Chamberlain brushed off Churchill's opposition-indeed, the opposition of all those who had resisted appeasement-as casually as he would flick away an ant at a picnic. What did he have to fear from Winston, a controversial and divisive figure, with no bedrock of support in Parliament or the Conservative Party? Even Eden shied away from cooperating with him. As for Eden's "glamour boys," how could they make problems for him when their own leader was doing his best to reinstate himself in Chamberlain's good graces and get back into the cabinet? At their meeting in July, Eden had told the others that "if there were ever an issue upon which our group should affirm our identity and vote against the Government, it is this issue." Within days, however, he was having second thoughts.

Chamberlain had no intention of taking Eden back into his government-once a rebel, always a rebel-but he was not averse to keeping him dangling. And even if the handsome ex-foreign secretary suddenly developed a backbone, it would accomplish nothing. Chamberlain was sure he had the Tory insurgents firmly under control. They had been attacked as disloyal by the prime minister's many supporters in the press and government. Their phones had been tapped, their meetings spied on, their constituencies pressured to withdraw support from them at the next election.

No, Chamberlain was convinced, he had nothing to worry about at all.

In midafternoon on August 2 the House of Commons was set to begin its debate on the government's adjournment motion. The House chamber, beneath its vaulted, timbered ceiling, was filling up fast, with the noise level rising as MPs streamed in from the lobbies and smoking room. Once the debate was under way, the dimly lit chamber would be stuffy and jammed, as it always was when an important issue was being discussed. The Commons lacked enough seating for its more than six hundred members; in their first days in the House, new MPs invariably expressed amazement at how small this cradle of democracy really was. On occasions like this, some MPs were forced to stand or sit in the gangways or cluster around the Speaker's canopied chair. Those who were seated were packed close together on the tiered dark green leather benches.

The cramped, spare quarters were no accident. When the Palace of Westminster, which contains the Houses of Parliament, was rebuilt after a disastrous fire in 1834, its architect and interior designer viewed it more as a setting for royal ceremonial occasions than as the center of a democratic government. While the scarlet and gold House of Lords chamber was outfitted with stained glass windows, a magnificent throne, opulent furnishings, and frescoes depicting medieval sovereigns, the Commons chamber was small and austere, with terrible acoustics and tiny galleries for visitors and the press. Unlike the Lords' quarters, it was not intended as a theater of state. Yet the anger, passion, and drama displayed in the little oak-paneled hall over the past century had at times bordered on the operatic. In the view of David Lloyd George, one of the Commons' most accomplished showmen, nothing could compete with the excitement and electricity of the House. When the young son of a parliamentary colleague told the former prime minister that he planned to go into the Royal Navy, Lloyd George frowned and shook his white-maned head. "There are much greater storms in politics," he declared. "If it's piracy you want, with broadsides, boarding parties, walking the plank, and blood on the deck, this is the place." The two thin red lines on the floor in front of each of the front benches underscored that sense of confrontation and combat. According to Commons tradition, no member was allowed to step over the lines during a debate; the distance between the two was supposed to be the exact distance between two outstretched arms brandishing swords.

The August 2 debate held the promise of considerable confrontation, and MPs took their seats with the eagerness of a first-night audience at the Old Vic. The day was sultry and hot, but as usual, Neville Chamberlain made no concessions to the weather. Wearing his usual black waistcoat, tailcoat, striped pants, and starched high white collar, the prime minister rose from his seat on the government's front bench at precisely 2:45 p.m., and, in his reedy voice, proposed that the Commons adjourn until October 3. On the opposite side of the House, just a few feet away, Arthur Greenwood, the lanky deputy Labour leader, stood to face Chamberlain. Greenwood immediately made clear that he and other Labour members suspected Chamberlain of having another Munich in mind. "Last September the House reassembled to witness a funeral pyre," Greenwood said. "A great people had their independence taken from them. I believe that an overwhelming majority of the public in this country would wish Parliament to be on alert at this critical time." With that, he introduced an amendment limiting the House's summer recess to less than three weeks. Members, he declared, should be called back no later than August 21.

When Winston Churchill stood to be recognized, the air was alive with the expectation of verbal fireworks. Churchill did not disappoint. His shoulders hunched, his head thrust forward, Churchill talked of the crush of German troops on Poland's borders, of German arms and supplies steadily moving east. "At this moment in its long history," he thundered, "it would be disastrous, it would be pathetic, it would be shameful for the House of Commons to write itself off as an effective and potent factor ... It is a very hard thing ... for the Government to say to the House, 'Begone! Run off and play. Take your [gas] masks with you. Do not worry about public affairs. Leave them to the gifted and experienced Ministers.'"

