A speech today at a pro-Palestinian rally in Highbury, north London, by Ceren Sagir of Day-Mer Turkish and Kurdish Solidarity Community Centre

 As the Turkish and Kurdish community in the UK, we  stand in solidarity with the people of Palestine and call for an immediate ceasefire and an end to the siege of Gaza. We condemn the killing of Israeli civilians and the response of the Israeli government to collectively punish the Palestinian people.

Following  the action on the 7th October, Benjamin Netanyahu declared that Israel was now at war with Palestinians, but the reality is that Israel has been waging a decades-long war, enacted to enforce a system of occupation, apartheid and colonisation.

This week, we also saw various warnings about an escalation of war in the Middle East and violence spreading to other countries. We are very much concerned about this prospect, because the events we are seeing unfold in Gaza are an example of how Western countries perpetuate exploitation, violence and oppression – usually in the Middle East – for their own agendas. These states, while appearing democratic and civilised and defenders of international  laws, support Israel’s continuous violence and mass killings in pursuit of control – there is no doubt about it, no matter how they try to frame it.

But it’s not just the common culprits that are exploiting the crisis. I would like to mention that my own homeland Turkey and its government is appearing pro-Palestine but continues with its arms deals and trade agreements with Israel. Under President Erdogan, trade between the two nations increased six-fold from when he came into power in 2002 to 2014 – and most recently, they signed a £10 billion trade deal of arms and raw materials.

This is because they are not that different. Turkey, much like Israel using Hamas as a pretext, has been bombarding the Kurdish regions in northern Syria and Iraqi territories. Its sporadic airstrikes against Kurdish regions launched just two days before the Hamas  action, continue.

Decades of Israeli occupation and oppression, ongoing conflicts in Syria, the rekindled Armenia-Azerbaijan issue, and Turkey’s occupation of Kurds in Iraq and Syria have turned the Middle East into a ‘powder keg’ ready to explode.

And these are all encouraged by Britain and the United States through their diplomatic relations, but also the arms trade that is generating billions in revenue for them.

So yes, we must demand a ceasefire, we must demand peace, we must demand that Israel is held accountable for the devastation – but we have to remember that our fight cannot end there and we must demand an end to the dodgy arms deals that Britain makes with regimes like Israel and Turkey to ensure that devastation like this never happens again.                                

It’s also important that we are not afraid to speak out against attempts to demonise Palestinians and criminalise demands for human rights – which we see time and time again happen against them and other peoples in the Middle East. And time and time again we are right to call out these governments’ complicity in deaths.

Here in Britain, we are facing a hugely undemocratic attack and attempts are being made to criminalise being pro-Palestinian. But once again we are on the right side of history.

In 2001 – we were on the right side of history when we demanded no war in Iraq. The Iraq invasion was based on the false claim of “weapons of mass destruction,” and Israel is justifying the killings of thousands of civilians by using Hamas.

No matter how the Home Secretary chooses to define these protests, we will continue to say loud and clear: Free Palestine, End the occupation of Gaza.  No war on Gaza, no war in the Middle East, no war on democratic rights to protest.

Image: Islington North Jeremy Corbyn MP speaking at the same rally. c/o Mike Phipps