Guerrilla History - (Bonus) How to Shut Down an Arms Factory w/ Palestine Action (Guerrilla Radio episode)

Episode Date: February 21, 2023

This is an episode from our spin-off show. We are releasing this episode on our channel to encourage you to subscribe to Guerrilla Radio wherever you get your podcasts, or directly on https://anchor.fm/guerrilla_radio. On this exciting episode of Guerrilla Radio, Partisan Brigade members James and Shatha are joined by the two founders of Palestine Action, Huda Ammori and Richard Barnard.  Palestine Action is an organization engaged in direct action to materially disrupt the supply chain of of Israel’s largest arms, drones, and security manufacturer: Elbit Systems. In this episode we breakdown direct action, the important role Palestine Action plays in the Palestinian solidarity struggle and how it connects to a larger global internationalist struggle against Zionist colonial expansion and imperialism.  To connect with Palestine Action they are on Twitter, Instagram and Tiktok as Pal_Action and by email: [e-mail]  The intro/outro song is Model Home by snny ft. Topaz Jones

Hello, guerrilla history listeners. This is Henry, and today for you, we have a special bonus episode of sorts. For those of you who have been listening to the very, very bitter end of recent guerrilla history episodes, you will have noticed that we have been mentioning that guerrilla history has recently launched a spin-off show titled Gorilla Radio, which is hosted by a series of hosts on a rotating basis. A very interesting show. We already have released several episodes of it on the Gorilla Radio, podcast feeds wherever you get your podcasts. Today we wanted to bring to you the latest Gorilla Radio episode for two reasons, one of which is to encourage you to subscribe to Gorilla Radio wherever you get your podcasts. And we will, of course, also put a link to the show

in the show description of this episode. And also because we want you to listen to this episode of Gorilla Radio, which is really a fantastic episode. It's hosted by two of our co-hosting collective, titled the Partisan Brigade, James and Sheda, they talk with the founders of Palestine action, which is a group that takes direct action against Elbit Systems in the UK. Elbit Systems is a weapons manufacturer and I call them a death profiteer that makes their profit on the death of Palestinian children by selling their weaponry to the Israeli Zionist regime. So we wanted to bring to you this episode, this conversation with the founders of Palestine action, because I think that you will find all of the content of the episode fascinating,

but also to let you know that you should be subscribing to guerrilla radio where you'll be hearing episodes like this, episode that James and I recently co-hosted with several of the strike organizers of the Temple Graduate Student Association. They're on strike right now. We've talked to them. introductory episode. We have much more coming out, including planned episodes upcoming, talking about Kanaka, Mauli, native Hawaiian, Marxism, and much more. There's more that's planned and it will be coming out very frequently. So this is your call to subscribe to Gorilla Radio. That's G-U-E-R-R-I-L-A radio wherever you get your podcasts and enjoy. You can also keep up with the latest

releases of Gorilla Radio by following Guerrilla History on Twitter. We announce when those episodes go out as well. You could do that at Gorilla underscore Pod, G-U-E-R-R-I-L-A-U-Skore-Pod. And now, without further ado, listen to this episode of Gorilla Radio, hosted again by James and Shedda with the two founders of Palestine Action.

Hello, everyone. to Guerrilla Radio, a companion to the guerrilla history podcast. I want him your co-host today. My name is Sheda, and I'm joined with James, a member of guerrilla's history person brigade as well. We don't have Henry here with us today, but I want to shout him out really quickly because he is going to be spending all the time editing this. So today, I am so excited to have Palestine Action join us. They're an organization that physically and materially disrupts the supply chain, of one of Israel's largest arms, drones, and security manufacturers that facilitates the brutal Zionist colonization of Palestine and the ongoing genocide and repression of the Palestinian people.

Elbit system also tests its weapons on Palestinians, a captive colonial body, before it exports its violence to other repressive regimes globally, a phenomenon that Jeff Halper refers to as the export matrix of control. So today we have Hoda Amori in Richard, Bernard, the founders of Palestine Action. So if you guys could introduce yourselves for us. Yeah, thank you for that introduction. So I'm Huda, and I'm a co-founder of Palestine Action. I'm also Palestinian and Iraqi. And before Palestine Action was campaigning to end the complicity between Britain and the colonization of Palestine through a number of different methods before taking direct action. And yeah, I'm Richard, another co-founder of Palestine

Action. I've been involved in many previous movements using direct action, both again to Israeli arms companies, the war machine generally and environmental causes. Okay, great. So to start off for people who haven't come across who have you guys before, what is Palestine action? So in short, we're a direct action network, and we take direct action is our only tactic, really, that we use in order to target the war machine Israel's largest arms company in Britain. Our overall goal is to end all complicity with the colonisation of Palestine, but our key campaign is to shut Albert down, which we do using direct action. And so we launched in the summer of 2020, so about two and a half years ago now. And it was really in a reaction to understanding that the political establishment and all the other methods of appealing to the powers that be,

to the British government, to other institutions to create those changes were working. And even when there were some successes in no one, matched the success that we needed in order to cut off those ties from the so we were fed up of this and and we decided to take direct action and we launched by storming the the london headquarters of albert systems and we went in there with some spray paint cans and a pedographer and then we just kept going back to the same site and then went on to occupy arms factories and build a movement which now involves hundreds of people

who have taken down action against Albert Systems in Britain. I think I'd just add to that. I think that key phrase that we say there is we're a network or movement, yeah? We're not replicating some of the, or we want to say, mistakes of the past, and we're like literally groups of people, yeah? I'm a councillor state kid. I think in America you call it someone from the projects.

and we keep things simple right so the key to our like strategy and success is about engaging local normal people right yeah we don't make this an intellectual exercise we make it talking about going straight to the source and the reason i got involved for instance was i lived near one of these factories is as simple as that and people um they don't want to live next to them and once you explain a little bit about what these what these factories do how they uphold a Zionist entity's regime, how they're, you know, only there to kill Palestinians and, and as you would have seen in lots of our actions and the Hood of Thurtsch on then, using this blood red paint as a kind of symbol of the slur and that their prophets are all about

the blood of the Palestinians. For us, that symbolism and that action, that key thing is about acting first. And this speaks to normal people like you and me who don't need masses of knowledge on this on this stuff. Paleal education might come afterwards, but it's action first. And I think that has been the key for us growing the movement and also gaining successes.

No, that's amazing. I mean, you would both talk about previous experience in other organizations, other organizing strategies, etc. What kind of brought you all together and really brought Palestine action into, I guess, action in a way? Like, what kind of got you here?

So, for me, I had been involved in student campaigns, getting, building a campaign for my own university to divest from companies like Caterpillar who supply the Israeli military with the bulldozers used to demolish Palestinian homes. And I was working with other student groups to try and do a similar, you know, similar stuff, basically. And on a small scale, you could just see how the most basic requests right, which even, you know, the institution's own policies were in favour of, on paper, was just there was this constant obstacle because you were talking about Palestine.

