End Israeli Zionist War Crimes! Stand
As One with the Palestinian Resistance!

Taken from the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, other Facebook sources and local reports

Demonstrators outside the Israeli Embassy

The depth and diversity of the support for the Palestinian cause amongst the British people was reflected in the march and rally for Gaza that took place in central London on Saturday, July 26.

Police estimate that 45,000 marched from the Israeli embassy in Kensington to Parliament Square, but the actual number looked much higher, as protesters packed out the Square, Whitehall and Westminster Bridge.

The march to Parliament was called by: Stop the War Coalition, Palestine Solidarity Campaign, CND, Friends of Al Aqsa, British Muslim Initiative, British Association of Muslims, Palestinian Forum in Britain.

Speakers included rock stars Brian Eno and Dave Randall, the children's poet and author, Michael Rosen, the comedian Jeremy Hardy, and the journalist Owen Jones.

The unions were also represented, with speakers from the PCS (Zita Holbourne), Unison (John Gray), the NUT (Alex Kenny) and the TUC (Lesley Mercer).

The range of organisations represented by speakers was also broad. The massed crowds heard from Palestine Solidarity Campaign (Sarah Colborne and Hugh Lanning), CND (Bruce Kent), NUS Black Students Campaign (Malia Bouattia), Palestinian Forum in Britain (Ziad Elaoul), Stop the War (John Rees), Friends of Al Aqsa (Ismail Patel), Muslim Association of Britain (Mohammed Kozbar), Jews for Justice for Palestinians (Glyn Secker) and the British Muslim Initiative (Ayoub Bsiso).

Michael Rosen, the children's author and poet, read this poem at today's rally for Gaza outside Parliament. As he spoke each line, the tens of thousands of protesters called out “Then what?”

So you say the land is yours.
Then what?

So you put hundreds of thousands to flight.
Then what?

So you take over land.
Then what?

So you build a wall.
Then what?

So you bulldoze homes.
Then what?

So you control the land.
Then what?

So you control the sea.
Then what?

So you control the air.
Then what?

So you drop bombs.
Then what?

So you invade.
Then what?

So you kill children.
Then what?

So you shell hospitals.
Then what?

So you say you won't talk to terrorists.
Then what?

So you say the land is yours.
Then what?

Baroness Jenny Tonge told the protesters: "Israel is no longer regarded as part of the family of nations. Israel is a rogue state. Tell your MP that you will not vote for them, you will not support them unless they support Palestine. We shall win."

Ola, a Palestinian whose family's home was bombed in Gaza, told the tens of thousands outside Parliament: "Not only have they killed more than 1,000 people, they have destroyed 55% of this tiny strip of land. They have destroyed what little land we had left. What they have not destroyed is the hope and the resistance that exists inside every single Palestinian.

"This is a regime that was built on massacres and murders. They said of the Palestinians that the old would die and the young would forget. Well, I am a young Palestinian, and I have not forgotten."

Hugh Lanning, Chair of Palestine Solidarity Campaign, who spoke, is quoted in an article from the London Evening Standard: “Israel is in violation of international law with its attack on the civilian population of Gaza.

"Our aid and arms are helping to kill these innocent people in Gaza.

"Now it’s time for our government to respond appropriately and impose sanctions, in particular an arms embargo, unless Israel ends this bloody campaign of collective punishment against the Palestinian people.”

Walter Wolfgang, the 91-year-old German-born British socialist and peace activist, told the protesters outside the Israeli embassy: "I stand here to protest against Israel's barbarism, and I do so as a Jew. This is naked aggression by the Israeli government, and it must be treated as such. We need economic measures. We need to end the siege of Gaza. We need a free Palestine."

Jeremy Hardy, the comedian who featured in the film, “Jeremy Hardy vs the Israeli army", told the rally at Parliament in support of Gaza: "I'm here to stand with you in solidarity with the people of Gaza, and I'm here to stand in defiance of my government, of the Israeli government and of the Egyptian government."

Owen Jones, journalist and commentator, told huge crowds outside the Israeli embassy: "Today we express our unwavering solidarity with the people of Palestine. This isn't a conflict, this isn't a war, this is a massacre. A massacre of the Palestinian people."

Glyn Secker, of Jews for Justice for Palestinians, addresses the massed crowd at Parliament, during the rally for Gaza. Glyn said: "As a voice for our Jewish organisation, I categorically disassociate ourselves from the Israeli government and the Israeli army. We are from a different Jewish tradition – one that stands for human rights, mercy and compassion."

Brian Eno, the musician, said that when he visited the West Bank, it was "the little things" that made him realise the scale of Israel's occupation.

"It was things like the whole village that had been evacuated and was living in caves so that three Israeli settler families could take their land and be protected by the army," he said. "BDS (boycott, divestment and sanctions) will make the difference. It's the only thing that will frighten Israel."

