Never mind the murder, here's the ant-war protest round up.

First you'll be glad to know that the BNP finally came out. For those of you who don't know the British National Party are the public face of British racism. They support the forcible repatriation of non-white immigrants from the UK and their members have the nasty habits of denying the holocaust and flinging Nazi salutes. They are however quite fun to watch during an Arab/Israeli war because they always go through a massive internal struggle to decided who they hate more, the Paki's or the Jews. You'll be glad to know that on January 11th they finally came to a decision and following the standard rule of racism they attacked the ones with the darkest skin by blaming the protests outside the Israeli Embassy on "third world immigrants brought here by the failed ideology of multiculturalism". In quite the twist of irony on the same day the BNP made their announcement London Zionist held a rally in Trafalgar square which with it's plethora of Union Flags and burly private security goons was only a couple of Seig Heils away from a BNP march.

As for the embassy demo itself what started out peacefully enough quickly descended into some of the most intense street fighting following a political demonstration seen since probably Mayday 2000. Everything started peacefully enough as around 50-60,000 people marched to the Israeli Embassy from Hyde Park then as everybody arrived to find themselves corralled into a space which was far to small tensions began to rise. First a group tried to gain entry to the Russian Embassy thinking it was the rear entrance to the Israeli Embassy. Obviously this group soon began to clash with police throwing shoes, paint and placards forcing the police to respond initially with batons before donning riot helmets and deploying circular (short) riot shields. During the course of this clash the windows of an adjacent Starbucks store were smashed presumably as a responses to the CEO's continued support for Zionist groups who fund illegal Israeli settlements. As news of this clash began to spread and the police started deploying officers in riot gear around the embassy tensions rose further with the protesters attacking the police with barrages of shoes, sticks, coins, batteries, paint, fireworks and even the crash barriers the police had erected to protect the embassy.

After a stand off of several hours in which saw another Starbucks store ransacked and injuries sustained by both police and protesters the police decided to move in and subdue the crowd. This was done by pushing a segregation line out from the gates of the embassy breaking the crowd up into two groups which were then pushed apart. The police did not have an easy time of this though as the crowd fought back using the police's own crash barriers, fists and sticks to repel multiple baton charges. Over the course of the next hour three police officer were knocked unconscious and several received what have been described as serious facial injuries. Eventually with the deployment of horses, vans and rarely used long riot shields the police were able to place a "kettle" around the two groups detaining around 3000 on "suspicion of causing criminal damage". For another hour or so the two groups were squeezed tight within the kettles until their desire to cause further trouble had dissipated. They were then released one by one to have their photographs taken and their names and addresses recorded.

Personally I didn't attended the demonstration which was probably a good thing because whent he showed it on the news I immediately started swearing at the TV shouting things like;

"Don't they know police batons only have purchase over the final 1.5ft? All they need to do is get the front row of the crowd to link arms and close the distance with the police line and they can stop a baton charge dead."
and
"For gods sake, if you're going to put the barriers in the road at least arrange them in triangles so you can filter the baton charges into single columns of police officers." I got the same effect watching the Last Castle the other day raising the question of why I couldn't have been born with a talent for something less illegal. All in all the cost of the demonstration was around £300,000 not including damage to property or loss of revenue to local businesses. This fact alone probably explains why the police promptly banned the Stop the War Coalition from holding any further demonstrations outside the Israeli Embassy and the STWC suddenly felt the need to go off an protest against BBC bias.

Even with these large London protest clear winners int he property damage stakes, behind the IAF obviously, are the Smash Edo campaign in Brighton. In amongst the houses and civilian businesses of this seaside town, roughly the size of the Gaza strip American arms manufacturer ITT operate a weapons factory under the name EDO MBM . One of the key products manufactured at the site are the bomb release mechanisms that the Israel's use to drop paveway bombs on the Palestinians from their F16's. To protest against Israels actions in Gaza nine protesters from the Smash Edo campaign broke into the factory and proceeded to put it out of action by destroying precision manufacturing equipment, computers and company files. Insurers estimate the damage at around £260,000 meaning those arrested will have to be tried in Crown court. This is where things could get very interesting because the Smash Edo campaign has been running for a number of years and has seen a number of smaller prosecutions for criminal damage. Every time one of these cases have come to court the defendants have let it be known they intend to run a defence of lawful excuse because EDO's products are used in the commission of war crimes. At this point the company withdraw their support the complaint collapsing the prosecution to avoid having the matter discussed in open court. Now with the amount of damage done if the company wants it's insurance payout they will have to go ahead with the prosecution meaning that Israels conduct in the Gaza war may well come up in front of a British Court. No doubt this is the excuse the protesters will use to explain why they hung around to get arrested rather then simply setting fire to the factory

Of course all this is in danger of being quickly forgotten in just two weeks because there have been wildcat strikes at 14 oil refineries and power stations across the UK as workers show their opposition to threats to their jobs.