And it was, and you just realize that constantly you're just knocking against a brick wall. And we did get some successes, you know, but it took years to get that. And that was for one university out of 150 that invest in these companies. And then after, for me, I went to work on an NGO called, which was focused on Palestine. And then I was kind of running campaigns, national campaigns and boycotts, boycott campaigns, banks, pension funds, institutions, etc. And I was working alongside other people. And there was such a heavy focus on, I would say, in general, in these organisations, on lobbying efforts, on using the same tactics again and again and again,

even when you've seen that it has failed. And, you know, in Britain, for example, there was a moment in time when there was Jeremy Corb and the leader of the Labour Party and everyone felt like, oh, this was a moment that we could actually make some change for Palestine. And obviously, that didn't work. That's very clear now. But also, but then the tactics there were changed. changed, right? So it still became, we're still going to appeal to what, Kirstama, that's

never going to work. He's a proud Zionist, right? So it's like, there's, there's all of this funds coming in, but the output, there's no real, um, actual oversight and maybe there's not a winningness to, to say, what are we doing here? How are we actually going to achieve what we want and how are we going to win? And, you know, for me, I just got fed up of doing things, which weren't which I didn't believe had the right effect that was needed. And especially when you realize, you know, for me, I'm Palestinian and Iraqi, and when you realize how much privilege you have and your role in this, in the global struggle, which is, you know, I've got a British passport, right?

And these companies are operating on my doorstep here in Britain. They'd never build weapons in front of Palestinians in Gaza. They would never be able to. So then you start to realize, well, actually, I can do so much more. And when we, and, you know, I can have richly explain about his journey into it. But when we started Palestine action, not only did I feel like it was the most effective thing I'd ever done, but it was probably the most liberating thing I'd ever done, because no longer was I confined to, oh, this is how you have to do things.

You have to just keep appealing to the same impressors again and again. actually no, was by taking power back into your own hands, climbing onto an arms factory, smashing their windows, stopping them from operating and going, wow, that was probably the most effective, you know, three days of my life stood on top of that arms factory, you know, rather than riding a buttonettos to the same institutions and the same MPs who send the same response back no matter what happens.

Yeah, it's bad from my own perspective. I never really wanted to write letters because I can't spell. So no one would understand them in any case. But joking, also, I'm pretty impatient. And I don't want to wait to go through these processes. And when I hear stories from people directly, from Palestine and from other parts of the world, I don't think for me, I can't sit a random way or go through some kind of process that requires years or, you know, highly educated people to talk to people who are then just going to

to ignore you. The idea, you know, example from where I was going up, people would always say, oh, you speak to the council if you want this thing tied up. And I was always of the opinion that, screw that. If I'm going to do that, I'm just going to go and get a bunch of mates and go and do it. And that was kind of like my principle generally, right? It wasn't, that's just not my kind of like way of doing that. And that, I think that in patience.

And I suppose for me, it probably came to a head with the Iraq war. so I went with the a million people through London on the march against the Iraq war and when Hooder talks to me about her family and how they lost contact with them for a long period of time during the Iraq war I'm like is that all I did was go on a march where they told me to go and there was a million people there and you're never going to get more than a million people on the street so why would I do that to me that seemed like futile and and it's off repeat could I have done something else And then I suppose I got involved in various things.

You know, one example would be I broke into a American military base in Germany where they stole illegally stored nuclear weapons. And I went there and we did a bit of spray painting and this and we got nicked and all that. But you know what? It was a sense of going up. That was still slightly performative, right? Yeah. It was all very like peaceful and nice and we went in there and drew on it.

And we got arrested and we got through it. jail and German jails are really efficient right and and really nice compared to English once and you're out quite quickly and all that sort of stuff but to me there was also a sense of what's that about so coming back and then doing an action at elbit um in england and this was prior to Palestine action and we went in so we managed to trick our way past security occupied the site for a day and at the end of the day the cops went to us you can just go home and we'd like spray paint in front of the cops and we were like really confused and this got me thinking a bit actually about that and going why is that right yeah there might have been some

sort of secret stuff in the background we don't want to prosecute them but actually for me it was like we're not doing enough right yeah okay this is still great i went home feeling great i didn't even get nicked and managed to do this felt good about myself but actually i needed to check in with myself what is that feeling good about myself in that way yeah that as a you know white person i could go home at the end of the day and the police didn't treat me badly, yeah? If I would have been a person of color, would they have done the same thing? And therefore, for me, it was like, then when a few of us met, Mayor Hoodah, it was like, no, this needs to happen more often, right?

This happens to happen week in, week out. And this fits into like, that we don't have theories, right? Because we're an action group, right? But looking at like direct action movements from the past and things that have succeeded and not, there was like, that was a key one for me, right? It needs to be sustained action. It needs to happen week in, week out. And we need to get more than just 10 anarchist, Marxists,

in somewhere else that no one knows. We need to get loads of people, right? We need to get the people out in Leicester. We need to get the people out in older. We need to get the Kashmiris out. We need to get everybody out. And therefore providing opportunities for that and making it happen more often.

So those sustained actions were key for me to understand that and needs to happen more. It needed to be continually disruptive. So I'd done other actions, you know, that the Air Force-based ones an example, it probably disrupted them for about half an hour, right? That's not enough, right?

It needed to disrupt them constantly, so we needed to do disruptive actions, which could have been blockades, could have been climbing on roofs, they've been smashing everything up, as Hooders described. And then the third one, I thought, which is an interesting one,

was about having some kind of sacrificial element to it, yeah? Now, like, Western, secular, liberal culture doesn't like this idea of sacrifice, yeah? But most religious traditions have this idea of sacrificial actions being really important. And we obviously, Palestinians, we much prefer it if we didn't get nicked, yeah? But again, Hood has described it. If you're on the top of a roof for three and a half days, then there's a hundred police officers surrounding you, unless anyone can buy us a helicopter, we didn't get it away, right?

But part of that is there's actually a beauty in that, yeah? and we have actions where people get away and people don't. But being arrested, carried off a roof, stretched it off in front of a watching crowd, actually makes people question why you're doing it in a good way? They go, why are the fuck are those people

doing that for people that don't even know? Yeah? And it actually makes people think, yeah, I might be able to do that. It's a kind of carer intuitive thing. Boy on now three. What's four? The lever. Delema. You've got to create a dilemma.

So when we have that way, Like when I was talking about in Kent, like we went in once every 12 months or once every six months and felt good about ourselves, weren't we great activists, yeah? We didn't actually create any dilemma for the company because they probably just went, oh, you lot coming to work a bit earlier tomorrow and let's make weapons more quickly. And the British state, we're like, these activists are just crazy, whatever. We'll leave them alone. We'll ignore them, right? You've got to create a dilemma for the company and the state. And we've seen that play out, yeah, in the obviously, a.

created a dilemma so much, there's so much economic sabotage that they've got to do one and leave their factory and sell it. That's ideal. And then recently we found we created such a dilemma between the state, British state and this company that they cut a 280 million pound contract because of security breaches because people were breaking in so often. So this dilemma element is really key. And then there's, oh, the fifth one is be focused with your target, yeah? So we want to go after every company in Britain that, you know, in any way deals with the Zionist entities, you know, operations. But in order to win, you must go after one at a time or two at a time, go after them hard

and the ones that uphold them. So they're landlords, they're managing agents, their suppliers, they're people who drive their lorries, not the people, the companies that drive their norries. And that's how you do. You go focused. And for us, going after Elbit first was the easiest, right? As I said, I'm a simple kid. I ain't got no university education.

