OVER a million workers and youth marched in London on Saturday to a rally outside the US Embassy, in a ‘National March for Palestine’ demanding an end to the genocidal murder of Palestinians by the Israeli Zionist regime.
Paul Brennan, reporting the march for Al Jazeera, said: ‘These are huge numbers, and it’s unprecedented.’ He added: ‘It’s a message to the British government as well, who tried to have the march banned by the police.’
Indeed, this massive demonstration of support for Palestinians was a sharp response to all the propaganda lies whipped up by the Tories, with Home Secretary Suella Braverman leading the pack when she denounced them as ‘hate’ marches.
Prior to Saturday’s march, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak had pitched in claiming it was ‘provocative and disrespectful’ to march calling for a ceasefire in Palestine on Armistice Day and demanded that it be cancelled.
The hysterical frenzy being whipped up by the Tories and their supporters in the media only had the effect of energising a few hundred right-wing thugs from the English Defence League to attempt a violent provocation that failed spectacularly.
In Scotland, massive crowds descended on Edinburgh city centre in support of Palestine, along with marches in Glasgow, Aberdeen and Dundee.
Across the world, similar mass demonstrations took place expressing the anger and hatred of workers and youth against the genocidal war being waged by Israel against Palestinian men, women and children in Gaza.
Over 11,000 deaths had been recorded by this weekend, nearly half of them young children, as a result of the constant bombardment and the latest ground attack.
The latest of terror attacks by the Israelis has been the deliberate targeting of hospitals that have been surrounded by ground forces and pounded from the air.
Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) announced yesterday that al-Quds Hospitals is no longer operational as it ran out of fuel and suffered a complete power outage.
In a statement on X (formerly twitter), PRCS stated: ‘PRCS holds the international community and signatories of the Fourth Geneva Convention accountable for the complete breakdown of the health system and the resulting dire humanitarian conditions.’
A least two premature babies died in hospital due to power cuts with dozens more at risk, health officials said on Sunday, because of the lack of electricity at the Al-Shifa hospital, the largest hospital in Gaza.
The charity Doctors Without Borders (MSF) says that hospitals in the Gaza Strip have been under ‘relentless bombardment’ for the last 24 hours.
In the face of these atrocities, workers and youth are rising up in their millions demanding action.
Last Friday, 400 members of eight trade unions blockaded a BAE Systems factory in Kent believed to be providing component parts for Israeli aircraft used to bomb Gaza.
Belgium trade unions have already called for a boycott of all arms shipments to Israel, while in the US part of the United Auto Workers (UAW), currently in a bitter fight for wages, is calling for the union to implement a boycott on Israeli goods.
Large unions in Brazil, India, Canada and Japan have joined in calling for boycotts while the miners’ union in Columbia is demanding the suspension of all minerals and fuel to Israel. This and similar actions being called for by trade unions across the world must be escalated.
The working class has the power to put an end to the imperialist-backed, genocidal war by the Zionist gangsters to impose a fascist regime over Palestinian workers.
In Britain, the working class must now take up the urgent task of going forward from the mass demonstration to forcing the TUC to call a general strike to bring down the Tories and bring in a workers government and socialism.
The TUC is to hold a special Congress on December 9th to discuss the ‘next stage’ in the fight against the Tory anti-strike laws.
This special Congress must immediately organise a general strike to kick out the Tories, defeat the anti-strike laws and stand with the Palestinians by going forward to a workers government that will give all the material support to the Palestinian revolution required for its victory.
This is the way forward!
