Successful branch hard at work!

Boycotting Activities on Saturday 28th March in Waltham Forest

* PICKET -  from 12 noon

Tesco, High Road Leyton (just along from Baker's Arms junction).  For the vocally minded who want to encourage customers not to buy Israeli/illegal settlement goods.

* STALL - from 12 noon

Walthamstow Town Square (over from bus station, near to High Street market).  Another way of encouraging people to join the Boycott but in a more general location.

* LEAFLET - from 2pm

Islamic Relief fundraising event "Gaza: we won't abandon you" (Al Badr Health & Fitness Centre, 453 Lea Bridge Road, E10 7EA).  Please note this is a women only event run by Islamic Relief volunteers.  Join in encouraging the ladies present to engage in discerning shopping.

Next week in Waltham Forest

** WALTHAM FOREST ACTIVISTS BRANCH MEETING - ON MONDAY!!!

ALL WELCOME!
MON 23rd March
7.30pm
Harmony Hall, Truro Road, Walthamstow
Agenda:
a) BOYCOTT and other activities - who will do what?
b) BIG public meeting on Mon 30th March - get people to come along
c) WFPSC branch infrastructure
d) AGM on Sat 4th July - preparations
e) BRANCH meeting - next on Mon 20th April

** LEAFLET LEAFLET LEAFLET
TUES 24th-THURS 26th March
Evening rush-hour at your closest borough tube/railway station.Please come to the Branch meeting on 23rd (see just above) to pick up handfuls of fliers and leaflets to distribute. Or contact Ellie. WE NEED YOUR HELP LEAFLETTING!

** WALTHAM FOREST SUPERMARKET SWEEP!
SAT 28th March
12pm all afternoon
Throughout the borough. Come to Branch meeting on 23rd (see just above) to learn more about the details of the day. The Massed Supermarket Sweep will be extremely entertaining, emotional and pertinent.

** BOYCOTT INFORMATION SESSION
SUN 29th March - (possibly...tbc).
To give the basic information to everyone about what to avoid buying, and why it is an effective way to help Palestinians, every day.

PSC London-based Activists Dayschool - also on Sat 21st March

12-4pm, University of London Union, Malet St, WC1

This day is designed for new PSC members based in London, who wish to find out more about PSC and get involved in building the fastest growing movement in Britain today – but all members, old and new, are welcome! Campaigning to change government policy and build a mass solidarity movement:
12.00 - Welcome and introductions – PSC’s aims
12.15 - Report from Gaza – Sameh Habeeb: photojournalist from Gaza, discussion and questions
12.45 - Workshops focusing on our campaign for boycott, divestment and sanctions:
a) Working with the media
b) Lobbying MPs and MEPs
1.30 - Lunch (food can be bought in the cafe, or please bring your own)
2.00 - Answering the critics
2.40 - Two practical workshops:
a) Organising and speaking at meetings
b) Working with other organisations –eg trade unions and students
3.30 - Plenary session, discussion, campaigning to build a mass movement

Palestine Solidarity Campaign Student Dayschool - Sat 21st March

"After the University Occupations, Campaigning for Palestine"
Saturday 21st March
11am - 5pm
University of London Union, Malet Street, London

10.30am – 11am: Registration

11am – 12.30pm: After the onslaught on Gaza, building a mass movement for Palestine
* Rob Hoveman, Viva Palestina
* Sameh Habeeb, Photojournalist from Gaza
* Jeremy Corbyn MP
* British Muslim Initiative speaker
* Betty Hunter, Palestine Solidarity Campaign

12.30pm – 1.30pm: Lunch

1.30pm – 2.30pm: Learning from Occupations
* Ken Livingstone
* Representatives from university occupations, including:
- University of East London
- University of Manchester
- London School of Economics
- University of Oxford

2.30pm – 4pm: Workshops
* Campaigning for Palestine on your Campus
- Bryony Shanks, Student Officer, Palestine Solidarity Campaign
* Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions
- Naomi Wimborne-Idrissi, Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Committee of Palestine Solidarity Campaign

