Thursday, September 02, 2010
   
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Marks and Spencer: ally of Israel

The history of Britain's biggest clothing retailer Marks and Spencer demonstrates how consumer habits in Britain are tied to the oppression of other peoples. Marks and Spencer has championed the state of Israel and thus connived in the dispossession and suppression of the Palestinians. Our comforts and pleasures, which Marks and Spencer so eagerly service, have been bought at an unacceptable price, as TREVOR RAYNE reveals.

Russian Tsar Alexander II was assassinated in 1881. Pogroms against the Russian Jews followed. Many Jewish people fled to the USA, some came to Britain and a trickle went to Palestine – a land they called Zion. Among those coming to Britain was Michael Marks, who was settled in Leeds by 1884.

Read more: Marks and Spencer: ally of Israel

 

‘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.


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

   

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