Photo: Pat Gaffney
TWO Christian protesters were arrested in Downing Street on Friday 29 December 2023 after pouring fake blood and putting bloody handprints on the gates in protest against the slaughter in Palestine.
Virginia Moffat and Chris Cole, from Dorset, said that the UK government had “blood on its hands” after refusing to demand Israel end its bombing of Gaza, calling it “a massacre of biblical proportions”.
In a statement distributed at the protest, the couple said: “Britain’s and Israel’s justification for this slaughter is that Israel is acting in ‘self-defence’; that the deaths of innocents are to be regretted, but Israel must be allowed to act in its own defence. This is nonsense. Again and again, leading international lawyers have clearly stated that ‘self-defence’ cannot justify the slaughter of so-many innocent Palestinians.
“We cannot help being reminded of the Massacre of the Innocents (Matthew 2:13-18) in the Christian Gospels. King Herod, seeking to secure power, ordered the deaths of all the infants in and around Bethlehem. For many years, this occasion has been chosen by Christians involved in work for peace and justice to draw attention to the suffering and deaths of innocent people as a result of war and injustice.
“As bombs rain down on Gaza, destroying homes, hospitals, families, schools, cultural centres, mosques, churches and civic buildings, we cannot help but act. By refusing to back a ceasefire, and continuing to supply arms to Israel, our government is complicit with this slaughter.”
Virginia Moffat was formerly Chief Operating Officer for the think-tank and change network Ekklesia. She and her husband Chris Cole, who has worked for the Fellowship of Reconciliation and Drone Wars, are longstanding Christian peace campaigners.
Ekklesia director Simon Barrow said: “We fully support the stand that Virginia and Chris have taken. From the outset of this latest instalment of a bloody and oppressive saga in Gaza and the occupied territories we have actively backed calls for a ceasefire and an end to the slaughter.”