Cardiff is hosting a major peace event – calling for a ceasefire and to ‘stop the war’ on Gaza

Peace activists will meet in Cardiff this week to discuss the best way to end the ongoing conflict in Palestine and Gaza with an immediate ceasefire. Stop the War Coalition has organised the event.

Stop The War Coalition: peace event in Cardiff

Poet Patrick Jones, UNISON president Libby Noland, and MP Beth Winter will be among the speakers at the event on Wednesday 22 November at the offices of public services union UNISON in Cardiff.

Stop the War Coalition has organised the meeting which aims to promote and expand the reach of existing peace networks in Wales and better link these networks to build the campaign for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza. Confirmed organisations attending the upcoming meeting include the Stop the War Coalition, Palestine Solidarity Campaign, UNISON, PCS, Undob, The Morning Star, Cymdeithas y Cymod, Welsh Labour Grassroots, and Cymdeithas yr Iaith Gymraeg.

Going forward, organisers hope to promote the cause of peace in conflicts across the world by setting up a provisional Stop the War Cymru coordinating committee.

The event is being held in UNISON House, Custom House Street, Cardiff at 6.30 pm on 22 November. Speakers include:

• John Rees – National Officer Stop the War Coalition.
• Betty Hunter – Honorary President Palestine Solidarity Campaign.
• Libby Nolan – UNISON President.
• Beth Winter MP/AS.
• David Nicholson – Morning Star
• Patrick Jones – Poet.
• Mabon ap Gwynfor MS/AS.
• Sam Alkarnaz – Palestinian UNISON activist.
• Marianne Owen – PCS NEC member & Wales chairperson.
• Jamal Elaheebocus – President Cardiff University Palestine Society.
• Maggie Simpson – Welsh Labour Grassroots.
• Owain Meirion – Cymdeithas yr Iaith Gymraeg.

Israel’s actions will “not survive history”

Stop the War national officer Rees said:

The Palestine protest got rid of Suella Braverman. But Sunak is still ignoring calls for a ceasefire in Gaza and pushing ahead with a new ban on protest. So the Tory plan is to dump Suella Braverman and double down on her policy. Our plan is first Suella, then Sunak.

Swansea cardiac nurse and UNISON president Nolan said:

As a nurse, as well as president of UNISON, I find it hard to comprehend the anguish and suffering of my fellow health workers in Gaza. The ambulance workers who navigate badly bombed roads rushing from home to home to collect the injured. The health workers who struggle to treat the injured, when over a third of hospitals and two thirds of clinics have shut due to damage or a lack of fuel.

UNISON demands an end to this needless loss of thousands of lives; we demand an immediate ceasefire.

Stop the War activist and event organiser Dominic MacAskill said:

Our political representatives need to recognise that the status quo is untenable.

Military occupation, with a subjugated, walled-in population discriminated within an apartheid regime will not survive history.

The international community needs to mobilise for a solution based on equality, so every person living between the river and the sea has the same rights irrespective of the nation-state configuration.

Featured image via Wikimedia