Our Public Policy researcher, Carys Moseley, explores the Islamic influences behind Palestine Action, exposing the way that these influences shape their behaviour and actions.
This week, the Home Secretary Yvette Cooper announced she would bring forward plans to proscribe Palestine Action as a terrorist group. An order will be laid before Parliament on Monday under the terms of the Terrorism Act 2000. This came after Palestine Action broke into RAF Brize Norton, the largest RAF base in the UK, and sprayed paint into two military planes, causing millions of pounds worth of damage. One of the campaigners entered the premises on an e-scooter, and both campaigners escaped undetected. The ensuing fallout has had widespread media coverage in the UK and internationally. However, what is not being discussed is the Islamic link in all of this.
Claims that Palestine Action is ‘non-violent’ and engaged in ‘peaceful protest’
Many people have suddenly sprung up, claiming that Palestine Action is non-violent and merely engaged in peaceful protest.
In fact, Palestine Action’s own website does not describe it in either of these terms. Instead, it uses the term ‘direct action’, citing examples of criminal vandalism that it has caused.
Relentless attack on factories deemed to manufacture weapons for Israel
Since its inception in 2020, the group has targeted factories that it says are manufacturing parts for weapons to be used in Israel against the Palestinians.
Under the Terrorism Act 2000, serious criminal damage to property for the purpose of influencing government policy counts as terrorism. Section 1(1) and 1(2) of the act define this as ‘the use or threat of action’ where ‘the use or threat is designed to influence the government, or to intimidate the public or a section of the public, and the use or threat is made for the purpose of advancing a political, religious, racial or ideological cause’ and it involves ‘serious damage to property’.
This means that an awful lot of politicians and journalists are wrong to state that Palestine Action is not engaged in terrorism.
Palestine Action campaigners have attacked people
Several of Palestine Action’s defenders claim that there is no evidence of the group attacking individuals. This is disproven by multiple pieces of evidence.
Yesterday, seven people were arrested for various offences, including for assaulting emergency workers and police officers on duty at the London protest.
During the summer 2024 riots, Palestine Action saw their opportunity, and smashed their way into a factory in Bristol. One of them attacked a police officer with a sledgehammer.
Palestine Action’s US equivalent, Unity of Fields, has called for police officers in the USA to be set on fire.
Palestine Action has weapons
After breaking into the factory in Bristol, police were widely reported to have arrested the activists and found axes, whips and other homemade weapons they had brought into the factory they attacked.
It is not reported who they were targeting with these weapons.
Palestine Action banned from protesting outside Parliament
The Met Police banned Palestine Action from protesting the proscription decision outside Parliament. The protest was moved to Trafalgar Square. Activists attacked the police and chanted ‘Met Police can go to Hell’.
The reason the protest outside Parliament was banned is that Lord Walney, the former Labour MP and adviser to the government on political violence, warned that MPs’ security could be at risk. Lord Walney cited the fact that MPs were harassed outside Parliament over Palestinian issue two weeks ago.
This is not the first time that pro-Palestine activists have harassed and intimidated MPs. It follows on from the risk to MPs’ security due to the Palestine Solidarity Campaign encircling Parliament in February 2024, which was intended to pressure Labour MPs in particular to vote a certain way about a ceasefire in Gaza. Ben Jamal, the leader of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, was filmed calling on fellow activists to come in such large numbers that the doors of Parliament would have to be locked.
This intimidation of MPs to vote a certain way had never happened before in the history of the UK.
Palestine Action targeted a Jewish charity
In November 2024, Palestine Action vandalised the building of the Jewish National Fund in London.
Its attack on the Jewish National Fund suggests it is prepared to attack the Jewish presence in the Holy Land as such. Jews legitimately bought land in the Holy Land at the turn of the twentieth century via organisations such as the Jewish National Fund.
Does Palestine Action view the Holy Land in Islamic terms?
This begs the question as to whether Palestine Action views the question of ownership and right to the Holy Land in Islamic terms. For at that time a century ago, the land was ruled by the Islamic Ottoman Turkish Empire.
The Hamas Charter of 1988 designates the Holy Land as Islamic waqf (land or property perpetually endowed unto Allah). This is in Article Eleven of the charter:
“The Islamic Resistance Movement believes that the land of Palestine is an Islamic Waqf consecrated for future Moslem generations until Judgement Day. It, or any part of it, should not be squandered: it, or any part of it, should not be given up. Neither a single Arab country nor all Arab countries, neither any king or president, nor all the kings and presidents, neither any organization nor all of them, be they Palestinian or Arab, possess the right to do that. Palestine is an Islamic Waqf land consecrated for Moslem generations until Judgement Day. This being so, who could claim to have the right to represent Moslem generations till Judgement Day?
This is the law governing the land of Palestine in the Islamic Sharia (law) and the same goes for any land the Moslems have conquered by force, because during the times of (Islamic) conquests, the Moslems consecrated these lands to Moslem generations till the Day of Judgment.”
