Just to be clear because everybody seems to be missing this point.
Palestinian Action, is an organisation. Membership of that group is banned, it is not illegal to support Palestinians or to call out Israel’s genocide. The government doesn’t like it when you do, but it’s not actually illegal for you to do it.
This organisation broke into a UK air force base in order to protest. They are not being charged because they protested, they’re being charged for breaking in and damaging a lot of military equipment. I think it’s a bit far to call them terrorists, but you can sort of see the government’s point, if you squint.
The UK government does however absolutely deserve to get it in the neck for their support of Israel. Labour have had a pretty awkward relationship with Israel in particular and anti-Semitism in general for a long time, and they’re now keen to be seen as supporters, but there are limits.
Thank you for this clarification. This is an extremely important context. “Palestine Action” is the particular name of a very specific organization, so the title of the article is obviously a bit misleading.
Still very worrying and more than a bit concerning, though. Here’s to hoping for a future strengthening of UK speech laws. Though, frankly, I’m not so sure about US speech laws anymore. Cheers.
Yes and I support that particular organization and the actions they perform. From what it sounds like reading the article, this very comment makes me a criminal in the UK
God bless the first amendment 🦅🇺🇲
I think it’s a bit far to call them terrorists,
Did you mean “a bit unfair”? Because I don’t see how anybody would be terrorized by this. It’s clearly illegal but using terrorism here is very problematic, especially since what the military does to people in the middle easy is actual terrorism but not called that.
Afaik the “anti-Semitism in Labour” was basically a made up smear by the Labour Party themselves to prevent Jeremy Corbyn getting elected. Not sure about other instances though.
Yeah, they lost an election over an antisemitism row a few years ago and have chosen the worst possible moment in history to start overcompensating for it.
It should be noted that it was the “please stop murdering children” kind of “antisemitism”, not real antisemitism.
They even forbid the playing of “Don’t cry for me Argentina” during the wer to protect their Malvinas colony.
That would have been the Conservatives though. The Conservatives under Thatcher were in power during the Falklands war.
Same as in the US, that doesn’t matter.
They will always support their regime wars.
R/D in the US or Labour/Cons in the UK.
Warcriminal Blair is a good example.The actions one political party are irrelevant to the actions of another political party. Especially over the course of such time.
If you want to make the arguement that the labour party are warmongering then there’s much that you can do to make that arguement but to equate the current situation to the Falklands war is disingenuous at absolute best.
you are wrong
It’s important to remember that the headline refers to the group Palestine action, which has carried out vandalisation of historical pieces, occupations of property, destruction etc (see here). So it’s a group that fits the UK definition of an extremist group.
Some political groups (or even branches of them) can be political cults trapping members with coercive control It’s not always idealistic well meaning people. The court that decreed them an unlawful group will have seen a lot of info we didn’t.
I think we need to look deeper than the headline
It’s important to remember that the headline refers to the group Palestine action
Coming into this thread, thinking that you couldn’t legally support Palestine in the UK anymore, I feel like the headline was just a bit misleading.
Yep it’s total clickbait, it’s bordering on misinformation
It’s rather misleading, yeah, but also, “technically correct”?
While we are clearly discussing an actual criminal group and not just people protesting for Palestine, the implications from a decision like that are a bit wider.
Civil disobedience is a crucial tool for democracy, but it’s easy for that to be taken too far.
And at this time that Russia is waging a shadow war in Europe, we probably should be little wary of any even paramilitary-esque groups, despite how important it is to protest the genocide in Gaza.
Surely there’s still plenty of legal ways to do that?
Sorry I’m not sure I understand. Are you saying that the criminal group shouldn’t be banned because the genocide is wrong?
No, I’m not saying that.
It’s just sometimes easy to smudge proper protesters with criminal groups, and historically that has happened a fair bit.
Like people can make a new organisation and try to step away from the criminal one, but also what’s to prevent the criminal element from joining them as well, and then the same justification can be used to ban that group and on and on and on.
So honestly defining the point at which it could be argued to be suppression of political ideas is very hard to pinpoint, imo.