I don't even finish school, right? But saying this is the worst company, right? Even HSBC Bank, who are not known for being particularly ethical while we invest in them, they literally market their weapons as bowel tested on Palestinians, yeah? I've said that a million times, it still freaks the fuck out of me by hearing it, yeah? That they can be that brazen about what they're doing. Explaining that, explaining that they're then used on an occupied, colonized people that all of us understand is really easy, just makes it damn easy to bring a lot

of other people into your movement, yeah, no more people from the streets, yeah, people from other movements, whether they be environmental movements, you know, other causes, it makes it really simple. So that single focus target not only puts pressure on them, but helps you bring more people in. I've rambled way off the question, didn't I? No, I love it. Rambled away, honestly. No, because I have so many questions in like my brain, I'm asking it, and you guys are answering it while you're saying it, so it's perfect. Okay. So, um, I think you mentioned five things. I have sustained action, a sacrificial element, dilemma, and focused. Is there a fifth one that I'm missing? Disruptive. Disruptive. Disruptive. So that kind of brings me up into my next question, which is you guys have given kind of an overview of what it actually is and what you're doing. But how does what Palestine action does? How does direct action differ from the other work in the Palestinian solidarity scene? And what.

Why is it so important? Yes, I think in general, let's take the reactive element first, because I think there was a lot of this in the Palestinian movement, which isn't necessarily always a bad thing, but it's not, you need to be proactive to win, right? And for example, we saw in 2021 when Palestinians in Jerusalem were being evicted from their homes and Palestinians in Gaza were being bombed, there was hundreds of thousands of people

went out of the street to London and we've seen this in 2014 we saw this in 2009 and it seems like everything just seems to be on repeat and there's this constant way that we react globally to whatever is happening in Palestine

and it's like a cycle that keeps happening so taking 2021 for example hundreds of thousands of people come out on the streets hundreds of thousands of people signed a petition calling on the government to sanction Israel. The government debates about it. They decided not to do anything at all on it. Then things will die down eventually. And it just keeps happening in that same way. And for us in 2021, we were, we exist at that point. And we had four activists go onto the roof of

Albis factory in Leicester and at that time just four people scaled onto that roof and hundreds if not thousands came out from the local community the fire service came out refused to take off the protesters

from that roof in solidarity with Palestine even though the police were asking them to then the community stayed out there for six days straight and the second they got winds that people were going to start getting arrested from the roof of that factory. They had chained the gate shuts.

And this is like families from the local community, blocked the police, put their, you know, really fancy cars some of them had, right, in front of the cops. And they stopped the cops for like several hours from arresting these people. And I think in that moment, it was like everyone had taken direct action at that point to keep that factory shut. So we had a material impact on that site and stopped them from being able to build weapons or which we know at that time they had,

I think, about £5 million worth of equipment that they were wanted to export to Israel. So that was significantly disrupted and delayed. But in general, when you contract that way, you have the reactive element. And then sometimes these protests that they have, these big protests in reaction to things, they have it in places like Hyde Park, right? And it's like

you've got all of these people in a park that's shouting at the trees to free Palestine, right? And this is literally what is happening. And we know that this government and most governments, right, Western governments especially, are so complicit when it comes to the colonization of Palestine. They are the ones to uphold it in in the first place. And then we're constantly appealing to that, in ways that are not in any way inconvenient to those powers to stop being the oppressors. And it's just not going to work, right? There might have been a point 10, 20 years ago

where we truly believed, okay, if we get the facts right and we persuade all these people, then they've got to change, right? Because this is just so basically wrong and, you know, soon or later, they'll realize that and change. That never worked. It's never going to work. The only way we can actually change this situation is by taking the power back to the streets, back into people's own hands, and by bypassing those power structures completely. And for us, by bypassing those power structures by going straight to these factories,

occupying them, blockading them, dismantling them, and not seeking permission from the authorities, from the state to do so. And rather than appeal to them to replace an army, embargo, we're just going to go directly and stop the weapons from being able to be built in the first place. And that's a module that if everyone did it, they just have no chance, right? They wouldn't be able to build these arms in these countries. And I think when you look at the reasons why they do it as well, it shows that we actually have a unique opportunity as well as a duty to do this type of work, right? Because they are able to host their

factories in countries like the US, Britain, Europe, because this country, these countries have such a long-standing alliance with the Zionist entity, right? Whereas when, and we know that the powers that be, the establishment on the words that uphold that, but when the people of those countries say no, and they manage to get rid of it themselves without appealing to those powers, then it's a massive politicalist embarrassment for the Israeli state when they find out that actually we can't even have an arms factory in a country that we deem one of our strongest strategic allies because the people won't have it.

And I think that's something that if replicated everywhere, they'd be done for. They cannot operate in isolation, and that is where our role kicks in. and I think what we do as well is expose the fact that these factories operate here in the first place and just how linked we are to the oppression of Palestine but also how much possibility there is to assist in their struggle from abroad in ways that you can't do elsewhere.

Yeah, I think I sometimes wonder what would happen, what would have happened in the world if no one would have invented lobbying and protest and what might have happened instead and I sometimes wonder who invented them and for me that phrase by David Graber protest is like begging the powers that be to dig a well direct action is digging the well yourself

and daring them to stop you is like a key a key phrase if I'll probably just become a David Graber quote in a minute because the other one the other one that he talks about this relevant I think very relevant sort of Palestinian cause is direct action is acting as though with a defining insistence as though you're already free. And for me, that idea, which I did, right, yeah, of sharing free

Palestine outside the Israeli embassy, yeah? Well, that's going to do it, in it? Because the Israeli embassy is suddenly going to go, yeah, we'll give up this. And so, you know, it's not a route to success, yeah? However, emotionally, it's a kind of natural reaction. And I would never diss anyone for doing it, right? Because that's what you do. And in some senses, some of those things can become displacement activities. I'm someone who said that yet. You do these things and you know, like I said before, you go away and you feel good about yourself and you have done something and there's, you know, there's not wrong with people to do that or feel that, but providing something else that goes, you can make a material difference. Yeah. And that material difference is

the key one, right? Yeah. If you do, you know, if you sat outside the factory, the same way you might sit outside the Israeli embassy and you stop them for half an hour, would still stop them for half an hour doing something. And I think that's the kind of like a big difference. And I'd also want to say it's kind of, in some ways, it's more empowering for normal people as well to just say, you know, they can take part. They can do this. We work on as principle of the alliance of the winning. So if there's five mates who want to go and do something in action, they crack on and do it.

