The weekly picket of Marks and Spencer in solidarity with Palestine has again been attacked by organised fascists. British and Israeli Zionists opportunistically used the anniversary of the 11th September tragedy to assault the democratic rights of anti-apartheid activists by "kicking" our peaceful protest "off the streets of Manchester". The racists, that include members of Israel's ruling Likud party as well as known British right-wing thugs, numbered more than seventy.
The weekly picket of Marks and Spencer in solidarity with Palestine has again been attacked by organised fascists. British and Israeli Zionists opportunistically used the anniversary of the 11th September tragedy to assault the democratic rights of anti-apartheid activists by "kicking" our peaceful protest "off the streets of Manchester". The racists, that include members of Israel's ruling Likud party as well as known British right-wing thugs, numbered more than seventy. They had set up their "protest" well before the M&S picket was supposed to begin, waving Israeli, British, US, Spanish and Russian flags, shouting racist and anti-muslim statements and- with the police turning a blind eye- set up their stall in an illegal area (well, illegal for pro-Palestinian groups anyway). This was just the beginning of a day of collusion- in some cases extremely overt- between the fascists and Britain's racist police.
At 12 o'clock we set up our stall to begin our protest to highlight Marks and Spencer's support for a brutal apartheid state called Israel and express our solidarity with the Palestinian fightback. Immediately the stall and our protesters were swarmed by Zionist thugs hurling racist abuse and attempting to physically attack the picket. Shouting things about "muslim terrorism" and abusing the tragedy of the recent Beslan school massacre for their own racist ends- to attack arab supporters of Palestine. At one point a black comrade was singled out for verbal intimidation for "hiding behind his skin colour". All of this was tame compared to the dispicable targetting of an anti-Zionist jew who is a regular on the picket. This showed the down-right antisemitism of the pro-Israel thugs who shouted our jewish comrade's name repeatedly and hounded and threatened him, his family and his associates in the jewish community.
Showing the true nature of "police impartiality", our protest was cordoned in such a way that allowed the fascists to literally surround us. Our comrades were threatened with arrest several times for attempting to pass leaflets to passers by on the outside. More than one officer openly engaged in chatting and laughing with the Zionists. The fascists were given full reign to use their megaphone and cameras while ours were supressed; we were threatened with the public order act while they recieved none.
The M&S picket was attacked like this in July and, with help from Manchester Social Forum, Iraq Solidarity Campaign and individuals from Palestine Solidarity Campaign and many more, the numbers grew drastically as a result- helping us to overcome and, in some way, defeat the fascist threat. However this support died down and numbers dropped as the threat was percieved to have gone away. After this Saturday's drama this has shown not to be the case.
We are extremely grateful to all groups and individuals that have supported the picket in times of turbulence. However the threats will never fully subside, more attacks will come from all the sources we have seen so far- the state, its Councils and police, Zionists and other fascists, the media and corporations like M&S.
Therefore we call on all democratically-minded people, all activists, 'lefties', anti-imperialists and genuine supporters of the right to protest, to join and actively support us in defeating the threats that we all face. This is not just about one protest. The future of any movement on the streets depends on the left's ability to overcome sectarianism and unite with all who are actively engaged in a just struggle such as this.
So friends, comrades, well wishers...
SUPPORT THE PICKET OF MARKS AND SPENCER, THIS SATURDAY 18TH SEPTEMBER ON MARKET STREET, MANCHESTER. THE BIGGER THE TURNOUT, THE BETTER TO SHOW OUR ENEMIES THAT WE WILL NOT BE DEFEATED!
DEFEND THE RIGHT TO PROTEST!
VICTORY TO THE PALESTINIAN PEOPLE!
LB, Victory To The Intifada Group, Manchester.
for more details phone us, 07816547066, or email
fightpov@freenetname.co.uk
At 12 o'clock we set up our stall to begin our protest to highlight Marks and Spencer's support for a brutal apartheid state called Israel and express our solidarity with the Palestinian fightback. Immediately the stall and our protesters were swarmed by Zionist thugs hurling racist abuse and attempting to physically attack the picket. Shouting things about "muslim terrorism" and abusing the tragedy of the recent Beslan school massacre for their own racist ends- to attack arab supporters of Palestine. At one point a black comrade was singled out for verbal intimidation for "hiding behind his skin colour". All of this was tame compared to the dispicable targetting of an anti-Zionist jew who is a regular on the picket. This showed the down-right antisemitism of the pro-Israel thugs who shouted our jewish comrade's name repeatedly and hounded and threatened him, his family and his associates in the jewish community.