I understand your concerns. The courts need a lot of evidence to do that though, and it’s a long process. So realistically it doesn’t happen unless it has to
Yeah, I’m just a tad worried, that’s all. I’m not saying it’s a slippery slide.
Just you know. It’s not been a great direction the world’s been going so…
Nonviolent direct action has earned them the label “terrorists.”
Just more newspeak, like Trump calling everything he posts online “truths” while being nothing but lie after lie.
“The closer the collapse of the Empire, the crazier its laws are.”
Marcus Tullius CiceroSomeoneWhen the sentence is the same for non-violent protest and for actual terrorism, don’t be surprised if things get more extreme quickly.
Codifying your genocide support into law. Nice.
If there is ever justice for Palestine the trials will be short. These bastards are so proud of their support for genocide.
if they promise to only paint things orange on military bases i think that’s ok
we’ll take their word for it
The harder they push their pro-Israel agenda, the more anti-Israel everyone is going to get.
You can’t bully us into supporting a genocidal regime.
My fucking brain is so fried.
Both my parents were in World War II. They fought against fascism. I was brought up to feel for what happened to the Jews during that war. Now all I see is that they seem to be being worse than the actual Nazis.
Israel =/= the “Jews”.
Israel’s founders were actually very prejudiced against Jews that survived the holocaust. And much more against the ones that didn’t actually…
They are doing this because Palestine Action has been incredibly effective. They have already forced the closure of two factories in England that produce arms for Israeli defense company Elbit and forced Barclays Bank to divest through sustained sabotage campaigns. No person has been hurt by their actions, yet these actions have cost the genocide supporters millions of pounds and caused months-long disruptions to the production of weapons used in ethnic clean songs around the globe (Elbit weapons are fueling not just the Palestine ethnic cleaning, but Kashmir and DRC, too).
Looks like the UK is going down the American road here. It’s time for all those UK citizens that said, “Rise up now!” to Americans months ago…time to rise up! Give us a great example!
Oh, you can’t because you have to work for a living? How about that…
Going down?
Isn’t this the group that broke into a military airbase and damage several aircraft resulting in million of pounds worth of damages? I mean the security breach and the intent to maliciously damage the equipment is more than enough grounds to label the group as a terrorist group. If a right wing group or any other groups did this, everybody here would be calling them terrorists, and rightfully so. It makes sense for the UK to label this group as such, especially since they didn’t disavow the attack that happened.
The people who are trying to frame this as an attack on free speech are either full of shit and intentionally spreading misinformation or they’re ignorant enough to get their information from people who are full of shit and intentionally spreading misinformation. This is something that clearly has nothing to do with free speech.
No, damaging property doesn’t amount to terrorism. What world do you live in?
What most people understand as terrorism is the spreading of terror in the general population. Last time I checked, no one felt terrorized because some planes got spray painted.
Yes it does. In the UK, terrorism is defined more broadly, and the actions of this groups fall firmly within their legal definitions, hence why they were so swift with this designation.
military target not civilians.
The UK isn’t at war dingus.
You sure seem to be right about the broader definition! But legal or not, it still seems absolutely crazy to classify this type of property damage as terrorism to me… I have a hard time to see how to justify that beyond, of course, the technicalities of the definition in the UK
I think it has less to do with the property damage and more to do with the implications of the incident and the intent behind it.
You have a group of people who premeditated a plan to sneak into a highly secured RAF airbase without proper authorization with the intention to damage military equipment owned by the state. This is a major breach of national security, it is an act of sabotage, and it causes direct harm to the British state as it’s a direct attempt to undermine the country’s military capabilities for political purposes.
That’s very good grounds to label the organization responsible as terrorist group. Keep in mind, agreeing or disagreeing with the cause of the activists is irrelevant here. You have to think about things from the point of the view of the state. If an attack like this doesn’t get properly punished, then what kind of precedent would that set? Does any self righteous group get a free pass to damage public property and undermine national security? The state cannot allow such avenues of instability to take hold. A red line has to be firmly set, and those who cross it have to face consquences.
Oh trust me, I get that the state wants to punish this and set a red line, no doubt about that. That doesn’t make the label of terrorist appropriate, there is plenty of things other than terrorism that are illegal. My idea of terrorism doesn’t include this form of property damage, and labeling it as such seems to be what sets a dangerous precedent here.