They don't have to wait for someone to arrange a large protest in a big city or to fill in a thing. They can just crack on and get on with it. And also I think it speaks to the time of time we're at across many different movements that people are seeing through these power struggles, seeing through how states and bad faith actors act to sort of dampen down and have controlled dissent and people seeing that this is bullshit and going, no, I want to do this myself. And obviously there's variations with that, within that in terms of people's what they can do, whether that be from their status in that country and whether that's possible or not. etc so there's nuances within it but i think it's that is that just kind of through the bullshit going straight to it and saying that we do have an element of power if we're prepared to do those risks and and sacrifice something ourselves um that we can make those material changes ourselves and we don't need to ask anyone else's permission in fact asking people's permission

is a bad thing it you know because they ain't going to give it yeah and i think as well just going back to the NGOs thing that's a big issue of it because when you're, when you're, you know, in a very futile way, which people know is futile, right? We had an MP here, say, Israel is fascist in Parliament. And within a few hours, they had to make an apology for saying that Israel is fascist. And I said, that's the most basic thing you can say, right? Like, it's the most, and if you can't even say that, that how are we tricking ourselves into believing that that that route is going to work to add to the impose sanctions on Israel, right, which is what it's needed. And if you can't even

talk about it, how the hell are we going to get sanctions through that process? And I think the NGOs want to so badly be respected by the political establishment that they cater how they words, things, everything they do towards that, which just means you're always going to lose. If you're constantly reacting to the parameters, you're oppressive state, then you're bending for them, not the other way around. And that's just a losing formula. And I think when you add into that, a whole load of people internationally

and nationally in Britain who really care about policy and liberation don't know what to do and they're being led down these paths where it's known that it's going to be futile and it's going to be ineffective and they're going to give their £10 a month or however much it is towards these efforts,

then there is a point where you have to start questioning are a whole lot of people being misled by these organisations? And for us, we're just very straight, open and honest. We're going straight to the source. We're going to make a material difference. We're not going to appeal to anyone else. And I think that when we launched, a lot of people were skeptical about people going around

and smashing up his early arms factories, right? But now, but actually most people were refreshed and excited and joined in and we're like, yes, this is what I want to do. And I think because it is empowering rather than just being constantly knocked back or told you can't do this and you can't do that because it's going to make us look a bit too, you know, too impactful. Yeah. We'll start a phrase as well.

There's a phrase, isn't it, that says the definition of an insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Yeah? And so when people would call us crazy for the front of the old we do, I'm like, no, the crazy one, are the ones keep doing those things that don't work. Try something else. If what we did stop working, then we'd have to do something else.

Yeah, this could be fluid on those things and accept that none of us really know the exact answer to these things and you have to try new things. No, absolutely. And I love how it is something that directly involves the local community. And you don't, from what I'm grasping, have to have a specific political orientation. You don't have to have some specific theoretical

framework. It is just local people getting involved and through praxis and through the Mitchell action is how they're able to get politically engaged. And it's not one or the other. It's kind of both. So I want to. I think that's actually the key is that not to put like political parameters on it, yeah, saying you've got to be this or that because you exclude a bunch of people, right? And there's people who've taken action with balance, action, who have different wider political. They need to be right on Palestine holds, yeah. But they have wider political things. You know, we have everything from, you know, conservative Muslims to anarchists, to Marxists, and various others, yeah? So I think that's really key when you're coming together for a single cause. You need to spread the base on that

and not stop people coming in, you know, and then some of that can go from there. Sorry. So then that kind of takes me into my next question is, obviously, we know that. Israel exporting these weapons, these security systems don't only target Palestine. It is tested on Palestinians and advertised that way, but this goes to, you know, surveilling immigrants on using these weapons in places like Kashmir. So how do you guys see yourselves within a broader international struggle? Yeah, it's a very good point. So for us, Elbe actually embodies that answer very well, because Albert, as you said, uses the colonisation and occupation of Palestine as a way of developing their weapons and marketing them as tested, which means that

Albert's whole business model is basically built on the destruction of Palestine. Then they expanded to countries like Britain and elsewhere and also sell them on to other oppressive regimes to be used against other oppressed people across the world. And taking Britain, first of all, and what they do here. So the fact that they have these weapons which are tested on Palestinians means that they want to expand their work, basically, by being able to sell onto the British Ministry of Defence here by saying, hey, look how both these weapons worked in Gaza.

Do you want to buy the same thing? And for us, that way of selling on the weapons, it's just as deadly and has to be stopped just as much as the way of it being built here and exported back to Israel, which is also happening. So it's a two-way thing. Because by buying those weapons,

you're encouraging the continuation of the occupation and colonization of Palestine. And, you know, if you buy them, if you spend 100 million pounds or something, which is just in May 2021, for example, they, the drone swarm, been used in Gaza, then that's going to send signal to Alba going right next time we've got

used something else in Gaza and then we're going to get the same contract with the Ministry of Defence here. But also they are, you know, as you said, using it. So the watchkeeper drone is a drone which is built out and based on the drones that are used in Gaza. And also now in Nablus we saw it was used as well, the Hermesport 50. And also those drones are used to basically to surveil the channel and stop migrants from seeking refuge in this country. They also do very similar things in America.

So the US-Mexico wall is built partly by Albert Systems. Again, the same technology that they used in the wall in Palestine. And also just on that point, just in every Palestinian knows this. And I think they called it, an Israeli TV channel called it Israel's worst kept secret, that all of these drones, most, the majority of them, have been armed. So, you know, they are used constantly to surveil Palestinians. And, you know, that's constantly entrenching, for example, in Gaza, the occupation of Gaza.

And you have to see the same drone, which has been used to kill your family or kill your neighbor, destroy your community, is constantly hovering above your head every moment of every day surveilling and watching you. And it's mental torment, as much as it is physical torment for the people of Palestine that these weapons are used. But the fact that Elbeck uses Palestine as a starting point and then can sell it on to be used in the occupation of Kashmir, to be used in Afghanistan and Iraq, just shows as well how central Palestine is to the global struggle against imperialism. And I think the very way Elvis business model operates shows that very well. I mean, when we see India, for example, they buy 50% of the arms exports from Israel.

And we know that they are using them against the occupied people of Kashmir. All the three, the occupied people of Kashmir, have a very strong solidarity with the Palestinian people. and their oppressors are linked, not just by their training methods and everything else that they share, but also literally by the arms of the same weapons that were developed on Palestinians are used against the Kashmir people.

And we see this happening in so many different settings across the world where Israel is exporting these techniques of surveillance and massacring the Palestinians to other places across the world. the world. And I know the example, which is slightly different, but we know that the cameras that they're using Glasgow, they have these Scotland, people don't know where Glasgow is in America. So there's surveillance cameras that they use. They are used by the Unit 8200, and they are basically they watch for any movement.

They can basically read your mind by your facial, you know, by how you ask, etc. And the Israeli military were using this to blackmail Palestinians. And then we saw the Glasgow City Council get a contract for these same drones. So even in a Western point of view, the surveillance tactics that, you know, Britain were the most surveilled country, I think, in the West. anyway at least and have come and been developed in Palestine first. So not only should people be doing this because there's just a literal, this is a moral obligation of our time.

