Monday pics from outside Israeli embassy

I arrived about 15 mins late for this one by which time, Kensington Palace Green - the road that runs past the Israeli embassy - was completely closed off. The cops had also closed West-bound traffic on Ken. High St and I'd just overheard a senior cop saying they were about to close East-bound traffic too. Before the cops were able to put this plan into action though the protesters who until then had been sheep penned on the opposite side of the high St suddenly pushed through the crush barriers and opened the High St for everyone to surge into. There seemed to be some doubt as to what to do next as the first ones through the barriers were not immediately joined by many protesters from behind. Maybe they feared the reaction of the cops as I'd heard that they had been particularly brutish the day before. However over the course of just a few minutes, the crowd became emboldened and bit by bit pushed the cops across the high St until they were hemmed in against the closed high gates to Kensington Palace Green. I thought the cops would react very badly to being pushed into a confined space like this but in fact they had performed a controlled retreat and endured the situation for over an hour while the crowd were incessantly chanting "Free free Palestine!". I was right in the thick of the tremendous crush near to the front for most of the time which felt like being in a very dense wood where the trees are all waving placards. It was near impossible to move in any direction for a long time which is why the pics I took aren't up to much. At one stage, George Galloway was hoisted onto peoples' shoulders and addressed the crowd with a megaphone. Several of the more animated men wearing Palestinian flags stood up on the jumble of barriers immediately in front of the line of cops (fifth pic). They were in quite a precarious position doing this as if either the cops or the protesters had surged forwards they would likely have toppled over and been trampled so maybe unwittingly, by standing on the barriers in this way they had somewhat stabilised the long stand off.

Later, after I had escaped from the centre stage crush, several of the front line cops had their caps snatched which were shortly afterwards demonstrated to be quite flammable amongst the crowd. Always worth knowing I suppose. During the time that I was there, I didn't see the cops doing anything outrageously bad though I couldn't be looking everywhere at once of course. Also I didn't notice any in riot gear though there could have been hundreds dressed and waiting in wagons in the surrounding streets. Maybe they'd realised they had acted too brutally the day before though it can be rare for the cops to learn anything positive.

On the news when I returned home, the regime of psychopaths that run Israel had today been continuing their cowardly, brutal and wholly disproportionate attacks on Palestinian civilians and militants alike. Lines of American supplied tanks were shown amassing along the border ready for a ground invasion. While Israel continues to commit war crimes and internationally illegal collective punishment with impunity in this way, I would urge everyone to get over to the embassy and protest every day. It's fairly abhorrent that we tolerate having an Israeli embassy at all. Any other country acting in this manner might expect to have diplomatic ties severed and their embassy closed but Israel, as always is a special case. Today the protest of about 1000 people appeared to be made up of about 90% Middle Eastern origin people and only about 10% traditional British looking people. I know many of you who read Indymedia are still on holiday until after the new year so there really is little excuse not to go there. And don't be put off by the cold weather either, you stay as warm as toast in crowds that dense! Also please do write lobbying letters to your MPs and other organisations as described in the Indymedia feature article.