The Wall Must Fall & Kyoto: There were two protests on May 15th 2004 over major issues still very relevant now. The first was against the separation wall being built by Israel which was breaking up many Palestinian urban settlements and dividing some farmers from their lands. Designed for the convenience of IsraelI Security forces it reconfigures many boundaries and paved the way for further IsralI settlements on Palestinian land, in complete disregard of the needs and civil rights of Palestinians.
Later I joined the march from Leatherhead to the US Embassy for the final few hundred yards of their march in protest against the failure of the US to ratify the Kyoto climate accord. US policies on climate change were and now are largely driven by the fossil fuel companies and have led to our current position with global temperatures continuing to rise towards levels the science tells us endangers human life on our planet. Though warming in the oceans may lead before long to a loss of the Gulf Stream which makes life in the UK tolerable and bring in a new Ice Age in the UK!
As with other events in the early years of My London Diary, the page design separated text and images, and the text was made less legible by eschewing capitals, a victory of style over sense which made no sense when I had begun to post more events on the pages with longer stories – but which it took me until 2008 to redesign. Below I’ll reunite some of the pictures with the text I wrote and links to the many more pictures still on their own pages on My London Diary.
The Wall Must Fall – Free Palestine Rally, Trafalgar Square
Peter Tatchell demonstrating against both the IsraelI persecution of Palestine, and also the persecution of gays by the Palestinians
The Wall Must Fall rally in Trafalgar Square on 15 May started with an an ugly scene, when stewards stopped Peter Tatchell and a group from Outrage from being photographed in front of the banners around Nelson’s Column. The rally organisers argued that raising the question of the persecution of gays in Palestine distracted attention from the Palestinian cause. Their childish attempts to distract the attention of photographers by jumping in front of the Outrage protesters, holding placards in front of theirs and shouting over them simply increased the force of Tatchell’s arguments and coverage they gained.
Jamal Jumaa
Fortunately the rally soon got under way. The main speaker was Jamal Jumaa – Director of the Stop The Wall Campaign In Palestine, although there were many others, including Sophie Hurndall, the mother of murdered peace activist Tom, Green MEP Caroline Lucas, Afif Safieh the Palestinian General Delegate to the UK, George Galloway and more. Too many more for most of us.
Zionism and Judaism are extreme opposites – Neturei Karta were there with placardsStreet Theatre in Trafalgar SquareThe wall at the start of Whitehall
War On Want activists came with a wall to dramatise the effect of the wall in Palestine. When the march moved off down Whitehall, the wall walked with them, and it was erected again opposite Downing Street. Here there was a short sit-down on the road before the event dissolved.
Bristol Radical Cheerleaders in the Kyoto march to the US embassy
I caught up with the Kyoto march, organised by the Campaign Against Climate Change, as it reached Berkeley Square on the last quarter-mile or so of its long trek [around 19 miles] from the Esso British HQ in Leatherhead. Esso are seen as being one of the main influences behind the refusal by President George Bush and the US administration to ratify the Kyoto Accord.
Pedal-powered Rinky Dink sound system supports the Campaign against Climate Change
The campaign had previously organised a number of marches in london, and this was an annual event.
Marchers ready for the ‘Dinosaur Party’ at the US EmbassyCodePink campaigners with a coffin carrying planet Earth: TAKE ACTION NOW TO STOP CLIMATE CHANGE
Among the marchers it was good to find a number dressed ready for the promised ‘Dinosaur Party’ at the US Embassy, as well as the fantastic Rinky Dink cycle-powered sound system. It was also good to meet a few of the Bristol Radical Cheerleaders again, bouncing with energy as ever. A little colour was also added by a small group of of Codepink activists forming a funeral cortège, carrying the globe on their coffin.
Even the Statue of Liberty implores Bush to sign KyotoE$$o campaigners in front of the US Embassy in Grosvenor Square
The police in Grosvenor Square were not helpful, but eventually the speeches got under way in a corner of the square.
