Bournemouth has been urged to drop ties with an Israeli city by one of its Green Party councillors as the backlash to the country’s military offensive in Gaza rumbles on.
The Greens’ Joe Salmon, who sits on Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole (BCP) Council, said the South Coast town should “de-twin” from Netanya in Israel – another famed beach resort – to protect its “reputation”.
Bournemouth has been twinned with Netanya since 1995 – but Salmon said the former should sever its relationship with the latter over the “plausible case for genocide” against Israel raised by South Africa at the International Court of Justice (ICJ).
Four signs which display Bournemouth’s twin cities – Netanya, alongside Lucerne in Switzerland – had had plaques containing the Israeli city’s name removed in a co-ordinated campaign which sparked protests and counter-protests outside Bournemouth’s town hall.
Joe Salmon urged the town to drop its links to twin city Netanya
Wikimedia Commons/Bournemouth Green Party
Members of the seaside town’s Jewish community launched pro-Israel demonstrations – while pro-Palestine activists also showed up to counter-protest as police watched on in case of clashes.
Salmon had noted that the twinning initiative was “rooted in fostering mutual respect, cultural exchange and the promotion of peace and understanding” – but hit out at Israel’s “apartheid” as he called for ties to be cut.
He said: “When the actions and policies of a sister town’s nation contradict these values, it becomes imperative to reconsider and potentially sever such ties.
“Currently, the ongoing human rights violations, system of apartheid imposed on Palestinians in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories and the plausible case for genocide… necessitate a reassessment of our twinning relationship with our sister town in Israel.”
MORE PROTEST MADNESS:
- Palestine protests erupt across Britain: Police clash with activists in day of CHAOS on anniversary of Israeli independence
- Just Stop Oil and pro-Palestine protesters plot to cause MAYHEM for Starmer and King at State Opening of Parliament
- Oxford students told to ‘sign radical manifesto’ to join pro-Palestinian protest camp
Bournemouth and Netanya have been twinned since 1995
PA/Google
Holocaust survivor Henry Schachter, a member of the town’s Jewish community, said: “We have been keeping a very low profile so as not to antagonise the Palestinian supporter group.
“But after nine months of this protesting, Jewish people are starting to get a bit fed up. It’s time we have a little bit of kickback.”
While the Bournemouth Community Hebrew Congregation’s Stephen White said the group were strongly opposed to calls for Bournemouth and Netanyahu to sever ties.
But a Bournemouth Palestine Solidarity Movement spokesperson said they’d continue to campaign on dropping the twin city.
Protests erupted outside Bournemouth Town Hall
They said: “Although the motion was removed from the agenda, our fight to untwin Bournemouth from the apartheid regime on trial for genocide continues.
“Racism, antisemitism, apartheid, and genocide are not the principles on which the people of BCP stand.”
The group’s chair, Bilal Yasin, also said: “Bournemouth residents quite rightly no longer want our town to be associated with a country that operates an apartheid system which disenfranchises and oppresses a section of its population, that discriminates, brutalises and dehumanises them.”
Bournemouth’s Mayor George Farquhar has said de-twinning his town and Netanya falls outside the remit of the Bournemouth Charter Trustees, a group of councillors who cover historic and ceremonial issues.
Though Farquhar has vowed for the establishment of a working group to review whether said trustees should be given the power to make such decisions.