Campaigners marched in York today, (Saturday, 23 May), showing their solidarity with the Palestinian people.
They heard a variety of speakers, including Rachel Maskell MP and Hugh Lanning (Palestine Solidarity Campaign).
One protestor, Zakariya, who attended said: “The good people of York will not be silenced. We will take to the streets with our rallying cry.
‘Stop the slaughter! Prosecute war criminals! End the complicity!’
“We are showing solidarity with the Palestinian people against Israel’s project to erase Palestinians, their history, culture and liberation struggle.”
Read more about the reaction to police filming protestors in this YorkMix story here
The York Central Labour MP, Rachael Maskell, called for unity: “I would say to everyone, whether Jewish or Palestinian, wherever you come from, we can take down our flags one day, we’ll lay down those banners and be as one.
“There is a new hope in our hearts, and we must lead it from our city and across our country, a message of unity not division.
“But as we know across the West Bank right now 34 new settlements have been announced to be destroyed and also we think of the people in the Khan Au Ahmad (a Palestinian Bedouin village of approximately 200 residents) right now who are being displaced and removed from their homes, from their community, as the evil settlement advances.
“We must speak out and continue to say that we will not accept this. We must instead speak of peace, speak of unity, and speak of the new hope we want to see across that land of Israel and Palestine two nations as one one set of rules, one set of rights, one set of opportunity for everyone because when
“I visited the region I saw the division where Palestinian children couldn’t play with the Israeli children, and if you build a society of division, it will reap poor reward.
“But if we build a society of unity, where we can all be in one space, where we do not point the finger at one another, but hold out the hand, is a society we must build, and therefore it’s right that we don’t trade in arms. It is right that we don’t trade in goods, and it is right that instead we trade in the language of peace and unity, because that is our future as a city we do that so well”
