London erupts in mass protest against Israeli crimes.

Around 10,000 people of conscience marched through central London today in fierce opposition to Israel’s mass slaughter of the Lebanese and Palestinian people and the British government’s complicity.

Demonstrators assemble in the centre of London’s government district.

Children’s voices were heard throughout the day.

An endless stream of demonstrators.

Demonstrators were united in their condemnation of Israeli aggression.

Amidst tight security demonstrators expressed their anger at the US Embassy.

Security protecting the US Embassy were on high alert

The demonstration culminated in a huge rally in Hyde Park

Organised by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, the Stop the War Coalition, and many other Muslim and Lebanese groups, the demonstrators embarked from Whitehall through the centre of the West End, past the United States Embassy and on to Hyde Park where they assembled for a rally.

Mary Nazzal-Batayneh

Additions

Many more pictures here

22.07.2006 20:53

http://moonbatmedia.com/against_israel_220706/

Jonathan

Comments

Hide the following 26 comments

did i miss something?

22.07.2006 20:50

wasn't it called and organised by the General Union of Palestinian Students (GUPS)?

or did i miss somethings?????

tipobarra

Today's waste of time

22.07.2006 20:50

And a fat lot of good it did.

The BBC buried it in a dark corner.. and even had the cheek to claim only 150 turned up in Newcastle.

Well, let's see what the Golders Green crowd can muster tomorrow. The Beeb will be all over it no doubt.

I just Thank The Lord I'm not in the UK and don't pay their sodding wages.

ex-Hell

no surprise

22.07.2006 21:56

swastikas......"we are all hezbollah"....comments about the "golders green" lot........surely the real peace campaigners must be embarassed about this.....how can a stop the war campaign promote hezbollah when their efforts could be of far better use somehow else.

I'm sickened but not surprised.

rebbe

We are all Hizbullah?

22.07.2006 22:00

I did find the above comment on a placard rather disturbing. I can see no pride in associating oneself with terrorism, whether it be independent (Hizbullah, Hamas...) or state-sponsored (Israel, US...)

artaud

"We are all...."

22.07.2006 23:12

Great to see so many caring people out there ready to raise their voices in protest against this sickening Israeli disregard for life!

Well I think it's clear "We are all hezbolla" is bound to ruffle some feathers, but at the end of the day it is Hezbolla who are the freedom fighters, determined to secure the freedom of untold Lebanese and Palestinian prisoners, plus demand occupied land is returned to Syria. If the UK was invaded, I am thinking many British people would turn to violence to expel the attackers.

Hezzy

Hezzy?

23.07.2006 00:27

what is your view on swastikas being present at the "peace" rally and pictures of hesbollah with weapons at a "peace" rally.
Question; if Israel was attacked by say, Libya and did not respond would you all be there shouting down with libya and victory to israel?

what is it about israel that riles everyone when china, sudan, azerbaijan, armenia (nagorno-karabakh) are also having daily battles?
I am from tokyo so am slightly un knowledgable

rebbe

locality and complicity Rebbe

23.07.2006 02:08

I care less about china, sudan, azerbaijan, and armenia's daily battles because my state supports the Israeli state, and local arms manufacturers export and import Israeli arms, to a far greater degree than in those other conflicts. I care even more about the damage done to Iraq because my society is even more to blame for that although the Palestinians and Lebanese have suffered for longer.

Danny

Huh?

23.07.2006 04:54

You are all closet jihadists. Or maybe some of you are in the open. I dunno. Israel left lebanon in 2000, and ever since hezbollah has stocked up on rockets and weapons. They are holding the lebanese people hostage..If britain was attacked by ireland. What would u do? Read these lyrics. They still apply today. Rock on Israel and finish the Job!!

Do you really think hizbollah cares about the people of lebanon? They are firing rockets out of familiy apartments. Do you really think that anyone who tells a child to strap a bomb on themselves values life? Israeli's celebrate a culture of life. Likes of Hizbollah and Hamas celebrate a culture of death. -

alexander.dilarge@gmail.com - berkeley, ca

http://www.bobdylan.com/songs/bully.html

Well, the neighborhood bully, he's just one man,
His enemies say he's on their land.
They got him outnumbered about a million to one,
He got no place to escape to, no place to run.
He's the neighborhood bully.

