Palestine Solidarity Campaign activist praises Hamas’s ‘peaceful initiatives’

The brochure for last Saturday’s Durham Miners Gala included a statement by a Palestine Solidarity Campaign activist praising Hamas for its “many peaceful initiatives”.

Over four pages of the brochure for the 138th Durham Miners Gala, the article called for the “defeat of Zionism” and claimed Jews themselves needed to undergo “liberation” from the “racist ideology”.

Author John Metson, a leading figure in the PSC’s County Durham branch, also accused Israel of “unrelenting savagery” in the war against Hamas, and claimed there was no need to wait for the International Court of Justice’s judgment “to know that this is genocide”.

Jewish Labour groups reacted furiously after being shown the anti-Zionist rant, with a Labour Friends of Israel spokesperson calling on the PSC to make an “immediate apology” about the content of their statement.

Jewish News was alerted to the material by a group of trade unionists at last Saturday’s event, which was attended by Jeremy Corbyn.

One told us: “Thousands of copies of the brochure are posted and sold on the day. I will be lodging a complaint with my union Unite over the rubbish I was made to read.”

The brochure for last Saturday’s Durham Miners Gala included a statement by a Palestine Solidarity Campaign activist praising Hamas for its “many peaceful initiatives”. Thousands of people attended the gala.

This year’s event was meant to mark the 40th anniversary of the miners’ strike and included in a lively parade. But in a move which angered some attendees, the PSC’s statement was a central feature of the £2 brochure.

“We could not believe what we were reading when we came to the section written on Israel and Palestine,” one attendee told Jewish News. “The Miners Gala never used to be dominated by such one-sided accounts on the politics of the Middle East. It used to be about celebrating the best of working-class culture in this country.”

Inside, reference was made to the 7 October Hamas terror attacks, which PSC writer Metson accepted was a “horrifying atrocity”.

Over four pages of the brochure for the 138th Durham Miners Gala, the article called for the “defeat of Zionism” and claimed Jews themselves needed to undergo “liberation” from the “racist ideology”. But he then wrote: “What is less well known is that since its formation in the late 1980s” Hamas “has made many peaceful initiatives implicitly accepting an Israeli state on pre-1967 borders… These have all been rejected, leaving it with little alternative but armed resistance or what is often called terrorism.”

A Labour Friends of Israel spokesperson told Jewish News: “ To suggest the Hamas terrorists who killed, kidnapped, mutilated and raped their way through southern Israel on 7 October have made ‘many peaceful initiatives’ is as farcical as it is ahistorical.

“Even more shockingly, the attempt to justify ‘armed resistance or what is often called terrorism’ is deeply offensive and demonstrates complete ignorance of the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. There must be an immediate apology and explanation as to how this was printed.”

A Jewish Labour Movement source called the material “weapons-grade anti-Jewish hate, masquerading as pro-Palestinian advocacy”, adding: “Once again, the far left insists that it can tell a minority group how and when others are racists towards it. Of course, it wouldn’t dream of doing this in any other case of discrimination.

“The PSC’s utter failure to acknowledge Hamas’s terrorism and the long-held antisemitic views which are central to its evil ideology shows how morally bankrupt it is.”

 Jewish News has asked the PSC for further comment.