With Photos by Gerry Atkinson
All the might of the American empire and white supremacist Anglosphere is behind Israel’s sadistic, industrial killing machine. The area in which 1.5 million Gazans are sheltering, and being starved to death, is the size of Heathrow airport.
Now we know what it is like to be around while a genocide, supported by the British state, is going on. Israel is a danger to world peace. A danger to us all.
Even it’s monstrous friends can’t control it. A case of the tail wagging the dog! Here’s how fascism and war creep up on us, when genocides and racist wars are tolerated.
Arms and instruments, manufactured in Kent, are being tried out on Palestinians, again and again. Now political repression, long practised in Palestine under the British mandate, and throughout the British Empire, is being tried out on us, with the full support of His Majesty’s Loyal Opposition. There’s an attempt to restrict freedom of speech and freedom of movement here in the UK.
In the body politic there are red flags that symbolise danger: if you’re banned from dissenting, organising, speaking, marching, denied access to justice, denied access to the seat of government. All these are signs of creeping fascism.
The Palestine Solidarity Campaign has been in the forefront of resisting restrictions on our right to march, on our right to put in a green card at the House of Commons and see our Member of Parliament, on our right to freedom of speech. For six months millions have been resisting, week after week, on platforms in London, vigils like this, actions in Supermarkets, outside Barclays Bank, campaigning against Eurovision, mounting legal challenges against undemocratic policing orders that Suella Braverman smuggled through Parliament without a vote.
Please join our Lobby of Parliament on April 24th. Go to our website: palestinecampaign.org and register to attend. This action is being organised with our partner DCI-P, Defence for Children International, Palestine.
The advantage of being part of a national movement is, we can focus our efforts and gain wins, as we did when the police failed to stop us marching on Armistice Day, and when we succeeded in forcing Puma to withdraw its support for the state sponsored Israeli football team.
A couple of myths we need to dispel: There are no “two sides”. The majority of the population of Israel is oblivious to the brutal military occupation conceived and commenced in the 19th Century.
The intention to commit genocide was open from the start. In 1895 the so-called “father” of Zionism, Theodore Herzl wrote: “We shall try to spirit the penniless population across the border by procuring employment for it in the transit countries, while denying it employment in our country. But the process of expropriation and the removal of the poor must be carried out discretely and circumspectly.”
This was even before it was even decided where to plant the Zionist state. They were considering Uganda or Patagonia. Rhodes and Rhodesia were the model.
David Ben-Gurion wrote in his diary, 18th July 1948: “We must do everything to insure they (the dispossessed Palestinians) never do return.”
Golda Meir said she couldn’t sleep at night thinking about Palestinian women giving birth. Israel was always obsessed with demography.
They’ve always been hell-bent on reducing the number of Palestinians by exile and extermination. And increasing the number of Israelis by importing Zionist extremists who are given cheap dwellings in illegal settlements.
And you don’t have to be Jewish. You can convert. Ethiopians, and even people Israelis call “Inca Jews”, an oppressed indigenous group in Peru, were suckered into believing they’d be better off in Israel, but treated like “human animals” when they got there… unless… they joined the army, lived on the front line and practised sharp-shooting, like the Druze soldier who murdered British student, Tom Hurndall. Now Israel is making deals with Narendra Modi that amount to human trafficking.
Crowds might be demonstrating against Netanyahu, but its for the wrong reasons. Many so-called “left-wing” Israelis, who support an end to occupation, don’t recognise the dispossession of historic Palestine and don’t support the right to return.
The notion that “peace and reconciliation” can happen without an end to occupation, without the right of return of refugees, undermines the just cause of the Palestinian people for self-determination, human, national and civil rights.
The notion that Israel, Europe, the UK and the Anglosphere will decide the fate of the Palestinians must be resisted. Only an immediate, unconditional ceasefire and open borders so aid can be distributed by the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNRWA) will save lives. Only the withdrawal of all US, Israeli and British weapons, military wares and personnel from the area will enable Palestinians to receive food, water, medical supplies they desperately need to prevent the horrific deliberate use of killing by starvation, a further war crime, already in progress.
Only justice for the Palestinians can avert a catastrophic war that will engulf us all.
Under administrative detention orders, introduced by the British, children as young as three are picked up by Israeli soldiers and tried in military courts, in itself a war crime. This has been going on for decades. Palestinians in the West Bank are being rounded up by the thousands. Nearly 300 have been killed by snipers, missiles and drones since October 7th. Hamas are not in control in the West Bank.
Imagine this scenario:
Supposing you have a loved one living in Canterbury or Faversham, or even Herne Bay, Tankerton or Chestfield, and you had to get a permit to cross a checkpoint to visit them. Imagine you had to apply to Canterbury City Council – if anyone has tried to get a parking permit or a blue badge, imagine that 100 times plus. Imagine, then, that Canterbury Council has employed a bunch of hate-filled, trigger-happy teenagers who’ve been raised to hate you, to police those permits and checkpoints.
Imagine, then, that there’s a law that says you can’t be away from your home for more than six months, otherwise your home will be taken over by relatives of Canterbury Councillors.
Ok, so your mum in Herne Bay, Tankerton or Chestfield is ill and you need to visit. You eventually succeed in getting a permit. You go to Tankerton. But when you attempt to return via the checkpoint your permit is refused. It takes over six months to sort it out. By now your home has been occupied by a bunch of settlers from another part of the country, or from New York, London, Russia or Ukraine. Or even from Peru.
These conditions are everyday life for Palestinians at the best of times in the West Bank. Palestinians can only meet people from Gaza if they go abroad and meet them there. By what right does Israel act as gatekeeper over another people?
Photographs by Gerry Atkinson
(Click on images to enlarge)
WHAT CAN WE DO?
There’s a lot going on in Kent that we have a responsibility to get involved with.
Write to the Archbishop – a few words from him could save lives. Address: Lambeth Palace, London, SE1 7JU, United Kingdom. Office: +44 20 7898 1200. Website: https://www.archbishopofcanterbury.org/about/contacting-archbishop
Universities – Apartheid off our campuses.
Write to your councillors and MPs. Rosie Duffield said she was proud of the Balfour Declaration, handing over Palestine to the Zionists:
Rosie Duffield
House of Commons
London
SW1A 0AA
Phone: 0207 219 1183
Email: rosie.duffield.mp@parliament.uk
Pension funds investments – Kent County Council is enormous, we must have many members of their pension fund in our footprint.
Unite across Kent to kick out all arms factories. We will go to Sandwich, most likely May 11th. Follow our Facebook page for updates.
Revive Kent’s radical history – join PSC.
Decolonise Palestine.
Free Sudan and Congo.
Stop the killing, stop the crime.
Diane Langford is a Palestine Solidarity Campaign activist, novelist, trade unionist, women’s liberation movement activist , LGBTQ and NHS campaigner.
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