VE Day 60 Years On: Twenty Years ago Britain had a two day major celebration of the end of the war in Europe on 8th May 1945, and I wrote about this both at the time on My London Diary and last year here on >Re:PHOTO at VE Day 60 Years On – 2005.
Of course it wasn’t the end of the war, which continued against Japan for another 3 months, only brought to an end following the dreadful revelation of the power of nuclear weapons to destroy whole cities at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The huge civilian deaths these caused may have shortened the war by a few days, but probably a USA determined to bring it to an end might have achieved a settlement earlier had some not wanted this more spectacular and deadly finale.
I grew up among many who had fought in WW2 and some who had lost fathers, uncles, cousins and brothers. There was a strong feeling that while the First World War which had been known as ‘The War to end all Wars’ had not proved to do so, this one should lead to an era of peace on the world.
It was this spirit that led to the foundation of the United Nations, and to developments such as the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, both of which are now very much under threat. And of course the war led to a Labour government which brought in reforms including the setting up of the NHS.
Peace did not last long, at least in part because it was not good for business. In part it was replaced by the ‘Cold War’ but there have been plenty of hot wars too. The world has seen war after war since VE day, many of which have involved either the USA or the UK, either actively with “boots on the ground”, or supporting one or sometimes both sides in the conflict openly or clandestinely and selling them the weapons with which to fight. There is a long list of wars the UK has been actively involved in on Wikipedia, since 1946 as well as a longer list for the USA which includes some others the UK was involved in.
The Cold War should have come to an end with the end of the Soviet Union in August 1991, but the ‘hawks’ were determined to keep it going rather than work with Russia. Had they not done so things might have been very different and Russia would not have felt the need for a strong president which led to the appointment of Putin.
Recently British jets have bombed the Houthis in Yemen, and the UK has sold arms to Saudi Arabia to be used against them in the war there. And the UK has given diplomatic support and supplied arms for the Israeli government for the genocide in Gaza, as well as carrying out reconnaissance flights for Israel over Gaza from RAF Akrotiri in Cyprus to enable them to locate targets.
There are now relatively few survivors who actually fought in World War 2, although it was estimated that “under 70,000” British WW2 veterans were still alive, aged between 95 and 112.
Iraq War & Climate Change: Two separate protests on Saturday 29th March. The invasion of Iraq had begun nine days earlier and there were protests against it around the country including one I covered outside the BBC where a march from North London came to protest against the biased coverage on BBC radio and TV.
Broadcasters were carefully toeing the government line on the war and acting as its mouthpiece. The country was at war and accurate unbiased coverage appeared to be the first casualty.
I didn’t write much about the protest, but the pictures and the posters and placards told the story.
The BBC lost a great deal of credibility over its coverage and I don’t think it has ever recovered from this, And of course it has gone on with biased coverage of other situations including its coverage of the attacks on Jeremy Corbyn and of the Israeli government’s actions in Palestine over the years and particularly the genocidal attacks since the October 7th Hamas attack.
After the protest at the BBC I went on to cover an event calling for urgent action on Climate Change. Twenty two years ago there was still time to avoid its worst effects – if the world took urgent action, but instead most governments dragged their feet, driven by fossil fuel interests and making largely token changes if any. In the UK we are still thinking in a way that should be unthinkable about discovering and exploiting new oil resources such as Rosebank and BP has recently moved away from Green energy back to oil. Total madness.
The Kyoto Protocol had been agreed at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in December 1997 and set targets industrialized countries and the European Union to reduce their emissions by an average of 5% below 1990 levels during in 2008-2012. Some did, although largely by various ways of fiddling the figures, but the major polluters – India, China and the USA made no attempt to do. The main cause of its failure was that the United States never ratified the agreement.
Kyoto was largely replaced by the 2015 Paris agreement and we are now seeing the results of the failure of this to be properly implemented. But here is what I wrote about the ‘Kyoto march’ organised by the Campaign Against Climate Change on Saturday 29th March.
Marchers had started at the UK Esso HQ in Leatherhead and were marching to a party outside the US Embassy. I joined them at the Imperial War Museum to take photographs.
