Tag: holocaust

It Is OK to Support the People of Palestine!

Tony StauntonLeave a comment

My weekly comment column in the daily Plymouth Herald (8.7.25), written to evade censorship and to a deadline 12 hours before the Netanyahu/Trump talks. There, they finalised a plan to transport 600,000 of the 2 million Palestinians in Gaza to the destroyed city of Rafah in the far South, as the first trenche of clearing North and Central Gaza completely.
They are looking to create a beach-side Mediterranean holiday resort for the super-Rich, Trump part of the billionaire property-speculating investments. Partying on the bodies of tens-of-thousands of Palestinians. This is Capitalism/Imperialism on steroids. Quite beyond words, really.
This is a catalogue of multiple war crimes, crimes against all humanity, undertaken in broad daylight, recorded and broadcast globally. We can and will hold these bastards to account.
Trump has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize by Netanyahu, not so surprising when you think of the previous warmongers who have won. But their sheer audacity and narcissism, their sociopathy, is a statement of absolute Power that exposes their real weakness. Our protests, our boycott, our worldwide outcry can build such a movement as to mobilise billions and overturn their entire system.
Keep protesting. Build the Campaign. Free Free Palestine (and all of us)! We are all Palestinians!

The article (for what its worth):

It is OK to Protest for Palestine (Fly the Flag!)

Amidst all the confusion it is important to note that it is not illegal to offer support for the civilian population of Palestine, themselves subject to an illegal invasion and occupation. It’s OK to fly the flag!
Palestine is recognised as a sovereign State by 147 countries of the United Nations, including Spain, Ireland, Norway, and the huge nations of Venezuela, Brazil, China, Russia and India. Palestine is recognised and politically supported by most countries of the Global South, and UK trade unions. Palestine sits at the UN General Assembly.
Palestine is seemingly only not supported by the countries of the North West, especially the UK and USA. These two countries, more than the rest of the world put together, are arming Israel from their citizens tax-money, exporting munitions, military equipment and military advisers, training to facilitate the ongoing genocide (illegal under international law) in Gaza and settler colonialism in the West Bank.
Palestine’s two non-contiguous territories have been separated by illegal military invasion, land clearances and military occupation over the past 77 years. Israel has constantly waged military and political warfare against its Palestinian neighbours before and since its inauguration.
The current catastrophe of disproportionate death and destruction of Gaza by Israel – possibly 1500 Israelis killed and at least 60,000 Palestinians including 20,000 children (the bodies are there to be counted) since October 2023 means this is not a war of two sides, it is the drive towards the continuous extermination of just one people and an entire nation.
Supporters of such Israeli action justify the ethnic clearance (illegal under international law) on the grounds of Israel’s right to exist, whilst critics of this genocide are labelled as “Islamist sympathisers” and even “terrorists” by some, for demanding an immediate ceasefire, help and reparations for the people of Palestine and security for the Palestinians’ homeland.
Ironically, the fascist descendants of Hitler and Mussolini who systematically rounded-up and killed over 6-million Jews in the horrific Holocaust during the Second World War are now supporting Israel alongside far-right white supremacists and racists here and across the West. Why?
Because Israel is a racist colonial Apartheid State with a constitution which render Israeli citizens much higher rights and powers than any non-Israeli citizen.
The country’s laws are very similar to those of Apartheid South Africa which was supported by fascists everywhere as representing the separation of so-called human “races” and the domination of the superior “Whites”. In the Israeli context, the term “White” represents a political allegiance to Zionism rather than skin-colour.
White-supremacists in the UK, including the notorious Stephen Yaxley-Lennon aka Tommy Robinson, would like Britain to develop an Apartheid system, Whites over Blacks, from a belief in racial superiority and genetic ethnic purity. They whip-up anti-Muslim hatred and blame refugees and migrants for the crisis of housing and health services that, in truth, have been sucked dry by privatisation and corporate greed.
At this time, the overwhelming majority of the British people do not share such beliefs or sympathies, our friends and relations ethnically diverse and multicultural.
The active support for Palestine by ordinary people includes Jews not affiliated to the political creed of Zionism – a world view distinct from Judaism. It is not anti-semitic to oppose Zionism.
Across the West we have seen huge political protests for Palestinian rights. These must continue and grow. It is therefore of extreme concern that Starmer’s Government is clamping down on support for Palestine, targeting those of the progressive Left seeking Peace with Social Justice. It appears the government would prefer us proscribed rather than the far-Right. Democracy ensures the right to protest for Palestine. We are not illegal!

Support the Students for Gaza!

Tony StauntonLeave a comment

My weekly Comment in the daily Plymouth Herald (28.6.24). This week, Ireland, Spain and Norway added their names to the growing list of countries demanding a Palestinian State. The backlash from the Israeli government supported by Biden and Sunak was disgusting, suggesting these countries are on the side of terrorists, as if the genocide being continued by Israel is not terrorism. 

You see, the trick is to accuse your enemy of precisely the crime you are committing. The deceit is formidable. To suggest that we who campaign for ceasefire, peace and freedom for Palestine are racist is quite a trick. The campaign  for Gaza has defeat of racism at its core.

