Rishi Sunak’s government has supported Israel’s criminal war on Gaza, both diplomatically and in practical terms: weapons including spare parts, surveillance missions and intelligence gathering through US spy bases hosted by the UK on Cyprus.
A War on Want report in December called for a ‘two-way arms embargo on Israel without delay to end [the government’s] complicity in Israel’s crimes against the Palestinian people.’
Yasmine Ahmed, the UK director of Human Rights Watch,…
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I refer to the following article ‘The evidence Israel killed its own citizens on 7 October’ (PN 2669) by Asa Winstanley. There are number of issues I could raise in relation to its content, but I will focus predominantly on the one which I find most disturbing.
This is embedded in the following quote: ‘Israel made no effort to collect forensic evidence from bodies supporting its allegations of rape and sexual assault by Palestinians…
Language is important. It’s one of the things, particularly written language, that sets us, as a species, apart from the animals. Having done a little wordsmithing in my time, of course I’m going to think that. But the science backs me up.
When I Google ‘the importance of language’ there are 3.6 billion results. When I narrow my search to ‘the importance of language in propaganda’ I get 61 million results.
The way propaganda uses language is both insidious and dangerous. It can…
I have spent most of my adult life engaged in solidarity and justice work with and for Palestine, and alongside the small yet vital Israeli peace movement. I have mostly lived and travelled around the West Bank, but the last time I saw Gaza, I was standing beside the border with hundreds of Israeli and international peace activists protesting a heavy Israeli bombardment of that small place and the people in it.
I don’t have the words to even begin to understand how it must feel to be…
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So good to read Penny Stone’s super review of Leon Rosselson’s book Where Are The Elephants. Back in the early ’80s, when I was one of the PN editorial team, we reviewed Leon’s album Temporary Loss of Vision. The song that stays with me was called The Last Chance, the story of ongoing arguments between two Israelis.
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I am writing as a warm supporter of Peace News, in the anticipation that my letter will appear in an issue highly critical of Israel.
If so, my beliefs are not fundamentally at odds with yours. I have thought and read quite a lot about the Israel/Palestine conflict, and know it to be very complex; but my politics on it are simple: ‘End the Occupation’.
I believe the Occupation (of the West Bank) has caused Israel to…
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Excellent to note that Pax Christi and peace collectives here in Bavaria are seeking peace, and without prejudice.
Conflict resolution is certainly required and the process of peace requires equity. Better therefore not to take sides, as doing so simply widens the divide. Such division feeds into the Trotsky StW [Stop the War Coalition]/PSC [Palestine Solidarity Campaign] sentiment that now, worryingly, gives voice through the British…
On 10 November, former Guardian journalist Hadley Freeman expressed her concerns about the ‘Ceasefire Now’ marchers due to demonstrate in London the following day. Freeman told BBC Radio 4’s PM programme: ‘First of all, I would ask them, you know, what they think is going to happen if there’s a ceasefire?
‘Hamas has said that they will not stop until Israel is annihilated. And the fact is there are still 200…
On 31 October, Keir Starmer explained why he opposed calls for a ceasefire in Israel’s war on Gaza, in the same terms as the US and British governments. The Labour leader said: ‘that would leave Hamas with the infrastructure and the capability to carry out the sort of attack we saw on October the 7th.... Hamas would be emboldened and start preparing for future violence immediately.’
Therefore, Starmer argued, the right position was to ‘stand by the right to self-defence of any nation…
In the run-up to the ‘Ceasefire Now’ demonstration in London on 11 November, prime minister Rishi Sunak condemned it as ‘provocative and disrespectful’ and warned that the march could ‘desecrate’ the Cenotaph, the national war memorial near Downing Street. The then home secretary Suella Braverman joined in, saying: ‘It is entirely unacceptable to desecrate Armistice Day with a hate march through London.’
The main organisers of the protest, the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, which had…
When United Nations general secretary António Guterres said the Hamas murders of Israelis in October 2023 did not happen in a vacuum, he was immediately accused by Israel’s ambassador to the UN of a ‘blood libel’ against Jews for which he must apologise or resign.
He, like us, deplores the killings but he also challenged the Israeli assertion that history started on 7 October. According to the Israeli narrative nothing, apart from bestial hate, explains 7 October and 7 October…
The Villages Group is a small but totally dedicated Israeli-Palestinian peace group who have worked year in and year out to show friendship and support to people under occupation in Palestine. I visited many times, to sing and do music with children in the villages, including in the very places right now being destroyed.
Things are desperate as never before. I am receiving their letters every day. Here are some things they are telling me. They want the world to know.
From their…
This list of children 16 and younger killed in the latest Israel-Palestine conflict, has been created to be read out slowly during hour-long ‘Ceasefire Now’ vigils – to remember those who have died and to call for an immediate end to the violence.
This list of 261 names has been compiled from two sources: a spreadsheet of 2,523 names of children killed in Gaza (7 – 26 October 2023), circulated by Iraq Body Count, based on Gaza health ministry information and a 14 November report on…
The National Alternative Remembrance Ceremony, organised by the Peace Pledge Union and friends, was held in Tavistock Square, Central London, on 12 November. Over 200 participants observed two minutes’ silence and laid white poppy wreaths in memory of all victims of war. There were three speeches, focused on Palestine.
Richard Kuper of Jews for Justice for Palestinians said: ‘Yesterday saw one of the biggest demonstrations in the United Kingdom against the conflict in the Middle East…
At the time of writing, a four-day truce is taking place in Gaza. With Israeli leaders stating their full intention to intensify their attacks immediately thereafter, anti-war protests have continued, including a national march of 200,000 in London on 25 November.
Within days of Hamas’s 7 October attack, as Israel’s immediate retaliatory bombardment began the destruction of Gaza, local vigils for the people of Gaza were held across the UK.
On 14 October, tens of thousands of…
