The government has designated Palestine Action as a terrorist organization. Anyone who is a member or even expresses support for it can face up to fourteen years in prison.
According to the home secretary who introduced the Act used to justify this proscription, ‘Terrorism involves the threat or use of serious violence for political, religious or ideological ends. It … aims to create a climate of extreme fear’. But since its formation in 2020 Palestine Action has restricted itself to protests, occupations, and criminal damage at various sites, particularly several associated with the Israel arms company Elbit Systems. What triggered the decision to proscribe the organization was the spray painting of two military aircraft at RAF Brize Norton. Nothing Palestine Action has done warrants the label ‘terrorism’.
Responding to the government’s action, a group of UN experts have stated:
While there is no binding definition of terrorism in international law, best practice international standards limit terrorism to criminal acts intended to cause death, serious personal injury or hostage taking, in order to intimidate a population or compel a government or an international organisation to do or to abstain from doing any act … The UK supported this approach in voting for Security Council resolution 1566 in 2004 … Mere property damage, without endangering life, is not sufficiently serious to qualify as terrorism. [My emphasis]
In my view, this action says more about the current British government than it does about Palestine Action. They have adopted a Humpty Dumpty (or, if you prefer, Big Brother) approach to language:
‘When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.’
‘The question is,’ said Alice, ‘whether you can make words mean so many different things.’
‘The question is,’ said Humpty Dumpty, ‘which is to be master — that’s all.’ (Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking Glass)
Playing fast and loose with language in this way is symptomatic of a gradual slide towards authoritarianism.