Step, for four minutes, into our boots. 

Every Saturday for the past 7 months we have protested in Plymouth. Indeed, millions have combined into a single movement across the world across those months, to stop the genocide taking place in Palestine. 

We are approached by people with all sorts of views. Many offer support, some money for the Medical Aid to Palestine charity, much needed now every hospital in Gaza has been bombed and demolished. Some tell of us of their links.

And some come to attack us. Only a tiny minority offer such vitriol, the vast majority agreeing that the killing of Palestinian civilians has to stop. But they offer arguments for supporting the whole scale destruction of Gaza, the killing of 37,000 civilians including 12,000 children, the shooting and bombing that has caused over 80,000 casualties, and the preventing of food, clean water or fuel that is now causing the starvation of 1.5 million crammed into tented spaces amidst the rubble without any facilities. observers close to the ground are suggesting that over 100,000 have died, many of the bodies uncountable or unidentifiable and therefore unconfirmed.

It has become obvious that the far-Right in Plymouth, and Britain, and across the world, has rallied to the Israeli cause. The contradiction is historic. It was the far-Right fascist regime of Adolf Hitler and the National Socialists who perpetrated the Holocaust – the focussed and industrial organisation of extermination of more than six-and-a-half million Jews rounded-up from across Europe and systematically murdered in the cause of seeking racial purity and supremacy of the Aryan white-race, whoever they were invented to be.

Those protesting for Gaza today are the same people who have always challenged racism and fascism, exposing the horror of the Holocaust and demanding “Never Again”. We oppose antisemitism and organise to protect the rights of Jewish People alongside every other cultural and ethnic grouping. The right to follow a Faith has to be a fundamental human right.

However, the right to impose your religion on others has no basis at all. No-one can be forced to believe, only to pretend to follow a faith for survival’s sake. Only you can know what you truly believe. 

Consequently, creating a nation state where the belief in one religion endows you with rights and privileges denied to others must also be unacceptable. The Israeli State has developed a constitution and set of laws for a single ethnic group to be defined as citizens, and all others to be secondary with fewer rights. 

Students are revolting! Everywhere!

There are more than thirty encampments on university grounds across Britain, including in Exeter and Falmouth in our far South-West, mirroring many more in the USA and Europe. Their cause is simple – freedom for the people of Palestine.

The international demand for a permanent ceasefire in Gaza and for immediate aid and reparations for the millions of Palestinians experiencing deliberate and enforced starvation has majority support.

Yet, over the weekend, more Gazan civilians were killed and injured as Israeli troops bombed makeshift camps in Rafah, a refugee city on the very western edge of Palestine, bordering Egypt.

Nowhere to run, nowhere to hide, the people had been herded there in the first place at the barrel of a gun, told this was the safest place only to then be shot at and bombed from above.

There can be no excuse for this military offence. The actions of the Israeli Defence Force working to the orders of the Israeli government defy and break all international law on the conduct of war and treatment of displaced civilians.

The concerns of students and young people across the world should be heard. The International Criminal Court has demanded an immediate ceasefire, and issued an arrest warrant for the Israeli Prime Minister. The United Nations and International Court of Justice has identified acts of genocide    Continuing today. 

The UN says that 1200 Israelis and 37,000 Palestinian civilians have been killed including 16,000 children since October 7th last year. All hospitals in Gaza have been destroyed, and supplies of water and food prevented from reaching most, who have no shelter amidst the bombing of the entire region. 

Last week, Ireland, Spain and Norway added their names to the 137 countries recognising Palestine as a country and demanding the withdrawal of Israel’s occupying forces. Palestine has the right to exist, as it did before the creation of Israel in 1948 when terrorists invaded Palestinian land, shot and forced 750,000 inhabitants to leave their homes and become refugees. This Catastrophe, The Nakba, has been now repeated and amplified through 2024. 

Support for Gaza and freedom for Palestine represents a global cry for justice and human rights. Students are to the fore in taking action everywhere to stop this illegal war. It’s simple. If there is no justice for Palestine, there is no justice anywhere. 

Students campaign on many issues – for affordable and decent housing here, for access to food and medical care for children across Britain, for the right of all to education. For Peace, not war. These demands cannot be limited to Britain when billions of pounds of our taxes are being spent waging war and destruction on people elsewhere. We have to protest when our own educational establishments are making money out of genocide abroad.

Israel has bombed and flattened every university in the Palestinian Territories, yet most of our universities still invest in Israeli businesses and many have direct business dealings with the Israeli military. Our students have a simple demand – Stop Arming Israel! And one-by-one, universities are divesting from Israel, heeding their students’ moral demands. 

Trade unions, most of which have long supported Palestinian independence, must now act to support our youth. In Oxford, university authorities used Police to arrest peaceful protesters and uphold the university’s links with Israeli war crimes. Our response should be to defend the college encampments and demand a boycott of all military aid to Israel. 

When one country is allowed to enslave another, no-one can claim to be free. Permanent ceasefire now and Freedom for Palestine! Support our Students!