Do the people being arrested for Palestine Action not know about the sledgehammer attack?

[noblegiraffe]

With 500-odd people having been arrested for expressing support for proscribed terrorist organisation Palestine Action, I'm just baffled as to why they are willing to get a criminal record which could bar them from travel to the USA and work in education for an organisation whose members attacked police officers with a sledgehammer.

https://www.bristolpost.co.uk/news/bristol-news/disturbing-sledgehammer-attack-police-during-9463071

Regardless of whether this group should be proscribed as a terrorist organisation, surely no one should look at that and think 'yeah, that's a group I think should be allowed to continue to do its thing, attack a few more police officers with sledgehammers, that's the hill I'm willing to die on.'

Wouldn't you think 'I'm not sure if they should be proscribed as terrorists, but given the sledgehammer attack, I'm not going to turn up with banners in support and be arrested for them, I'll just get on with protesting the genocide instead because that's a better cause'.

So do they not know about the violence? Or do they not care and are willing to support violent organisations?

(note this is not a thread for debating Gaza, I want to talk about British people who are absolutely legally allowed to protest genocide but aren't allowed to support proscribed terrorist organisations - which is also not allowed on MN).

Eh?

Sorry: that was in reply to the above. Misquoted you.

If posters are, rightly, concerned about Sudan they are at liberty to protest, too,

Above to @OneCoralCat . Doing well here, aren’t, I, with the tech 😁

You miss the point - these protests are not about civilians suffering or there would be protests about what is going on in Sudan too. That there are not show there is a different agenda here; a very concerning one when we have PP calling for civil unrest in the UK.

I didn’t miss the point 🙋🏻‍♀️

We are as a country, helping the Israeli effort in Gaza, through military support. We aren’t doing that in Sudan. So yes, people can (and have) marched in solidarity with Sudan in the UK. But the UK government can’t be lobbied into changing things there as we aren’t playing any active role in it.

You're behind the times on Wikipedia....we don't teach kids to ignore Wikipedia anymore because it can be a really useful collation of information. It's all about checking references.

But anyway, what about the government statement that I copied and pasted?

Are you actually disbelieving that Palestine Action have committed many acts of criminal damage? It really is something they're proud of.

People can march in support of Sudan. People can march in protest of Israel.

What they're not allowed to do is support proscribed terrorist organisations. Which is what this thread is about.

Ok, Noble, if you say so.
Who are “we”? Wikipedia really needs to be taken with a pinch of salt by anyone with an interest in facts. Anyone teaching kids anything different is, frankly, letting them down and perpetuating possible misinformation.
Not disbelieving at all. You’ve missed the point entirely. Which is that most of the weekend protestors were not there in support of PA. They were British citizens concerned at the disgusting actions of the Netanyahu government, exercising their hitherto right to protest against its monstrous behavior.
Most of their placards read I support Palestine, I oppose genocide. Not I support Palestine Action.
Out of pure curiosity, what’s your skin in this?. I’m an atheist. I think religion is bread and circuses at best, dangerous poison at worst. I view this conflict in purely humanitarian terms. A superpower deliberately starving and beating a minority into submission and stealing its land is clearly wrong.
Do you disagree?

The people arrested at the weekend were not marching “in support” of PA. They were protesting against the despicable treatment by the (corrupt) government of Israel of the trapped and starving Palestinian civilians.

As I suspect you know full well.

@MrsSkylerWhite Not disbelieving at all. You’ve missed the point entirely. Which is that most of the weekend protestors were not there in support of PA.

Then you appear to have missed the point of the thread which is specifically discussing the protest this weekend that was organised deliberately to give support to Palestine Action. They deliberately, at a timed moment revealed placards saying "I support Palestine Action". A large number of them, in order to overwhelm the police with the number of people they would need to arrest.

If you are talking about protests against genocide then you aren't talking about the same thing as the topic of this thread which is the protest in support of Palestine Action, not the usual Gaza march.

I’m pretty alarmed that you and your colleagues are telling kids in the UK that Wikipedia is a trusted source, the more I think about what you said @noblegiraffe.
Our university educated, adult children certainly don’t. They advise us to take it with a generous dose of salt.
Is this now official Department for Education policy or just something that you have decided is ok because it suits your narrative? That could begin to smell suspiciously like indoctrination in the school place.

Don't worry about replying. I shall enquire tomorrow and refer to your posts.

Goodnight .

It's like you can't even read what I'm writing.