The neighborhood bully just lives to survive,
He's criticized and condemned for being alive.
He's not supposed to fight back, he's supposed to have thick skin,
He's supposed to lay down and die when his door is kicked in.
He's the neighborhood bully.

The neighborhood bully been driven out of every land,
He's wandered the earth an exiled man.
Seen his family scattered, his people hounded and torn,
He's always on trial for just being born.
He's the neighborhood bully.

Well, he knocked out a lynch mob, he was criticized,
Old women condemned him, said he should apologize.
Then he destroyed a bomb factory, nobody was glad.
The bombs were meant for him.
He was supposed to feel bad.
He's the neighborhood bully.

Well, the chances are against it and the odds are slim
That he'll live by the rules that the world makes for him,
'Cause there's a noose at his neck and a gun at his back
And a license to kill him is given out to every maniac.
He's the neighborhood bully.

He got no allies to really speak of.
What he gets he must pay for, he don't get it out of love.
He buys obsolete weapons and he won't be denied
But no one sends flesh and blood to fight by his side.
He's the neighborhood bully.

Well, he's surrounded by pacifists who all want peace,
They pray for it nightly that the bloodshed must cease.
Now, they wouldn't hurt a fly.
To hurt one they would weep.
They lay and they wait for this bully to fall asleep.
He's the neighborhood bully.

Every empire that's enslaved him is gone,
Egypt and Rome, even the great Babylon.
He's made a garden of paradise in the desert sand,
In bed with nobody, under no one's command.
He's the neighborhood bully.

Now his holiest books have been trampled upon,
No contract he signed was worth what it was written on.
He took the crumbs of the world and he turned it into wealth,
Took sickness and disease and he turned it into health.
He's the neighborhood bully.

What's anybody indebted to him for?
Nothin', they say.
He just likes to cause war.
Pride and prejudice and superstition indeed,
They wait for this bully like a dog waits to feed.
He's the neighborhood bully.

What has he done to wear so many scars?
Does he change the course of rivers?
Does he pollute the moon and stars?
Neighborhood bully, standing on the hill,
Running out the clock, time standing still,
Neighborhood bully.

ali d
mail e-mail: alexander.dilarge@gmail.com

You're either with us or you're with the Israel

23.07.2006 08:25

Why is it so complicated not to take sides between two particularly unpleasant authoritarian nationalist factions? Its the same dichotomous thinking we don't hesitate to condemn as obviously flawed when Bush comes out with it. This pandering to 'freedom fighters' and 'national liberationists' smacks of a kalashnikov erection - what happened to international working class solidarity? - or do we now see the world as nation-states with a 'right' to defend their own national capitals?

re: hizbullah,swastikas,golders green et al

23.07.2006 09:00

i think its completely fair to make reference to such things at the moment, i was carrying a placard with ehud olmert dressed up as an eager ss stormtrooper, afterall israeli policy with towards both lebanon and the palestinians is a carbon copy of nazi german "lebensraum" policy. last week i was berated by a friend of mine for calling the israeli state a monster, because she said that no non jewish european had the right after the second world war to say such a thing, i don't buy that at all, i and we are not guilty and bear no responsibility for anything that happened in the 1930's or 1940's, whereas israeli's most certainly bear responsibility for the war crimes,destruction and death that it is occuring at the moment, in the circumstances, i think 'monster' is an understatement

bob mills

you had too much american/israeli propaganda

23.07.2006 09:39

Let's don't forget that Hizbullah, Hamas and all the Arabs during the night they turn into bats, fly into Israel and drink the blood of Israeli children. Plus they are to blame for world poverty, AIDS, tsunami in SE Asia, earthquakes and all the bads in this world.