But this is your personal opinion, and I happen to disagree with it. Your only point of contention here is not the act itself, just the terrorism label. Personally, I think you’re focusing on the wrong things. The UK is a democratic country and the people voted in politicians that established their terrorism laws. These laws have been established law for decades, and thus, these laws are reflection of what terrorism mean to the British people. It’s their definition, their laws, their punishments. This groups intentionally violated them for a political cause, they know they were going to face consequences for doing so, and they are.
The only way this becomes an issue if this standard is not applied universally or equally, which doesn’t appear to be the case. The UK is not using terrorism laws to wrongly accuse other groups who didn’t do anything of terrorism, they’re not censoring people who advocate for the Palestinian cause because of this incident, and both the punishment this group is facing fits the crime in accordance with their laws. I don’t see an issue here tbh
Oh I can tell you disagree with it! I’m quite happy with what I’m focusing on, I can see that you want to have a different conversation than whether it is crazy or not to classify this as terrorism, but I’m afraid I’m not interested in that. I feel like I’ve made my point clear enough, hopefully you feel the same.
Then you might have a tyrannical government. In that case, definitions should be the least of your concerns.
There’s literally nothing tyrannical about this situation.
On one hand, you have a democratic country, the UK, that has voted in a set of well defined laws that clearly outline what terrorism means, what can be considered as terrorism, and what the consequences are for terrorist acts. These legal parameters have been established law for decades.
On the other hand, you have an activist group, Palestinian Action, that knowing and intentionally chose to violate these laws by illegally sneaking into an RAF base and intentionally damaging military equipment for political purposes.
Considering how this is a malicious act of sabotage, a breach of national security, and an attempt to undermine the British state, this organization fits the criteria to be designated as a terrorist group. Because of this British politicians, quickly employed the established terrorism laws to give them the designation. Not only because what they did is considered terrorism in the country, but also because they don’t want to set a precedent that this type of action gets a pass. They wanted to make it clear that such actions are an unacceptable red line, and those who cross will be swiftly punished.
So in essence. There were laws established democratically, a group intentionally violated them, and they’re now facing the consequences of doing so. The UK is not censoring their activism cause, they’re going after other groups that didn’t do anything wrong, and this group is not being punished over any free speech grounds. Calling this tyranny is ignorance.
The Nazis also came to power democratically. The US regime is also hunting down immigrants in a gestapo like fashion democratically. Just because something is a law doesn’t mean anything. It’s also quite telling if your national security is tied to genociding children.
The Nazis also came to power democratically.
That’s not how it works. You can’t scream Nazis any time any government does anything. That’s not what fascism is nor is it what tyranny is. You’re just devaluing the meaning of these terms and showcasing your ignorance.
Just because something is a law doesn’t mean anything.
On the contrary, it matters a lot. The very foundation of liberal democracies is based on the idea that laws are everything. Nobody is above the law, everybody is equal in the eyes of the law, and the law is the public’s will. You can agree or disagree with individual laws, however, that doesn’t change the facts that laws are the source of legitimacy.
The UK here isn’t ignoring it’s laws, it’s not creating new laws to target specific groups, nor is it using these laws to wrongly punish people who did nothing wrong. Their terrorism laws have been created by democratically elected politicians who reflect the will of their people, the laws they created and voted upon are universal and well defined, and these laws have been established law for decades.
This groups intentionally violated these laws, they knew what they were doing, and now they’re facing the consequences of their actions. This isn’t tyranny, this is a normal society punishing criminals for breaking the law. This also law isn’t immoral because it seeks to ban harmful behavior in a fair and universal manner, and the punishments for these violations are all reasonable.
It’s also quite telling if your national security is tied to genociding children.
You don’t seem to get it. Being self righteous doesn’t give a free pass to be a terrorist no matter how you noble you think your cause is. If you excuse terrorism based on your ideological biases, then you don’t even have any ground to stand on because your position isn’t a principled one. No country is dumb enough to excuse group seeking to undermine their authority, damage public property, threaten national security, violate their laws, and sabotage public property, and rightfully so because they’ll be inviting chaos, violence, and instability into their societies.
