How should Starmer end race riots? openDemocracy readers share their thoughts

Welcome to openDemocracy’s weekly reader comments round-up. We receive so many carefully considered messages about our work, it seems a shame to keep them to ourselves!

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These comments have been edited for clarity, accuracy and length, and aren’t necessarily a reflection of openDemocracy's editorial position.

Re: As the far right riots in the UK, India offers a cautionary tale

As someone of Indian origin in Britain who has watched the Hindu far right gradually take over India and demonise non-Hindus (no longer just Muslims) in order to gain votes, Aman Sethi's words really resonated with me.

Once this kind of hatred is fostered and justified by those in power, validating racism and division, it is very hard to eliminate. The number of people taking part in these riots is alarming, and there is now no way to reach them to persuade them they are wrong, especially with all the misinformation online.

These are dangerous times and the politicians who encouraged these thugs are playing with fire. I hope Sethi is right and that most people are too reasonable and compassionate to go along with it, but Keir Starmer's autocratic behaviour, defence of Israel's genocide, and purging of left wingers under feeble pretexts offers little hope that much will change. –Urmilla Sinha

The riots are in England, not in the UK, not in Wales, not in Scotland. These are the facts. I only share what is the truth. –Philip Condie

Found this article very interesting, but how can Labour change what is happening right now? They are damned if they do clamp down, and damned if they don’t. What the party must do right away is designate the far right as terrorists and use the full force of the law to apprehend and prosecute them, including those who did not take part in the violence but have for years incited it for their own personal gain. I believe 100% in freedom of speech but not hate speech against sections of the British public who are terrified at what is happening at present. –Karen Kindell

Racist riots are what you get when, as Labour politicians always do, you describe those who express racist and xenophobic sentiments as people with ‘legitimate concerns’. What on earth is ‘legitimate’ about racism?!

The people involved may be suffering, but they should be told to take responsibility for their circumstances by joining a trade union to fight for better wages and terms of employment, an end to the obscene levels of inequality and regulation of the multinationals companies responsible for their plight. –James Newell

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Re: European diplomats’ talks with Hamas must go beyond hostage negotiations

It strikes me that there is some similarity between events in Northern Ireland and the Israel-Palestine situation. People tend to forget the atrocities committed by the IRA and the ‘no surrender’ attitude of most Northern Ireland politicians. The lack of understanding and hatred shown by one side to the other still exists in a small minority in Northern Ireland today but the politicians at the time managed to work through their differences and distrust to reach and more or less accept the Good Friday Agreement.

Hamas does not want Israel to exist. Israel does not want Hamas to exist. The intransigence of both sides has led to the appalling situation in Gaza. I think it would be much harder for an agreement to be reached between Hamas and Israel, partly because Binyamin Netanyahu for his own political reasons does not want the war to end and Hamas knows it can never be defeated. Yet the only way to achieve peace is through talking, diplomacy and listening to all sides.

I was born and reared in Northern Ireland and still have family there so I have seen the changes that can be wrought by moderates on each side. The hardliners are given too much weight at present. Start slowly and build on what good will may still exist before it is diminished forever. –Irene Newton

Very one-sided view of Hamas. Referencing power-sharing in 2006, there is no mention of its removal of all rivals in 2007 or the absence of any elections since. To depict Hamas as just another political force rather than a terrorist organisation distorts the truth. –Anthony Hallgarten

Catherine Charrett’s proposal is a no-brainer. The so-called ‘terrorist’ groups involved in two previous conflicts affecting the West during the last century – in South Africa and Northern Ireland – both had political and diplomatic ‘wings’ pursuing peace processes. –Ian Cowan

I am proud of my own Jewish ancestry, but I have spent time with Palestinians in refugee camps in Jordan where I heard first-hand about Israel’s terrorist land grabs.

European leaders should begin their discussions by challenging the false prospectus of United Nations Resolution 181, which founded the state of Israel in 1947. The talks should seek a resolution that includes restitution, compensation and reparations for the Palestinians. These should not only be demanded for the land theft at the time of the Nakba and before but also for the unjustified annexation of land seized by Israelis during subsequent wars.

Israel should also pay for the terrorism and genocide inflicted on Palestinians, recently in Gaza but also in the Sabra and Shatila refugee camp massacres in Lebanon in 1982. There must be a price to pay for the constant Israeli brutality on the West Bank and the violence and land grabs that Israeli settlers have been allowed to inflict with impunity.

Such talks as you raise between Hamas and European leaders will not, of course, happen. Like the US political establishment, European leaders will succumb to Zionist lobbying and financial pressure from Zionists such as that exerted on US educational establishments where students spoke up for Palestine. –Henry Harington

It is difficult in that Hamas is an out-and-out terrorist organisation and should be dismantled. However, the state of Israel has never embraced the two-state solution agreed by the world powers after the Second World War and has for years been killing Palestinians or imprisoning them, often without charge, as well as taking away Palestinian land. And all without exposure to the rest of the world. –Roy Laming

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