When the British activist group Palestine Action was proscribed as a terrorist organization following the breach of RAF Brize Norton, Britain’s largest military air base, the intention was clear: to disrupt a campaign that had escalated from criminal damage to attacks on defense infrastructure.
More than a year later, thousands of people have been arrested in connection with Palestine Action protests. But the scale of arrests gives a misleading impression of how effectively this organization has been disrupted.
Two months after the ban came into force, Palestine Action Global emerged overseas. Presenting itself as an international expansion of the original network, it uses the Palestine Action name and branding, solicits donations and provides material to help activists organize direct action. It raises the possibility that elements of Palestine Action’s identity and infrastructure have moved overseas.
On its website, activists are encouraged to establish cells and set up encrypted email accounts. The site informs them that once contact has been established, they can receive information and potential future targets.
Among the equipment it recommends is a sledgehammer. In June, a Palestine Action activist was jailed after striking a police officer with a sledgehammer during a raid, fracturing her spine.
Palestine Action Global claims its international network does not include any U.K.-based groups, citing Palestine Action’s proscription in the United Kingdom. It maintains that people in the U.K. can therefore legally share and support the platform.
Whether that distinction holds up to scrutiny is another matter. A banned organization cannot evade proscription simply by adopting another name. Authorities would need to examine any overlap in leadership, membership, finances and operational structure, as well as ideology, aims and tactics. Where a supposedly new organization turns out to be the same proscribed group, terrorism legislation provides mechanisms for treating it as such.
Other material on the Palestine Action Global platform reveals something about the movement’s strategy and ideology. Activists are encouraged to view the consequences of direct action through the language of personal sacrifice. The website describes spending a night in police custody, going through the courts and even imprisonment as “part of the same struggle.” Sacrificing your liberty, it states, “has the power to inspire other people to step up their commitment.”
Since the proscription, nearly 3,000 people have been arrested for supporting Palestine Action, many for holding signs bearing its name. In the context of the movement’s own rhetoric, that scale of enforcement risks becoming counterproductive. Rather than simply deterring support, mass arrests risk feeding the narrative of sacrifice and encouraging further participation.
Images of elderly protesters being detained have come to define the ban, making proscription appear heavy-handed while providing the movement with precisely the imagery of sacrifice it seeks to cultivate.
Mass arrests can create an illusion of disruption even if the operational infrastructure behind the organization remains intact.
Meanwhile, in Britain, new groups have formed sharing the same ideology, targeting the same companies and using similar tactics.
Efforts to channel supporters into direct action have continued since proscription. Palestine Action privately contacted potential recruits, directing them towards Direct Action Training, a collective established just before the ban came into force. Palestine Action also said that direct action is “for everyone, regardless of the name it falls under.”
Direct Action Training’s website declares that “we have never been closer to Palestinian liberation and the inevitable fall of Empire” and invites activists to gain skills to “dismantle the Zionist machine brick by brick, drone by drone.”
A year later, Palestine Action co-founder Huda Ammori is still encouraging activists to continue direct action through other groups.
Another organization, People Against Genocide, has claimed responsibility for raids against sites connected to Elbit Systems and other Israel-linked companies.
Last month, three activists allegedly connected to Palestine Action appeared in court accused of causing 1.3 million pounds of damage to a military technology company. When arrested, they were carrying sledgehammers, angle grinders and crowbars, and wearing clothing bearing the words “People against genocide,” suggesting potential overlap between the two groups’ activist bases.
Proscription can ban an organization, but it does not make the tactics or people that develop around it disappear. They can transfer into other groups without those groups becoming part of the proscribed organization. A wider concern is how easily organizations can do their legal homework, adapting their structures and activities to exploit the boundaries of terrorism law.
If Palestine Action Global is effectively Palestine Action under another name, existing proscription powers allow the authorities to act. If it is genuinely separate, the British government must determine whether its activities justify proscription in their own right or what other counterterrorism powers can be used to disrupt them.
The success of proscription should ultimately be measured by whether it disrupts the organization itself: its funding, organizers, recruitment networks and ability to carry out coordinated action.
Whatever the organizational relationship between these groups, they are united by the ideology that drove Palestine Action. If the state cannot distinguish between an organization and its ideology, it risks filling police cells with placard-holders while failing to disrupt genuine terrorist activity.
