PSC’s conference
Posted: 15th July 2025
On Saturday hundreds of activists, including students and trade union members, gathered in London for PSC’s conference marking 20 years since over 170 Palestinian organisations came together to launch the call for a global campaign of Boycott Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) until Israel ends its violations of Palestinian rights.
Will you join us to help build our BDS campaigns?
On Saturday we came to mark and to honour 20 years of collective organising inspired by and led by the broadest and most unified voice of the Palestinian people.
We came to mark the impact of this movement which today sees Israel more isolated then at any moment during the 77 years of its existence as an oppressive, Jewish supremacist state.
But we also came to share the grief of the Palestinian people that this collective force is now having to be mobilised to confront the darkest moment in that struggle for liberation, is having to focus on ending a genocide and Israel’s open plan to carry our another crime of historic magnitude – the mass ethnic cleansing of the whole of Gaza.
By coming together, guided by the BDS movement, we can collectively end British complicity in these crimes and remove the international support that has been crucial to Israel’s impunity. Peter, can you add your name to our movement?
Right now, Israel is planning to build what can only be described as a concentration camp on the ruins of Rafah into which they intend to force every Palestinian, labelling those who resist legitimate targets for killing. Israel intends to use the camp as a holding place from which Palestinians will be forced from Gaza.
None of this is a red line for our Government to end its military cooperation, sale of arms and political and diplomatic support for Israel. When challenged about these proposals by the Foreign Affairs Select Committee this week David Lammy described them as “sticking points” in the way of an agreement for a ceasefire. Consider that – building a 21st century concentration camp is regarded by our government as a “sticking point”.
Instead of acting to uphold International law and basic concepts of human decency the Government puts its energies into repressing the solidarity movement, proscribing as terrorist those who have taken non-violent direct action in the tradition of the suffragettes and civil rights activists, proceeding with charges against leaders of our movement including myself, with my joint trial with Chris Nineham of Stop the War for our peaceful protest on Jan 18th now set for February 23rd 2026.
These repressive measures are designed to silence solidarity and in particular support for BDS, so that the Palestinian people are left isolated in their struggle for liberation. It is not working and it will not work.
Will you stand up against state repression and support BDS?
As we declared loudly with one voice from every panel this weekend – our movement is growing in strength.
It is Israel that is increasingly isolated in the court of public opinion and institutionally. A recent opinion poll, commissioned by PSC, showed that by a margin of 4 to 1 the British public support our demands for an arms embargo, for divestment by Councils from complicit investments in their Local Government Pension Schemes, and for supermarkets to stop selling Israeli goods.
These sentiments are translating into campaign victories, won by PSC’s network of nearly 100 branches. This week Kingston Council became the 13th local authority in the last 12 months to commit to divest from complicit companies. Last month the Co-op became the first British supermarket to ban all Israeli goods from its shelves.
We are also seeing major victories in our trade unions. This week grassroots pressure in Unite the Union saw its executive sign up to support “worker-led campaigns to boycott the handling of Israeli goods and services in their workplaces and campaigns for divestment from Israeli companies in their workplaces and the wider economy”.
Together we can deliver more of these victories.
We will not be silenced nor will be scaling back our campaigning in the face of repression. We will be escalating on all fronts.
On July 19th we will be bringing our immense community of resistance to the streets again when we march in London calling for a full arms embargo and an end to all UK complicity. Join us on the streets of the capital on the 19th and please support us by becoming a member.
In our thousands and our millions, we are all Palestinians.
In Solidarity
Ben Jamal
PSC Director