Yael Kahn
 Yael Kahn    (political activist) | |
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| Founder of | Islington Friends of Yibna |
Yael Kahn is an Israeli anti-Zionist activist who moved to London in 1991, because she opposed Israeli apartheid.
Yael Kahn last visited Israel in 2002 to attend her father's funeral, when several relatives who were religious Jews turned their back on his open coffin to show their disgust for his belief in justice for the Palestinian people. Because of her pro-Palestinian stance, she was warned by the authorities not to return to Israel.
In January 2008, Yael Kahn visited friends in Gaza, travelling to Egypt and entering via the Rafah crossing.
Activism
In the UK she founded Islington Friends of Yibna, in solidarity with Palestinians who were ethnically cleansed from their village of Yibna in 1948 when the State of Israel was created.
Keynote speech
| Yael Kahn's keynote speech: 'Solidarity with Palestine - From Nakba to Intifada'. |
On 13 May 2011, the newly formed London Metropolitan University Palestinian Society "Hope for Palestine" launched its inaugural event titled "Is Israel applying apartheid in the Occupied territories of Palestine?". The panel discussing that question were
- George Galloway, former MP for Bethnal Green & Bow and political commentator.
- Karma Nabulsi, Oxford academic and former PLO representative.
- Yael Kahn, Anti-Zionist Israeli activist.
- Sarah Colborne, Survivor of the Mavi Mamara.
- Jody McIntyre, writer and political activist.[1]
Q & A session
Following the panel discussion, at the Q & A session, Yael Kahn said:
- "The racism was so extreme that even as an activist I knew that I will never be treated as if I was a Palestinian doing the same thing.
- "So for example when I went and stood by a Palestinian girl in the Dheisheh refugee camp so the soldier moved his gun from pointing at the girl to me, I knew that it is less likely that he would shoot me, deliberately shoot me - obviously there is a possibility of accident, because there would be a far more protracted investigation.
- "It won't be treated as if it was a Palestinian girl - they would just say oh she attacked me and it was self-defence and nobody would ask any questions and there would be no investigation.
- "So even at gun point, which I was at a few times, I knew they wouldn't intentionally kill me. So there is all the time those differences, when I was detained, when I was on trial, I always knew that the system was that I had those privileges because the racism there is so deep, through the courts, the police, at every level."[2]
Arrested in 2023
On 4 November 2023, at a demonstration in London calling for a ceasefire in the October 2023 Gaza−Israel conflict, Yael Kahn was arrested by police for carrying and wearing posters accusing Zionist Israel of committing a Holocaust against the Palestinians in Gaza.[3]
She was held in a police cell for 24 hours, and released without charge.
Video of Yael Kahn's arrest has been viewed on social media over 4 million times.
On 12 November 2023, in the first interview since her release, she appeared on Not The Andrew Marr Show.[4]
