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<a class="gmail-domain gmail-reader-domain" href="https://popularresistance.org/shutting-down-the-israeli-arms-industry/">popularresistance.org</a>
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<h1 class="gmail-reader-title">Shutting Down The Israeli Arms Industry <br></h1>
<div class="gmail-credits gmail-reader-credits">By Lowkey, MintPress News.- May 19, 2023<br></div>
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<img src="cid:ii_lhy3bb6y0" alt="image.png" width="392" height="221"><br><br><p></p>
<p>Even as Israel’s war against Palestine continues unabated, a new
movement has arisen in the United Kingdom, challenging the Israeli war
machine – and it has been winning some impressive victories.</p>
<p>Founded in 2020, Palestine Action is a grassroots activist movement
that seeks to end British complicity in Israeli war crimes by shutting
down arms manufacturing sites across the U.K. Today, Lowkey welcomes
back Palestine Action co-founder Huda Amori to talk about the rise of
her organization that has taken the country by storm and has weapons
manufacturers fleeing. Born in the U.K., Amori is a Palestinian-Iraqi
whose father was chased out of his home by Israeli soldiers in 1967, and
forced to flee, without even a pair of shoes.</p>
<p>Decades later, Amori has found a way to fight back, using direct
action to occupy and shut down Elbit Systems, Israel’s largest arms
firm. With the help of the community in her native Oldham, Amori and
Palestine Action’s occupation has forced Elbit Systems to leave the town
and sell their factory at a substantial loss. Last summer, they
abandoned their London headquarters. And last winter, the British
Ministry of Defence canceled around £280 million (around U.S.$350
million) of contracts with the company.</p>
<p>Elbit’s products, such as drones and surveillance tech, are directly
used on the civilian population of Palestine, Amori explained. They are
then marketed as “battle tested” around the world and sold to countries
like Australia and India.</p>
<p>“If you are building weapons here to be sent back to Israel to be
used against Palestinians, or if you are a customer of weapons that have
been developed on the Palestinian people, then you are just as guilty,”
Amori said, adding:</p>
<blockquote><p>For example, the British Ministry of Defence buy many of
these weapons after they have been developed and used against the
Palestinians, which only encourages the further development and use of
weapons on Palestinians, and to continue the occupation. This cycle of
violence just continues to benefit the oppressors and work against the
oppressed.”</p></blockquote>
<p>What happens to Palestinians reverberates throughout the world. The
people of the West Bank and Gaza function as guinea pigs for the world’s
most oppressive technologies. Those technologies are then exported
globally. As Amori told Lowkey, because their electronics and other tech
in Israel’s annexation wall proved so effective, Elbit Systems won a
contract to build the Trump administration’s controversial wall on the
Mexican border.</p>
<p>While Amori and Palestine Action are constantly charged and regularly
appear in court for criminal damages, they are yet to be convicted.
Indeed, once they get in front of a jury to tell their story, it is
often Elbit Systems that seems to be on trial. At the end of last year, a
jury at the Crown Court unanimously found Amori and her colleagues
innocent, accepting that they were trying to prevent an even bigger
crime from taking place. The jury even proceeded to thank the activists
for their bravery publicly. Some, Amori claimed, went so far as to blow
kisses at them.</p>
<p>While it is not clear whether they will continue to grow and be
successful, what is obvious is that Palestine Action’s direct action
strategy is achieving success and that arms manufacturers the world over
are watching on, worried.</p>
<p><b>Lowkey</b> is a British-Iraqi hip-hop artist, academic and
political campaigner. As a musician, he has collaborated with the Arctic
Monkeys, Wretch 32, Immortal Technique and Akala. He is a patron of
Stop The War Coalition, Palestine Solidarity Campaign, the Racial
Justice Network and The Peace and Justice Project, founded by Jeremy
Corbyn. He has spoken and performed on platforms from the Oxford Union
to the Royal Albert Hall and Glastonbury. His latest album, Soundtrack
To The Struggle 2, featured Noam Chomsky and Frankie Boyle and has been
streamed millions of times.</p>
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