Panellists of the Assembly (from left to right): Sophia Beach, Dr Omar Abdel-Massan, Fatima, the chairwoman, Andrew Murray and Jeremy Corbyn. [Photographed by: Masato Shibayama]
On the evening of Wednesday, 31 January 2024, a historic meeting took place.
In contrast to the quiet, relaxed environment which pervaded the streets, cafés and bakeries outside the Archway Tube Station, Archway Methodist Church was full of activity and excitement as socialists and other left-leaning activists across Britain and abroad came together to fuel the flames of rebellion to support the Palestinian Independence Movement here in London, England — a movement that has already spread from Chile and the United States in the west and all the way to Malaysia and Australia in the east since October 2023.
The meeting started 10 minutes late, at 6.40pm, with an welcoming speech by the meeting’s host and chairwoman, a British school teacher who has organised walk-outs and vigils across schools in London to commemorate and stand in solidarity with the civilians who have been killed and maltreated by the State of Israel and the Israeli Defence Force in the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, and all Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories.
Being the chairwoman, the school teacher spoke briefly before handing the panel to the first speaker of the meeting: Dr Omar Abdel-Mannan, the founder of Gaza Medic Voices and a paediatric neurologist who has worked in hospitals in the Gaza Strip since 2011. He also spoke of his work experience in the region to multiple news outlets in 2023, including to Sky News and CNN.
Dr Abdel-Mannan saddened, horrified and outraged both the panellists and the audience with his aforementioned work experience even at the start of his speech, by exposing how 410 of his colleagues in Gaza has been systematically targeted by the Israeli government and armed forces. Specifically, trained medical professionals in Gaza have been the victims of airstrike campaigns and sniper attacks carried out by the IDF, whilst others were allegedly abducted and tortured by members of the same armed group.
Woefully, the incessant and brutal attacks against Palestinian medical staff and facilities in the region have led many doctors to conduct improper medical procedures because of a lack of sufficient medical equipment and the insecurities regarding safety in their workspaces. Dr Abdel-Mannan gave a truly morbid example of this fact when he recalled to the audience about how some Palestinian children had to be amputated using kitchen knives without anaesthesia by under equipped doctors in Gaza as a consequence of adapting to the on-going Israeli missile strikes.
To picture the severity of the situation in Gaza, Dr Abdel-Mannan informed the audience that the attacks on hospitals as shown in news channels, like Al-Jazeera, only account for 10 per cent of what actually happens on Gazan soil. As such, Dr Abdel-Mannan ended his speech with an announcement about a march that will take place on 7 February 2024 from St Thomas’ Hospital to 10 Downing Street. He also made a call to action to the audience to show their solidarity to all the healthcare professionals who have been killed or otherwise disadvantaged by the Israeli forces and state in that march, and to build a “new world order” by deposing all governments who are in support of colonialism and imperialism, starting with the British government.
After the end of Dr Abdel-Mannan’s 10-minute speech, a rallying cry of “From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be free!” by all attendees filled the worship hall where the assembly took place before handing the panel over to the next speaker, the former leader of the Opposition and the former leader of the Labour Party (2015-2020): Jeremy Corbyn.
After expressing his deep gratitude to all members of the audience for attending the historic assembly, Mr Corbyn, like Dr Abdel-Manna before him, made a stern call for action and “more” protests in support of Palestine. In light of this conflict, Mr Corbyn announced that more than 30,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since 7 October 2023. But more tragically, Mr Corbyn conveyed to the audience that it would take “27 years of daily funerals” to fully understand the actual numbers of civilian lives being lost in Gaza throughout the currently 76-year-old armed conflict.
Furthermore, Mr Corbyn continued by condemning the “colonial agenda” of the State of Israel which has caused the people of Gaza to suffer since 1948, but extended his condemnation to Israel’s political allies throughout the Western Hemisphere. To start, Mr Corbyn criticised the British government for stating that “international law” was “upheld” when referring to Israel and their conduct during the decades-long conflict, and for referring to the need to establish a peaceful, humanitarian solution to the conflict as a “case without merit.”
