Palestine march rages at Trump’s Gaza ethnic cleansing plan
Amid a fragile ceasefire and Trump’s calls to ethnically cleanse Gaza, 175,000 protesters marched to the US embassy in London
National Palestine protest marches to the US embassy
Saturday 15 February 2025
Over 175,000 people marched to the US embassy in London on Saturday as part of the 24th national demonstration for Palestine.
They raged against Donald Trump’s plan to ethnically cleanse Gaza—and demanded the British government stop all arms sales to Israel.
“I think the Trump plan is nonsensical,” protester Mo told Socialist Worker. “But for the past 15 months every administration—whether Joe Biden or Trump—has appeased everything Israel has done.
“So you do have to take it seriously, laughable as it is.”
Nancy agreed, “Trump has no right to do that. I hope he isn’t able to but I’m concerned that he’ll try. Is anyone going to stop him?
“Even just saying that it is not okay would be a start, but Keir Starmer has not even done that.”
The ceasefire held on Saturday despite Trump giving Israel the green light to return to war.
Daniel, who travelled from Manchester, told Socialist Worker, “We shouldn’t be stopping at a ceasefire. Everyone here is here for full liberation and we shouldn’t stop until we get that.”
The British state is ramping up its repression of the Palestine movement. Police arrested 72 people—including chief steward Chris Nineham of Stop The War—on the last national demonstration on 18 January.
He faces public order charges as does Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) director Ben Jamal.
“I was here on 18 January,” said Mo on Whitehall. “We were peaceful, we were not inciting hatred.”
It is sheer hypocrisy and as some who voted for Labour I am profoundly let down and angry.
Mark, who volunteers with human rights groups, told Socialist Worker, “Repression worries me. We talk a lot about a lack of democracy in places like Russia but we’ve lost sight of what democracy should be about here.”
He added, “We have to keep fighting. We need to keep shouting and doing this.”
Protesters were angry at the racism of the Labour government. Tory leader Kemi Badenoch attacked Starmer last week over a Palestinian family who’d try to claim asylum in Britain under the Ukrainian refugee scheme. Starmer responded by saying it was “wrong” and the government would deal with it.
“There are obvious double standards,” said one protester who works as an academic. “Ukrainians are welcomed here, but all refugees should be welcome irrespective of what they are fleeing or where they come from.”
She added, “I always say, from Ukraine to Palestine, occupation is a crime. There’s the waffle that Palestinians are more likely to be terrorists, but there are very far right people in Ukraine.
“It is sheer hypocrisy and as some who voted for Labour I am profoundly let down and angry.”
Three members of the CWU union’s South Central postal branch joined the trade union block. “We’re here raising awareness. It’s our duty to show solidarity, to stand against oppression,” one said.
Another said that union leaders are “afraid of upsetting the leader of the Labour Party”. “Starmer’s response has been shocking,” he said. “There’s meant to be peace, but now the US is going to occupy it and no one does anything.
The CWU member added, “I was stood right here on Saturday 18 January. What happened shows these demonstrations are effective because the state is worried about us. It wouldn’t go after the movement, repress it as it did, if they thought we weren’t a threat.”
Protesters chanted, “Donald Trump, no way—Gaza is not for sale,” and, “Starmer, Lammy, you can’t hide, we charge you with genocide.”
Zarah Sultana—one of the left wing MPs who remains suspended from Labour—addressed the march outside the US embassy. “This is not just a political failure, this is a moral failure,” she told marchers.
“This is not just a conflict—this is a campaign of destruction and dehumanisation. Silence is not an option.
“Some tell us a ceasefire means the violence has ended, as if settler militias aren’t still rampaging through the West Bank. A ceasefire is not justice. A ceasefire does not build back the homes that were destroyed.”
Resist Trump’s plan for the ethnic cleansing of Gaza
Nineham told the march, “What happened on 18 January was a serious escalation and a serious assault on the freedom of assembly in this country. We will not stand by and allow our freedoms to be taken away.”
Jamal said, “Every time we protest and march, it matters—but some protests are more important than others. On 14 October 2023, it was crucial we came out. The political establishment tried to erase the reality of 76 years of apartheid colonisation and ethnic cleansing.
