Eirej Sharaz, Birmingham City University Socialist Students
Two years of brutal ethnic cleansing orchestrated by the state of Israel has killed 800 Gazan athletes and 350 footballers. Hundreds peacefully protested outside the stadium of Aston Villa before their match against Israeli football team Maccabi Tel Aviv on Thursday 6 November.
Crowds carried banners with slogans, such as ‘Gaza: starvation is being used as a weapon of war’. Local Your Party MP Ayoub Khan also attended. The travelling Maccabi supporters have become notorious for anti-Muslim chants and rioting.
A number of Villa fans stopped to join the protest on their way into the ground. Though a more concerted effort by the protest organisers to make it clear that working-class football supporters were not the target of the protest could have eased some of the tension.
Minimal effort has been made to aid the horrific situation for the people in Gaza by the world’s capitalist powers, including Keir Starmer’s Labour government. No wonder that these protests are continuing, with workers and young people increasingly turning their back on Labour.
