END APARTHEID – FREE PALESTINE!

by New Worker correspondent

Londoners took to the streets last week to protest outside the Israeli embassy in solidarity with Palestinians resisting Israel's brutal repression. The emergency demonstration in Kensington was called by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign to call a halt to Israeli violations of the Al-Aqsa Mosque and show support for the Palestinians standing up to Zionist violence in occupied Arab Jerusalem.
    The only way Israel can maintain its illegal occupation of the West Bank is through brutal repression and the encouragement of Zionist settler violence against the Palestinian Arabs. In recent weeks 23 Palestinians, including three women and four children, were killed by Israeli forces during demonstrations and clashes, search-and-arrest operations in the occupied West Bank while a further 541 Palestinians, including 30 women and 80 children, were injured. Twelve Israelis were killed and 82 others wounded in Palestinian attacks over the same period.
    Human rights organisations have described this system as meeting the legal definition of the crime of apartheid. Such a system of oppression can only be sustained via the use of violence. But political leaders in the UK have chosen to remain silent about Israel’s actions, mirroring a familiar pattern when violence will be denounced only when Palestinians kill Israelis, or when Palestinians are killed in their hundreds, as happens during Israel’s periodic bombardments of Gaza.
    The British government approved over £400 million worth of military technology and arms exports to Israel between 2015-2020 – including armoured vehicles, tanks, ammunition, and small arms, including sniper rifles. All equipment that Israel requires to maintain and further its violent oppression of Palestinians.
    The Palestine Solidarity Campaign is calling on the Johnson government to end its two-way arms trade with Israel until it ends its oppression of the Palestinian people. The campaign demands an end to the UK government's support for Israel's regime of occupation, dispossession and apartheid. Next up is the National Palestine Day demonstration and march in London on Saturday May 14th - see you there!