NAKBA Protests
“We mark the Nakba not just as a historical event but as a continuing process of oppression enacted over the past 75 years through ongoing colonisation of land, enforcement of apartheid and military occupation.” Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC)
On Saturday May 13th there were marches and rallies in many parts of the world to mark the 75th anniversary of the Nakba, the catastrophe. It involved the large scale expulsion of Palestinians from their homelands by Zionist militias. This was done in order to create the state of Israel in 1948. Seventy eight percent of Palestine was seized and hundreds of thousands of Palestinians lost their land. On Saturday May 13th, thousands attended an event to commemorate the Nakba in London. The march and rally, “Nakba 75 – End Apartheid, End the Occupation”, were organised by the PSC, the Muslim Association of Britain, the Palestinian Forum in Britain and Friends of Al-Aqsa .
In 1967 Israel occupied the remaining 22% of Palestine which was not seized in 1948. Israel’s actions and the continuing persecution of the Palestinians means that Israel is increasingly recognised as an apartheid state. As Amnesty International has commented: “This amounts to apartheid as prohibited in international law.”
Israelis target Palestinian children’s school
Earlier this month the Israelis demolished a Palestinian elementary school in the West Bank. It was attended by dozens of students near Bethlehem. EU funding contributed to the construction of the school, which was built six years ago. The EU has condemned the action, commenting that this was an illegal act under international law: “Children’s right to education must be respected. The EU calls on Israel to halt all demolitions and evictions, which will only increase the suffering of the Palestinian population and risk inflaming tensions on the ground.” It is no surprise that the UK Government has not joined in the condemnation of this vile act.
Update on Ronnie Barkan
We have previously reported on Israeli dissident, Ronnie Barkan. His trial, scheduled for April 17th, has been postponed until January 8th 2024.
Ronnie has had his tag removed, his passport returned and his bail conditions lifted. He is now able to travel, visit his family and is giving speeches in support of Palestine. He spoke in Edinburgh very recently. We wish him well moving forward.
Palestine Action activists on trial in Wales while others protest at Newcastle arms factory and the Foreign Office
Teledyne and its subsidiaries is a large supplier of technology from Britain to Israel. The Teledyne Labtech in Presteigne manufactures circuit boards and other items of technology. These are used in a range of weapons. The use of this technology in Israel as outlined by Palestine Action is being contested by the factory.
The police arrested four activists in December 2022 and remanded them in custody. The police maintain that the activists have caused hundreds of thousands pounds worth of damage. The Teledyne trial began at Caernafon Crown Court on May 9th after the defendants had each spent a total of 152 days in prison.
The general manager of the Powys factory told a jury today she was grateful the “utter devastation” hadn’t caused a major incident. Meanwhile the Palestinians continue to suffer “utter devastation” and are subjected to one major incident after another.
Meanwhile, on Monday May 15th, the 75th anniversary of the Nakba, Palestine Action activists occupied the roof of Pearson Engineering in Newcastle which has been taken over by the Israeli firm Rafael. Rafael supplies guided missiles to the Israeli military. The Foreign Office in London was sprayed with red paint to symbolise all the Palestinian blood that has been shed.
www.palestineaction.org
Harrowing stories of nurses living in poverty
A report in the Morning Star reveals how many nurses are existing in appalling poverty and are increasingly leaving the NHS. Nurses have rejected the recent below-inflation offer from the Government and they are shortly to be balloted for a new mandate for further strike action. Colleagues in Wales who were made a higher, but nevertheless below-inflation, offer have also turned it down. Just before the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) Congress in Brighton, the General Secretary Pat Cullen stated: “We need to address the absolute crisis within the health service and the crisis that our nursing staff find themselves in”.
On a number of occasions, Critical Mass has pointed out that the UK Government can always find the money to fund war and to reward their cronies, but is not prepared to pay many in our workforce enough to live on. But it is not the Government’s money to squander. Our taxes are funding the Government’s iniquitous and immoral choices.
Investigation into the unprecedented increase in the price of food
Dave Middleton of Critical Mass has been tracking the rising cost of food in the UK for a year now and has revealed the true figures, which show that we are in a far worse situation than the official figures suggest. However, it seems our political establishment has taken note, as now the cross-party Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (EFRA) Committee of the House of Commons has begun an investigation into the fairness of the country’s food supply chain. The aim is to find out why the country has the highest level of inflation when it comes to the price of food since the 1970s. Will they come up with anything we don’t already know?
The Climate Catastrophe: Those who have power don’t care – those who care are arrested
The World Meteorological Organization has announced that it is likely that the annual average global temperature will rise to more than 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels in at least one of the next five years. We are not going to limit global warming to 1.5°C as was our hope after the 2015 Paris Agreement. Unusual weather patterns persist with devastating floods in Canada and Italy being among the most recent in the news, but the suffering of those most exposed to global warming will become intolerable. The temporary warming from El Nino, which has to be taken into account, does not lessen the crisis. Even many MSM outlets are covering the latest developments.
Meanwhile, politicians are either in denial or do not care, so obsessed are they with growth and greed and putting the profits of their corporate cronies above the survival of the planet. Trying to address this crisis, slowing the pace of global warming, and helping the natural world to restore its balance are all incompatible with capitalism, hence the choice of the political establishment to ignore the crisis.
Those people who genuinely care about life on earth and a future for those who come after us are arrested. Just Stop Oil (JSO) reported on May 17th that eight more ordinary people were arrested for marching peacefully outside Parliament. JSO is determined to keep replacing those who lose their liberty and risk their futures when they are arrested when “the establishment silences the people, when all space for resistance is removed, when democracy turns to dictatorship”.