As The Guardian notes this morning:
The home secretary is coming under increasing pressure to abandon plans to ban Palestine Action, as UN experts and hundreds of lawyers warned that proscribing the group would conflate protest and terrorism.
In two separate letters to Yvette Cooper, the Network for Police Monitoring (Netpol) lawyers' group and the Haldane Society of Socialist Lawyers said that proscribing the group would set a dangerous precedent.
Additionally, several UN special rapporteurs, including those for protecting human rights while countering terrorism and for promoting freedom of expression, said they had contacted the UK government to say that “acts of protest that damage property, but are not intended to kill or injure people, should not be treated as terrorism”.
The concerns are wholly appropriate. Banning people from opposing the glaringly obvious genocide that Israel is pursuing, aided and abetted by the UK government, which continues to supply arms and military support to that far-right, neo-fascist regime, makes no sense at all.
We have reached the absurd position where supporting the deliberate slaughter of innocent people and children carries no penalty, but opposing it carries with it the risk of 14 years in prison, being charged with a hate crime, and being subject to mass hysteria in the media because someone has had the temerity to stand up and express their concern about the actions of a military force that is clearly out of control.
Let me be clear that I do not, and never will, condone violence. That is hardly surprising when I am a Quaker. Nothing I say here should be conflated with doing so.
Nor is anything that I say here in any way antisemitic. Criticising the Israeli government cannot be, should not be, and never can be antisemitic. In fact, to claim that saying anything against it might be antisemitic when the Israeli government is not necessarily a Jewish identity, and it is not the fact that it is dominated by Jewish interests that is the reason why I am criticising it, is just wrong. I am simply criticising it for the unjustified killing of other human beings in pursuit of its deeply misplaced political goals.
All that I am saying is that freedom of conscience, freedom of expression, and the freedom to undertake political opposition all matter. They cannot represent terrorism, and whilst the actions of those expressing themselves in ways that cause damage to property can give rise, quite appropriately, to criminal charges for that reason, to pretend that the charge is in question should be terrorism related is quite obviously absurd, and will only encourages juries to not convict people who might suffer penalties completely disproportionate to any offence that they might have to undertaken.
When politicians, like Yvette Cooper, propose the introduction of legislation that is obviously inappropriate, as the terrorist sanctioning of Palestinian Action clearly is, it is apparent that it is they, and not those who are speaking out, who have lost the plot.
It is absolutely essential that we retain the right to speak out against coordinated state terror, whichever state in the world undertakes it. It would be an act of deliberate oppression of basic human rights to deny us that freedom. Is that what the UK government really intends?
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Why is it that criticism of the state of Israel always seems to be treated as anti-Semitism?
Because those claiming so have got used to their lies – and own anti-semitism – being believed.
…because the Israeli Government has expended massive efforts to conflate criticism of itself with antisemitism. It is the only strategy it has to escape massive international condemnation, and so far it has worked almost perfectly. For example, both MPs and the BBC condemned Bob Vylan for antisemitism, which is objective nonsense. It happens every time, and it’s disgusting.
What is particularly disgusting is the uncaring way that by conflating Israel with all Jewry Netanyahu is actually fuelling antisemitism. For the sake of Jews worldwide we have to stop falling for this nonsense.
The playbook for this is contained in a Heritage Foundation Project called Project Esther.
Conflation is the name of the game. It has worried a lot of commentators.
https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/the-insidious-antisemitism-of-the-heritage-foundations-project-esther/
I have long argued that this sort of conflation endangers Jewish people inside and outside Israel, in order to protect the interests of those in power, running the Israeli state. That is of course fundamentally antisemitic but perversely you get labelled antisemitic for pointing it out.
Another complicating factor is Christian Nationalism, which like Christian Zionism, can be “pro-Israel” while also being antisemitic.
https://contendingmodernities.nd.edu/global-currents/jvp-rejecting-project-esther/
It’s complicated, multilayered, and very unpleasant. I’ve recently been on the receiving end myself. If you go there, tread very carefully, and be ready for some very nasty reactions.
There is the IHRA definition of anti semitism. One of the criticisms of Corbyn’s Labour party was that they would not adopt the IHRA definition, which included criticism of Israel as potential anti semitism.