Showing the true nature of "police impartiality", our protest was cordoned in such a way that allowed the fascists to literally surround us. Our comrades were threatened with arrest several times for attempting to pass leaflets to passers by on the outside. More than one officer openly engaged in chatting and laughing with the Zionists. The fascists were given full reign to use their megaphone and cameras while ours were supressed; we were threatened with the public order act while they recieved none.
The M&S picket was attacked like this in July and, with help from Manchester Social Forum, Iraq Solidarity Campaign and individuals from Palestine Solidarity Campaign and many more, the numbers grew drastically as a result- helping us to overcome and, in some way, defeat the fascist threat. However this support died down and numbers dropped as the threat was percieved to have gone away. After this Saturday's drama this has shown not to be the case.
We are extremely grateful to all groups and individuals that have supported the picket in times of turbulence. However the threats will never fully subside, more attacks will come from all the sources we have seen so far- the state, its Councils and police, Zionists and other fascists, the media and corporations like M&S.
Therefore we call on all democratically-minded people, all activists, 'lefties', anti-imperialists and genuine supporters of the right to protest, to join and actively support us in defeating the threats that we all face. This is not just about one protest. The future of any movement on the streets depends on the left's ability to overcome sectarianism and unite with all who are actively engaged in a just struggle such as this.
So friends, comrades, well wishers...
SUPPORT THE PICKET OF MARKS AND SPENCER, THIS SATURDAY 18TH SEPTEMBER ON MARKET STREET, MANCHESTER. THE BIGGER THE TURNOUT, THE BETTER TO SHOW OUR ENEMIES THAT WE WILL NOT BE DEFEATED!
DEFEND THE RIGHT TO PROTEST!
VICTORY TO THE PALESTINIAN PEOPLE!
LB, Victory To The Intifada Group, Manchester.
for more details phone us, 07816547066, or email
fightpov@freenetname.co.uk
Comments
Hide the following 17 comments
Solidarity
12.09.2004 17:14
London VTI activist
Sure.
12.09.2004 17:45
Chris
e-mail:
chris_strafford@hotmail.com
fascists and the anti-M&S demo - answers needed
12.09.2004 21:50
The involvement of fascists with the London protest has been pointed out (and substantiated) on Indymedia UK before, leading to promises by those involved in the anti-M&S demo that more effort would be made to weed out fascist infiltrators. This has NOT been done, as everyone knows. Why not??? Is there any reason to believe that the situation in Manchester is any different?
anti-fascist
same old, same old
12.09.2004 22:03
N
Not "fair" but.........
12.09.2004 22:32
Hey, YOU chose a non-neutral location for the protest. Don't bitch about your own choices.
Mike
e-mail:
stepbystepefarm mtdata.com
really?
12.09.2004 23:34
Calling everyone who is anti-progressive a fascist does nothing to help anyone.
Krop
Not fooled
13.09.2004 12:37
Well I'm sorry but this sort of attempt to divert attention will not work. The Nazis are fully involved with these pickets and you are letting them stay involved to boost the numbers of those attending.
Bill
A lie repeated often enough...
13.09.2004 12:43
N
Still not fooled
13.09.2004 13:13
What really pisses me off is that instead of saying, "Yeah sorry, we didn't know they were there and now we are getting rid of them" which everybody would have understood you keep on with this constant denial. All Facism is wrong, we can't afford to have anything to do with these scum regardles of their support for Palestine.
If you lay with dogs you will get fleas
Bill
so post the pictures then
13.09.2004 14:18
B: OK, post some evidence;
A: But its true
B: OK, post some evidence;
A: Posts picture of Germans fascists with a palestinian flag.
B: Thats not evidence. Thats not even in the UK, let alone the M&S picket.
A: But its true etc etc etc
Present some evidence or, at the risk of sounding blunt, fuck off.
tired disinfo
Bullshit Bill
13.09.2004 14:24
But you can't can you? And it is you that nobody is fooled by, because if you genuinely had the information you claim to, you would have circulated it, instead of simply spreading a vicious and entirely unsubstantiated rumour, again....
N
WTF
13.09.2004 14:30
God, why do people try and make arguments more and more facile? Is it so that they can pretend that the Isreali government is actually the victim rather than the most aggressive nation in the Middle East?
Krop
still no evidence
13.09.2004 15:13
Obviously those accusing the picket don't respond very well to calls for evidence or silence - they want loud mouthed accusations AND no evidence.
And even if the last accusation had any basis in fact, how easy is it to stand behind someone while a photo is taken?
Then again it's no the first time zionists have joined with fascists to acheive their aims is it.
It suits the powers that be in israel to attempt to associate the most extreme acts and speech of muslims around the world with mainstream and legitimate protest (which is undertaken by muslims christians jews and non belivers) ... and then there are the many occassions that israel has been caught formenting trouble and attacking 'their own' for the purposes of propagander and division ...
