Sunday 29th September – one supporter writes:
Thanks for the hard work and organising skills of everyone who contributed to making our Day of Action such a success.
The opening rally was heartened by the messages of support from politicians and public figures, and even one from a group in Chicago – we are truly part of a national and international campaign. Our event was just one of many taking place in towns and cities across the UK.
Our march through Brighton which visited and leafleted Sodastream outlets in town brought welcome publicity for the BDS movement. We gave out over 800 leaflets (a record) with information about the illegal Israeli settlements and Sodastream’s role in profiting from the occupation, and received an overwhelmingly positive response for the campaign.
Over 50 people took part in the march and we collected more sympathetic marchers on the way, ending up at the Ecostream shop in Western Road for our finishing rally where we heard speeches from members and other supporting groups. During our absence from outside the shop, the zionist clowns had held a gathering outside it – thus doing our job for us, publicising the shop as Israeli.
We were very pleased to see some large Palestinian flags being waved over the Ecostream shop by supporters on the roof next door. Then despite being moved across the road by the police and experiencing some outrageously rough police handling, we continued our demonstration until we ran out of leaflets to give out.
Altogether, this was a very successful publicity exercise and we recruited new members to the group as well as gathering yet more signatures to our petition to get rid of settlement trade in Brighton.
It is obvious from talking to the public in Brighton that they are becoming more and more aware that ‘brand Israel’ is a toxic brand they don’t want to support, and the BDS movement is growing – thanks to everyone for your national support.