I hadn't seen that before. The symbol is certainly offensive. Offensive and inappropriate even if there are now fascists with ministerial posts in the Israeli government. Protestors need find a different way of showing that Israel is a violent colonial power with a racist state ideology. Israel is not the same as Nazi Germany and no one should use a swastika symbol to imply it is.Originally Posted by pipster
However, the words are not. There should not be a Conservative Friends of Israel and a Labour Friends of Israel as official parliamentary organisations that have close ties to the embassy of a foreign state and act as advocates for that state within the UK legislature. There are no other 'Friends of' groups in Parliament - unless you count the empty shell of Labour Friends of Palestine - a PR exercise in mock impartiality and a group that never met (Lisa Nandy was supposed to be the chair and was happy to promote the con).
But the usual (in recent weeks) claims of those who see the Palestine marches as 'hate marches' is to call 'From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free' as anti semitic and a cause of distress to UK Jews. There were certainly thousands of placards with that on in the recent marches, and it was a regular chant. It was Jewish people leading that chant where I was on Saturday - and it clearly means something very different from the claims of Braverman, the Chief Rabbi and the clutch of pro-Israel propagandists. It means an Israel/Palestine of peace and justice. It means an end to occupation. It means human rights for all. As a slogan it is completely consistent with a future two state solution or with a single state of equal rights and opportunities. It is not consistent with a greater Israel in which the remaining Palestinians have been killed or expelled - and if supporters of that particular vision are offended by the chant, then good.
The other recent propaganda attacks on supporters of the Palestinians (including tens of thousands of UK Jews) is that the Palestinian flag is threatening and anti semitic; that describing Israeli war crimes as war crimes, or describing genocide in Gaza as genocide is anti semitic; and that reference to the death of over 5000 children under Israeli bombs and tank shells is repeating the medieval blood libel! All cynical crap designed to silence those speaking out for victims in Israel/Palestine.
The marches have been explicitly opposed to anti semitism and Islamophobia. The organisers have condemned the Hamas murders and hostage taking. But after 7 October the civilians being crushed, dismembered and burned to death are mainly Palestinian. That is the focus.
The leader of the Campaign Against Antisemitism today claimed that the Palestine marches had made London unsafe for Jews - ignoring the thousands of Jews who took an active part in those marches and the Jewish speakers at the end of them (and not just the London demonstrations but dozens of smaller ones around the UK since the start of the attack on Gaza).
There have been a handful of people arrested (similar proportion of the crowd as at the much smaller protest against anti semitism in London today). Some of those have displayed or shouted anti semitic messages. Some of them have been arrested for having slogans in Arabic that the Met Police couldn't understand so decided to make arrests just in case. A young woman on my coach from Sheffield on Saturday was picked off by the police for carrying a baby body bag with English and Arabic words on it denouncing baby murder in Gaza! Another was arrested for a placard that said 'Zionism is Terrorism".
Apart from the dozens of regional demonstrations (in Sheffield twice a weeks since early October) the London events have been huge - with 800,000 on 11 November and 300,000 on 25 November (both Press Association figures) and have been marked by how disciplined and well behaved they have been. Angry yes but not violent or abusive or intimidatory. An Israeli spokesman on the BBC today labelled them as pro-Hamas rallies. More cynical crap!
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