‘Palestine Action are not guilty – Elbit is guilty!’
Following a six-week trial at Snaresbrook Crown Court in Redbridge, northeast London, eight activists were found not guilty on 12 counts relating to their actions against Israel’s largest private weapons company, Elbit Systems. More than 24,000 Palestinians have been killed by Israel since October 2023 alone, largely using weapons produced by Elbit. Hundreds of supporters attended the court hearings to demand ‘Drop the charges – not the bombs!’ and ‘Free the Elbit Eight!’. Even as the ‘Elbit Eight’ stood on trial, Palestine Action and others inspired by them were also winning victory after victory against the Zionist war machine and its supporters in Britain. ANDREW GEORGE reports.
Victory after victory
In November 2023, eight Palestine Action activists went on trial on 35 charges initially including blackmail, burglary and conspiracy to commit criminal damage, relating to actions from July 2020 to January 2021 against Elbit Systems’ drone factories UAV Engines in Shenstone, Staffordshire, and Elbit Ferranti in Oldham, Greater Manchester; Inspro Precision weapons factory in Sandwich, Kent; Elbit’s central London offices, and landlord Jones Lang Lasalle (JLL)’s offices in London, Manchester and York (‘Support the Elbit Eight!’). Elbit provides up to 85% of the military equipment used by the Israeli occupation forces. In January 2022, an extended period of sustained direct action by Palestine Action costing millions in damages resulted in the permanent closure of Elbit Ferranti in Oldham, followed by the closure of Elbit’s central London headquarters in June 2022.
During the trial, Fisher German, the property managers of Elbit’s Shenstone factory, Elbit’s recruiters iO Associates, and web host and designer for Elbit’s Leicester factory, Naked Creativity, cut ties with Elbit following sustained pressure by Palestine Action. This included occupations of the roofs of Fisher German’s Birmingham and Manchester offices, office storms and occupations of iO’s London, Manchester and Reading offices, and spray-painting Naked Creativity’s offices at London South Bank University. By the trial’s conclusion on 22 December 2023, the Eight were acquitted of twelve charges including burglary, criminal damage, encouraging criminal damage and an individual assault charge, and two were unanimously acquitted of all charges. The defendants had collectively rejected a plea deal that would have acquitted six of them on condition that Palestine Action co-founders Huda Ammori and Richard Barnard plead guilty. Instead, the Eight used the trial to speak out against Israeli apartheid and genocide and British state and corporate complicity, despite repeated state repression in the lead-up to the trial, and repeated attempts to censor and intimidate activists inside and outside the court. Six defendants face a retrial on the remaining 23 charges in spring 2025.
Solidarity with Palestine at an all-time high
Following Israel’s genocidal attack on Gaza in the wake of the Palestinian resistance actions of 7 October 2023, political organisation and direct action in Britain in solidarity with the Palestinian struggle has become a daily occurrence. The targets of sit-ins, occupations, office storms, static and rolling pickets range from major shopping streets, centres and transport hubs to academic, corporate and cultural institutions investing in or collaborating with Zionism.
Palestine Action has continued to sabotage targets relating to Elbit, including several branches of genocide-profiteers Barclays Bank, Canadian bank Scotiabank’s London office, Elbit’s Leicester landlords LondonMetric in Birmingham and Shenstone landlords Mileway in London, Elbit’s Swiss commercial lawyers MLL Legal, and the Bedford factory of US weapons and military intelligence company Lockheed Martin. Barclays owns over £1.3bn of shares in Elbit and provides more than £3bn in loans to at least nine companies whose military components have been used in Israel’s current genocidal assault on the Palestinians. Councils across the country also invest in Elbit systems – Hackney Labour council, for example, invests at least £30m. FRFI supporters have joined actions which have included a demonstration on 21 December by Healthcare Workers for a Free Palestine outside Zionist US tech company Palantir’s offices in central London. Palantir specialises in AI-powered military and surveillance technology and also leads a group that has acquired a £330m contract to ‘manage’ data in the increasingly privatised NHS.
There have also been regular pickets involving hundreds of people from local communities, including FRFI supporters, outside the Glasgow factory of French weapons company Thales, Newcastle factory of Israeli weapons company Rafael and Shenstone factory of Elbit’s UAV Engines. Protests outside BAE Systems Intelligence’s offices at 110 Southwark Street near the Tate Modern in central London have been happening daily. All these are crucial steps in exposing companies, especially British and British-based Israeli companies, that facilitate the Israeli occupation and genocide against Palestine. They need to be part of a wider movement demanding the total isolation of the Zionist state and sanctions now.
Court support – building community resistance
There was a daily show of support outside the court case of the Elbit 8, from groups including the Revolutionary Communist Group, Muslim Public Affairs Committee UK (MPACUK), Palestine Action and local community groups. The public gallery of the court was packed, with many supporters having to sit on the floor, while dozens more waited outside. There was support from the Raytheon 9, activists from Derry in the north of Ireland who had occupied a local Raytheon factory in 2006, causing hundreds of thousands of pounds of damage and leading to its eventual closure in 2010. The factory had been producing bunker bombs for use by Israel against Lebanon.
Passers-by honked car horns and dinged bicycle bells, waved Palestinian car-flags and joined the protests. Prisoners banged the sides of Serco transport vans to show their support. Local people brought food and drink to those supporting the Elbit Eight, with many going on to organise their own actions against companies that collude with Israeli apartheid and genocide.
Communists need to support this militant anti-imperialist movement and escalate the demands for sanctions on Israel in word and deed. This is a crucial step in advancing our political support for the Palestinian resistance, an end to British support for Zionism and an end to Britain’s occupying military presence in the Middle East. Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism! stands in solidarity with the actionists of Palestine Action and all those resisting British imperialism and Zionism by any means necessary worldwide. End British imperialist support for Zionism! Victory to the Elbit Eight! Victory to the intifada!
