Oona King, British politician

The lady dares to call for
boycott of Israeli goods

Oona King and Muslim women

Oona King, a member of the British Parliament, has called for a boycott of Israeli goods following her visit to the "desecrated land" of the Gaza strip. Her remarks have been rebuked by Britain's Labour Party Friends of Israel and Poale Zion lobbying groups; but may boost her political career.

Type cast as nasty bombers or evil terrorists, the 1.2 million Palestinians sealed into a narrow strip of land in Gaza, are perceived as the baddies in much of the British media. But Ms King saw another picture of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Scenes of inequality littered her travels in Gaza with a parliamentary colleague, Liberal Democrat Jenny Tonge, under the auspices of Christian Aid. The development aid charity works for Great Britain's Christian denominations to redress "unjust and unequal power relationships" in the world's poorest communities.

"Life below the poverty line for these Palestinians contrasts with the 5,000 Israeli settlers who occupy one-third of the land and enjoy watered gardens, first world housing and protection by the Israeli army.

"This protection means Palestinians wait for hours - sometimes days - at Israeli checkpoints, trying to find work or get access to essential services such as medical care, " Ms King said in her article "Israel can halt this now" in the Guardian newspaper Thursday 12 June.

Israel's building of a walled barrier restricting movement of Palestinians into Israel stirred a comparison with similar action against Jews by the Nazis.

"The original founders of the Jewish state could surely not imagine the irony facing Israel today: in escaping the ashes of the Holocaust, they have incarcerated another people in a hell similar in its nature - though not its extent - to the Warsaw ghetto," she said.

"Any visitor to the Palestinian ghetto can see the signs: residents are sealed off and live under curfew; the authorities view torture as acceptable and use collective punishment as a means of control; soldiers drive families from their homes, confiscate property and demolish neighbourhoods; unemployment runs in places at 80%, and utilities such as water are withheld". As a result, the local Palestinian economy is a client state subservient to the occupiers in every way," said Ms King.

(Canadian social scientists J Douglas Porteous and Sandra E Smith are monitoring such cases and describe them as "domicide - the planned, deliberate destruction of homes for political purposes and to cause suffering".)

The client status of the Palestinians is clearly linked to exploitation, said Jenny Tonge, Ms King's travelling companion, in her Guardian article "Time to get tough", 23 June. It combines "the destruction of the Palestinians livelihood and the Israeli exploitation of their fragile agricultural and fishing economy· nothing is labelled "produce of Palestine", only "product of Israel", said Ms Tonge.

Based on the evidence, Ms King said: "I have sadly come to the conclusion that, given the scale of the atrocities and collective punishment waged by the Israelis against the Palestinians, I have no choice but to boycott Israeli products. On reflection, whether Jewish or not, you might decide to do the same".

Her remarks reveal a woman of deeply liberal opinions, background and experience. Born in 1967, to an African American scholar father, expatriate Dr Preston King, and a British Jewish mother, a teacher, she was raised in the multi-cultural Camden district of London.

She studied politics at York University and the University of California at Berkeley, researched for the European Parliament, where she met her Italian husband, has written for a London newspaper and been an active trade unionist representing low paid public sector employees.

With her flair for independent thinking, Ms King, a protégé of Prime Minister Tony Blair, rose to political prominence through her work on parliamentary committees for genocide prevention, international development, and trade and aid.

Entering the Commons in 1997, she represents Bethnal Green and Bow in the East End, one of the most problem-ridden districts in Britain. A place of contradictions, Dickensian-like hovels languish in the shadow of icons of lavish investment like the tower blocks Canary Wharf. Once home to Huguenots and Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe it now shelters large Bengali, Afro-Caribbean and Bangladeshi communities.

But serving the diverse and often conflicting needs and demands of her political constituency is not without its problems. Ms King's boycott call and comparison of Gaza to the notorious Warsaw Ghetto were criticised as "inaccurate and badly thought-out" by the Labour Friends of Israel and Poale Zion, the self-styled Zionist and socialist group.

Astute readers will recognise, however, that despite criticism from Israel's supporters, her remarks may give Ms King a political advantage in a constituency where one-third of the population is of nonwhite or Muslim origins and are demanding that their concerns be heard. (She nearly lost re-election recently when accused of betraying Muslim voters by supporting the government's policy of war against Iraq).

Black and Asian activists, who have long feared that Ms King's ties to Jewish groups and pro-Israeli causes had derailed their demands for a leadership role in local politics, may applaud her partisan stand for "oppressed people".

Furthermore, Ms King's remarks may gain favour among campaigners for a boycott of Israeli goods. They include Palestine Solidarity and Boycott Israel Goods campaigners and groups of Israeli citizens and Jews of other nationalities who were themselves victims of racism and genocide in past generations.

Naturally, her views may be welcomed among Muslim voters in the mosques and at the polls in her London multi-faith constituency, and by the majority of Britain's 1.6 million Muslims.

Looking toward the future, Ms King is likely to gain credibility as a champion of an Afro-Asian agenda. There are two sets of issues that she will need to carefully consider. On the local level serious actions are required to tackle poverty, ill-housing and joblessness and to end exploitative urban regeneration practices. On a broader level she must be prepared to recognise, as she has begun to do, the deeply felt concerns among Black, Asian and Muslim people in support of Palestine liberation and nationhood and against the racist and Islamophobic fallout from the 9/11 and Iraq war events.

As for herself, Ms King revealed the passion and resilience of her politics and personality when she said in her maiden speech, July 5 1997: "For me, racism is not an academic point. My father is black and my mother is Jewish. As a child in Newcastle, my mother was lined up against a wall and stoned because, as her schoolmates put it, she, as a Jew, was responsible for the death of their Lord... I have also been called names such as yid, nigger, wog, half-caste and mongrel. Those are unparliamentary terms, but I hope that my background can be a bridge between two cultures."

Broadly, local people respect the way in which Ms King's interests in race and the problems of the underprivileged have led to a wider concern with the developing world.

By going public with her exposure of the demerits of the Israeli occupation, Ms King has taken a remarkable moral and political stand. One that has spurred debate about the imbalance in the politics of race, religion and power not only in the Middle East but in London and Britain's diverse inner cities as well.