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<a class="gmail-domain gmail-reader-domain" href="https://mondoweiss.net/2024/09/merrimack-4-defeat-felony-charges/">mondoweiss.net</a>
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<h1 class="gmail-reader-title">Merrimack 4 defeat felony charges</h1>
<div class="gmail-credits gmail-reader-credits">Unity of Fields</div>
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<div class="gmail-reader-estimated-time">September 25, 2024<br></div>
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<blockquote>
<img src="cid:ii_m1ikkeaj0" alt="IMG_4435-1536x1024.jpg" width="468" height="312"><br>
<font size="1">Activists from Palestine Action US target the Elbit Systems offices in
Merrimack, New Hampshire on November 20, 2023. The activists blocked the
entrances preventing employees from entering, scaled the roof, and
painted the facility red with paint. Elbit Systems is Israel’s biggest
weapons supplier. According to Palestine Action, Elbit supplies 85% of
Israel’s military drone fleet. These are the same weapons being used in
the genocide against Palestinians in Gaza. (Photo: Maen Hammad)
Activists from Palestine Action US target the Elbit Systems offices in
Merrimack, New Hampshire on November 20, 2023. The activists blocked the
entrances preventing employees from entering, scaled the roof, and
painted the facility red with paint. Elbit Systems is Israel’s biggest
weapons supplier. According to Palestine Action, Elbit supplies 85% of
Israel’s military drone fleet. These are the same weapons being used in
the genocide against Palestinians in Gaza. (Photo: Maen Hammad)</font><br><br><p>“There is a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious,
makes you so sick at heart, that you can’t take part! You can’t even
passively take part! And you’ve got to put your bodies upon the gears
and upon the wheels … upon the levers, upon all the apparatus, and
you’ve got to make it stop! And you’ve got to indicate to the people who
run it, to the people who own it, that unless you’re free, the machine
will be prevented from working at all!” – <a href="https://x.com/plbmagazine/status/1727418860645798171">Mario Savio</a></p>
</blockquote>
<p>Four Palestine Action activists — Paige Belanger, Sophie Ross,
Bridget Shergalis, and Calla Walsh — were facing extreme felony charges
for attacking the Elbit Systems facility in Merrimack, New Hampshire on
20 November 2023. Now, the Merrimack 4 are resolving their case and will
serve 60 days in county jail as Amerikan justice for resisting genocide
and disrupting production at the largest zionist weapons company.</p>
<p>The Palestine Action US protest in Merrimack — characterized by the
state as a “siege and riot”— involved a simultaneous road blockade, roof
occupation, and attack on the building’s façade causing tens of
thousands of dollars in damages and, for the day, shutting down the
facility where workers produce weapons that surveil, massacre, and
torture Palestinians. Ross, Shergalis, and Walsh were arrested at
gunpoint on Elbit’s rooftop, jailed under preventative detention, and
released after three days on $5,000 to $20,000 bail. They were charged
by the NH Attorney General with conspiracy to commit criminal mischief,
conspiracy to commit burglary, criminal trespass, riot, sabotage<sup>*</sup>, and, later, conspiracy to commit falsifying physical evidence — <a href="https://mondoweiss.net/2024/02/palestine-action-activists-hit-with-felony-charges-over-new-hampshire-elbit-protest/">charges</a> totaling 37 years in prison.</p>
<p>The wave of counterinsurgency hit instantly: NH announced that the
FBI was also investigating Palestine Action US; state figures and
zionist media maligned the co-defendants as terrorists and “outside
agitators” who firebombed a local Jewish small business; Twitter
advanced theories that they were part of a sex cult or trained militia;
the NH AGs threatened to add on hate crime charges, and the court banned
Walsh from leaving the country. Within the movement, self-proclaimed
leadership ignored the arrests or actively distanced their organizations
from Palestine Action, isolating the militants as the “bad” protestors
and urging tactical de-escalation.</p>
<p>On 24 January 2024, dozens of anti-imperialist organizations led by
Samidoun, National SJP, Within Our Lifetime, Palestinian Youth Movement,
and Palestine Solidarity Working Group <a href="https://samidoun.net/2024/01/drop-the-charges-justice-for-the-merrimack-3/">demanded</a> the charges to be dropped: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“<em>We commend the Merrimack Three, as well as the broader campaign
to Shut Elbit Down, for directly challenging war profiteers in the face
of immense repression. The state will not deter our commitment to forge a
world liberated from the chains of Zionism, capitalism, and
imperialism, a world devoid of entities like Elbit</em>.” </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Also on 24 January, Merrimack police officers staked out the Nashua
courthouse to arrest Belanger as she entered to attend a hearing
supporting the 3 co-defendants. They alleged she was part of the
November action and gave her the same charges. Upon release, the state
gave the four co-defendants no-contact orders to isolate them from each
other and thwart their joint defense, until the defense lawyers won a
motion for the no-contact orders to be dropped at the end of May.</p><img src="cid:ii_m1ikq55p1" alt="IMG_4474-1024x683.jpg" width="468" height="312"><br><font size="1">
Activists from Palestine Action US target the Elbit Systems offices in
Merrimack, New Hampshire. The activists blocked the entrances preventing
employees to enter, scaled the roof, and painted the facility red with
paint. Elbit Systems is the Israeli regime’s biggest weapons supplier.
