April 1st: Quiet Easter week for Ireland and UK but Palestinian Protestors Shot Down...

---

With the Irish and British parliaments on Easter recess it was a quieter week than the previous few but a few things still caught my eye...

United Kingdom
​The anti-Semitism scandal in the Labour party continues to rumble on. I personally think it's quite contrived and has been used to continually hammer Jeremy Corbyn. 

While there have certainly been anti-Semitic posts and statements by members of the party, it seems almost  incredible that the attack has focused almost solely on Jeremy Corbyn's leadership. Overall, March has been a bad month for Labour and the Tories have led in six of the eight polls in the month.

​The only consolation for Corbyn is that little has changed fundamentally and that it is hardtop envisage this charge continuing to land for another four weeks, when the local election take place across the UK with a heavy concentration in London. 

​These results should provide Corbyn with a boost and again bring Theresa May under pressure. 

Ireland
​Unfortunately, the main story of the last week was over a rape trial in Belfast where the four defendants were acquitted.  Their celebrity status meant that every statement and testimony was analysed closely.

​It was a very depressing trial to follow and the fact that rape trials in the UK are currently not behind closed doors didn't help. The level of outage it provoked across the whole island will hopefully lead to change in the future in the North's rape trials.

Palestine
The shooting last Friday in Gaza of hundreds of unarmed protestors was an international disgrace. I have very little doubt that some of the protestors were actively seeking to antagonize the Israeli soldiers and potentially to escalate the conflict.

​That said, the response from the Israeli side was horrifying and needs to be condemned by the United Nations and all the major nations. Unfortunately, the silence since Friday has been deafening and I don't expect this to change. There is meant to be another protest on each of the next few Fridays. Hopefully there isn't a repeat of last weeks massacre....