Palestine Action is winning!

Elbit's Bristol plant closes on the quiet, Met Police resort to arresting 890 protests, many of them pensioners and disabled (it's not a good look)

The UK government wants us to think that it can eradicate Palestine Action but Palestine Action is winning!

Coinciding with the beautiful, brave mass protest that took place in Parliament Square on Saturday, which saw the Met Police arrest more than 890 (yes) protestors, many if not most of them pensioners, some of them disabled, including Mike Higgins, in the pic, news came through that Elbit Systems UK, a subsidiary of Elbit systems, Israel’s largest arms producer, has closed its factory in Aztec West busines park, Bristol.

This amounts to an astonishing victory for Palestine Action and one that the government probably wanted to bury by having the Met Police’s heavy-handed treatment of people holding placards that read “I support Palestine Action, I oppose genocide” steal the headlines.

The government also probably welcomes headlines that portray it as authoritarian tough, durable and in control, even if this creates a whiff of fascism, because this coheres with Keir Starmer’s long-running strategy to maintain power by destroying the left and embracing anti-immigrant voters to the Labour cause.

What Starmer doesn’t want us to believe is that he is weak, fragile and lacks control. Even though the government has proscribed Palestine Actions it has completely failed to stop the group from inflicting major damage to the businesses that are manufacturing the weapons that Israel is using to perpetrate its genocide.

In addition to prompting Elbit to close its Bristol plant five years ahead of the end of its lease, PA has caused major disruption to Elbit’s other UK plants. Middle East Monitor notes that Elbit reported $6.8 billion in revenue last year yet lost £4.7 million in the UK last year vs the £3.8 million profit it recorded in 2023.

It also goes without saying that the banning of Palestine Action is performative. You can ban an organisation, you can even put some people in prison, but the grassroots movement that supports civil disobedience will only grow as a result. Elbit are not breathing a sigh of relief, they’re closing down plants. Nor is civil disobedience restricted to the UK, not by any means. Dock workers are particularly notable for their refusal to work with ships that are transporting armaments to Israel. News just in: a PA group has broken into an Elbit factory in Ulm, Germany, and broken up equipment intended for genocidal use.

The day before Starmer proscribed Palestine Action I joined the group, donated money and purchased its film To Kill a War Machine. Because so much has been going, because there’s been so much to watch and read, somehow I didn’t get around to watching the documentary until last night. News of Saturday’s developments prompted me to finally view it. I’m glad I finally

The film is revelatory, dynamic, urgent, a human-beings-take-on-the-murderous-corporate-machine thriller that just so happens to feature real humans and real footage. The bravery, clear-thinking, intelligence, commitment and humour of the actionists is breathtaking. I urge you to see it if you can—just ask a friend if they can send it to you.

(Your honour, in case you’re reading this at a future court hearing, I’d like to confirm that I have no idea whether it’s legal or not to watch the film. I have to assume that it is legal given that the film was made before the government proscribed PA and the UK is famous for its defence of free speech! Of course I would never dream of recommending that anyone should break the law.)

One message that came through very clearly in To Kill a War Machine is that the members of Palestine Action understand that public protests can be distinctly limited. They’re curtailed by the state and in the end aren’t straightforwardly effective when it comes to preventing the genocide from proceeding. They’re indirect, not direct. This is why the members of PA decided to engage in a campaign of civil disobedience. They understand that any infringement of the law that comes with direct action is superseded by their efforts to prevent a far greater crime, the greatest crime in human history, genocide. The film makes it clear that when juries are presented with full information they side with civil disobedience, which itself draws on a long history that goes back to the Suffragettes, the civil rights movement and the anti-Apartheid movement.

It’s impossible to Kill a War Machine the film and not be struck by the hypodermic effectiveness of the strategy. All it takes is a small number of dedicated people to coordinate their action in order to inflict massive financial damage on the arms industry that is foundational to genocide and indeed the murderous, neocolonial economic strategy of the UK/US/German governments. It was so joyous to see a bunch of kids outwit the War Machine. I couldn’t stop laughing.