Similarly, Mr Corbyn made a wider critique of all of Israel’s allies, including the governments of Finland, Germany, the United Kingdom and the United States, for cutting their funds to support Palestinian refugees in diaspora communities in some countries, like Jordan, and for ignoring the voices of Palestinian people throughout the world by deciding the future of Palestine for themselves, thus maintaining the aforementioned colonial agenda. On a more positive note, Mr Corbyn did praise South Africa for taking Israel to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) last month and placing them on trial for their human rights violations against the Palestinian people; a court hearing which Mr Corbyn himself claimed to have attended. But to reiterate Mr Corbyn: “we need more.” Hence, Mr Corbyn implored the audience to attend the protests that will take place throughout London on 7 February 2024, and ended his speech with the title of this article: “Ceasefire now!”
The next panellist to speak was Andrew Murray, the chair of the Stop the War coalition, who began his speech by emphasising to the audience that “we owe debt to South Africa” for taking Israel to the ICJ. According to Murray, this court hearing was especially significant as Israel’s killing of innocent children, intentional blockades on food aid for the Palestinians, and its airstrike campaigns against Palestinian civilian territories were referred to as a “genocide”.
Mr Murray then continued by stating that the governments of the United Kingdom and the United States should have been included as defendants in the ICJ court hearing together with Israel as both governments have assisted the Israeli government militarily, economically and diplomatically for many years. In speaking of the British government, Mr Murray criticised the Labour Party for their apathy against the Palestinian people and for unfairly treating ministers of Parliament who openly criticise Israel. Specifically, Mr Murray referred to how the Labour Party agreed to allow a two-state solution to take place “only if Israel is happy with it.”
Furthermore, he also mentioned the case of Kate Osamor, a former Labour minister of Parliament who was suspended last month by the Labour Party for referring to Israel’s actions in Gaza as a “genocide” in a social media post. Finally, Mr Murray highlighted the unreliability of Sir Keir Starmer, the current leader of the Labour Party, as he “bows down to Washington and the Tories” and refuses to listen to the British people, many of whom are in support of Palestine due to the increase in pro-Palestine protests throughout Britain. This condemnation was also spread to other pro-Israel Labour ministers in London representing areas like Wood Green, Tottenham, Holborn and St Pancras. Due to the unjust nature of British and international political affairs concerning the war between Israel and Palestine, Mr Murray persuaded the audience to bring the fight for Palestine to the electoral meetings of Parliament by protesting against the British government. However, Mr Murray warned the passionate audience that the London Metropolitan Police had recently criminalised any protests outside of Downing Street. To combat this issue, Mr Murray finally urged the audience that at least 100,000 people should protest outside of 10 Downing Street to overpower law enforcement and to be successful in their fight against Israel and the British government that supports them.
As soon as Mr Murray returned to his seat, the chairwoman of the assembly beseeched the audience to chant another slogan of the pro-Palestinian movement reflecting Mr Murray’s final message: “In our thousands, in our millions we are all Palestinians!”
By that point, both Mr Corbyn and Mr Murray had praised South Africa, a country that has been affected by the racist apartheid system for more than 40 years, for its role in publicly condemning the State of Israel for their apartheid regime. Hence, the next speaker after Mr Murray was Ronnie Kasrils, a former guerrilla fighter in the African National Congress (ANC) and a former minister to Nelson Mandela’s government. Unlike all the other panellists, Mr Kasrils joined the assembly online via Zoom. Nevertheless, this difference did not stop Mr Kasrils from moving the audience with his speech where he outlined the reasons why the State of Israel is “untouchable” from facing the consequences of their war crimes.