The struggle for the rights for Palestinian people is part of that struggle for that better world, and that has never been more true than it is now.
“All week they tried to convince us that it was the right thing to do to emblazon the flag of a state onto buildings responsible for those 76 years.
“On 11 November, it was crucial that we marched after Braverman spent weeks trying to drive us off the street and mobilise the far right against us.
“Today it was crucial that we marched and not just because we are facing a new attempt to repress our movement. More importantly than that, Israel is proposing to extend its genocide.
“We are here because we believe in a better world. The struggle for the rights for Palestinian people is part of that struggle for that better world, and that has never been more true than it is now.”
As Trump and Netanyahu threaten ethnic cleansing, the Starmer government will do all it can to maintain its “special relationship” with US imperialism.
We need mass and militant action to stop all arms sales to Israel, break the British state’s support for genocide and defy its crackdowns.
Amid a fragile ceasefire and Trump’s calls to ethnically cleanse Gaza, 175,000 protesters marched to the US embassy in London
National Palestine protest marches to the US embassy
Saturday 15 February 2025
SOCIALIST WORKER Issue
Over 175,000 people marched to the US embassy in London on Saturday as part of the 24th national demonstration for Palestine.
They raged against Donald Trump’s plan to ethnically cleanse Gaza—and demanded the British government stop all arms sales to Israel.
“I think the Trump plan is nonsensical,” protester Mo told Socialist Worker. “But for the past 15 months every administration—whether Joe Biden or Trump—has appeased everything Israel has done.
“So you do have to take it seriously, laughable as it is.”
Nancy agreed, “Trump has no right to do that. I hope he isn’t able to but I’m concerned that he’ll try. Is anyone going to stop him?
“Even just saying that it is not okay would be a start, but Keir Starmer has not even done that.”
The ceasefire held on Saturday despite Trump giving Israel the green light to return to war.
Daniel, who travelled from Manchester, told Socialist Worker, “We shouldn’t be stopping at a ceasefire. Everyone here is here for full liberation and we shouldn’t stop until we get that.”
The British state is ramping up its repression of the Palestine movement. Police arrested 72 people—including chief steward Chris Nineham of Stop The War—on the last national demonstration on 18 January.
He faces public order charges as does Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) director Ben Jamal.
“I was here on 18 January,” said Mo on Whitehall. “We were peaceful, we were not inciting hatred.”
It is sheer hypocrisy and as some who voted for Labour I am profoundly let down and angry.
Mark, who volunteers with human rights groups, told Socialist Worker, “Repression worries me. We talk a lot about a lack of democracy in places like Russia but we’ve lost sight of what democracy should be about here.”
He added, “We have to keep fighting. We need to keep shouting and doing this.”
Protesters were angry at the racism of the Labour government. Tory leader Kemi Badenoch attacked Starmer last week over a Palestinian family who’d try to claim asylum in Britain under the Ukrainian refugee scheme. Starmer responded by saying it was “wrong” and the government would deal with it.
“There are obvious double standards,” said one protester who works as an academic. “Ukrainians are welcomed here, but all refugees should be welcome irrespective of what they are fleeing or where they come from.”
She added, “I always say, from Ukraine to Palestine, occupation is a crime. There’s the waffle that Palestinians are more likely to be terrorists, but there are very far right people in Ukraine.
“It is sheer hypocrisy and as some who voted for Labour I am profoundly let down and angry.”
Three members of the CWU union’s South Central postal branch joined the trade union block. “We’re here raising awareness. It’s our duty to show solidarity, to stand against oppression,” one said.
Another said that union leaders are “afraid of upsetting the leader of the Labour Party”. “Starmer’s response has been shocking,” he said. “There’s meant to be peace, but now the US is going to occupy it and no one does anything.
The CWU member added, “I was stood right here on Saturday 18 January. What happened shows these demonstrations are effective because the state is worried about us. It wouldn’t go after the movement, repress it as it did, if they thought we weren’t a threat.”
Protesters chanted, “Donald Trump, no way—Gaza is not for sale,” and, “Starmer, Lammy, you can’t hide, we charge you with genocide.”
Zarah Sultana—one of the left wing MPs who remains suspended from Labour—addressed the march outside the US embassy. “This is not just a political failure, this is a moral failure,” she told marchers.
