Professor Moshé Machover

• WHEN will the Labour Party’s suspension of 86-year-old Professor Moshé Machover be lifted?

He has been suspended from the party since December 2020. He is a lifelong socialist and anti-racist. Yet he hasn’t had a voice in the Labour Party for over 20 months.

If an employer treated a member of their workforce in this way, they would rightly be condemned as a “bad boss”.

I have learnt a great deal from Prof Machover when he has spoken at Hampstead and Kilburn Constituency Labour Party meetings.

His arguments in support of Palestinian rights have always been well reasoned and passionate.

I recently watched a film about his work in which he was interviewed about his life in Israel and the roots of his political beliefs.

I discovered that this brilliant speaker at my local CLP was born in Tel Aviv in 1936 and was 12 during the 1948 Nakba.

He was instrumental in setting up Matzpen (compass), an early Marxist organisation in Israel, which defended the Palestinians’ right to a homeland.

It is very disturbing that someone like the professor can simply be “disappeared” from the Labour Party for no justifiable reason.

Suspending socialists and anti-racists in this way simply weakens the party.

To find out more about Moshé Machover, watch Helena Aksentijevic’s film: Moshe Machover, Compass

ANGIE BIRTILL
Former Camden Labour Councillor, Kilburn