I feel the Chief Rabbi has done his people no good by calling the Bob Vylan chant at Glastonbury ‘vile Jew hatred.’ Like you I don’t suppose chants calling for the death of anyone. If criticism of the Israeli Defence Force is the same as anti-Semitism, then if the IDF is shown to be guilty of war crimes, then it reflects on all Jews? Unless I have missed something, that makes no sense.
Last week some IDF soldiers told Haaretz, the Israeli news media, that they had been told to fire on hungry people trying to be fed by the Gaza Humanitarian Fund. We saw a BBC report of Settlers committing acts of ethnic cleansing in the West Bank while IDF people stood by.
The silence of our front benches is also reprehensible.
We should remember the large number of Jewish people who object to the actions of the Israeli state.
Exactly my thought- if they’d called out any other army they believed were carrying out atrocities would there have been such an outcry ? I don’t think so …
Agreed and it begs the question, ‘why do the Tory and Labour Front pages (and most of the national newspapers) and the BBC, in effect, take the Israeli side?
The question seems to be avoided.
Thank you for this. You (non violently) hit the nail on the head.
As you point out, the statement,
“I support Israel’s action in Gaza, including those acts which contravene international law” carries no legal penalty in the UK (although it probably breaches international law). Yvette Cooper won’t do anything about it.
But IF I was to make a statement expressing support for PA (who have not killed anyone nor threatened to do so), I could be dealt with as a terrorist. I have not of course made such a statement.
Yvette Cooper wants our law to work that way. That is very very wrong.
Her preferred UK legal framework is:
“Genocide is okay.
Protesting genocide is terrorism.”
Welcome to Yvette Cooper’s dystopia. She might even become PM soon.
This statement is not intended to express support for any proscribed organisation nor is it intended to encourage any violence or terrorism against people. It is merely an expression of utter contempt for the UK government’s continued complicity in war crimes and its failure to do all it can to prevent them.
When a government resorts to proscribing a group such as Palestinian Action for what, at worst, was a minor potentially criminal act (criminal damage to war planes that should have been more securely guarded) it risks undermining the credibility and purpose behind the Terrorism Act. This seems more about an embarrassed government trying to save face and deflecting attention onto the protestors rather than explains how the airbase was penetrated in the first place. Furthermore, if the government gets away with it who will be next? As you know only too well, earlier in the year the police raided a Quaker meeting house in London. On this basis Yvette Cooper would have proscribed Jesus for clearing the money lenders from the temple……
It’s amazing, isn’t it, that 70-odd years after George Orwell warned us about ‘Newspeak’, the British government still tries to change the meaning of ‘terrorism’ to ‘political protest’ ?
It used to be clear, didn’t it ? – terrorism was using guns, bombs or other weapons to harm and frighten people; painting was something different. Just as antisemitism was prejudice etc against jewish people – now it’s anything the Israeli government doesn’t like.
It’s a dangerous game. Class every protest as ‘terrorism’, or everybody that objects to genocide as ‘antisemitic’, and pretty soon you’re going to need to pick on almost everybody.
Guns, bombs and other weapons used to frighten people are the prerogative of the state.
…and lies (hat tip to the BBC, Daily Mail etc.)…
I am reminded that the Government’s PREVENT terrorism program conflates socialism with terrorism.
It was the Tories who pulled off this stunt, and Starmer’s new Tories that are happy to leave it this way.
“Socialism, anti-fascism and anti-abortion on Prevent list of terrorism warning signs” (2024)
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2024/mar/07/socialism-anti-fascism-anti-abortion-prevent-list-terrorism-warning-signs
Agreed
And don’t forget the undercover policemen who infiltrated peaceful green / environmental groups in order to “defend” our society and also the Stephen Lawrence family. No-one has been properly held to account for such appalling inappropriate use of state resources.
Who are the real terrorists here?
Cooper for one. Those in her government supporting this next.
Terrorising people who have legitimate concerns about the world around them.
I ask you.
Cooper has got a problem, cos a new group has been formed to replace Palestine Action. Its name:
Yvette Cooper.
I look forward to the MP banning her name.
