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Palestine solidarity demos in the UK

TopCat said:
London was a big demo. Whole route full up.
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I was expecting it to be small and was thinking of giving it a miss. Raining when I left home. No noticeable marchers on underground. On last two London marches Underground and buses were packed with people obviously heading for the march. Maybe people were heading in later because they now know march won't start until an hour after advertised assembly time. But once it got going it was obviously big. I'm glad I went. Met up with some old friends and comrades and went for a pint afterwards.
 
My parents had been saying that they'd had a visit from a friend who lives somewhere remote out in the Orkneys, and she'd been saying that there were weekly demos there but they only got about 18 people attending. But still, managing to mobilise about 18 people in the remote Orkneys on a weekly basis, that's not nothing.
 
Btw, if people in London are interested in getting involved in "workers' assemblies", there's a sign-up thing here:
docs.google.com

Join the workers' assemblies for Palestine!

Please fill out this quick form to tell us a bit about you and we will send you key information about the workers' assemblies. ✊🏼 NOTE: The info you provide will be securely processed by two people from Workers For a Free Palestine and will not be shared anywhere.
docs.google.com docs.google.com

That link is pretty minimal in terms of information about what they actually are, here's a bit more description (from an email I got so no link):
A primary challenge workers in the UK face is the need to act with sufficient speed to actively challenge the UK’s complicity in the on-going genocide in Gaza. Our existing trade union infrastructures have often proved incapable of linking workers across unions and sectors, so as to facilitate rank-and-file workers taking action together, and have not been able to push for direct intervention into those parts of the UK economy which prop-up Israel’s state and military.

These assemblies have hosted workers from a broad range of industries – charity workers and teachers, to healthcare specialists and cultural workers in galleries and museums - and are beginning to enable effective discussion and co-ordination within and between these spaces. Organise Now has been working to ensure that those gathering at these assemblies can continue their discussions and remain in contact with the movement at large, helping to link those workers isolated in apathetic workplaces with organised comrades elsewhere. It’s very difficult to take the first step in organising, particularly in a hostile workplace, so we have been helping to link workers with those who have experiences and tips to share.
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Blimey, I thought the whole "strike for Palestine today" thing was just going to be the usual fantasist non-event from people who think you can organise a general strike through social media posts, but it sounds like it has managed to shut down at least one school, I'm guessing through pupil rather than teacher walkouts:
1702295175088.png
1702295188301.png
Heard rumours of another but not been able to find anything to back that up yet. Anyone know of anything else shut down?
 
hitmouse said:
Blimey, I thought the whole "strike for Palestine today" thing was just going to be the usual fantasist non-event from people who think you can organise a general strike through social media posts, but it sounds like it has managed to shut down at least one school, I'm guessing through pupil rather than teacher walkouts:
View attachment 403901
View attachment 403902
Heard rumours of another but not been able to find anything to back that up yet. Anyone know of anything else shut down?
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:thumbs:

Abraham Moss is in Manchester, multi-ethnic intake I think.
 
hitmouse said:
Blimey, I thought the whole "strike for Palestine today" thing was just going to be the usual fantasist non-event from people who think you can organise a general strike through social media posts, but it sounds like it has managed to shut down at least one school, I'm guessing through pupil rather than teacher walkouts:
View attachment 403901
View attachment 403902
Heard rumours of another but not been able to find anything to back that up yet. Anyone know of anything else shut down?
Click to expand...
electrical fault

Remote Education – Abraham Moss Community School

abrahammoss.co.uk abrahammoss.co.uk
 
MickiQ said:
electrical fault

Remote Education – Abraham Moss Community School

abrahammoss.co.uk abrahammoss.co.uk
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Good factchecking, I had been meaning to come back and post a mea culpa about that. I'd seen someone claiming that the school was closed due to the strike thing, thought it seemed worth factchecking before posting, and then when I saw the school posting something very vague about being closed due to unexpected circumstances I thought it seemed like the claim checked out. Turns out I'd failed to consider the possibility of the school being closed due to entirely unrelated reasons.
Would be interested to know what the actual extent of Monday was, cos it was more than the nothing I could've believed it being - see this for instance. My guess would be a fair number of small businesses owned by self-employed people with links to the region might've closed, but no idea about the actual numbers. And also various arty/creative self-employed types probably taking the day off, but without wanting to throw too much shade the total economic impact of that's probably pretty minimal.
 
