Demonstrations across Europe condemn Israeli genocide against the Palestinian people

Across Europe, a large number of people have protested against Israeli attacks on Gaza and have condemned the attitude of the United States and some European governments, which have supported or have kept silence on the aggression of the Zionist state against the Palestinians.
In France, demonstrators turned out in their thousands on January 3 to condemn Israeli attacks on Gaza. In Paris, the organizers said that 25,000 people had taken part in the protest. In Nice, 5,000 demonstrators condemned Israeli agression against Gaza. In Perpignan, near the Spanish border, 1,500 people also participated in a protest.
In Madrid, thousands of people took part in a demonstration outside the Spanish Foreign Ministry to protest against Israeli aggression against Gaza. “Justice for Palestine” and “This is not a war but a genocide” were amongst the messages on display on signs. Some marchers called out “murderers” while others waved shoes in the air.
After the demonstration, hundreds of protesters start a spontaneous march through the streets of Madrid.
In Warsaw, hundreds of people protested outside the Israel embassy on December 29, calling for an end to “killing civilians” after three days of airstrikes in the Gaza Strip. “What is happening in Gaza now is not a war against Hamas, it is a genocide against a people who have been kept imprisoned for the past two years,” said a Palestinian protester. “They are bombing mosques. They are bombing hospitals. Is this democracy?”
Chanting “Long live Palestine,” and “Stop Israeli Terrorism,” the protestors waved Palestinian flags and carried signs saying, “Stop the Holocaust in Gaza.” “We are against the massacre in Gaza,” said Omar Faris, of an association promoting Polish-Palestinian relations. “The people who were victims of Hitler are now his best students.”
In the UK, 50,000 demonstrators, according to the Stop the War Coalition, marched through London on January 3 to protest against the Israeli offensive on Gaza. Many people carried Palestinian flags and some chanted “Free, free Palestine” and “Israel terrorists” as they filed along the River Thames towards Trafalgar Square. Other demonstrations also took place in Birmingham, Cardiff, Sheffield and Halifax.
Prime Minister Gordon Brown “needs to be reminded that (his predecessor) Tony Blair´s support for Israel´s attack on Lebanon in 2006 led to him being forced from office,” the Stop the War Coalition said in a statement. “The British government must call for the bombing to stop now and for an end to Israel’s illegal blockade of Gaza over the past year, which has inflicted near starvation and lack of essential resources on its people.”
Previously, on December 28 about 1,000 protesters gathered outside the Israeli embassy, located in the neighbourhood of Kensington, London, to protest against Israeli massacre in Gaza. At one point an Israeli flag was burned in the crowd. Some waved placards reading “Stop the Holocaust in Gaza” and “End the siege on Gaza”.
Member of British parliament George Galloway, former Mayor of the City of London Ken Livingstone, human rights activist and pop culture star Bianca Jagger, and actor Alexis Sail have also taken part of campaigns to end the attacks. They all called on the US´s President elect, Barack Obama, to take a stand against the Israeli bombardment of the Gaza Strip. Obama has said nearly nothing up to now. Bianca Jagger was looking for Obama to “express an opinion in what is happening and demand an immediate halt to the shelling against the civilian population in the Gaza Strip.”
Galloway said in a press conference in London that the Israeli attacks against the Gaza Strip, “will create a new generation of extremists in the various regions of the world and we can expect that the unexploded bombs dropped on the Gaza Strip today will be thrown right back in our face in the future.” Livingstone called for the European Union and Britain to withdraw their ambassadors from Israel in protest at what he viewed as “the systematic slaughter and killing of innocent citizens, the Arabs.”
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan was outraged by a statement from Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert that the operation is likely to continue. “To go and bomb these defenseless people, and to openly say that this operation will be a long-lasting one, that it will be this or that, to me, is a serious crime against humanity,” Erdogan said at a meeting of his ruling AKP. Erdogan said he was appalled that the attacks came as his country was helping mediate peace talks between Syria and Israel. He said the attacks were a “show of disrespect” toward Turkey.
Thousands of protesters demonstrated against Israel´s attack on Gaza outside the Israeli embassy in Ankara and the consulate in Istanbul.
In Greece, hundreds of Greeks and Arabs staged a demonstration outside the Israeli embassy to protest against Israel´s air strikes in the Gaza Strip. A number of protesters sought to break through a police barricade outside the building and chanted anti- Israel and anti-US slogans.