The Home Secretary is understood to be planning to proscribe Palestine Action as a terrorist organisation in coming days, after the group published footage of members infiltrating an RAF base.
As reported by the BBC, Yvette Cooper is preparing a written statement to come before Parliament early next week. If MPs vote in favour, it will lead to the group becoming illegal to belong to or openly support.
Earlier today, a range of Jewish organisations, including the Board of Deputies, Community Security Trust, Jewish Leadership Council and the Campaign Against Antisemitism all made statements urging the government to consider proscribing the organisation. This came after Palestine Action published video footage on social media of two of their members infiltrating RAF Brize Norton, in Oxfordshire, vandalising aircraft. The vandalism was linked by the group to the UK’s support for Israel.
In the last few years, as well as targeting defence companies which it said were either Israeli or linked to Israel, Palestine Action has claimed responsibility for vandalising the offices of several Israel-linked Jewish charities. Last month it also vandalised a premises in the heart of the Jewish community of Stamford Hill, claiming the location housed the landlord of a company which had leased a UK site to an Israeli arms firm.
In a statement from CST, the charity which helps to protect the Jewish community said it “welcomes the news that Palestine Action will be proscribed by the Home Secretary.
“We and our partners have long asked that government and police act against this blatant conspiracy of ideologically-driven violence, intimidation and criminality. The recent escalation in their extremist activities shows why they are a threat to national security and community cohesion.”
Phil Rosenberg, President of the Board of Deputies, said: “We welcome the reported decision to proscribe Palestine Action. Their actions over recent months had become increasingly egregious, targeting Jewish charities and statues, and encouraging actions of violence and vandalism. Their forced entrance and sabotage at an RAF base was rightly the final straw.”
Campaign Against Antisemitism, which submitted a dossier to the Home Secretary last week calling for Palestine Action’s proscription, praised the move, thanking the Home Secretary for having “listened to our representations.
“Nobody should be surprised that those who vandalised Jewish premises with impunity have now been emboldened to sabotage RAF jets”, a spokesperson for the organisation said.
“We now urge her to urgently turn her attention to proscribing Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Ansar Allah (the Houthis), and others. This country needs to clamp down on the domestic and foreign terrorists running amok on our soil.”