In 2017, Hamas released a new document that put forward a slightly softer and more sophisticated image, but reiterated the view that all ‘Palestine’ is Arab Islamic land. Despite not using the term waqf, the 2017 document does not appear in this respect to differ much from the original 1988 charter.
Article 31 of the 1988 charter says that only ‘under the wing of Islam’, followers of Islam, Christianity and Judaism would be able to ‘coexist in peace and quiet with each other’. Paragraph 8 of the 2017 document says this:
“Islam is a religion of peace and tolerance. It provides an umbrella for the followers of other creeds and religions who can practice their beliefs in security and safety.”
What this really means is that Christians would live as subordinated dhimmi-status second-class citizens under Sharia law. No protest organisation in the United Kingdom should be doing anything that could facilitate this, wittingly or not. In addition, the evidence does not point to Islam being ‘a religion of peace’.
Palestine Action’s silence on who should rule the Holy Land should be seen in light of these facts.
Does Palestine Action see all human being as innately disposed towards Islam?
This week Palestine Action’s supporters have promoted the slogan ‘We are all Palestine Action!’, claiming that proscribing the group will lead to a slippery slope of proscribing non-violent peaceful protest groups in general. This runs parallel with the slogan often chanted in pro-Palestine/anti-Israel marches happening in so many cities every Saturday since Hamas’ attack on Israeli Jews on 7 October 2023: ‘In our millions, in our billions, we are all Palestinians’.
Clearly most people are not Palestinians, and the world’s inhabitants are far from united in favour of the Palestinian cause, especially as formulated by Hamas. Both these slogans appear to be saying that ‘good people’ are being universally oppressed by ‘Zionists’ – aka Jews. This is next level conspiracy theory thinking. At the same time, it echoes the Islamic belief that all human beings are born with a natural disposition towards accepting Islam, and that when people convert to Islam they are merely ‘reverting’ to their natural created state. Jews are seen as eternal enemies to the plan of Islam.
Palestine Action founder converted from Roman Catholicism to Islam
Richard Barnard and Huda Ammori founded Palestine Action in 2020. Barnard is a former Extinction Rebellion activist. He was brought up a Roman Catholic and was a Catholic anarchist, a member of the London Catholic Worker, as well as a member of Christian Climate Action, but is now a Muslim. There are other members and supporters who profess a Christian faith.
In a speech at a rally in Manchester on 8 October 2023, Barnard echoed Hamas rhetoric by saying this:
“When we hear the resistance, the Al-Aqsa flood, we must turn that flood into a tsunami of the whole world.”
‘The Resistance’ is code for Hamas, and ‘Al-Aqsa Flood’ is Hamas’ own term for its attack on Israel. Mr Barnard however, when pressed upon the matter, claimed this was ‘just a metaphor’ – but he did not say for what.
In 2020, Barnard and co-founder of Palestine Action Huda Ammori were arrested at Holyhead port in north Wales under the Terrorism Act. This suggests they were going to or from Northern Ireland.
Palestine Action may not be an openly Islamic organisation in its public presentation, but it is behaving very much like one.
Palestine Action conducted training in a Quaker meeting house
In 2022, journalists from the Jewish Chronicle infiltrated Palestine Action’s training day for targeting a weapons factory in Oldham. It was held at a Quaker Friends’ Meeting House in Manchester.
According to the report, the leader of Palestine Action told the audience that everybody out there was really on their side. If this is true, this is sheer indoctrination, persuading naïve people to believe their own fantasies. Maybe this was a tactic to make them more likely to act with impunity.
There is something truly reprehensible about using a place of worship for the purpose of attacking the world’s only Jewish country’s ability to defend itself from terrorism.
Christians and churches should not support Palestine Action
The above evidence should make it abundantly clear that the government is right to proscribe Palestine Action as a group engaged in terrorism. At the same time, even if it weren’t to proscribe them, there are still very good reasons for Christians, churches, and other Christian organisations, not to support them.
Christians should not be repeating their half-truths and Islam-friendly propaganda. This is a group where some members have weapons, and have been arrested for attacking police officers and emergency workers, as well as having targeted a major Jewish charity. Their track record shows an escalation of aggression, violence and subversion that could lead to dire consequences if allowed to continue unchecked. Christians should not be supporting attacks on the police or emergency workers, or vigilantism and lawlessness of this kind.
Churches should not allow Palestine Action or its members to use their buildings for any purposes whatsoever, be it planning meetings or training meetings. There is a real risk that church buildings could be used for Islam-friendly ends, and for the use and storage of weapons.
For Christians, the imperative to not support Palestine Action surely goes beyond simply obeying the government in not supporting a proscribed group. It is wise counsel not to become embroiled in a group that appears to uphold a perspective closer to an Islamic view of the Holy Land and of human beings than anything else.
