activists disrupt israel’s pr operation – report and video

Activists disrupted the offices of the British Israel Communications and Research Centre (BICOM) in central London on the morning of Tuesday 13th. The lobby group’s media centre, which is playing a key role in Israel’s public relations operation during the assault on Gaza, was shut down as protesters occupied the building.

Photographs of civilian casualties from Gaza were pasted on to the computer screens of public relations executives, phone lines cut off to halt the organisation’s media rebuttal unit and leaflets thrown out of window on to the main road and handed out to staff pressing them to confront the truth about the human cost of Israeli aggression.

occupations for gaza in london! get down to lse!

In our report on Saturday’s demonstration, we urged students to occupy university buildings.  A leaflet which some of us helped to distribute also called for university occupations.  With demonstrations outside the embassy dwindling, and the PSC seeking to demobilise the movement with their latest (sexist) call for a “women’s and children’s march” following another mind-numbing rally at Trafalgar Square, occupations are vital to take the movement to the next level.

Students at SOAS have already occupied, and the university has agreed to grant several of their demands (including banning the military from campus, and allowing the student union to run a series of events for Gaza there during the week).   Tonight LSE students have embarked upon their own occupation.  We need to support these!  Get down if you possibly can, student or not, and help to make every occupation a centre of discussion and organisation!  Find more about the occupations here:

SOAS occupation

LSE occupation [Map and travel instructions]

These occupations pose a question of social power – i.e. who runs the institutions that make up society – and doing so while raising the banner of Gaza. Street mobilisations alone will burn us out without posing these questions of power, and leave us with no alternative centres of organisation apart from the PSC and the STWC which are already trying to demobilise the movement. Isolated actions – such as the disruption of BICOM on Tuesday morning – are broadly positive, but don’t provide an organisational centre to counter the national NGOs, and don’t do anything to link the situation in Gaza to broader questions of politics and power. Occupations can also be centres of learning and organising, they are exactly what needs to happen. Their potential will be defined by the number of people who attend and commit to them.

If you are at another university, consider organising your own occupation.  We also need to think about how these occupations can become a space, not only for students, but for the broader community of activists and demonstrators who have taken action over the past two weeks.

anti-semitism and the assault on gaza

by Joe Thorne

Criticism of Israel is not anti-Semitic, and the vast majority of our movement is not anti-Semitic, but it is a terrible reality that some anti-Semitism has been pulled along in its wake [1]. Therefore, we have a duty to acknowledge and oppose this. In fact, if we do not, we renounce the right to say we are true fighters against the brutality in Gaza.

the mindset of israelis in the gaza war

by Solomon Anker, recently returned from Tel Aviv

The most dramatic event within Israeli society in the war has been the amazing lack of compassion for Palestinians. It is not true that Israelis are calling for “Death to the Arabs”: this is a very marginal phenomenon and outside the mainstream. However, in general people do not care about the almost 1,000 people of Gaza who have died so far.

Israeli television is giving off some soft war propaganda which does a good job of curing Liberal Israelis’ guilt for the crimes in Gaza, plus going a bit over the top about the effect which the Hamas rockets have. Nevertheless the media is telling people most of the truth about what goes on in Gaza and in fact the newspapers in Israel which tend to be left-wing (especially Haaretz) tell of all the war crimes that have taken place.

mobilisation and militancy in the anti-war movement: photos and report of 10th january palestine demo

For Gaza

Notice: Demonstrate against police brutality in solidarity with yesterday’s arrestees.  This evening (Sunday 11th) at 5pm outside Kensington Police Station, 72 Earl’s Court Road.  Directions: Come out of High Street Kensington tube and turn left. Left again at the next big cross roads.

On Tuesday, the Israeli army shelled a school designated as a refuge from the assault, killing 42 and injuring scores more.  Two days later, thirty more civilians were killed as a second refuge was shelled.  By Saturday, the number of dead from the past fortnight stood at over 800, with a little under a quarter children.  Later that day in West London, cold as it was, and with frost on the ground, around 70,000 people marched against the massacre in Gaza.

Clashes between police and protesters erupted on a scale not seen for a decade in this country.  This is a report by eye-witnesses associated with The Commune, who have also been at many of the demonstrations outside the Embassy over the past fortnight.  We also reflect on the significance of the days’ events.

activist’s arm broken as police clamp down on gaza protest

by David Broder

Our readers will forgive us for another report on the daily protests at the Israeli embassy in response to the war on Gaza. Although the numbers at the 9th January protest were less than on previous days due to a simultaneous demo at the embassy of Egypt, whose government actively participates in the the blockade of Gaza, the protest was remarkable for the arrest of one activist and the aggression of the police, leading to another protestor’s arm being badly broken.

Below are several photos of the demo and a brief summary of the course of events.

gaza demo 7th january: police run riot after zionist counter-protest

report by Taimour Lay

Demonstrations outside the Israeli embassy in Kensington on Wednesday night ended in baton charges on pro-Palestinian protesters and at least ten arrests. A counter-demonstration organised by the Board of Deputies of British Jews, Jewish Leadership Council and UK Zionist Federation attracted 300-400 people, but the arrests were ultimately sparked by police tactics at the end of the evening rather than the conduct of the opposing sides during the protest.

The police chose not to force pro-Palestinian demonstrators – who had been gathering since 5pm for the daily demonstration – away from their pen as the Zionists arrived shortly after 7pm, instead setting up a second pen opposite the embassy nearer Gloucester Road, with three police vans and 40-50 officers to keep the two sides apart in contained areas.