And if you continue to allow this to happen to Palestine, then those same methods and tactics are going to be used against and have been used against oppressed people across the world and are aiding in the oppression of people across the world, as I said, but also here, you know, we're not going to be, we are massively privileged in Western countries compared to in Palestine and elsewhere. But, for example, our police force now wants to,

is trialing out Albert's drones to surveil people across Britain. So that surveillance is only going to get more intense and, you know, worse. And we started this all off in the first place, right? Britain with the Balfour Declaration, with issuing the statement and signing over the lands of Palestine to the Zionist militia, training the Zionist militia for the Nakpa. And, you know, my own great-granddad was killed by a British soldier in the 1920s. And to this day, we're seeing that it's not changed. We're still colonizing Palestine. We're just doing it

through the military-industrial complex. And that has to, then we have the power to stop that. And the only power we have to stop that is, I truly believe, through direct action. Appealing to some government that's been doing this for 100 years isn't going to work, you know, that direct action does work,

and we've proven that it works. So we've shut down their arms factory in Alden, we shut them down in London, and recently they lost $280 million dollars with a contract with the Ministry of Defence. And if this is replicated across them, well, they've got no chance, you know, and I think that's what's so exciting about diet action as well. Obviously, it comes with its consequences,

but when you compare those consequences to the consequences of not doing it, that I think it makes it a very easy choice to take. Cool. I'm very short a bit to add just in terms of the question. So for me, the kind of finy quote about world imperialism has laid its head over etc, etc. But whenever you strike it and wherever you strike it, you make a cause for the world revolution. So for me, that's what we do. We strike it here where we are and we'll continue to strike it. No, absolutely. And it is a brief aside to give context for like an American audience as

well. Like the US and its arms industry are obviously equally as complicit as something like Elbit, but something notable I think that a lot of people don't understand in the US is that kind of connection in that overwhelming, like, map of oppression that exists as a result of Israeli occupational actions, right? Like, in the U.S. context, you have the deadly exchange where law enforcement agencies all across the country, all every, in every, every major city, essentially, are training actively with Israeli occupational forces. They're going to Israel. The NYPD has an office in Tel Avid, right? They're traveling over to occupied Palestine, receiving training that is honed in from, you know, decades of oppression against people in the

West Bank in East Jerusalem and Gaza and then in the 48 territories and taking that back and saying, how can we apply this in Atlanta? How can we apply this in New York? How can we apply this in Chicago, L.A.? And the direct action that you all do, the direct action that you've noted is something that you can expand is so unbelievably critical because you're taking in the fight to the very actors who are directly materially benefiting from the occupation itself. And I think there's something so beautiful in that and also simultaneously so genuinely effective that you just don't get in like an electoral framework you don't get in some of these like kind of liberal NGO like human rights oriented oriented oriented frameworks right and you know in the u.s context i think a lot of

a lot of the left in the u.s when it comes to palestine doesn't i think entirely always understand the interconnected nature of Palestine is is an occupational struggle right it goes beyond even a decolonial struggle in and of itself it's it's a global anti-imperialist like foothold if you don't uproo, it's hard to combat imperialism on a global scale without targeting. And I think it's just an interesting thing. Sorry, it's a brief aside. But something that I wanted to ask y'all is when you, you know, you had said that there are a lot of, a lot of companies. I mean, we know, it's just looking at like a BDS list.

There's so many companies that exist in materially benefit from the design misoccupation. What made y'all say, okay, when we're looking at this list of hundreds of companies, Elbit is the one because it's a good it's a great target it's like the best target to be totally honest but what what is it that made y'all go yeah that's the one we want to spend the next like two years sitting on top of the roof up um i think it's kind of curious yeah i wish i was on the roof for two years that you think haven't been but i'll do i'll do it to stop albert um yeah so actually I think for Elbin, like you said, it was really the one for us. And I think for a number of reasons.

And when you look at other companies, for example, not other arms companies, but just other companies in general, right? And they're all evil in their own ways. And, you know, you can't deny that. But for something like, let's take JCB as an example, terrible company, right? They build bulldozers. and part of what they do is assisting the occupation

and the destruction of Palestinian homes, right? But it's not necessarily their whole business model. But with Albert, it's literally everything they embody the whole essence of what the Zionist regime is doing to Palestinians. They are like the privatization of that whole regime in a company. And actually it made it a very, easy choice in that sense and also Albert has such a huge presence

in Britain so they had when we started off they had 10 sites now they have eight we're hoping to hear that down very soon but that meant that it was actually something which we felt like was an inherent problem in our society

and that's something that's had to go right it was like we can't it literally is the worst of the worst to be perfectly honest in terms of what they do and also is something that by stopping it, you have the most direct impact on the colonization of Palestine. And so by targeting them, you're literally directly disrupting the profits that they make from developing on Palestinians, the weapons that they're going to make to use against Palestinians

and other people across the world. So it meant that every time we hit them, we had an impact and that every action was a victory in and of itself. If you stopped it for a minute, you stop it for a day, for a weed, that that's massively impactful and gets us towards our goal. And also because of how they're set up, it means that, you know, most arms factories, in fact, the vast majority of them won't build a whole weapon in one facility. They'll build parts of each weapon in different facilities and assemble it somewhere and put it all together. So every time you knock out one part of that supply chain, it disrupts their whole supply chain. And in Britain, you can see how.

these companies work together. So if they can't get the engines from the factory in Shenstone to build in the factory in Leicester for ages, then that factory in Leicester is going to have a knock-on effect, which means its customer in Israel is going to have a knock-on effect, and they're all going to get pissed off basically every time as an action at any of these Elbit sites. So it meant that you could have the most material impact. But I think when we started, it was just like, it's got to be Albert. Do you know what I mean? And I think then talking through it, you understood the reasons why, but it was this is an Israeli arms manufacturer.

And I think just the very yes is that people were like, oh, this actually happens in Britain, you know, and when you started the actions, so like through the actions, you know, not only are we disrupting and damaging their sides, but we're exposing the fact that this exists in the first place. And also, every time they arrest us or they raiders, or they do something which is quite repressive in the state towards, you know, people taking this type of action.

Then we expose even further how complicit this state is with what's happening in Palestine and how desperate they are to not protect us, but to protect Israel's arms trade. And so every time we do in action, we expose that complicity further, which people before might have gone, oh, I do care about Palestine, but it's something really far away, which, I mean, is a stupid thing to ever think, especially in Britain and the US, because literally it's Britain with the valve decoration

did start off all of this stuff in the first place but still people might have that cognitive dissonance are that the right words? I don't know. I don't imagine. That distance basically from that situation

and what we're doing here whereas when you're targeting it in people's towns, in people's cities then they can't ignore it and they can't avoid it. And I think that's why in places like Oldham we had a massive massive community support

because they're really it's really stupid and insulting where they place these factories right because they put them in places like old them and that's the north of England it's a town in the north of England not far from I spent

a lot of my childhoods and it's a lot of old it's a very diverse community a large Asian community a large Kashmari population there same with Lester Lester was the most diversity in this country massive Muslim population there again Kashmiris people

