Demonstration of Marks and Spencer grows after call for support. Zionist counter-demo dishes out more threats and sick propaganda.
Report of Marks and Spencer Picket (04/12/03)
First of all I’d just like to say a big thanks to everyone who heeded last week’s call for support and came along to the picket. Compared to the previous week it was a real success and numbers were high, (at least far higher than the Zionist thugs) into the 40’s and easily over 50 different people throughout the 2 hours. There were quite a few old faces and new faces too.
The pickets have been going every week for the last three years as a focus for continuing Palestinian solidarity work here in Israel. Marks and Sparks has been chosen as the target because they are Britain’s biggest commercial sponsor of Israel and because their Board of Directors have public stated that it is one of the companies main aims to support and aid the economic development of the country.
Recently an alliance of right wing Zionists called Betar-Tagar and British fascists have organised a counter-demonstration to force disorder giving the police an excuse to close the demonstrations down under the Public Order Act. The pickets have been well organised and disciplined though and they have not succeeded in their task, they have only succeeded in making them bigger.
It was good to see quite a few people from ISM were down today and saw a lot of the propaganda, especially concerning lies about the ISM. Earlier in the day there were rumours that Betar members were distributing literature on Oxford St with Tom Hurndall on. It gave the impression that they were raising money for Tom because the family had a cheque from Israel to cover the cost of flying Tom back (the cheque bounced). Money raised by Betar goes straight to the IDF.
The pickets of course continue next week. Please come along, it is vital we maintain pressure against M&S and Israel. Especially now with all the people on the street at Christmas time. Let them know what is really happening this time of year in Bethlehem. Victory to the Intifada!
Next picket: Brixton M&S, 12 till 2pm, Saturday 6th December.
Oxford St M&S, 6 till 8pm, Thursday 11th December.
Meeting on Ethnic Cleansing in Palestine, 7pm, Room S75, St Clements Building, London School of Economics, Wednesday 10th December.
First of all I’d just like to say a big thanks to everyone who heeded last week’s call for support and came along to the picket. Compared to the previous week it was a real success and numbers were high, (at least far higher than the Zionist thugs) into the 40’s and easily over 50 different people throughout the 2 hours. There were quite a few old faces and new faces too.
The pickets have been going every week for the last three years as a focus for continuing Palestinian solidarity work here in Israel. Marks and Sparks has been chosen as the target because they are Britain’s biggest commercial sponsor of Israel and because their Board of Directors have public stated that it is one of the companies main aims to support and aid the economic development of the country.
Recently an alliance of right wing Zionists called Betar-Tagar and British fascists have organised a counter-demonstration to force disorder giving the police an excuse to close the demonstrations down under the Public Order Act. The pickets have been well organised and disciplined though and they have not succeeded in their task, they have only succeeded in making them bigger.
It was good to see quite a few people from ISM were down today and saw a lot of the propaganda, especially concerning lies about the ISM. Earlier in the day there were rumours that Betar members were distributing literature on Oxford St with Tom Hurndall on. It gave the impression that they were raising money for Tom because the family had a cheque from Israel to cover the cost of flying Tom back (the cheque bounced). Money raised by Betar goes straight to the IDF.
The pickets of course continue next week. Please come along, it is vital we maintain pressure against M&S and Israel. Especially now with all the people on the street at Christmas time. Let them know what is really happening this time of year in Bethlehem. Victory to the Intifada!
Next picket: Brixton M&S, 12 till 2pm, Saturday 6th December.
Oxford St M&S, 6 till 8pm, Thursday 11th December.
Meeting on Ethnic Cleansing in Palestine, 7pm, Room S75, St Clements Building, London School of Economics, Wednesday 10th December.
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Comments
Hide the following 16 comments
RCG
04.12.2003 23:37
They support the Castro regime in Cuba, on the grounds that it must be real socialism if the US is against it.
There are many ways to fight the zionists' crimes in Palestine. But don't bother turning up to one of these RCG/FRFI pickets unless you feel like getting recruited by yet another tiny, powerless Trot faction, banging the drum for dicators in the name of freedom.
dave
.
04.12.2003 23:54
Get it off.
.
Glad I went
05.12.2003 10:12
Report @
Mark @ ISM London
Homepage:
http://www.rafahkid.net
trot rubbish
05.12.2003 10:56
Cos fascists love the Jews don't they!
alexa
The left are being misled by arab anti-semites
05.12.2003 11:29
In the year 2000 Israel made the most generous offer ever to the Palestinians to give them a state of their own. This offer included the dismantling of 100 settlements in the occuppied terrortries, the return of Palestinian refugees to the occuppied terrortries. Yet this generous offer was flatly rejected by Yasser Arafat and the Palestinian Authority.
speaker of the truth
Confused "anti-leftist" alert!
