British Palestinians feel unable to speak openly about Israel’s war on Gaza, according to Sara Husseini, director of the British Palestinian Committee. Speaking ahead of Saturday’s national march in London commemorating the 78th anniversary of the Nakba, she described a growing climate of hostility toward Palestinian identity and activism in the UK.
Fear and Silence in Daily Life
Husseini said some Palestinians are afraid to wear Palestinian symbols at work or display Arabic jewellery and keffiyehs in public. “We have many documented reports of Palestinians and allies being silenced or punished for wearing Palestinian symbols, watermelon pins, or speaking about the genocide,” she stated. “Many colleagues across all kinds of sectors feel they are being gaslit while friends and families are being massacred back home.”
She emphasized that Palestinians are often treated not as victims of mass suffering but as suspects whose grief has become politicized. “Cruelty is the word I would use, particularly for colleagues who are from Gaza or have family there, knowing these atrocities are being inflicted on their loved ones day in, day out,” Husseini said. “And then being effectively told: not only are we not going to acknowledge that this is happening to you, we’re going to disbelieve you, interrogate you, stop you from speaking about it, and if you do speak, we’re going to paint you as the problem.”
Background and Personal History
Born to a Palestinian father from Jerusalem and an English mother from Leicestershire, Husseini has spent decades in Palestinian advocacy, including advisory work for the Palestine Liberation Organisation during the years of the failed peace process. She described the past two and a half years as “one of daily horror and fear as Palestinians have watched our families and friends massacred, starved and tortured,” calling it the darkest chapter in Palestinian history since 1948.
Solidarity from the British Public
Despite her fury at successive British governments, Husseini highlighted the solidarity shown by ordinary Britons. “We feel a great deal of solidarity from the British public,” she said. “What we’ve seen is hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of people of conscience from all walks of life and all backgrounds who have marched, signed petitions, written to their MPs and protested our government’s complicity in Israeli war crimes.”
A recent UNRWA dispatch reported that 111 Palestinians, including at least 18 children and seven women, were killed by Israeli forces in Gaza in April alone, bringing the total number of Palestinian deaths since the war began to 72,619. The UN agency also noted that emergency tents for displaced people are infested with disease-carrying rodents, causing an increase in skin infections.
An estimated 700 Palestinians have managed to flee Gaza for the UK. “Palestinians who came over during this period have had to find specialist nutritional support because they had been starved and couldn’t just take food on normally when they first arrived,” Husseini said. “That’s not to mention the trauma, the psychological damage, that will seep down through generations.”
Controversy Over Protests
The Nakba march comes amid mounting tensions over pro-Palestinian demonstrations in Britain, with some Jewish groups and politicians calling for tighter restrictions. Husseini rejected descriptions of the protests as “hate marches,” stating: “It’s actually the complete inverse: it’s a protest against the most hateful acts possible: war and genocide.”
She said she attends the protests with her two young children. “We walk alongside people of all faiths, all communities, including 13 organised Jewish blocs. These are all Britons of conscience protesting against the killing of children, the bombing of a captive population, the forced starvation of human beings,” she said. “I think the answer to why they’re being very clearly misrepresented as hate marches is to undermine the hundreds and thousands of people who are turning up on the street. It’s to distract from the government’s complicity in these crimes.”
Government Engagement and Media Framing
While the UK formally recognised a Palestinian state last year, some Palestinians hoped Keir Starmer’s government would take a more robust stance. Husseini said engagement often amounts to little more than “photo opportunities,” pointing to Starmer’s visit to a Cardiff mosque after his 2023 LBC interview, in which he appeared to defend Israel’s right to withhold power and water from Gaza. “This is part of stirring up communal tensions and a wider culture-wars mentality that frames it as Muslims against Jews,” she said. “That framing is just not right.”
Husseini said she was not surprised by commentary in mainstream British media casting Palestinian identity as suspicious or extremist. “This is part of a broader attempt to erase and invisibilise Palestinians,” she said. “It goes hand in hand with attempts to dehumanise Palestinians, and dehumanisation is a prerequisite for genocide.”
Still, she remained hopeful, linking her people’s struggle to the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa. “Our freedom is ultimately inevitable.”
