SEVERAL thousand workers last Saturday assembled on London’s Victoria Embankment for a short but noisy and colourful march to Trafalgar Square in support of the demands of the Palestinian people for Israeli withdrawal from the occupied territories and the right to return for all displaced Palestinian refugees and their families.
There were many Palestinian organisations on the march, along with trade unions, political parties and many other progressive groups who marched on regardless of several sudden and heavy showers.
There were also several Jewish groups, including the Jewish Socialist Group and Torah Jewry who were there to express solidarity with the Palestinians and to remind the world that the imperialist Zionist Sharon government in no way represents all Jews.
The demonstration is held annually on the weekend nearest to 15th May, the anniversary of the end of the British colonial mandate in Palestine in 1948 and the violent birth of the modern state of Israel, which led to the expulsion of over a million Palestinians from their homes and the Deir Yassin Massacre.
Speakers at the Trafalgar Square rally included many representatives of Palestinian organisations and regulars like Islington North Labour MP Jeremy Corbyn, peace campaign veteran Bruce Kent and Tony Benn.
Also present, recently returned from his headline grabbing trip to Washington was George Galloway, the newly-elected Respect MP for Bethnal Green and Bow.
He had lost none of his articulacy as he lambasted the deed, carried out “in that House of criminals just down the road” (Parliament) where Balfour betrayed the Palestinian Arabs and gave their land – over which he had no rightful authority – away to a third party, resulting in the state of Israel.
He also had some very harsh words for the corrupt Arab princes who time and again betray the Palestinians in order to pander to the American and British imperialists.
“The Arab peoples will never be free until they deal with them,” he told the crowd.
