Anti-genocide campaigners call for protest outside Hastings council after Gaza motion blocked 4 times

Hastings and District Palestine Solidarity Campaign (HDSPC) and Hastings Jews for Justice have called for a demonstration outside the Hastings Council offices tomorrow evening after the council blocked a motion on Gaza for the fourth time. A statement from the group reads:

​​We are disgusted that once again Hastings Borough Council officers have taken it upon themselves to prevent discussion at the Hastings Council meeting of the ongoing savagery in Gaza.

For over a year now the residents of Hastings have watched in horror as the Israeli State first cut off all food, water and electricity to the 2.3 million trapped civilians there, half of whom are children, and then unleashed hell, bombing civilians indiscriminately.

These repeated atrocities have been broadcast to our homes in real time through social media and the impact has been felt in every part of our community, by people of all ages and from every walk of life.

We have not remained silent in the face of mass murder, marching, petitioning, demonstrating and canvassing our representatives to speak out, first for a ceasefire, then to stop all arms sales to Israel.

We expect our councillors to do the job of representing the ordinary people of this town who, with the majority in this country, believe the UK should impose a two ways arms embargo on Israel, which stands in the dock at the world court for genocide.

The people of Hastings have shown enormous empathy and generosity to Palestinians suffering under this barbaric regime by raising over £22k this year for people in Al Mawasi, Gaza where thousands of displaced peoples were told to flee as a designated safe zone. 

A ‘safe zone’ which Israel has repeatedly bombed, annihilating starving and terrorized families sheltering under canvas. Attacks which the leader of this council has condemned as ‘inhumane’.

This latest motion, tabled by the Green Party and supported by the Hastings Independents, is the fourth attempt to have the issue discussed by the council. Previous motions were blocked by the Labour Mayor and the council’s Monitoring officer on the grounds that they weren’t relevant to the local community.

This was rightly seen as an affront to democracy and councillors voted to change the council constitution in order to allow councillors to bring forward motions on any subject they deem fit. The proposed motion for this week’s council meeting also included an acknowledgment of the unique and meaningful link between this town and the fishing community of Al Mawasi in Gaza.

However, we understand that the motion was once again blocked by the agenda planning committee – now consisting of the Green Leader of the Council Julia Hilton, the Labour Mayor Judy Rogers and the unelected Chief Executive – on a vote of two to one, with both the Chief Executive and Labour Mayor voting against the motion being included on the agenda. 

This motion was proposed by parties that support an end to arms sales to Israel, and who are a majority of the elected councillors. The fact that they have been blocked from even discussing their motion by a Labour Mayor, in the interests of a complicit Labour government still selling arms to Israel, is an outrage and anti-democratic.

It is shameful that the genocide in Gaza has been treated like a political football by our local representatives.

After 44,000 dead, our democratic representatives must make clear their opposition to genocide, stand up against the apartheid state of Israel and take steps to uphold international law.

Ceasefire is no longer enough, ending arms sales is no longer enough.

Our local councils must commit to divest from Israeli companies and end procurement contracts with those companies enabling and complicit in the illegal occupation and genocide in Palestine.

It’s time to stop playing party politics with Palestinian lives, to stop taking constituents for fools and to stand up for human rights, for international law and for the good people of Hastings who entrust councillors with the power to make a difference.

The protest will take place from 5.30pm tomorrow, 20 November, at the council’s offices in Hastings.

Hastings Jews for Justice said:

We are Hastings Jews for Justice (HJJ) and are astonished and angry that the Council has, yet again, been prevented from discussing what has been happening in Gaza.  Councillors have tried on many occasions to raise the issue and local residents, including many of us, have asked questions and urged HBC to take a stand against the war crimes and plausible genocide being perpetrated by Israel on the people and places of Gaza. 

Standing for justice, peace and dignity for Palestinians is a matter of huge importance to people in this town as we can see by the positive responses to actions taken in their support, the amount of money that has been raised and that this town will reflect the 80% of people who want a ceasefire now and majority who want an end to arms sales to Israel.

We note that the Council has, for example, previously flown a Ukrainian flag in solidarity with the people suffering from the war there and yet not a word has been expressed in support of the Palestinian people nor any action taken to make sure that as Hastings council tax payers we are not colluding with war crimes.  Why the double standard?

We want to remind the Council of two things:

a. While the atrocities have not yet been officially declared a genocide, there is ample evidence of war crimes. Furthermore, the recognised risk, under the Convention against Genocide, ratified by the UK, itself places a duty to prevent and punish genocide.

b. We understand why many felt the need for a Jewish homeland after centuries of oppression, especially following the terrible Nazi atrocities but it is not antisemitic to oppose that idea and it is not antisemitic to criticise and hold Israel to account for what it is doing in Gaza, the West Bank, Golan Heights, East Jerusalem, the Negev and Lebanon.  Most human rights organisations, including Israeli ones like B’TSelem, state Israel is an apartheid state.

HJJ is one of countless groups that have formed over the past year or so.  Throughout the country and the world, Jewish people are standing up to say “not in my name”.  If you care about your Jewish constituents, remember we are also Jewish constituents; many of us are descendants of Holocaust survivors and all are descended from Jews fleeing discrimination and persecution. We know what antisemitism is.  You have a duty to us, to the Palestinian people in the town, many within the Muslim community and all those in Hastings who care about this issue and are, like us are frustrated at the Council’s failure to address this issue as many other local authorities have done.

Antisemitism is real, worrying and rising as are most forms of racism. As Jews we have no desire to be considered a special case and we firmly reject the idea that antisemitism is somehow a worse form of racism than that experienced by Black and Brown people in our community.  And we especially stand with Palestinian people who are experiencing racism in the form of displacement (multiple times in Gaza), destruction, killings, woundings, torture, incarceration without charge and more. Some of us have spent time in Palestine and we would be pleased to share some of our experiences with you. 

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