The march marked the the second anniversary of Bush’s decisive rejection of the Kyoto climate treaty. Esso (ExxonMobil) is a key partner in Bush’s energy policy and its opposition to controls on energy use. The per capita energy use of US citizens is dramatically higher than that of other advanced countries, with no incentives for its reduction and a policy of low tax on fuel that makes the US by far the worst polluter of the planet.
Immigration, Lions, Poverty Pay & Palestine: Ten years ago on Friday 13th March 2015 I photographed four very different protests in London, beginning outside an immigration tribunal in Feltham, going from there to Trafalgar Square where people where protesting against ‘canned hunting’ of lions, on to Kensington Gore where cleaners were demanding a living wage at the Royal College of Art and finally to the offices of G4S on Victoria St, Westminster for a protest against the imprisonment and torture of four young Palestinian boys by Israel.
Let Ife Stay in the UK! – York House Immigration Tribunal, Feltham
York House where the Immigration Tribunal is based is on an industrial estate halfway between Feltham and Heathrow on the western fringes of London and protesters had not found it easy to get there. I arrived a little late and other protesters only arrived shortly before I left, with others still on their way.
The protest had been held up at the start when security at the tribunal had told the protesters they were not allowed to protest outside the offices, and had called the police. But the police had come and confirmed that not only they had the right to protest there but also that people could take photographs outside the tribunal – though of course cameras and recording equipment were not allowed inside the tribunal.
The protesters had come to demand that 2-year-old Ife, who had Down’s syndrome, and her mother should be allowed to stay at their Peckham home where she can receive essential healthcare and support and not be deported to Nigeria. They intended to stay until after the end of the tribunal hearing later in the day.
The protesters from the Revolutionary Communist Group had brought with them posters covered with the sheets of a local petition to keep Ife here with nearly a thousand signatures, as well was posters denouncing the UK’s racist immigration laws and also calling for justice for Jimmy Mubenga, killed by racist G4S deportation officers during his forced deportation flight from Britain.
Save Our Lions – ban Canned Hunting – Trafalgar Square
Several hundred gathered in Trafalgar Square to protest against ‘canned hunting’, where lions are bred and raised tame on farms in South Africa for rich visitors to pet, to ‘walk with lions’ and to shoot as trophy heads.
The protesters say this degrades a noble animals and threatens wild lions, which are captured for farm breeding to improve the quality of the stock.
Only very young cubs are safe to pet and young female lions are often killed once they become too large to pet as there is much less demand for female lions as hunting trophies.
After speeches and photographs on the North Terrace I was invited to go with one of the protesters to South Africa House where he stood in the entrance with a placard and poster until security told us to leave.
Poverty pay at the Royal College of Art – Kensington Gore
I met with protesters from the IWGB (Independent Workers’ Union of Great Britain) at the Royal College of Art where they had come at lunchtime to demand that cleaners be immediately paid the London Living Wage. Previous pressure from the IWGB had led to the RCA saying it would pay the living wage from September 2015, but the cleaners needed it now, not in sixth months time.
After a noisy protest outside the college entrance in a mews just off the main road where they were joined by around 50 students in support the marched onto Kensington Gore for a more public protest on the east side of the college facing the Royal Albert Hall.
Here there were speeches and chanting and a great deal of noise from the drums and vuvuzelas before the protesters went back to continue their protest at the college entrance.
From here they moved further down the mews and to an almost enclosed yard at the rear of the college next to a dining area keeping up a barrage of noise. After keeping up their loud protest for around an hour they finished with a warning to RCA management that they would be back and keep up the protests until their demands were met.
British multinational private security company G4S plays a key role in running jails in Israel where thousands of Palestinians are held.
Among the prisoners being held and tortured were 5 young boys from Hares in the northern West Bank of Palestine, and the Islamic Inminds Human Rights Group were protesting outside the G4S offices on Victoria St demanding their immediate release.
The boys were arrested after an Israeli illegal settler crashed into the back of an Israeli truck and they were alleged to have caused the collision by throwing stones.
