What is Palestine Action, the Group UK Banned as a ‘Terrorist Organization’?

July 3, 2025 News
Palestine Action activists stage a protest against Israeli defense company 'Elbit System' in London. (Photo: via Palestine Action)

By Palestine Chronicle Staff  

Founded in July 2020, Palestine Action is a UK-based direct action movement aiming to end global complicity in Israel’s genocidal apartheid regime.

British lawmakers voted on Wednesday in favor of banning the pro-Palestinian activist group Palestine Action as a terrorist organization, despite criticism that it could lead to the criminalization of legitimate protest action.

The draft order to amend the Terrorism Act 2000 and proscribe three organizations, including Palestine Action, was passed in the House of Commons by 385 votes to 26.

The order also bans two neo-Nazi groups, the Maniacs Murder Cult (MMC) and the Russian Imperial Movement (RIM).

“By implementing this measure, we will remove Palestine Action’s veil of legitimacy, tackle its financial support and degrade its efforts to recruit and radicalize people into committing terrorist activity in its name,” Home Office Minister Dan Jarvis said during Wednesday’s voting session.

Jarvis claimed that Palestine Action “is not a legitimate protest group,” adding that people “engaged in lawful protests don’t need weapons… do not throw smoke bombs and fire pyrotechnics around innocent members of the public.”

He continued, “And people engaged in lawful protests do not cause millions of pounds of damage to national security infrastructure, including submarines and defensive equipment for Nato.”

‘Dangerous Overreach’

The move came after plans announced by Home Secretary Yvette Cooper as a draft order had been formally presented in parliament to ban the groups.

Some MPs condemned the decision, describing it as a “dangerous overreach” of the government.

The move “lumps a non-violent network of students, nurses, teachers, firefighters and peace campaigners – ordinary people, my constituents and yours – with neo-Nazi militias and mass-casualty cults,” Zarah Sultana, the independent MP for Coventry South, stated.

She pointed out that the group had thrown “red paint not fire on aircraft linked to surveillance flights over Gaza”.

‘We are All Palestine Action’

“Instead of prosecuting them for criminal damage, which is what normally is done, the home secretary is using the Terrorism Act to proscribe them as a terrorist group,” Sultana stated, describing the decision as “an unprecedented and dangerous overreach of the state.”

She stressed that Palestine Action’s “real crime, we have to be clear, is shutting down Elbit Systems sites that arm the Israeli military. It’s true offense has been audacious enough to expose the blood-soaked ties between this government and the genocidal Israeli apartheid state and its war machine.”

“We are all Palestine Action!” Sultana exclaimed.

‘Unlawful Order’

Following the vote, a spokesperson for Palestine Action said: “We are confident that this unlawful order will be overturned. As United Nations experts have made clear, spraying red paint and disrupting the British-based operations of Israel’s largest weapons firm, Elbit Systems, is not terrorism.”

The order will go to the House of Lords, and final approval is expected to come within days.

If passed, the order will make it a criminal offence to be a member of one of the groups or to invite or recklessly express support for them and make it an offence punishable by up to 14 years in prison to belong to or support the groups.

Palestine Action will seek a legal challenge against the government’s move to ban the group, the Guardian reported. A hearing is expected on Friday “to decide whether the ban can be temporarily blocked, pending further proceedings to decide whether a legal challenge can be brought,” the report noted.

Protest at Downing Street

Meanwhile, thousands of people gathered at Downing Street outside the Prime Minister’s Office on Wednesday to oppose the government’s decision, the Anadolu news agency reported.

Speaking at the rally, Saeed Taji Farouky from Palestine Action said: “The very principle of solidarity with Palestine is being criminalized.”

“This will not end with Palestine Action. Palestine Action is the beginning,” Farouky reportedly stated. “(This is) the first layer of oppression, and it will continue. And this is what terrifies me the most. Not only that the movement of Palestine Action is being targeted itself, but that the very principle of solidarity with Palestine is being criminalized.”

‘Draconian Measures’

Amnesty International UK condemned the government’s decision to ban Palestine Action under anti-terror laws, “as an unprecedented legal overreach.”

‘Instead of taking draconian measures to [proscribe Palestine Action], the Government should be taking immediate and unequivocal action to put a stop to Israel’s genocide and end any risk of UK complicity in it,” Sacha Deshmukh, Amnesty UK’s Chief Executive, said in a statement.

“The UK has a deeply flawed and overly broad definition of terrorism which human rights monitors including Amnesty International have been warning about for years. This latest disturbing move only serves to highlight that those warnings were justified,” Deshmukh stated.

UN Experts’ Warning

On Tuesday, UN experts said they had contacted the UK government urging it not to ban Palestine Action.

“We are concerned at the unjustified labelling of a political protest movement as ‘terrorist’,” the experts said in a statement.

“According to international standards, acts of protest that damage property, but are not intended to kill or injure people, should not be treated as terrorism,” they added.

The experts noted that “Individuals could be prosecuted for peacefully exercising their rights to freedom of expression and opinion, assembly, association and participation in political life. This would have a chilling effect on political protest and advocacy generally in relation to defending human rights in Palestine.”

‘Direct Action Movement’

Established in July 2020, the UK-based Palestine Action is “a direct action movement committed to ending global participation in Israel’s genocidal and apartheid regime,” according to its website.

The organization states that it uses “disruptive tactics” to target “corporate enablers of the Israeli military-industrial complex and seeks to make it impossible for these companies to profit from the oppression of Palestinians, the organization states.”

A key target in its campaign has been the British factories of Israeli weapons manufacturer Elbit Systems. It also targets weapons companies such as Leonardo, Thales and Teledyne. In addition to shutting down weapons manufacturers, the group’s campaign also targets companies and institutions linked to them.

“We do not appeal to politicians or anyone else to create the necessary changes, as we understand the depth of complicity within most global institutions,” the website states. “Rather than begging those who are complicit to gain a moral compass, we go straight to the source and shut down the production of Israeli weapons.”

(PC, Anadolu)

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1 Comment

  1. Now if we go back into British political history, and look at the early woman’s rights protests … https://historicengland.org.uk/research/inclusive-heritage/womens-history/suffrage/creativity-of-protest/ – as someone with a relation in that early movement, though she was active in breaking down barriers to women in medicine: Dr Alice Vickery, one of the first women doctors in the British Empire – I have the right to point out that what Palestine Action is doing is no worse, no more terrorist, than some of what the early suffragists did.

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