June 2nd: This is Your Fight Too

When we set up Our Fight, in the days following 7.10, our primary goal was to show solidarity with the Jewish community. We were shocked at the lack of empathy towards our friends, and to a nation that was grieving the loss of so many. A nation stunned by the slaughter of young at a music festival and families in their homes, the capture for hostages of babies and Holocaust survivors.

We chose a line from New York mayor Eric Adams' famous speech, for our name; to show solidarity with the people of Israel, he said "your fight is our fight".

As the months progressed it became even clearer why we had been right to set up our campaign. The lack of empathy we saw in those first days had quickly shown itself to be not indifference from those with busy lives, or immaturity on the part of campaigning students, but wholesale anti-Semitism. The one force that could unite people around the globe seemed not to be compassion for a nation and people fighting for survival, but the belief that Israel was to blame for all the world's ills.

The Jewish community in London and around the UK has done an incredible job in mobilising people for vigils and marches, for protests and counter-protests. Our Fight are proud to have supported all of them, and this Sunday, June 2nd, sees another initiative, promising to be the largest and loudest yet.

But it is not enough to cheer on the Jewish community from the sidelines. It is not enough to say that we support 'their fight'.

Because with each murder on the streets of our European cities, with each attack against our Iranian friends campaigning for their country to be freed from the IRGC, with each election candidate espousing Islamist dogma, we can see that Israel's struggle is not some far away problem that does not concern us–Israel is on the frontline against Islamism, and that is our fight too.

So don't join on Sunday, just to show solidarity with Jews and Israelis. The Jewish community is tough and resilient. With or without our empathy, they will dance again.

Instead, join on Sunday because a march for the hostages is also a march to expose Hamas and Islamism.

And a march against Islamism is our fight too.

If you want to march with Our Fight, come and find our banner from 1.30pm onwards, in Lincoln's Inn Fields, London, WC2A. Nearest tube Holborn.

And you'll be able to grab one of our new placards.