Given the number of neurons in the average plod, perhaps she could look forward to being arrested “‘ello, ‘ello, ‘ello, we ‘appen to believe the group called Yvette Cooper lives at this address” etc.
The protestors should have just said that they were members of the Labour Party.
Is that now a crime?
In response to RMs question: you go into a shop & buy an expensive something. Take it home and this complex & expensive summat does not (& cannot) do what it says.
That is LINO. UK serfs paid for an expensive election, LINO put forward wiffle waffle & then promptly went back on it – claiming “black holes” etc.
The whole pack of em (the MPs) should be in jail. They knowlingly sold goods that were not just faulty – but could never have worked as said on the bloody packet (manifesto). They knew they were lying. Knew.
That’s a crime. They all should be in jail, & given their actions wrt the jewish-state-of-israel (I’m in favour of calling a spade a spade) they are also traitors. All of them & half the Tory party as well for helping an alien state possible guilty of genocide with whom the UK has/should have zero interest. Traitors. All of them.
I guarantee, a party that told it the way it is would destroy the incumbents.
That name no longer exists on X. I followed the link.
Does Yvette Cooper still exist? She did not introduce her bill yesterday. It was left to Dan Jarvis from the Parachute Regiment.
Five senior rapporteurs for the United Nations including the Tunisia-based Italian international lawyer, Francesca Albanese, also intervened calling for Palestine Action not to be banned.
The Home Secretary has long shown an authoritarian streak; our liberties are unsafe in her and Starmer’s hands.
Why does this government seem to have an inbuilt tendency to do the wrong thing?
Have no lessons been learned from the disastrous ‘ war on terror’ after Sept 11th 2001 which has killed millions and helped to make the Middle East the mess that it now is.
Many specialists have said time and again its not atrocities themselves, but the response that causes the damage.
Cooper’s knee jerk promise to make Palestine Action a terror group seems another example of the tendency of this government to keep constructing unecessarily constricting cages for itself, from which it is very difficult to escape. As Richard says – she seems to have lost the plot.
I suggest that Labour’s biggest problem is not using the resources it has available. With access to 403 friendly folk in Parliament alone, it should be able to identify dumb ideas before they reach the public. Apparently Starmer has not even met some of his parliamentary colleagues, let alone consulted them on any issues. Reason enough to get rid of him, if more were needed.
Many of those people were carefully selected for not having ideas of their own but being ready to vote for anything the bosses told them to.
There was a fascinating monolgue by James O’Brien on LBC radio yesterday. The previous day he’d apparently been quite censorious of Bob Vylan’s ‘Death, death to the IDF’ chant. However by the next day he appears to have changed his view, largely because of a string of letters supporting BV in The Times. The fact that they were in that newspaper was his first revelation, however all those he read out, and there were lots, supported BV’s chant. For instance they pointed out that BV is a Punk band whose entire ethos is to shock, to push against the established order, that the chant was against an organisation, not individual people and certainly not against Jews. It was also pointed out that, above all else, the BBC is a News organisation and to therefore cease the broadcast would be counter to that role and be akin to censorship. The biggest impact on James O’Brien however seemed to be from a reader who pointed out the headline stories on the front page of the BBC website which showed, side by side, the story of Bob Vylan’s chant and next to it the IDF bombing of the Cafe in Gaza which killed 20 people and maimed many more.
Bob Vylan’s eloquent response to the criticism of his/their chant is not in the least apologetic and makes many all the points raised by The Times letter writers. Today Lord Wolfon, also writing to The Times letters posed the question, ‘ if the chant had been about ‘Ps or ‘Ns’ as he put it, there would be universal condemnation’. Quite so, however ‘Ps and Ns’ have not been bombing, killing and maiming penned-in civilians continuously for the last 21 months.
Changing our minds is vital.
A poster on Asa Winstanley’s twitter feed this morning wrote: ‘ The British media claimed that Palestine Action may have damaged the planes at RAF Brize Norton “beyond repair”, potentially costing the UK over £30mn. Flight tracking data now shows the ZZ338 aircraft, one of the two targeted by Palestine Action, is already back in the air.
I thought they weren’t our planes anyway, but rented from some hedge fund or other.