“This is not just a conflict—this is a campaign of destruction and dehumanisation. Silence is not an option.
“Some tell us a ceasefire means the violence has ended, as if settler militias aren’t still rampaging through the West Bank. A ceasefire is not justice. A ceasefire does not build back the homes that were destroyed.”
Resist Trump’s plan for the ethnic cleansing of Gaza
Nineham told the march, “What happened on 18 January was a serious escalation and a serious assault on the freedom of assembly in this country. We will not stand by and allow our freedoms to be taken away.”
Jamal said, “Every time we protest and march, it matters—but some protests are more important than others. On 14 October 2023, it was crucial we came out. The political establishment tried to erase the reality of 76 years of apartheid colonisation and ethnic cleansing.
The struggle for the rights for Palestinian people is part of that struggle for that better world, and that has never been more true than it is now.
“All week they tried to convince us that it was the right thing to do to emblazon the flag of a state onto buildings responsible for those 76 years.
“On 11 November, it was crucial that we marched after Braverman spent weeks trying to drive us off the street and mobilise the far right against us.
“Today it was crucial that we marched and not just because we are facing a new attempt to repress our movement. More importantly than that, Israel is proposing to extend its genocide.
“We are here because we believe in a better world. The struggle for the rights for Palestinian people is part of that struggle for that better world, and that has never been more true than it is now.”
As Trump and Netanyahu threaten ethnic cleansing, the Starmer government will do all it can to maintain its “special relationship” with US imperialism.
We need mass and militant action to stop all arms sales to Israel, break the British state’s support for genocide and defy its crackdowns.
Today
LEFT FOOT FORWARD
'Trump is woefully ignorant of international law and the law of occupation. Forcible displacement of an occupied group is an international crime, and amounts to ethnic cleansing.'
LEFT FOOT FORWARD
'Trump is woefully ignorant of international law and the law of occupation. Forcible displacement of an occupied group is an international crime, and amounts to ethnic cleansing.'
Activists are gathering in London today – February 15 – to protest Donald Trump’s ‘grotesque’ plan to ‘take over’ the Gaza strip and forcibly remove the Palestinian population of more than two million.
Trump recently announced he wants the US to take over the Gaza Strip, send the Palestinians elsewhere, and redevelop the land as the “the Riviera of the Middle East.”
The plan was announced alongside Trump’s ally, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who said it was “worth listening carefully to this idea.”
The protest is being organised by a coalition of pro-Palestine and anti-war groups, including the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, Palestinian Forum in Britain, Stop the War Coalition, Friends of Al-Aqsa, Muslim Association of Britain, and Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament.
The protesters are marching from Whitehall to the US Embassy to send a message to the UK government and Trump – “freedom for Palestine, no to ethnic cleansing, stop arming Israel.”
A joint statement from the organising groups condemns Trump’s remarks as a revelation of Israel’s long-standing plan for ethnic cleansing. It reads: “The grotesque statements by US President Donald Trump – that the US will ‘take over’ the Gaza Strip and forcibly remove the Palestinian population of more than 2 million – have exposed the long-standing Israeli plan for ethnic cleansing. For more than a year, Israel and its supporters have denied that the true aim of the genocidal assault on Gaza has been the destruction of the Palestinian population, and denial of all of their rights including the right to self-determination. Backed and supported by the USA for its own imperial interests, that objective is now explicit.”
The protest follows comments by United Nation’s top investigator on human rights in Palestine, who said Trump’s plan to displace Palestinians from Gaza is illegal under international law and “amounts to ethnic cleansing.”
In an interview with Politico, Navi Pillay, chair of the United Nations Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, said:
“Trump is woefully ignorant of international law and the law of occupation. Forcible displacement of an occupied group is an international crime, and amounts to ethnic cleansing.
“There is no way under the law that Trump could carry out the threat to dislocate Palestinians from their land,” Pillay continued.
Image credit: PSC – X screen grab
Trump recently announced he wants the US to take over the Gaza Strip, send the Palestinians elsewhere, and redevelop the land as the “the Riviera of the Middle East.”
The plan was announced alongside Trump’s ally, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who said it was “worth listening carefully to this idea.”
