The renewed resistance in Palestine sparked the spontaneous and organised mobilisation of millions around the world. On the streets of Britain, RCG branches and supporters of Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism! have played leading roles in fighting for anti-imperialist solidarity. As with the Irish and South African liberation struggles, the work of building a revolutionary, anti-imperialist movement means confronting pro-colonialist forces, the police machinery of the British state, businesses which profit from the occupation and, relatedly, exposing the Labour Party and its apologists who provide left cover to the crimes of imperialism and Zionism.
Israel’s 11-day assault on Gaza from 10 May, along with the intensified colonisation of Jerusalem and mass uprising of the Palestinian people sparked international outrage at Zionist oppression and the connivance of the imperialist states in the onslaught. In Britain, huge protests have been energised by the collective involvement of many young people of different backgrounds, and particularly of working class Asian and Arab communities, including many refugees. In mobilisations of over 200,000 people in London, branches of the RCG have co-organised dynamic anti-imperialist contingents, connecting in particular the struggle in Colombia to the intifada in Palestine, including a march from the Colombian embassy to the Israeli embassy on 15 May.
In several cities, FRFI supporters led pickets of corporation Marks and Spencer (M&S), a key supporter of Israel, highlighting the ongoing links between consumerist British capital and Zionist colonisation. On 22 May, despite the objections of Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) and Palestine Action (PA) in Manchester, a militant RCG-led bloc of over 2,000 people blockaded M&S on Market Street, forcing the shop to close its doors for over an hour. In Glasgow, protests drew links with other revolutionary struggles, highlighting in particular the British state incarceration of Palestinian activist Dr Issam Hijjawi, imprisoned in Maghaberry prison, in the British occupied north of Ireland.
Building a non-sectarian alliance with Palestinian, Irish and Asian activists, the M&S picket in Glasgow formed a hub of activity as a Palestinian comrade told the crowd: ‘what you are doing here is fighting and resisting for the Palestinians.’ Organised around open-mic sound systems, pickets in Liverpool and Newcastle attracted large crowds, including many who had never spoken on a public microphone before.
As with previous campaigns, activity against the allies of British imperialism inevitably comes up against the force of the capitalist state. In Nottingham, the new People for Palestine group, in which FRFI is involved, led a well-disciplined protest which targeted British army recruitment, M&S and provided an open mic for hundreds of enthusiastic supporters. However, as the event drew to a close, police moved in to arrest four protesters, including a child and a comrade who had attempted to calm the crowd’s responses to police provocations. As the four were held in the back of the police van, hundreds chanted ‘Be like Glasgow,’ where anti-racists had heroically prevented racist detention. The police were forced to move the detainees to another vehicle and protesters quickly organised to picket the police station until they were released.
The democratic militancy of the interventions supported by the RCG contrasts clearly with the stale, middle-class political strategy promoted by the organisations assuming leadership of the movement on the streets. Tactically, the moves of PSC and friends to push crowds towards fields, parks and insignificant parts of cities has already backfired in some places, with many gravitating spontaneously towards city centres and direct targets like M&S, and hundreds of others joining alternative open-mic protests. In Nottingham, the independence of People for Palestine was attacked by the local PSC, which spuriously blamed the arrests on ‘violence’ on the pro-Palestinian side, while the University of Nottingham Palestine Society complained that protesters subjected police officers to intimidation!
These actions of the middle-class left were taken to their logical conclusion in Manchester, with the PSC quoted in the Zionist Tory newspaper The Express, attacking the M&S pickets and equating the boycott with anti-Semitism. The article correctly quotes the speech of an FRFI supporter on 22 May labelling M&S ‘the Israeli embassy on the high street,’ for its $233m in annual trade with Israel and referencing PFLP operations which targeted M&S following Israel’s war of colonisation in 1967. This is par for the course: during the 2000 intifada as M&S pickets nationally came under police, Zionist and Labour council attack, PSC national leaders Linda Clair and Betty Hunter publicly denounced the boycott M&S campaign.
The opposition to militant boycotts is part of the continuing agenda of the British social democratic left to handcuff any movement to the Labour Party:
- The 15 and 22 May London protests featured speeches from Labour MP Jeremy Corbyn who opposes the boycott of Israel. As their stage was being scaffolded outside the Israeli embassy on 15 May, PSC stewards sent the police to try and remove the FRFI stall.
- Manchester, Labour MP and pro-austerity ex-council leader Afzal Khan was invited to speak at the 15 May protest days after signing a statement condemning the ‘war crimes’ of Palestinian resistance, as a leading figure in a cross-party parliamentary group. A week later, thousands booed Khan and Labour leader Keir Starmer during an FRFI speech in Piccadilly.
- In Nottingham, Labour MP Nadia Whittome was booed and heckled by many in the crowd. A message read out on behalf of a Labour councillor who didn’t bother to turn up was drowned out with shouts of ‘where is he then?’.
- Following the trend, on a stage marked ‘PSC members only,’ MP Chi Onwurah sent a written message to the 22 May protest in Newcastle. She had previously condemned Palestinian resistance, while the local Labour council was at the forefront of adopting the pro-Zionist IHRA definition of anti-Semitism.
- In Liverpool and Glasgow, as in many other cities, the PSC held tightly-controlled platforms. Revealingly, none of the Labour MPs, councillors or other supporters made any clear reference to Starmer, whose open Zionist position and appointment of Israeli spy Assaf Kaplan to the Labour head office has once again cemented its position as a pro-Israel party.
The energy and opposition to Labour Zionism among many involved in the protests, however, points to an alternative to this tired, pro-Labour opportunism. All supporters of the anti-imperialist struggle of the people of Palestine must join FRFI in building an open, fighting movement for anti-racist, anti-imperialist liberation.
Louis Brehony
Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism! No 282, June/July 2021