That had happened two years earlier and the boys had now been held without trial for two years for the alleged crime – for which there appeared to be no evidence.
One of the five, Mohammed Mahdi Saleh Suleiman, was convicted by a military court and sentenced to 15 years in prison on the basis of a statement obtained by torture that he was not allowed to read before being forced to sign.
In 2016 the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention published its opinion on his case. They called his detention ‘discriminatory’ and ‘arbitrary’ and called for his immediate release by Israel. Israel ignores most if not all UN opinions.
Political Policing & Shocking Lies: Last Saturday, 19th January 2025 I was witness to a shameful display of aggressive and politically motivated policing in the centre of London.
Politics had come into the event days earlier when police had banned the National Protest for Palestine from gathering at the BBC to march to Whitehall on the less than flimsy pretext that there is a synagogue around three hundred yards away.
The synagogue in question is down a side street and in the opposite direction that the march would travel, and none of the previous over 20 national marches for Palestine has involved any violence or intimidation of Jews.
Anti-Zionist ulltra-orthodox Neturei Karta Jews
Police harass a group of holocaust survivors and families, telling them they must move further up Whitehall.
Many Jews have taken part in all of these marches and other protests against the killing in Gaza and the continuing repression in the occupied West Bank, calling for freedom for Palestinians. And all of the marches since the Hamas attack on Israel have called for the release of the hostages held in Gaza as well as for a solution to bring peace and justice to Palestine.
To meet the police objections the march organisers had offered to march in the opposite direction, meaning they would arrive at the BBC several hours after any of those attending the synagogue would have left. Police rejected this offer and instead proposed that the march would start in Russell Square. Since the march was in large part a protest against the biased coverage of events by the BBC.
In their thoroughly researched report published in March 2004, the Centre for Media Monitoring clearly showed the extent of pro-Israel bias in BBC reporting, for example in giving considerable publicity to unverified statements by Israeli official sources, many of which have later been found to be false, as well as deliberately calling into question statements from Palestinian sources.
The report is a long and careful study and should at least have meant considerable changes in the way that the BBC covers events if it values its claim to be impartial, but any changes have been minor. The organisation continues to heap doubt on the claims over the number of deaths of Palestinians despite these largely being confirmed as accurate by UN and other observers – and a recent peer-reviewed statistical analysis in The Lancet suggesting that the actual number of deaths are 40% higher than the official Gaza health ministry figures.
Peter Tatchell calls for the release of all Palestine political prisoners.
When their reasonable suggestion was turned down by the police, the march organisers announced they would instead hold a rally in Whitehall. Clearly the police were not happy at this but it would have been difficult for them to raise any legally sustainable reason to ban it.
So the rally went ahead, and I went to photograph it. Entering Whitehall I was stopped for a short time as policed parked a van to make access more difficult but managed to walk past. Others coming to the protest were actually stopped by police and had to walk around to enter Whitehall by side streets.
‘BBC Complicity’ is Orwellian.
Inside Whitehall there seemed to be a number of lines of police giving contradictory orders to people to move up or down the street. I watched with incredulity as a group of officers came to tell a small group of Jewish holocuast survivors and sons and duaghters of survivors they could not stand at the side of the road in front of the stage but had to move further away up Whitehall.
Then I hear shouting from a crowd by the side of the stage. A particularly aggesive squad of police was forcing them to move and had arrested one woman who had not obeyed there orders, thowing her to the ground. The protesters were shouting ‘Let Her Go, Let Her Go‘ but they didn’t, simply facing the crowd aggressively and promising further arrests. A second slightly less aggressive squad was similarly forcing people along past the other side of the compound around the stage.
There seemed no point to either of these squads other than to stage a little police aggession. A few minutes later they left the area and people were free to wander into the areas they had cleared – and a group set up a large display with children’s clothing hung on washing lines.
At the end of the rally the speakers including one of the holocaust survivors, MPs John McDonnell and Jeremy Corbyn and representatives of other groups involved in the protest came to stand on the stage holding bunches of flowers for two minutes of silence.
