Hastings and District Palestine Solidarity Campaign
Newsletter   22 November 2024
  In this newsletter:
  • Saturday 23 November 10.30am to 5pm - Al-Mawasi Fundraiser at Thai in Town, Queens Arcade
  • Saturday 23 November 7.30pm - Poetry for Palestine Open Mic Night
  • Saturday 30 November - National Demonstration for Palestine
  • Report: After 13 months councillors finally call for an arms embargo on Israel
  • Our 'Drive-By' Protest goes viral - with 3 million views
  • Followed by news of events coming up over the next few weeks, along with the East Sussex County Council petition, Gifts for Gaza, books for sale.........

    FUNDRAISING FOR AL-MAWASI
    SATURDAY 23 NOVEMBER 10.30AM TO 5PM

    Saturday 23 November 10.30am to 5pm. Thai in Town, Queens Arcade, Queens Road, Hastings TN34 1PA. Many thanks to Thai in Town for inviting us to join their fundraising event this Saturday in Queens Arcade. Come and check out our fundraising stall from 10.30 to 5pm selling bric-a-brac and festive cards to raise money for our friends in Al-Mawasi as they face a second bleak winter under siege and bombardment. More information (Facebook).

    NO INFORMATION STALL THIS SATURDAY

    Our information stall will return next Saturday 30 November (weather depending).

    POETRY FOR PALESTINE OPEN MIC NIGHT - AN AL-MAWASI FUNDRAISER

    Saturday 23 November 7.30pm. The Downstairs Bar, White Rock Hotel TN34 1JU


    Poetry For Palestine - Poetry Open Mic Night. Fundraiser for the Al-Mawasi community. All the spaces for our poets have been filled. We've got some great talented local poets lined up. Still some tickets left for everyone who wants to support/experience the event. Tickets are £10 and £15. Tickets will also be available at the door, online tickets available at Eventbrite and more information at our Facebook page.

    Readings will take place from 7.30pm to 9.30pm, followed by Afrobeats and vintage West-African sounds from DJ Sam Ye Ye 9.30pm - 11pm.

    WORKPLACE AND STUDENT DAY OF ACTION
    THURSDAY 28 NOVEMBER

    Take action to call for an end to government and corporate complicity in Israel's atrocities. "Discuss with your colleagues in your branch about what kind of action is best suited to your workplace and its circumstances." Take action in your workplace.

    NATIONAL DEMONSTRATION FOR PALESTINE: SATURDAY 30 NOVEMBER


    End the Genocide - Hands Off Lebanon - Don't Attack Iran - Stop Arming Israel. Assemble 12 noon at Park Lane, London before marching to Whitehall. Catch the 10.31 train to London. If you would like to go but need help towards the cost of a ticket, contact us directly. We match donors with marchers. More information: PSC website,

    AFTER 13 MONTHS COUNCILLORS FINALLY CALL FOR AN ARMS EMBARGO ON ISRAEL


    On Wednesday, Council Leader Julia Hilton opened the full council meeting by reading out a letter to the Prime Minister calling on him to take decisive action to stop arming Israel and uphold international law. This was after motions on Gaza have been blocked from the agenda four times in a year by council officials and the mayor.

    The letter called on Keir Starmer to 'advocate for a multilateral ceasefire to halt the bloodshed and establish a foundation for lasting peace in the region' and to 'cease arms exports to any party involved in the conflict and prioritise humanitarian assistance to alleviate suffering.' By calling for an arms embarge the Labour Party group on the council has now departed from the government's official position. The letter also acknowledged the deep and unique bonds between Hastings and the people of Al Mawasi in Gaza.

    This is the press release issued by Hastings an District PSC welcoming the statement.

    There was widespread coverage in national and local press after we released our press release: itvNEWS, The Independent, Evening Standard, Kent Online Times, The Canary.

    DRIVE-BY PROTEST GOES VIRAL

    Our roadside protest in Hastings went viral, attracting over three million views worldwide, sparking similar actions in towns and cities across the globe.

     

    It was a simple 'drive by' action of people holding placards on the side of the A21 but the words spelled out a powerful message that resonated across the world. It read: 'In the Last Year. Israel has killed. 16,000 children in Gaza. There are 16,000 children. In Hastings. Imagine. This town. With no children. Stand up. Speak out. Stop the genocide.'

    The post was picked up and shared on all the major social media platforms with thousands of comments remarking on the moving post, heaping praise on the people of Hastings and the 'humanity' of its inhabitants. One X account in the name of Rania had over 1.6 million views alone with over 550 comments. Our video on Facebook, Instagram and YouTube.

    GIFTS FOR GAZA - WINTER APPEAL


    Thousands of displaced families are living in tents in Al Mawasi in Gaza with no means of supporting themselves. The Al Mawasi Community Resilience Committee is helping to support huge numbers of refugees now living there by distributing food, clothes and hygiene products. But the ongoing siege has forced prices sky high and aid is scarce.

    If you are considering buying gifts this winter, please consider also giving a Gift for Gaza either in your name, or on behalf of a loved one. For more details go to our gofundme Gifts for Gaza page.

    You can also buy Gift For Gaza gift cards from our weekly Saturday stall in Hastings town centre or at Stooge Coffee on Trinity Street in Hastings.


    DIVEST: EAST SUSSEX COUNTY COUNCIL

    Our council, East Sussex County Council, is guilty of supporting genocide. If we collect 5000 signatures we can force our councillors to vote on ending all our council's links with Israel, including divesting council pension funds from weapons companies that are arming Israel and stopping council contracts with companies who support Israel such as Barclays bank.