But as the night wore on riot police were used to end the anti-war demonstration by force. One policeman said a strategic decision had been made to ”clear the area”, including Kensington High Street and surrounding roads, to prevent ”Israeli and Palestinians from kicking each other”. In reality, it meant that the peaceful pro-Palestinian demonstrators, who still numbered around 200 by 9pm, and who remained determined not to depart before the close of the opposition demonstration, were pushed, harried and chased out of the pen.

photo-report of 3rd january palestine demo, london

by David Broder

On the day that Israeli tanks rolled into Gaza, threatening a vast escalation of the war on Palestine, tens of thousands of people marched through London in an emergency demonstration.

The march from Embankment to Trafalgar Square (via Whitehall, where around a thousand shoes were thrown at the gates of Downing Street) was followed by a demonstration of around 5000 at the Israeli Embassy in Kensington, where  15 people were arrested after clashes with riot police.

At the demonstration The Commune activists gave out our own leaflet similar to that distributed during the last week’s daily protests at the Israeli Embassy, as well as another collaborative effort calling for the movement to continue. The next demo is at the Israeli Embassy, Kensington at 2pm on Sunday 4th January, followed by daily pickets at 5:30pm every weekday and another march next Saturday (10th January). Pictures and comments about the 3rd January protests below.

photo report of gaza demonstration

by David Broder

On 29th December, as Israeli bombs rained down on the people of Gaza, over 1500 – mostly young – people demonstrated outside the Israeli Embassy in London in the second of a series of daily protests. After the Embassy protest there was a march down Kensington High Street and a number of police attacks on the crowd: seven people were arrested. Below are a series of photos and comments on the day. We distributed leaflets reporting on the state of Israeli opposition movements and the plight of young people jailed for refusing to serve in the army, as well as expressing our condemnation of the attacks and refusal to support Hamas.

The demo began at 4pm with a standing picket outside the Israeli Embassy, which is protected by police and gates and is several dozen yards away from the road.

The British Muslim Initiative’s placards were particularly prominent on the demo: the British far left did not make as much of an impression as is usual on anti-war events.

israel-palestine: the chauvinist onslaught

Our comrade Solomon Anker reports from Tel Aviv, Israel on the escalation of the conflict in Gaza and the response of the Israeli left and peace movements as well as Arab organisations.

The situation in Israel and Palestine has made everyone become more nationalist.  The right-wing Jewish parties in Israel are gaining more support and the Arabic citizens of Israel are extremely angry, and they relate strongly to the suffering of the people in Gaza.

Within the Jewish community the majority support the Army, and the establishment Left (Labour Party) is part of the Government who is in charge of the massacres during the war. Ehud Barak, the Defence Minister is from the Labour Party. Within the Labour rank-and-file there are those who are unhappy with the Government but not even one member is opposing the action in Gaza. The Social Democratic Party (Meretz) and Peace Now, who are anti-occupation, not in the government and whom have a very left-wing rank and file are silent. They tend to only demonstrate against the settlers and the far-right and never challenge the state.

The only opposition in the Jewish community has come from members of the Chadash Party (Communist) and Anarchists Against the Wall.  In Tel-Aviv a very lively demonstration took place with 300 people with 5 getting arrested.

The main opposition within Israel’s borders has come from the 1.2 million Arab citizens of Israel. However, these demonstrations have not had a left-wing tone. The demonstrations have been called to protest against what is going on in Gaza, but the mood of the protestors and  chants at the demonstrations have been mostly right-wing and are extremely nationalist. In the city of Haifa, where the Communist Party is strong, 300 people a day are demonstrating, mainly shouting slogans saying “Palestine is Arabic” and other slogans relating to “re-conquering” the country. In the smaller Israeli-Arab villages where the Balad Party (Arab Nationalist) and the Islamic Movement are popular the slogans have been even more aggressive, including “We Will Defeat the Jews” and “Death to the Jews.” Slogans saying “End the Occupation” and” Stop the Violence in Gaza” are heard, but in general, these are less popular than the more “militant” calls.

All in all, the mood of the country is nationalist, and even liberal voices are almost dead, with people just tending to stick by their ethnic tribe and having mistrust and fear of the other. Racial fighting between young Jews and Arabs (all working-class) broke out a few months ago in the northern town of Akko. Predictions are that a third Intafada will lead to more racial tension and the chance of working-class solidarity is  completely dead and the chance of a race war is far more likely.

campaign to free israeli conscientious objectors

On December 18th a campaign was launched to free the “Shministim” – Israeli high school students who have been imprisoned for refusing to serve in the army occupying the Palestinian Territories. The website december18th.org features videos of the jailed conscientious objectors, and you can also send a letter of protest to the Israeli Defense Minister.

photo-report of al quds day demonstration

by David Broder

Sunday 28th September saw the “Al Quds day demo”, an Islamist demonstration against the Israeli occupation of Jerusalem. The protests have taken place annually since a 1979 decree by Iranian Islamist cleric Ayatollah Khomeini during that country’s counter-revolution.

Counter demonstrations were organised not only by leftist critics of the Iranian regime (most prominently the Worker Communist Party of Iran) but also a separate protest which included Iranian monarchists and right-wing liberals; supporters of the Israeli government; and British fascists attacking the Al Quds demo not for its participants’ politics but out of racism.