Recent days have witnessed a shocking wave of racist and Islamophobic violence across Britain – mosques, homes, and businesses have been attacked, graves desecrated, individuals threatened and assaulted in the streets, and hotels believed to be accommodating refugees have been set on fire in a deliberate attempt to endanger life. It is merciful that nobody has been killed. Only consistent and uncompromising anti-racism can defeat this tide of hatred.
This must begin with a clear understanding of what has generated the current violence. Those attacking mosques and immigration centres have been taught that Muslims, immigrants, and asylum seekers are the source of societal problems. These messages are delivered across social media by prominent far-right influencers, but what gives space for their views to be heard is the Islamophobia and racism that has been encouraged by parts of the political establishment including elements of the mainstream media for years.
Since October, a key element of these narratives has been the attempt to demonise and fire up hostility against those protesting in opposition to the extreme racist violence inflicted by the state of Israel on Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip. Government ministers and sections of the media have falsely labelled those calling for a ceasefire ‘hate marchers’ motivated by ‘antisemitism’ and spoken of a sinister attempt by ‘Islamists’ to dominate the streets. This demonisation has continued even after the International Court of Justice (ICJ) found the case brought against Israel under the Genocide Convention to be plausible and, more recently, judged Israel to be guilty of violating Article 3 of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, which prohibits racial segregation and apartheid.
The complicit support of Western leaders for Israel’s racist oppression of the Palestinian people, creates political space for the far-right. Both globally and in Britain, the far-right increasingly drapes itself in the Israeli flag – aspiring to emulate Israel’s racist ethnonationalism and casting it as the front line against a perceived Islamic threat that, according to its racist narrative, now threatens the West through migration.
Defeating the fascist threat can only be achieved through consistent opposition to the racism on which it feeds – Islamophobia, antisemitism, and anti-Palestinian racism, hostility to immigrants, and attempts to give succour to genocide and apartheid. Our campaign for Palestinian rights is underpinned by these same universal anti-racist principles. There can be no coherent anti-racist struggle that does not include support for the rights of the Palestinian people to live free from racist oppression.
We will continue to stand in solidarity with all those who are threatened by the upsurge of far-right violence. We will not stand back and allow fascist violence to succeed in intimidating Muslim, Palestinian and other minority communities from participating in democratic life. We will also resist all attempts to create a false equivalence between those attacking mosques and asylum centres threatening life, and those protesting in peaceful marches against Israel’s genocide. Everyone can now see what hate marches look like.
We will not be silenced. We will not concede to racism. We will never stop campaigning until Palestine is free.
Palestine Solidarity Campaign