March for Palestine in Portsmouth on Sunday 21st January 2024

The News, Portsmouth

Transcript

00:00 [MUSIC PLAYING]

00:14 Well, we're here to try to show our solidarity in a small way

00:18 with the people in Palestine, and particularly in Gaza

00:21 at the moment.

00:27 I guess there's a huge lack of action from our government

00:31 and from the international community.

00:33 And I think one of the small things we can do

00:37 is to keep showing up every week, every other week,

00:40 to try to let people in Portsmouth

00:44 know about what's going on.

00:46 And to hopefully, the pictures of what

00:50 goes on around the world gets back to people in Palestine.

00:52 And it gives them some hope, at least, that--

00:55 They know they're not alone.

00:56 That they're not alone, yeah.

00:58 I'd start with I'm not here to show solidarity in the sense

01:02 because I'm of Palestinian origin myself.

01:05 And I've lived through a few of Israel's wars

01:08 when living in Lebanon.

01:10 Part of you is the way you understand

01:11 the world at that moment.

01:13 You realize that there is somebody in an airplane who

01:17 is willing to bomb a shell on a place that has kids.

01:20 Puts you politically in a certain place

01:22 where you do not accept the concept,

01:25 regardless of whether you're Palestinian, Israeli,

01:27 or whatever, that you don't accept

01:29 the principle of this kind of decision

01:35 to bomb a place where there are kids, where you know you would

01:39 be harming kids, and you don't care about it.

01:41 Palestine is free!

01:42 Palestine!

01:43 How can we not try to escape?

01:46 Palestine will be free!

01:48 Yes, I'm George.

01:49 I'm 30.

01:51 I'm actually from Chichester, not from Portsmouth.

01:53 But I've joined this march today to call

01:55 for an immediate ceasefire.

01:57 What we're seeing in Palestine is absolutely horrific,

02:01 and it has to stop immediately.

02:02 So what we're saying is we can't wait for the Americans.

02:05 We can't wait for the Labour Party.

02:06 We can't wait for the Tories.

02:07 We have to call for a ceasefire immediately.

02:09 And every other week, people are marching in London

02:12 in their hundreds of thousands.

02:13 But it's really important in between those two weeks

02:16 that people come out in their numbers in their local areas.

02:19 So yesterday, we saw 10,000 people in Birmingham,

02:22 3,000 people in Bristol, and we've got a couple of hundred

02:25 here today.

02:26 So it's really important that we show up in our local areas

02:28 to put pressure on our MPs, put pressure on the institutions

02:32 that we stopped outside today.

02:33 So we stopped outside Barclays Bank,

02:35 who are directly funding the IDF and arming them,

02:38 and outside Starbucks, just outside the Guildhall here,

02:41 who are also funding the IDF.

02:43 And we'd encourage anyone to get involved with our marches

02:46 and look us up on social media, Portsmouth PSC,

02:50 or go to Palestine Solidarity Campaign website.

02:52 What would I say to people on the fence?

02:54 What are you doing on the fence?

02:55 This is very clearly a genocide.

02:56 We don't need to wait for the International Court of Justice

03:01 to call this a genocide.

03:02 It's very clear.

03:03 Multiple charities have come out and said,

03:05 this is very clearly a genocide.

03:06 The UN has said that this is an apartheid regime in Israel.

03:10 They are occupying Gaza.

03:12 There are illegal settlements in the West Bank.

03:15 This is very clear what is going on.

03:17 We need to stop waiting for our institutions, our media,

03:19 and our politicians to point out what everyone knows

03:22 and what the people in Palestine know.

03:24 And if you're on the fence, what I say is,

03:25 get off the fence and get on the side of Palestine.

03:27 [MUSIC PLAYING]

03:31 [Music]

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