3 January 2009

Brighton & Hove Demonstration Against Slaughter in Gaza



























































































































































































































Brighton is a small town on the south coast of England where there is an active Palestine Solidarity Campaign group.

Despite short notice, nearly a thousand people turned up to a rally in the main shopping centre, Churchill Square, to express their anger at Israel’s barbarous action.

Speakers included a local activist Trinni, former Labour Councillor Francis Tonks, Jackie Chase who led the Free Omagh Degayes Campaign (imprisoned in Guantanamo Square) and Tony Greenstein, speaking as a Jewish opponent of Zionism and their terror bombing of Gaza.

I made a number of points:
1. Those who condemn ‘terrorism’ when it comes to 'suicide bombs' are fully supportive of Israel’s far greater State Terrorism. Dropping one ton bombs from warplanes on civilian populations, murdering nearly a hundred children to date in Gaza, receives the applause and support of Gordon Brown, Bush and the BBC.

2. The BBC, our supposedly neutral tax payer funded broadcasting organisation, has deliberately and wilfully presented Israel’s genocide as ‘retaliation’ against the Hamas peashooters, which have killed less than 20 people in 8 years, whereas in fact it was Israel’s ‘incursion’ into Gaza on 4th November 2008 that killed 6 people which broke the ceasefire. So say nothing of course of the starvation siege of the Palestinians.

3. The Arab regimes and Egypt, which have sat by, silently supporting Israel, should be overthrown if the Arab masses are to have any self-respect. They are complicit in Israel’s actions.
4. The irony of the ‘rockets’ that have been fired at Ashkelon, Beer Sheba and Sderot is that these areas were the homes of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who were expelled in 1948 onwards into the Gaza Strip. The land they are firing on was their homes and having been expelled into overcrowded refugee camps they are now being subject to new massacres, the purpose of which is to expel them once again.

5. An even greater irony is that Israel’s siege, intended in the words of one Israeli general and war criminal, to put the Palestinians ‘on a diet’ is no difference in method from the words of Hans Frank, Governor General of Nazi occupied Poland during the war when he imposed a starvation siege on the Warsaw Ghetto. The irony is that the Israeli state and its army have taken up the baton from the Nazi army. The Gazan Palestinians are no different in kind from the Jews of the Warsaw Ghetto and it is no surprise that the Zionists, who collaborated with the Nazis during the war, should now seek to ape the persecutors of the Jews.

Above are some pictures from the Brighton demonstration. It demonstrates that despite the incessant media lies that we have to put up with, that ordinary people know when our rulers and their watchdogs are perpetrating war crimes. Also shown are a few shots of our own police spies.
Tony Greenstein

8 comments:

  1. Thanks, it's the last we can do in the face of the massive use of state terror against an unarmed civilian population.

    I post 2 links below to film taken by ISM volunteers, who have stayed behind, in Gaza.

    Tony

    https://rcpt.yousendit.com/638793038/3d1d8847315ee66181138e169e8d6337

    https://rcpt.yousendit.com/638802096/aa05ffbe19a8c1cb9e4dc25371c06691

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  2. Excellent turn out for Brighton.

    I attended the London demo, it was around 50,000 though the media are desperate to underplay the significance of the collective anger shown at the Israeli State. And especially found the shoe throwing at the gates of Downing Street very cathartic and watching the cops having to jump out the way when a shoe came hurling past them...!!

    Btw: great blog I have linked to you on my own blog (Harpymarx) and to the Socialist Unity blog which I contribute to.

    Louise/harpymarx

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  3. Louise,

    I'll link to you once I've remembered how to do it!

    Yes they said 10,000 attended in London but I didn't think it could be that few. The BBC's been appallingly bad, much worse than even it normally is, throughout the crisis. Complete sticking to government line but people aren't so easily fooled.

    Just been sent some more appalling photos I'm about to put up. I've lived in Brighton over 30 years and this was one of the largest and best demos - completely spontaneous - we've ever had.

    This is a bit of a niche blog. You'll have seen some of the articles I've done on Socialist Unity re the freaks at the fringe of the PS movement (I've had 1 or 2 write to me personally - if you correspond directly - tonygreenstein@yahoo.com - I can copy some of their idiocies and some of the Zionist tykes who vent their spleen).

    In fact I was thinking of doing a special post sometime of all the anti-semitic stuff I get sent but reject on this blog. Just so people can see what is being posted.

    cheers

    tony

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  4. Good demo, nice to see a decent turnout (relative to this culture's general state of political apathy) at short notice, and people from all different backgrounds responding to their basic humanitarian reaction to outrageous acts of violence.

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  5. Brilliant stuff TG,
    and by the great folks of Brighton!

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  6. I don't agree that anyone who protests suicide bombs also supports the Israeli action. I'm against both.

    Why did you put suicide bombs in quote marks? Do you disagree with the reporting of these events? You also put the word rockets in quote marks.

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  7. Richard,

    I agree. You can and should oppose what is happening at present without supporting 'suicide bombing'. The reason I put it in quotes was not to signify some disapproval, but I reject the idea that this is a particularly heinous offence different from dropping bombs from the air or firing tank shells. If anything at least the bombers sacrifice themselves.

    But I agree that I should have explained rather than just use shorthand!

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