On Saturday we will be marching on the 28th national march since Israel unleashed its genocide upon Gaza.
We march for an end to the genocide and to the complicity of the British government, public bodies, companies and corporations in supporting it militarily, politically, diplomatically and economically. Right now Israel continues to slaughter Palestinians at the rate of about 100 a day, many as they queue for the meagre supplies of food Israel allows into Gaza.
And now Israel is unveiling plans to build a concentration camp on the ruins of Rafah, into which all of Gaza’s population will be corralled with those who refuse being identified a legitimate target for killing. Israel’s foreign Minister has made clear that this concentration camp is a holding centre before the enactment of a plan for forced expulsion.
Instead of taking action to uphold international law and sanction Israel, the government and others across the political establishment are devoting their energy into clamping down on solidarity with the Palestinian people. They target not the perpetrators of genocide but those protesting against genocide.
They have charged 4 leaders of our coalition for the crime of peaceful protest, arrested and detained activists and proscribed Palestine Action, classifying the use of direct action as terrorism.
As we and many others predicted, police forces are now using the proscription to clamp down on all activism for Palestinian rights. This includes armed police threatening to arrest a woman for holding a Palestinian flag and signs saying “Free Gaza” and “Israel is committing a genocide”. All of this is designed to instill fear, to break and divide the movement and to chill activism so that the Palestinian people are left isolated in their struggle for liberation. It will not work.
It is Israel that is becoming increasingly isolated and the target of successful boycott and divestment campaigns. 16 local councils have now committed to divest or support divestment by their pension funds. The Co-Op has become the first supermarket to ban the sale of all Israeli goods.
The community of resistance that has been built in the UK will not be silenced. We call upon everyone to be in London on Saturday where in a unified voice we will stand strong, in our hundreds of thousands with the Palestinian people.
Palestine Solidarity Campaign
Palestinian Forum in Britain
Friends of Al-Aqsa
Stop the War Coalition
Muslim Association of Britain
Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament