Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu should be imprisoned for “war crimes” against the Palestinian people, far-left Labour MP John McDonnell said on Saturday at a protest in London.
McDonnell, who served as the Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer under radical socialist former Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn, spoke before thousands of pro-Palestinian protesters in Hyde Park.
“This conflict was initiated by Netanyahu in order to preserve his power but also to keep him out of prison,” McDonnell claimed in a reference to corruption allegations levied against the Israeli prime minister.
“Let us all pledge that one day, Netanyahu will be imprisoned. It will not be for corruption, it will be for the war crimes perpetrated on the Palestinian people,” the Labour MP said.
McDonnell said that while he “welcomed” the ceasefire negotiated between Israel and Hamas, he vowed that “there will be no ceasefire in our campaign to boycott, disinvest, and sanction the Israeli apartheid state”.
His statement was met with chants of “Allahu Akbar” from the crowd, whom McDonnell then led in a chant of the Black Lives Matter slogan “no justice, no peace”.
Labour MP Zarah Sultana also took to the stage at Hyde Park, saying: “We pledge that we will never abandon the oppressed to the brute power of the oppressor. Our shameful Tory government is complicit, it is shamefully complicit in Israel’s war crimes, and we will never, ever give up on justice.”
“The Palestinian people have taught us a lesson,” Sultana said, adding: “It’s a lesson that no defeat is final if you believe in a better world, racism can be beaten, colonial expansion can be resisted.”
The event was capped off by a speech from former Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn, who was suspended from the party after he rejected the findings of a report that said he failed to confront antisemitism within the left-wing party.
Mr Corbyn renewed his calls for the recognition of Palestine as a state and for the British government to cease military cooperation with Israel, saying: “From this demonstration today, here in Hyde Park, we call for the end of all arms supplies to Israel in order to save lives and bring about a peace.”
“We call for the end of the occupation and the end of the siege of Gaza,” Corbyn said.
“Since Israel has settled half a million people on the West Bank, the settlement policy must end… so the Palestinian people can get peace, their land, and their country back,” he added.
Once again, the pro-Palestinian demonstration devolved into violence, with belligerents attacking police officers with makeshift missiles and some even attacking a car on the streets of London.
As with last week’s violent altercations, Jeremy Corbyn has so far failed to condemn the attacks on British police on his social media.
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