On Friday, July 25, Palestine Solidarity Campaign delivered an open letter to the Prime Minister at Downing Street, calling for an immediate halt to Britain’s arms trade with Israel. The letter was signed by 21,000 people in two days, including fashion designer Bella Freud, journalist and activist Jemima Khan, musicians Bobby Gillespie of Primal Scream, Robert Del Naja of Massive Attack, Brian Eno and Bryan Adams, the writers Will Self, Hanif Kureishi, Ahdaf Soueif, Esther Freud, Laura Bailey and William Dalrymple, and the actors David Morrissey, Maxine Peake and Alexei Sayle.

Sarah Colborne, Director of the PSC, speaking at Parliament Square

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Newcastle demonstration and rally – Take Action to end the slaughter in Gaza

Newcastle-upon-Tyne

On Saturday around 1,000 people took part in a militant demonstration in Newcastle to demand that Israel immediately cease its war on Gaza. It was organised by the Palestinian Solidarity Campaign and supported by the Stop the War Coalition, and many other organisations from all over the region. The march which was headed by a coffin draped in Palestinian flags passed along Northumberland Street and then ended with and hour long rally at the Monument.

At the rally speaker after speaker condemned the Israeli state for its attack on Gaza and called for a united campaign to demand that the British government end its support for Israel and the killing of the people of Gaza. Speakers also gave their support to the right of the Palestinian people to resist and called on all to support their resistance and condemn the attempts to label the cause of the Palestinians as “terrorist”. The keynote speaker, Yvonne Ridley, journalist and writer, condemned in particular the British government for not ending the supply of military equipment to the Israeli state which made Britain complicit in the genocide being carried out by Israel in Gaza. She condemned the parliamentary leaders, including Ed Miliband and the complicit media that tries to divert attention from the crimes of Israel in killing the people in Gaza by blaming the Palestinians for resisting instead of holding Israel to account. She condemned Israel for refusing to sign a peace with Hamas, the elected government of Gaza, because they justly demand the lifting of the siege on Gaza. She finally called on all to unite and support the justice of the cause of the people Palestine.

A representative of Newcastle Stop the War said that they join with the worldwide condemnation of the savage military onslaught inflicted on the Palestinian men, women and children of Gaza by Zionist Israel. Israel’s indiscriminate bombardment of Gaza, their ground invasion, a blatant act of state terrorism, has now led to the deaths of nearly a thousand Palestinians killed and around 5,000 injured. The barbaric and criminal nature of these acts of terror on civilians has been condemned as a deliberate form of collective punishment, a term more commonly used in connection with Nazi war crimes. Israel pursues its futile and criminal aim specifically at smashing Palestinian resistance but they will never succeed against the Palestinian people, or world opinion.

“Firstly, it is important to say that these criminal acts of the government of Israel, its continued occupation of Palestine and the denial of the national rights of the Palestinians, can only take place because of the continued support of US government and its allies including the government of Britain. The new foreign Secretary Phil Hammond is carrying on where William Hague left off supporting the criminal notion that Israel has the right to defend itself whereas the Palestinians do not have that right in their own country. The British government and the media echo the propaganda of Israel as an innocent and wronged party that must have the right to defend itself, while the rights of the Palestinians to nationhood and self-determination are ignored and their struggle to defend their rights and for self-defence is equated with ‘terrorism’ which it is not.

“It seems likely that the current events have been cynically engineered by the US and British allies as well as their catspaw Israel as an attempt to break the unity that has recently been established between the governments of Gaza and the West Bank in the run up to imminent Palestinian elections.

“Breaking the unity of the people is the number one priority for these big powers and their catspaw Israel. They are interfering everywhere to cause anarchy and violence to try break the unity of the people in the Middle East, in Syria, in the Ukraine, and Africa. Setting people against each other and supporting terror everywhere when it suits them and creating mayhem in the world everywhere is the NATO powers stock in trade. This is why the experience of stop the war over the last 14 years has been one in fighting to defend the unity, the rights of all, against the attacks on Muslims, Jews and Christians alike. It is why we are confronting NATO as an illegal military alliance.

“Our aim is to stop in its tracks the British government and the big party consensus at Westminster in support of the Israeli state.”

Stop the War, the speaker concluded, calls on everyone to unite together in Britain from all walks of life, all races and beliefs and to condemn the Israelis state, to demand that the British government cease immediately its support for this Israeli state and instead demand the end of the Israeli occupation and blockade of Gaza. “Britain must end its support and trade with Israel and demand the Israeli state be brought to book internationally to answer for its genocide. Stop the War calls on all to unite with the heroic Palestinian people in their just struggle against occupation, to support them in resisting aggression and for the liberation of their homeland.”

Free, Free Palestine!

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See the articles on "Britain and Palestine: A Criminal History of Intervention": WDIE, 2006, September 12, October 10 and December 5, 2007, February 27 and 2009 June1.