According to Palestine Action, Elbit supplies 85% of Israel’s military
drone fleet. The same weapons being used in the genocide against
Palestinians in Gaza. (Photo: Maen Hammad)
Activists from Palestine Action US target the Elbit Systems offices in
Merrimack, New Hampshire. The activists blocked the entrances preventing
employees to enter, scaled the roof, and painted the facility red with
paint. Elbit Systems is the Israeli regime’s biggest weapons supplier.
According to Palestine Action, Elbit supplies 85% of Israel’s military
drone fleet. The same weapons being used in the genocide against
Palestinians in Gaza. (Photo: Maen Hammad)
</font><img src="cid:ii_m1ikqz9q2" alt="IMG_4476-1024x683.jpg" width="468" height="312"><br>
<font size="1">Activists from Palestine Action US target the Elbit Systems offices in
Merrimack, New Hampshire. The activists blocked the entrances preventing
employees to enter, scaled the roof, and painted the facility red with
paint. Elbit Systems is the Israeli regime’s biggest weapons supplier.
According to Palestine Action, Elbit supplies 85% of Israel’s military
drone fleet. The same weapons being used in the genocide against
Palestinians in Gaza. (Photo: Maen Hammad)
Activists from Palestine Action US target the Elbit Systems offices in
Merrimack, New Hampshire. The activists blocked the entrances preventing
employees to enter, scaled the roof, and painted the facility red with
paint. Elbit Systems is the Israeli regime’s biggest weapons supplier.
According to Palestine Action, Elbit supplies 85% of Israel’s military
drone fleet. The same weapons being used in the genocide against
Palestinians in Gaza. (Photo: Maen Hammad)</font></div><div><font size="1"><br></font></div><div>
<blockquote><p>Losing comrades to jail, even for a short period,
is painful for the movement — but the Merrimack 4’s defeat of felony
charges and avoidance of decades in prison is a major win against
repression.</p></blockquote>
<p>After nearly a year of the state’s failed attempts to intimidate and
break the Merrimack 4, the NH AGs are now dropping all the felony
charges. The co-defendants are pleading guilty to misdemeanor criminal
mischief and criminal trespass. Their sentence includes 60 days in jail,
a 24-month suspended sentence for 3 years, and a stay-away order from
every Elbit Systems facility, among other conditions. Ross and Walsh
still face several charges for direct actions in Cambridge,
Massachusetts where protestors successfully <a href="https://www.cambridgeday.com/2024/08/28/elbit-company-that-was-protested-weekly-confirms-it-is-moving-out-of-cambridge/">shut down</a>
the first Elbit office in the US. Information on how to support the
Merrimack 4 and write to them in jail will be publicized when
available. Losing comrades to jail, even for a short period, is painful
for the movement — but the Merrimack 4’s defeat of felony charges and
avoidance of decades in prison is a major win against repression.</p>
<p>The Palestine Action US “siege” on Elbit in Merrimack was just 44
days after the Al-Aqsa Flood began, when no other organized militancy
for Palestine was happening in the US; it was before Gaza’s death toll
passed <a href="https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(24)01169-3/fulltext">200,000</a> martyrs, before Aaron Bushnell or <a href="https://unityoffields.org/?p=93">Matt Nelson</a>’s
self-immolation, and before the Gaza solidarity encampments exploded
and cohered a new layer of militants. The Merrimack 4’s charges were the
heaviest criminal charges pressed against post-7 October anti-zionist
protestors in the country, until <a href="https://unityoffields.org/?p=349">Casey Goonan</a>’s
June arrest and federal charges for alleged arson. The US-backed
zionist genocide of Palestine has only escalated since, but so have the
unwavering Axis of Resistance forces, and so has grown the urgency for
us to open up another anti-imperialist front, to join them in resisting
and sacrificing. Since 7 October, the Palestine “solidarity” movement in
the US has been characterized by predictable hemming and hawing about
the merits of “non-violent” protest, and eschewing our responsibility to
resist the genocide using material force. Property damage is not
“violence,” but history shows both are viable and necessary tactics, as
is building the underground. Palestine Action US was an <a href="https://mondoweiss.net/2023/10/palestine-action-us-campaign-launches-to-stop-israeli-genocide-of-palestine-and-shut-elbit-down/">early attempt</a>
at militancy within the imperial core aligned with the Palestinian
resistance — the state responded to it as a serious threat, but the
Merrimack 4’s case shows that trumped-up charges can still be defeated.</p>
<p>Conditions, levels of state repression, and our corresponding tactics
and strategies diverge in the US from the UK, where Palestine Action
was formed in 2020, successfully <a href="https://palestineaction.org/tamworth-shutdown/">shut down</a>
multiple Elbit facilities through direct action, and sustained hundreds
of arrests. The US has better “free speech” protections than the UK
(where people are arrested for chanting “from the river to the sea”) but
is far more hawkish when it comes to treating property as sacrosanct.
