• scholar@lemmy.world
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    24 hours ago

    It’s a specific group that recently broke into an RAF base and started mucking about with the aircraft, hence why the government aren’t their biggest fans.

    Shortly after they did this they were designated as a terrorist group by the home office which is why public support is an offence.

    • null_dot@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      14 hours ago

      Are the protestors with signs saying they support palestinian action intending to state that they support the group or that they support action generally?

      Either way they’ve manufactured this issue to protest anti-terrorism laws right?

      Not sure if would die on this hill.

      • scholar@lemmy.world
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        8 hours ago

        ‘Palestine Action’ definitely refers to the group, otherwise you’d just put ‘Palestine’. I don’t think they did this to protest ant-terrorism laws, they’ve been very focused on targeting the genocide in Palestine so starting a new off-topic fight wouldn’t make sense for them.

    • FlyingCircus@lemmy.world
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      22 hours ago

      Their latest action was against the planes, but they have actually been extraordinarily successful at damaging the economic machine behind the genocide through targeted and sustained sabotage campaigns against Elbit Systems weapons manufacturer and their supporters, like Barclays Bank. They have already forced the closure of two weapons factories and forced Barclays to divest. It is most likely this sustained campaign that is the real reason for the terrorist designation, though the action at Brize Norton was probably the straw that broke the camel’s back.

      • scholar@lemmy.world
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        20 hours ago

        It certainly made proscribing them an easy sell; you won’t find many people who think it’s unreasonable of the government to take a dim view of sabotage.

        Hopefully it won’t distract too much from the bigger story of almost everyone apart from the government taking a dim view of genocide.

          • scholar@lemmy.world
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            7 hours ago

            Jet engines may react poorly with paint in the intakes. Those aircraft will need to be inspected and possibly repaired/maintained before they are allowed in the air again. That is sabotage.

        • WoodScientist@sh.itjust.works
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          18 hours ago

          100 years from now, who would possibly doubt that PAC are the heroes here and labor are the villains? Genociders are never on the right side of history. These people are heroes.

          • scholar@lemmy.world
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            7 hours ago

            It’s not even really a Labour issue, support for Israel has been a long standing policy (partly because the UK was largely responsible for the creation of Israel back in the 1920s) and the motion to proscribe Palestine Action was broadly supported by every party. Regardless of the morality it was completely obvious and expected that breaking into a military base and damaging expensive aircraft was going to have consequences.

            • WoodScientist@sh.itjust.works
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              3 hours ago

              Doesn’t mean it’s not the morally right thing to do. Aircraft that are being used to bomb innocent civilians should be vandalized. Hell that’s the minimum. The morally right thing to do is to set them on fire. Legality and morality are only weakly correlated. Obviously the law says what the powerful want it to say, but that doesn’t mean it’s right or just. Setting fire to a UK plane that is being used to genocide people is no different than setting fire to an empty train in 1944 that’s about to be sent out on a run to gather up people to take them to a concentration camp. Sorry, but that’s just the simple truth of it. You can cite evil laws you want, but you might as well be citing the laws of Nazi Germany. Everything they did was legal as well.

              Some things are just wrong. And enabling them is wrong. And we shouldn’t be afraid to say that. The people who vandalized those planes did nothing wrong. They’re victorious heroes. We should be memorializing them in song and story. The laws of evil men are not even worthy of consideration, beyond the practical choices of those choosing to engage in such acts of bravery and heroism.

              • scholar@lemmy.world
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                2 hours ago

                I haven’t cited any laws or said what they did was wrong, just that the government doesn’t like having its toys broken. Absolutely setting fire to a nazi train may be the morally correct thing to do, but you can still understand the nazis not being happy about it: these aren’t mutually exclusive propositions.

    • foggianism@lemmy.world
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      9 hours ago

      Ah, so it’s the old “pay our people to do something ‘terrible/highly controversial’ in the name of our ‘enemy/opposing group’ so that we can discredit them and their cause and apprehend any of them”-rule

      • scholar@lemmy.world
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        8 hours ago

        I don’t think there’s any need for false flag conspiracy theories. Palestine Action took credit for breaking into Brize Norton. I can only assume they thought it would generate enough attention to be worth the risk.

          • Womble@lemmy.world
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            5 hours ago

            They are known to be bankrolled by James “Fergie” Chalmbers, American millionair heir, “communist” who by his own words “chants death to America every day” and is a supporter of the Russian invasion of Ukraine and has been on Russia state sponsored visits to the regions annexed by Russia writing glowing praises of them.

            It seems likely that at least Palestein action are useful idiots for the Russian state. Which isnt to say that banning them as a terrorsit group isnt massive overreach and completely undemocratic.

          • scholar@lemmy.world
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            5 hours ago

            I think the better question is ‘Does what they did justify them being classed as terrorists’ rather than ‘Were they entrapped by government agents’.