Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism! supporters in Scotland joined a weekend of mobilisation to mark one year since the Palestinian resistance broke out of Gaza and the Israeli genocide began. The weekly Palestine solidarity protests in Glasgow, Dundee and Edinburgh, and other smaller cities, have continued for a year and this helped to ensure that thousands came out onto the streets, against British imperialism’s renewed expression of unconditional support for the expanding Israeli genocide and terrorism.
On Saturday 5 October, FRFI joined a national march in Edinburgh, organised by the Edinburgh Gaza Genocide Emergency Committee (EGGEC), which proceeded silently, through the streets of the Scottish capital remembering the Palestinian and Lebanese lives taken and destroyed by the Israeli state and its imperialist backers. The silence of the 2,000 – 3,000 thousand people who participated, was respectfully observed by the passing public. A similar experience was had in Dundee where FRFI supporters joined a silent march. At the beginning and end of both the events, speakers and the crowd were given space to express their horror, anger and solidarity with those under attack and fighting back.
Calls to oppose criminalisation and for solidarity with the growing numbers of political prisoners in Britian, including the Thales 5, who are currently the only Palestine Action supporters imprisoned in Scotland, were also made at both marches. In Edinburgh, FRFI marched with our ‘Free the Thales 5’ banner (see the FRFI report of their sentencing here) and in Dundee an FRFI supporter spoke from the stage.
On 6 October in Glasgow hundreds came out onto the streets to pay their respects at a ‘Palestine flower tribute’ which was independently organised and held at Buchanan St steps. At the same time Glasgow GGEC, which FRFI is a participant in, organised and held a lively protest to an Israeli embassy backed ‘Scotland memorial vigil’ which was taking place at the plaza of the Kelvingrove Art Gallery & Museum. This Zionist rally which was publicised as a ‘vigil’, in a futile attempt to prevent opposition, was organised by Glasgow Friends of Israel and supported by the Board of Deputies of British Jews, the Israeli Embassy, ‘Bring them home Scotland’ and the Glasgow Jewish Representative Council. Aware of the growing public revulsion at the open war crimes of the Israeli state, the GFI organisers did not make the location of their rally public until the night before. Publicity included the demand for the ‘immediate, unconditional release of the hostages’ and the invitation to join in the singing of the original version of ‘October rain’, which was rejected by Eurovision organisers as too political, and the Israeli national anthem.
FRFI supporters contributed to the short notice GGEC mobilisation to counter this Zionist rally. For over two hours, our protest, numbering around 100 effectively chanted over the Zionists, who numbered around 200, with many of their headline speakers and singers made inaudible by our speeches and chanting. This included politicians like Tory MSP Jackson Carlaw and Blair McDougal, Labour MP for Renfrewshire East, who could hardly be heard over chants of ‘Viva, Viva Palestina!’. The GGEC protest also stood its ground to police attempts to move and silence us with the police eventually surrounding and cutting off our PA system. This was towards the end of the protest by which point the Zionists had been effectively drowned out with our chants continuing until the Zionists dispersed. Before our protest ended, we held a short open mic. An elderly woman, who introduced herself as the daughter of a holocaust survivor and an anti-fascist fighter in the Spanish civil war, stepped forward to condemn Israeli genocide and Zionism. It is clear. in imperialist Britain, it is our responsibility to confront the monster of Zionism which our governments helped birth and still support today.
On 7 October, FRFI supporters joined over a hundred people gathered at a ‘Solidarity vigil for Lebanon’ at Glasgow’s Buchanan Street steps. The event was called by the Lebanese community in Scotland, which is also active in GGEC. Standing under Lebanese and Palestinian flags, speakers condemned the expanding Israeli genocide and defended the resistance of the people of Lebanon, Palestine and Yemen and their fight for freedom.
Join the GGEC March for Palestine and Lebanon this Saturday 12 October, assembling 1pm at Kelvin Way, and ending at Buchanan Street steps.
Isolate the Zionists – Sanctions now!
Victory to the resistance!
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