05.12.2003 11:43
No contradiction there [HEAVY IRONY].
Might have escaped your notice, ".", but IMC is pretty much a "leftist" site.
Honestly. You people.
Duh
because
05.12.2003 11:54
;-)
Oh Little Town of Bethlehem
05.12.2003 12:18
Christmas time is critically important to trading companies like M&S--it is the time when they make a lot of sales. It is obvious that this is the time to turn up the heat on them and try to make them lose money. And it is also a time when many people are thinking about places like Bethlehem because of the Christmas connection. It is a time to remind them of the crimes the Zionists are committing in Bethlehem and other Palestinian towns.
Who cares whether the RCG is there or not? Contrary to popular mythology, they don't have horns. At least they are DOING something to turn the heat up on the Zionists. Most Indymedia readers are capable of participating in pickets and other actions with all sorts of political organisations and campaigning groups. I am sure that they are also quite capable of listening to what they have to say and making their own minds up about them. They don't need advice from armchair wiseacres and know alls.
The logic of the above comments is actually to never attend any activity since some disagreeable organisation or other might possibly turn up. The RCG were on the 2 million demo against the war last Spring. Perhaps the above two commentators would have advised against attending that event too?
Chris
WHAT?
05.12.2003 12:36
hey at least these people are doing somthing positive unlike you 2 armchair critics
and i suspect your Daily mail readers tryin to put people off
who gives a fuck who calls the demo/boycott/march anyway ? u fuckwits
a
Israel is not a racist state!
05.12.2003 13:32
unbiased
O Little Town of Bethlehem...
06.12.2003 00:43
Christmas time is critically important to trading companies like M&S--it is the time when they make a lot of sales that get them through the rest of the year. It is obvious that this is the time to turn up the heat on them and try to make them lose money. And it is also a time when many people are thinking about places like "the holy land" because of the Christmas connection. It is a time to remind them of the crimes that the Zionists are committing in the region today.
Who cares whether the RCG is there or not? Contrary to popular mythology, they don't have horns. At least they are doing something to expose the Zionists. And the Zionists are responding in kind it would seem. Most Indymedia readers are capable of participating in pickets and other actions with all sorts of political organisations and campaigning groups. I am sure that they are also quite capable of listening to what they have to say and making their own minds up about them. They don't need advice from armchair know it alls.
The logic of the above comments is actually to never attend any activity since some disagreeable organisation or other might possibly turn up. The RCG were on the 2 million demo against the war last Spring. Perhaps the above two commentators would have advised against attending that event too?
Gayle
RCG
06.12.2003 12:55
Chris, or Gayle as she also apparently likes to be called, here accuses her critics of being "sectarian" because they don't like her sect. Well I'm not in any bloody sect, and I'm still a critic of the RCG.
Why? Because they pretend to be "socialists", but strongly support the Stalinist regime of Castro in Cuba. Here's another one of their front groups in the US, RATB:
RATB hustle for student fodder via a boycott-Bacardi campaign in universities, while FRFI gets them in by pro-Palestine pickets.
Back before the RCP/RCG split, they supported the old Soviet regime, the former Ceausescu regime in Romania, and Pol Pot in Cambodia. They called the Velvet Revolution in Prague "a defeat for socialism".
I agree that Fascist thugs like Betar certainly need to be opposed:
...but so do all supporters of dictators, like RCG / FRFI. Your enemy's enemy is not always your friend.
dave
Word of explanation
06.12.2003 14:21
In my comment, I criticised the "last two comments". I want to make it clear that I was referring to the first two comments on this page and not the comments that later appeared immediately before mine in the 10 hours it took for my comment to appear.
I also posted my comment a second time because, after 10 hours, I assumed that my first attempt to post it had failed.
Finally, I always use changing pseudonyms/pen-names for posts on this site--and I suggest that others do the same. You never know who is watching with a semi-fascist like Blunkett as Home Secretary, do you?
Chris, Gayle, any other pseudonym you like
deary me
06.12.2003 20:48
frill
hmm interesting
16.01.2004 14:26
the public
Misleading sectarian
28.03.2004 23:33
A few facts:
1) The Revolutionary Communist Group organised the picket together with others, and never hid or was ashamed of the fact.
2) The RCG is not Trotskyist
3) The RCG never supported the Pol Pot regime in Cambodia, but rather supported the Vietnamese government that overthrew the genocidal Pol Pot regime and exposed the links of British and US imperialism to the Pol Pot clique.
4) The Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP) split from the RCG before the latter started supporting the USSR. The RCP did not survive.
5) Any Trot worth his/her salt OPPOSES Cuba and OPPOSED the USSR as 'Stalinist'
n/a