It was then announced that this small group of delegates would attempt to march to lay flowers at the BBC, but if stopped by police they would lay down the flowers where they were stopped in front of the police line and accuse them of being complicit in the lies told by the BBC and our government in support of the genocide taking place in Gaza.
The protesters in the huge crowd in Whitehall were asked to move to the side to make way for this group, and people did until they had almost reached Trafalgar Square. Here police stopped them and they waited patiently to see if they would be allowed through.
But thousands of protesters had moved up Whitehall with them, and those of us at the front were in danger of being crushed, slowly being pushed forwards by the crowd behind, but held back by police. The police withdrew and I managed to find some space inside the box of stewards where they had been in front of the marchers. Then in the only sensible action by police I saw that day, some officers returned to force a path and urge the marchers to go through into Trafalgar Square, and I went with them.
Marchers stop in front of the line of police and wait
I was rather shaken after being crushed and after taking a final picture of the march moving freely on towards Pall Mall I turned and walked slowly away towards Charing Cross station. Later I heard that the small delegation of marchers had decided to lay their flowers in Trafalgar Square when a snatch squad of ten police approached the head steward Chris Nineham and brutally threw him to the ground and arrested him. Their violence was totally unnecessary.
Police make way and tell the marchers to go through
Nineham was held for around 20 hours before being arrested on police bail which prevents him from taking part in any protest. His was one of 77 arrests made, many after the end of the protest when police kettled those still in Trafalgar Square. So far at least 13 have been charged, including Nineham and Ben Jamal, head of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign and both Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnel have been interviewed under criminal caution.
and they march into Trafalgar Square unhindered.
Police were very quick to publish the lie that the marchers forced their way through the police line, and it was quickly picked up and amplified by the media despite video and eye-witnesses showing that they were urged and escorted though by officers.
Police told many other lies on the day, acted throughout aggressively and were clearly under pressure from members of the government and some Jewish leaders to do so. Many British Jews support Palestine and there were hundreds if not thousands of them taking part in the protest, far outnumbering a small group that came to oppose it.
National March for Palestine: On 30th November 2024 I photographed yet another large march through London calling for an end to the continuing attacks by Israel in Gaza, Lebanon and the occupied West Bank.
As usual there was a strong Jewish presence on the march – and it was opposed by a much smaller counter-demonstration by largely Jewish protesters, many calling for the release of the hostages still held in Gaza.
Many of those on the main march also want the hostages to be released, but see the only way to acheive this is not to continue the devastation and genocide in Gaza, but a ceasefire with serious negotiations towards a long-term peace in Palestine and Israel.
Last week over 200 Israelis living in the UK signed a letter to Keir Starmer and David Lammy urging them to impose sanctions on Israeli ministers Itamar Ben Gvit and Bezalel Smotrich, asking others living in the UK with Israeli citizenship to add their signatures.
In part this stated their opposition to the hateful and dangerous rhetoric of these two miniters which they say “endangers lives, obstructs the possibility of a hostage deal , and endorses calls for ethnic cleansing.”
Reported here in the Jewish press but I think ignored by the BBC and the rest of the UK press, the letter accuses the two ministers of “doing all they can to prevent a hostage and ceasefire deal and instead focusing their entire energies on their messianic aims: annexing the West Bank and settling the Gaza strip.”
The letter makes clear that the two “do not speak for us” and that opinion “polls in Israel reveal that the majority of the public supports a hostage deal and seeks an end to the war.”
Earlier the Jewish News had reported on a campaign by British Jewish organisation “Yachad, who advocate for peace and equality for Israelis and Palestinans“, also calling for sanctions against the two men, and the media more widely covered both David Cameron stating his government had been planning sanctions against these ministers and on Starmer and Lammy “mulling over” sanctions. By now these seem well overmulled.
As with all the previous marches and events calling for an end to the attacks on Gaza, the protest was entirely peaceful, with a complete absence of any antisemitism – unless you define calling for freedom for Palestine and Palestinians as antisemitic.
