• @cows_are_underrated@feddit.org
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    361 day ago

    Is Palestine Action a specific movement/group or is palestine Action literally just supporting Palestine? Asking from a non UK perspective.

    • @scholar@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      It’s a specific group that recently broke into an RAF base and started mucking about with the aircraft, hence why the government aren’t their biggest fans.

      Shortly after they did this they were designated as a terrorist group by the home office which is why public support is an offence.

      • @FlyingCircus@lemmy.world
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        321 day ago

        Their latest action was against the planes, but they have actually been extraordinarily successful at damaging the economic machine behind the genocide through targeted and sustained sabotage campaigns against Elbit Systems weapons manufacturer and their supporters, like Barclays Bank. They have already forced the closure of two weapons factories and forced Barclays to divest. It is most likely this sustained campaign that is the real reason for the terrorist designation, though the action at Brize Norton was probably the straw that broke the camel’s back.

        • @scholar@lemmy.world
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          -41 day ago

          It certainly made proscribing them an easy sell; you won’t find many people who think it’s unreasonable of the government to take a dim view of sabotage.

          Hopefully it won’t distract too much from the bigger story of almost everyone apart from the government taking a dim view of genocide.

            • @ohulancutash@feddit.uk
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              01 hour ago

              They weren’t fighter jets, they used crowbars as well, and even a tiny bit of paint in a jet engine can cause catastrophic damage at the sort of RPM and temperature they operate at.

            • @scholar@lemmy.world
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              415 hours ago

              Jet engines may react poorly with paint in the intakes. Those aircraft will need to be inspected and possibly repaired/maintained before they are allowed in the air again. That is sabotage.

          • @WoodScientist@sh.itjust.works
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            91 day ago

            100 years from now, who would possibly doubt that PAC are the heroes here and labor are the villains? Genociders are never on the right side of history. These people are heroes.

            • @scholar@lemmy.world
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              215 hours ago

              It’s not even really a Labour issue, support for Israel has been a long standing policy (partly because the UK was largely responsible for the creation of Israel back in the 1920s) and the motion to proscribe Palestine Action was broadly supported by every party. Regardless of the morality it was completely obvious and expected that breaking into a military base and damaging expensive aircraft was going to have consequences.

              • @WoodScientist@sh.itjust.works
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                211 hours ago

                Doesn’t mean it’s not the morally right thing to do. Aircraft that are being used to bomb innocent civilians should be vandalized. Hell that’s the minimum. The morally right thing to do is to set them on fire. Legality and morality are only weakly correlated. Obviously the law says what the powerful want it to say, but that doesn’t mean it’s right or just. Setting fire to a UK plane that is being used to genocide people is no different than setting fire to an empty train in 1944 that’s about to be sent out on a run to gather up people to take them to a concentration camp. Sorry, but that’s just the simple truth of it. You can cite evil laws you want, but you might as well be citing the laws of Nazi Germany. Everything they did was legal as well.

                Some things are just wrong. And enabling them is wrong. And we shouldn’t be afraid to say that. The people who vandalized those planes did nothing wrong. They’re victorious heroes. We should be memorializing them in song and story. The laws of evil men are not even worthy of consideration, beyond the practical choices of those choosing to engage in such acts of bravery and heroism.

                • @ohulancutash@feddit.uk
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                  06 hours ago

                  Aircraft that are being used to bomb innocent civilians should be vandalized.

                  These planes are not bombers, and carry no weapons.

                  Setting fire to a UK plane that is being used to genocide people

                  These planes are not being used for that in any capacity.

                  I look forward to your moving the goalposts.

                  • @WoodScientist@sh.itjust.works
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                    6 hours ago

                    Well don’t leave us in the dark. Why didn’t you bother explaining what the planes were actually used for? You’re clearly trying to portray the Palestine activists as cliche violent anarchists who destroyed government property for no rational reason. That is really the only reason you wouldn’t explain why you think they did what they did. Likely it’s something that’s still clearly genocidal, but you didn’t want to mention that so you could get that “moving the goalpost” zinger in.

                    So let’s actually look into this, as you failed to do so in order to muddy the waters.

                    Oh hey, they’re mid-air refuelers.

                    So we’re not talking bombers carrying out bombing runs, we’re talking about flying gas stations that top off the tanks of the fighters and bombers carrying out bombing runs. These war planes directly used to enable genocide.

                    Any sane person would call this “a distinction without a difference.” You didn’t bother explaining what they actually vandalized (really just painted) because you wanted to make it seem like they torched a random civilian airliner or something equally irrational.

                    But I guess this is just “moving the goalposts” in your warped reality. And in reality, I’m not even moving the goalposts. I said these planes were used to bomb Palestinians. And that’s exactly what these mid-air refuelers have been used for, even if they didn’t carry any bombs themselves. This is like arguing a loading truck that carries bombs from storage to the tarmac aren’t involved in bombing. Sure, it doesn’t directly drop a bomb, but it’s still used for bombing.

                    You just have myopia and think that only bombers are involved in bombing.

                • @scholar@lemmy.world
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                  110 hours ago

                  I haven’t cited any laws or said what they did was wrong, just that the government doesn’t like having its toys broken. Absolutely setting fire to a nazi train may be the morally correct thing to do, but you can still understand the nazis not being happy about it: these aren’t mutually exclusive propositions.

      • @null_dot@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        422 hours ago

        Are the protestors with signs saying they support palestinian action intending to state that they support the group or that they support action generally?

        Either way they’ve manufactured this issue to protest anti-terrorism laws right?

        Not sure if would die on this hill.

        • @scholar@lemmy.world
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          316 hours ago

          ‘Palestine Action’ definitely refers to the group, otherwise you’d just put ‘Palestine’. I don’t think they did this to protest ant-terrorism laws, they’ve been very focused on targeting the genocide in Palestine so starting a new off-topic fight wouldn’t make sense for them.

      • @foggianism@lemmy.world
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        -417 hours ago

        Ah, so it’s the old “pay our people to do something ‘terrible/highly controversial’ in the name of our ‘enemy/opposing group’ so that we can discredit them and their cause and apprehend any of them”-rule

        • @scholar@lemmy.world
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          816 hours ago

          I don’t think there’s any need for false flag conspiracy theories. Palestine Action took credit for breaking into Brize Norton. I can only assume they thought it would generate enough attention to be worth the risk.

            • @Womble@lemmy.world
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              14 hours ago

              They are known to be bankrolled by James “Fergie” Chalmbers, American millionair heir, “communist” who by his own words “chants death to America every day” and is a supporter of the Russian invasion of Ukraine and has been on Russia state sponsored visits to the regions annexed by Russia writing glowing praises of them.

              It seems likely that at least Palestein action are useful idiots for the Russian state. Which isnt to say that banning them as a terrorsit group isnt massive overreach and completely undemocratic.

            • @scholar@lemmy.world
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              214 hours ago

              I think the better question is ‘Does what they did justify them being classed as terrorists’ rather than ‘Were they entrapped by government agents’.

    • @bdonvr@thelemmy.club
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      51 day ago

      It’s a group but of course considering the name they will be easier able to charge anyone supporting Palestine