It’s a slippery slope. As an independence supporting Scot, I suspect that independence parties could be proscribed on the grounds that they want to break up the Union or as UK governments would have it “the country” (it’s no such thing). I imagine jailing rebellious Scots/Welsh/Cornish for 14 years would be a rather appealing prospect to certain authoritarian politicians of which there seem to be a rather large number at present.
Regarding this part of the article “will only encourage juries to not convict people who might suffer penalties completely disproportionate to any offence that they might have undertaken”, I suspect those unfortunate enough to be charged would endure a secret non-jury trial under the pretext of “national security concerns”.
A C Bruce:
No need for secret trials. If the trials of climate activists are anything to go by, the PA people will not be allowed to put forward as a defence (and so the jury will not hear) that they were trying to draw attention to, and prevent, a greater evil, in this case genocide.
Anyone know if the Gaza: Doctors under Attack investigation is going to be shown on Channel 4 tonight?
BBC changed its mind.
I believe so…
It’s still on the guide.
BBC journalists & staff are complaining about Robbie Gibb’s Jewish Chronicle interests making him unsuitable for the BBC Board. He heads the syndicate that bailed JC out when it was about to fold. As “journalism” it occupies a very low position indeed judged by all the trouble it has had with the regulator over the last few years. I read it every week, its a sacrifice I’m prepared to make, for which one day I hope to reap an eternal reward…
The current JC mostly taken up with how the attack on Iran “left Israel stronger and safer”.
The omerta on the BBC over Israel seems to be collapsing.
It’s still on the guide.
BBC journalists & staff are complaining about Robbie Gibb’s Jewish Chronicle interests making him unsuitable for the BBC Board. He heads the syndicate that bailed JC out when it was about to fold. As “journalism” it occupies a very low position indeed judged by all the trouble it has had with the regulator over the last few years. I read it every week, its a sacrifice I’m prepared to make, for which one day I hope to reap an eternal reward…
The current JC mostly taken up with how the attack on Iran “left Israel stronger and safer”.
The omerta on the BBC over Israel seems to be collapsing.
But many backbench Labour MPs did complain about the nascent welfare reform policy proposals for weeks.
But Reeves was on a blinkered mission to “save” £5bn, and with her unbending self imposed financial rules, was not in listening mode. The horrible “3%” hapless Liz Kendall, nominally in charge of the policy as Work & Pensions Secretary did as she was told by Starmer & Reeves, and defended the policy with her life; then when it was changed midway through the debate, seamlessly defended the radically filtered new policy as if nothing had happened. Meanwhile, back in the Bunker at Number 10, the self styled political mastermind, southern Irishman Morgan McSweeney was watching his carefully constructed larceny on the nation’s postcode before his eyes.
At PMQs today, his protégé, Starmeransweredcquestions as if yesterday never happened. Reeves sat next to him literally in tears as Badenoch called for her head. It is amazing what a Prime Minister can achieve in promoting progressive change if he has a 160 seat majority
Well, the news is in that the motion passed, with remarkably few opposing votes.
https://www.thenational.scot/news/25285092.mps-vote-favour-proscribing-palestine-action/?ref=ebbn&nid=1457&u=03393ac627ee6fdb985e0cc39bbc15cf&date=020725
So in defiance of multiple UN Rapporteurs, they have passed a law which makes me, an OAP, a terrorist (I claimed solidarity with PA this morning on social media). Does this make the UK a pariah state – I know we are anyway but.
I will be commenting in the morning.
There is still a legal case to be heard objecting to the ban.
Agred- but very soon
Is Keir pay to play? Some form of android that follows money as opposed to moral judgement?
From what I know, he has supported from the judiciary system as a lawyer the rights and freedom to protest!
Why has that changed now and what does that say about UK politics? Personally I don’t believe you can now have a conscience or a belief system in geopolitics. The strings and corruption are evident and that deserves a shake.
