‘Disgusted’ E Sussex parents demand schools cut ties with arms co supplying Israel

Outraged parents and carers in East Sussex are demanding that schools cut ties with arms manufacturer General Dynamics after discovering the company has been visiting local schools and colleges.

“Appalling”

One mum, who preferred not to be named, wrote to the head teacher after the weapons company gave her child a free, friendly-seeming ‘squishy’ toy at a careers fair stand:

I couldn’t believe they were there! I just had no idea that they would allow an arms manufacturer to attend a careers fair. They are manufacturing the bombs that have been supplied to Israel and used in Gaza, killing thousands of children. It’s appalling.

Schools that have reportedly allowed visits from the arms company in this academic year so far include Rye College, Bexhill College, Robertsbridge Community College and Hastings Academy. Meanwhile, Claverham Community College proudly advertises General Dynamics as a link company to the school, boasting of ‘good working relationships’ with them and promoting work experience and careers with the company. Joy Sheen, Careers East Sussex volunteer enterprise advisor for Claverham, is an employee of the weapons manufacturer. 

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Hastings & District PSC (@hastingsryepsc)

Now Hastings & District Palestine Solidarity Campaign (HDPSC) has launched the ‘Schools Out for General ‘Genocide’ Dynamics’ campaign to give parents, carers and students the tools to demand their school stops hosting the arms company. HDPSC secretary Laurie Holden said:

Right now ‘Genocide’ Dynamics is making billions in profit from selling technology, bombs and weapons used to kill thousands of Palestinian children in Gaza. Meanwhile, East Sussex schools and colleges are allowing it to ‘STEMwash’ its role in this genocide and pretend to local children that it is just a normal company.

The campaign reflects growing outrage across the UK at Britain’s role in continuing to arm Israel, which is on trial for genocide at the International Court of Justice for genocide, as well as the normalisation of war profiteers in schools.

Last week the National Education Union (NEU), Britain’s largest teaching union, voted to ‘disarm education’. The union, which represents half a million teachers, support staff and leaders up and down the country, called for all schools to cut ties with arms companies and to end careers collaborations and partnerships. 

HDPSC has held 16 protests, facing police aggression and criminalisation, at the two General Dynamics sites in Hastings over the past 18 months to draw attention to the presence in the town of the world’s fifth largest weapons manufacturer and its role in Israel’s genocide in Gaza. The firm supplies the Israeli military with huge ‘MK-84’ 2,000 lb bombs which have been dropped on displaced families in tents as well as schools, hospitals and thousands of homes – bombs so powerful that they level buildings and can kill anything within a 365-metre radius – the length of four football pitches.

Israel’s assault has so far claimed more than 200,000 Palestinian lives, mostly civilians with two-thirds of the victims women and children; the occupation continues to starve Gaza’s population by means of a total blockade on food, medicines, clean water, electricity and other essentials for life – and continues to bomb survivors intensively, including in so-called ‘safe zones’. These crimes have been confirmed as ‘genocidal acts’ and extermination by Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, United Nations experts and Holocaust scholars.

Israeli leaders are wanted for war crimes and crimes against humanity at the International Criminal Court and countries and companies have been ordered by the UN to stop all weapons and ammunition transfers to Israel, an order which General Dynamics and the UK have ignored.

HDPSC officer Olivia Cavanagh, a single parent, said:

We have consistently campaigned for General ‘Genocide’ Dynamics to stop arming Israel. It is appalling to think they are getting into our schools without parents and carers knowing about it. Effectively, this company is targeting pupils to work with them in the future to produce weaponry that will obliterate other children, without informing them that this is what they actually do. Our children should not be exposed to a deeply immoral company arming a rogue state in defiance of international law.”

The website for General Dynamics’ factories in the area states that they make systems for fighter jets and ground vehicles but does not mention its larger role in manufacturing bombs and ordnance – and some of their school visits appear to be taking place under the radar. One grandmother only found out that the company had visited her grandson’s school after noticing he was drinking out of a branded General Dynamics water bottle, handed out free to students during a careers fair:

I was disgusted. We don’t think it’s right to be offering jobs in schools here while they are causing such destruction in Palestine. They get away with it because most parents don’t know who they are or what they do.

A post on Bexhill College’s Instagram account said they were ‘privileged’ that the weapons manufacturer ran an assembly for 60 STEM students in February, boasting of their ‘growing partnership’ with the arms company. But one student there said:

They are selling themselves as an ordinary company, which is misleading because they make bombs. When I told other students what they did, they were quite shocked. The college is treating them like a normal company but there is nothing normal or respectable about profiting from genocide.

When asked about the appropriateness of an arms company visiting schools and colleges, Careers East Sussex denied responsibility in a statement:

The East Sussex Careers Hub works with schools in the county to help them link young people with local employers to learn about careers opportunities in the area and make individual informed choices about their next steps. General Dynamics UK is a local employer which, like any company, has to meet the legal obligations set by national governments. The Careers Hub does not have any role in these matters.

Read HDPSC’s template letter for concerned residents here.

Please remember to support Skwawkbox if you can, to help ensure it can keep running. The site is provided free of charge but depends on the support of its readers to be viable. If you’d like to help it keep revealing the news as it is and not what the Establishment wants you to hear – and can afford to without hardship – please click here to arrange a one-off or modest monthly donation via PayPal or here to set up a monthly donation via GoCardless (Skwawkbox will contact you to confirm the GoCardless amount as it has to be entered by us). Alternatively, if you prefer to make a one-off or recurring donation by simple card payment, please use the form below:

Thanks for your solidarity so Skwawkbox can keep doing its job of inconveniencing the right and helping to build the left!

If you wish to republish this post for non-commercial use, you are welcome to do so, but please include the donor information above – see here for more.