Bolstered by the ravings of Cruella Braverman, I was determined to join the London march on Saturday. We had been told all week that the march would be full of anti-Semites, so my intent was to march alongside Jewish people should any aggravation kick-off. It took no time to find them, there being so many on the march, visibly identified by the flags of Jews for Justice for Palestinians, and the Jewish Voice for Labour with their slogan “To be a Jew means always being with the oppressed, never with the oppressors.”
Most moving was the small contingent of Hassidic Jews in their magnificent hats and Victorian costume. It would be easy to write them off as dogmatic fundamentalists – my Jewish friends in the 1970’s called them Frummers – but the slogans they chanted were not doctrinal, but in support of the suffering Palestinians and they were clearly deeply anguished by the death and destruction being unleashed on the civilians of Gaza by the state that virtually all the establishment down to Starmer insists they identify with.
I was surprised though by the number of individual Jews who were marching, holding hand drawn signs which all said, “I’m a Jew but…”.
Given that the march was meant to be comprised of Hamas supporters I was surprised that I witnessed no aggravation towards these Jewish comrades. Some people were obviously amazed that they were there but showed no hostility. The only reference to Hamas I saw was a wry comment about humus.
Today in the news, Sunak is still repeating lies about violence by far-right and Hamas supporters when the police were shocked themselves by the level of violence unleashed on them by fascists. For the march itself, there was no need of heavy policing. Afterwards the police said they had images of just three people who were suspected of anti-Semitic hate crimes on a march of somewhere between 300,000 and 800,000 people according to various estimates.
There were people chanting “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free”. This has been deliberately misconstrued to mean the expulsion of Jews from Israel. In essence it is calling for all Palestinians – United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) reports that there are approximately 5.9 million Palestinians registered as refugees – to be able to live in peace and equality with Jewish people in all the territory of the current Israel, the West Bank and Gaza. The only way this could possibly be implemented is for there to be a single secular state which guarantees the equal rights of all regardless of religion. This ‘One State Solution’ has been the policy of all the political movements I have been involved with over the last 50 years. Fortunately, there are a large number of Israelis who wish to treat Palestinians on equal terms which provides hope for the future.
Photos by Corinna Lotz and Peter Arkell
Leaflet handed out by Jewish Antizionist Action on the march
Excellent article Robbie.
A thoughtful and touching account.
We are away but otherwise would have joined the March.
I’m peace,
Robin and James
Another thought on “From the River to the Sea”. Zionists have sought to portray this as a desire of Palestinians to remove all Jewish people from this area. In fact the opposite is the case – the Israeli state has removed so many Palestinians from this area that refugees number 5.9 million people. How else can we view Gaza other than the last remnants of Palestinian inhabitants being driven into the sea.
Lovely article and great photos. Yet Sunak and especially Suella Braverman were parroting the usual guff about hate and violence being displayed on the streets of London frightening all the decent people of the city out of their wits and only a throwaway remark or two about the counter demonstration by the true hate merchants.
Braverman must have been furious about how well the latest huge march went and how orderly and respectful it was, yes there was a group of breakaway protesters seemingly intent on causing some degree of offence and unrest and there has been we’ve been informed a big increase in antisemitic incidents and general ill feeling towards Jews which is deplorable, but also towards Muslims with a rise too in Islamophobia. Your description of the march is an excellent corrective to all this and is consistent with other people’s experiences on previous marches. But Cruella has now been sacked, whether she will remain silent on her back bench is another matter, I suspect she’ll do her best to use her voice to keep stirring the pot of prejudice, maybe by writing further Telegraph pieces, while keeping silent on any other demos by the true ‘mobs’ the far right like we saw on Saturday.
James O’Brien’s verdict on Cruella: “She summoned a mob of far-right hooligans”.