West Midlands Palestine Solidarity Campaign

WMPSC is supporting the national day of action and has called for a protest outside the New Street Branch, 130 New St, Birmingham B2 4JU of HSBC in Birmingham City Centre. Protesters will be there from 1 pm to 2:30 pm. HSBC invests in and provides financial services for companies providing military technology and weapons to Israel, which the Israeli military has used to commit war crimes and systematically violate international law. This includes investments of nearly £100 million in the company Caterpillar.

Caterpillar supplies the Israeli military with bulldozers which are weaponised and used to assist in Israel’s ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people, including the demolition of Palestinian homes, schools, villages and civilian infrastructure – in order to make way for the ever-expanding illegal Israeli Jewish-only settlements.

Since 1967 the Israeli military has demolished nearly 50,000 Palestinian houses, and Caterpillar equipment has been involved at many of these demolitions, which amount to war crimes. Currently Caterpillar Bulldozers are being used by the Israeli military to aid in the demolition of 70 Palestinian homes in the Sur Baher village in East Jerusalem. Over 1000 Palestinians are being displaced from their homes, forcing them to live in exile

Caterpillar also provides equipment used to reinforce Israel’s apartheid infrastructure, including Israel’s checkpoints, seperation wall alongside the West Bank as well as the wall in Gaza, and for the construction of illegal settlements and settlement infrastructure on stolen Palestinian land.

Public pressure led HSBC to divest from Elbit Systems, Israel’s largest arms company, but HSBC remains deeply complicit with Israel’s war crimes.

Mobilise and take creative action at your local HSBC branch, join in with local actions, spread the word on social media and call on HSBC to #StopArmingIsrael!

We call for a two way arms embargo with israel and a shift from weapons production to socially useful production,

A rally is planned for Monday the 19th December

The rally will be a creative, non-violent  outside the factory gates to demand the Elbit’s factory’ demanding its closure. The rally will be starting at
10 30 am
Map of the factory: https://www.caat.org.uk/resources/mapping/address/5164

Welfare not warfare. The campaign is highlighting the waste of Government money on the arms trade, instead of opposing austerity and spending the money on vital local services, NHS, apprenticeships etc.
The protection of local jobs by supporting an ‘Arms to Renewables’ policy. The arms industry currently receives a huge public subsidy- but reallocating resources to renewables could create more and better jobs. You can read more about the Arms to Renewables campaign on the CAAT website.

It is time to let the israeli war machine know we are like stars and we will not disapear that the fight for justice is everlasting.On 19 dec 2016 groups and campaigners from across the UK are going to protest at Elbit’s factories across the uk to demand that the UK stops arming Israel and that the factory close. Elbit Systems manufacture UAVs (drones) that are used by the Israel Defense Forces in Gaza.

The assault on Gaza of 2014 which killed over 2,200 Palestinians, was one of the most brutal examples of Israel’s ongoing occupation and ethnic cleansing of Palestine. Palestinians, including 551 children, were massacred in a duck shoot by the Israelis, who launched high ordinance missiles into Gaza’s residential areas, schools, hospitals and refugee camps, the most overcrowded area in the world, At the time, activists occupied Elbit’s factory in Shenstone, halting its operations and costing Elbit over £100,000.

Birmingham Palestine Action are leading the action at the shenstone site. Email palaction1@gmail.com to contact. Twitter: @brumpalestine

Our action will be a creative, non-violent picket and rally outside the factory gates to demand the factory’s closure. We will be starting at
10 30 am
Map of the factory: https://www.caat.org.uk/resources/mapping/address/5164

TRANSPORT:

Shenstone is a small village outside Birmingham, accessible by National Rail trains. The Elbit factory, UAV ENGINES, is five minutes walk from Shenstone railway station which is on the Longbridge Lichfield cross city line.Trains are every 15 minutes from New Street station.

If you are coming from a big city where there is an active Palestine Solidarity movement it might make more sense to book a mini-bus or coach instead – please coordinate with us via our email (above).

PLEASE BRING:

Banners!
Pots, pans, air horns, megaphones, any noise-making devices.
Red, green, black and white ribbons to tie on the fence and kites, http://www.flykitesnotdrones.org/

ACCESSIBILITY:

We want to make the day as accessible and inclusive as possible. If you have access needs or will be coming with children and would like to discuss practical arrangements, please get in in touch via email (above).

For more information on Elbit etc.:

https://corporatewatch.org/company-profiles/elbit

http://wire.novaramedia.com/2015/07/stoparmingisrael-6-reasons-to-block-the-factory/

www.caat.org.uk/resources/countries/israel

www.uavenginesltd.co.uk

https://www.stoparmingisrael.org/

Birmingham Palestine Action
Community
A network of people in Birmingham taking (direct) action against Israeli apartheid through BDS & other participative Palestine solidarity work.

West Midlands Palestine Solidarity Campaign is dedicated t o campaign for Palestinian rights in Palestine and end to the occupation.

We support the Palestinian Civil Society’s call for Boycott Divestment and Sanctions. Our action in the West Midlands is dedicated to ensuring an effective boycott of all goods associated with the occupation. We encourage companies and public bodies not to invest in companies that benefit from the occupation and we campaign for government and other public bodies to apply sanctions against the occupying power while it continues to violate international law and while it continues to violate human rights for the Palestinians by refusing them the right to return.