Yesterday demonstrators gathered outside the Israeli embassy in London to protest against the violent attack on the Al Aqsa Mosque. Austin Harney spoke at the event on behalf of the PCS Union.

Solidarity to all Palestinian trade unions and workers! Not only am I on the National Executive Committee and joint PCS Liaison Officer with Mohammed Shafiq who sends his apologies and greetings of solidarity, but, also, represent a branch that has the largest Muslim membership in the Ministry of Justice! I represent many Muslim members at work, especially against discrimination; we have  ensured prayer room facilities on each floor and t organised Islamophobia Awareness Month in my workplace, last year!

Every trade union should organise Islamophobia Awareness Month but there is nothing more shocking in the 21st Century than when the Israeli forces arrested 450 Palestinians on Tuesday in the ancient mosque of Al Aqsa in East Jerusalem during Ramadan. The Israeli forces are still detaining 50 Palestinians while the rest were released, bruised and beaten. On Wednesday, the Israeli forces fired stun grenades and used rifle butts to beat the Palestinians while they were praying. It is these injustices that all trade unions must expose during Islamophobia Awareness Month!

Al Aqsa was a sacred place of worship for the Palestinians in East Jerusalem until it was captured and annexed by the Israeli government in 1967 during the Six Day War. There has been a small extremist movement calling for the mosque in Al Aqsa to be demolished and replaced by a Jewish Temple. But this movement has mushroomed and is now a powerful organisation supported by Binyamin Netanyahu’s government. Last year in April 2022, Al Aqsa was raided by 48,000 Israeli settlers. In April 2021, the Israeli forces attacked and injured hundreds of Palestinian worshippers including women, children and the elderly seven times in ten days. At the same time, 700 Israeli settlers roamed outside Al Aqsa but none were arrested.

It is clear that the Israeli government can get away with these atrocities and it is not enough that we vociferate these protests. Two powerful governments are equally to blame, which are in Britain and the United States! These two governments have, cowardly, surrendered to Islamophobia and apartheid committed within Israel! It is time that we hold all these governments to account.

We cannot forget the Sykes -Picot Agreement in 1916 by which the British and French governments partitioned the Middle East. Also, we cannot forget the Balfour Declaration of 1917 through which the colonisation programme of Palestine was started in 1926!

I only received the last-minute invitation to speak at this demonstration at 12.00 last night. But I was happy to give up part of my Good Friday as my family’s country, Ireland, is the first nation in the European Union to impose a boycott on Israeli Settler goods. The term “boycott” originally comes from Ireland when William Erskine Boycott was “shunned as a leper of old” for evicting many Irish people from their lands. Balfour was known in Ireland as “Bloody Balfour” for evicting many Irish tenants.

It is not enough that one country such as Ireland imposes Boycott Divestment Sanctions on the Israeli government. All governments must do the same, including Britain and the United States in order to force Israel to stop these atrocities committed on the Palestinian people! We must also pressurise all political parties in Westminster to hold this British government to account, including Her Majesty’s Opposition, and to speak out and criticise them heavily in Parliament!

We call on this Israeli government to stop all the bombings of Gaza that were committed last night, stop the colonisation of the West Bank, and allow the return of the Palestinian Diaspora to their homes in Palestine. We fight for the rights of all Palestinian trade unions and workers!

Imperialism can beat us into the ground but it will never break our spirits! If we lose today we will never give up! We will come back in the next generation and generation after until we have smashed imperialism and achieved natural justice! Solidarity to all the Palestinian people!

Austin Harney is a member of the National Executive Committee of PCS, writing in a personal capacity.

Image: c/o Mike Phipps