STATEMENT

Confronting Racism and Islamophobia

London, 11th August 2024

As a migrant and racialised community, Palestinians in Britain are among those who have been targeted by racist and Islamophobic attacks this past week. The British Palestinian Committee stands united in solidarity with all those who are threatened by this extreme violence, unprecedented in scale on the streets of Britain in recent history. We pay tribute to the courage of communities across the country who mobilised against the far-right in defence of our fundamental freedoms.

As many have pointed out, responsibility for these attacks lies in part with a media and government policies that have systematically denigrated and dehumanised migrants, Muslims, and people of colour, fuelling street racism in this country.

There are few more explicit examples of racist dehumanisation than Britain’s continued complicity in Israel’s genocidal campaign against the Palestinian people. Active political, diplomatic and military support for Israel, accompanied by routine rationalising of the genocide by political leaders, have served to normalise extreme violence against Palestinians.

This hostile foreign policy, combined with dehumanising language, preached from Downing Street and across British media, has consequences in Britain – for Palestinians, Muslims, and other racialised minorities. One tangible example has been the mischaracterisation of demonstrations calling for a ceasefire as 'hate marches' by key governmental figures and mainstream media, which has directly fuelled far-right mobilisations against those marching in solidarity with Palestine. 

British colonial policy abroad has always translated into the erosion of civil liberties at home. For British Palestinians, as with many racialised communities, the fear we now experience on our own streets is a further extension of the hostility we have increasingly encountered in the public sphere. In our universities, schools, hospitals and civic and political institutions, we have been subjected to systematic exclusion, discrimination and erasure, all the time shrinking civic space and undermining the liberties of all.

As long as government policy remains wedded to support for Israel – and committed to repressing those who oppose this policy – Palestinians and Muslims in Britain will remain unsafe, and our freedoms under threat. As the history of anti-racist struggle in this country and around the world, including mobilisations against racist attacks in the past few days, have shown – our freedom is indivisible. The defeat of racism, from Palestine to Britain, will only be achieved when we confront it head on, and come together to build a coalition mobilised around universal principles of solidarity, freedom, and equality. The British Palestinian Committee is proud to stand in this tradition, and calls all people of conscience to redouble our efforts to fight racism and oppression, wherever it exists.

The British Palestinian Committee is an independent organisation working to ensure that British Palestinian perspectives are integral to public discourse and policy making on Palestine.