www.palestineaction.org

Palestine Action Force Fisher German to Cut Ties with Elbit in Latest Victory

Images and videos are available for free, with the relevant credit Palestine Action has received confirmation that the property managers for Elbit Systems’ Shenstone drone factory, Fisher German, have cut […]
www.palestineaction.org www.palestineaction.org

Palestine Action has received confirmation that the property managers for Elbit Systems’ Shenstone drone factory, Fisher German, have cut ties with the Israeli arms manufacturer. Having sent confirmation to Palestine Action by email yesterday, Fisher German’s decision follows on the tail of a similar announcement by Elbit’s former recruiters iO Associates, who dropped Israel’s largest weapons maker after a campaign by the direct action network.


The real estate giant confirmed that they no longer hold any ties to Elbit Systems or the site of their subsidiary, UAV Engines Ltd (UEL), in Shenstone. UEL designs and makes engines for drones, describing its products as “engines for various size tactical UAVs, target drones and single mission platforms.” The factory is a crucial subsidiary of Elbit because it produces the engine to the Hermes 450 drone. Whilst once a surveillance drone which provided the Israeli military with targeting information, the Hermes 450 has since been equipped to carry missiles. It is said to be the ‘backbone’ of Israel’s spying and targeting missions. It has been used for attacks on civilians and and targeted assassinations in the 2014 assault on Gaza, and will certainly be in use in Israel’s current genocide in Gaza. Fisher German had been made a target due to its complicity in these heinous activities, and their (former) facilitation of Israel’s weapons trade in Britain.


As part of an ongoing campaign against those complicit in Elbit’s business-of-bloodshed, Palestine Action has targeted Fisher German dozens of times. The real estate company was first targeted back in 2021 – with an occupation of the roof of their Birmingham offices (Vine Property Management in Harborne) which also saw the site covered in paint. Three activists were eventually found not guilty in court of the resulting charges. These same offices were then hit with five covert actions over 2022, with activists breaking windows and dousing the property in red paint, marking it with a symbol of the blood shed by the company’s Israeli business partners. Fisher German temporarily abandoned the Birmingham premises in August 2022.


Similar actions took place at Fisher German offices across the country throughout the two year campaign. Most recently, a single activist occupied the roof of the entrance to Fisher German’s Manchester offices, which had also been occupied by a coalition of trade unionists, who also demanded that Fisher German cut ties with Israel’s largest arms company. These actions took place in the context of the ongoing genocide waged by Israel against the Palestinian people. A genocide like this would not be possible without Elbit and other Israeli companies, and the profit they continue to make in Britain.


A Palestine Action spokesperson commented: ‘Today’s announcement shows what we already knew and what we’ve already shown: direct action gets the goods. But our work doesn’t stop here. Elbit can only do the work it does here because it is facilitated by many other partners and companies. It is the responsibility of all those opposed to the genocide of Palestinians to disrupt this supply chain in anyway we can.’


The real estate giant was among many Elbit partners and complicit companies on Palestine Action’s Elbit Sites map, which it posted online as part of its Palestine Action Underground campaign. Additionally, the publication of Palestine Action: The Underground Manual contains the essential information for creating an autonomous group able to independently strike at the facilitators of Israel’s systemic and military violence. Palestine Action calls on people across the country to take action against other companies complicit in Elbit’s genocidal arms trade.
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Can't find any articles about it yet, but Palestine Action reporting two people just got acquitted of charges for an action targeting the Balfour statue in Parliament last year.
Writeups of the original action:
www.palestineaction.org

Palestine Action Deface Balfour Statue in the House of Commons

In an unprecedented move, Palestine Action struck at the very heart of government to deface the “commemorative” statue of former Prime Minister Lord Arthur Balfour
www.palestineaction.org www.palestineaction.org
www.theguardian.com

Palestinian protesters squirt ketchup on statue in Houses of Parliament

Two women arrested after defacing monument to Arthur Balfour who as foreign secretary pledged support in 1917 for a Jewish homeland
www.theguardian.com www.theguardian.com
 
teqniq said:
Fair play:

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Reel News videos are always good

Over 200 healthworkers and supporters with Healthworkers for a Free Palestine shut down the HQ of US tech firm Palantir for the day - a firm complicit in oppression, military occupation and state surveillance across the world, including Israel's genocide in Palestine.

