Former Bristol MP Tony Benn makes Gaza appeal

Evening Post / Fri March 6th

Nearly 400 people turned out in Bristol to hear veteran left-winger and former city MP Tony Benn speak at a public meeting on the conflict in Gaza.

Mr Benn, who was Bristol South-East MP for more than 30 years until 1983, told the audience at the City Academy, in Lawrence Hill, he was thrilled to be back in the city.

But he said he particularly welcomed the large number of younger people who attended Friday's meeting, which was organised by the Bristol Stop the War Coalition to show solidarity with Palestinians killed and injured in Israeli attacks on Gaza.

Mr Benn, 83, said: "My generation made a complete mess of the world.

"But your generation have the technology to solve the problems of the human race."

The former Labour minister said what happened in Gaza in December – when neighbouring Israel launched a military assault aimed at militant organisation Hamas, which controls the territory – was "an outrage".

He said the death of 1,300 people out of a total population of a million in Gaza was on a huge scale compared to the London Blitz of 1940 or the 9/11 attacks on the US in 2001.

Mr Benn, who is president of the Stop the War Coalition, said it was a warning of what would happen "if we do not resolve the situation in the Middle East".

He condemned the British Government for not doing enough about the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza.

And he said Israel was the fifth most powerful nuclear armed state in the world, funded by the US, and it was trying "to wipe Palestine off the map".

The meeting was also addressed by Palestinian speakers from the West Bank, including Hiba Ayyad, a 20-year-old student, who said her mother had been killed when Israeli forces shelled her home last September.

Another student, Rawan Amria, 21, from Bethlehem, told the meeting about the effects of Israeli occupation.

She said movement of people was so restricted it had made it difficult for her to reach Palestinian capital Ramalla, where she was eventually able to get a visa to visit Britain.

Earlier, a party of Palestinians met councillors and officials at Bristol City Council, on College Green, to discuss the possibility of a twinning arrangement between the city and a town or project in Gaza to highlight its plight.

Easton councillor Abdul Malik said he hoped to see cross-party support on the council for this idea.

He told the Post: "It's very urgent. It would be good for the non-Muslim community in Bristol to realise that there are humanitarian problems out there that override any religious position."