Somebody got a video of my speech to yesterday’s amazing demonstration in London against the occupation of Gaza. Two minutes limit and a huge crowd is a difficult brief. http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=04d_1231674275
I had marched in the body of the massive demo, which had been fine but for the extraordinary decision by the police to close the pavements and narrow the route to a bottleneck at exactly the point where it passed the Israeli Embassy. In consequence three score hotheads who wanted to kick off there could block the whole thing. The police reacted to that by penning in many thousands into just this narrow point, and donning riot gear.
A more sensible police would have had the flow at its widest as it went past the Israeli Embassy and hurried people through at speed. Anyway, the crush that resulted from the constriction was really pretty scary, especially for the hundreds of children. I had Nadira with me who is five months pregnant. So I arrived to the stage rather rattled and with nothing prepared to say. But it went fine, and “Zionism is Bullshit” came out quite spontaneously, but felt for me personally like an “Emperor’s New Clothes” moment of political truth.
There go all my American sales.
Lenin has the best photos (that sounds unnervingly like “Satan has all the best tunes”.)
http://leninology.blogspot.com/
The Heathlander the best report
http://heathlander.wordpress.com/2009/01/10/huge-demonstration-in-london/
Press coverage focussed entirely on the 0.01% of troublemakers. The 4,000 Zionists who rallied in Trafalgar Square today got much more sympathetic coverage.
Surely that 200 in Trafalger sq. Thats police numbers……..As they clearly cant count…………….
I see Craig made his Celtic holy land argument again.
There is an argument that modern Jews aren't descended from ancient Israelis:
http://www.jkcook.net/Articles2/0339.htm
(Shlomo Sanda was quoted in French on another thread).
So, if bunch of people converted to the ancient Canaanite religion and attempted to re-establish ancient Canaan, this would be as legitimate as Zionism.
Nice to see Tony Blair getting a US medal for his services to peace in the Middle East (or whatever services). I wonder how that's going.
http://neoclassics.blogspot.com/
I consider the Israeli actions in Gaza both leading up to these attacks and the attacks themselves as war crimes.
Craig,
Well done! It's clear, simple and painfully obvious, Zionism is bullshit, dangerous bullshit, especially if one is credulous enough to believe in an quasi-religious, ideological, myth, with such explosive and destructive consequences.
Arguably, states which are part of modernity, are not mono-ethnic, if they ever really were. The very idea of creating a state specifically envisaged as a Jewish state, controlled for the primary benefit of Jews, seems somewhat old-fashioned in the modern world, where most states seem to resemble patchworks.
What's also confusing is that the United States considers itself a melting pot, yet it's political elite supports Israel as a 'Jewish' state, not much melting going on there!
I've never been an admirer of vulgar nationalism. It scares me white. Nationalism and its myths, when in overdrive seem to always lead people towards the butcher's shop and the graveyard.
See also:
http://disruptive.org.uk/2009/01/11/gaza_7.html
I think the title of this post pretty much sums up my opinion of the situation.