The Biggest Demonstration in Bradford for many years took place on Wednesday with 500 people marching from Infirmary Fields to the City Park to demand that Israel and Palestine stop the violence.
John Baruch speaking for The Bradford and Shipley Trades Union Council called on the British Government to pressure Israel into opening talks and discussing a solution to the problems of many decades just as we did in Northern Ireland.
“We learned that war solves nothing,” said Mr Baruch.
“War leads to more war, more violence, more killing and destruction. Only peaceful, honest negotiation can bring an end to this horrific situation. Palestine and Israel must be helped to live side by side in Peace.
“The Bradford and Shipley Trades Union Council declares that the slaughter of Israelis and slaughter of Palestinians has no future and no rewards.
“No one should cheer the slaughter in Israel; Israeli families in their homes, young people at a music festival all deserve to be alive.
“The Trades Union Council is asking ‘How do we achieve an end to the approach of the Israeli state to the Palestinians treating them as second-class citizens, bulldozing their homes to make way for settlers and defiling their religious sites?’
“Why is the British government is criminalising the peaceful Boycott Divestment and Sanctions campaign which aims to pressurise Israel to end the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. They also deny the Palestinian Authority the right to seek redress at the International Court of Justice.
“We must change our media which describes an attack on a police station in Israel as terrorism, while bombing a hospital in Gaza is self-defence!
“The Shipley and Bradford Trades Council declares that “it is shameful when a British Foreign Secretary endorses the war crime of collective punishment. It is a war crime to deny food, to cut off the water and electricity to a whole nation of people.”