Arabs people from different backgrounds and you put an Israeli arms factory in the middle of that and then the second you start taking these actions people respond and go what you know how did I not know this was happening in the first place and now I know I want to support every effort there is to take this factory this factory down so I think all of that aids in the fact that

you know they are it's not hard to show Albert for being as evil as they are. It literally just says it all over their website, right? And every time we do something to expose it, more people get to know about it, more people who take action,

more people who stand against it, and the bigger our movement, the bigger our movement grows. And that's Albert's biggest downfall because they want it to be able to hide in plainside, in these buildings. You know, they don't have a massive sign saying, hey, it's Albert. You know, this is what we

do at their factories, they operate on the different names and they try and they try and hire the fact of what they really are. So by exposing that, you know, you've already done half of the job. I think the first thing I want to say is just for JCB, Puma, anybody else watching this, yeah, we are coming for you soon as well. Yeah, no one thing you've got away with it. But I think I think what I've been saying there's true as well, though, right? When you're trying to go for it, going for the most evil of the evil first, yeah? Like, if you said, let's go in and smash up a Puma store,

although I probably know some people who would be up for going to nick some Puma shoes, yeah? It just doesn't have the same thing as like damaging his weapons. And also, if they're going to take the piss by putting their factories in areas of communities you don't want them, yeah, then we're going to

take the piss and we're going to go after the surveillance, the highly militarised one, and we're going to show how pathetic you are by getting into your sights and getting on your roofs, constantly and actually once we go after the most difficult one first it shows how easy the other ones will be subsequently and also shows to them immediately by going shit are we going to be on their list next and might mean that they don't even deal with that and stuff so going to the most difficult one first although it seems kind of like oh you could have got an easier one I think

is more powerful but it just rallies people real people are really pissed off when they hear about these things. And I don't think I would necessarily apply to some of the more lower-down targets. They're all valid targets still. Yeah. But I think as well, that's the key point as well. As you win this campaign, you shut Albert down in this country. And every other company is looking at that going, all right, we're not dealing with, you know, we're not dealing with Zionists anymore. It's just not worth it. They're going to come through us next. And that sends a message to all of them by getting rid of the worst of the worst. And arguably, one of the most powerful as well. But like you said, it is

quite funny because they're like defense and surveillance and whatever highly secure facilities and it's like we'll just repeatedly get on their rooms repeatedly get inside and that actually is an effective tactic which we didn't realize at the start but every time they have a security breach they have to report it to the Ministry of Defence they have to report it to all of their customers saying right we've just compromised all of your classified information again and then that's why you know the when we're talking about this Ministry of Defence, and I'm losing these 280 million pounds of contracts,

they said that, you know, it's about operational sovereignty standards and that basically on their most highly secure contract, Elbit was a risk, Elbit was a security risk, because of that constant, you're not, you know, they do deal with classified stuff, which we didn't really think about at the start. It wasn't, that wasn't the main aim of it, but it's a very positive consequence that they do have to have,

they do have to report all of these security breaches to their customers. Yeah, I will know, and they'll be, oh, sorry, I would want to buy some way. If you were looking, not that I'd buy a security system, but if you were looking to buy an alarm, you would definitely not choose someone who's just been broken into their own premises. You'd be like, that's fucking stupid it. Well, I was going to say, too, I mean, if a British government's looking at it, and they're going, well, this guy and, like, five moves maids can go down and just didn't say, oh, we're going to jump on the roof of Elbit and get in.

Like, who else can realistically get into this facility? which is a great just psychological tactic to be playing on a company like this that's entirely dedicated to like high profile and I assume classified military procurement like that's amazing when when y'all are looking at kind of how you went through that process then were there any like significant struggles that you had to encounter in beginning the process of direct action and going under it I mean I know like typically there's of course like police responses there's state surveillance things of that nature I assume that go into play when you're you're kind of talking about direct action against an arms bandy class in the West.

But what were some of the pitfalls and issues that you kind of had to work through as an organization as you were going through the direct action planning? Yeah. I mean, what we noticed was it's been a bit of like up and down in terms of state repression or state response to our direct action. And so at the start, there was actually, there was a meeting. This was about a month or five weeks in to the campaign between the Israeli Ministry of Strategic Affairs,

Dominic Rab, who was the Foreign Secretary of this country at the time, and Benny Gantz, who was his Welsh Defence Minister at the time. And they met with Israel, and they basically referred to our direct action against the Albert's London office and told Britain to crush us. And I found this, because I was just trolling through the Zionist press

and I was like oh this is great this is really great to see I wasn't saying that I wasn't saying that I was going shit they're going to guess oh my gosh but it was like oh you know you've been doing campaigned

on this for years you're like oh wow this is really this is really getting to them you know and you're like okay we're definitely doing the right thing here and then it was shortly afterwards and we had there were a series of things that happened

we got stopped basically in England the public of the places whenever you travel through a court or something like that they have this Schedule 7 counterterrorism stop and so they can stop you

under counterterrorism laws and you don't normally when you get arrested you got like you can say no comment you just don't say anything and you have a right to your lawyer and all of this and when you're stopped under that you don't have that right

and if you don't answer all their questions then they say you're going to go to prison for three months, et cetera, et cetera. So we were interrogated for several hours by counterterrorism, and this is only about three months in. And it was all about, you know, for me it was about my family, what religion I was, if I was sunny or shea. And when I said both, they were very confused about which terror group I could be involved in.

But likely, yeah. And all of these things, and they did the same with Richard, and then they held us, and we did get released after that, but it was like that was nearly an intimidation tactic that they used to try and stop us up to the start, and then we got raided twice in the same day, and Richard was arrested for Blackmail, which is quite a serious, it's a pathetic charge,

but it's relatively serious in this country, and then stole our passion, The police took both of our passports at that point. And so then there was all of these things that were happening within the first few months of Palestine action. And it was very clear that they were sending a message like, stop, you know, stop while you're still growing, you're not. You know, we had done quite a bit at that point,

but we weren't like where we are now. And we did have the amount of the amount of followers or supporters or people in the movement as we had at this point. And so it was clear that they had a concerted effort to try and crush us while you're beginning before you get to a point where they can't really do that as heavily because they're in the public eye at that point. You know, if they do something, they did stuff to us then. It was like, yeah, we post up hundred people would talk about it, but that was it. So it was like they could crush us in silence, but you keep going. And I think that we always knew the start of this, that we were going to try to.

just start taking mass stare at action against Albert and have a really easy ride and that they were going to put up every obstacle in your way to try and stop you from achieving your ultimate goal. And if they didn't, it would mean that we weren't doing something that was effective or, you know, going to really impact what we wanted to impact. And so for us, every time we overcome an obstacle and they do stuff like that and we still persevere and we still get through it, then it's like, okay, we're getting closer, we're getting closer, you know, that we've not, we've not given off when we're not going to be giving in. I know, we've seen, we've seen lots of different tricks by them that they continue to try and do. But I think when you have

embodied within what you do, this sense of resistance against the state's complicity with our whole bit, and also inspiration from Palestinians on the ground to resist day and day out and are facing way worse measures than we are, then it makes it a lot easier to keep going. I think, Jericho's like that I think that's such important thing and heard it's instrumental in that and going, this is what happens if you're successful, yeah? And you could easily just go underground and hide and what have you

and get overly worried about this. But the two ways, one responding in that way and also, I think, embarrassing the state by continually publishing details of it, right? Because they probably think you're going to be really scared about it and you want to keep it all secret. But remembering that sacrifice principle, we literally put everything on there. I think our arrest for the blackmail when we've been arrested, you filmed it and then publicized it straight away. And they're probably assuming that we'd be like scared and we wouldn't all these things out because it's to put people off. But it

works the other way. When repression happens and you publicize it everywhere, people go, well, that's not on. I'm going to join. And even you, you, even get like English people going, that's really not cricket. This is not the English way. We're going to join this group now because they're being bad to them. And you do that and it brings it the other way around. I think the only thing I would add to that is that there was a, which I think is scandalous, right? Where we were, we were living at a time in a large community where we lived with 24 asylum seekers who have no recourse to any public funds, no money. And we live there with them in solidarity. And the cops had got into a school. In England, it's like a primary school.

was the youngest age is like five to 11 year olds and the cops had put a camera in the school pointing at our front doorway where all these people lived and we didn't even spot it until somebody who knew about cameras came on our house instead of seeing that

and then we rang up the school and went if you got a camera pointing an off front door and the receptionist that everything she was on message at the time she went oh yeah the police came out last week and put that in oh I better refer you to the business manager and this is just like

a scandalous thing but but again laughing in a way in the face of adversity, right? Yeah, we see one of our workshops we put the video in of Palestinians being smiling when they're arrested. Now, I always find that tangent because I never smile when I get arrested. But this kind of idea of laughing in the face of adversity and just publishing it all, right? Because this is what they hate.

