LONDON: British Palestinians are facing a climate of fear around openly speaking against Israel’s war on Gaza, the director of the British Palestinian Committee has said.
Growing hostility toward Palestinian activism and identity has also led some British Palestinians to shy away from wearing Arabic jewelry and keffiyehs in public, Sara Husseini told The Guardian.
She was speaking before Saturday’s national march in London to commemorate the 1948 Nakba, in which hundreds of thousands of Palestinians faced ethnic cleansing during the creation of Israel.
“We have many documented reports of Palestinians and allies being silenced or punished for wearing Palestinian symbols, watermelon pins, or speaking about the genocide,” Husseini said.
“Many colleagues across all kinds of sectors feel they are being gaslit while friends and families are being massacred back home.
“Cruelty is the word I would use, particularly for colleagues who are from Gaza or have family there, knowing these atrocities are being inflicted on their loved ones, day in, day out.
“And then being effectively told: Not only are we not going to acknowledge that this is happening to you, we’re going to disbelieve you, interrogate you, stop you from speaking about it and if you do speak, we’re going to paint you as the problem.”
Husseini — born to a Palestinian father from Jerusalem and English mother from Leicestershire — has committed decades of work to Palestinian advocacy. She served in an advisory role to the Palestine Liberation Organization during the failed peace process.
The director described recent years as the darkest chapter of Palestinian history since 1948.
“The past two and a half years have been one of daily horror and fear as Palestinians have watched our families and friends massacred, starved and tortured,” she said.
But solidarity shown by many ordinary Britons has served as a source of “emotional survival” for those with Palestinian roots in the UK.
“We feel a great deal of solidarity from the British public. What we’ve seen is hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of people of conscience from all walks of life and all backgrounds who have marched, signed petitions, written to their MPs and protested our government’s complicity in Israeli war crimes,” Husseini said.
The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees has reported that 111 Palestinians — including 18 children and seven women — were killed by Israeli forces in Gaza last month.
About 700 Palestinians have fled the war-torn enclave and made it to Britain.
Husseini said: “Palestinians who came over during this period have had to find specialist nutritional support because they had been starved and couldn’t just take food on normally when they first arrived.
“That’s not to mention the trauma, the psychological damage, that will seep down through generations.”
Major Jewish groups and their political supporters in the UK have called on the government and police to impose restrictions on pro-Palestine marches.
Husseini rejected the description of the weekly rallies as “hate marches,” saying: “It’s actually the complete inverse: it’s a protest against the most hateful acts possible: war and genocide.
“I think the answer to why they’re being very clearly misrepresented as hate marches is to undermine the hundreds and thousands of people who are turning up on the street. It’s to distract from the government’s complicity in these crimes.”
The British Palestinian Committee director said engagement with the Palestinian community in Britain often amounted to mere “photo opportunities.” She highlighted Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s visit to a mosque in Cardiff shortly after he appeared to defend Israel’s right to block power and water in Gaza.
Broader commentary on the war on Gaza in Britain has often cast Palestinian identity as suspicious or extremist.
“This is part of a broader attempt to erase and invisibilize Palestinians,” Husseini said. “It goes hand in hand with attempts to dehumanize Palestinians, and dehumanization is a prerequisite for genocide.”
