Hands off the West Bank!

by New Worker correspondent

Hundreds of demonstrators rallied in the heart of London on Monday evening, demanding that the Burnham government stop supporting Israel’s genocide in occupied Palestine. The Palestinian Forum in Britain and its partners in the Palestine support coalition called the protest outside the Prime Minister’s residence in Downing Street in response to Israeli threats to launch a major military operation in the occupied West 
The protest followed the draconian reprisals taken by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu after a resistance attack on a military checkpoint near Hebron in which two Israeli soldiers were killed and three others were injured. Israeli forces imposed a cordon around Hebron and announced preparations for a comprehensive closure of the occupied West Bank. Around 250 Palestinian families have been forced out of their homes in Hebron. Netanyahu also announced plans to build and legalise more than 100 new Zionist settlements and more than 100 settlement farms, alongside the demolition of Palestinian homes along roads that he said posed a threat to Israeli forces. 

Angry protest at council meeting

 

by New Worker correspondent

Residents call out Camden’s Labour council’s support for the genocide in Gaza –  the leader of the Labour group, Sagal Abdi-Wali, and the other councillors look the other way. The Council was due to debate a motion on Camden's duty to divest its pension fund from companies violating international law. The thrust was to force Camden to divest from companies complicit in Israel's genocide in Gaza.
But the motion was never debated. Instead Labour councillors ran down the clock with meandering interventions. The meeting was promptly adjourned at 22:00. The moment the meeting adjourned, protestors in the gallery began calling out the stitch-up. The motion will now not be up for debate until after the October by-election which Sagal Abdi-Wali hopes to win on the Labour ticket.
This is what they tried to censor: local residents furious that Labour and Sagal Abdi-Wali refuse to do the right thing and immediately divest from genocide. Camden Labour is ground-zero for Starmerism and the politics of complicity he pioneered.

End Zionist control!

by New Worker correspondent

The Anti-Zionist International was launched in Birmingham last weekend. The original venue, The Old Print Works in Balsall Heath, cancelled the booking stating it could not provide a "safe space" following police scrutiny of the group's social media activity. But the event was subsequently moved to another location nearby. 
The campaign was described by supporters as an incredibly powerful and important event for reaffirming Palestinian liberation principles, bringing renewed energy and genuine hope for justice and freedom for Palestinians.
Latifa Abouchakra, a London-based journalist and contributor to Iran’s Press TV,  was arrested while travelling to Birmingham to attend the launch. The police said the arrest was linked to enhanced security arrangements surrounding the event. But activists  claim the action reflects pressure from pro-Israel lobbying interests, accusing authorities of selectively policing events that challenge or criticise the Israeli government. Latif Abouchakra is a prominent voice on Press TV's Palestine Declassified, where she openly criticises Israeli policies and the Zionist presence within Western institutions. 

End British support for Zionism!

by New Worker correspondent

In London last week Palestine solidarity campaigners took part in a rolling picket of companies that are complicit in the Israeli genocide and starvation of Gaza, starting at Google’s office in the heart of the capital. 
And in the capital of Scotland the screen-writer Paul Laverty was arrested at a pro-Palestine protest outside a police station for allegedly supporting a banned organisation. Laverty is best known for his collaborations with director Ken Loach including the award-winning I, Daniel Blake and The Wind That Shakes the Barley, which both won the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival. 
"Following a protest outside St Leonards Police Station on Monday 25 August 2025, a 68-year-old man has been arrested under the Terrorism Act 2000 for showing support for a proscribed organisation" said Police Scotland. Laverty, who was wearing a T-shirt with the slogan "Genocide in Palestine, time to take action", told the media that “although we have the law on our side, we cannot implement it. So I think we have to change the narrative. I think we’ll have to remember is that the most important court in the world is the court of public opinion. Ordinary people are appalled to see starvation and genocide and the selling of arms to the apartheid state in Israel, and are just appalled by it”.
Laverty is accused of supporting Palestine Action, which was banned in July following acts of vandalism at an RAF base. Yvette Cooper, the home secretary, announced the ban days after activists from the group broke into RAF Brize Norton and defaced two military transport aircraft with spray paint causing some seven million poundsworth of damage.
More than 700 people have been arrested, mostly at demonstrations, for supporting the group since it was outlawed under the Terrorism Act 2000.
Volker Turk, the UN high commissioner for human rights, said in July that the UK’s decision to proscribe the campaign group as a terrorist organisation was “disproportionate and unnecessary” and called for the designation to be rescinded. 
He said: “UK domestic counter-terrorism legislation defines terrorist acts broadly to include ‘serious damage to property’. But, according to international standards, terrorist acts should be confined to criminal acts intended to cause death or serious injury or to the taking of hostages, for purpose of intimidating a population or to compel a government to take a certain action or not.
“It misuses the gravity and impact of terrorism to expand it beyond those clear boundaries, to encompass further conduct that is already criminal under the law”.

