Pro-Palestinian group planning attacks on Israeli firms, destruction across UK

Defense firm Elbit is the first name on Palestine Action’s “hit list,” says Jewish Chronicle.

By Batya Jerenberg, World Israel News

An extremist pro-Palestinian group is currently in the midst of planning attacks on Israeli firms in Great Britain, The Jewish Chroncle (The JC) reported exclusively Thursday.

In a clandestine meeting in Manchester on March 9 that was secretly taped by The JC, Palestine Action co-founders Huda Ammori and Richard Barnard “revealed details of a new campaign of destruction targeting Israeli-linked firms.”

On Friday, the group tweeted, “All over the UK, weapons companies targeting Palestinians are feeling the sting of direct action. Whoever you are, your commitment can help stop the killing of Palestinians for profit.”

Its website’s Actions Agreement does not hide that its first and foremost target is Elbit Systems, an Israeli hi-tech company that concentrates on air, land and naval systems for defense and homeland security. T

he radical British group especially denounces Elbit’s major role in the production of UAVs that Israel uses in its counter-terrorist activity, claiming that the IDF’s protective actions constitute “war crimes.”

In January, Elbit sold its factory in Oldham, in northern Britain, in a move it called a “consolidation” of its “market position as a leading provider of advanced technology-enabled solutions” for the UK Defense Ministry.

Palestine Action celebrated the sale as a victory, hailing an 18-month campaign of blockades, protests and vandalism that included regularly smashing windows and breaking into the factory, causing what it said was “millions in damages.”

At the time, the anti-Israel organization’s leaders said they would continue their fight until they had gotten rid of Elbit’s other nine sites in the country. It openly states that it has no problem breaking the law to further goal to to “end complicity” with alleged “Israeli apartheid.”

“We do not need to seek permission from the police or other authorities for our actions,” it says in part. Those actions “seek to disrupt, damage and destroy complicity companies,” and “Elbit Systems and associated companies are our targets.”

The agreement’s language is reminiscent of underground groups during wartime.

“We do not speak about actions to anyone outside the group or share identities” of any participants, it says. While the activity must be filmed in order to publicize the organiztions’ work and gain support, “be sure that if you are recording a covert action, no one in the video or photos can be identified.”

Members, it says, will never provide the authorities with any potentially compromising information regarding their activity.

So far, 36 of its activists have been arrested by British police for their anti-Elbit actions, but they have yet to be brought to trial.

Speakers at the meeting said that other companies linked to Israel would be their next victims.

anti-Israel activismElbit SystemsPro-Palestinian activistsUnited Kingdom