Next week, the Supreme Court is set to rule on whether the proscription of Palestine Action as a terrorist organisation is legal. The decision by the UK’s final court of appeal will have major ramifications for this country.
At various points, Palestine Action’s defenders have argued that it is non-violent, that its members are motivated by nothing more than a horror at the destruction in Gaza, and that its proscription was an extreme overreaction by the State.
None of these claims are true.
Members of Palestine Action have committed violent assaults – in one notorious case, a policewoman was left with serious injuries, her back fractured with a sledgehammer.
Its targets have been many and varied – and certainly not limited to attacks on factories operated by defence companies.
They have included Jewish charities in Hendon and Jewish owned businesses in Hampstead.
A Jewish property company in the heart of Stamford Hill was targeted because the group claimed that it had rented out a site to an Israeli defence firm. It must be a coincidence that no other property company appears to have been targeted by the group for this.
All in all, however, Palestine Action’s members have committed hundreds of attacks on property, businesses and military targets of huge importance to the security and interests of the UK.
Charities, universities and government buildings have been hit, subjected to vandalism causing many millions of pounds worth of damage.
It need hardly be stated that none of his has furthered the cause of peace or the Palestinian people in any way.
And yet, the chances are high that Palestine Action would have continued to be treated like other direct action groups of recent years, were it not for one important difference. Members of Palestine Action filmed themselves breaching an RAF base and damaging military aircraft. And then the group published the footage, boasting about it.
No country which wishes to be taken seriously – by either its allies or its enemies – could sit back and countenance such an act.
It was therefore both predictable and entirely right that in the wake of that attack, the government took firm and appropriate action in banning the group under the terrorism act.
The probity of the decision cannot be questioned: as Andy Burnham told parliament this month in defending the proscription carried out under his predecessor, Sir Keir Starmer: “It followed a rigorous and evidence-based process that came before this House, endorsed by Parliament.”
A predictable rogues gallery of “human rights organisations” and celebrity activists have opposed the proscription decision.
It is important to recognise, that if a group was carrying out the exact same attacks in the name of, for example, banning abortion, or preventing mass immigration, the same groups and individuals signing endless open letters would have had no qualms about proscription.
Their sympathy for the Palestinian cause has convinced them that in this case, such actions are justifiable.
In extremis, the absolute right to any form of protest cannot be put before the interests of national security. To undo proscription at this critical moment in the country’s history would do catastrophic harm.
It would come at a time when there is already an extraordinary scale of Iranian-linked hostile activity on British soil, targeting military sites and the Jewish community.
It would signal to all of Britain’s enemies that our country is helpless in the face of those who seek to damage it.
And, inevitably, it would lead to a re-energised group which would use its new found freedom to carry out hundreds more such attacks.
While the safety of the Jewish community will not be a factor in the Supreme Court’s final decision, there is little doubt that if proscription is reversed, many British Jews will see it as evidence that the State is unable to protect them. Because how it can it protect them if it does not even have the power to assert itself?
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