This is the list of NO votes. A mere 26.
https://votes.parliament.uk/votes/commons/division/2078#noes
Further to that, Jeremy Corbyn and The Independent Alliance issued a strongly worded condemnation of the government’s lumping together PA with two neo-Nazi groups, in a blatant push to get this bill through. https://www.thenational.scot/news/25284710.uk-government-accused-stitching-palestine-action-vote/
this is my first response to this blog,
Life in the UK is going down hill like never before, as some one with over a half century here, it has been alarming for several years now, the only way forward is community and society coming together to realise that state control will always mean suffering for society due to the government’s lack of concern for human life. The system is rigged against the people, yet the people are used at every election to make sure it continues to happen. Education is needed for our children and grandchild not to suffer this misery.
Thanks
George Monbiot has a comment on the proscription of PA here:
It is correctly titled: “Sharing This Video Could Get You 14 Years in Prison”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ECkVO4F_38I
Not yet….
Oh well, I shared as soon as I saw it, along with all the Facebook ones at today’s meetings.
Never mind. Don’t they know the prisons are full?
I joined PA (although I opted not to take part in direct action) as soon as the proscription was proposed. Should I be worried, or should everyone join them as they cannot arrest us all. Membership is free.
I would not shout about it.
I see Palestine Action has been deemed a proscribed org. In other news:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jul/02/israeli-military-bomb-fragments-gaza-al-baqa-cafe
one wonders when the IDF, possibly guilty of genocide, certainly guilty of indicriminate murder of civilians, will likewise be proscribed.
But what is this I see – Yvette Cooper is a zionist ditto the totality of the LINO gov. So don’t worry IDF, Israel has this all under control, LINO will do as it is told, by a foreign government.
Yvette Cooper – soon to be a phrase used in the same context as Quisling.
Who will rid me of this troublesome & traitorous government?
I just discovered a friend’s mother was a Greenham Common Woman, and he remembers taking part as a child, in fence-rattling rituals (or international terrorism as it is now known).
I think there may be a lot of discussion of the Greenham Common Women in the days ahead, and the moves they made to express their affection for the nation’s defence infrastructure, by “embracing the base”, indeed, giving it such a big free (slightly scruffy) hug that all the missiles remembered how much they missed their mummies and went back home to tje USA.
Greenham Grandchildren might wish to express similar affection for RAF bases and the hospitality they may be offering to overseas visitors and their nuclear fission technology in the years to come, if Rachel’s fiscal rules can cope with the leasing costs.
Perhaps a group called “Palestine INaction” will miraculously coalesce to celebrate the UK’s flaccid complicity in Genocide and associated War Crimes?
I do wonder why that soon-to-be-proscribed geo-politically-inclined Painting and Decorating organisation didn’t become a Limited Company registered at Companies House (Palestine Decorative Logistic Solutions Ltd)? All sorts of illegal things go on under Companies House’s mole-eyed surveillance – tax fraud, money laundering, bribery, corruption, and I wouldn’t be surprised if a fair bit of international terrism got financed through it, and most of those crimes go undetected and unpunished. Far safer than protesting human rights publicly and getting 14 years behind bars.
A story from the 1980’s about a dangerous and v narrow rural road I used to drive on every now and then, as part of my work, which in winter was like a skating rink due to flooding. Unfortunately it was also the main access route for a Royal Naval munitions facility, and one day 2 missile transporters slid off the road into the adjoining field. Luckily no cows were hurt.
https://www.nuclearinfo.org/blog/nuclear-information-service/2017/01/remembering-west-dean-when-truck-containing-two-nuclear
Salisbury was an exciting place to live, surrounded by a complete ring of important high profile military targets, munitions depots, artillery training grounds, multiple army barracks, and the huge Boscombe Down airfield with Porton Down next door.
I hear East Anglia is nice for camping? Maybe the Greenham Grandchildren will go there for their holidays?
The documentary on Gaza hospitals the BBC refused to air.
WATCH NOW: ‘Gaza: Doctors Under Attack’ – The Full Film They Didn’t Want You To See
Exclusive: The powerful film the BBC refused to air is out now, released globally by Zeteo. It documents Israel’s destruction of Gaza’s hospitals and the killing of Palestinian doctors.
https://zeteo.com/p/watch-now-gaza-doctors-under-attack?r=phh45&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web×tamp=16.4&showWelcomeOnShare=false
Also on Channel 4.
https://www.channel4.com/programmes/gaza-doctors-under-attack
Indeed…