The predictable idiocy of Palestine Action

On Monday, the Court of Appeal ruled that the government’s proscription of Palestine Action as a terrorist group was not unlawful, overturning the High Court’s decision from February.

The response from Palestine Action supporters has been a predictable mixture of rage and hysteria, with a side order of conspiracism thrown in. Huda Ammori, the co-founder of Palestine Action who brought the original legal challenge against the government, posted on social media that “Palestine Action was so effective in disrupting the Israeli weapons industry, that the state threw all its might at us.

“By doing so, they’ve exposed how they prioritise the Zionist regime over their own citizens. As long as we continue to resist, we’ve won.”

But momentarily setting aside the tenuous relation this statement has to reality, the co-founder of a terrorist group was not the only one to entertain such a sentiment. A sitting Labour MP asked: “Why is this government willing to expend so much political capital to ensure weapons companies can keep arming Israel?”

The answer, of course, is that the government did nothing of the sort. I have absolutely no doubt that if Palestine Action had continued to operate in the way it had done before last June, primarily targeting Israeli companies, with the occasional targeting of a charity or property in the Jewish community to add a bit of variety, they would still be very much in business. Up until that point, various organisations connected to the Jewish community had made it clear to the government that they thought Palestine Action should be proscribed, but neither the Conservatives or Labour had taken the decision to do so.

What triggered Palestine Action’s proscription is straightforward. In June 2025, members of the group filmed themselves infiltrated the UK’s largest RAF base and damaging two military aircraft. The group itself proudly took responsibility for this – and by doing so, effectively doomed themselves.

To put it as simply as possible for the benefit of some remarkably simple minds on the far left of politics, the British government cannot, under any circumstances, afford to be seen as weak on national security. And when a group proudly infiltrates a British military facility and broadcasts it to millions, then the government effectively has little option but to ban it, or else demonstrate its weakness for the entire world to see.

The group proudly took responsibility for infiltrating the UK’s largest RAF base and damaging two military aircraft – and by doing so, effectively doomed itself

In some ways I believe the RAF incident was inevitable. If a direct action group continues to carry out similar sorts of attacks, but with no significant results, their alternatives are either to up the ante or to see members siphoned off to join groups which are prepared to go even further. To stay relevant in the hysterical arena of pro-Palestinian activism in the UK, Palestine Action had to become more extreme or see itself slide into irrelevance.

But in other ways the latest descriptions of Palestine Action mask the real story, the ever-shifting attempts to market it in a way best designed to grab public sympathy. I don’t believe that a single one of the high profile individuals damning the proscription decision, for example, has referred to the RAF base infiltration in their screeds condemning the ruling. One possible reason is because that designating this as a simple civil liberties fight is far more likely to gain wider public sympathy.

Such efforts have been constant; a moving of the goalposts dependent not on what is actually true, but what works best to score pity points. People may have forgotten, for example, that there were an awful lot of attempted defences of Palestine Action last year prior to its proscription that described it as a “non-violent organisation”.

It is hard to understand how such descriptions had arisen – the group itself never explicitly described itself as non-violent – and the only feasible conclusion is that the people claiming this really wanted it to be true and therefore simply decided to act as if it was true – something of a leitmotif in 21st century activism. Since then, of course, many of Palestine Action’s most doughty defenders have moved on to arguing that that the member who fractured a policewoman’s spine didn’t intend to do it, and that it wasn’t a bad fracture, really.

This fight is unlikely to be over. No doubt Ms Ammori will now try and take this to the Supreme Court, and if that fails, to the European Court of Human Rights. In the meantime, other groups mimicking Palestine Action techniques have begun to spring up – for example, one calling itself “People Against Genocide”, which features the red triangle of Hamas – a group specifically dedicated to genocide – on its banner.

It remains to be seen whether they will be as stupid – and arrogant – as Palestine Action proved itself to be.