... I think that that is your 'classic disinformation', in that it is both documented and as about as self serving as it is possible to get!
jackslucid
e-mail:
jackslcuid@hotmail.com
C18 on Manchester Picket?
15.09.2004 11:33
Picketer
The truth from here
16.09.2004 16:48
The fascists who were identified to me by an ANL member were 2 NF who were stood with the Zionist when they attacked the picket some week ago. The other fascist are those Zionist member of Betar, an organisation with a long fascist past going back to its collaboration with Mussolini and support for Hilter (excepting his view of Jews).
"Since you are protesting AGAINST M&S and they are protesting FOR M&S (or at least M&S might see it that way) the situation is intrinsicly "unfair" to you at that location. You have no reason (no good evidence) that the POLICE are playing favorites by keeping you strictly to public areas and making you strictly follow public area rules while allowing the counter demonstrators to use M&S property as well as public areas."
The fact is that they were not using M&S property they were on the same part of the public highway which the police and the courts had previously stopped us using. The point about the police is that we were behaving peacefully and wanted to use or democratic right to leaflet and use placards. The Zionists self-decared aim is to clear us off the streets of Manchester. The police had previously agree to locate them in a separate area to have hold their demo. But instead they allowed them to completely surround our picket and to hurl abuse, threats of violence and racist remarks at us. That is what I call police bias.
We do not object to them be allowed to support M&S we do object to them being able to stop us demonstrating and the police threatening to use the Public Order Act against us when we are behaving peacefully and responsibly.
Please come down and support our right to protest - even as an independent observer.
Cheers, john
John
e-mail:
scawenb@yahoo.co.uk
Why bother arguing
20.09.2004 23:49
Izzy Ajioc
Why bother checking the facts
21.09.2004 09:41
Are there no Jews in the SWP then? Not if you define a Jew as a Zionist, I guess.
Mike Rosen has written for their newspaper for years:
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Does anti-Zionism mean anti-Semitism?
By Mike Rosen, author and broadcaster
ZIONISTS ACCUSE anti-Zionists of being anti-Semitic. The reasons for this, they say, are (1) some anti-Zionists express anti-Semitic ideas, and (2) the very fact of denying the right of "the Jews" to have a "homeland" is anti-Semitic.
What is anti-Semitism?
"Street" anti-Semitism, in countries outside of Israel, is abuse and violence attacking people simply and only because they are Jews. Theoretical anti-Semitism claims that "the Jews" are a race or nation conspiring to take over the institutions of finance, industry, the law, the arts or the media in order that they might run the world for the benefit of "the Jews". There are also forms of religious anti-Semitism that claim, for example, that the Jews killed Jesus Christ.
What is Zionism?
Zionism says that there is a homeland for all the people who call themselves Jews and that this homeland is in a place called Israel. Israel is and must be a Jewish state.
What is anti-Zionism?
Political anti-Zionism says that: (1) People who call themselves Jews are so varied that it's absurd to talk of the Jews as a nation-therefore there is no one single "Jewish homeland". (2) The words Jew, Israeli and Zionist do not mean the same thing. Jews may or may not be Zionists. Zionists may or may not be Jews. Israelis may or may not be Jews. (3) The idea of a Jewish state, run solely by and for the benefit of Jews, is not "self determination"-it's nationalist, colonialist and racist. (4) Zionists have not freed "the Jews". All that's happened is that a tiny minority of the world's Jews-and indeed a tiny minority of the world's Zionists-run a country propped up by massive amounts of American money and arms in the interests of America. To do this, they have massacred and displaced hundreds of thousands of Palestinians. (5) The Palestinians are right to resist Israel. The Israeli "refuseniks" are right to refuse to fight the Palestinians. (6) A solution can be found based at the very least on the old principles of "liberty, equality and fraternity" for all peoples. Some anti-Zionists accept a two-state solution. Others advocate a single secular, democratic socialist republic achieved through popular resistance. (7) It is not anti-Semitic to say any of these things, and a sizeable minority of Jews holds some or all of these views. To say that it is anti-Semitic is to try and gag criticism of Zionism with what has been one of the great liberal taboos since the time of the Holocaust.
Can anti-Zionism be anti-Semitic?
It is possible if the criticisms of Israel are part of an anti-Semitic outlook, for example, blaming "the Jews" for what's happened in the Middle East when it is Zionists, both Jewish and non-Jewish, who've made the problem. To argue against there being a state run solely by and for Jews is not anti-Semitic. It is a classic anti-racist, multiculturalist view.
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Ian