Last night saw the end of those dark, cold nights on Oxford Street for some months as the longer daylight hours allowed us to see in full glory the 22 police officers that the British State deems necessary to enforce law and order outside the M&S Marble Arch store on Thursday evenings. Could it be that they have come to recognise the hatred that spills from the Zionist counter-demonstration and realised that the Zionists’ threats are not funny but vicious?
Could it be that they are there to protect the peaceful demonstration in solidarity with the Palestinian people, active for at least two hours every week for the last 3 years to expose Marks and Spencer’s support of the aggressive, expansionist state of Israel?

The police are fully aware that the Zionists have mobilized purely in order to disrupt the Victory to the Intifada picket with the aim of shutting us up and forcing us off London’s busiest shopping street.

The police are offering their assistance to the Zionists’ purpose when they: inform us that we are not permitted to have a table to present information, nor use the megaphone; restrict the display of banners and placards; obstruct the distribution of leaflets or enable the Zionists to directly obstruct us from spreading information. The police are clearly not acting impartially but enforcing their political bias.

As an arm of the British State the political prejudice of the police should come as no surprise. The British government has refused to be involved in international proceedings against Israel and its grotesque Apartheid Wall (last October the UN General Assembly voted 104 votes to 4 to condemn the wall). Numerous British politicians remain ‘Friends of Israel’ regardless of how many Palestinian children Israel murders and tortures, even aiding the horrifying violence of the Israeli state. The current British Labour government has secretly authorised the sale of vast quantities of arms and terror equipment to Israel including leg-irons, electric shock belts, and chemical and biological agents.

This week Victory to the Intifada were permitted to have the table following last week’s challenge to police demands, but once again we were told not to use the megaphone because it would be a ‘breach of the peace’. Victory to the Intifada and supporters defied the order and throughout the picket the megaphone was utilised to explain to passers-by the terrible atrocities committed every day by the Israeli army and Israeli settlers against Palestinians, such as the murder last Saturday of Khaled Walweel. Khaled was just 7 years old - killed by a live bullet to the chest in his own home in Balata Refugee Camp, nr Nablus, by Israeli troops that invaded and occupied several homes of residents.

It is ever more urgent to support the Palestinians and we can make a difference in this country where we must oppose the government and put pressure on Israel financially by refusing to put our money into their biggest British high street trader. It is critical that we build a movement capable of overcoming the wholesale deceit that Israel is a persecuted victim and a democracy. All Zionists want Israel to be an all-Jewish state with much wider borders than those from 1967. Israel is and has always been racist and expansionist. Israel has created the largest displaced population in the world – 8.4 million Palestinian refugees. Israel is literally starving Palestinians in the Gaza Strip where restrictions have caused the UN to halt food aid. 150,000 Palestinians of the West Bank and Gaza are dependent on food aid to live.

It is vital that you act. There are demonstrations throughout Britain against M&S and the more visible they become the more knowledge will spread. Israel cannot be allowed to continue to perpetrate this humanitarian catastrophe.

Join us: Every Thursday, 6-8pm, Marks and Spencer, Oxford St. (Marble Arch end)

Solidarity with the Palestinian people! Defend the right to protest!

Free Palestine! Boycott Israel! Victory to the Intifada!