A Pilgrimage for Palestine

by New Worker correspondent

Acclaimed playwright Peter Oswald embarked on a 150 mile pilgrimage for Palestine on 18th March. Leaving Bristol at the start, Peter was presented with a key by Feda Shahien of The Red Line and The Women in Black from Bournemouth. It is the key to the house in Palestine of Feda's grandmother, from which she was evicted by the Israelis. Peter will carry the key to Parliament Square in London. There he will hand it over to a Palestinian girl dressed in traditional Palestinian clothing. 
Pilgrim Peter is carrying a 'tear' made of Bristol blue glass, to be woven into a dress – a symbolic 'weave from tears the dress of impossible' – in London. At exhibitions all over the country people have woven 'tears' of various materials into the dress.  Over halfway there and Peter’s already raised over £10,000 for the Hands Up Project, a charity   that’s been working with Palestinian schools in Gaza and the Israeli occupied West Bank.
This has been achieved at sell-out events in towns all along the route to London.
In Bath local organiser Dionne McCulloch read out a poem specially written for the event by celebrated writer Max Porter. Also speaking poetry at this event and in Bradford on Avon was former Oxford Professor of Poetry Alice Oswald.
In Bradford-on-Avon Peter spoke to local children at an exhibition of illustrated poems by children from Gaza. Carrying the flag of Palestine, the Pilgrim for Palestine attracted some vitriol but overwhelmingly the response has been supportive. The “pilgrimage” has been covered by the global Al Jazeera Arab TV channel, and the Independent and London Evening Standard have featured articles about the pilgrimage.

Free Gaza Medics!

by New Worker correspondent

Pro-Palestinian activists interrupted their seasonal celebrations to join an emergency vigil in London's West End on 28th December against the Israeli military's systematic destruction of hospitals in Gaza. The vigil in Piccadilly Circus was organised by the Health Workers 4 Palestine campaign that was co-founded by a group of doctors in October 2023 to combat the censorship they experienced, when standing up for the rights of Palestinian health workers and the rights of Palestinians to healthcare.
On 27th December Israeli troops raided the Kamal Adwan Hospital, the last major health facility in Northern Gaza, removed all the patients and staff, and set fire to it. Hussam Abu Safia, the director of the hospital, was arrested and is still in Israeli detention.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) issued a statement saying it was is appalled by the raid. "The systematic dismantling of the health system and a siege for over 80 days on North Gaza puts the lives of the 75,000 Palestinians remaining in the area at risk". The statement added that "some people were reportedly stripped and forced to walk toward southern Gaza". The Gaza Ministry of Health says that now all three public hospitals in Northern Gaza, the Kamal Adwan, Beit Hanoon and Indonesian hospitals, have been "taken out of service by Israel’s offensive". On 4th January WHO Director-General  chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the agency had received “no updates on the safety and wellbeing” of Hussam Abu Safia.

Free Palestine echoes across London!

By Dermot Hudson

On Saturday 14 October at least 150,000 people marched through the heart of London in support of the rights of Palestinian people and for an end to Israel’s war on the people of Gaza. The demo was massive. It was the biggest march seen in the capital since the US-led invasion of Iraq. It took over two hours for the march to travel the short distance from Portland Place to Whitehall for a rally addressed by a number of speakers including former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn.
When you consider that the march was called at comparatively short notice the turnout seems even more impressive and shows that people are not fooled by the 24/7 Zionist propaganda of the mainstream media .
There was a sea of red ,black , green and white Palestine flags . Also to be seen were some Turkish and Pakistani flags. Regrettably one “Free Syria “ flag and one ISIS banner were also to be seen. Of course Korean solidarity campaigners carried  a DPR Korea flag and a Cuban flag was also spotted. It was good that there were no Ukraine flags to be seen!
The marchers, who chanted ‘Free Palestine ‘ and ‘ From the rivers to the sea Palestine shall be free’ along the way were subjected to massive police surveillance with police helicopters whirling noisily overhead and police camera teams photographing and videoing people. We noticed a police horse transporter and units of the police Territorial Support Group ( a successor to the discredited ‘Special Patrol Group )on standby . However there was none of the violence or rioting that the right-wing twitterati and some in the mainstream media predicted.

