Other News & Reports

Brighton & Hove PSC (BHPSC) is urgently raising funds to support a crowd-funding initiative to help families in the Masafer Yatta region of the occupied West Bank. We will match pound-for-pound every donation, drawing on our existing funds from local donors.

The 1400 people living in the Masafer Yatta region in the very south of the Occupied West Bank are facing the biggest mass expulsion by Israel in decades. Families who have lived in the area for generations are living in a constant state of fear. Many homes and schools have already been demolished. For many communities, demolition is imminent. International condemnation has so far not deterred Israel from this incremental ethnic cleansing. Time is running out.

As part of the Defend Masafer Yatta Campaign, the Middle East Children’s Alliance have joined Stop the Wall Campaign in launching an urgent fundraising appeal to enable people to stay steadfast on their land. They are aiming to raise £20,000 to provide 10 tents and electricity generators as temporary shelter for when demolitions occur, and to renovate 10 large caves (historically used by local people as dwellings) to create new homes and schools for displaced families and their children.

BHPSC wants to actively support the people of Masafer Yatta, especially after recently hearing about the current situation directly from local activists and observers. We therefore aim to raise £4000 to contribute to the MECA/StW target of £20,000. And we will match pound-for-pound every donation, drawing on our existing funds from local donors.

The clock is ticking for the people of Masafer Yatta. Your donation can help their resistance. Please give generously.

Please visit our crowd-funding page by clicking here.

A few weeks ago, we hosted an online meeting focused on the situation in Masafer Yatta in the south Hebron hills, featuring local activist and journalist Basel al-Adraa and international observer Joan Neary. You can view a recording of the meeting by clicking here.

We were dismayed and moved by the descriptions of brutal incremental ethnic cleansing, perpetrated by the Israeli regime against the Palestinians in Masafer Yatta. In the discussion, people rightly asked what they could do to help.

BHPSC has identified one small but significant way we can help to support the people of Masafer Yatta, and to show our solidarity with their resistance.

HSBC Bank has notified campaigners that they have decided to end their business dealings with Elbit Systems, Israel’s largest arms manufacturer. This follows 18 months of sustained campaigning by PSC branches and other local groups around the country, as part of the wider STOP ARMING ISRAEL campaign. And over 24,000 people wrote to the company, complaining about their unethical practice. HSBC has been persuaded that their business dealings with Elbit are inconsistent with their so-called ethical banking policies. This is a major victory for the BDS movement. 

Brighton & Hove PSC has played a significant part in the national campaign, with monthly pickets outside the main HSBC branch in Brighton, and ‘pop-up’ pickets once a week. We know that every time we appear at the local branch they inform head office, and local HSBC customers have been horrified to discover the truth about their so-called ethical bank. And the pressure has intensified over the months, with dozens of groups around the country picketing HSBC branches. It looks like the bank has finally recognised that the contradictions between their professed ‘values’ and their actual practice cannot be sustained. 

You can find out more by following these links:
War on Want’s PRESS RELEASE (illustrated with Brighton’s 17-metre banner outside the bank’s AGM last April!)
PSC’s PRESS RELEASE
Coverage by ALJAZEERA
Coverage by ELECTRONIC INTIFADA (with a photo of Brighton action!)
Coverage by MIDDLE EAST EYE
Coverage by Israeli newspaper HA’ARETZ
Coverage by TIMES OF ISRAEL

But the campaign continues
HSBC’s decision leaves intact their loans and share-dealings with UK arms manufacturers that sell to the Israeli military. These include such household names as BAe Systems, Raytheon, Caterpillar and Boeing. HSBC has refused to answer the obvious question: if their business dealings with Elbit fall short of their threshold for ethical banking, how is it ok to continue doing business with these other bad boys? The bank continues to be complicit in Israel’s war crimes and must not be let off the hook.

The number of signatures has now exceeded the target of 100,000!
But please sign the petition if you haven’t signed already.
The UK parliament is now ‘obliged’ to debate the issue, so we need to apply even more pressure.

ALSO: You can read the government’s ‘response’ to the petition by clicking through to the petition website using the link below.

How do you feel about war criminals getting the red carpet treatment here? Hate preachers should be arrested, but surely we should also arrest people who have been directly responsible for the killing of thousands of innocents?

Our government is readying the red carpet for Benjamin Netanyahu, a man responsible for immense racial hatred, and who pulled the trigger on the slaughter of over 2000 civilians in Gaza last year. He continues to defy international human rights law with a siege that is maintaining over a third of a million children in trauma.