*All out this Saturday:
From Balfour’s Promise to a Century of Complicity
Stop Arming Israel!
12pm 7th November, Piccadilly Gardens*
On 2nd November, 1917, when Britain first began its occupation of Palestine, the British Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour signed the document offering Palestinian land that was not theirs to the Zionist movement in Europe to create a Jewish Homeland.
The declaration was the result of years of Zionist lobbying of the British government, notably by figures like Chaim Weizmann, who told them their Jewish state would be a colonial ally to Western powers in the Middle East.
This was during the period when Britain’s main imperial concern was protecting the Suez Canal as the fastest maritime route to much of the British Empire as well as the growing importance of oil discoveries in the neighbouring Arab countries and Iran.
This support was the green light to steal the land of Palestine of which 90% of the population were Arabs. It led to the ethnic cleansing of Palestine by Zionist militias, decades of brutal Israeli occupation and now genocide of the Palestinians in Gaza.
The current actions of the British government, from its escalating repression on freedom of expression and assembly on its own people, to its participation in decades of Israeli oppression cannot be understood as an isolated incident. The horrors we see are simply the logical manifestation of the Balfour declaration and all it led to.
It is another dark chapter in the colonial history of the British establishment that left millions of people around the world in ruins, all in the name of profit and greed for Britain’s elites, when at the time much of Britain’s population was impoverished.
Today, the British people have a chance to right the wrongs of the past. With our money, our voices and the liberties we put on the line through direct action, we can financially cripple the businesses that sustain the Israeli settler colony, destroy the weapons used in its genocide, organise to stop these weapons from leaving our shores, and stand against the murderers who commit horrendous crimes in our name.
So join us on Saturday!
