On the eve of a Labour government seeking to redefine non-violent direct action as terrorism, I was invited to address a Palestine rally in Bristol’s Broadmead. This is what I said.
Where should we begin? Perhaps by reminding Home Secretary Yvette Cooper that were it not for the activities of the suffragettes, she would be in no position to proscribe Palestine Action.
Our freedom to assemble here, our right to freedom of speech, our right to roam the countryside and, of course, our right to vote have all had to be fought for on the streets, on picket lines, with marches and rallies and direct action. Indeed that is was brought the ruling Labour Party into existence.
Palestine Action, like Extinction Rebellion, fits into this honourable tradition. I applaud their efforts to prevent war crimes by drawing attention to the plight of the Palestinians and highlighting the murderous role of the arms industry.
They are doing what so many of us wish we had the guts to do. Instead we march, and chant, and fundraise. Meanwhile the arms industry rakes in profits from the killing of men, woman and children in Ukraine, in Russia, in the Congo, in India and Pakistan, in Iran, and Sudan, and in Palestine.
Nowadays it is the lobbyists who call the shots, and we are supposed to believe that donations from Israeli lobbyists have no bearing on the decisions of Cabinet ministers.
We can expect little support from our local Labour MPs. Thankfully my former MP, Kerry McCarthy from Bristol East, is a Labour Friend of Palestine, but my current MP, Bristol North East’s Damien Egan, is Vice Chair Labour Friends of Israel. Both South Bristol’s Karin Smyth and North West’s Darren Jones are members. This private company, founded in 1957 to promote the State of Israel, campaigned for the proscription of Hamas and no doubt wants the same for Palestine Action.
Many of you will not have heard of the Berrigan brothers who inspired me back in the 1960s. Daniel and Philip Berrigan were Irish-American Catholic priests who earned themselves many jail terms for non-violent direct action.
They began by pouring blood over the draft notices which condemned young men to serve in the Vietnam war. Later they broke into draft offices, removed hundred of documents and set fire to them in the streets with homemade napalm, a notorious incendiary used to immolate villages, fields and people in Vietnam.
In the 1980s, they established the anti-nuclear Plowshares Movement, because, as Philip Berrigan explained, “the government has no intention of disarming its nuclear arsenal. Atomic weapons protect the rich and powerful. That’s why they were designed, built, tested, and deployed. That’s why the establishment is willing to threaten other countries, and our own people, with atomic annihilation.”
They broke into military and commercial premises, took hammers to nuclear warheads, and poured blood on documents and equipment. Sounds familiar?
Former diplomat Craig Murray revealed this week that, despite their RAF markings, the Voyager airplanes targeted by Palestine Action apparently belong to a private firm called Airtanker Ltd, which in turn is owned by a string of six other companies. Eventual ownership he traced to a hedge fund called Polygon Global Partners. Its only named director also has shares in Ambassadors International which runs cruises and a Christian publishing house, Golden Minerals which mines for precious metals, and Trump Entertainment Resorts. I am sure the government will want explain all this to Palestine Action in court.
Incidentally Starmer and the BBC trying to keep Kneecap off our TV screens is just the latest example of British politicians and media clamping down on dissent.
Thirty years ago I co-wrote a book with Liz Curtis for the Campaign for Press & Broadcasting Freedom. Called Interference on the Airwaves: Ireland, the Media and the Broadcasting Ban, it was about the Thatcher government’s attempt to prevent the UK public from hearing the actual voices of Irish Republican and Loyalist leaders. Instead we were treated to the ludicrous charade of actors lip-synching to their words using their Irish accents. Songs thought to promote the Irish cause were kept off the air, including songs by The Beatles, The Pogues and Christy Moore. Choruses from the terraces at Celtic football matches were muted. The book lists more more than 70 radio and TV programmes affected by censorship from 1959 to 1988, and more than 60 documentaries and new programmes about The Troubles, as they were called, directly affected by the ban. Sounds familiar?
Censorship has the consequence of highlighting what it attempts to ban. When Starmer said he thought it was inappropriate for Kneecap to perform at Glastonbury, their immediate riposte: was “You know what is ‘not appropriate’ Keir?! Arming a fucking genocide. Fuck The Sun and solidarity with Palestine Action.”
They will not let the palaver over a court case turn the spotlight away from Gaza.
I have just finished translating a book about the horrors of the Nazi regime. The contemporary parallels are obvious. Western powers knew about the concentration camps and the killing of Jews and Roma and anti-fascist activists, long before the end of the war, but did nothing. Their guilt is what enables Netanyahu and his Zionist henchmen to carry out the callous killings we witness each day in Gaza and the West Bank.
And now the US is shelling out $30m dollars to a militarised, private so-called humanitarian outfit, permitting the IDF to turn food queues into killing fields. Meanwhile thousands of lorries, containing food, medical supplies and fuel – supplied by the rest of the world through UN Agencies and by individuals through International charities – are lined up in the Sinai desert forbidden banned to relieve the siege of Gaza by the Israeli government.
We need to see the killing stopped and both Israeli and Palestinian hostages returned to their families.
And we need to expose complicity in genocide. In Bristol we have a special duty to draw attention to the death merchants in our midst. The weapons’ industry is so much a part of the city’s economy that it stands to gain form the militarisation of the UK economy by compliance with Trump’s demand that NATO members spend 5% of the gross national product with the military industrial complex. We must keep Bristol in the forefront of opposition to the death merchants. https://transformdefence.org/the-five-percent-proposal/
We are on a slippery slope if Palestine Action is banned. Solidarity is the key, and more important than ever. We must stick together or we descend into the abyss.
On the eve of a Labour government’s plan to redefine non-violent direct action as terrorism, I was asked to address a rally in Bristol’s Broadmead. This is what I said.
Can we all join hands now, please. Hold them aloft in the air and cry out ‘We are all Palestine Action now!’…. And again…
Very powerful, Mike. Thankyou.