On Saturday 21 December, the busiest shopping day of the year, FIGHT RACISM! FIGHT IMPERIALISM! VICTORY TO THE INTIFADA GROUP held a demonstration against Marks and Spencer and in support of the Palestinian Intifada in Oxford Street London.

First Marks and Spencer Marble Arch branch was targeted for a picket. Activists lined up outside the entrance with placards letting passers-by know that Marks and Spencer supports Israeli terror and apartheid in Palestine, and that while people are going about their Christmas shopping in Oxford Street the situation in Bethlehem and other parts of Palestine is far from peaceful or festive: Palestinians are confined to their homes under the Israeli curfew and cannot go out to get essential supplies as they are shot on sight by the Israeli army. Children are shot for leaving their homes and for throwing stones at soldiers in heavily armoured tanks. Despite all the propaganda of the mass media in Britain, the fact remains that more than three times as many Palestinians as Israelis have been killed in the second Intifada since it began in September 2000, and that the Intifada is a legitimate struggle of the Palestinian people for freedom from occupation.

Two other activists underlined the point further: one dressed as an Israeli soldier held a plastic gun to the head of a blindfolded and kneeling 'Palestinian' in front of the store to a background of chants. MARKS AND SPENCER: MISERY AND SUFFERING! ONE, TWO THREE, FOUR, OCCUPATION NO MORE! FIVE, SIX, SEVEN, EIGHT, ISOLATE THE ZIONIST STATE!

This obviously infuriated the M&S management as they all came down from upstairs to talk to a vanload of police who had arrived. Thanks to organisation and discipline the police failed in their attempts to extract information by going up to different activists to ask questions and they were all redirected to the picket steward who handled them well.

After more than an hour outside M&S Marble Arch the activists marched down Oxford Street with placards and slogans to M&S Oxford Circus. On the way they passed the 'Free Shop' held by the WOMBLES on the theme of the Argentinian crisis and the people's resistance, to cheers and a battery of police cameras photographing every move. Marks and Spencer Oxford Circus was subjected to a picket in the same way that their Marble Arch branch had been earlier.

BOYCOTT MARKS AND SPENCER!

VICTORY TO THE INTIFADA!!

LEAFLET - LEAFLET - LEAFLET

Boycott M&S: Boycott Israeli Apartheid

"The things a Palestinian has to endure, simply coming to work in the morning, is a long and continuous nightmare that includes humiliation bordering on despair. The present model integrates apartheid." (Former head of Israeli Security Service Shin Bet, Ami Aylaon, Ma'ariv 5/12/00)

FACT 20,000 Palestinian civilians have been seriously injured and over 2000 Palestinians have been killed since the Intifada began in September 2000 (www.palestinemonitor.org)

FACT Israel is targeting children: More than one in three of the injured are under 18. Over 400 children under 18 have been killed.

FACT Israel has violated international law (UN Resolutions 242 and 338) by blocking 4 million Palestinian refugees from returning to their homeland while promoting the influx of immigrants to settle in occupied Palestine from Europe, Russia and all over the world.

FACT Shelling and demolition have destroyed 700 buildings and damaged over 14,000. Israeli forces have bulldozed over 30,000 Palestinian olive and fruit trees and 15,000 acres of Palestinian farmland.

Why Boycott M&S? Because M&S...

* Supports Israel with £233 million in trade each year (Jerusalem Report, 5 June 2000)

* sells goods produced in the illegally occupied territories

* were key diplomatic allies for Zionism in the 1920s-40s, working closely with Chaim Weizmann

* M&S Chairman Israel Sieff advocated ethnic cleansing: "large sections of the Arab population of Palestine should be transplanted to Iraq and other Middle-Eastern Arab States" (Jewish Chronicle, 21/09/1941)

* sees "aiding the economic development of Israel" as "one of its fundamental objectives" (Lord Marcus Sieff, long-time M&S Chairman, Management: the M&S Way, 1999)

* "was prominent, even essential, from the 1960s to the 1980s... partly because of its strong links with Zionism; and partly for its success in getting Israeli goods to the British marketplace" (Barry Kosmin)

* received the Jubilee Award, Israel's highest tribute, from Israeli PM Netanyahu in 1998.

* was honoured in 2000 by the Israeli Ambassador to Britain in a ceremony in London.

* "are as close to Israel as we ever have been" (M&S Spokesperson, Jewish Chronicle, 2000)

Our concern is not with M&S' Jewish roots but with its historic and continuing support for Zionism

Zionism and Palestine

Come and discuss Palestine's history and plan political activities. 9 and 23 January, 7:55pm, 20 Kingsway, WC2.
Nearest tube: Holborn

FIGHT RACISM! FIGHT IMPERIALISM!

PICKET M&S!
M&S Marble Arch, 458 Oxford Street
Nearest tube: Marble Arch or Bond Street
Saturdays 4 and 18 Jan, 12-2pm

Get Active, Get Involved, Contact: victoryintifada@hotmail.com Tel: 020 7837 1688