Remembering the Holocaust, marching for Palestine
JVL introduction
The latest national march for Palestine in London on Saturday January 31 came close on the heels of Holocaust Memorial Day.
Jonathan Rosenhead made this his theme when addressing the rally on behalf of the Jewish Bloc.
He pointed out that the Nazi slaughter which gave rise to the UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide and generated the slogan NEVER AGAIN, FOR ANYONE, also produced the state of Israel and its genocide against the Palestinian people.
His message was clear – The 11 organisations in the Jewish Bloc will continue to take action for the liberation of Palestine and the Palestinians.
NWI
Speech by Jonathan Rosenhead, representing the Jewish Bloc on the March for Palestine in London on Saturday, January 31, 2026
Last Tuesday was Holocaust Memorial Day. It marks the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, where so many – Jews and non-Jews – were murdered.
There is probably no Jew on this march whose family did not lose relatives – parents, cousins, grandparents – in the Holocaust. Their deaths were from brutal slave labour, starvation, and murder. They were the work of a fascist regime which brought terror to much of Europe and the world.
That slaughter gave us the concept of genocide.
It also gave us the United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, a precious defence.
And it also gave us the principle, the slogan if you like – NEVER AGAIN, FOR ANYONE.
But that slaughter also gave us Israel. Israel – a misconceived apology from Europe and America, for not having prevented the Shoah, the Holocaust.
Now 80 years later, we have a genocide for the 21st century. It has rolled out across our screens for more than two years. Carried out by that same state, Israel, a settler-colonial state, which was established on the territory of another people, the Palestinians.
After World War Two, British scholars and jurists were at the forefront of establishing the international legal system to outlaw such barbarities.
The outrage against humanity we have been witnessing has been enabled by the United States.
But it has also been connived at by our own British government. The one U-turn that our current lawyer Prime Minister has not made is to find his principles and denounce Israel’s genocide.
But the Jewish Bloc does not only march. Our organisations have:
- protested at the World Zionist Organisation’s ‘Aliyah Day’, trying to recruit new settlers
- engaged with the Metropolitan Police over their absurd ban on demonstrations anywhere near synagogues
- brought hundreds celebrating the end of Chanukah in Trafalgar Square, with chants including –
ZIONISTS DON’T SPEAK FOR ME, PALESTINE WILL BE FREE
- confronted our communal leadership’s complicity and silencing of anti-Zionist Jews
The Jewish Bloc is a coming together of 11 Jewish and Jewish-led groups. We are proud to march here with our comrades of many ethnicities, of many religions or none, as we have done for two years plus.
We will continue to march – for the liberation of Palestine and the Palestinians.
Palestine will be free.
Zionists were the ones who hunted down nazi war criminals. Specifically Jewish Israeli Zionists tracked and captured nazis who fled justice.
Ironically, an Arab Muslim “Palestinian” religious leader named Mufti Haj Amin Al-Husseini was a convicted nazi war criminal for his direct involvement in the Holocaust. Multiple cowardly nazi war criminals fled to Egypt, Syria and Lebanon and Arab Muslim governments gave these murderers a safe haven.
Here! Here! Jonathan. No one is free until the Palestinians are free. “Never again” means “never again” for everyone. Shame on all those “leaders” and politicians who are actively supporting the slaughter of innocent Palestinians, across the Occupied Palestinian territories. Stop the genocide now.
A very fine speech Jonathan, and encouraging to hear what other organisations in the J Bloc have also been doing. I have been feeling discouraged about our slow impact, particularly when I saw that even now the majority of JVL’s members are not Jewish… This JVL site however is such an achievement and a candle in the darkness. I wonder why zionist trolling should have suddenly appeared here , responding to this one item instead of others? But of course I’m not the moderator so I don’t know if other hostile responses have been prevented from appearing.