[News] One year in, Palestine Action is hitting drone maker Elbit hard (With Video!)

[Anti-Imperialist News]

electronicintifada.net
<https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/asa-winstanley/one-year-palestine-action-hitting-drone-maker-elbit-hard>
One
year in, Palestine Action is hitting drone maker Elbit hard

Asa Winstanley <https://electronicintifada.net/people/asa-winstanley> - 6
August 2021
------------------------------

A new short film by Real Media follows the group Palestine Action
<https://electronicintifada.net/tags/palestine-action> over the past year.

Palestine Action was founded a year ago by activists in the UK to focus on
taking direct action against Israeli arms manufacturer Elbit Systems
<https://electronicintifada.net/tags/elbit>.

Elbit is Israel’s largest private arms manufacturer. It makes the vast
majority
<https://www.israeldefense.co.il/en/content/elbit-systems%E2%80%99-hermes-900-uav-headed-fifth-country>
of Israel’s drone fleet and, as the film explains, markets its weapons as
“combat proven” – tested on Palestinians.

The company has 10 factories and offices
<https://palestineaction.org/join-the-resistance/> in Britain, which the
group has been targeting.

You can watch the full film in the video above. I am one of several people
in the film giving context and analysis. I argue that, with persistence,
Palestine Action could ultimately be successful in its goal of expelling
Elbit from the UK.

Activists have carried out sit-ins and sabotage
<https://electronicintifada.net/content/activists-force-shutdown-israeli-weapons-factory-uk/33221>
against Elbit premises, shutting factories down, smashing windows, damaging
equipment, graffiting and splashing walls with red paint to symbolize
Palestinian blood.

According to the film, Palestine Action have carried out more than 70
actions against Elbit in their first year, including 20 high-profile
occupations of sites and factories.

According to police estimates, the group’s actions have cost Elbit and
complicit companies more than $22 million and more than 100 days of weapons
manufacturing, the film says.
A day in court?

Yet despite an estimated 100 arrests and systematic repression
<https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/asa-winstanley/uk-turns-counterterror-law-repress-palestine-action>
by the British police and government, not a single trial has taken place
and some activists who destroyed machinery have not even been charged.

A trial set for May
<https://electronicintifada.net/content/palestine-actions-elbit-six-could-face-trial/32706>
was pushed back for more than a year. The trial date had happened to
coincide with the most recent major Israeli bombing campaign in the Gaza
Strip. Activists suspect the delay was an attempt by the police to stack
the trial against them.

They are eager for the case to come to court.

Like many other direct action campaigners, Palestine Action’s legal
strategy is to argue in open court that Elbit’s business activities are
illegal under international law, since their weapons are used to help
Israel carry out war crimes against Palestinians.

Their non-violent direct actions against the company are therefore
proportionate and lawful and not in fact “criminal damage,” they argue.

A similar case collapsed in January last year
<https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/asa-winstanley/uk-drops-trial-against-israeli-arms-factory-protesters>
when prosecutors dropped it after Elbit declined to make disclosures about
its activities in the UK.

Elbit is not so keen to go to court, as it doesn’t want its activities
being exposed to scrutiny, activists say.
Skyrocketing campaign

During the bombing in May, British sympathy with Palestine Action
skyrocketed and local people began spontaneously forming protests in
solidarity with activists as they were taking action on Elbit factory
rooftops.

Founder Huda Ammori <https://electronicintifada.net/tags/huda-ammori> says
in the film that at one point, they were getting three new volunteers join
them every minute.

UK government repression of Palestine Action has included home raids,
confiscation of devices and passports and even threats to use draconian
anti-terror laws
<https://electronicintifada.net/content/uk-threatens-charge-palestine-action-terrorism/32926>
against the group.

Soon after Palestine Action was founded in August last year, British
foreign minister Dominic Raab was meeting
<https://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/285887> with Israeli
ministers in Jerusalem.

Orit Farkash-Hacohen, then “Strategic Affairs” minister, complained that
the “campaign against Israel has become widespread throughout Europe and
the world, including in England… Only last weekend, the offices of an
Israeli security company were vandalized, for the fourth time in the last
month.”

She was making a reference to interventions such as Palestine Action’s
first ever direct action <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kMQnE4bJj8w>,
against Elbit’s London office.

According to Israeli media, “Raab replied he and the British government
were committed to stopping such events.”

הממשלה אישרה את ביטול המשרדים הבאים: משאבי המים, הדיגיטל הלאומי, נושאים
אסטרטגיים, ההשכלה הגבוהה והמשלימה והמשרד לחיזוק וקידום קהילתי

הממשלה אישרה היום את ביטולם של המשרדים המצוינים לעיל והעברת תחומי פעילותם
למשרדי הממשלה השונים.
— ראש ממשלת ישראל (@IsraeliPM_heb) July 19, 2021
<https://twitter.com/IsraeliPM_heb/status/1417039595204759556?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw>

Using a dirty tricks campaign
<https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/israel-using-black-ops-against-bds-says-veteran-analyst>
and “black ops,” the Ministry of Strategic Affairs
<https://electronicintifada.net/tags/ministry-strategic-affairs> was a
semi-covert Israeli agency dedicated to fighting the BDS movement, the
Palestinian-led global campaign for boycott, divestment and sanctions
against Israel.

After years of its activities being embarrassingly
<https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/asa-winstanley/mossad-role-israels-war-against-bds-confirmed>
exposed
<https://electronicintifada.net/content/inside-israels-million-dollar-troll-army/27566>,
the new Israeli coalition government closed the ministry down last month
<https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/flawed-unfairly-maligned-strategic-affairs-ministry-shutters-analysis-674326>
.

But the prime minister’s office announced that the ministry’s work would
continue with “the transfer of their areas of activity to various
government ministries.”
T
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