As for the "we are all Hizbullah", when Israel with the help of its allies (US, UK, UN) fight Hizbullah by bombing cities, roads, buses full of civilians; murder little children; cuts of electricity on homes and hospitals; then yes, we are all Hizbullah to them. We are all the same to them, we are terrorists, traitors, left-wing scum. Every bomb that falls into Lebanon, every bullet that is fired in Palestine and in Gaza strip kills a part of all of us.

dim

Disgusting

23.07.2006 10:08

This is really disgusting. The british so-called "left" anti-war-movement seems to be even more anti-semitic than the german one. Don´t you see, what kind of ideology you are supporting?

"Boycott israeli products". Sounds like the german, anti-semitic "Stuermer"-newspaper during the 30s. I´m sick of you "anti-war"-pro-hezbollah-pro-antisemitism scum.

SOLIDARITY WITH ISRAEL: SHE´S FIGHTING FOR HER LIFE!

No tears for anti-semites
Homepage: http://pnews.org/art/10art/ROOT.shtml

israel is killing children

23.07.2006 10:24

israel is killing children and you cannot even deny it. Whenever someone talks about Israel's terrosist acts and its crimes against humanity then the old "anti-semitism" trick comes to surface!
No one is denying of the holocaust by the nazis in WWII. Why do you deny the holocaust by the Israelis today?? Just because they suffered 60 years ago gives them the right to do the same today and none should speak up?

You are disguisting!! You support the new holocaust!!

dim

to 'no tears for anti-semites'

23.07.2006 10:52

We hear your comments. Now fuck off, you pro-imperialist wanker.

Tim Vanhoof

@ Israel is killing children

23.07.2006 12:02

@dim
"Israel is killing children"
you mean like this?

http://media.de.indymedia.org/images/2006/07/152957.jpg
You are dealing with an old anti-judaistic seterotype, which has its origin in christianity and goes back to the cruelties of the "jew" Herod. And you are reproducing it.

Then you say:
"Just because they suffered 60 years ago gives them the right to do the same today and none should speak up?"
This one is called secondary antisemitism, or guilt-defense-antisemitism (READ ADORNO!). First of all, you completely identify the state of israel (and its cruel behaviour) with "the jews" (the victims of the holocaust) and then blame them for doing the same thing the Nazis did, The consequence is, that the victims are criminals and are no more better than the Nazis. In german Bundestag, member of parliament Hohman has been kicked out for doing that anti-semitic comparison.

It´s also "funny" that you argue, I support the "new holocaust", because I´m supporting Israel. There is an anti-semitic Hamas and Hezbollah fighting Isreal with the plan to kill all jews (they imported parts of their ideology from the german Nazis. See El-Husseini), but raising voice against the (again) planned elimination of the jews is pro-holocaust. Can hardly be more paradoxically.

AGAINST ANTI-SEMITISM. FOR COMMUNISM:

to tears for anti-semites
Homepage: http://pnews.org/art/10art/ROOT.shtml

anyone noticed ?

23.07.2006 12:27

on the news more and more they keep mentioning Iran and Syria alongside Hezbollah. They are trying to get it into the British public consciousness, as a prelude to war one day against those nations.

This is what your taxes are going to fund. The killing of more innocent civilians, and not Muslims.

STOP THE WAR MACHINE!

nodboss

no i mean like this:

23.07.2006 13:00

no i mean like this:

http://www.fromisraeltolebanon.info/files/Childsouth.jpg
and this

http://www.fromisraeltolebanon.info/files/genocide2.jpg
and this

http://www.fromisraeltolebanon.info/files/genocide3.jpg
and this

http://www.fromisraeltolebanon.info/files/genocide5.jpg
and this

http://www.fromisraeltolebanon.info/files/genocide91.jpg
and this

http://www.fromisraeltolebanon.info/files/genocide991.jpg
and the other 350+ civilian that are murdered by isreali bombs the past days. And should I mention the thousands palestinians that have been murdered by the Israeli army and the thousands more that had to leave their homes and have to live under constant fear and abasement by the Israeli forces!!
Of course you won't admit that. Just because the western media don't tell you about it, you pretend that it doesn't happen!
86% of the Israelis support this war. Small children are signing bombs that will later kill babies in Lebanon. This is a sick nation, blinded by hate of the huge Israeli war machine and reproduced by the media!
Keep your eyes shut, keep watching what the major media is feeding you!! Noone should criticize Isreal and its acts!!

