Palestine Action protests

[BettyBooper]

I do realise that this is the FWR board, but there are some undercurrents of similarity, which is my interest.

Palestine Action has be proscribed as a terrorist organisation. This protest (to my understanding) was about that decision, not about the issue in Palestine itself.

I'm concerned that what was about Palestine is now in sizable number (as reported), elderly people protesting in support of a proscribed terrorist organisation.

You can protest about Palestine without supporting this organisation. So what's happening here?

I think my concern is that bad actors are using well meaning people to push an ideology. Which is the similarity with gender ideology and hence me posting here.

Again, my concern is that the protest appears to be in support of a group rather than the cause.

It’s a protest against the incorrect proscribing of an organisation as a terrorist one. Whatever your views on the behaviour of Israel to the Palestinians; you should be concerned about this. It is a flagrant disregard for free speech and a highly questionable decision.

Yes Palestine action have committed illegal acts; doesn’t make them a terrorist group though. I have issue with people being more horrified about paint on planes than the tens of thousands of innocent people, and children in particular being killed in Gaza, using weapons manufactured and sold here.

I think in fact it is quite clear these older people are more than able to understand the difference between supporting an organisation because they sympathise with its cause, and protesting a Government decision which they feel restricts free speech.

But do accept that some young people who like instance images etc., are cashing in on being able to share images of older people and people with disabilities being taken off by police.

There are no bad actors.

And to think that old people are gullible is just silly.

If you read anything about why people are protesting you will have understood that.

The only bad actors in most cases are media misrepresentation, which many of us on FWR will be familiar with.

The issue is about the Government decision to proscribe Palestine Action rather than as happens with many protest groups that destroy property etc, they are prosecuted for criminal damage. And / or breaking and entering.

Some might question the Government's intentions in doing that.

Or maybe there is a dividing line between defacing military equipment and throwing paint at a painting.

In this instance the Government has helped promote a group that 99.9% of us would never have heard of.

But it is an important issue in its own right - the overreach of state power, using anti-terrorism laws to clamp down on non-terrorist direct-action protests.

And it is connected to the wider issue of the war in Palestine because time and again legitimate pro-Palestinian protests are misleadingly presented as antisemitic or in other ways somehow intrinsically wrongful.

There is a similarity with the way in which gender critical views have been misrepresented as hateful, anti-trans, etc. In both cases, legitimate parts of public discourse have been deliberately marginalised by people seeking to position them as outside the realms of acceptable political thought and action.

If the Government position is right then Greenham Common Women should have been a proscribed organisation.

And as for the idea of 'bad actors' using 'well-meaning', 'elderly' people, that seems pretty offensive. You don't suddenly become gullible when you hit your sixties.

I'm guessing that part of the reason there are a lot of older people willing to get arrested is that it is easier for older people to calculate whether a criminal record will have an unacceptably large cost to them in future. Eg, if you are retired, you don't have to worry about having to declare your criminal record to a future employer. To an extent you can say 'so fucking what' about any black marks on your name.

In fact, which I hadn't realised, so more consciousness raising thanks to Government over reach, is that the demos are organised by the group "Defend our Juries".

You can read more about them here https://defendourjuries.net/

I totally understand those wishing to support Palestine but there is no need to support Palestine Action. From watching the protesters on the news it's the typical middle class lefty's akin to the Just Stop Oil brigade.

Yes you say this but it isn't just 'painting a plane' is it?

You misunderstand as did OP.

The demonstrations are about the Government categorising PA as a terrorist group.

It is a free speech issue.

But surely demonstrating in this way is going to be seen as supporting the group itself - which is the illegal bit.

Please don't say I misunderstand. I can speak for myself. And I clearly said the same in my post..

An organisation that caused millions of pounds worth of damage to military planes. Not terrorist you say?

It is a free speech issue.

There are a lot of issues here, many beyond free speech. In the context of a growing national security threat I don't want UK groups to feel they have a right to attack our military capabilities.

