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Palestine march: sat 18th may

gozer the destructor

07:49 / 17.05.02

Does anyone know anything about this? I think it's from hyde park but I don't know whose organising it, anyone?

10:40 / 17.05.02

National Rally for Palestine
Saturday 18th May
Assemble 12.00 noon in Central London
Rally at Trafalgar Square
Speakers include: Afif Safieh, Palestinian Delegate to UK, George Galloway MP, John Austin MP, Jeremy Corbyn MP, Dr. Ghada Karmi, Betty Hunter Secretary PSC.
Organised by Palestine Solidarity Campaign, sponsored by Association of Palestinian Communities, Palestine Return Centre, Al-Awda, General Union of Palestinian Students, UCATT, NATFHE, NUJ, CND, Stop the War Coalition
For further information phone 020 7700 6192 or email info@palestinecampaign.org

That's off Media Workers Against the War who are pretty helpful.

(In case that link doesn't work, seeing as my links often don't, the URL should be: http://www.mwaw.org/article.php?sid=1090 )

Regrettable Juvenilia

13:44 / 17.05.02

So are you two (or anyone else) going? I might be able to make it down to this...

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

00:10 / 18.05.02

I'll probably be up for it too, though I'll have to fuck off early evening as I have "best mate birthday commitments" to see to...
Plans?

07:14 / 18.05.02

Not me, but I might go to the Leeds march the following Saturday. Last time I went on a Palestine solidarity march people were chanting "Hitler, Sharon, are the same, only difference is the name" which I think is (a) fucking sick and (b) complete nonsense, so I'm always a bit ambivalent about pro-Palestine activities.

07:51 / 18.05.02

I honestly don't know about this one. I have a group of Jewish friends - all of whom I believe to be intelligent able and responsible people - who got together for the protest in Trafalgar Square a couple of weeks back. At the time I asked them how they felt comfortable doing this - my comment was simply that possibly the only thing that was clear was that noones hands were entirely free of blood. They said that the media coverage of the area in the west was completely skewed and that they had relatives and friends who were in Israel who were gentle decent people and that they were getting called up into the army. They felt some allegiance to them on those grounds as well...

So I suppose personally - not feeling that I know enough about the issues to make a stand that I could believe in 100% - and moreover not wishing things to develop into an 'us' vs 'judaism' split, I'm inclined to step back nervously and declare that I wouldn't wish to be associated with extreme opinions on either side that would inevitably be represented at such a gathering...

08:12 / 18.05.02

Yeah, it's an odd one. At the one big Trafalgar Square anti-war demo I went to (I think it was in November), there were a few pro-bin-Laden supporters - and I was actually okay with that, partly because of the sheer weight of numbers (hundreds of thousands of anti-bin-Laden peaceniks, tens of pro-BL-ites). It's different, though, when the whole march that you're on is shouting fucked up anti-Semitic shit...

As for media coverage being completely skewed, the thing that gets me is that both sides say this.

Our Lady of The Two Towers

09:52 / 18.05.02

Can't go because I'm at work right now, but having thought it over I think I probably wouldn't go. Beginning to think there are too many fuckheads on either side, not sure if I could support the state of Palestine any more than that of Israel.

shirtless, beepers and suntans

16:51 / 18.05.02

i'd be more sympathetic to the palestinians if the rest of the arab world cut out the whole "drive the jews into the sea" schtick.

hmmm..."schtick." is that yiddish?

ONLY NICE THINGS

15:20 / 20.05.02

That's hardly the Palestinians' fault, though...

I was a bit conflicted about this - in the end I did turn up for the rally, but only the very tail end, by which time it had largely dispersed.

I would however suggest that the desire for Palestinian statehood is not exactly an "extreme opinion", even if the feelings of those passionate enough about it to campaign in the streets may well be quite extreme in themselves...

15:39 / 20.05.02

I didn't go but I wish I had. This whole issue is so difficult at a personal level. It is very hard talking talk to people about it without stirring up so many emotions that serve to remove rationality from the discussion. This, plus the accusations from both sides about media distortion mean that I tend to shy away from full blown debates about the Middle East.

Tom's friends are representative of pro-Israeli Jews and their opinions, in my view, are justified to some extent. However, I believe that a "neutral" look at the facts would tend to support a pro Palestinian, anti suicide bomber stance.

Is it worth starting a headshop thread on this, if there haven't been lots already, to help inform people (including myself)? Or is that just asking for trouble?

Regrettable Juvenilia

17:32 / 20.05.02

I'm sure an informative thread about the Israel/Palestine situation can only be a good thing, but it probably belongs here in the Switchboard, unless you want to focus on less specific ideological/philosophical questions.

(For what it's worth, I didn't make it along in the end on Saturday, but this had very little to do with any reservations about the validity of the protest or the causes likely to be espoused...)

19:29 / 20.05.02

There was a lovely shot in the Guardian, featuring a Hasidic jew, a Catholic priest, a Muslim imam and (presumably) his kid holding a banner saying 'Palestine'. Beat the TV coverage hands down- I think all that made it to the telly was a 20 second shot of a bunch of Muslim women cheering the jihad. %Nice to see the art of impartial journalism isn't dead.%