If they gave this group a pass then they’ll be setting a precedent that other self righteous groups can get away with terrorism if they act like their cause is noble enough to be above the law. What kind of disastrous future would that bring? Are Russian Sympathizers now excused to go bomb the parliament when it’s out session because they don’t like the UK supporting Ukraine? Are Chinese sympathizers now excused to damage the London Bridge because the UK supports Taiwan and Tibet? Are a far right groups excused to sabotage the PJHQ because the UK supports immigration? Of course not, because that would be really, really stupid. If you do something wrong, you’re going face the consequences for it, simple as.
Sorry what
It was bad enough when Boris made protests illegal (did that ever go through) but this? This is disgusting.
How can Labour just do own goals day after day I do not know. At this point they’re just a continuation of the sad fucking state of Tory cabinets. From A team to B to D (was Rishi D? ) to fucking a big capital F with Starmer. I had such high hopes for them in the first week. Such lofty promises. But they’ve consistently let me down on an actual weekly basis.
It’s incredible really.
(I’ve now read the article) Ah ok it’s an actual activist group not just a blanket law applied to everyone….
Still…
It has been red tory v. blue tory since Blair took leadership in '93/'94.
It is more of less the same as the US (where it was red v blue republicans for a few decades and is now Republicans calling themselves ‘Democrats’ v. Christian Nationalist Fascists).
It is the natural continuation of Reaganite/Thatcherite neo-liberal capitalist ideology.
The outcome for the UK will be a lurch right as the poor vote for parties (Reform) who have used the immigration (that has caused serious legitimate problems for poor communities that simply can’t afford to support the huge number of asylum seekers that have been dumped upon them) and other cultural issues of various legitimacy (imvho) that poor people have been coerced into finding important, as wedge issues.
Edit - obviously this lurch to the right is the opposite of what should happen but here we go. It is what fossil-fuel powered capitalists prefer to socialism and an egalitarian society any day.
I hear Corbyn is starting a party
Yes let’s see. I expect the media - billionaire owned on one hand, bbc on the other - will do the kind of job on him they did when he was leader of the labour party. He will become mired in claims of antisemitism (whatever that means these days), and whatever else they can throw at him and it won’t go anywhere.
Capital drives the UK and capital does not want socialism. The media is in significant part crowd control.
They tried and succeeded with BS antisemitism.
while I generally have zero faith in people I think they might be conscious enough to grasp this over used excuse.
Besides that, it’s also not hard to see the Labours are/were not left these days.
I give them more credit than the hopeless US dems who eternally believe in their fake left party and think they can fix it.
Maybe they can link him to Russia, as bad as being antisemite these days.BTW why do you say the BBC is ‘the other hand’.
They are just as bad and shamelessly pushing whatever the regime tells them.
It’s literally the purpose they were invented for.I just meant the breadth of media coverage in the UK spans billionaire/Murdoch owned media on one side to the voice-piece of the British establishment itself, which is now little more than a proxy for the interests of capital, on the other.
As for the term ‘antisemitism’, well the Gazans being murdered by Israeli’s are semites too.
But given the Israelis are committing a genocide - starving children then shooting them as they queue up for food - I don’t think anybody really gives a fuck what Israelis or the people ultimately supporting the genocide in the UK media, or in UK political parties of every stripe, think about the people that oppose them. It is about being on one side of history or another.
OK, and true
I support Palestine action
Righto chap, hop in the prison lorry then!
Fuck Israel, genocidal scum!
Let me refine: “Fuck the Israeli government!” I have no beef with the country / people insofar as they hate their genocidal government.
i have bad news for you in regards to what israelis think about the genocide
Brainwash is real. However, I am disappointed that you completely ignored the “insofar” limitation to my statement.
Tbf I’ve never heard anybody say nor seen anyone type “insofar” in my life so I assume he or she just didn’t recognize the word; also you could have just as easily typed “so far”.
“So far” has a different meaning and is incorrect here. “insofar” is the correct word, meaning “to the extent”
Really important distinction
Oh 99% (quite a bit less of course) of Israelis support genocide, then fuck Israel! No, you don’t throw babies out with bath water, even when they’re the worst and you’re mad as you should be.
