Palestine Action: the facts
I read Joshua Rozenberg’s recent article (‘Palestine Action ban makes us all safer’, 19 June) with a degree of scepticism and incredulity. The fact that 700 people, with no previous convictions, are now awaiting terrorism charges under section 13 of the Terrorism Act 2020 should sound alarm bells across the legal and judicial world. Included in this are doctors, nurses, retired army officers and even a retired magistrate. These numbers are only likely to grow, yet none of them poses the slightest threat to anyone. One can say with utmost confidence that no one is ‘terrorised’ by their behaviour, and their actions have not had the slightest effect on the security of this country. These facts alone should indicate that something is seriously amiss.
The issue, of course, is Palestine and the horrors witnessed in Gaza over the last two years. This is a war where more than 70,000 Palestinians have been killed, including 20,000 children – the equivalent of a classroom of children for every day of the war. As the Australian human rights lawyer Chris Sidoti pointed out, ‘the number of children killed is the greatest number of any conflict in this century’.
It is easy to gloss over individual suffering with such enormous numbers, but ‘the voice of Hind Rajab’ has been preserved. This was a six-year-old Palestinian girl who made a call for help when the car she was travelling in came under fire from Israeli forces as it left Gaza City. The little girl was recorded by the emergency services screaming and crying for help as she was killed by machine gun fire, which raked the car. The paramedics who tried to rescue her were also killed. The renowned Russian jurist Friedrich von Martens spoke of ‘the laws of humanity and the requirements of public conscience’ underpinning international humanitarian law. The ‘public conscience’ in this country has been deeply affected by the genocide in Gaza and the contempt for international humanitarian law. Decent, law-abiding citizens are now prepared to speak out to the extent that they will happily abandon their life-long ‘good characters’ to do so.
When it comes to the trial of the Elbit four, there are also alarming facts that should worry both lawyers and the public alike. Much play is made by Rozenberg of the sledgehammer which caused serious injury to a police officer who attended the scene. However, the accused was not convicted of causing grievous bodily harm with intent under section 18 of the Offences Against the Person Act 1861, but of a lesser charge under section 20. While I have every sympathy for the injured party, the jury found that the accused did not intend to cause serious harm. As Geoffrey Robertson KC put it, ‘there was no violence meant to kill or maim, only a determination to expose British complicity in killing Palestinians’.
The fact that the Elbit four were sentenced as ‘terrorists’ is also concerning. If the Crown believes that these were ‘terrorist’ acts, then why not charge them as such? The fact that lead counsel in the case, Rajiv Menon KC, was referred to the High Court for contempt for putting forward the principle of ‘jury equity’ just adds to the list of concerns. Is ‘jury equity’ good law, or does Edward Bushel now have a sock in his mouth too?
Finally, Rozenberg was gushing about Baroness Carr in the High Court without pausing to consider some of her comments about the suffragette movement, which, to put it politely, airbrushed history. The suffragettes were far more violent than Palestine Action, involved in bombings, arson and assassination attempts, yet are lauded to this day. My parish recently celebrated International Women’s Day with a tribute to the suffragettes after the service. The Bishop attended and some parishioners dressed up. Next time, shall I warn them about their support for ‘terrorism’ in order to ‘make us all safer’?
Lieutenant Colonel the Reverend NJ Mercer
Rector of Bolton Abbey; Liberty Human Rights Lawyer of the Year 2011
I do not feel safer
Joshua Rozenberg relies on an Underground Manual for Palestine Action activists and testimony of a police officer injured in the Elbit raid in Bristol to ask disparagingly – why have so many decent people supported a covert organisation using violence to destroy the property of third parties?
Evidently, only lawyers can understand the meaning of ‘genocide’; the 3,000-plus people arrested under the Terrorism Act 2000 for peacefully holding up placards are ‘virtue signallers’.
In giving the judgment of the Court of Appeal on 15 June to uphold the home secretary’s ban on Palestine Action as a terrorist organisation, the lady chief justice showed a profound ignorance of domestic political dissent: ‘[Palestine Action] is not, as it claims, a direct action civil disobedience protest group like the suffragettes operating transparently in the open. It is a covert organisation that operates using secret cells to avoid detection and prosecution of those using violence to destroy the property of third parties. Palestine Action’s activities have caused injury as well as property damage.’
In fact, the suffragettes in the Women’s Social and Political Union and their covert wing, the Young Hot Bloods, inflicted far more damage and injury than Palestine Action ever did. They fire-bombed churches and the homes of members of parliament, attacked politicians, including throwing an axe at Herbert Asquith and whipping Winston Churchill, broke all the windows on Oxford Street, and set fire to their cells in prison, where they went on hunger strike and were force-fed. Emily Davison, crushed to death by the King’s horse at the Epsom Derby, was one of several people to die in 1913/14.
Why does this matter now? Because it shows how history is sanitised to bestow a saintly glow on past freedom fighters. The suffragettes would be criminalised as terrorists today and their struggle for equal rights for women would likely be condemned as ‘virtue signalling’ by some. As a result of the Palestine Action ban, the current profile of a ‘terror suspect’ arrested in England and Wales is a white woman in her fifties.
The ban certainly does not make me feel safer. It is part of a pattern of suppression of political dissent and descent into authoritarianism wrought by this government and the last.
Myles Hickey
Retired solicitor, London NW2
