The pro-Palestine movement has exposed the cynicism of political elites. Where will that energy go next? | Richard Seymour

The war on Gaza brought out hundreds of thousands of protesters. This force could reshape our hollow democracies

The pro-Palestine movement has grown spectacularly in a remarkably short period of time. Within a week of the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel, and the start of Benjamin Netanyahu's mighty vengeance" on Gaza, central London teemed with tens of thousands of anti-war protesters.

The protests continued apace, with weekly national and local demonstrations, tactical innovations such as sit-ins at train stations and direct actions at factories supplying arms to Israel such as Elbit Systems. Nor has the pace slackened much since. Many on the right have sought to depict the protesters as extremists, but the sheer scale and regularity of the protests and actions are in fact a sign of how mainstream pro-Palestinian feeling is within British society. The question, assuming the movement succeeds in ending the Israeli assault, is where does it go next? What becomes of movements when they stop moving?

Richard Seymour is an author and founding editor of Salvage. His latest book is Disaster Nationalism: The Downfall of Liberal Civilisation

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