And your trick to resemble the nazi and german far right anti-semism with the left peace movement is not working! So stop using it. Everybody has the right to criticize criminals that murder civilians and act against humanity! And while you support Israel and its murders, then you'll have to take the criticism.

dim

we all bleed red

23.07.2006 13:02

The polarisation of this debate doesn't really advance anything, merely the perpetuation of the binary oppositions that make us all little Eichmanns: us vs. them ... and we can justify anything against them because of what they did to us. It doesn't really matter whether it is Hezbollah or the Israeli state, Hamas or the USA. The peace movement needs to up its game and move beyond the easy sloganeering of we are pro-x and anti-y, especially when the x we are pro brings with it elements that we probably wouldn't support: Hezbollah killing Israelis is hardly a venerable cause to rally behind, is it? Then again, Israelis bombing the be-jeebers out of Lebanon is not venerable nor ethically viable. Perhaps if we face up to the facts that very few of us or our chosen causes are blood-stained free, we might make some larger strides in our efforts to end the warfare and killing - irrespective of who is the perpetrator or the victim. I sign up to the peace movements (for they are plural) because the bottom line is that the common ground is against warfare and violence, terrorism (state sponsored or otherwise), and is geared toward trying to install mechanisms of peace and well-being. I may be an ageing hippy and maybe it's time I tossed my love beads into the trash; but, those ideals still stand the test of time, and evey successive generation of thinkers underwrites them time and again: we need peace which means respecting differences, accepting that sometimes we - the aleged good guys - can have the story completely wrong and be doing bad things, and that the other guy does sometimes have a point of view that needs to be heard.
Too many people die for soil, nations, religion, and political standpoints: when all of this is going on, the arms dealers make a huge profit, the politicians become even more entrenched in their stated positions because they cannot lose face by admitting they are wrong, and all the while the planet goes to hell in a handbasket. For the peace movements to be credible it is time that the causes of these conflicts are sorted: there cannot be profit in warfare for anyone otherwise what motives will there be for causing peace? There cannot be the continued slaughter - and while today Hezbollah may be the victims and Israel the aggressor, tomorrow it could well be that Israel is the victim and someone else the aggressor. Unless we - the various multi-facets of the peace movements - wish to end up like the Ministry of Information in Orwell's "1984" and re-write history everytime the face of conflict changes, it is time that we begin to map out what the commonalities are: the promotion of peace and well-being for all living entities (human and animal), the co-construction of those attributes which are associated with security and stability, the promotion of a common rule-set that is sacrosanct propped up by common teachings across all religious divisions, the acknowledgement that our time here as an individual is finite, as is our time here as a population, a race and as a species given the snowballing accumulation of ecological destruction. We, as a world citizenry, have among us all we would ever need to promote these simple, few, basic pillars of peace. There is sufficient food to feed everyone, there is enough space for us all to live comfortably, there is enough renewable energy for us to sustain our needs (if these were more equitable and reasonably modest). The problems arise with governmental structures and corporate best interests. Dismantle corporations and governments and we would probably find that peace would flower almost naturally from the resultant debris of these structures.
The peace movement needs to think bigger than reacting to the latest in a series of conflicts: the reason why the peace movements aren't taken seriously is because they do not, because they cannot, promote any viable alternatives to the current status quo. We all bleed red ... maybe we can start there. I thought that it was poignant in one of the 2 pictures in the article

https://www3.indymedia.org.uk/en/2006/07/345787.html was of the disfigured and charred body of a girl and on the floor of the truck lay a Minnie Mouse duvet: a child with an icon of American corporate child-friendly merchandising. How different is that from any thousands of kids in the USA, the UK, and elsewhere? She could have been one of our own kids. She could have been an Israeli kid. We all bleed red, no matter where we live, what we believe in, the language we speak, and the god we pray to. I think that the peace movements need to begin from those places which we all share in common.

stuart palmieri
mail e-mail: stupalmieri@hotmail.com

Swastikas?