Churchill supported Greenwood's amendment, as did Macmillan and several other Tories. (Despite his fiery words less than a week earlier, Anthony Eden did not speak in the debate.) Just before Chamberlain was set to respond, Leo Amery, an old friend of the prime minister's, appealed to him to take the lead in uniting the Commons and the nation behind him in this time of national emergency.

Compromise, however, was far from Neville Chamberlain's mind. He was furious at Churchill and the other Tory renegades, at Amery for joining them. The prime minister had always been a man of great determination and obstinacy, but in the past year, after being acclaimed throughout the world as the savior of peace following Munich, he had become increasingly intolerant of any criticism or disagreement. He "suffers from a curious vanity and self-esteem which were born at Munich and have flourished ever since," John Colville, one of his private secretaries, noted in his diary. Now the savior of peace would make clear how very personally he took these attacks on the government, how he regarded them as intolerable slurs against himself.

Chamberlain stood, his jaw clenched, his face flushed. Removing his pince-nez from his nose, he rested one arm on the Treasury dispatch box on the table in front of him and stared at Labour MPs across the chamber. Then he turned halfway around to face his party's back-benchers. Very well, he announced, if "you distrust the Government and show it by your vote," he would treat such opposition as "a vote of no confidence in the Government, and no confidence in the Prime Minister in particular." Murmurs of surprise rippled through the chamber. In making the vote one of confidence in himself, Chamberlain was in effect demanding total party loyalty from the Conservative MPs, issuing an implicit order to refrain from criticizing further the adjournment proposal. It was clear, Chamberlain added acidly, that his critics were "very badly in need of a holiday ... their reasoning faculties wanted a little freshening up at the seaside."

Sitting a few yards away from the prime minister, on the second bench below the gangway, thirty-two-year-old Ronald Cartland was seething. Cartland had been in Parliament less than four years, representing King's Norton, a constituency in Birmingham adjacent to Chamberlain's own district. Indeed, the Chamberlain family's powerful party machine in Birmingham had approved his selection as a Conservative candidate and helped him win his seat. But that had not stopped him from becoming one of the most outspoken Tory critics of the prime minister's appeasement policy.

Perfidious Albion

Ah, la perfide Angleterre.

The NYT reports: -

British Court-Martial Drops Charges in Iraq Abuse Case

A court-martial on Wednesday dropped charges against four of seven soldiers accused of mistreating Iraqi civilians, an unexpected twist in a politically charged trial that jeopardized the reputation of the British military. It also dropped the remaining charges against a fifth soldier who had already pleaded guilty.

...The court-martial revolves around events in Basra, in southern Iraq, during a period of high tension in September 2003, when, prosecutors said, nine Iraqi detainees were hooded, handcuffed, deprived of sleep and beaten for a 36-hour period before interrogation. One of the nine Iraqi men, a hotel receptionist named Baha Musa, died of multiple injuries in a British Army barracks.

But on Wednesday, Judge Stuart McKinnon ruled that prosecutors had produced insufficient evidence to bring charges against four of the seven men, as well as two additional charges against Corporal Payne. The judge said he made his decision in part because the Iraqi civilians were hooded and could not physically identify the soldiers who beat them.

...Some opposition politicians said the judge’s action showed that the government had been overzealous in seeking to appease Iraqi public opinion by putting a high-ranking officer on trial.

“A whiff of political correctness hangs heavy over the case against Colonel Mendonca, with law officers determined to have military officers prosecuted,” said Liam Fox, the opposition Conservative Party’s spokesman on defense issues. “There is no doubt that episodes like this have caused deep resentment and a loss of confidence across the British Army.”

Why am I upset?

Which country has been so damnable persistent in pursuing Israeli soldiers if not England!

Read on:

Britain's top law officer is considering whether there's sufficient evidence to bring war crimes charges against Israeli soldiers who killed two Britons. Inquests in London this year found the two men were killed unlawfully. In the case of one - James Miller - the soldier who shot him has never been punished. Britain's Attorney General last week visited Israel to investigate possible prosecutions, as Europe correspondent Jane Hutcheon reports.

In early 2003, two British civilians were killed in Gaza. Peace activist Tom Hurndall was shot as the Israeli army demolished homes near the Egyptian border. The soldier responsible for his death reacted angrily to a manslaughter conviction and eight years in jail. Weeks later, award-winning cameraman James Miller was shot as he and his crew left the house where they'd been filming. A British inquest said both deaths had been unlawful and in the case of James Miller, the verdict was murder.

A bit duplicitous, no?