Blood on their hands!

 By New Worker correspondent

Palestinian solidarity activists sprayed Broadcasting House in central London with red paint last week in protest at the BBC’s consistent and long-term bias towards Israel.
    Palestine Action sprayed the BBC’s Headquarters with blood red paint, in response to its recent coverage of Palestine, which has been complicit in manufacturing consent for the occupation’s genocide of Palestinians. The action occurred before a protest for Palestine was due to begin at the BBC HQ.

     Since 7^th October the BBC has given biased and inaccurate reporting on the Israeli massacre of the Palestinian people. It has only ever invited Palestinians to comment when Israelis are killed, with little regard for Palestinians killed by Israel, such as in the case of Palestinian ambassador Husam Zomlot who was expected to condemn Israeli deaths immediately after informing the BBC he had lost 6 family members.
    The BBC has not reported on the racist lies spouted by international media, including claims of mass rape and decapitated babies, all of which have either gone unconfirmed or been retracted once the damage has been done. Its “guides” to the “conflict” do not mention the 75 year long occupation    and oppression of Palestine by the Zionist entity.
    These guides make Al Nakba (which translates as ‘The Catastrophe’ in English) sound like an unfortunate tribal conflict during the first Arab-Israeli war (1948 to 1949) which accidentally resulted in Palestinians fleeing, and not the deliberate and carefully planned campaign of ethnic cleansing carried out by Zionist militias.
    Words upon words are dedicated to the Zionist settler colony’s declarations of genocide, the support given by imperialists and the feelings of Zionists whilst large scale loss of Palestinian life is treated almost like a footnote. These actions come at a time when Palestine Action has expanded its reach, starting what it calls Palestine Action Underground, which targets any and all partners of Elbit Systems, Israel’s largest arms suppliers.
    Providing a guide and a map of over 50 Elbit sites, Palestine Action asks those who want to do something about the Israeli arms trade to form autonomous groups able to independently strike at the facilitators of Israel’s systemic and military violence. This action follows that principle, holding the media accountable for facilitating Israeli terror. A Palestine Action spokesperson: ‘We at Palestine Action cannot stand by and let Western media justify and manufacture consent for genocide through racist, callous coverage. The media has long been an insidious weapon of Western imperialism against Palestine and other Arab countries, with the use of colonial myths and orientalist tropes laying the ground for millions of people to be murdered. As the Palestinian poet Mohammed El-Kurd said, “This is the Iraq war all over again. The media has the bloodiest hands in all of this”.

As ye sow…

...so shall ye reap was what Paul told the followers of Jesus of Nazareth two thousand years ago. Sadly this lesson is still not understood by many of those who now live in the land that the Apostle knew so well.
The deadly Hamas raid into Israel last weekend that killed over a thousand Israelis and wounded thousands more reflected the pent-up fury of the Palestinian masses in the Gaza Strip who have endured a brutal and often bloody Israeli siege for years. Ignored by the West which has armed Israel to the teeth and betrayed by the feudal Arab oil princes who crawl to the imperialists whose guns prop up their thrones the Palestinians in Gaza have closed ranks behind the Hamas leadership and the other resistance movements that believe that confrontation is the only way forward.
While the Israelis pound the densely populated settlements in the Gaza Strip they are  amassing their forces for a new onslaught. Many thousands of Palestinians will die in the carnage that will inevitably follow.
Assured of blanket Western support the Israelis are clearly out to crush all Palestinian resistance to their occupation. But they never learn.
This seemingly endless cycle of violence started when the first Arab-Israeli war began in 1948. The Palestinians were driven from their homes and robbed of their land. But wherever there is oppression, there is resistance.
The refugees have the right to return or receive compensation, if they so want it, for their stolen land. The Palestinians have the right to self-determination; to establish their own independent state as was envisaged by the same United Nations that created the State of Israel in the first place. 
The Palestinians remained determined to fight. They still are and they still will be no matter what the Israelis throw at them.
Russian and Chinese calls at the United Nations for a cease-fire and genuine peace talks to end the conflict were, of course, routinely ignored by the Americans and their lackeys. They still think that victory comes through air-superiority and hi-tech weapons. Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan proved them wrong. And they’ve been taught no end of a lesson in Palestine...  