23.07.2006 13:19

Where were the swastikas? Link to a picture please? You are talking out of your arse. Since you were never at the demo, it is the only place you can talk from. My memory of the demo was from the group of ultra-orthodox Jews who joined the front of the march in ~Trafalgar Square, to the cheers of the rest of the demo. The only people even remotly acting like Nazi's are those people dropping bombs from F-16's on electricity supplies, schools, milk factories and schoolchildren in collective punnishment of the local population because the US and Israel won't let the Lebaneese state build up it's armed forces to be strong enough to disarm Hezbollah. Did not the Nazi occupying armies liquidate the town of Lidice during WW2 because of a resistance attack nearby? Can anyone explain to me how this is different to the behaviour of the so-called IDF? I'm sure they would be shoving muslims into ovens, if they thought they could get away with it.

By the way, did the Israeli's not support the Mussolini-loving phalange militia during the Lebanese civil war? Wasn't it they who massacred thousands of civilians in Shabra and Chatila whilst those brave fighters of the IDF cheered them on. Charges of racism and anti-semitism might go much further, if the Israeli state didn't suck the balls of Hitler-worshipping homicidal facists whenever it suited them.

Don't talk shit

pro-x and anti-y

23.07.2006 13:34

pro-infants and anti-infanticide
pro-peace and anti-war
pro-people and anti-state
pro-liberty and anti-subjectation

As long as we support principles rather than parties or personalities then we can act wisely and simply without moral contradiction.

"The peace movement needs to think bigger than reacting to the latest in a series of conflicts: the reason why the peace movements aren't taken seriously is because they do not, because they cannot, promote any viable alternatives to the current status quo. "

Those are two different things you are saying. Firstly, that the peace-movement is reactive rather than proactive and we always blindly follow the states agenda is sadly mostly true and worth discussing.
Your second point, that the peace-movement cannot provide a viable alternative is nonsense. The viable alternative to war is peace, it is peace that has no viable alternative. If the UK stopped exporting weapons and starting foriegn resource wars then we'd be halfway there. If every other country did this ( or even just the US ) then you'd have a better world. If you want a blueprint for a much better world then read the anarchist FAQ but you don't need to be an anarchist to be a war-protestor.

"We all bleed red" is a hypotheses that our governments seem intent on proving in the most graphic fashion.

Danny

this is what you support

23.07.2006 14:36

just in...
By SAM F. GHATTAS, Associated Press Writers

BEIRUT, Lebanon - Israeli warplanes struck a minibus carrying people fleeing the fighting Sunday in southern Lebanon

For the second timet they order civilians to leave their villages and then they bomb the convoys!

dim

comment on 'anti-semitism' attack

23.07.2006 16:19

'no tears for anti semites' represents a school of thinking which originated on the German far left in the 1990s. They saw a reunified Germany as the main danger for the world, more dangerous than US imperialism.

Where they went wrong was in supposing there to be a continuity of what they call 'eliminatory anti-semitism' (a term borrowed from Daniel Goldhagen, I think) from the Third Reich through to modern Germany, meaning that the resurgent German imperialism would necessarily seek to continue to kill Jews. This is nonsense. German imperialism is a nasty piece of work, and it's still crawling with corporations that made a fortune under the Nazis, but in terms of anti-semitism there is no evidence of it planning to resume where Hitler was forced to stop.

However, the conclusion they drew from this was to oppose German reunification with the slogan 'Germany - never again!' (hence the name, 'Anti-German'), and, crucially, to identify with Israel as, as they put it, 'the state of holocaust survivors'.