To answer this mystery, Mr Kasrils took us all back in time to the late 19th century where, according to him, the founder of the Zionist Movement, Theodor Herzl, persuaded powerful politicians in the British and French empires to build a Jewish state in Ottoman-ruled Palestine in order to fight Adriatic imperialism. According to Mr Kasrils, European politicians, like Sir Winston Churchill, were in favour of Herzel’s Zionist ideology and enabled the State of Israel to be formed in 1948 with the help of the British Empire. This, according to Mr Kasrils, is the reason why both the Conservative Party and the Labour Party in the United Kingdom support the State of Israel by building strong diplomatic ties and attacking ministers of Parliament, like Kate Osamor, who oppose Israel.
Moreover, Mr Kasrils also extended this modern criticism to the current government of the United States under President Biden, who Mr Kasrils jokingly referred to as “Genocide Joe”, for turning a blind eye to reports of IDF-led massacres, like recent news of IDF soldiers indiscriminately killing blindfolded and handcuffed Palestinian civilians in a school. Returning to the present day, Mr Kasrils expresses his happiness at witnessing an increase in the number of people in London supporting the Palestinian cause; remarking that such actions and attitudes were not as openly accepted in British society during his exile in North London in the 1960s and the 1970s. As such, Mr Kasrils concluded his speech by urging the young people in the worship hall to question everything the media tells them about this conflict as they are being controlled by “imperialists” and “fascists” who defend Israel’s national interests over humanity.
A loud round of applause followed as soon as Mr Kasrils finished his final message; making way for the fifth speaker of the assembly, Fatima, to take over the panel. Being a licenced doctor in the NHS, Fatima detailed the horrific latest news of how 36 hospitals in Gaza “were not spared” by Israel, and criticised the West’s ignorance that enables the Netenyahu administration and the IDF to continue targeting hospitals in Palestinian territories and, consequently, threaten the lives of the groups she sympathises with the most: Palestinian women and children.
Just like Dr Abdel-Mannan before her, Fatima lives a second life as an activist who fights against white supremacy and colonialism in her political activities outside her work. Unfortunately, Fatima stated that her activism has resulted in her to experience a wide range of attacks from the far-right multiple times, including doxing, hate mail and threats of smear campaigns against her. Fatima was not safe even in her professional life as, according to her, the heads of the Midwifery Department in the NHS have accused her of being an antisemitic terrorist who supports violence due to her support for Palestinian independence. Despite the constant attacks from her superiors and from anonymous people online, Fatima claims to not be afraid near the end of her impassioned speech as, besides being a doctor and a political activist, Fatima is also a mother and used this role to sympathise with the mothers and children under siege in Gaza to this day, and to motivate her to stay resilient in her activism and continue fighting for the rights of Palestinians worldwide.
At 7.55pm, the assembly welcomed their last speaker onto the panel: anti-Zionist Jewish activist and leader of the Socialist Workers’ Student Society (SWSS), Sophia Beach. Being a person of Jewish origin, Miss Beach retold the story of her grandfather, a socialist and Holocaust survivor, and his interpretation of the slogan for Holocaust Memorial Day: “Never Again”. To Miss Beach’s grandfather, this message did not apply to Jews, Romas, Slavs and all other victims of the Nazi s’ concentration camps only, but to every community and people affected by genocide.
Much like everyone else in the assembly, both Miss Beach and her grandfather believed that all 7 million Palestinians living abroad as refugees or members of the international Palestinian diaspora community have the right to return to their homeland, and that Palestine has the right to resist Israel by any means necessary. Hence, Miss Beach urged every member of the audience to go to the streets and protest against the British government for their continued support of the State of Israel. In light of this message, Miss Beach continued by condemning the British government and the London Metropolitan Police for discriminately violating pro-Palestinain activists’ right to protest publicly on the streets whilst – in her own words – allowing far-right activists such as Tommy Robinson, the former leader of the English Defence League, to openly protest in support of Israel without experiencing restrictions or punishments. To close this event, Miss Beach ended her speech by informing the audience that 83 journalists were killed by the IDF recently, and persuaded everyone to join the protest outside the BBC Headquarters in Portland Place on Wednesday, 7 February 2024.