Allies and activism: Palestine solidarity in Nottingham

What is your role in Nottingham’s Palestine Solidarity Campaign and how did you personally get involved?

I became involved in Palestine Solidarity through my trade union work. About fifteen years ago we had a speaker at our conference from an organisation called Defence for Children International Palestine. 

They spoke to us about what happened to Palestinian children on a routine basis when they were arrested. The reason was often for throwing stones and at that point, and still now, the maximum imprisonment sentence could be up to twenty years. Their parents wouldn't be told where they were being taken, they would be blindfolded, their hands would be tied, and then they would be taken to detention centres and interrogated. They wouldn't have access to any legal support, and because they were often taken to detention centres that were in places where their parents would need permits to visit, so they couldn't even have access to their parents. Often the first time their parents saw them was when they were eventually taken to the court. 

In terms of that conference, it was absolutely silent. You could have heard a pin drop. I think because we were all educators and work with children it was just horrific listening to it. I couldn’t comprehend that this is happening to children somewhere and thought although I’d been doing bits, I thought I'm not doing enough.

Somebody asked me to become the Trade Union Officer for PSC and I said yes. Then I became the Chair a couple of years ago and have been the National Chair for a couple of years now. 

You have visited Palestine yourself, can you talk a little about your experiences over there?

I’ve visited the occupied West Bank many times, but I’ve never been to Gaza - it’s always been very hard to get a visa to go into Gaza. I think the key thing which I don't think people realise is the massive limitations on every aspect of their life. So for example, students or people just going to work - some will be getting to checkpoints at three or four in the morning, just to queue. There’s also fly checkpoints which are set up randomly with no explanation. They often have their bags searched, and sometimes they will just refuse people to go through. This happened to us when we visited once. 

That also impacts things like Palestinians getting into their land. Obviously agriculture is a very big aspect of their lives, particularly olive growing, and they will be blocked from going to pick their olives or attacked by settlers if they manage to get through to pick them.

There is also a massive military presence everywhere which I don't think people really realise, but certain areas of Hebron are particularly bad. There's a lot of heavily armed soldiers all over who will stop people randomly. I've seen young people searched in front of me, told to lift their shirts or take their trousers down when they're trying to just move about in their villages. 

But also the other thing I have witnessed a lot more is the expansion of the illegal settlements. I didn't go out there during Covid but when I went back after, it was just shocking to see the amount of land that had been taken. It can be done for any reason and it's not legal under international law. Metal storage containers will suddenly appear. Most settlements are on the top of a hill because they're quite protected and very intimidating for the Palestinian population there. So, you will notice containers and suddenly people will appear, and then there will be power lines put through to that area, and then gradually over time, things start to get built and you will end up with towns and cities that take over a huge amount of the Palestinian land, including huge amounts of fenced off land around them too. So it is very stark, the amount of land grab that is happening.

There are also a huge number of refugee camps across the occupied West Bank also. Those are people who were displaced in 1948. They were given tents and a plot of land that they were put on as a sort of refugee camp. That ground space has not grown, so they've had to remain in the same space, but obviously, there are many more Palestinians now in those refugee camps, because families have grown. They're very difficult places to live in; there are real health problems, they're very cramped, the buildings are very close together and the only way they can expand is to go up. So in the streets, it's very dark and airless. There are a lot of problems in the refugee camps - the army will go in and spray skunk water [a putrid smelling liquid created by the IDF to disperse crowds] all over the houses or into windows, or fire tear gas regularly. Aida Camp, which is in Bethlehem, is the most tear gassed place in the world, and it has a very large child population.

The pro-Palestine movement is often criticised in the media as antisemitic, what are your thoughts on this?

To try and say as a movement that we are antisemitic for challenging what Israel is doing, I just think is nonsense. Israel is a state that is ignoring international law and committing atrocities, and there's lots of evidence to back that up. We have every right to call that out and I think it's important that we separate the two.

The national demonstrations are huge - hundreds of thousands of people every time - and there is a large Jewish block every single time who always talk about how they feel completely safe on the march. But I’m not saying antisemitism doesn’t exist - all forms of racism exist - our job is to call that out. So if I saw something on a march or one of our protests that was antisemitic, I would challenge someone and say that's not acceptable.

