Exclusive: ret’d army Col Chris Romberg, descendant of Holocaust survivors, on genocide and Starmer regime

Protester among hundreds arrested last weekend speaks out against UK’s hypocritical pro-Israel regime

Chris Romberg, 75, is a retired army colonel who served with distinction in 29 Commando Regiment, mentioned in dispatches for his service during Operation Sutton in the Falklands – and a descendant of Holocaust survivors who escaped from Austria during the nazis’ annexation.

On Saturday, he was one of more than 500 people arrested by the Metropolitan Police under orders deriving from Home Secretary Yvette Cooper’s decision to ‘proscribe’ – ban as a terrorist organisation – the civil disobedience group Palestine Action. He spoke to Skwawkbox this morning about his arrest, the Starmer regime’s collaboration in Israel’s genocide and his reasons for joining the protesters in Parliament Square who held placards reading, “I oppose genocide. I support Palestine Action.”

Romberg told Skwawkbox that he and others taking a stand on this issue are prepared to take the risk in order to prevent genocide and to expose the hypocrisy of a UK regime that is happy to wear the colours of the suffragettes and other groups that used civil disobedience and even violence to win rights we now enjoy, but which is ready to criminalise as terrorists a group that is committed to peaceful action to fulfil our obligations under international law to do everything possible to prevent or end genocide in Gaza.

Steve Walker (S): Hello, Chris, thank you for taking the time to speak to me. What happened after your your arrest on Saturday?Chris Romberg (C): Like others I was ‘street bailed’. So they had set up a temporary police station and we were not charged but we were told we were being arrested under Section 13 of the Terrorism Act [which makes it an offense to wear clothing or carry articles supporting a proscribed group] and will have to appear, in my case in October.

S: You were carrying one of the placards?
C: So I was one of those hundreds who was holding a placard with those words.

S: You’re a former army colonel, which is maybe not typical of people who are active in the pro-Palestine movement.
C: I’m a retired officer, yes. I’ve been active in the Palestine movement for many years now and even more so since I left [the army]. I’ve seen things in the Middle East where I’ve worked, it’s quite clear that the oppression of the Palestinian people was taking place, not just in the occupied territories, and I’m part of a group of Holocaust survivors and descendants of survivors against the Gaza genocide, such as Stephen Kapos and Dr Agnes Kory. I’m not a direct survivor myself but my father and his family, his parents and sisters, had to flee from Austria in 1938 after the German annexation of Austria.

And so, we know what the effect of genocide is. Aside from Stephen and Agnes many people have terrible family histories, that’s why they oppose the genocide.

And my motivation on Saturday was like everybody else, that of opposition to the fact that a non-violent group that is using civil disobedience to oppose the genocide should be proscribed and called terrorists. This is completely against the traditions of this country.

S: I hope you’ll forgive me for saying so, but your army background isn’t necessarily the first one people would think of when it comes to Palestine solidarity. You mentioned that it was what you’ve seen in the Middle East that turned you in that direction, if that’s the right phrase to use. So what was it that you saw there that made you so determined that you wanted to resist it?
C: Well, I worked in British embassies as defence attaché, so as the military representative, in Jordan and in Egypt. And we were kept very well informed there about what’s going on not only in our countries, but in neighbouring countries. And I was able to visit Israel and the areas that Israel occupies as well as areas such as Lebanon and saw the effects that Israel was having on other countries in in the region.

I was well informed on what was going on in the Middle East before that, but there I was really getting a direct view of what was going on and the approach of western countries, the UK, and its role in what was going on.

S: Jewish people are being disproportionately targeted by the Starmer government in its attack on the pro-Palestine movement. What’s the mood, or the sense of determination or despair among the people like you who are working to try to resist not just the genocide but Britain’s collaboration in it?
C: Well, I, I don’t self-identify as Jewish myself although most members of that group and indeed of other groups that have
participated such as as JVL, where I’m a solidarity member, are of course Jewish, but I do have a Jewish background and Jewish forebears. But of course everybody’s voice in this, everyone who has a conscience and is there to speak up, is valid.

But I think the usefulness of having Jewish people prepared to speak up and those who are Holocaust survivor descendants is that they’re trying to put the lie to the claim that all the horrors that are being perpetrated in Gaza and the West Bank and elsewhere are justified by the Holocaust and are being done in the name of Jewish people when they are not.

You mentioned that it was unusual that I that I should be speaking up as a former military officer and that is the case. I know nobody who’s serving has spoken out and there are a few who are retired who have spoken out, but most people don’t. But of course we expect our armed forces to obey orders and to serve the government and the country. Those are positive aspects of being in the military, yes.

But we are also taught in the military that what we do must always be in accordance with international military law. And every year service personnel are taught this and reminded of it and reminded of the lessons of history, in particular in Germany but elsewhere too, of those who have blindly followed orders when when the orders that they were following were not actually legitimate. Yes, they may have been laws that their country had enacted, but they were against international laws and laws such as the Geneva Convention and the Genocide Convention should take precedence.

S: Now you mentioned about things being legal but not right and with this proscription of Palestine action, the potential sentences are quite hefty, up to fourteen years for showing support for all being or even being ‘reasonably’ suspected of showing support for the organisation. You guys must have been aware of those potential consequences when you took the placards to Parliament Square. So, what’s your attitude to the risk, if you like, of the government deciding to push that to its potential conclusion and put hundreds of people in prison?
C: Governments have enormous powers that they can use against us. But all the freedoms that we have were fought for and in many cases fought for with similar disobedience and campaigns by people who were prepared to take much greater risks than we are taking.

And the prime example everybody thinks for the UK is the Suffragettes’ movement. Politicians of all colours like to clothe themselves in the colours of the suffragettes. And it is arch-hypocrisy that they should do so when the suffragettes were very prepared to use civil disobedience and even violence and to fight for their rights and the rights that our current politicians now enjoy.

So it is hypocrisy that they should do that and yet they themselves are now suppressing a similar group which is using civil disobedience in order to prevent a genocide.

S: Is there anything you’d like to add?
C: I would say that the way that that protest was managed by the police [on Saturday], by individual police officers on the ground, in all that I saw, was very humane. And of course one would hope that they would question what they’re being asked to carry out. But I think it is difficult for those relatively junior police officers to do that.

I thought they acted decently, I know it was difficult, they were dealing with disabled people, they were dealing with the very old. I think it’s to the credit of the British police that it didn’t act like some police forces elsewhere around the world. However, I would have hoped that more senior police officers in the service would question the whole validity of this legislation which represses protest, direct action and civil disobedience in order to uphold the greater law and our obligations under the Genocide Convention, for example.

But in particular the fault must be with our politicians, the government responsible for this legislation.

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