I wrote in my captions “As the death toll from Israel’s attacks in Gaza is now over 43,000 and many now face starvation with every hospital having been bombed and with virtually no medical supplies, and the UK is still complicit in the genocide, thousands including many Jews, marched in yet another entirely peaceful mass protest in solidarity. They call for an immediate ceasefire with the release of hostages and prisoners and for negotiations to secure a long-term just peace in the area.“
That figure of 43,000 is sadly out of date and the true figure is now considerably higher, with many bodies still buried under rubble and an increasing number of deaths from the disease and starvation caused by the continuing attacks and the deliberate denial of food, fuel and medicine. Israeli forces have destroyed much of the infrastructure as well as the organisation of society which was of course largely provided by Hamas.
We are witnessing – despite the banning of the international press from any effective access to Gaza – the large scale collective punishment of the entire population of Gaza. And the detailed reported and conclusion “that following 7 October 2023, Israel committed and is committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza” by Amnesty International confirms what has been clear to almost everyone for many months
All the pictures here are from the march through London on 30th November 2024. You can see many more here in my album on the event.
COP29 March For Global Climate Justice: When this march was taking place on Saturday 16th November 2024, COP19 was just beginning in Baku, and there was still some small room for optimism, even though it seemed to be dominated by fossil fuel lobbyists, from its president Mukhtar Babayev, Minister of Ecology and Natural Resources of Azerbaijan Republic and previously been Vice-President for Ecology at Azerbaijan’s national oil company SOCAR, down.
London, UK. 16 Nov 2024. The start of the march.
But now we know the agreement reached after many hours of argument at the end of the meeting we can only conclude ‘TOO LITTLE, TOO LATE’. Even in the unlikely event of the wealthier countries actually keeping their promises we will see dramatic catastrophes in much of the Global South in the coming years.
And of course we in the wealthier countries whose industrialisation created the mess the world is in as we burnt coal and oil resulting in a huge increase in carbon dioxide levels blanketing the world will also suffer.
Increasingly chaotic weather patterns, more and more serious storms with more floods and greater wind damage. Greater droughts too and more forest fires. More disruption of agricultural production and higher food prices.
More loss of species too, aided by other of the ‘benefits’ of industrial production with new insecticides coming to support those currently decimating pollinating insects such as bees.
As many of the marchers pointed out with their placards and flags, war and militarisation are huge drivers of climate change, both from the production of weapons and their use. One poster pointed out that the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2023 produced roughly half as much CO2 as the UK’s emissions in the same year. War doesn’t just kill people but also is ecocide on a grand scale.
The continuing attacks by Israel on Gaza and Lebanon have also added huge amounts of carbon dioxide as well as killing many thousands of civilians both through direct bombing of homes, schools and hospitals but also through a deliberate policy of destroying infrastructure and preventing humanitarian supplies of food and medicines – for which the International Criminal Court recently issued arrest warrants for Benjamin Netanyahu and former defence minister Yoav Gallan.
Banners, posters and placards on the march rejected militarisation and called for an end to arming Israel. ‘THE CLIMATE MOVEMENT STANDS WITH PALESTINE – STOP FUELLING GENOCIDE AND CLIMATE BREAKDOWN’.
But however hopeless the world situation seems now, the election of Trump as US Pesident seems certainly to make things worse – already he has chosen Chris Wright, the CEO of Denver-based fracking company Liberty Energy as Energy Secretary to lead his promise of increasing US fossil fuel production under his campaign pledge “Drill, Baby, drill”.
The current world political system dominated by institutions such as the IMF and World Bank and by Western governments increasingly seems unable to come up with any effective solutions to the climate crisis – as COP 19 and the previous 28 UN climate Change Conferences have shown. As the placards carried by many of the marchers stated, we need system change.
Die-In and March for Palestine: Saturday 2nd November saw another huge march in London in support of the Palestinian people calling for urgent action by the by the international community to end brutal attacks on civilians, hospitals and schools in Gaza and an end the deliberate starvation of Palestinians.
