Another vigil and is the mood changing in the US?

Latest vigil – No 141 – is well attended

August 2026

Around 35 attended the latest vigil held in Salisbury’s market place and it is remarkable that they continue week after week. As we have said before, there is a mixture of people who come every week and those who turn up occasionally. Recognition is high and news of the terrible events in the region continue to appear on our screens and in the media.

The rising tide of settler violence achieved significant coverage last week even from the BBC which is extremely nervous of covering news from the area for familiar reasons. We noted a shift in attitudes in America in our last post and a forthright criticism by Mike Huckabee, the American ambassador, calling the settlers ‘Israeli terrorists’. This from a Zionist and Israeli apologist. What was important was not just the comment itself but that he felt able to make them.

Once again we note the absence of the Salisbury MP Mr John Glen who has never attended a vigil or ever mentioned them in his weekly column in the Salisbury Journal. 141 weeks of silence is a powerful message. He is a member of Conservative Friends of Israel along with around 140 other MPs.

Israeli support for violence and the lack of healthcare for Palestinians claimed

A distressing report in Haaretz discusses the attitude of many Israelis towards Palestinians and particularly their health care or rather lack of it. They report:

“The majority of Israel’s Jewish public supports the worsening conditions of Palestinian patients, caused by their inability to receive necessary treatments. This isn’t the finding of any pollster – no one includes in their surveys a question like, “Do you support the elimination of Palestinian public healthcare?

“Yet this conclusion is inevitable, considering the fact that Israel’s Ministry of Finance continues unimpeded to steal the Palestinian Authority’s income from taxes and customs. Those revenues are meant for medical treatments, medications, medical staff salaries and the maintenance and development of hospitals and clinics”.

The article describes the lack of condemnation by a wide range of Israeli organisations and the writer concludes:

“[…] With great pain, you have to conclude that, in the eyes of too many Jews in Israel, also the slow killing of Palestinians, simply because they are Palestinians, is a legitimate policy.”

Public opinion in Israel is important especially with elections imminent. The hard right politicians who support the destruction of Gaza, the increasing West Bank settler violence and the prevention of health care described in the article, are in the ascendant. If the article is right, it does not look as though there will be much in the way of pressure to change the political climate.

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Photo: Courtesy of Peter Gloyns

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