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).

Not all the people on the marches support Palestine action as an organisation. They are protesting against Israel's actions in Gaza.
I find it hard to understand how the Police can arrest a few of the thugs who intend on attacking and setting fire to hotels with refugees and attacking the Police, yet arrest hundreds for holding a placard or wearing a scarf. You don't have to support Hamas to oppose the actions of the Israel state. Palestine Action are one group
Opposing the Israeli government is not the same as being anti-Semitic. Many of the protesters are Jewish.

I've nearly filled my bingo card!

Do not presume to lecture me on what the real world is when it comes to this topic, nor what nuance is!

However you are correct in that I used the Pro-Palestinian movement as a term very loosely. In actual fact there is very little that is Pro-Palestinian about any of the marches we see in the UK.

That would, I am afraid, be a naive assumption about what their main aim is.

This is what I don’t understand. How on earth have these two awful men got anywhere near the aeroplanes? A security breech shouldn’t be possible

@PhilippaGeorgiou You said "What many decent and honest citizens are disturbed by is the use of parliamentary power to call this terrorism. It is not terrorism. It may indeed be criminal, but it is a slippery slope when we start to call people terrorists simply because we disagree with them or their tactics. It is the erosion of fundamental freedoms that are driving the protests. The government have misstepped and can't back down from this."

And I asked, given the violence of the members of the group "Is that something that you would be willing to risk arrest to support?" Given your stated concern for the 'erosion of fundamental freedoms that are driving the protests', I wondered if you'd be able to overlook the violent actions of the group.

Because that's the topic of this thread.

If you want to demand that people denounce the murder of babies and children, head to CITME, that's where those posts go.

No one is saying that all the people on marches support Palestine Action.

However, the ones holding up the placards saying 'I support Palestine Action' were doing so because it's illegal and were expecting to be arrested. Do you realise that this was a specific protest to support Palestine Action?

There was no violence at the protest as far I can tell? 500 or so people arrested at a peaceful protest seems heavy handed? Netanyahu is accused of war crimes and has an active arrest warrant issued by the ICC. Do you believe the UK should act upon that arrest warrant if he were to visit?

Peacefully supporting a proscribed terrorist organisation doesn't make it legal though. The whole point was to provoke arrest.

I want to know more about maniacs murder cult 😮 What’s that!?!?

Sounds like a Netflix drama

Edit - I googled. More boring than it sounded. Far right nutters.

@TwoWheelz

This is what I don’t understand. How on earth have these two awful men got anywhere near the aeroplanes? A security breech shouldn’t be possible

It's pretty straightforward:

Years/decades of defence cuts, leading to lack of personnel that could be deployed for things like overnight guarding and no doubt a refusal on cost basis to install the sort of fencing and other tech seen at many civilian airports..TBF though the layout at Brize doesn't allow high fencing at at least one runway end..

Add in a touching belief in the fact that the UK's population is completely law abiding and will comply with "MOD property, no trespassing" and these days you've got a problem.

None of the above excuses the attackers and certainly lets not get into victim blaming.

Yes, this.

if you break the law quietly, that doesn’t mean you can avoid arrest. Agreeing with the law, or not, is irrelevant.

This is the issue really though isn’t it.

According to the UN the U.K. identifying PA as a proscribed terrorist group is wrong. The UN have put out a statement criticising the U.K. on this. As stated upthread.

The U.K. are using this in order to shut down pro Palestinian demonstrations. To shut down criticising the actions of Israel in Gaza. The demonstrations are so large and so frequent that Labour will do whatever they can to stop our democratic right to speak out.

Nothing more
Given the scale of the recent demonstration I would imagine it is this very act against free speech that has brought many people out. In anger that are Government is becoming more authoritarian.

A focus on "fair justice" makes sense, of course, but the UN have no right to pontificate on the UK decision, which was made based on security intelligence confirming that Palestine Action has violent intentions not yet carried out.

What?

They are making a point about PA not actually falling within the definition of terrorism as clearly stated by the UN.
They are making the point that this is simply being used by Starmer to shut down the demonstrations.

This is about more than the Gaza war. This is about shutting down free speech

Of. Course. I’m not interested in derailing threads. I prefer to keep on point.

The rules about protesting have changed and become a lot stricter in the last 10 years. I think some people are using this as an example/test to show they should have the right to protest peacefully. Obviously you don’t agree with the cause but do you agree with the right to protest at all?

Do you believe everything Starmer says because the UN don’t

Just in case they do something we’ll call them terrorists. Really 🤣

It's not relevant to whether they could be arrested under the law but the principles of peaceful protest and free speech should be highly relevant to all of us. They are supposed to be some of the fundamental rights that distinguish a democratic society from more controlling forms of government.

So if the UK hear of plans to blow up an arena for example, by a particular group, we don’t act as they haven’t actually done it yet?

Much better to wait for another Manchester Arena, I guess...

They've already done something which might lead to questions about motives - not the sledghammer incident but the sabotage at Brize.

That attack potentially had, may still have, consequences for UK defence, but BTW did diddly squat to improve the lot of anyone in Gaza.

I suspect questions have already been asked as to why those particular airframes were damaged...supporters of PA had better hope they were chosen at random..

I'll be honest, I'm not comfortable at all with any thoughts of a blanket ban on protest and I'm yet convinced PA automatically fit into the terrorist category, but I can see why some might see there's a bit more to PA itself than direct action...

Many people want to complain about the problem / atrocities and are past caring if someone then means they are believed by people trying to silence them to be supporting other violence