Former Prime Minister Liz Truss has said people are allowed to demonstrate in favor of terrorists as more pro-Palestinian marches take place across Britain on Saturday. Truss, who has been on a trip to the US this week as part of a delegation with Ukraine’s conservative friends, suggested the protests showed the “woke left” would rather support authoritarian regimes than the West.
The Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) has organized a nationwide “day of action” to call for a ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war. Fighting resumed in the Middle East after a week-long ceasefire to allow for the exchange of hostages and prisoners.
Speaking to right-wing US broadcaster Fox News while in Washington DC, the Conservative MP said: “On the streets of London I see people demonstrating in support of terrorists and that it is allowed to happen. And you have the trans extremists, the eco-extremists, the anti-capitalists, the degrowths.
“They’re about saying, ‘The way we live in Britain or America, that’s not the right way to live.’ “Actually, we’d rather support terrorists, we’d rather support authoritarian regimes.”
There are fears of further civilian casualties after Israel released leaflets on Friday warning residents to leave the southern part of the Strip where two million people – almost all of Gaza’s population – are based. The conflict, sparked by Hamas’ deadly attack on Israel on October 7, has led to regular protests in support of the Palestinians in Britain since the bloodshed began.
Former Home Secretary Suella Braverman had branded the protests “hate marches” before she was sacked by the Prime Minister. Rishi Sunak, who succeeded Truss after the fallout from her disastrous mini-budget saw her become Britain’s shortest-serving prime minister, is reportedly seeking to toughen the law to make it easier to ban marches and prosecute those who glorify terrorism.
More than 80 people have been charged in the UK for alleged hate crimes and violence linked to pro-Palestinian protests since the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas conflict and the Met Police are seeking images of 60 unnamed suspects. There have been 288 arrests in the past seven weeks of protests, 13 of which were related to anti-terrorism offences.
“That’s why we need conservative leadership to actually take on the left, to show strength in the face of aggressors abroad so that we can revive the values that most people in our communities are desperate for,” she said. “They believe in family, they believe in freedom, they believe in Anglo-American values.
– The problem is that so much of the public debate is now dominated by the vigilant left. You can see it here in Washington DC, you can see it in London, you can see it all over Europe.”
Pro-Palestinian protesters are expected to gather across the UK, with the PSC organizing ceasefire rallies and vigils in places including London, Cardiff, Hull and Coventry. Israel struck on Saturday in the southern Gaza Strip after urging Palestinians to move there at the start of the war, a move that displaced three-quarters of the population and faced widespread shortages of food, water and other necessities.
The bombing hints at plans for an expanded Israeli ground assault on the southern area, but civilians there cannot enter the battlefield in northern Gaza or neighboring Egypt. Their only recourse is to move within the 85 square kilometer area.
Lord Ricketts, who served as Britain’s first national security adviser, said Israel risks causing “massive civilian casualties” if it takes the fight to Hamas in southern Gaza. That peer told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “They have an increasing dilemma.
“They ordered a million people from the north to go to the south. They now have two million people there, many of them refugees, many of them living out in the open.
“They simply cannot use the same type of armored assault that they used in the north without massive civilian casualties.”
He said Tel Aviv’s plan to destroy Hamas “seems to me to be impossible” because of the organization’s political and social nature.
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