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Jewish Voice for Liberation

UPDATED: Jewish Bloc joins mass protest for Palestine

UPDATE: Global Jews for Palestine statement added Wednesday May 21.
The 27th national demonstration against the Gaza genocide, on May 17 in London,  drew the biggest crowds since November 2023 when the organisers claimed up to a million attended and even the BBC reported hundreds of thousands on the streets.
This time, with Israel ramping up its 19 month carnage and humanitarian agencies pleading desperately for relief for starving Palestinians, the mass protest went virtually unremarked by mainstream media. (They did, naturally, find plenty of space for gleeful pundits celebrating Gary Lineker’s early exit from his TV football commentator role after apologising for sharing a badly-framed pro-Palestinian post on X).
Sky News managed a 49 second film clip of Saturday’s march which, to its credit, explained that it “marks 77 years since the 1948 Nakba which saw 750,000 Palestinians displaced during the creation of the modern state of Israel.” It also showed a cluster of counter protesters waving Israeli flags and playing “Happy Birthday” songs, celebrating  the ethnic cleansing to which Palestinians have been subjected for nearly eight decades.
Fortunately, for those who care, there is plenty of evidence of the huge numbers who were present to demand an end to Israeli impunity and the reprehensible connivance of our and other Western governments. The Jewish Bloc, as always, was there in force, represented at the concluding rally on Whitehall by JVL’s Naomi Wimborne-Idrissi. Below we publish her speech on video and in text form, followed by a statement from Global Jews for Palestine.
Ben Jamal, director of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, fronted a powerful video explaining the significance of this demonstration taking place at this time.
A significant new voice on the platform on May 17 was that of historian William Dalrymple.  A number of the other passionate speeches can be heard in the second half of this video from the Crispin Flintoff Show.
NWI
 
 
Published by Naomi Wimborne-Idrissi
Screenshot from PSC video showing the mass Nakba day protest in London on May 17, 2025

 

Naomi Wimborne-Idrissi’s speech to the rally in Westminster on May 17, 2025

I’m 72 years old – just five years younger than the catastrophe which struck Palestine in the Nakba of 1948 and is the source of October 7.

In all my years on this planet I have never witnessed such horrors as the retribution Israel has unleashed against the entire people of Palestine.

The televised genocide is aided and abetted by this abject apology for a Labour government, by the US and other Western governments that love to pontificate about the liberal values they share with Israel.

Well it’s true –  Israel does share the values of the colonisers who have, for many generations, plundered the earth, treating native peoples with racist contempt!

In all my years on this planet, I have never been so ashamed of Jews who parrot Israel’s lies, denying its responsibility for multiple war crimes and breaches of international law, throwing all the blame for tens of thousands of Palestinian deaths onto Hamas.

At last, amid images of starving infants, breaches are appearing even within the Jewish, Zionist establishment. 36 of the 300 Members of the Board of Deputies of British Jews have publicly dissociated themselves from Israel’s decision to break the ceasefire and block all food and humanitarian aid from entering Gaza.

Such small shifts are welcome, but the BoD continues to defend the Israeli state and to declare that those who protest against the genocide are a threat, to British Jews and to public order.

These completely unfounded charges are being used by the British state to justify repressive policing of demonstrations and the use of counter-terror laws to intimidate journalists and activists.

Following the mass arrests of January 18, the Jewish Bloc formed a delegation to meet the Metropolitan Police. To date, we are still being denied the chance to be heard.

The Met needs to understand that large and growing numbers of Jews, in Britain and around the world, are horrified by Israel’s cruelty towards Palestinians, flouting every tenet of Jewish ethics.

We have marched alongside hundreds of thousands of non-Jews in huge demonstrations calling for peace and justice and we are outraged to hear them denounced as antisemitic hate marches. Such rhetoric is dangerous and divisive and must not be allowed to dictate the police approach to legitimate protest.

To finish, let me quote from a statement by Global Jews for Palestine, a collective of Jewish groups in 19 countries.

This Nakba day we are watching children in Gaza die of malnutrition in real time.

Now, today, our governments must take action.

Stop arming Israel.  Sanctions now.

Israel’s impunity must end here.

The full statement from Global Jews for Palestine

On Nakba Day, Jewish groups in 19 countries scream,
Open the damned gates!
We are Global Jews for Palestine, a collective of Jewish groups in 19 countries. For five years, we have made statements on Nakba Day, the anniversary of the expulsion of 750,000 Palestinians from their homes to establish the state of Israel in 1948. This year we scream.
Right now, 2.3 million Palestinian people are being tipped into intentional, avoidable starvation and they can not wait for help. Every hour Israel’s brazen, genocidal crime of starvation wastes more innocent lives.
2.3 million people are trapped behind an illegal blockade wall, while thousands of trucks stand idle with their cargo of food, just beyond the crossings. 2.3 million human beings have been subjected to the most intensive use of explosive weapons in human history. The land of Gaza has been carpet-bombed, its environment poisoned, its hospitals and schools and homes laid waste. The people now being starved are the survivors of what was already beyond imagining.
We cannot understand the silence, let alone the quiet permission of inactivity, let alone the profitable arms trade in which most of our governments are complicit. It defies understanding.
As Jews, we were raised to judge harshly all those who stood aside while Jews were slaughtered in the Holocaust. We were born with a personal stake in the agreements that states signed after World War II, hoping to avert any such nightmare again. But here we are again. A century of global aspirations to limit the harm of war by distinguishing civilians from combatants also lies buried beneath the rubble of Gaza.
This Nakba Day, the fires of catastrophe are blazing. We beg our friends, neighbours, colleagues, and strangers to stand up and join forces to douse these flames.
It is the silence and inaction of our governments which has allowed Israeli war crimes to escalate to this horrific level.
This Nakba day we are now watching children in Gaza die of malnutrition in real time.
Now, today, our governments must take action.
Stop arming Israel. Sanctions now.
Israel’s impunity must end here.
Open the damned gates!
Contact:
Global Jews for Palestine

 

 

 

  • Sorry I did not go, but when walking from Long Buckby station the road was blocked off and we had suit cases. One of the road workers gave us a lift the rest of the way. He said “I am only giving you a lift because you have a “Free Palestine” scarf.” Despite all the bullshit from politicians and journalists, ordinary people are supporting Palestine.
    So I said “At least you get some perks being on the right side of history”

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  • Powerful speeches to be remembered and hold our government’s wavering words to account.

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