Examining what had happened from October 2023 to July 2024 in Gaza, the occupied Palestinian territory and the occupied Syrian Golan they state: “Since the beginning of the war, Israeli officials have publicly supported policies that strip Palestinians of the very necessities required to sustain life — food, water, and fuel, These statements along with the systematic and unlawful interference of humanitarian aid make clear Israel’s intent to instrumentalise life-saving supplies for political and military gains.”
London, UK. 2 Nov 24.
“Through its siege over Gaza, obstruction of humanitarian aid, alongside targeted attacks and killing of civilians and aid workers, despite repeated UN appeals, binding orders from the International Court of Justice and resolutions of the Security Council, Israel is intentionally causing death, starvation and serious injury, using starvation as a method of war and inflicting collective punishment on the Palestinian population.”
London, UK. 2 Nov 24. Health Care Workers.
You can read more about the report on the UN web site. It is to be presented to the 79th Session of the UN General Assembly today – 18 November 2024, calling on “all Member States to uphold their legal obligations to prevent and stop Israel’s violations of international law and hold it accountable.”
London, UK. 2 Nov 24.
Doubtless there will be a few countries including the USA and Britain who will uphold the freedom of the state of Israel to continue its genocide and keep on supplying the weapons that enable them to do so.
London, UK. 2 Nov 24.
I was intending to write something more about what is happening in Gaza, Lebanon and elsewhere – and about the urgent need for a ceasefire, the release of hostages and the start of longer term negotiations to bring about a just and permanent solution which would enable both Palestinians and Israelis to live in peace.
London, UK. 2 Nov 24.
But it would largely be repeating things I’ve written many times before and I’ve decided to leave it to the UN committee and a few of the many pictures I took on the march to tell the story.
London, UK. 2 Nov 24
As usual there was a Jewish block on the protest as well as many Jewish indivuals elsewhere in the march, along with the small group of anti-Zionist Jews who have always supported freedom for Palestine. There was also a small protest against the march at the north end of Vauxhall Bridge which curiously included those calling for he release of hostages – which a ceasefire and negotiations has the strongest chance of acheiving.
London, UK. 2 Nov 24. Neterei Karta Anti-Zionist JewsLondon, UK. 2 Nov 24
Israel, Ripper & Zimbabwe: On Saturday 14th October 2017 I began work in Mayfair where a protest calling for a restaurant owner and chef not to break the cultural boycott of Israel was opposed by Zionists before going to Cable Street for a protest at the Ripper ‘Museum’ and ending at a celebration of 15 years of the Zimbabwe Embassy vigil.
Little Social don’t break the cultural boycott – Mayfair
The owner of the Little Social Restuarant and his head chef were going to take part in the Brand Israel culinary event ‘Round Tables’ in Tel Aviv in November 2017 and human rights group Inminds had come to plead with them not to break the Palestinian call for a cultural boycott of Israel.
Events such as these are a part of the Israeli government’s Public Relations efforts to distract from its policies of occupation and apartheid. The event was sponsored by Dan Hotels who have a branch built on stolen Palestinian land in occupied East Jerusalem.
Police arrived and talked with the protesters who included several Palestinians and Jews. They assured police they would do nothing illegal, and continued getting out their flags and banners.
A few people arrived to put on a counter-protest. One man assured me that everything the people protesting in support of Palestine said and had on their banners was lies, and tried to justify all of Israel’s actions, including the then recent attacks on Gaza. He tried to talk with the protesters but they told him they were not interested in hearing his lies.
I told him how my friend had been attacked by settlers in Palestine and who came and stole the olives from the farm – and that Israel’s attacks on Gaza were entirely disproportionate to the rocket attacks on Israel which he said provoked and claimed justified them, and that Israel should respect the United Nations resolutions. He continued to blame the Palestinians for everything and later I was defamed as “a noted anti-Semitic photographer” in a report on this event for my coverage of and other protests over Palestine and by the “wrong type of Jews.”
