Palestine Follow

OVER 200 people gathered outside Scotland's national football stadium, Hampden Park, in Glasgow on Friday of last week to protest at next month's under-21 football match between Scotland and Israel.

REPORTS OF war crimes began circulating within days of Israeli tanks rolling into the Palestinian refugee camp of Jenin in April this year. There were dozens of eyewitness accounts of people buried alive as their homes were bulldozed, and of women and children shot dead in the streets. The friends and families of the victims had to wait for four months until the UN produced a report on events in Jenin. The report has serious weaknesses.

Chilled to the bone by Israel's murder I HAVE just returned from Gaza City where I was part of a small delegation of trade unionists from Britain. We were there to show solidarity with the Palestinians and their struggle. It was the final visit of a week that had taken us all over the West Bank. I was shocked by what I saw.

IN THE week before the bombing of Gaza City, a delegation of health workers, students and academics from Britain visited the West Bank and Gaza to show solidarity with the Palestinians. Nothing quite prepared our delegation for the everyday oppression. The bombing of civilians and children in Gaza was a consequence of the collective punishment Israel metes out to Palestinians in the Occupied Territories.

SCARE STORIES about security weakness in the event of terrorist attacks regularly hit the headlines. But Bush and Blair stood by in silence while Israel launched a ruthless terrorist attack on the Palestinians on Monday of this week.

THE DEBATE at a Tower Hamlets council meeting in east London last week took an unusual turn. Campaigners took advantage of a little used procedure to table a motion calling for the council to officially "twin" with the Palestinian town of Jenin.

WE ARE going to help the US arm Israel. That was the message from the government this week. New Labour caused outrage by admitting it is bypassing its own arms embargo on Israel by selling military equipment via the US. Vital component parts for US F-16 fighter jets, which are used against the Palestinian people, are made in Britain.

OVER 150 people packed the launch of the national petition for Palestine on Tuesday of last week, organised by the Campaign for Palestinian Rights. Jeremy Corbyn, the left wing Labour MP, chaired the event in the Houses of Parliament.

THE KILLING of six Palestinian children, 700,000 Palestinians trapped in their homes, the assassination of Palestinian leaders, the rounding up of Palestinian men, the reoccupation of Palestinian land. This is what George Bush's vision for the Middle East means-Israel's freedom to do whatever the hell it wants to the Palestinians.

THE US president George Bush's plan for "reform" in the Middle East announced this week will not bring about peace. He gave his complete backing to Israel and its brutal repression of the Palestinians. Right wing prime minister Ariel Sharon sent his troops and tanks to "indefinitely" reoccupy the main Palestinian areas in the West Bank in the days before Bush made his speech.

SOME 100 activists took part in a conference in Edinburgh on Saturday on "Giving effective solidarity to the Palestinians". John McAllion, Labour MSP, opened the conference by insisting that unity of all campaigners for Palestine was essential.

HERE IN Palestine the only things that are moving freely are tanks. Even ambulances can be held up at Israeli army checkpoints for hours while the patients they carry suffer in the sun. I am writing this in Nablus, a city which has been under curfew for four days now.