The protest is being organised by a coalition of pro-Palestine and anti-war groups, including the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, Palestinian Forum in Britain, Stop the War Coalition, Friends of Al-Aqsa, Muslim Association of Britain, and Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament.
The protesters are marching from Whitehall to the US Embassy to send a message to the UK government and Trump – “freedom for Palestine, no to ethnic cleansing, stop arming Israel.”
A joint statement from the organising groups condemns Trump’s remarks as a revelation of Israel’s long-standing plan for ethnic cleansing. It reads: “The grotesque statements by US President Donald Trump – that the US will ‘take over’ the Gaza Strip and forcibly remove the Palestinian population of more than 2 million – have exposed the long-standing Israeli plan for ethnic cleansing. For more than a year, Israel and its supporters have denied that the true aim of the genocidal assault on Gaza has been the destruction of the Palestinian population, and denial of all of their rights including the right to self-determination. Backed and supported by the USA for its own imperial interests, that objective is now explicit.”
The protest follows comments by United Nation’s top investigator on human rights in Palestine, who said Trump’s plan to displace Palestinians from Gaza is illegal under international law and “amounts to ethnic cleansing.”
In an interview with Politico, Navi Pillay, chair of the United Nations Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, said:
“Trump is woefully ignorant of international law and the law of occupation. Forcible displacement of an occupied group is an international crime, and amounts to ethnic cleansing.
“There is no way under the law that Trump could carry out the threat to dislocate Palestinians from their land,” Pillay continued.
Image credit: PSC – X screen grab
Editorial:
Marching for Palestine – more vital than ever in the era of Trump
People take part in a national demonstration for Gaza from Russell Square to Whitehall in London, last year
MORNINGSTAR
People take part in a national demonstration for Gaza from Russell Square to Whitehall in London, last year
MORNINGSTAR
CPGB
Friday, February 14, 2025
SATURDAY’S mass mobilisation for Palestine has a special significance.
It takes place at a key juncture for a ceasefire hanging by a thread. Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz and US President Donald Trump used the same word, “hell,” to describe what they would unleash on Gaza from noon Saturday if Hamas even delayed the release of hostages in protest at Israel’s violation of agreements on the delivery of humanitarian aid.
We know this is no idle threat: hell was unleashed on Gaza for 15 months until mid-January, whole cities reduced to rubble, schools blown to smithereens, hospitals assaulted, with hundreds of Palestinian bodies uncovered in mass graves after the Israeli soldiers moved on.
We’ve seen evidence of the deliberate murder of medics, aid workers, journalists. Heard the pleas of a doomed child for rescue after her family were killed around her, in the knowledge that she and her would-be rescuers would be killed shortly afterwards. Watched horrific footage of a teenager on a drip in a hospital bed burnt to death by Israel’s bombs.
These unspeakable crimes have been justified by lies. That Israel was fighting Hamas, not the Palestinian people. That this operation was retaliation for the October 7 2023 attack by Hamas, stripped of the context of the 17-year Israeli siege of the impoverished territory or the decades of illegal occupation of Palestinian land: rather than a genocidal project for which October 7 was an excuse.
From both Westminster front benches, uninterrupted by the change in government, the lies have kept coming. That Britain was putting pressure on Israel for a ceasefire, while we continued to supply them with weapons and send surveillance missions to assist their war. That our government is committed to a two-state solution, a sovereign Palestine alongside a sovereign Israel, even as we supply, shield and grant privileged trading status to an Israel that is steadily colonising Palestinian land.
Now the mask is slipping. Trump is both the bull in the china shop and the elephant in the room.
His unabashed proposal to ethnically cleanse the entire population of Gaza, gleefully welcomed by Israel, shatters the pretence that this war is not about the erasure of the Palestinian people: he hints, at the same time, that he is soon to announce approval for Israeli annexation of the West Bank.
And the British response is to pretend everything is normal. To intone the old pieties about our commitment to a future Palestine, while avoiding any criticism of Trump’s plan. Challenged on it directly, Foreign Secretary David Lammy pleads that we can all agree Gaza needs to be rebuilt — an exercise in evasive cowardice remarkable even for him.
The government’s refusal to acknowledge reality is deliberate. It allows it to continue facilitating Israeli expansionism, now openly backed by the United States, without admitting the fact.