This reflects a misunderstanding of history. Historically, Zionism was the right wing of Jewish politics, who said to Jews, "There's no point in fighting against anti-semitism, emigrate to Palestine instead". While the left wing Jews in the Bund fought against Hitler, the Revisionist Zionists modelled themselves on Mussolini's Fascists, and the Stern Gang even wrote to the Nazis offering to fight alongside them against the British. So it's no surprise that when people brought up in the political traditions of militarism, nationalism and semi-fascism founded the Israeli state, it became one with very little regard for those it considered its enemies.

The Anti-Germans ignore this, and have basically turned themselves into cheerleaders of the Israeli state. This has had the inevitable consequence that they've started to believe the Israeli/US propaganda nonsense and to support imperialist wars. Since Israel is the US's proxy in the Middle East, you can't support Israel without supporting US imperialism.

Some of them have even started to echo the Daily Mail/BNP drivel about a defending western civilisation from 'Islamic barbarism.'

I may not get everything right, but I do know one thing: If you think you're a leftist, but you find your allies are George Bush, Tony Blair, Newt Gingrich and Rupert Murdoch, and you're cheering on the army of an imperialist proxy, you have got something very very wrong.

Tim Vanhoof

Not to do with judaism

24.07.2006 21:50

I identify that this situation has nothing to do with Judaism, this is all about war, and what israel and america(and maybe britain) have to gain from it. The arms trade, excuses to invade iran/syria, further attacks against islam. this is all about capitalism.

Now don't get me wrong, i am NOT a communist/socialist, and that gets me onto my second point. I was there for this demo and i have to say, i am thoroughly appalled by the way the left hijacked this event! Anybody notice that all the anti bush placards(aimed at the young) all said socialist worker on the bottom. On top of this, everybody else had relevant placards and flags, but not the communists. Anybody notice that there were almost no stall apart from the left ones? Anybody spot the irony of communists selling stuff? Anybody realise how a fucking petition will never even hope to stop something as big as this you idiots! Petitions are ok if you want more local bus routes, but as far as wars go, they are useless! Get real, democracy is a sham, wake up and face it!

I will add at this point that i was at the head of the march, and therefore got to hyde park early enough to hear the start of george golloway's speech. Let me say, I have NO respect for this man. He allways turns up for these events, but just like the guantanamo march, he will talk the talk but never walk the walk. No, he just drives there in his stupid little red mercedes.

Rant over.

Sick of communist take-overs

on the demonstration and the takeover

24.07.2006 22:53

I have first to say that I am not a supporter either of Israel or of those who some of you define "freedom fighters", and I'm actually quite astonished that at a demonstration organised by pacifist movements there were also blood thirsty calls- i heard them with my own ears and i'm not taking the piss- for more violence on behalf of hezbollah.
I don't trust religious fascism as much as I am completely against the Israeli policy in the West Bank and Gaza.
So this, according to me, was the biggest weakness of the demonstration.
Oh and I was just forgetting, the good old prat of George Galloway, whose rhetoric is just bogus and whose support for reactionary forces in the Middle East is just another evidence of his stupidity.

No god, no masters, no war.

luther bliss

Why is it okay for hezbolla to be a terrorist?

25.07.2006 11:32

Why is it okay for hezbolla to fire rockets into Israel and then if that weren't enough cower behind a civilian population? Why is it okay for hezbolla to kidnap Israeli soldiers? Why is it okay for there to be a Palestine, but not an Israel? Why is it okay for hezbolla to get arms from Syria and Iran, but it's not okay for Israel to get arms from the US? Why is it ok for hezbolla to engage in suicide bombings that kill innocent people? Why is it okay for hezbolla to talk about the destruction of Israel? Where are the protest against these dispicable acts?? All I can think of is these people are all very prejudice and deeply anti-Semitic.

David

Why don't we cut straight to the point?

28.07.2006 11:12

The Israeli state AND Hezbollah are BOTH genocidal fuckwits. End of. So fuck all this "we are all Hezbollah" nonsense, and condemn the unecessary killings on BOTH sides, not just the side that happens to be backed by the USA.

the middle finger