On Thursday 5 March, Nottinghamshire Police announced that it would be dropping its investigation against a black anti-Zionist who had been singled out for arrest on 8 February on a demonstration organised by the Revolutionary Communist Group. This victory was the result of a concerted campaigning effort by the Zionism Is Racism Defence Campaign (ZIRDC), established immediately after the arrest to fight back against this latest episode in the ongoing attempt to criminalise solidarity with Palestine. Despine Dohman reports.
The arrest itself took place on 8 February at a picket of HSBC in Nottingham, called in opposition to HSBC’s financing of the genocidal Zionist occupation of Palestine. This financing includes nearly £100m of shares in Caterpillar and hundreds of millions more in arms companies like BAE Systems, Boeing and Raytheon, all of which supply equipment and weapons to the Israeli military. After a complaint from a lone Zionist who had taken offence at a placard proclaiming the basic fact that ‘Zionism Is Racism!’, the picket was subject to several hours of escalating police harassment.
As the demonstration was rounding up, the police finally flexed their muscles by demanding the details of all the people present at the picket, claiming that by taking a position in support of the Palestinians there had likely been a public order offence which needed investigation. The only black person at the event, after merely requesting a moment to consider their options, was summarily arrested, a clear example of the racist policing methods of the British state.
Shortly after the arrest, the RCG called an initial meeting which led to the formation of the ZIRDC, whose core aim was to fight against this instance of criminalisation of solidarity with Palestine and connect this fight to a recognition that Zionism is racism. Over the following month, the ZIRDC took out to thousands of people across Nottingham a petition demanding that the investigation be dropped, demonstrated once again outside HSBC to show that the campaign would not be intimidated, and built an effective political defence campaign.
On 5 March, Nottinghamshire Police announced that it was dropping the investigation. The speed of this political victory against the criminalisation of Palestine solidarity is a testament to the political strength of ZIRDC, which worked to expose Nottinghamshire Police and to ensure that they would pay a political price.
As we have argued in this paper many times before, the racist, imperialist British state depends on its alliance with the racist Zionist Israeli state for projecting its power and ensuring its interests in the Middle East. Because of this link, the British state and its representatives will attack those who stand against Israel and its brutal occupation of Palestine.
This victory – based on the clear political perspective that Zionism is racism – is significant in a period when much of the British left is tempering its solidarity with Palestine in order to retain its links with the Labour Party, all of whose candidates for leadership have signed up to the Board of Deputies of British Jews’ ten pledges, including the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of anti-Semitism, which commit them to expunging even the most toothless pro-Palestinian sentiment from the party. It is also significant because it shows that the British state and its racist police can be successfully challenged. But the fight is not done yet. Having defeated this attempt at criminalising Palestinian solidarity, now, more than ever, is the time for us to fight in support of Palestinian liberation, and to show solidarity with the political prisoners who are abused for expressing the desire of all people to be free. The fight against Zionism and for Palestinian liberation will not be over until the whole of Palestine is free.
The ZIRDC continues to pursue its legal case against Nottinghamshire Police for their racist and wrongful arrest; and will continue to campaign in solidarity with the resistance of the Palestinian people. Those in Nottingham who stand with that resistance should join us.