Why should this issue matter to people in Nottingham?

In polling it's very clear now that the population in Nottingham, and across the UK, does not agree with what is happening to the Palestinians. We've always had a core set of activists in Nottingham, but I think now we're in a very different position. Now it's so visual in terms of the things that come on our screens, there’s more ways to find things out and more educational material on social media. We do get very good turnouts at our demonstrations. I think people are more engaged because they want our government to do something.

What are some of the aims of the Nottingham Palestine Solidarity Campaign marches?

I think there are a number of purposes of marches. For one, I think it shows the strength of feeling of people's views about what is happening, and the fact that we are not going to go away. I think it is hard to watch what is happening and to keep going. So it does bring people together knowing that they are part of a bigger movement. They also are an opportunity to educate our community. When we get to the end of the march there are speeches, but there will also be people that are leafleting, talking to people, and so on.

The marches are also very important for our friends in Palestine, because they do see them. I am in awe of their complete resilience in spite of everything that is happening. For them, they can see that thousands of people are still supporting on a weekly basis, because if there's not a national demonstration there will be a demonstration somewhere.

Can you talk a bit about the BDS movement?

So the boycott, divest and sanction campaign is something that our partners in Palestine are telling us is really important at the moment. Marching is good, but they're very clear that we have to do more. Time is of an essence, really. Boycott, divestment and sanction is a very good way of doing that.

Within Nottingham at the moment we have a petition for the Council. There are a number of councils that have agreed to divest their local government pension scheme. The way that that has been done in other places is to build up enough signatures on a petition to force the council to debate it. So we have an online petition, and we have regular stalls asking people to sign it. It's a very quick thing to do, and it will force the council to debate it and have discussions about what more they can do.

Within the boycott campaign, there is targeting local supermarkets. Part of our aim is to educate people about what boycott means. So we are very focused on stores that are stocking certain products - Sabra hummus is a good example. Sainsbury’s stock it, and Co-op did, but at their AGM there was a motion to stop stocking such products. A strand of that work is to put pressure on Co-op to enact that. Coca-cola is another example. There’s a full list of them which are all on the leaflet, and there are sample letters that people can take in.

Again people are like, well, what difference is that going to make? But if all of us do, you know, if we have a mass movement across the city, they'll stop stocking it because if it stays on the shelves and goes out of date, they're not making any money on it. 

The other side to it, that we've done in the city, is to have some posters for stores that don't stock these products. Mainly local businesses - they can put up a leaflet saying this is an apartheid-free zone and everything here is fine to buy. So again, encouraging people to use places that aren’t complicit. 

And the sanctions campaign is around our government putting sanctions on Israel. We need to continue to do that through lobbying our politicians here. Everybody has the right to go and meet with their MP and talk to them. We've got three MPs here in the city - you can go online and look at their voting record and if you're not happy with what they're doing, you can ask to meet them and ask them to explain why they're allowing this to continue. You can go with other people - you don't have to go on your own and talk to them about what your concerns are. 

Palestine Action has just been proscribed as a terrorist organisation due to their direct action methods of protest. What approach to activism does Palestine Solidarity Campaign take?

There are different forms of action that people can take. If there's a mass movement that is doing small actions, you will create bigger results. We should give people options of things they can do, and people will take up the things that they feel comfortable doing. I've spoken to people who do not like going on marches, but they'll sign a petition, or they'll contact their MP, or they'll write to their local supermarket and say stop stocking these items.

I think people have to remember there's nothing wrong with speaking out against genocide and international law being broken. Our focus has to continue to remain on the Palestinian people and to do everything that we feel able to do within our powers to pressure our government and raise awareness.

The other thing that I think is very important to say is that we shouldn't allow ourselves to be distracted from what the core focus of our work should be, because I think the government would love for us all to be fighting with each other and falling out, rather than focusing on the genocide that's happening in Gaza - and not just in Gaza, the upping of attacks across the occupied West Bank, because the situation there is absolutely horrific at the moment.

If you look at what happened in South Africa with anti-apartheid campaign, there is a critical mass that will eventually pressure the government to have to do something. I just think we have to keep going. We have to keep speaking out and we have to not allow ourselves to be silenced.

linktr.ee/palestinecampaign