Class War return to Ripper “Museum” – Cable Street
Class War returned with London 4th Wave Feminists to protest peacefuly outside the so-called “museum’ in Cable St displaying exhibits glorifying the brutal series of 19th century murders and exhibiting materials relating to the horrific deaths of working class women.
They came after Tower Hamlets council had failed to enforce the planning decisions against the shop, only given planning permission under the false pretence it would celebrate the history of women in the East End.
They stood with their ‘Womens Death Brigade‘ banner on the pavement in front of the tourist shop and symbolically attacked it and its illegal metal shutters and signage with plastic inflatable hammers.
Police led in a few tourists who had come to visit the shop past the protesters, who refused to move away. Some went away after talking when they heard why people were protesting about the exhibition, and others who went inside came out and told them that they thought the “museum’s” publicity was misleading and they had been very disappointed by the display.
Not much is known about some of the victims, but they were all women struggling to make a living, some with dependents. People from some of their families still live in London and are disgusted at the displays in this tourist attraction.
One of the 4th Wave Feminists read a message from a member of one of those families, complaining about the voyeuristic exploitation of her ancestor in the displays. We were told was known about the unfortunate victims, reminding us that they were real people and should not be exploited in this way by a toruist rip-off.
Zimbabwe democracy vigil celebrates 15 years – Zimbabwe Embassy, Strand
The first weekly vigil was held on 12th October 2002 and there have been around 780 every Saturday since then.
They intend to continue to protest until there are free and fair elections and an end the human rights abuses of the Mugabe regime. Their vigils are in solidarity with courageous and inspiring human rights defenders in Zimbabwe who risk life and liberty to demand democracy, human rights and the rule of law.
Among those present were a number who had been at that first vigil, including human rights activist Peter Tatchell who was badly beaten when he attempted a citizen’s arrest on Mugabe in Brussels in 2001. He cut the celebratory cake with others from the vigil.
Since then Mugabe has gone but the human rights situation in Zimbabwe is still dire and vigils continue, now both virtually and twice monthly in person. It “will continue until internationally-monitored, free and fair elections are held in Zimbabwe.”
Hiroshima Atomic Victims Remembered: Ten years ago today on Wednesday 6th August 2014 I was in Tavistock Square for a ceremony close to the Hiroshima Cherry Tree on the 69th anniversary of the first use of an atomic bomb remembering the victims past and present of the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945.
I hope to be there again today, as I have been in most recent years. The roughly hour-long ceremony organised by London CND begins at noon and follows more or less the same pattern each year. Everyone is welcome to attend and if you missed it this year you can put a reminder in your diary for next. And if you are not in London, there are other events in other towns and cities across the world – and some also in other parts of London.
The dropping of the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki marked the beginning of a new age where the USA showed it had the power to unleash unprecedented levels of death and destruction. Some other nations were quick to develop their own atomic weapons, including our own and of course the USSR, and all developed bombs of much greater power than the two which devastated the Japanese cities.
Currently nine countries have nuclear weapons: the United States, Russia, United Kingdom, France, China, India, Pakistan, North Korea and Israel. When the USSR was split up, Belarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine transferred the nuclear weapons on their territory to Russia, but apart from this only one country, South Africa has actually given them up.
Wikipedia quotes the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute as estimating in 2023 that the nuclear weapons states held a total of 12,119 total nuclear warheads. Far more than would be needed to destroy the planet, or at least human life on it.
The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) was adopted by the UN in 2017 and came into force in 2021. By January 2024 of the 197 states recognised by the UN, 97 countries had signed the treaty although 27 had still to ratify their signatures. None of the states which hold nuclear weapons have signed.
In Tavistock Square there were songs, speeches, prayers and performances introduced by Islington MP Jeremy Corbyn and messages from Hiroshima and Nagasaki were read.
As well as remembering the many victims of the bombs we also were reminded of peace campaigner Hetty Bower, who became a pacifist during the First World War and attended many of these ceremonies and other peace events and had died earlier this year.
The event closed with two minutes of silence for the victims of the attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki and all victims of war, during which people came up to lay flowers and wreaths at the foot of the Hiroshima cherry tree.
