Why JVL members took part in protest for Palestine Action

I had done this before, on July 12^th. On both occasions I was charged under S13 of the Terrorism Act.

Why take these actions?

First the scale of the genocide carried out by the Israeli state terrorists against the people of Palestine, the first live-streamed genocide in history.

Second, the complicity of this so-called Labour government with this mass murder.

Third because of the government’s fundamental attack on our right to protest. We are travelling fast in the direction of an authoritarian state.

Fourth, because I am a lifelong Jewish anti-Zionist. I am determined to show that many Jews throughout the world oppose the genocide in Palestine. Not all Zionists are Jews and not all Jews are Zionists!

And finally this fight against the proscription of Palestine Action is one we can win. We can defeat this law and defeat this government!

On the first occasion I went alone and saw no one I knew. I was one of the first arrested and ended up at Hammersmith police station where I was kept for several hours.

I was really quite relaxed and as soon as I got the chance, I put the blanket they provided over my head and fell asleep. It did feel strange to have my fingerprints taken – the first time in over 55 years political activism.

I didn’t get out until after 2am. It was reassuring when I got out to be greeted by reps from the organisers of the event to make sure I was ok – which I was.

Last Saturday was very different. I saw so many friends and comrades there. What was important was not just those holding the incriminating banners – but those who weren’t. They were a real support and made it more difficult for the police to make arrests.

This time I was there for five hours. I find it difficult to sit on the ground (even more difficult to get up!), so it was a bit tiring. It was almost a relief to get arrested.

But I didn’t have it hard. I was arrested at just before 6pm. We were asked by the organisers to refuse to give our details and ensure we were sent to a police station to help make things more difficult for the police.

Unfortunately the processing officer at Millbank , where we were first taken, recognised me from last time. They found my details. So no police station for me. I was street bailed and got home a bit after 9pm.

On neither occasion did I see any violence from our side. Perhaps the odd struggle against being manhandled by the police – and there was chanting from the crowd of “shame on you” to the police. For those used to dealing with hardened criminals, I’m sure most police found us quite easy – especially as so many of us are old (I am 76!). Most of the police I spoke to all but admitted the whole exercise was a waste of police time.

A number of Jewish comrades were there on this occasion. Just like the presence of the Jewish bloc on the main pro- Palestine demos it nails the lies from the establishment and the Zionists that to oppose Israel is to be antisemitic.

So what next?

The key to victory is public opinion and building the mass movement from below. Defend Our Juries have organised these protests brilliantly – and they need support from many, many more so that this law cannot be implemented.

But what next for Palestine? A harder question.

The Zionist Jewish supremacist state of Israel has lost so much support worldwide, including from the Jewish diaspora. People throughout the world are increasingly protesting against the genocide. Israel is a pariah state. The days of Zionist Israel are numbered.

But the Palestinians are being devastated -bombed, starved, removed. This is ethnic cleansing on a massive scale. Only the people of the region and the world can support them. The shameful western governments and the despotic regional Arab regimes will do nothing – unless the power of the people makes them do so.

Susan Buckingham

Sue is a solidarity member of JVL  and active in Cambridge

I participated in the DoJ action on Saturday because: I stand in solidarity with Palestinians; I oppose Israeli aggression in Gaza, The West Bank and elsewhere; I challenge the UK’s involvement in Israeli aggression; and I support my, and others, freedom to peacefully protest and do not believe PA to be a terrorist group. I’ve been participating in the Palestine marches, but as the situation worsens, and the UK’s support of Israel is consolidated, I feel the need to do more.

I found the DoJ September 6th protest to be comradely and peaceful. I sat with comrades from Cambridge (retired teachers and professors, and community artists), and near Jewish protesters from Hastings. My neighbour was a retired architect living outside Scarborough. We alternated between silence, chats, and sharing food. Friends from the Palestine march visited later.

I didn’t witness any violence – it was sometimes noisy, especially with the anti-abortion protest at one end of the square. When – eventually – the arrests started, observers chanted ‘Shame on You’ at the police and surrounded the arrest groups, taking photos/film. My arresting officer was polite and respectful – and we had some interesting chats while I queued to be bailed in the makeshift open-air police station in Millbank. I was bailed at 12.30am – too late to get home. I slept on the floor of the Methodist Church Hall in Waterloo, where the discomfort was mitigated by our host’s kindness and hospitality.

I am a non-Jewish supporter of JVL, but have Jewish links through my partner and his family. I think that it’s important and valuable that Jewish people are visible in pro-Palestine/anti-Israel protest. It stresses that not all, or even the majority of, Jews support Israel.

We need to keep up the pressure through demonstrations like this, which are well supported and backed up, and enlist as much political support as possible.

Carolyn Gelenter

I had been demonstrating, writing and speaking for months against Israel’s genocide of the Palestinian people and our government’s complicity in this evil, but I knew that I was not doing enough.  Are any of us doing enough?  We’ve probably all asked ourselves what we would have done if we had been in Germany in the 1930s.  Did I not dare do more now?

The demos, marches, petitions, letters and speeches have been important, but undeniably the most tangible effects resulted from direct action.  Of course, a repressive government would take extreme measures, despite the long British tradition of winning freedoms through civil disobedience.  To suppress the voices for Palestine, even words on a card are now classed as terrorism.  When, if not now, will we take a stand?

80 years ago this year, the British Army liberated Bergen-Belsen concentration camp and the British people were shocked by what they found.  Now, as shocking pictures reach us from Palestine, the government is misusing our armed forces, not to end a genocide, but to support it.  As a former officer I find this shameful and humiliating for our country.

Some have spoken of the bravery of those who were arrested.  I have huge respect for all those who took this step, especially the young, who have so much to lose at the hands of vindictive authority.  But we must not forget that the real bravery is in Gaza: the medical workers, the journalists, the teachers, the parents and many more, all risking and losing their lives for others.  Those are the actual heroes.

At 13:00 on 9 August I had my card and my marker pen ready.  I would be arrested for the last four words I would write, but the first three were the real message:

“I oppose genocide!”

There used to be a type of theatrical production known as a ‘Whitehall farce’, so called because of the Whitehall Theatre where they were staged.

Well Parliament Square where I was arrested in Saturday’s Defend Our Juries protest against the proscription of Palestine Action is at one end of Whitehall….

The farce in which I and so many others participated on September 6^th was long-running only in that it took the police nearly 10 hours to clear the square. When at 10.30pm I eventually got my very own Arresting Officer he told me that he had been called in at no notice late in the evening because they were running out of police to do the arresting.

The whole exercise was profligate in its use of police – snatch squads of around 6 officers were needed to ‘lift’ recumbent and unresisting protesters. And then the arresting officer had to stay with his or her arrestee until they reached the custody sergeant. I was not arrested till 10.30 pm, and by the time I got there the custody queue on Millbank was several hundred yards long, a queue composed of equal numbers of police and criminals (or should I say political prisoners). Lots of mutual education was going on, a 3-hour linear session.

Earlier on, Parliament Square was full of the sort of people you would be pleased to have as comrades when times get tough. Old friends (and some young ones) from movements past and present. Friends now in the movement for Palestinian liberation. Brought together by this outrageous proscription.

The theatrical Whitehall farces were long-running, but then they were very funny. By contrast the proscription of Palestine Action is no joke. We need to get it booed off the stage.