When we talk about our political prisoners, sometimes we forget to talk about their politics. It’s understandable that we do this: Prison is intended to dehumanize the people inside, forcing us to plead in public, as a corrective to this violence, that such-and-such prisoner was a doting mother or a loyal son or a gardener. All these things may be true, but they are not as important as the fact that these mothers and sons and gardeners tried to stop a genocide. When we say that there are 24 members of Palestine Action currently being held without trial in UK jails, it’s important to remember why these people were politicized and why they are imprisoned.
These 24 people are in jail because they participated in a series of actions that resulted in the complete destruction of Elbit factory equipment, to the point that orders of weapons from the United Kingdom to the Zionist entity were unable to be fulfilled. These actions resonated, causing shock waves to ripple through the supply chain and unsettle the enemy. They also reverberated beyond the UK: There are five people in Germany, including a British citizen, who broke into an Elbit facility there and destroyed every piece of machinery inside. That factory is never going to be able to operate again, or, if it is, it’s going to take months and months to regain functionality.
This is the standard that we need to hold ourselves to in a time of genocide: How can we disrupt the enemy’s plans from day to day, week to week, month to month, and, ultimately, to make them give up their plans altogether? We, as a movement, have not stopped a genocide, and I don’t think we can unless more people are willing to disrupt not only the system for a day or two, but their own lives for a very long time. The last year should relieve all of us of the delusion that we’re going to be able to make any kind of change in the world without sacrifice.
When Palestine Action launched five years ago, defeating Elbit in court was part of our strategy. We did similar actions for years, none of which resulted in terrorism charges. Our operating model was based, in part, on a series of strategic actions taken against Raytheon in the north of Ireland in the early 2000s, during the Second Intifada and the war on Iraq. Raytheon had the nerve to build a factory in Derry and direct actionists responded by repeatedly showing up to smash it. They didn’t wear masks or balaclavas. They were caught on camera not once, but over and over again. Yet, time after time, the Crown Prosecution was unable to find a jury willing to convict people for doing the right thing. After a series of not guilty verdicts, Raytheon packed up and left town. The warmongers haven’t been seen in Free Derry since.
Similarly, even in unfree England, we were starting to have field days with Elbit in court. Jurors were siding with us, refusing to convict. After losing two big cases against us in the spring and summer of 2024, the prosecution switched course and charged the next high-level action under the Terrorism Act.
This had two effects. One, obviously it gets harder to recruit when your members are suddenly being held under the Terrorism Act. Two, it gave the UK a new legal remedy for what to do about the problem we posed. Palestine Action was extremely effective and we were starting to get grassroots popular support. Why would they hold our members for a year without trial, when everyone knows what the charge will be? To draw it out, weaken us, tire us.
But instead of being deterred, we set our sights higher. Some people want to forget that Zionism was borne out of imperialism. It’s not materialist to isolate Israel, to say Israel is a ‘rogue state’ that can be cast out from empire, leaving the empire intact. During the course of this genocide, the British media has consistently, conveniently elided Britain’s hand in the destruction of Palestine, from more than a century ago until now. That is why we undertook the now-infamous action earlier this year against the Royal Air Force base, which earned us our terrorism proscription. It also achieved in the discourse what mere advocacy for the Palestinian cause could not, namely real coverage of British complicity in the media and the dawn of a reckoning in popular discourse.
The first trial of prisoners held on terrorism charges is coming up this fall. They’re not going to plead guilty, nor will they express remorse. They’re going to say that their actions were justified, that they had a duty to act under the genocide prevention laws. If the British regime is not going to uphold the laws they espouse, the people will take matters of life, humanity, and justice into our own hands.
This is not merely a legal or publicity strategy. It’s important for everyone reading this to understand that our prisoners not only know they did the right thing, but that they feel it is an honor and privilege to serve time for this cause.
But I think this feeling is conditional. The condition is that the work must continue— both outside and inside. The number one piece of news that our political prisoners request from their support networks is news about other direct actions. Because it’s like: As long as people outside are doing what I would be doing if I was there, then the world is continuous to me, the struggle is continuous.
The second-most requested piece of news is news about other prisoners. The state has taken great pains to isolate our prisoners within the system, preventing any interaction whatsoever with other imprisoned members of Palestine Action. Letters are censored. Phone call lists are blocked. Even after the state locks us away, it is still manifestly afraid of us. There is a systematic deprivation of rights, a coordinated effort between prison administrators to make life inside as difficult as possible. For instance, each of our prisoners has experienced their number of visits restricted to three per month, which for someone held on remand should be six per week. They are being treated like they’ve already been convicted.
These people all really care about each other, they’re all connected by this deep love and solidarity. Despite not seeing each other for a year or more, besides for a few one-hour Zoom court hearings, they need to know how everyone else inside is doing. That’s why one of the main demands of prison resistance has been to end this isolation and allow free association between prisoners.
Recently, I went to visit some prisoners who are about to face trial. They are being held at London’s equivalent of Riker’s Island in New York City, which is a hell hole where the worst sorts of prison abuses happen daily. Every time I go I feel extremely emotional, because I think: This is a wonderful, caring, vivacious person who does not belong in a cage. Then I realize I’m exceptionalizing the person I know and relate to while putting all other prisoners on the other side of relatability and who belongs in prison. But whether they’re in for destroying a weapons factory or throwing soup on a painting or stealing a toothbrush, no one deserves to be in prison. I think it’s impossible to emerge from being held without trial for more than a year and not come out of it as a real abolitionist.
If there is something our prisoners want everyone to know, it’s that the problem of genocide is not overcome with marches and boycotts. People outside are realizing this too late: In the UK, the state is trying everything they can to stop Palestine Action, and yet it cannot be stopped, because it works. Direct action is the most effective tool in our toolbox right now. We want to be effective. We want to be brave, to do more than feel good about ourselves. We all have to ask of ourselves and each other in the movement: What have we been doing the last two years, and is it working? And if the answer is no, we have to do something else.
This piece appears in the twentieth issue of The New York War Crimes.