The government’s far greater concern at Trump’s disengagement from Europe adds another dimension. So far, appeasing Trump has involved pledges of ever greater military spending, offers to pay still more for the privilege of riding shotgun on the US war machine. Instead we must turn Trump into another argument for a completely new approach, a peaceful foreign policy independent of Washington.
Meanwhile the speed with which the “respectable” right, having rejected as a left-wing smear the idea that Israel was ethnically cleansing Palestine, now rush to cheer on ethnic cleansing is sobering: a Telegraph op-ed touting the advantages of removing the whole Gaza population to Somaliland no longer raises eyebrows.
It is up to us all to take a stand against a barbarism being normalised in newspaper columns, media broadcasts and ministerial briefings.
The last national march for Palestine was met with police obstruction and mass arrests. This weekend we must show the government, the police and the British state that we will not stop marching until Palestine is free.
Friday, February 14, 2025
SATURDAY’S mass mobilisation for Palestine has a special significance.
It takes place at a key juncture for a ceasefire hanging by a thread. Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz and US President Donald Trump used the same word, “hell,” to describe what they would unleash on Gaza from noon Saturday if Hamas even delayed the release of hostages in protest at Israel’s violation of agreements on the delivery of humanitarian aid.
We know this is no idle threat: hell was unleashed on Gaza for 15 months until mid-January, whole cities reduced to rubble, schools blown to smithereens, hospitals assaulted, with hundreds of Palestinian bodies uncovered in mass graves after the Israeli soldiers moved on.
We’ve seen evidence of the deliberate murder of medics, aid workers, journalists. Heard the pleas of a doomed child for rescue after her family were killed around her, in the knowledge that she and her would-be rescuers would be killed shortly afterwards. Watched horrific footage of a teenager on a drip in a hospital bed burnt to death by Israel’s bombs.
These unspeakable crimes have been justified by lies. That Israel was fighting Hamas, not the Palestinian people. That this operation was retaliation for the October 7 2023 attack by Hamas, stripped of the context of the 17-year Israeli siege of the impoverished territory or the decades of illegal occupation of Palestinian land: rather than a genocidal project for which October 7 was an excuse.
From both Westminster front benches, uninterrupted by the change in government, the lies have kept coming. That Britain was putting pressure on Israel for a ceasefire, while we continued to supply them with weapons and send surveillance missions to assist their war. That our government is committed to a two-state solution, a sovereign Palestine alongside a sovereign Israel, even as we supply, shield and grant privileged trading status to an Israel that is steadily colonising Palestinian land.
Now the mask is slipping. Trump is both the bull in the china shop and the elephant in the room.
His unabashed proposal to ethnically cleanse the entire population of Gaza, gleefully welcomed by Israel, shatters the pretence that this war is not about the erasure of the Palestinian people: he hints, at the same time, that he is soon to announce approval for Israeli annexation of the West Bank.
And the British response is to pretend everything is normal. To intone the old pieties about our commitment to a future Palestine, while avoiding any criticism of Trump’s plan. Challenged on it directly, Foreign Secretary David Lammy pleads that we can all agree Gaza needs to be rebuilt — an exercise in evasive cowardice remarkable even for him.
The government’s refusal to acknowledge reality is deliberate. It allows it to continue facilitating Israeli expansionism, now openly backed by the United States, without admitting the fact.
The government’s far greater concern at Trump’s disengagement from Europe adds another dimension. So far, appeasing Trump has involved pledges of ever greater military spending, offers to pay still more for the privilege of riding shotgun on the US war machine. Instead we must turn Trump into another argument for a completely new approach, a peaceful foreign policy independent of Washington.
Meanwhile the speed with which the “respectable” right, having rejected as a left-wing smear the idea that Israel was ethnically cleansing Palestine, now rush to cheer on ethnic cleansing is sobering: a Telegraph op-ed touting the advantages of removing the whole Gaza population to Somaliland no longer raises eyebrows.
It is up to us all to take a stand against a barbarism being normalised in newspaper columns, media broadcasts and ministerial briefings.
The last national march for Palestine was met with police obstruction and mass arrests. This weekend we must show the government, the police and the British state that we will not stop marching until Palestine is free.
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