The closest I've got to this was when I joined the protest against the holidaymakers aboard the Israeli cruise liner that attempted to dock at the port of Syros earlier in the summer. The boat docked but the protest was resolute and resourceful regarding its use of huge Palestinian flags to block the entry of the coaches booked to pick up the passengers as well as the exit road that led from the landing area. In the end the passengers didn’t disembark and cruise liner reversed away. This local act of resistance became a news story, including in Al Jazeerah, and apparently inspired other protestors on other Greek islands follow suit. It felt good, direct, effective, joyous. I wrote up a report on substack the day after on 23 July.

On Saturday Niki Orfanou and I joined the national demonstration that marched from Russell Square to Whitehall. The turnout was once again massive, totalling 200,000. We chanted and listened attentively to the speakers who addressed the rally, all of them captivating. Jeremy Corbyn, fresh from leading the unofficial enquiry into the UK government’s support for genocide, was even more searing than usual in his critique. Husam Said Zomlot, the Palestinian Ambassador to the UK, conjured an ecstatic fury that brought tears to my eyes. British doctor Nick Maynard also spoke of a recent visit to Gaza, where he treated Palestinian patients. One day the patients, almost all of them kids, came in with shots to the thigh, another day the shots went to the chest, yet another day they went to the head, yet another day the testicles. Nick said the consistency of the injuries could produce only one conclusion: the IDF were using the Palestinians for target practice. More tears as boos of howling disapproval rang out.

Niki and I left the rally feeling reenergised and as clear as ever that we will continue to fight genocide until it ends, until the Palestinian win justice, and until the likes of Starmer, Lammy, Cooper and Hermer face trials in the Hague for their war crimes. Yet as we walked up Whitehall we clocked that we hadn’t made it to Parliament Square, so didn’t get to see the simultaneous protest that had taken place there. The likes of Mike Higgins, who is 62, blind and uses a wheelchair, were arrested for holding a placard that read “I oppose genocide. I support Palestine Action.” The proscription of Palestine Action by Starmer’s government, surely following the advice of attorney general Richard Hermer, makes this an offence that can lead to fourteen years in prison.

I was a bit regretful to have not joined in but in a conversation with another activist on the tube, who was able to update us on the number of arrests made, reflected that the more action that’s taking place the better. Even if it’s not as effective as direct action, I still believe in the importance of mass public demonstrations. It’s because of the billions of people who’ve been gathering around the world that we know, that our governments and above all the Palestinians know that this is a global popular movement. And while the UK and US governments haven’t made any significant moves to stop the genocide—indeed Starmer and co. are shamefully welcoming Israel’s genocidal president to the UK next week—it’s clear that the global protest movement is having a much greater impact on other governments, including in Europe.

Every action contributes to the process of change and deep-rooted change will only come about when enough people demand it. The Freedom Flotilla that’s sailing to Palestine, featuring hundreds of activists aboard dozens of boats from 44 countries, all of its completely legal, is inspiring and can only leave Netanyahu, Trump, Starmer and the Zionist lobby shitting their Zionist underwear. The BDS campaign is having a seismic impact on the Israeli economy as well as the profitability of corporations that are complicit with Israel’s genocide. Every genocide report written by a human rights organisation/research/legal body, every film that exposes and critiques genocide, every media report and social media post that exposes the barbarity of Israel’s behaviour, every donation made to a Palestinian charity or campaigning group, every letter written to a politicians, all of it contributes to the decade’s long resistance of the Palestinians who live in Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem, the resistance will always lie at the epicentre of the resistance.

But, wow, just wow, the civil disobedience of Palestine Action and those pensioners is effective, inspiring, contagious, powerful, wowerful. Free, free Palestine!

https://bdsmovement.net/

https://palestinecampaign.org/

https://www.stopwar.org.uk/

https://www.foa.org.uk/

https://events.pfbuk.com/

https://cnduk.org/

https://www.zohranfornyc.com/platform

https://www.yourparty.uk/

https://greenparty.org.uk/