In a briefing to the BBC, both Downing Street and the Ministry of Defence played down the operational impact. Other sources suggest that real damage occurred, but that the MoD is embarrassed about admitting such vulnerability. Either way, Palestine Action was open about its intentions. This wasn’t just an act of protest, or an expression of graffiti; it was a deliberate attack on the British air force.
The comparison was turbocharged by the headline of a Guardian newspaper article by the Irish novelist Sally Rooney, which said: “Israel kills innocent Palestinians. Activists spray-paint a plane. Guess which the UK Government calls terrorism.”
An image of the headline went viral. But at no point in the headline, or in the full piece authored by Rooney, was there a reference to Palestine Action’s explicit pride in claiming to leave British defence equipment unusable. In her text, Rooney described the planes only as “defaced”. By contrast, Palestine Action itself described them as “grounded”, in an act of “decommissioning” – the military term for putting weapons beyond use.
It is not a surprise to see terminally online figures like Willoughby jump from backing Palestine Action to running apologism for Iran. This week, Home Secretary Yvette Cooper announced plans to proscribe Palestine Action as a terrorist organisation. The proposed ban comes amid increasing scrutiny of the group’s alleged links to Iran’s broader influence network, just as the extremist Shia Islamic regime is reported to be funding propaganda across our social media networks.
Watch YouTube videos backing Palestine Action for very long, and you’ll soon find yourself being shown propaganda from Iran-friendly outlets like InMinds and PressTV. It’s a pipeline that takes British viewers from a starting point of natural sympathy for the children caught in Gaza’s horrors, and ends up feeding them talking points for a despotic regime of woman-hating theocrats.
Cooper’s bigger problem is not Palestine Action itself, but the steady absorption of Iranian propaganda into British life. Remember when we were all tweeting “Woman, Life, Freedom!” and posting pictures of Armita Geravand, the Iranian woman beaten to death for wearing her hijab “improperly”? Now Instagram is awash with memes defending the thug regime which killed her.
square KATE MALTBY Gleeful leftists cheering attacks on Israel don’t understand the true horror
Read More
Sympathisers like Rooney describe this as an attack on freedom of speech. As indeed it would be – had Palestine Action limited itself to acts of speech. Instead, it launched an attack that, if undertaken by a foreign government, would constitute an act of war.
The attack on RAF Brize Norton is the most explicit act of violence by Palestine Action. Yet it follows a concerning pattern of escalation. Just a few weeks ago, the group claimed responsibility for vandalising the premises of a Jewish-owned family business in Stamford Hill, north London, smashing windows, computers and furniture in the heart of one of Britain’s most visibly Orthodox Jewish areas.
The attack follows a wave of similar incidents targeting Jews in the Stamford Hill community, which have seen synagogues vandalised, children attacked while wearing the uniform of Jewish schools, and two attempted kidnappings of visibly Jewish people outside synagogues.
On the morning of 7 October 2023, Hamas fighters posted footage of themselves launching massacres in the pacifist kibbutzes of southern Israel. Palestine Action responded by tweeting from their official X account: “Palestinians are resisting and taking their land back!”
Cooper is well within her rights to proscribe such a group. Yet the proposed ban dodges the main problem. Winning a war of ideas will depend not on banning groups like Palestine Action, but on a serious plan to tackle the online disinformation that drives their public support. So far, that seems to be a lost cause.
Read More Details
Finally We wish PressBee provided you with enough information of ( Let’s set the record straight on Sally Rooney and Palestine Action )
Also on site :