Since taking over as leader of the Labour Party, Keir Starmer has wasted no time reinforcing the party’s firmly pro-Zionist roots, continuing the campaign against Palestine supporters and shoring up anti-Palestinian forces within the party. In December the party hired Assaf Kaplan, a former Israeli spy, as a social media manager for the party. Kaplan worked for Israeli military intelligence from 2009 to 2013 and was a member of the notorious Unit 8200, which has been exposed for carrying out mass surveillance, hacking, blackmail and extortion against Palestinians. In 2014, a group of whistle-blowers revealed that the Unit had systematically used information about Palestinians under surveillance – including individuals needing to travel to Israel for medical treatment or personal secrets like marital infidelity or sexual orientation – to blackmail them into becoming informants. Kaplan also has ties with the Israel lobby in Britain, including Shai Masot, the Israeli embassy agent who was ejected from Britain after being exposed for plotting against British politicians. Kaplan will lead Labour’s efforts monitoring conversations on social media and ‘challenging disinformation online’ about the party.
In an interview last year, Starmer declared in no uncertain terms: ‘I support Zionism without qualification.’ Kaplan will no doubt fit very comfortably into the imperialist, anti-Palestinian Labour Party.
Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism! 280 February/March 2021