When they're being all secret and spying, and if you just publish it all and you're open about it, people kind of like, and it's weird, they like it. And they're like, yeah, come on, I'll be part of that. And just not being afraid of taking the piss out of them and going, you know, we're not, you know, we are organized and we're gray and all this sort of stuff. But we're also just going, look, we're concerned people who are doing this for the right reason, yeah? And we're going to do that and we'll face it, yeah? And many people face it, we have people in prison at the moment.

And this is part of the struggle. This is where it goes. When we internationalize that, as you've said, when we see that with our brothers and sisters in occupied Palestine, who, you know, who face a 99.9% conviction rate, yeah, then that's the bare minimum that most of us feel that we can, we can put up and do, yeah? We can do that where we are. And more and more people are recognizing that and doing it and we don't want to be there and we want to be out doing what we're doing. But if that's part of the struggle, that's part of the struggle and we'll prepare people and we'll be there and we'll see that as part of the fight because we know

throughout history, from Mandela to whoever, yeah? They end up in prison or locked up for their struggles and, you know, that's part of it. Yeah, and I also just think on that, like, you know, we see this happening to Palestinians all the time constantly, and ministries detention, people being held for, you know, no reason whatsoever just being held for an infinite amount of time. And there's so many people across the world

who sign in solidarity with Palestine. but Palestinians are on the front line whether they like it or not, right? And for us internationally, as activists who stand in solidarity with them, how far does that solidarity really go? And especially when you think of when we face arrests and imprisonment and whatever else and raids, etc., even that is incomparable to what Palestinians face. And there's a very strong power and message in when, the West start to wake up and realize that there's people in these countries in Britain,

in the US, wherever else, who are willing to go to prison in order to stop our complicity with what's happening in Palestine. And I think that's the level we need to get to internationally in order to assist what the Palestinians are already doing on the ground to liberate Palestine. And that's where our role comes in. And obviously, that's not our main goal at all. our main aim has always been and will always be to direct materially impact these arms factories and stop them for being able to manifest what they do

in Palestine from where we are. But as a consequence to that, we are facing those things and we are facing X, Y, Z. But the fact that that doesn't stop you, and once you accept that, actually, it's like you're completely free, in a word kind of sense, right?

Once you said that, the worst they could do to you, is lock you off for a bit and actually, and that's it and you can destroy arms factories, you can stop these weapons from being made, and you don't have to face what Palestinians face on the front line, and you can still

have such a material impact, and it's that, you know, why not? No, I think that accepting it, that it's the worst that they can do to use, I didn't think about it that way in comparison to what Palestinians consistently go. So, like, that's nothing. Then I wanted to follow that up,

with people who are looking at it and saying, okay, I want to get involved. This sounds incredible. What about, but are scared to work around the legal systems or how arrests work? Could you give people a little insight on to how to navigate that? Yeah, I think you're probably a better answer than me. But I think just to start off, what we do here isn't seen lightly by the state.

although we've been pretty we've done pretty well I think at manoeuvring around the legal system and being effective whilst also facing some consequences here and there for what we do but there is many ways to shut down an arms factory and there are many different levels of actions you can take to shut down an arms factory and so there are different you know what we're however people feel comfortable. You know, for example, here, not everyone goes in and breaks in and smashes of every single thing inside the factory. A lot of people blockade it, throw paint over it, go on the roof. There are different levels to how you can do it

and different consequences as a result. And I think it's just about understanding what that line is in terms of being able to do on a sustained basis, not always yourself, right? because that's why you have to build a movement. Because if you just kept doing it, you just be locked up and then it stops. You have to have a way of building a movement

where other people join you and you share that liability, so to speak, yeah, in terms of taking that action. But also finding a way of what can we do, what are we willing to accept as a result of that in order to build a movement which is big enough to take on this arms factory. So I think it's about finding that,

balance. Yeah, and I think often, especially for like an American, what have you, the North American audience, often we hear there's like different consequences in your local place and you have to understand that. But I would also say from here, and myself haven't been involved in other movements, the way Palestine action have been policed is a lot different to other movements, right? It's been racially pleased, right? We've had people who are, are obviously Muslim, maybe I had a hijab arrested just for turning up, right? They weren't doing anything in free Palestine. So we have received that differing level of things.

And certainly the questions that have been asked to some of us are very different when we've been in any other causes. And I think it's being aware of that. And in terms of those legal consequences, it's about preparing people, right? If you're making the free choice to say, I'm prepared to risk it. I'm prepared to go on what you were saying before. or to contextualize this with our brothers and sisters in, Occupy Palestine on what they're doing,

and I'm prepared to take the risk where I'm ever am, then being informed about that and having the full knowledge of the likely consequences, but also understanding that the state, you know, can at any time, you know, they might knock on the door here in five minutes, and you might not see us for a couple of years, but that's part of the deal, yeah,

and understanding that. But I think being informed that we run regular workshops, where we go through both our theory around direction, action, but also go through demystify the process of what happens when you're arrested and for certain different things. Also, I think, is worth saying that we've had many actions where people have got away, yeah, where people have not been arrested. And we're not like, you know, some of the other movements that, you know, insist that you have to stay and show your face and be all nice to everybody, yeah? You know, people can get away. People cover their faces in

action for security reasons, for religious reasons, whatever, we're, you know, we're cool with that. It's about whether it disrupts, damage and destroys these companies. That's the key thing. And you can work that out in your own context, how that works out legally, and how that works out what risks you can take. So the key takeaway from now, I think, is to be informed. Listen in your local context to other groups, even with their groups, you might not share their exact political stance with some of them have knowledge on mass arrest. I don't know. I think in, you know, groups, international groups say things you're rebellion have advice on that. There's other movements, you know, within different countries

that have similar, you know, has similar experience that have been arrested and tailor your actions to what you can risk personally and what that is and be informed on that. I'll reach out and have conversations around that as well, I think. Yeah, I'm happy for people to reach out to us. Yeah, definitely. And being, but being, I think being going in with your eyes wide open, knowing what the likely or possible consequences are and saying I'm prepared to take that, I think is a key thing.

