Bournemouth/Netanya De-Twinning Protest – 17th July 2024
Only one week ago we discovered that at a meeting of Bournemouth Councillors scheduled for 6.00pm yesterday one Councillor had submitted an odious motion recommending the de-twinning of Bournemouth and Netanya because of ‘the current Israel-Hamas conflict and Israel’s potential violations of international law, and the subsequent detrimental impact on the reputation of the town of Bournemouth and its Mayoralty’.
Len Ostrove, Chair of Bournemouth Action for Israel and a BCHC Board member, and I as Chair of Crisis in Israel Bournemouth Group knew that the community needed to react. We were aware that pro-Palestinian demonstrators – the groups who have marched through Bournemouth most Saturdays since last October 7th – would be at the Town Hall to protest. We decided we also needed to protest – that this motion was an affront to the Jewish Community and that Councillors attending this meeting needed to know the strength of our feelings.
Lots of work was done in the intervening week, to try to block the motion on procedural grounds, to influence Councillors by writing to them, to communicate across the community (and with our non-Jewish supporters) to achieve a good turn-out. At 4.00pm yesterday afternoon we heard that the motion had been ruled out of order and would not be discussed at the meeting. Because it was too late to notify everyone our protest went ahead. At 5.00pm about 200 supporters from across the community gathered in the Town Hall carpark for a joyous and affirmative demonstration of our determination and togetherness. We sang, we chanted, we held up countless banners and placards supporting Israel and Netanya, we waved Israeli and Union flags and we played uplifting Israeli music – VERY LOUD! On the other side of the carpark about 75 pro-Palestinian demonstrators waved their Free Palestine flags – no British flags on show on their side –and shouted slogans, but in the main we couldn’t hear what they were saying because of the noise we were making – and we didn’t care. But the police did – they were there in significant numbers taking notes (not about us, I think).
