Rochdale Public Meeting condemns government policy in the Middle East

Date article online: 13/09/2006

About 50 people attended a public meeting at Rochdale Town Hall on Tuesday 12 September to discuss the question, "How do we get peace in the Middle East?’

The meeting was organized by Littleborough and District Peace Group and Rochdale Stop the War Coalition and addressed by Paul Rowen MP, Amy Gilligan of Youth and Student CND and Ron Senchak from the Stop the War Coalition.

Paul Rowen spoke of Rochdale’s long and proud traditions of campaigning for peace and against war, reminding those present of John Bright’s famous speech against the futility of the Crimea war. He went on to criticise the government’s failure to condemn Israel’s use of disproportionate force during its recent attacks on Lebanon and in Gaza and described as "disgraceful" Tony Blair’s "failure to call for an immediate ceasefire". He stressed the need for the peaceful co-existence of all communities in the Middle East and called for an immediate ban on arms sales to Israel. He reminded the meeting of his party’s "opposition to the invasion of Iraq" and called for Britain to distance its foreign policy from that of George W. Bush.

Amy Gilligan emphasized the "hypocrisy of government policies which threaten Iran for developing nuclear power, while doing nothing about Israel’s vast and deadly arsenal of nuclear weapons and itself planning to squander £25,000,000,000 on developing an even deadlier replacement for the Trident nuclear weapons system". She urged those present to "campaign vigorously against all nuclear weapons and against the building of all nuclear power stations, wherever they are planned". She called for a "Nuclear Free Middle East and a Nuclear Free World". She, also, urged people to join the "Time To Go’ demonstration outside the Labour Party conference on 23 September.

Ron Senchak, who is a veteran of both the US Navy and the US anti-war movement, drew parallels between the "lies told to support US military actions in Vietnam a generation ago and the lies told to support the illegal and immoral invasion of Iraq". He reminded the meeting that "Bush’s advisors were planning for an invasion of Iraq, even before he was elected president" and warned that "some are, now, proposing air attacks against Iran, before Bush leaves office". He urged people to demonstrate in Manchester on 23 September to "ensure that Tony Blair and Gordon Brown receive the very clear message that the British public will tolerate no more of their warmongering".