In the US, organized property damage and militant anti-imperialist
resistance quickly bring the threat of terrorism or RICO charges, making
the strategy of <a href="http://symbioid.com/pdf/Politics/Pacificism%20as%20Pathology%20-%20Ward%20Churchill.pdf?view=FitH">intentional arrest</a> for property damage here (but frankly, anywhere) unsustainable. The new UK Labour government is now <a href="https://mondoweiss.net/2024/09/in-disturbing-escalation-against-the-palestine-movement-uk-police-arrest-journalists-and-activists-under-terrorism-act/">escalating</a> its repression of Palestine Action UK by threatening them with terrorist designation and <a href="https://palestineaction.org/detained-without-charge/">detaining</a> 16 Palestine Action political prisoners, including 10 on terrorism charges. The UK team’s set of <a href="https://t.me/unity_of_fields/146">clandestine</a>
tactics are better fit than intentional arrests for building protracted
struggle and resiliency to state repression, particularly inside the US
settler empire during this highly advanced stage of counterinsurgency.</p>
<p>Since the 20 November action and resulting state crackdown, Palestine
Action US has analyzed its experience and articulated a line on what
militant resistance would look like in the US, explained in their May
2024 zine, <a href="https://mondoweiss.net/2024/05/flood-the-gates-escalate/">Flood the Gates: Escalate</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“Through our many trials and errors, we learned that tactics used in
the UK, which has a very different legal system, could not simply be
copy-pasted into the US context…</p>
<p>Let repression breed more resistance. We will not disavow any actions
taken to escalate the struggle, including militant direct actions. Our
notion of “safety” in the imperial core is built on centuries of
corpses…</p>
<p>While actions sometimes result in arrests, and those engaged in
serious action ought to prepare for that outcome, it should never be the
*goal* to lose our organizers to the carceral system. The goal should
always be to achieve whatever we set out to achieve, and then get home
safe…We must create our own “popular cradle” of resistance…Clandestine
actions need to express the general will of the movement and garner
support from its aboveground organizers. As long as other groups do not
interfere, peace police, or co-opt our militancy, we must build as broad
possible unity, inspired by the Palestinian resistance’s concept of “<a href="https://unityoffields.org/?p=370">Unity of Fields</a>,”<strong> </strong>whereby, despite our differing ideologies, short-term objectives, and locations, we can all work towards one common goal…</p>
<p>It is insincere to glorify the Palestinian resistance if, at the same time, we do not raise our own resistance here.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p><em>Author’s note: The day this article was planned to be launched,
Meta permanently suspended the Unity of Fields Instagram account with
over 101k followers. Follow our backup <a href="http://instagram.com/unityoffields">@unityoffields</a>.</em></p>
<p><strong>Notes</strong></p>
<p>* The Merrimack 4 were the first people ever charged in NH under this defense sabotage statute (<a href="https://casetext.com/statute/new-hampshire-revised-statutes/title-62-criminal-code/chapter-649-sabotage-prevention/section-6492-intentional-injury-to-or-interference-with-property">649:2</a>).
It carried a minimum of 1 year in prison, but was the first charge to
be dropped because the state had to admit it could only be applied when a
State of Emergency was declared:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“Whoever intentionally destroys, impairs, injures, interferes or
tampers with real or personal property with reasonable grounds to
believe that such act will hinder, delay or interfere with the
preparation of the United States or of any of the states for defense or
for war, or with the prosecution of war by the United States, or by any
country with which the United States shall then maintain friendly
relations, shall be guilty of a class A felony. Provided, if such person
so acts with the intent to hinder, delay or interfere with the
preparation of the United States or of any of the states for defense or
for war, or with the prosecution of war by the United States or by any
country with which the United States shall then maintain friendly
relations, the minimum punishment shall be imprisonment for not less
than one year.”</p>
</blockquote>
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