Protest or Terrorism?

Has the UK crossed a line?

Photo by Luis Morera on Unsplash — Photo by ali golzari on Unsplash

Palestine Action, which is a pro Palestinian activist group, has been proscribed as a terrorist organisation in the UK. This follows a long series of attacks on businesses and institutions linked to the Israeli arms trade. This proscription puts them into the same category as ISIS and Al-Qaeda.

Palestine Action

Palestine Action was established in July 2020, when a group of activists broke into and spray-painted the interior of Elbit Systems headquarters in London. Elbit Systems which is based in Israel is the main provider of Israel’s military, land based equipment and unmanned aerial vehicles. It has subsidiary factories in the UK, and Palestine Action accuses them of profiting from Israel’s probable genocide of the Palestinians.

Since then, they have carried out several protests, mainly against Elbit systems, but also other organisations they claim are aiding Israelis war aims. They break into buildings, daub paint everywhere and damage equipment. The culmination in the terrorist proscription came after activists broke into RAF Brize Norton and sprayed red paint on to planes and damaged them with crowbars. The planes are used for air-to-air refuelling and have also been used in surveillance to help the Israeli military. It should also be noted that there would have been considerable…