Bath stands against genocide with cry for justice and end to arms sales

Bath’s streets echoed with the voices of hundreds of residents on Saturday April 27. Their collective cry was a powerful stand against the sale of weapons to Israel and a plea for an end to the genocide in Gaza Following speeches, the protesters marched through the city centre, occasionally stopping for a minute’s silence to read aloud the names of children killed in Gaza since October 7, when Hamas terrorists crossed into Israel to launch the deadliest attack on Jews since the Holocaust taking hundreds of innocent civilians hostage. People carried placards of Palestinian children during the latest march which have been a regular occurrence over the last six months.

Lara Amro, a Jordanian of Palestinian descent, studying at the University of Bath, spoke about the history of her family’s expulsion from Palestine in 1948. Both her parents were Palestinian refugees in Jordan: her father was three years old when he and his family escaped from Hebron city to Jordanian refugee camps, and her mother and sisters were born in Palestinian refugee camps in Jordan, after their parents fled Haifa in 1948.

“I was born and raised in Jordan, but I have been always been in love and dreaming of a home I have never seen - Palestine. In 1948 both my grandparents locked the doors to their homes -in Palestine when they escaped, and took the keys with them to Jordan. They were certain that they’d go back home. The key has been passed on one generation to the next: 75 years later I still have my grandparents’ keys, hoping that I will go back home, to Palestine. But now my grandparents homes, farms and towns have been demolished. Those who didn’t escape were murdered, and illegal Israeli settlements were built over my land, over my people’s blood. Myself and 9 million other Palestinians in diaspora are still dreaming of our homes back in Palestine and that we will go back home one day. That’s why the key is a strong symbol of the Palestinian resistance.”

Ameerah Lebaqa, a resident and student of Palestinian descent whose three year old cousins were recently killed by an Israeli airstrike in Gaza and plunged under rubble, said: “We will never forget the rest of the world who let this go on; the world leaders who provided the weapons to be used against a defenceless population, the media that convinced us that somehow Palestinians deserved to die. What kind of world are we creating if one country has the power to collectively starve an entire population, destroying their livelihoods and blocking their aid trucks, snatching away their only hope and lifeline? What kind of world are we creating if we can allow the unimaginable to become the norm as we risk becoming desensitized to the horrors of a dystopian reality that should forever shock us to the core?”

Jane Samson from Bath Campaigns Network paid tribute to the courage of students and staff at American universities who: “have ignited a forest fire of mass protest that has now hopped across the Atlantic to European soil.”

She described the violent arrest of an economics professor at Emory University, Atlanta, who was “hurled” to the ground and handcuffed despite her telling the police repeatedly that she is a professor.

“Though we are truly in frightening times, their bravery gives us renewed hope in the future of humanity.”

She also paid tribute to the bravery of hundreds of thousands of anti-Zionist Jews protesting in so many countries across the globe who “abhor the genocide in Gaza and want an end to Israel’s occupation”.

David Searby, from Bath Campaigns Network spoke about the role of the UK arms trade: “The UK has clear rules for stopping innocent deaths arising from our arms exports: a licence for arms exports cannot be granted, or could be revoked, if there is a clear risk that the items might be used to “commit or facilitate” a serious violation of international humanitarian law. “If there is one place that international law is being violated, it is Gaza today.

“UN experts have called on all states to immediately suspend arms exports to Israel, as required by the 1949 Geneva Conventions and the Genocide Convention. The UK is putting itself at legal risk by ignoring this advice, and is out of step with countries like Canada, Belgium, Spain, Holland and Italy, who have already stopped arms exports arms to Israel.

“Stopping UK arms exports to Israel is important to send a strong international message that we refuse to be complicit with the ongoing slaughter in Gaza.”

Matthew Alford, lecturer of politics at the University of Bath spoke about the power of protest and how the Anti-war Movement plays its part – but the pressure has to be sustained. “Over the years I have learned that anti-war protesters are committed, joyful – and right. And at local protests like this, we are all playing our part.”

The next Bath Gaza protest march will be on Saturday, May 11 gathering in Kingston Parade by the Abbey at noon.