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Brighton Demonstration Against Slaughter in Gaza

Tony Greenstein | 03.01.2009 20:44 | Anti-racism | Palestine | Repression | South Coast

One of the largest demonstrations Brighton & Hove have ever seen took place today. Organised by word of mouth and e-mail in a few days, the energy and numbers took us all by surprise.

A crowded Churchill Square
A crowded Churchill Square

Brighton's main shopping centre taken over
Brighton's main shopping centre taken over

Churchill Square like never before
Churchill Square like never before

North Street taken over
North Street taken over

Heading for the sea front
Heading for the sea front

Old Steine
Old Steine

Old Steine a sea of flags
Old Steine a sea of flags

Marchers take over Old Steine
Marchers take over Old Steine

Demo pictures 1
Demo pictures 1

Going back to the rally
Going back to the rally

Demo 2
Demo 2

Demo 3
Demo 3

North Street engulfed 1
North Street engulfed 1

North Street engulfed 2
North Street engulfed 2

EDO banner at the front
EDO banner at the front

80 Year old Jewish war veteran protests
80 Year old Jewish war veteran protests

Police video team 1
Police video team 1

Police video team 2
Police video team 2

Palestine Solidarity Stall 1
Palestine Solidarity Stall 1

Palestine Solidarity Stall 2
Palestine Solidarity Stall 2


Brighton is a small town on the south coast of England where there is an active Palestine Solidarity Campaign group.

Despite short notice, nearly a thousand people turned up to a rally in the main shopping centre, Churchill Square, to express their anger at Israel’s barbarous action.
Speakers included a local activist Trinni, former Labour Councillor Francis Tonks, Jackie Chase who led the Free Omagh Degayes Campaign (imprisoned in Guantanamo Square) and Tony Greenstein, speaking as a Jewish opponent of Zionism and their terror bombing of Gaza.
I made a number of points:

1. Those who condemn ‘terrorism’ when it comes to 'suicide bombs' are fully supportive of Israel’s far greater State Terrorism. Dropping one ton bombs from warplanes on civilian populations, murdering nearly a hundred children to date in Gaza, receives the applause and support of Gordon Brown, Bush and the BBC.

2. The BBC, our supposedly neutral tax payer funded broadcasting organisation, has deliberately and wilfully presented Israel’s genocide as ‘retaliation’ against the Hamas peashooters, which have killed less than 20 people in 8 years, whereas in fact it was Israel’s ‘incursion’ into Gaza on 4th November 2008 that killed 6 people which broke the ceasefire. So say nothing of course of the starvation siege of the Palestinians.

3. The Arab regimes and Egypt, which have sat by, silently supporting Israel, should be overthrown if the Arab masses are to have any self-respect. They are complicit in Israel’s actions.

4. The irony of the ‘rockets’ that have been fired at Ashkelon, Beer Sheba and Sderot is that these areas were the homes of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who were expelled in 1948 onwards into the Gaza Strip. The land they are firing on was their homes and having been expelled into overcrowded refugee camps they are now being subject to new massacres, the purpose of which is to expel them once again.

5. An even greater irony is that Israel’s siege, intended in the words of one Israeli general and war criminal, to put the Palestinians ‘on a diet’ is no difference in method from the words of Hans Frank, Governor General of Nazi occupied Poland during the war when he imposed a starvation siege on the Warsaw Ghetto. The irony is that the Israeli state and its army have taken up the baton from the Nazi army. The Gazan Palestinians are no different in kind from the Jews of the Warsaw Ghetto and it is no surprise that the Zionists, who collaborated with the Nazis during the war, should now seek to ape the persecutors of the Jews.

Below are some pictures from the Brighton demonstration. It demonstrates that despite the incessant media lies that we have to put up with, that ordinary people know when our rulers and their watchdogs are perpetrating war crimes. Also shown are a few shots of our own police spies.

Tony Greenstein

Tony Greenstein
- e-mail: tonygreenstein@yahoo.com
- Homepage: http://www.azvsas.blogspot.com

Comments

Hide the following 3 comments

How tedious- RESIZE PICTURE

03.01.2009 21:26

ITS NOT ROCKET SCIENCE

bob

Please resize

03.01.2009 21:43

Can you please resize and compress these photos. Even with a high speed connection it can take ages to load these photos and then you can't see them as they take up more than most people's screen size.

If you can post this again with smaller pictures then we can all look at them.

Thanks

Tiny Tim

Photos

21.01.2009 21:16

Sorry, I didn't realise this would happen. If have no ability to alter them now but one of the IM Collective will no doubt know how to do this. Incidentally there was a demonstration the following week which was double the size of this one, the 2nd largest I can remember in 34 years in Brighton. It's on  http://azvsas.blogspot.com/2009/01/brighton-hove-gaza-demonstration-one-of.html. I won't post here for fear of more double size photos!

tonygreenstein
mail e-mail: tonygreenstein@yahoo.com
- Homepage: http://www.azvsas.blogspot.com