I do think the government have overreached here, following their established tendency to panic when they feel there's a threat to public order.

I don't know why this is in FWR?

I agree with the OP that there are parallels. At its basic level there's been a massive overreach on free speech in the UK for about a decade and we're seeing the results of that in many different areas.

I posted here because I thought it was a point of interest.

So you can speak for yourself but the “elderly” people at the protests are just gullible and need you to speak for (and what, save) them?

Not terrorist.

What is terrorism?

Seeking to effect political change by means of terrorising a population. Spraypainting jets isn’t that. Not becuase it’s trivial — it isn’t. It costs a fortune to fix and is a direct attack on our military — but because terrorism is a specific thing. Laws passed to curb terrorism are draconian, and we should all worry when they are applied to other things we don’t like. We have other laws for that.

What’s the parallel with GC debates that you see?

(I’m basically both GC and pro-Israel if we must flatten those issues into binaries).

I didn't misunderstand. At all.

If love to hear more of what you're saying but honestly I don't quite understand this post. I'm really not being snarky.

Who did they hurt?
Who did they intimidate?
Who did they kill, to have their way politically?

Being non violent saboteurs and a pain in the arse isn't terrorism, no more than Just Stop Oil, or Climate X.

The difference is that a foreign government hasn't intervened in the case of climate protestors, whereas they have with PA, to a Government terrified of being labelled anti-Semitic.

Think about that, a foreign government can influence ours, using emotional blackmail.

I don't think, in general terms, that 'the elderly' are more gullible than the young. I don't think that's a stretch. Yes, it is a freedom of speech issue.

Are the elderly a vulnerable group or not then, by your thinking?

And @SinnerBoy, come off it. Don't play daft. It doesn't suit you.

It depends on what you mean by 'vulnerable'. Obviously the elderly are more like likely to suffer from health concerns, but I was comparing the life experience of people in their 70s, say, to people in their twenties.

You have and continue to do so.

Criminal damage is not terrorism.

It is criminal damage.

I think the gullible people are those, and in fact it started with Suella Braverman, who think they can abuse their position as politicians to create laws to stop people who have different opinions to theirs, by saying they are terrorists.

I keep wondering how people like Trump get elected, and then you just have to understand that however wobbley our democratic system has been, we have never, and neither has the US lived through a period when Government decides it doesn't have to use the democratic process to try and get people to support their views, they can just create laws and say you must think like us, eitherwise you are a traitor or a terrorist.

I think this is why more older people respond so angrily to Starmer being dictatorial, because is so goes against the grain of how they grew up, and some of those demostrating are ex-service. So using the trash paper tactic of saying they are just lefty liberals again is just so uninformed.

It would be totaly different to say I think the Government can tell people how to think, and arrest them when they challenge that.

But a pathetic attempt to say only gullible people are doing this, when it has come from the very opposite ie principled conviction.

Also suggest that before bandying around words like terrorism you look up the definition of it.

Just another example of how those who are really gullible are being pushed by Government and the media into reactionary anti UK values.

This keeps coming up on threads.

I am not sure where this influx of contributors have come from but find it really sad that anyone would think anything couldn't or shouldn't be discussed by women who have a common understanding of women's sex based rights because they are those whose opinions they value.

Also a reminder, (or is this being a bit gullible and not following a dictat) nobody want the FWR thread split. And it was only because some whiney lets be kind contributors didn't want to have to talk or even hear about the onslaught of TRAs. So they are safe in their little sand pit, in the mean time women who have a range of views and interest, but a common one of women's sex based rights continue to discuss.

Only MNHQ thought they could dictate the thread should be siloed into sex and gender.

No self respecting feminist would accept having their thoughts and beliefs restricted to a single issue.

The attack on women's sex based rights by TRAs may be the current manifestation of the patriarchy trying to under mine women's sex based rights, but that doesn't mean we dont know or dont care about how this is anti woman politics shows itlsef in other areas.