A male member of Palestine Action hit a policewoman in the back with a sledgehammer and broke her spine

[JKLolling]

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025/nov/18/pro-palestine-activists-used-sledgehammers-in-action-at-israel-linked-firm-uk-court-told

The poor woman was on the floor facing away from him when he hit her in the back with a sledgehammer and broke her spine. They also brought whips and used them on the security guards.

I'm so appalled by these vile thugs and mortified for the elderly useful idiots who got themselves arrested for supporting them

It’s one person. You cannot use the actions of one person to label a whole group, remember?

If it's a group that exists to commit such acts you can. That's kind of the point of proscribing terror orgs.

This is horrendous. Absolutely awful, the poor policewoman.

They do not. It was prescribed a terrorist organisation in the most ridiculous of circumstances.

By that matter, if I say that all Israelis are violent after the acts of Maccabi Tel Aviv fans, I won’t be labelled an antisemite, will I? Because that’s how it works now? We can label all groups based on the acts of the minority.

That was my question in my thread at the time. There were news stories about the sledgehammer attack that put a police officer in hospital easily found online. People, however, were still coming onto MN and saying that PA were non-violent.

If you're willing to be arrested for holding a poster saying 'I support Palestine Action', you'd have thought the minimum you would have done before heading out is google 'Palestine Action'.

The guy who came onto my thread who had been arrested thought that the planes that were vandalised were used to refuel Israeli bombers though, which is definitely false, so I don't think they had done their research.

Look, you won’t even condemn a man for breaking a policewoman’s spine, so your opinion isn’t really a good indicator of what is right and wrong, is it?

That's a really poor analogy.
You can't extrapolate from some football thugs to their entire nation, you can extrapolate from some members of a direct action group committing crime in line with its stated goals, to the wider group.

Saying, ‘ah but did we know?’, is ridiculous. The proscribing was you being told. That’s what it’s for.

We as individuals don’t know all sorts of things, sometimes because it’s deliberately hidden by the group or the authorities.

So when a group is ‘proscribed as a terror organisation’, you should be pretty damn sure of your facts before you decide to support them anyway.

If You chose to support people who did this despite knowing they were proscribed, It’s on you.

Do we know how she is?

“You can’t extrapolate when it’s the people I support, but you can when it’s not”.

Yes, I had this in real life - they are deranged and lack thinking skills, totally unable to understand that you can be appalled at this, and also appalled at Hamas actions on 7/10 and ALSO appalled at Isrerals behaviour.

Pal Action is a group of people who got together to commit acts of destruction against property and commit violence in the name of pro Pal causes. Hence the lady shouting- 'youve been Pal Actioned'

TAM fans are a group of people who've got together to support their football team.

Can you see the difference?

Crimes commited by anyone in either group should be dealt with the same of course.

But there is a clear difference in the intent of the groups.

I despair of the utter stupidity of some of the posts on this subject.

Scary that even now some of the people who rather ignorantly supported Palestine Action are still not getting it.

You can admit you’re wrong. If being right means continuing to support a group who endorse violence such as this horrific attack on a policewoman.

Oh my goodness. He hit her once then raised the sledgehammer and hit her again breaking her spine. He could have killed her.

How on earth people can support this organisation! He should go to prison. Vile attack. Its quite sickening. Yet old people (who are naturally horrified at deaths in Gaza) sit in the road to support this organisation and its actions. Misguided or just plain stupid, or don't they care and violent actions including seriously assaulting others is ok. The supporters of this type of attack by Palestine Action need to look at themselves.

More like you can't criticise everyone for being born in a particular country, you can criticise everyone who supports a terror group.

Plenty of people support the people of Gaza without promoting PA or other terror groups.

This. Some people are either naive, dumb or dont give a toss that others are seriously hurt by Palestine Action.

Proscribed for a reason, they dont give all details to 'random idiot on the internet' to approve first.

Oh dear. Nobody is saying that everyone who has been holding banners in support of PA are going to wield a sledgehammer and attack people. However if you’re holding a banner which says you support PA it is condoning that level of violence

people could hold a banner in general support of Palestine without supporting that specific organisation

so yes, I’d judge and label anyone still supporting them.

Someone who is Jewish or Israeli can’t exactly stop being Jewish or Israeli because of the actions of the Israeli government. Plenty of Jewish people and even Israelis disagree with the actions Israel took/are taking

But there will still be people here supporting pal action and Hamas who killed 1200 on Oct 7

The man who used a sledgehammer on the policewoman’s back, and broke her back, is nothing but psychopathic thug using Palestine as an excuse

You can't possibly know that. People who are passionate about a cause can and do commit awful acts, especially in the heat of the moment, without being psychopaths. You are propagating the idea that no one who is sincere about supporting Palestine could possibly do such a thing. I don't think that's true.

This is the thing. I have been on a great many protests for al sorts of causes and there are always people there who don't care about the actual issue being protested, they are there for the thrill and drama of disobedience and if they get a chance to turn it violent they will do so. This individual I will agree is scum but he's more likely to be a opportunistic and misogynistic violent thug who is equally unpleasant when attending anti-immigration protests, rather than a genuine member of a pro-palestine group.

He passionately swung a sledgehammer into the back of a prone woman....twice.

What connection to Palestine does he have to make him so passionate? Should we expect this from people who are passionate about the situation in Yemen,Sudan, Nigeria, Tibet, Ukraine, Syria.......

So the far- left pro-pal man who broke a woman's spine for the fun of it did so because he's actually far-right and doesn't care about Palestine? Can you hear yourself?

But it wasn’t just one person was it? Sure only one broke the police officer’s back but others have been charged with violent attacks on people in the same incident. They took an axe, sledgehammers, fireworks. Attacked security guards. They launched fireworks at the security guard.

The security guard had blood pouring down his face, teeth knocked out, cuts and abrasions. He needed his head stapled back together

This is shameful, but it doesn’t mean Israel are any less wrong.

Palestine Action isnt the only group protesting about Gaza. They are, however a proscribed terrorist organisation, as it seems now, justifiably. There were plenty of other organisations people could have joined. If you have naively supported PA then you are condoning people turning up with sledgehammers and whips and beating up police and security guards and committing Criminal damage, because that's what they do.