More Power to the Global South!

Here are some highlights from yesterdays rally for Palestine outside Sheffield Station.

Annie spoke about recent international developments. She said “I want to build on what Musheir said about the disgraceful attitude of the British government and the Americans to Israel standing firm in front of this shocking genocide. I’ve got good news and I’ve got bad news. I’m going to give you the good news first. Not every state on this planet is like our state. In the global south, the Hague group has been formed.

It has eight founding states, all of them from the southern hemisphere. It’s just held a really important summit conference to talk about what states should be doing and what states could be doing to stop this genocide. They were addressed by Francesca Albanese who was very clear about supporting their initiative.So, eight founding groups, 30 states attended, all of them from the global south except three. Spain, Portugal, and Ireland. Credit to them for going. At the end of the conference, 12 states out of the 30 resolved to take immediate action. Six principled points. No more arms to Israel. Stopping companies from being complicit with Israel. Removing their flag from any ship that’s colluding with Israel. And I’ve forgotten the fifth, but recognising and upholding universal declaration about Universal arrest. So if any Israeli wanted official goes to any of these states, they will get arrested. I hope that Ireland joins the group. It hasn’t done yet.

So that is the very good news and we praise the global south always in solidarity, always leading the way. The bad news, at the same time as the Hague group was meeting, the European Union met and the European Union decided to continue to support the EU trade deal with Israel. It gives preferential trade agreements to Israel. The whole of the EU voted for this. Callamand of Amnesty International said that that day, when that decision was made, will go down in history as one of the darkest and most shameful days in the history of the entire EU. So let’s condemn the EU and let’s condemn our own government for its total support for genocide. And let’s say more power to the global south.

We heard about the Boycat App which can be used to scan products in shops to see if they should be boycotted.

And we heard the story of the family whose home was bombed by the IDF, killing 13 members. When rescuers attempted to help survivors they were attacked by Israeli drones.

We heard how the company Forged Solutions were shut down by protesters again last Tuesday.

We heard how there is another opportunity to see the documentary Gaza, Doctors under Attack, this Sunday at 6:00 p.m. this Sunday (20th July). Please come. Please bring your friends. It’s a haunting, eye-opening documentary, but it will reveal Israel’s crimes as plain as day. If you can’t make it, it is still available on the Channel 4 website here.

I was shocked to hear the revelations about Palentir. “It’s an AI spyware company, a software company that’s involved in the genocide in Gaza. It identifies targets, including children that should be murdered and their leader is famously in support of Israel’s war crimes in Gaza. And our government signed a 300 million pound contract with Palentir to manage our patient data. It should terrify us , that our personal data could be in the hands of an AI software company like Palentir. But luckily what we have seen is that many trusts, because of public pressure and because of staff pressure, are reversing their contract with Palentir so that they no longer are involved in managing patient data.”

We also heard about the complicity of the University of Sheffield in the genocide. Spirit said “So, I want to talk about a University of Sheffield subsidiary company called Blastech Limited. Blastech Limited. It’s not a very subtle name. They do ballistics testing at the University of Sheffield. They basically say it’s testing armour plating to make sure it’s strong enough. But we all know all this research is dual use. And all the research that goes into making armour plating also goes into making the missiles and making missiles that fly to destroy plates. And so I’d encourage people as well when we think about the F-35 and the supply chain to also be thinking about the design of these weapons because a lot of it is happening here in Sheffield within the University of Sheffield within the Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre.

Something to look forward to is the Big Ride for Palestine on August 9th.

Unfortunately, there was some disruption to the rally by two aggressive people who had had far too much to drink. If this happens in future, please let stewards deal with the situation and ignore the disruptors as far as possible. If you are skilled in de-escalation I am sure the organisers would like to hear from you.

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