Joint declaration condemning the continued bloodshed and occupation by Israel

We, the communist and workers parties undersigning this statement, strongly and unequivocally condemn the Israeli aggression meted out against Palestinians in Jerusalem - as well as the continued military bombardment upon Gaza which has resulted in the killing of scores of Palestinian civilians and the maiming of hundreds more, among them children.

Israel’s brazen violation of international humanitarian law and international law has continued for decades now, aided and abetted with the full support of imperialist forces, and without any meaningful intervention from international institutions to bring these violations to an end or outwardly condemn them. 

 

We demand:

• An immediate cessation to the bombardment and besieging of Gaza;
• An end to the attacks and violations against Palestinians exercising their rights in and around the Al Aqsa Mosque site and all other holy sites;
• A stop to the relentless attacks and intimidation against Palestinian residents in East Jerusalem by the Israeli authorities and settlers, namely the latter’s attempts to evict families from the Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood as part of a continued campaign of ethnic cleansing.

We express our full and unwavering solidarity with the just struggle of the Palestinian people to end the occupation and towards the establishing of an independent state, within the recognised borders as they stood on June 4^th 1967, with East Jerusalem as its capital, and the right of return for all Palestinian refugees according to the relevant UN resolutions.

We call on all progressive and peace-loving people to raise their voice and join this appeal.

 

1. Communist Party of Albania
2. Communist Party of Australia
3. Party of Labour of Austria
4. Democratic Progressive Tribune, Bahrain
5. Communist Party of Bangladesh
6. Workers Party of Belgium
7. Communist Party of Belgium
8. Brazilian Communist Party
9. Communist Party of Brazil
10. Communist Party of Britain
11. New Communist Party of Britain
12. Communist Party of Canada
13. Communist Party of Chile
14. Socialist Workers' Party of Croatia
15. Communist Party of Cuba
16. AKEL, Cyprus
17. Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia
18. Communist Party in Denmark
19. Egyptian Communist Party
20. French Communist Party
21. German Communist Party
22. Communist Party of Greece
23. Hungarian Workers’ Party
24. Communist Party of India [Marxist]
25. CP of India
26. Iraqi Communist Party
27. Tudeh Party of Iran
28. Workers Party of Ireland
29. Communist Party of Ireland
30. Communist Party of Israel
31. Party of the Communist Refountation (PRC)
32. Jordanian Communist Party
33. Socialist Movement of Kazakhstan
34. Communist Party of Luxembourg
35. Communist Party of Malta
36. Communist Party of Mexico
37. Communist Party of Norway
38. Communist Party of Pakistan
39. Palestinian Communist Party
40. Palestinian People's Party
41. Philippines Communist Party [PKP 1930]
42. Communist Party of Poland
43. Portuguese Communist Party
44. RussianCommunist Worker's Party - CPSU
45. New Communist Party of Yugoslavia
46. Communists of Serbia
47. South African Communist Party
48. Communist Party of the Workers of Spain (PCTE)
49. Communist Party of the Peoples of Spain (PCPE)
50. Communist Party of Spain
51. Communists of Catalonia
52. Communist Party of Sri Lanka
53. Sudanese Communist Party
54. Syrian Communist Party
55. Syrian Communist Party [Unified]
56. Communist Party of Swaziland
57. Communist Party of Turkey
58. Communist Party of Ukraine
59. Union of Communists of Ukraine
60. Communist Party USA

Other Parties

1. Party of Communists USA
2. Galician People's Union
3. Communist Front (Italy)
   

 

17th May 2021

Palestine: No Justice – No Peace!

 by New Worker correspondent

London comrades got a warm welcome when they joined hundreds of thousands who marched through London on Saturday in solidarity with the Palestinian people. Friends, old and new, were pleased to see us back on the street and NCP leader Andy Brooks was interviewed by Lebanese TV at the start of the demonstration.
    Some 250,000 people took part in the biggest demonstration of support for the Palestinian cause seen so far on the streets of Britain. The march, called by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign and the Friends of Al Aqsa, ended in a rally in Hyde Park. There, amongst a sea of Palestinian flags and placards, left Labour MP John McDonnell and other speakers denounced Israeli aggression and call for justice for the Palestinian Arabs.
    McDonnell welcomed the current ceasefire that ended the bombing of Gaza, adding: “But let’s be clear, there will be no ceasefire in our campaign to boycott, disinvest and sanction the Israeli apartheid state.
    “The message is clear; we will not cease our campaign in solidarity until there is justice. So let’s make it clear, no justice, no peace”.