Palestine

OK. Will chat with the DforE in the morning. Very, very interested on its take on, presumably, state school staff considering Wikipedia a good starting point. Very glad that our kids’ mentors were a little more discerning (youngest now 22 so not so long ago) but really, if I’m told Wikipedia is now Government endorsed initial go-to in schools, I shall come back here, say so and eat humble pie.
Shall be astonished, disappointed and even more concerned about the state of state secondary education for our grandchild than we already are if you are correct but there we shall be.

Exactly

the appeal against PA being proscribed is underway. The protestors knew what they were doing when they wrote the placard, the only annoyance I have is the waste of police resource but that’s the price of allowing protest

i also am someone who is increasingly appalled by Israel’s actions ( although heartening to read the vast majority of citizens don’t agree with their government’s approach.) but simply think that arguments against these arrests are pathetic

the only annoyance I have is the waste of police resource

Ah, see, I am also annoyed by people like Zarah Sultana saying 'We are all Palestine Action' when I'm like 'no, I don't assault police officers and I don't support assaulting police officers, don't try to speak for me'.

I'm also annoyed that some of these people might have been duped into supporting this organisation by claims like 'we are non-violent'. (Or indeed 'the planes were used to refuel Israeli fighter jets'...)

I see this being advertised on social media prior to the protest, there were clear disclaimers that being arrested could have future consequences and the point was to be arrested. They washed to demonstrate how many people were willing to be arrested.

The videos afterwards, show the group were sitting quietly and still holding placards which many added the words "I support Palestine action" to at a timed moment. As those extra words are written on police moved in and started arresting people.

Lots of people are unhappy about who has been arrested at Gaza marches like the guy with the private eye cartoon and the woman with the rishi sunak coconut placards and this drew more attention to disagreement with arrests over placards as this deliberately ensured that people would have to be arrested.

So I do think they attended and participated with a good idea they would be arrested. I couldn't guess how much they know about the sledgehammer or how much they believed about the use of the sledgehammer as this thread proves it send to be pretty contentious at the moment. I hadn't read the Bristol article before and am not sure what to believe right now so will wait till the court case is over with more details published to form an opinion.

The Palestine Action member is charged with grievous bodily harm and actual bodily harm. A police officer ended up in hospital.

Would someone really go 'well if it wasn't with a sledgehammer then that's ok then'?

This isn’t a thread about Sudan
Start one if you want to talk about it on MNet

I think you’ve missed a post, I was responding to the person who said ‘why are people protesting about Palestine when there’s equally awful things happening in Sudan’

Even if you didn’t realise you’d missed the post, there wasn’t any need to be rude.

What is being said on this thread about the unreliability of Wikipedia is rubbish.

Depending on what you’re looking for, information gathering should be about verification, cross-reference and checking, including for supersession. All sources of information need to be viewed critically and in context. Wikipedia is a very good place to start on almost everything. And in many cases it’s sufficient in itself.

If I want to know when Nat King Cole died or the length of the Nile, I’ll happily trust Wikipedia. If I’m researching coastal erosion in Kent it would be a place to begin.

It is amazing that people can slag off Wikipedia on a site where the Daily Mail and the Guardian are cited on just about every other thread.

You’ve taken my post wrongly. This thread isn’t about Sudan
Theres nothing remotely similar in terms of U.K. involvement
So bringing up Sudan is irrelevant here

Would someone really go "well if it wasn't with a sledgehammer then that's ok then'?"

Well it seems like a good few don't agree with your assessment of the situation based on how many were arrested. Until it's all public knowledge there no real way to say who is right about the context and whatever happens in court there will always be a few people who will think the judgement is totally wrong.

Like it's been pointed out it is quite simple to avoid arrest like the plasticine action placard guy but this group deliberately acted in a way to lead to mass arrests

I haven’t taken anything wrongly. You literally said this thread isn’t about Sudan, start a new thread if you want to talk about it.

Someone else BEFORE me said “why is it all about Palestine, why not Sudan”. So I was merely responding and saying why people might not be protesting about Sudan.

My reply to that person made it very clear Sudan wasn’t an equivalent.

Mine was an entirely relevant addition to this thread in that context, in answer to someone’s question. Do you suggest they should have just been ignored.

Well it seems like a good few don't agree with your assessment of the situation based on how many were arrested.

My question was did they know about it at all? I know some people on other threads who were claiming that Palestine Action were non-violent didn't know about it. Some people on this thread also said that they were unaware.

The arrests make more sense if they don't know, but then risking arrest for a group that you haven't done your research on doesn't make sense to me. The whole situation is baffling.