Fuck any genocidal Israeli assholes, but Israel is too big to go blanket on them like this.
Why aren’t we antisemitic, b/c we know what words mean and we’re not antisemitic. Let’s talk like both those are true too.
Netanyahu should lick my pickled taint until he stops murdering kids
Judging by the mixed reactions my comment got, sadly half the people either don’t get it or they are anti-semites :(
insofar as they hate their genocidal government.
Recent polling shows only 19% of the Israeli population don’t support the genocide
So what? You’re gonna lump them in with the rest just because they were born there?
No, nothing like that, just wanting to clarify that it’s not a case of a rogue government going against popular opinion. Genocide is very popular in Israeli society, to the point that, if you ever talk to an anti-genocide Israeli, they tend to feel like political outcasts.
IMO, Israel is unusual because a disproportionate amount of the population are migrants who moved there specifically because they support the genocidal project, and people who were born there but oppose the project are far more likely than average to be able to move to another country and get out.
I think you are mixing the early stages of the state of Israel - certainly involving displacement and violence against Palestinian natives - with the recurring outbursts of Apartheid and crimes against humanity. There were calm phases in Israel, and many people moved there without genocidal actions ever being part of the public perception.
There was never a time where Israel was not an colonialist and implicitly genocidal project. There also haven’t been “outbursts” of apartheid and crimes against humanity; those have been a constant at all times.
and this is now where you are bordering hard if not delving into antisemitism :/ I have no desire to speak with you any further.
It started during covid, but nobody cared because the people being locked up were anti vaxxers. It didn’t stop there. It never does.
Give us literally one example of someone being thrown in prison for expressing anti vax views, we’ll all wait.
these guys got arrested, but not sure if they served jail time.
According to the Evening Standard newspaper, the leaflet featured a cartoon of the Auschwitz death camp where more than 1.1 million people, mostly Jews, perished, with the sign above its gate changed from “Arbeit macht frei” (work sets you free) to “Vaccines are safe path to freedom”.
Yeah? Do you think that should be punishable with jail time?
Didn’t you say you weren’t sure they served jail time lol.
I mean didn’t even take the time to see it wasn’t from being antivax, it was because they were being assholes to others or the cops asking them to stop
The 73-year-old is suspected of malicious communications and public nuisance, and the 37-year-old was arrested on suspicion of a public order offence. They have been released on police bail until a date in early March.
I was asking if he thought they should
More that it’s more than them merely being antivax
Yes, they also expressed those views…
The 73-year-old is suspected of malicious communications and public nuisance, and the 37-year-old was arrested on suspicion of a public order offence. They have been released on police bail until a date in early March.
Hey look again from your own article it wasn’t because they were anti vax
Removed by mod
Dangerous and many voted against it. We already had politicians dead across both sides of the pond. Shouldn’t be encouraging this BS.
I support Palestine Action I support Palestine Action I support Palestine Action I support Palestine Action I support Palestine Action I support Palestine Action I support Palestine Action I support Palestine Action I support Palestine Action I support Palestine Action I support Palestine Action I support Palestine Action I support Palestine Action I support Palestine Action I support Palestine Action I support Palestine Action I support Palestine Action I support Palestine Action I support Palestine Action I support Palestine Action I support Palestine Action I support Palestine Action I support Palestine Action I support Palestine Action I support Palestine Action I support Palestine Action I support Palestine Action I support Palestine Action I support Palestine Action I support Palestine Action I support Palestine Action I support Palestine Action I support Palestine Action I support Palestine Action I support Palestine Action I support Palestine Action I support Palestine Action I support Palestine Action I support Palestine Action I support Palestine Action I support Palestine Action I support Palestine Action I support Palestine Action I support Palestine Action I support Palestine Action I support Palestine Action I support Palestine Action I support Palestine Action I support Palestine Action I support Palestine Action I support Palestine Action I support Palestine Action I support Palestine Action
Come and get me!!!
2020ish…Two Presidents team up to create a world without Palestinians.
1940ish…Two dictators team up to create a world without Jews.
