Police officers, batons at the ready, force peaceful protestors off Trafalgar Square, making several arrests as they advance. Now they are getting a taste of totalitarian tyranny, Palestine campaigners should arouse my sympathy. Yet I feel conflicted. I’ve attended two of the large London rallies, and watched many more on YouTube. Here’s what I think.
For years protestors for causes associated with the Left have been treated with kid gloves by the police and judiciary (for example, Extinction Rebellion roadblockers, and transgender activists who incite violence against women). This has changed since the events of 7th October 2023, when the British political establishment gave unanimous support to Israel, and continued to do so despite Netanyahu’s genocide in Gaza.
The marches for Palestine have been huge, and sustained. The cause is just, and people feel that they are doing something, even if the lack of media coverage and politician’s interest suggest a futile endeavour. As I found at the protests against the Covid-19 regime, meeting tens of thousands of like-minded citizens is a boost to morale in hard times.
The rallies are organised by Stop the War Coalition and the Socialist Workers Party, who supply most of the placards. The crowds are diverse, but most prevalent are white middle-class ‘progressives’ and headscarved Muslim women Life-long Palestinian campaigner George Galloway is not welcome. And YouTubers have been harassed by the protestors and stewards if they are perceive as not fully on board, as Louis Errington experienced yesterday.
The Socialist Workers Party is a Fabian-inspired Cultural Marxist organisation, with underlying Zionist influence (and possibly funding). They are effectively controlled opposition, containing the fury about the plight of innocent Palestinians and ensuring that no damage is done to powers-that-be. A splinter group, Palestine Action, is likely to have been infiltrated to get a desired headline (vandalism at RAF Brize Norton).
The witches of Westminster, having legalised abortion to time of birth and euthanasia last week, are about to proscribe Palestine Action as a terrorist group. That was the impetus for the rally at Trafalgar Square yesterday (it was intended for Parliament Square, until police enforced an exclusion zone).
Many protestors cover their mouths with scarves or surgical masks. In one scene from yesterday, filmed by Louis Errington, veteran activist Piers Corbyn urges people to stand their ground. A colleague holds a card from the pseudopandemic declaring ‘I am exempt from face covering’. Why would Palestine protestors need to wear masks? This was obviously not done at anti-lockdown rallies, or at any protests associated with the Right.
The awkward truth is that a large proportion of those attending Palestine protests are of polar opposite views to mine. They are the kind of people who think Brexit is fascism. They are the kind of people who reacted with glee when protestors after the Southport murders were summarily jailed (although many convictions were for no more than shouting at police, as Palestine protestors did yesterday). They are the kind of people who celebrate every culture except British / English, of which they’d deny the existence. They are the kind of people who smear distributors of The Light newspaper as ‘far right’. They are the kind of people who, rather than supporting fellow citizens protesting about the mass rape of white girls by Muslim gangs or the Southport savagery, turn up in their thousands at counter-protests and cheer when a speaker calls for throats to be cut.
They are the kind of people who want ‘free speech for me, but not for thee’. They are hypocrites.
Having said all that, I know that there are many genuinely good people on the Palestine rallies. If they are honest to themselves, they will know that my observations are true. It is to their immense credit that they continue to attend, despite those marching around them having no problem with mask and vaccine coercion, digital surveillance and two-tier justice (until they realise that they too are on the lower tier).
Perhaps it is sinful of me to criticise so bluntly. If so, I must try harder, for as Matthew (7: 14) wrote, ‘small is the gate, and narrow the way’.
