It might mean that the exhibition of the Blanket of Hope will have to be relocated to a shopping mall. The rain is bad enough but the wind poses a particular hazard for those holding a dedicated crocheted blanket 44 metres long and created by Craftism For Palestine. The blanket is made up of thousands of six inch squares each symbolising ten children murdered during the Israeli genocide in Gaza. The blanket gets longer by the day.
Something else trying to drive solidarity events off the streets today is the Zionist lobby. It is trying to use this week's unpardonable attack on a Manchester synagogue to impose invidious cancel culture on a protest organised for Trafalgar Square in the British capital this afternoon, where people of conscience will 'peacefully sit and hold cardboard signs saying “I oppose genocide. I support Palestine Action”.
He is right. There are no what ifs or buts - the attack in Manchester on people celebrating the most important event in the Jewish religious calendar, Yom Kippur, were butchered. It was was rabid and racist. No justification explains it, no mitigation lessens it.
Israel's foreign minister Gideon Sa’ar has called on the UK government to “fight the pro-Palestinian marches and protests”. Dutifully obliging Israel's Ribbentrop are the British Prime Minister and his cabinet flunkeys, the Tories, with both parties getting the backing of the UK police. The head of the Metropolitan Police, Sir Mark Rowley, has suggested that the protest could be insensitive while at the same time feeding into antisemitism. Der Starmer has claimed those intending to gather should desist out of respect ''for the grief of British Jews”. Tory Shadow Home Secretary Chris Phipps added his caustic voice by labelling the protestors as disgraceful.
The commentator Mehdi Hasan. has compellingly dismissed all of this insisting that:
The commentator Mehdi Hasan. has compellingly dismissed all of this insisting that:
The racists in the UK are not the ones attending pro-Palestine marches this weekend. The racists in the UK are the ones saying that you shouldn’t protest 53 Palestinians being murdered because two Jewish people were also murdered on the same day. Some of us can condemn both.
He is right. There are no what ifs or buts - the attack in Manchester on people celebrating the most important event in the Jewish religious calendar, Yom Kippur, were butchered. It was was rabid and racist. No justification explains it, no mitigation lessens it.
When we gather here each Saturday it is never in opposition to Jewish people. Nor do we entertain antisemitism. It is a slur to suggest that we do. Attacks on Jewish people are to be opposed every bit as forcefully as attacks on other civilians. We do not gather to justify or remotely sympathise with the attack on the Manchester synagogue. Those who lost their lives there including the innocent person gunned down by British police - seemingly as reckless as they were when they murdered Jean Charles da Silva de Menezes - had as much right to life as a child in Gaza. We do not assemble in West Street against Jews but against genocide. Like our colleagues who will assemble in Trafalgar Square we will not be pressurised through emotional manipulation, immoral blackmail or threats into abandoning our opposition to that genocide. We refuse to allow the Zionist lobby to mask genocide with the burial shrouds of the murdered Jews of Manchester.
In the spirit of Medhi Hassan, our stance is simple: there is no hierarchy of victims: death to no Jews; death to no Palestinians; an end to all killings.
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