Palestine Campaign

Join the demonstration outside Marks & Spencer, every Thursday at Oxford Street, Marble Arch, London W1

The Al Aqsa Intifada began on 28 September 2000.  The Victory to the Intifada campaign has been demonstrating outside branches of Marks & Spencer in solidarity with the Palestinian resistance every week for the 10 years since then, raising awareness about the struggle on Britain’s busiest shopping streets. Come and join us to mark 10 years of opposition to Marks & Spencer’s corporate sponsorship of the occupation of Palestine.

Israel is a racist construct, whereby a land which is holy to Jews, Christians and Muslims, who lived together in harmony there for hundreds of years, is designated as the sole property of the Jewish people.  The Zionist project of creating this land would not have been possible without the help of British imperialism, which saw the opportunity to create ‘a little loyal Jewish Ulster’ to look after its interests in the Middle East. This same motivation keeps the most powerful governments in the world today backing Israel with huge amounts of trade and aid, especially military. It is this imperialist support that allows the majority of Israel’s (Jewish) population to live a privileged existence in comparison to the majority of people in the Middle East, and that permits Israel to commit war crimes with impunity.

The ‘peace process’ is a farce. Israel has given nothing while building new settlements and new settlement roads, and intensifying its occupation of the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Gaza. Israel has continued to demolish homes, uproot and burn olive and fruit trees and restrict Palestinians’ movement by humiliating checkpoints. Designated Palestinian areas get smaller and smaller with every new ‘Peace Plan’, with Palestinians forced into controlled enclaves like Bantustans.

The failure of the Oslo Peace Process of the 1990s led to the start of the Al Aqsa Intifada on 29 September 2000, following Ariel Sharon’s provocative visit the previous day to the Temple Mount, which contains Islam’s third holiest shrine, Al-Aqsa Mosque, accompanied by 1,000 riot police, when police used live ammunition and rubber-coated bullets against unarmed rock-throwing Palestinian demonstrators, killing six and injuring 220.

In the first few days of the Intifada the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) fired 700,000 bullets and other projectiles in the West Bank and about 300,000 in Gaza. As in the Intifada that started in 1987, Palestinians began by using non-violent methods.  Repeatedly, however, peaceful protest was met with live ammunition.

In the 10 years, 29 September 2000 to 31 July 2010:

• 6,545 Palestinians have been killed by the IDF in the Occupied Territories

• 1,315 children, 32 medical personnel, 11 journalists and 15 international supporters have been killed

• 30,545 Palestinians have been wounded by the IDF in the West Bank and Gaza

Israel continues to take land and homes from the Palestinians in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and within Israel’s 1948 borders. There are plans for more settlements in East Jerusalem and Palestinians are being forced out of the Negev and the Jordan Valley.

Israel demands that Palestinians recognise Israel’s right to exist, but refuses to recognise the Palestinian people’s right to exist. Israel maintains that Jewish people all over the world have a right to ‘return’ to Israel but refuses to consider the Palestinian refugee population’s right to return to the land that they were dispossessed of in the last 63 years.

The people of Gaza have suffered most acutely as the Israeli regime punishes the people for democratically electing the Hamas government.  Following the barbaric military onslaught in 2008-9, in which over 1,400 people were killed, including over 400 children. 5,500 were injured, tens of thousands left homeless, and illegal weapons, such as DIME and white phosphorus used on the civilian population, the Zionists continue to keep Gaza under permanent siege. The vicious attack on the international Freedom Flotilla to Gaza on 31 May 2010 saw Israel invade a ship in international waters and kill nine civilians.

The vicious racism of the state of Israel continues with the backing of the British establishment. That is why we must take action now here in Britain.

Marks & Spencer is a British company with outlets across the country.  We target its stores to highlight not just Israeli atrocities but the close support that the Zionists receive from Britain and British companies. M&S has a long history of supporting Zionism and remains one of the biggest British retail traders with the state of Israel. And reaching beyond strict trade relations, from the 1940s when M&S Chairman Israel Sieff advocated ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, to 2008, when Chief Executive Stuart Rose told Zionist charity World Ort ‘we share the same values’, M&S has maintained a politically supportive relationship with the Israeli regime.

Demonstrate every Thursday 6-8pm, outside Oxford Street M&S

For further details, contact:

Email: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

Tel: 020 7 837 1688

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‘Victory to the Intifada!’ is the campaign of the Revolutionary Communist Group in support of the Palestinian people’s right to self determination and against the continued occupation of their land. We support the right of return for all Palestinian refugees and call for the boycott and isolation of the racist Zionist Israeli state. Recognising British imperialism’s historical role in the creation of the Zionist state and its continuing support for Israel we campaign to build a mass movement on the streets of Britain opposing all support for Israel and calling for a boycott of all Israeli goods.

• Isolate the racist Zionist state of Israel!
• Oppose all British support for Israel – boycott Israeli goods!
• Support the Palestinian people’s right to self determination!

‘Victory to the Intifada!’ has played the central role in organising the nationwide campaign to boycott Marks & Spencer.

Marks & Spencer supports Israel financially and politically, today lobbying on its behalf via the British-Israel Chamber of Commerce. The early owners of Marks & Spencer were close political allies of the leader of Zionism, Chaim Weizmann, who became the first President of Israel in 1948. Together they helped draw up the 1917 Balfour Declaration which signaled British support for a Zionist state in Palestine. In 2004 Stuart Rose became the new Chief Executive of Marks & Spencer. In December of that year he was guest of honour alongside the Israeli ambassador to Britain and the British ambassador to Israel at the annual dinner of the British-Israel Chamber of Commerce. Marks & Spencer trade with Israel now amounts to approximately £240 million every year.

The campaign to boycott Marks & Spencer as a symbol of British corporate support for Zionism gives the broader struggle to isolate the Israeli state a much needed focus for action.

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the VTI banner and a sea of Palestinian flags, as featured in TIME Magazine...