Around 500,000 people rallied in London on Saturday in the 32nd national demonstration since the beginning of Israel genocide in Gaza in October 2023. The rally marked the second anniversary of the slaughter and destruction of Gaza, and was the first held since the ceasefire negotiated by the Trump administration, the Israeli government and Hamas.

The march began on London’s Embankment by the Thames, concluding with a rally on Whitehall, the seat of government.

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For two years, millions of people have protested in London in solidarity with the Palestinians, fighting to end the genocide. But they have been offered no perspective of struggle by the Palestine Coalition organisers of the demonstrations, led by the Stop the War Coalition and the Palestine Solidarity Campaign.

With plans advanced for the transformation of Gaza into a US protectorate and amid scenes of desperate Palestinians returning to a Gaza City and other urban areas in ruins, Saturday was no different. Instead, platform speakers doubled down on their politically bankrupt appeals to the Starmer government to finally end its collusion with Israel. All that could be done was to keep marching and do more of the same.

Rather than a sober appraisal of two years of genocide—apart from a two-minute silence for those killed—the tone of the rally was one of self-congratulation in supposedly forcing a ceasefire, peppered by claims that the Palestinians were “undefeated”.

Introducing the rally, a Palestine Coalition compere declared, “After two years of genocide, the Palestinian people remain steadfast, still undivided, still unbowed, still unbroken, still undefeated. Today we share in the relief and joy felt by our Palestinian comrades. Although the ceasefire is precarious and horribly inadequate, it offers a breathing space, an opportunity to mourn and regather and a defeat for the genocidal leaders of Washington and Tel Aviv. The Palestinian people have once again resisted erasure and dispossession.”

None of this is true. What is being imposed at this point is a “victors’ peace”, with terms dictated by Washington and Tel Aviv to Hamas, with the backing of the Arab regimes, under threat of death. And it remains to be seen how long a ceasefire will be honoured by Israel following the release of the remaining hostages.

Some of the coalition leaders clearly felt that it was impossible to sell such a rosy picture to a mass audience who have seen all the horrors of the genocide for two years. Ismail Patel of the Friends of Al-Aqsa told the rally, “Unfortunately, we must acknowledge Israel is emptying Palestine of the Palestinians. The unimaginable horrors and violence inflicted upon the people of Gaza over the past two years served as a stark reminder of this reality. How can words convey 90 percent of all buildings in Gaza are damaged? How can we find words for the tragedy of one out of every 33 people in Gaza has been killed or the heartbreaking reality of one child being killed every 45 minutes, day after day and week after week, over the past two years?”

But speaking for the Stop the War Coalition, Lindsey German was far less honest. It was “tremendous” to see “the Palestinians going back to what was left of their homes yesterday in Gaza City,” she said. And this was due to “the international solidarity movement which has done so much to bring their plight to the attention of the world and to challenge every government that supports Israel to stop arming Israel, to stop allowing it impunity.”

Only then did German state that “a ceasefire is not enough,” decrying Donald Trump and Tony Blair “who now thinks he going to run Gaza like some kind of viceroy from Egypt.” The Gazans “can run their own society” she said, but as to how this was to happen the only answer offered was to put more pressure on the self-same war criminals.

Briefly revealing political realities, German said Keir Starmer’s Labour government “say that they have stopped arming Israel. That is a lie. There were more arms from Britain went to Israel in August and September this year than we’ve ever done in the last two years.” Therefore, “we keep mobilising, we keep organising, we are not stopping now.”

Former Labour leader and soon to be anointed leader of Your Party Jeremy Corbyn declared that “there’s a reckoning to come for all those politicians that propped up the Israeli war machine, providing the political cover and the support for them”. But that would not come through a mobilisation of the working class internationally against the warmongers and all their parties. Instead, everyone must simply carry on marching: “We will be there as often and as long as it takes until the war is over and every Palestinian child can go to school, get fed, get medicine when they need it, and lead the life that we want every child, everywhere in the world to lead. The war will only be over when that has been achieved.”

Zarah Sultana, co-founder with Corbyn of their new party, said pressure had to be piled on to make “politically impossible” continued support by Starmer’s government for Israel: “to build a movement so powerful that Britain cannot arm Israel, it cannot silence protest, and it cannot pretend that this is normal.”

Palestine Solidarity Campaign leader Ben Jamal noted that “we share the trepidation of the Palestinian people that this ceasefire will not hold. A trepidation rooted in the knowledge that Israel has violated every ceasefire agreement it has ever signed, and been enabled to do so by Western governments, including our own.”

He then denounced Trump’s plan, as one “to normalise Israel’s ongoing crimes, to return to business as usual,” to be enforced based on maintaining Zionism, “a structure of racist supremacy, that inevitably establishes a racist mindset across the whole of society.”

But once more he offered the prospect of more of the same. Announcing another national march in November, Jamal concluded that pressure on the Labour government must continue because “instead of holding Israel to account, introducing sanctions, a full arms embargo, as its own members demanded at the Labour conference last week, this Labour government is devoting its energy to ramping up the repression of our movement, planning to bring in yet another law to suppress our right to protest.”

Socialist Equality Party members and supporters distributed thousands of copies of the WSWS Editorial Board statement, “2 years of the Gaza genocide: A crime of Zionism and imperialism” at the demonstration.

In opposition to the bankrupt perspective of the Stop the War Coalition, Corbyn and Sultana, the statement explains:

The development of opposition to the genocide must be guided by an understanding of the political lessons of the past two years. The central lesson is the total bankruptcy of all appeals to governments of the imperialist powers. They are not the instruments for halting genocide but its perpetrators and enablers.

“The perspective of a two-state solution has failed. Only the unification of all the peoples of the Middle East can lead to a viable future. The Israeli state has proven to be a historical monstrosity, resulting in demoralization and degradation. The Israeli working class must repudiate the poisonous ideology and politics of Zionism, reject the reactionary dystopia of the “Jewish state” and strive for the unity of Israeli and Palestinian workers in the struggle for the United Socialist Federation of the Middle East.”

The SEP’s stall on Whitehall attracted a lot of attention, with march participants eager to discuss the SEP’s strategy for the way forward. Among literature sold was the SEP’s new pamphlet Corbyn’s New Left Party: What It Is And What It Isn’t and “The Logic of Zionism: From nationalist myth to the Gaza genocide”.

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The team raised with demonstrators about attending the upcoming public meeting the party is holding in London, “The American Volcano: Towards Fascism or Socialism”. The meeting—to oppose the establishing of a presidential dictatorship, based on the military, police, paramilitary forces and fascist gangs—is being held on November 22, and will be addressed by David North, chairman of the World Socialist Web Site’s Editorial Board. North will speak with the benefit of 50 years’ experience in the struggle for Trotskyism in the United States. Tickets are available here.