Yesterday 100,000 marched in London on the 17th national march

Yesterday 100,000 marched in London on the 17th national march we have organised since Israel unleashed its genocide in Gaza. We marched to call for an end to all UK complicity with the genocide that has killed over 40,000 Palestinians and left millions facing catastrophic hunger.

Yesterday’s march cost us over £40,000 to organise. We need to raise more funds to meet this cost and escalate our campaign to end Israel’s genocide in Gaza and system of apartheid across Palestine. Can you support us with a donation? 

As we marched yesterday, we marched also in solidarity with Palestinian prisoners.

Since October Israel has rounded up detained stopped and tortured thousands of Palestinians, over 10,000 held in the West Bank alone. Last week the UN produced a report which documented the systemic torture and abuse including rape of these detainees. We also saw a member of the Israeli Knesset claiming that Israeli forces were entitled to use rape against Palestinian detainees and that no action should be taken against those who do. This is the true face of Israel’s genocidal regime. 

Meanwhile, the Israeli government made clear its opposition to peace and its intention to expand its genocidal campaign by bombing both Lebanon and Iran.

Israel is proving that it is a rogue state, destabilising the region, undermining prospects of a ceasefire deal, and lashing out at any attempt at accountability for the war crimes that it continues to commit against Palestinians.

With Israel escalating like this, we too must escalate our response. Can you donate to help us build our campaigns?

Shockingly, the response of our government to Israel’s increasingly inflammatory actions across the region and daily war crimes within Gaza has not been to immediately ban all arms sales to Israel.

Instead, Foreign Secretary David Lammy has chosen to delay a ban by insisting that each export license for each specific weapon must be reviewed individually for the risk that they may be used in war crimes.

We do not need lengthy reviews to confirm the war crimes that we have all seen with our own eyes on our TV screens and social media. We do not need to know specifically what each weapon or component is being used for – we know that every arm being sold to Israel is being sold to a state committing genocide against an illegally occupied people.

But the pressure on the Government is growing from the movement that we have held build across the UK, as is the pressure on public bodies to take divestment action. In the past few weeks we have seen Kings’ College become the first London university to announce that it will divest from companies supplying weapons to Israel, whilst Waltham Forest Local Pension scheme announced that it too will divest funds from complicit companies. Both these victories came after sustained campaigning including by local PSC branches. Please support us to continue this work and keep up this pressure with a donation today.

In the last week Islington Council announced it will cancel its contract with Barclays bank, another victory in our Boycott Barclays campaign. But we are not stopping there. We are making plans to ramp up all of our boycott and divestment actions beginning next Saturday, with a conference with over 400 in attendance at Westminster Central Hall, to plan the next stages in our divestment campaigns calling on all public bodies to end investments in companies that support Israel’s system of oppression. 

Israel is finally now facing the prospect of being held to account for its genocide in Gaza and its decades long occupation of Palestine. It is becoming increasingly isolated on the world stage, facing action in the world’s highest courts. And the UK government and public bodies are feeling the pressure that we together have built for an end to complicity in Israel’s genocide and apartheid.

Now is the time for us to go further. To escalate our campaigns and to expand our support into every corner of society.

But we can only make that happen with your support. We are entirely funded by people like you.  

Please donate what you can. Thank you.

In Solidarity,

Simon Foster
PSC Deputy Director