And I suppose I would end on that just on a personal thing again, right? So I've been arrested for loads of things in my life. I've been arrested for things that I ain't proud of necessarily. Yeah, no, I'm not really proud of, right? And it's a very different experience, even though it's never nice, yeah? I won't buy this thing like a nice experience being arrested. It's a very different experience to realize when you're seeing in a police cell

or a prison, you know, to realizing you've done this for a good reason and you are proud of what you've done rather than getting caught for something that you weren't really that proud of, yeah? And I was talking to someone just the other day, and they were talking about large-scale Palestine protest, and a few people on that in London, it sort of on the outskirts of the protests, it kicked off, and they fought with police,

and some of those received prison sentences. And they were sitting there thinking, we wish we'd done something more materially different, right, rather than just being sort of not having revolutionary, I'm not dissing them at all, right? Yeah, it's, you know, but not having revolutionary discipline in a way, right? And I think that's some of the key things, yeah? If you're going to get caught and doing things, make it worthwhile and realize you can, you know, when you sit there, however tough it is, you can rely on the fact that you've stopped that place operating for a while. You've stopped that weapon being built. And then you can, you can have a different take on that. And lots of the

legal stuff I would want to say is often in our brain as well. Yes, there's the reality, but there's also a psychological approach to that about how we can take that. And if we go in informed, understanding what the likelihood is, understanding when or if we may be released or not, then we can be prepared for that and contextualize that with what Palestinian political prisoners go through every day and see that as part of it. No, absolutely. I mean, so kind of outlining Ben. I know I've heard a couple of these victories that you've discussed from the money to the shedding out of factories, which congratulations, by the way, that's like really, really cool. Like, is someone who lives in the heart of empire. It's nice to see that factories are being shut down and not built. It's a nice little thing. But what are, just a short list of kind of the material victories that you all have seen since you started the operations just for the listeners. So they kind of like to give us an idea of like what you've done so far. Yeah, so after a year and a half into our campaign, the Albert were forced to sell off their factory in Oldham and a massive loss.

So basically we shut Albert down in Oldham. That was a massive arms factory they had there. Then we shut down their London headquarters. So they actually have two headquarters in Britain, which is very strange and greedy. One of them was in central London. and after a sustained campaign there, they were forced to abandon the site. And then just at the end of last year,

it came out that they, Albert, were forced to, were kicked out of over £280 million worth of contracts with the Ministry of Defence, which is actually their largest contracts that they've acquired in recent years with the Ministry of Defence as well. And their next biggest contracts are under review.

So we'll see what happens, see what happens there. I just want to add two things, which I think. So material success is also every action that happens, right? Yeah. So the last action that happened at Leonardo, which provides radar parts for Israeli war aircraft, over two million pounds they lost because of that, yeah?

And I think... Two thousand workers as well. Two thousand workers couldn't go into work because three people climbed up on a roof and shimmied down ropes and caused damage to all this stuff. And I think we used to, right, at the start, when I say we, I mean, someone clever who can have things up, he was to add up how much they'd lost, both in damage and

time. But it's got so much now, we can't even add that up, yeah? And I suppose one other things, even though we say this legally, and, you know, we don't, you know, we don't hold much state by the state of British justice that's been shown over many years to not be such a thing, right? However, we've only had one case go to a Crown Court when there's a jury, yeah? of nor would be able to side. And that jury, after hearing these people,

jumped out apparently in military position of a BMW and fire extinguishers of paint all over the building and the Zionists that were there, you know, that, you know, even then, even from a British senator, these people were found not guilty. The jury came back in less than an hour and were like giving them a thumbs up, crying, saying, well done, and Sam found them not guilty.

And I don't think we should negate, that's not why we do it to win court cases, but winning court cases is part of, the history right in the occupied six counties um in the north of ireland um there was um a factory from rathian that was that fifth uh rathian nine went in and they smashed it up they went to got got nine found not gilly nine women went back and did exactly the same thing smashed it up got found not gilry and at that point they went oh we need to lead now i don't know why anyone for was clever to to build a factory in

dairy of all the revolutionary cities there are but um um um um um um um And so we need to just bear that in mind. We don't hold any stay over the British justice, but when we do win, that's also a victory, yeah? That's also a way of pointing things out to people. And those members of a jury, random jury in central London, in one of the richest, you know, one of the richest boroughs in central London came back and said it was fine

for these people to jump out of a BMW and fire a fiery series of pain all over everything. That's unbelievably amazing. I'll let it. I try to take the next question, but I just love that someone. That's incredible. Okay. So just to close, James has so much to say, and as soon as he heard six counties, Ireland, he was just like, okay, I need to get into it. But, um, so just to close us off, you guys currently are based in the UK. How can people, um, in America, in Canada, um, replicate the model. And could you tell us more if there are other, um, Elbit factories located elsewhere, um, and, and how they can go about that? Yeah. So in, in terms of, you know, Europe, there are, there's obviously Britain where we are and people can just join us. We have, we are about to announce where the time podcasts is out, a lot of in-person trainings

and talks across the country, including Scotland, so people can come along to those and join us. And we also have regular online workshops, which even if you're international, I think it's a good idea to come along to it, just to touch base with Palestine action and hear some of the theory and how you can apply that to your own context. But in terms of where they are, they are dotted around Europe, so they have a factory in Germany, other places in Europe as well. I can't remember off the top of my heads. But they also are all over the US, just all over it.

I don't know any of the places, my name, but they are. Checks out. You'll be in the US, you'll find it, I'm sure. And also in places like Australia. So they're very much like, you know, the imperialist countries, there is an Albert side there, you know. In terms of joining, we, yeah, we're speaking to people all over the world all the time. But we're very keen to maybe do something, maybe an online stuff with people in North America to talk about it. We need to do that because we've got no idea of geography and we've talked to some people and they're like,

they're further apart than the whole of England is. So it's like, we'd try to get him to meet up. But it would be really good to kind of, you know, maybe we'll advertise something soon where we do a North American online event and we can talk about that. But I think the main thing is, in reality, is if you want to start something off, get a group of mates together who are willing to do it. We always say it's about an alliance of the willing. Not everyone you speak to is going to be on the same page.

And that's okay. and, you know, those who are willing, going for it, planning an action, doing an action at an Elbit site or wherever else you want to do it, and having a way after it for people to join. That's the key. You know, launching with action is the only way to do Palestine action. No, that sounds incredible.

I think an online workshop would be great. I know a lot of people in America who want to get involved and who want to do something similar. And, like, you guys on social media have been so great with being able to put out what you've been doing. So I think a lot of people would be interested. So how can people reach out? How can they find you?

What are your socials? So we're on Twitter, Instagram and TikTok at PAL underscore action. And we're on telegram. And I think that's just t.may forward slash PAL action. And you can email us at info at palisaction.org. any of those methods to contact us will probably work but i think if they're really interested send us send us an email do you guys have your email on the website yes but i was to say it again yeah sorry i didn't catch info at palestineaction dot org incredible okay

thank you guys so so so much for joining us this was incredible i've learned so much and i also feel like reinvigorated to want to go do some like something direct action like there isn't there are wins in the palestinian solidarity movement they take time and obviously this is like a long-term effort but being able to see these direct wins is something that like really makes you motivated don't want to do more um so thank you so much this has been uh guerrilla history radio and we will catch you guys next time thank you thank you Blackie glasses You've styrofoam

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