Recent days have seen a significant escalation of attempts to suppress the movement in solidarity with Palestine, with politicians and police dangerously conflating protest with terrorism in the wake of the horrific Bondi Beach attack and falsely portraying support for Palestinian rights as a threat to Jewish people.
This includes the use of police powers to move our protest away from Downing Street on Wednesday 17 December and the arrest of several activists on the same day following the announcement by the Metropolitan and Greater Manchester Police that they will now seek to prosecute people holding placards and chanting the phrase ‘globalise the intifada.’
The Arabic word intifada simply means shaking off or an uprising against injustice. It came to prominence during the first Palestinian intifada which was overwhelmingly marked by peaceful protest that was brutally repressed by the Israeli occupation. It is also used in a wide range of contexts including, for instance, to describe several of the uprisings collectively known as the Arab Spring.
Many people who use the slogan now are invoking the Palestinian heritage of popular civil resistance against an ongoing occupation and apartheid system, that is deepening daily in the West Bank, and of course, the genocide. Notably, the police have not suggested that someone saying ‘globalise the uprising’ would be arrested, indicating that their principal objection is to the use of an Arabic word. This is both deeply discriminatory and a disgraceful attack on freedom of expression.
These attempts to conflate protests against the British government’s ongoing support for Israel’s atrocities with acts of terrorism is profoundly sinister and entirely without foundation. So too is the suggestion that groups and individuals who support Israel’s oppression of the Palestinian people should be given a veto over the rights of others to protest against that oppression. Many of those who have been pushing for these steps have also expressed the view that Palestinian flags, keffiyehs, and even the slogan ‘Free Palestine’ are threatening and unacceptable to them. Where will the politicised policing of speech and protest end?
These incidents are just the latest examples of the use of police powers to demonise and repress protests and expressions of support for Palestine in Britain. Since 2023, demonstrations against Israel’s genocide in Gaza have been subject to unprecedented restrictions, protest organisers have been charged under public order legislation, artists and musicians have been targeted for speaking out, direct action group Palestine Action has been proscribed as terrorists, and protestors have been arrested for demonstrating peacefully. Right now, the government is using the Crime and Policing bill to introduce new powers to further clamp down on the right to protest.
While these attacks are aimed at the movement in solidarity with the Palestinian people, they threaten to undermine all of our democratic freedoms. We urge everyone to join us in opposing this growing climate of repression.
In Gaza, Israel’s genocide continues – with ongoing deadly attacks on Palestinians and Palestinian families desperately sheltering in tents, battered by the wind and rain of winter, while Israel cruelly continues to prevent adequate aid from entering.
We will not be deterred from standing with thePalestinian people in their struggle for freedomand justice. Join us for our next national march for Palestine in London on Saturday 31 January.
Palestine Solidarity Campaign
Palestinian Forum in Britain
Friends of Al-Aqsa
Stop the War Coalition
Muslim Association of Britain
Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament