Being branded as ‘extremist’ won’t deter Palestine Action | Israel War on Gaza

The UK is plummeting right into a paranoid deluge of authoritarianism.

Since October, our authorities’s steadfast help for Israel has ushered in a brand new age of state coercion, exposing in its wake the artifice of democracy in Britain.

In response to weekly pro-Palestine protests calling for an finish to Israel’s onslaught on Gaza attended by a whole bunch of hundreds in London and different main British cities, the Conservative Celebration authorities expanded police powers and moved to weaponise considerations over so-called “extremism”. Its main figures referred to peaceable protesters exercising their democratic rights as “mobs” and “hate marchers”, classifying any and all opposition to Israel’s struggle and occupation as hate and racism.

On March 1, in an impromptu deal with to the nation responding to the by-election victory of an unbiased candidate who campaigned on a pro-Palestine platform, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak condemned what he deemed a “stunning enhance in extremist disruption and criminality” within the nation, and dedicated to implementing a strong new framework that will enable his authorities to sort out “extremism” at its roots – a framework many feared can be one other try by the unelected Sunak authorities to curtail political freedoms and make a mockery of the UK’s democracy.

Two weeks later, these fears had been realised when Communities Secretary Michael Gove unveiled a brand new “extremism” definition beneath which sure teams can be blocked from authorities funding and assembly officers.

Based on the brand new definition: “Extremism is the promotion or development of an ideology based mostly on violence, hatred or intolerance, that goals to negate or destroy the basic rights and freedoms of others” or “undermine, overturn or substitute the UK’s system of liberal parliamentary democracy and democratic rights”. The definition additional consists of something that will “deliberately create a permissive setting for others to realize” the above goals.

That is an deliberately obscure, purposefully subjective definition that will serve to do nothing however silence, marginalise, and ultimately criminalise many Muslim communities, civil liberties organisations, and others campaigning to uphold human rights and worldwide regulation in Palestine. Primarily, it has the potential to model as an “extremist” any particular person or collective who doesn’t align with the federal government’s unconditionally pro-Israel stance.

Our group, Palestine Motion, can also be going through the specter of being labelled as “extremist” because of the principled actions our front-line members have taken to place an finish to Britain’s complicity in Israel’s occupation and ethnic cleaning of Palestinian territories.

The primary goal of Palestine Motion’s marketing campaign has been the UK subsidiary factories and places of work of Elbit Methods – Israel’s largest arms producer that provide some 85 p.c of the land and air munitions utilized by its navy.

Since its formation in 2020, Palestine Motion has pressured the everlasting closure of Elbit’s Oldham manufacturing facility and pushed the corporate to desert its London headquarters. In 2022, the group’s protest motion led to the dissolution of contracts value 280 million kilos ($353.6m) between the UK Ministry of Defence and Elbit Methods. Our marketing campaign has additionally efficiently impelled a number of main British and European corporations to chop ties with Elbit completely.

We’ve lengthy recognized that the success of our marketing campaign towards Elbit Methods, and Israeli pursuits usually, has upset the federal government. For this reason it got here as no shock that within the draft plan of Gove’s new definition, Palestine Motion was named as a gaggle that could possibly be captured within the new, prolonged “extremism” bracket.

Nonetheless, we are going to by no means be deterred by such intimidation makes an attempt.

As a community, we now have already confronted arrests, home raids, police brutality and imprisonment. In 2023, it was exposed within the British press how Israeli embassy officers have been urgent the Legal professional Basic’s Workplace (AGO) to intervene within the prosecution of Palestine Motion protesters on their behalf.

We’ve not given into such undemocratic efforts to silence us prior to now, and we won’t achieve this sooner or later, whether or not our group finally ends up being categorised as an “extremist” entity beneath Gove’s new definition or not.

The persecution we face within the UK is nothing in contrast with the horrors communities in occupied Palestine are being subjected to by Israel, with the backing of our authorities. With that in thoughts, we see no manner ahead aside from persevering with with our marketing campaign, with integrity and willpower.

The state’s renewed makes an attempt to observe and bully our motion into silence for the reason that starting of this newest struggle on Gaza didn’t break our resolve or weaken the rising public help for our trigger.

The truth is, Palestine Motion has obtained hundreds of recent sign-ups since October. We’ve new recruits from throughout the social spectrum: A younger mom of toddlers, a TV producer, many docs, supply drivers, main college academics, and incapacity help employees … Folks of all ages, courses, religions and expertise approached us and mentioned they wish to do their half. These new members took on many various roles, together with arrestee and justice-system help.

The overwhelming majority – if not all – of those new recruits mentioned that for the reason that starting of this newest onslaught on Gaza, they’ve turn out to be disillusioned with the façade of democracy within the UK. They instructed us they’ve misplaced religion in marching, signing petitions and writing to their legislators as they helplessly watched on their screens weapon applied sciences, that proceed to be equipped by Britain, shred Palestinian our bodies into items.

They defined that they selected to hitch Palestine Motion as a result of they measured their Western consolation towards their conscience, and felt obligated to do extra. That they’re able to dedicate themselves to a follow of justice which ends up in materials change.

Most of all, they mentioned they now refuse to really feel powerless – no extra feeling ineffective on the sight of a mass grave, infants shivering in terror, younger boys turned skeletal by famine, physique components hanging from partitions, or a father listening for the screams of his daughter beneath the rubble.

Every allegation towards Palestine Motion unwittingly sheds gentle on the crimes our campaigners are utilizing their our bodies to cease – essentially the most barbaric crimes towards humanity.

If a home is on fireplace with a toddler inside and a passer-by should kick down the door to cease the kid from being burned alive, then the door turns into immaterial. British authorities’s new definition of “extremism”, nonetheless, seem extra involved with the destiny of the door than that of the kid – and even much less involved with asking who began the fireplace, and who equipped the matches. However one can not converse of the passer-by and the door with out talking of the kid and the fireplace.

As tensions proceed to rise within the UK, supporters of Palestine should not lose sight of their uprightness. Alongside different principled teams, together with CAGE, Black Lives Matter and Sisters Uncut, Palestine Motion will proceed to mannequin steadfastness and focus. It isn’t a time to be subsumed by rhetoric when actions are urgently wanted.

We’re being requested by quite a few media retailers how – if brandished – this new “extremist” label would have an effect on our motion. Our response is obvious: it gained’t. If a simply democracy was functioning healthily, Palestine Motion wouldn’t have to exist. Palestine Motion’s dedication is to Palestinians and the battle towards a genocidal occupation; we won’t cease till British complicity stops and Israel’s largest arms producer now not operates out of the UK.

The views expressed on this article are the creator’s personal and don’t essentially mirror Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.