Why Is The Government Proscribing Palestine Action As A Terrorist Organisation?

By Kate Nicholson

MPs voted to proscribe Palestine Action as a terrorist organisation on Wednesday night.

This means the group is on its way to being on a legal list of terrorist organisations in the UK.

It comes after Palestine Action targeted an Israeli defence company’s UK base and an RAF centre in recent weeks.

But the move to proscribe the group has sparked significant backlash from the left, especially as Israel’s ground offensive in Gaza continues.

The region has been engulfed in violence for almost two years.

Regional friction spiked when Palestinian militant group Hamas attacked and killed 1,200 people on Israeli soil on October 7, 2023, taking a further 251 hostage.

Israel then launched a military campaign in Gaza. The estimated death toll now exceeds 50,000 Palestinians, according to local health authorities.

Here’s what you need to know about Palestine Action as its supporters push back against the government’s ruling.

What is Palestine Action?

Palestine Action is a pro-Palestine organisation which describes itself as a “direct action movement committed to ending global participation in Israel’s genocidal and apartheid regime”.

It aims to target “corporate enablers of the Israeli military-industrial complex”.

The group’s main target is “Elbit Systems” which is reportedly Israel’s biggest weapons producer.

Its website says: “We do not appeal to politicians or anyone else to create the necessary changes, as we understand the depth of complicity within most global institutions.

“Rather than begging those who are complicit to gain a moral compass, we go straight to the source and shut down the production of Israeli weapons.”

It was set up five years ago, before decades of tension between Israelis and Palestinians reached fever pitch in autumn 2023.

What did Palestine Action do?

The group has been accused of entering an RAF base, Brize Norton in Oxfordshire, on June 20, and spraying two aircrafts with red paint.

The action was condemned by Keir Starmer as “disgraceful”.

Four people were subsequently arrested, and a security review was launched across the “whole defence estate”.

A further two people were arrested on suspicion of criminal damage on Tuesday, July 1, after Palestine Action claimed it had blocked Israeli defence firm’s UK site in Bristol.

Activitist said they had covered it in red paint to “symbolise Palestinian bloodshed”.

The government had already put forward its proposals to proscribe Palestine Action by the time of the second incident.

MPs then decided to proscribe the group on Wednesday night, by 385 votes to 26.

What does it mean to be proscribed?

Once the proposal is passed into law, supporting the group will become a criminal offence.

Anyone who is a member or expresses support for the group could face up to 14 years in prison.

Security minister Dan Jarvis told MPs on Wednesday that this will not stop protesters from expressing support for Palestine.

He said: “Palestine Action is not a legitimate protest group.

“People engaged in lawful protest don’t need weapons. People engaged in lawful protest do not throw smoke bombs and fire pyrotechnics around innocent members of the public.

“And people engaged in lawful protest do not cause millions of pounds of damage to national security infrastructure, including submarines and defence equipment for Nato.”

A Palestine Action spokesperson said: “While the government is rushing through parliament absurd legislation to proscribe Palestine Action, the real terrorism is being committed in Gaza.

“Palestine Action affirms that direct action is necessary in the face of Israel’s ongoing crimes against humanity of genocide, apartheid, and occupation, and to end British facilitation of those crimes.”

What happens next?

The amendment to the Terrorism Act 2000 will reach the Lords on Thursday.

Palestine Action is seeking a legal challenge to the proscription attempt.

Unless that challenge can slow down the legislation, it will pass into law at midnight on July 9.

A hearing is expected on Friday to see whether there can be a temporary block on the proscription.

Why is there a backlash over the government’s decision?

There were concerns that the legislation to proscribe Palestine Action was grouped together with two white supremacist groups – Maniacs Murder Cult and Russia Imperial Movement – to help it pass.

Some MPs warned that proscribing the group would undermine basic freedoms.

Former Labour MP Zarah Sultana, who sits as an independent after losing the whip last year, also slammed the government’s move.

She told the Commons on Wednesday: “To equate a spray can of paint with a suicide bomb isn’t just absurd, it is grotesque.

“It is a deliberate distortion of the law to chill dissent, criminalise solidarity and suppress the truth.”

Other MPs pointed out that the vote in the Commons took place on the 97th anniversary of women being granted equal suffrage.

Labour’s Kim Johnson accused parliament for banning Palestine Action “for using tactics once seen in the Suffragette struggle”.

Meanwhile, the head of Human Rights Watch in the UK, Yasmine Ahmed, said proscribing the group was a “grave abuse of state power and a terrifying escalation in this government’s crusade to curtail protest rights”.

She added: “We expect this of authoritarian regimes like Russia or China, not a country like the UK that professes to believe in democratic freedoms.”

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