4pm – 5pm: Building student campaigns for Palestine
* Richard Kuper, Jews for Justice for Palestinians
* Khaled AlMudallal, Let Palestinians Study Campaign
* Bellavia Ribeiro-Addy, NUS Black Students’ Officer
* Oussama Mesoui, Head of Campaigns, Federation of Student Islamic Societies
http://www.palestinecampaign.org/Index5b.asp?m_id=1&l1_id=7&l2_id=35

For more information contact us on students@palestinecampaign.org, 020 7700 6192, or facebook

Imagine this photo was Scotland not Palestine

It's about as logical for the Israeli Defence Force to tramp through the heather fields of Scotland as it is for them to stomp all over the thyme fields of Palestine.



Taken By Radamila Stojanovic of Waltham Forest, WFPSC supporter and member of the International Women's Peace Service, at the peaceful protests near Burin, Palestine on 13th March 2009

Samouni family massacre

Stewart from Stop the War Coalition, in Gaza, being a journalist. Watch and weep as he documents the destruction of Zeitoun in Gaza, and the death of 48 members of one family during the 22-day Israeli bombardment of the Gaza strip.

See you at the Israeli Embassy, 3-7pm on Weds 18th Mar

Welcome to Waltham Forest's home of Palestinian support

Welcome to Waltham Forest Palestine Solidarity Campaign's blogspot!  

Visit this site frequently to find out what we are doing in the London borough of Waltham Forest to support the Palestinian people.  

Although Gaza is uppermost in our thoughts today, we haven't forgotten the West Bank and the millions of Palestinians spread around the Middle East particularly in Lebanon and Jordan hoping, waiting to return home.  And we bring to mind the millions of Palestinians living inside Israel, disenfranchised, threatened.  

We recognise the diverse beauty of Palestinian backgrounds - Christians, Muslims, Jews, Athesists - once living their abundant, elegant Mediterranean life in harmony with the landscape.

And we know the indignation and frustration we feel today here in London, daily witnessing the breathtaking injustices meted out to Palestinians in front of the world's embedded press pack.  We gawp in stunned silence as TV packages and column inches alike frenziedly promulgate trite stereotypes born from disinterest, prejudice and scant research; or worse, say nothing at all, stonily silent as if Palestine and Israel had suddenly vapourised into thin air.  We can spot those editors and producers with hallucinatory personal agendas, from zionist racial cleansers to jihadist over-throwers via ecstatic evangelistic armageddonites, workers revolters, communist utopians, and anarchic nirvana-seekers.  Or whatever they are pushing.  And we search desperately for real Palestinian voices and cling to them like lifejackets in the ever drowning, stormy Mediterranean sea.

We know half the battle for Palestinians is simply daily recognition.  Palestinians exist, have done so largely unmoved for thousands of years and will do so far into the future.  They can be illegally shoved out of their homes but they won't leave their land.  Wake up to today: recognise Palestinians and respect Palestinians.  The UN does - and so should you.

And here we are ourselves: recognisable, firm, strong, supporting Palestinians in all they do. UK's Palestine Solidarity Campaign has been around since our political grandmothers founded it.  PSC's been friends with Rafah and Khan Yunis and Hebron and Bethlehem and Jerusalem and Ramallah and Nablus and Nazareth and Jericho and Jenin and Tyre and Beirut and Jerash and Damascus and Amman and the hundreds of other towns and cities in between, brimming with displaced Palestinians bulldozed from their homes by Israeli military forces, for generations.

And it's been friends with Gaza all along.  Ancient Gaza city.  The Israeli Government dumping ground of today: a prison camp, a hostage centre.  But their attempts will never work to make every inhabitant some kind of neolithic refugee to be fed by the UN, paid for and kept alive by the world's tax payers, locked inside those impregnable walls laced with thick barbed wire and denied all forms of basic civilisation.

Because Palestinians have been civilised for longer than all of us, and mere genocidal imprisonment and malnourishment won't get in the way of centuries of learning and cultured love of life.  You can't stop a Palestinian from offering you hospitality, even in a refugee camp.