PALESTINE

We support the call for an immediate end to genocide in Gaza and an end to the occupation of Palestine. Britain played a key role in the formation of the Israeli settler-colonial state and this complicity is ongoing, reflecting Israel’s position in maintaining the interests of Western powers in the Middle East. The UK government provides political, financial and military support to Israel, and licenses the export of weapons allowing UK companies like BAE systems to profit from genocide.

Groups across Manchester are working to pressure the government to withdraw such support and working to build solidarity with the Palestinian people. Solidarity is the recognition of common interests in the fight for freedom and against domination. This is reflected in the commitment shown by students, trade unionists and community activists across the city to oppose the genocide. We support these group’s demands for an end to UK complicity in the occupation, an end to the sale of arms to Israel, and for immediate restoration and increase of aid to UNRWA to combat the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.

The state response to such movements is often to portray them as driven by hate and anti-semitism. We reject this completely: protesting genocide and war is not a crime. The recent letter of Jewish activists in the city, opposing such representations of student protests, expressed this clearly in rejecting the ‘toxic conflation’ of criticism of the state of Israel with anti-semitism.

The government is attempting to further withdraw democratic freedoms — with efforts to restrict protest, criminalise chants and move towards bans on direct action groups. We oppose any such restrictions. Defending and advancing democratic freedoms is central if we are to organise effectively both in the immediate struggle against genocide and occupation, and in the wider struggle to fundamentally transform society as a whole.

This fundamental transformation is a common struggle that confronts us all, both here in the UK and in the Middle East. Even when the occupation ends, this fight for a different kind of freedom will face Palestinians — the struggle for real freedom means the working class of all ethnicities and communities joining together to transform the system which exploits us all, capitalism. While the conditions for that common struggle are at present held back by occupation and brutality, we support every effort to make them a reality and to bring an end to the system at the root of war and exploitation.

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