Arab and Palestinian community leaders, campaigners, and professional figures in Britain have issued an urgent appeal to Prime Minister Keir Starmer, calling for equal protection for participants attending the 78th anniversary commemoration of the Palestinian Nakba in London on Saturday, 16th May, amid growing concerns over far-right threats.
In the letter, signed by dozens of Arab and Palestinian figures, the signatories said British Palestinians and Arabs are living in “a state of heightened anxiety” due to what they described as an unequal sense of protection, particularly when compared with the speed and seriousness with which the government has responded to the fears of other communities in the British capital.
The signatories stressed that, for British Palestinians, the Nakba is “not a chapter in a history textbook, but a living wound”. They noted that this year’s events will include elderly survivors of the 1948 displacement alongside their grandchildren, making fears of far-right hostility even more painful.
The letter emphasised that Palestinian marches in London “are not spaces of hatred, but shared humanitarian spaces”, attended not only by Palestinians and Arabs but also by Jewish supporters of Palestine. It underlined that these demonstrations have not targeted places of worship and that their central message is one of justice, ending genocide, and lifting the siege.