Stand by Gaza now!

by New Worker correspondent

Over 150,000 people marched in support of the Palestinians in central London on Saturday 15th May. The march was organised by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) in what was one of the biggest demonstrations seen in the capital for many years,
    A spokesperson for the organisers, that included the PSC, Friends of Al-Aqsa, Palestinian Forum in Britain, Stop The War Coalition, CND and the Muslim Association of Britain, said: “It is vital that the UK government takes immediate action. It must stop allowing Israel's brutal violence against and oppression of the Palestinian people to go unpunished”.
    Protests against Israeli aggression took place in cities and towns throughout the world over the weekend calling for justice for the Palestinians and an end to Zionist violence.
    But Tory MP Michael Fabricant has come under fire for calling demonstrators “primitives” last week. The Tory MP for Lichfield shared a video of some of the demonstrators clashing with police outside the diplomatic mission embassy, tweeting that “primitives are trying to bring to London what they do in the Middle East”.
     ​The Tory backbencher was slammed by the anti-racist Hope Not Hate campaign, which urged the Conservative Party to suspend the politician for “hateful racism that stirs up division”.
    While Fabricant deleted the message after the backlash it triggered, Hope Not Hate said “The tense situation requires steady leadership from people who want to bring communities together, not hateful racism that stirs up division. The Conservatives must suspend Michael Fabricant for this disgraceful comment”.
    Meanwhile four people taking part in a Palestine solidarity motorcade in north London have been arrested for yelling anti-semitic abuse from their car as the convoy drove through a largely Jewish area of the capital.
    The Palestine Solidarity Campaign condemned the incident saying: “The vile anti-Semitism shouted today from a convoy of cars has no place in the Palestine solidarity movement. We condemn it and all anti-Semitism, on its own account and also as it serves to undermine the anti-racist struggle for Palestinian rights”.

Justice for the Palestinians!

by New Worker correspondent

Comrades and friends returned to the Cock Tavern in central London for a discussion on the Palestinian cause opened by a panel that included New Communist Party (NCP) leader Andy Brooks and Salim Alam from the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC).

Salim Alam, Theo Russell and Andy Brooks

The speakers looked at past and present attempts to achieve a settlement to the seven decades-long Arab–Israeli conflict. As well as bringing peace to the Middle East, any settlement must meet the legitimate demands and rights of the Palestinians if it is to succeed. No matter how far off it seems now, that remains the only realistic and acceptable goal for the Palestinians and the wider Arab world.

Chaired by Theo Russell, the NCP London Organiser, the well-attended meeting heard the two speakers talk about building solidarity with Palestine in the peace and labour movement.

Salim Alam said the most effective way to support the Palestinians was to back the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement that works to end international support for Israel's oppression of Palestinians and pressure Israel to comply with international law. Andy Brooks agreed, pointing out the need to close ranks around the needs of the day to uphold the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people.

The far-ranging discussion that followed covered the Blairite and Zionist attempt to drive pro-Palestinian supporters out of the Labour Party and the need to raise the solidarity campaign to an even higher level in the unions and the peace movement.

This Irish pub in Euston is a well-known haunt for the labour movement and the NCP London District plans to hold more events there now that the meeting room has been reopened after being closed for some time for extensive repairs.

Boycott Puma!

By New Worker correspondent

Members and supporters of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) were out in force last Saturday, protesting outside sportswear company Puma’s flagship store in London’s West End. The demonstration in Carnaby Street, near Oxford Circus, greatly slashed the numbers entering the store. A much smaller but extremely rowdy pro-Israeli counter-protest certainly also helped to deter shoppers with its loud music, endless slogans, fanatical dancing and waving of flags in the faces of passers-by.

The PSC is targeting Puma as the main corporate backer of Israel’s football association, which includes teams from illegal Israeli settlements on occupied Palestinian land. More than 200 Palestinian sports clubs have called on Puma to end the sponsorship deal and stop supporting Israel’s illegal land grabs.

This is part of an ongoing response to the call from the Palestinian civil society in 2005 for a campaign of Boycott, Divestment & Sanctions (BDS) against Israel until it respects human rights and international law.

Puma is the main sponsor of the Israel Football Association (IFA), which includes football clubs based in illegal Israeli settlements on stolen Palestinian land. All Israeli settlements are considered war crimes under international law.

As one of the world’s top sports-kit makers, Puma’s sponsorship brings international legitimacy to the IFA and helps maintain its direct involvement with violations of human rights and international law off the field.

Take action and support the call from more than 200 Palestinian teams for Puma to end its support for Israel’s military occupation by terminating its sponsorship deal with the IFA.