Palantir, run by the far-right billionaire Peter Thiel, have just been awarded a £330 million contract with the NHS to roll out data systems software - which raises serious questions about what will happen to people's private medical data.

The company is already involved in the Ministry of Defence, the Home Office and border forces - and when a recent Home Office request for patient records for migrant patients was refused, suddenly this contract was awarded to Palantir.

The mass picket came on the second day of the current junior doctors' strike, making the point that the struggle for Palestine and the struggle for the NHS is one struggle. And with more actions like this, maybe we can win both of them.

Get involved by contacting Healthworkers for a Free Palestine on Instagram: hw4fp.uk.
 
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Full respect to them, but hw4fp.uk has to be one of the ugliest acronyms I've ever seen. :D
Anyway, as well as that there's a separate healthworkers vigil for Palestine happening in Manchester tonight - I kind of assumed it was part of a national thing, but not been able to find anything else from a brief look:

Oh, looks like there was meant to be a London event that's now cancelled and will be happening as a Zoom vigil instead:

And a Birmingham one which is going ahead.
(From Healthworkers for Palestine, who are apparently separate from Healthworkers for a Free Palestine.)
Sounds like really good news from the Elbit Eight trial today:
www.palestineaction.org

BREAKING: 12 ‘Not Guilty’ verdicts for the Elbit Eight after paradigm-changing actions - Palestine Action

In a landmark case, eight Palestine Action activists who used direct action to shut down the Israeli weapons trade have been acquitted of a total 12 charges which included criminal damage, burglary and encouraging criminal damage. The trial, which commenced on November 13th, related to a series...
www.palestineaction.org www.palestineaction.org

As well as the BAE blockade yesterday, there was also another blockade of Elbit in Bristol, and a Birmingham protest targeting Elbit landlords London Metric. And an occupation of some kind of government offices in Manchester, think it may have been HMRC.
 
At the start of the demo today the organisers read out/got the crowd to chant back basic legal advice like "no comment, no caution, no duty solicitor", "we don't talk to the cops", "we don't talk to the blue bibs" and so on. Really good practice and one I don't think I'd encountered before.
 
hitmouse said:
At the start of the demo today the organisers read out/got the crowd to chant back basic legal advice like "no comment, no caution, no duty solicitor", "we don't talk to the cops", "we don't talk to the blue bibs" and so on. Really good practice and one I don't think I'd encountered before.
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this mic check is a tactic sisters uncut have been using for a while. think theyve taken it from older groups (maybe u.s. based?). agree, really good practice and good to build confidence in people who haven't been on many actions before.

green and black cross have got a version of it on their website but its very (maybe too) long!
 
Yeah, that general linerage makes sense - think I first heard of the "people's mic" thing as something that came out of Occupy in the US.
 
yeah definitely think both those movements used it. feel like I remember seeing something abt it on indymedia way back then that was still around as well.
 
zedr said:
this mic check is a tactic sisters uncut have been using for a while. think theyve taken it from older groups (maybe u.s. based?). agree, really good practice and good to build confidence in people who haven't been on many actions before.

green and black cross have got a version of it on their website but its very (maybe too) long!
Click to expand...
Brings to mind a punk lyric from the 70s which went through the full legal advice. Can't remember who it was but do recall bits of it. 'Dont sign for something you don't own, dont make a written statement...'.
 
Wilf said:
Brings to mind a punk lyric from the 70s which went through the full legal advice. Can't remember who it was but do recall bits of it. 'Dont sign for something you don't own, dont make a written statement...'.
Click to expand...
Desperate Bicycles!

Conflict also did one but unfortunately being Conflict they shouted all the lyrics so you can't really hear anything:


Think some aspects of the law may have changed since those two were written though.
 
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