Report: Militant Picket of M&S in Newcastle 08.01.09

FRFI North East | 09.01.2009 01:07 | Anti-racism | Palestine | Social Struggles

Tonight over 30 people took part in a noisy and angry picket of Marks and Spencer, Britain's biggest corporate sponsor of Israel. A banner was held across the main entrance and information was distributed to passers-by. Many members of the public took the opportunity to join the picket and express their anger at Israel's actions in Gaza and Britain's continuing complicity.

• M&S SUPPORTS Israel with $233 million in trade each year (Jerusalem Report, 5 June 2000)
• M&S SELLS GOODS produced in the illegally occupied territories (Guardian, 13/11/04), totalling around £240 million of imports from Israel each year (Jewish Chronicle, 8 December 2000)
• As early as the 1940s M&S Chairman Israel Sieff openly ADVOCATED ETHNIC CLEANSING in Palestine: “large sections of the Arab population of Palestine should be transplanted to Iraq and other Middle-Eastern Arab States” (Jewish Chronicle, 21/09/1941)
• M&S RECEIVED the Jubilee Award, Israel’s highest tribute, from Israeli PM Netanyahu in 1998, for its services to Israel.
• M&S “ARE as close to Israel as we have ever been” (M&S Spokesperson, Jewish Chronicle, 2000)
• Chief Executive Stuart Rose WAS THE GUEST SPEAKER at the annual dinner of the British-Israel Chamber of Commerce on 09/12/04, alongside the Israeli and British ambassadors.

For those not travelling to London this Saturday (10th January) at least three seperate mobilisations are taking place for Gaza in Newcastle, all meeting at Grey's Monument from 12noon. Actions which have been discussed include protest, open mic, street theatre, hurling of shoes at images of British and Israeli government leaders and a Women in Black Vigil. Many actions by people from many backgrounds but with one aim: End the attacks on Gaza! Free Palestine!

Also taking place this Saturday will be a picket of Middlesbrough Marks and Spencer (from 11am), which will be building for a march in Middlesbrough on 17th January.

This Sunday (11th Jan) there will be an open meeting for all groups and individuals to come together and discuss further actions in Newcastle in solidarity with Gaza. The meeting will take place at Northumbria Student Union from 6-8pm.

FRFI North East
e-mail: frfinortheast@googlemail.com
Homepage: http://www.revolutionarycommunist.org

Comments

Hide the following 9 comments

I spoke to PSC members who agree M&S non settler goods arePR,but Oxfam supports

09.01.2009 02:19

M&S on this. Ask Oxfam what their doing especially if your a Oxfam member,

Universal Confederalist

maybe pedantic

09.01.2009 09:39

Hi,
I am interested in the boycott of M&S, however, are there any more refernces/facts/figures that are from the last 3 years?
Thanks
me.

Erm...

09.01.2009 13:58

how exactly was this picket 'militant'?

kettle

militant?

09.01.2009 15:26

i saw a trotskyist newspaper. but seriously, well done. Any action is better than none...

ansara

Reply To Cloud.

09.01.2009 18:07

Hi, I am an ordinary wife and a mother of five, with no political leanings or religious thought. The Gaza crisis really touched me. I was angry, I wanted to protest, I wanted to do something. I attended the monument demo on the 3rd of January and signed up to everything. FRFI contacted me and I attended a meeting where I found a very friendly bunch of likeminded people. They welcomed me with open arms, no politics mentioned. Since then I have been on demo's to M & S twice and intend to go on a demo on saturday.

My point is, so what? That FRFI hasn't been on the scene for Palestine for a long time. They are now! And doing very well. Last night alone, two members of the public joined the picket of M & S, holding banners for two hours.

I personally have found them very kind, decent, welcoming people. Who havn't put their political goals to me. Only looking to the one goal we should all have, a ceasefire and peace in Palestine. Unlike the PSC who's meeting I attended at the muslim welfare house on wedensday, whom I found both boring and to political for me as an individual. I felt they talked about the bus to London too much and not about any future actions. Also I found they didn't want to join with any other group, which is very sad during the present crisis. I felt their own positions were more important than the present crisis.

Sorry if I have bored you,
Margaret.

margaret
mail e-mail: margaretgreen14@msn.com

correction..

09.01.2009 19:42

Just to set the record straight, it's far from true that FRFI has been inactive in solidarity with Palestine 'for years'. Every issue of our newspaper carries material on Palestine, which is sold around the country. In London the Thursday evening pickets of M&S' flagship store have continued every week for over eight years. In Newcastle our last picket of M&S was around April 2008, and since then we have supported several pickets of Lloyds TSB branches on Northumberland Street and Grainger Street following their closure of the bank account of Interpal, the largest UK charity offering aid to Palestine. In general I think that until the recent attacks on Gaza there has been a downturn in the numbers of people prepared to come out in solidarity with Palestine, and this has affected what we have been able to achieve, but to say that we have done nothing on Palestine for years in simply untrue.

FRFI North East