Socialist Viewpoint

The march and rally for the Palestinian people on Saturday in London was quite incredible—simply the largest ever pro-Palestinian/anti-Israeli demo in Britain. Numbers have been estimated at between 80,000 and 100,000 and seemed at least as large as the largest of the anti-war demos over the last seven months. The end of the march only reached Trafalgar Square at a quarter to five—the front of the march having left Hyde Park at 2pm. Amazingly, or not so amazingly, the demo has been entirely ignored by the national press despite TV coverage on Saturday and the fact that the whole of London around Trafalgar Square was closed to traffic by the police.

The march was called by the Muslim Association of Britain with the support of other Muslim and non-Muslim organizations including the Stop the War Coalition. There were thousands of young Asian and Arabic men and women on the march but there were also many white demonstrators. There was a fantastic presence of various socialist groups. Leading speakers on the platform in Trafalgar Square included left Labor MPs George Galloway and Jeremy Corbyn, Tony Benn and Lindsey German speaking on behalf of the Stop the War Coalition.

Another demo has been called by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign in May.