    We need everyone to sign the petition online and forward it to everyone you know. But we also want to reach more people by taking the petition around our workplaces, knocking on doors, and collecting signatures at big public events. Can you help with this? The printable version of the petition can be downloaded here. For more information contact Grace on the WhatsApp group or email us.

    Please sign and share the ePetition:

    PETITION - EAST SUSSEX COUNCIL: DIVEST

    ONLINE WELLBEING SESSIONS

    Clinical hypnotherapist Chris Dindar is running 30 min relaxation sessions to help decompress, process our emotions, and find a moment of peace and deep relaxation amidst the chaos. Chris is offering his services for free, as a token of his solidarity, to help nurture the well-being of our local group and maintain our collective resolve.

    Please email Chris directly if interested in taking part. The sessions are the 1st and 3rd Friday of the month at 12 noon.

    BOOKS AVAILABLE AT OUR STALLS AND MEETINGS

     


     

    Now available at our stall, five great books to deepen our knowledge of the history of Palestine and Israel. We're grateful to Lee at Printed Matter in Hastings, for generously discounting the price for us in support of the work of PSC.

  • A Very Short History of the Israel-Palestine Conflict by lan Pappé. (Oneworld Publications 2024) £9. 'A Very Short History of the Israel-Palestine Conflict is the best primer available on one of the world's most persistent settler-colonial tragedies. Amid the carnage of the Gaza genocide, it is essential to listen to Ilan Pappe, a preeminent historian of the Middle East, and a heroic scholar committed to justice and freedom.' Abdel Razzaq Takriti, Arab-American Educational Foundation Chair in Arab Studies.

  • One State - The Only Democratic Future for Palestine-Israel by Ghada Karmi. £12. This profound and important analysis of the future for Israel-Palestine has never felt more necessary or urgent. Ghada Karmi, whose family were exiled to Britain during the 1948 Nakba, makes the powerful case here for uniting the land to create a just future for all Palestinians and Israelis, and allowing the Palestinian right of return.

    The best-selling author of In Search of Fatima has lost none of her eloquence in this bold and engaging treatise which lays out the instability at the heart of the Zionist state, examines its impact across the region, and analyzes the decades of work to present a workable 'solution,'

    In the end she is unequivocal in her view that, however impossible it may appear, the current apartheid ethnocentric state will be replaced by one democratic state, asserting: "The fact that something is difficult to realise does not make it any less the right thing to do."

    And, moreover, the concept itself must be long-established "not as an immediately attainable goal perhaps, but as a vision, an aspiration and a belief in the ultimate humanity of Palestinians and Jews and all those who wish to see them prosper."

  • In Search of Fatima: A Palestinian Story by Ghada Karmi (Verso Books) £12."A captivating Memoir of a middle class Palestinian family, one of more than 700,000 Palestinians uprooted and displaced from their historic homeland, Palestine, in 1948. In this memoir Ms. Karmi has documented a sample of the continuing suffering and injustice brought upon the Palestinian People by the creation of the Illegitimate State of Israel. While expressing the complex social and cultural feelings, hardships, and struggles in coping with the brutality of displacement and diaspora, Ms. Karmi remains optimistic and hopeful that Justice and Right will prevail.

    This book must be read by young Palestinians, Israelis, Americans, Europeans, and Arabs, to truly understand and appreciate the only solution that will bring a lasting Peace in Palestine."

  • The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine (Oneworld, 2007) £13 by Ilan Pappé, renowned Israeli historian, scholar and author who was forced from his position at the University of Haifa after publishing this book, and is now Professor of History and Director of the European Centre for Palestine Studies at the University of Exeter. In this book he exposes the facts behind the Nakba of 1948 with meticulous research into Israeli archival documents, making clear that ridding the land of its Palestinian inhabitants was always central to the founding of the State of Israel.

  • The Hundred Years' War on Palestine: A History of Settler Colonialism and Resistance, 1917-2017, Rashid Khalidi (Profile Books, 2020) £12. Khalidi is Palestinian American and the Edward Said Professor of Modern Arab Studies at Columbia University in New York City. He tells this history from the perspective of his own prominent Jerusalem Muslim family using his family's extensive archives in Jerusalem, along with multiple other sources, documenting the extensive Palestinian resistance to colonization that began with the arrival of European Jews to Palestine and has continued to the present.
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    PALESTINE - ISRAEL: FROM A DIFFERENT PERSPECTIVE

    Much of the 'information' in the corporate media is misleading. Here are some useful sources:
    Middle East Eye.    Electronic Intifada.    Al Jazeera.    Middle East Monitor.
    Mondoweiss.    Palestine Chronicle.    Al Mayadeen.    Mintpress.    The Grayzone.
    The Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor.       Jonathan Cook.
    The Cradle.       MediaLens.       Declassified UK.
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    Hastings and District PSC online membership and donations

    Becoming a member of Hastings and District PSC is an important way of supporting our work.The annual subscription is £10 waged, £5 unwaged. We now have an online membership payment form. It can also be used to renew membership. If you would rather not use Paypal, you can pay directly to our bank: please contact us for the details. Or alternatively pay at one of our events.

    The work of Hastings and District PSC could not continue without the donations from members of the public. If you would like to support our work without becoming a member please visit our shop page here and see the right hand column:
    Donate to Hastings and District PSC.
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    Recent Hastings and District PSC newsletters:

    19 November 2024
    16 November 2024
    6 November 2024

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