Why we took action to highlight Britain’s complicity in Israel’s apartheid of Palestinians

On Fri­day 17^th Novem­ber, ahead of the nation­al day of action for Pales­tine, Cop­watch Net­work hacked over 100 ad spaces at bus stops and on tubes across Lon­don. Our ad hack par­o­died the Met police’s author­i­tar­i­an ​‘want­ed’ posters in which they post­ed pho­tos iden­ti­fy­ing pro-Pales­tine protesters.

In our adhack, we sought to instead high­light the insid­i­ous role of UK politi­cians, arms com­pa­ny CEOs and key main­stream media per­son­nel in fund­ing, prof­it­ing from and enabling Israel’s ongo­ing geno­cide of Pales­tini­ans in Gaza and across their occu­pied land. The British state has blood on its hands – it’s them who should be ​‘want­ed’, not us.

As part of the Cop­watch Net­work in the UK, we recog­nise our col­lec­tive respon­si­bil­i­ty to stand in full sol­i­dar­i­ty with the Pales­tin­ian strug­gle for lib­er­a­tion and to active­ly resist the British state’s long-stand­ing com­plic­i­ty in Israel’s set­tler-colo­nial régime. 

Our strug­gles against polic­ing, sur­veil­lance and mass incar­cer­a­tion in the UK are com­plete­ly bound up in the strug­gle against the sharpest edges of the prison and mil­i­tary indus­tri­al com­plex in Pales­tine. This is why it is vital that we con­tin­ue to ramp up the pres­sure, take direct action and mobilise our com­mu­ni­ties to fight for a free Pales­tine in our lifetimes.

Britain has played an instru­men­tal role in jus­ti­fy­ing Zion­ist ide­ol­o­gy and sub­se­quent­ly enabling Israel’s white suprema­cist, apartheid rule: from the Sykes-Picot agree­ment, in which colo­nial pow­ers includ­ing the UK and France secret­ly decid­ed to land-grab parts of Pales­tine after World War I; to the 1917 Bal­four Dec­la­ra­tion, where the British state promised Pales­tine to Zion­ists; to the British ​‘Man­date’ in Pales­tine which all ulti­mate­ly result­ed in the cre­ation of the state of Israel in 1948.

To this day, the British state con­tin­ues to prof­it — finan­cial­ly and polit­i­cal­ly — from Israel’s set­tler-colo­nial project. British cor­po­ra­tions have seen record prof­its in recent years, includ­ing through sell­ing arms to Israel, whilst two-fifths of Labour’s cur­rent shad­ow cab­i­net have received dona­tions since they became MPs from a pro-Israel lob­by group. 

The vile anti-Pales­tin­ian and Islam­o­pho­bic rhetoric from the UK’s polit­i­cal and media class­es have fur­ther served to man­u­fac­ture con­sent for this geno­cide, with head­lines across main­stream media dom­i­nat­ed by racist and pro-Zion­ist narratives.

This is why we have high­light­ed the inter­con­nect­ed roles of British politi­cians, arms com­pa­nies and the media; because ulti­mate­ly we know that togeth­er, they form part of a British rul­ing class which has a vest­ed polit­i­cal inter­est in oppres­sion in the UK and world­wide, includ­ing Israel’s vio­lent occu­pa­tion of Pales­tine — which it has sus­tained for the past sev­en­ty-five years.

Now, dur­ing this lat­est stage of Israel’s bom­bard­ment of Pales­tine which has killed at least 12,000 Pales­tini­ans and labelled a ​‘text­book case of geno­cide’ by experts in the field, Britain con­tin­ues pro­vid­ing uncon­di­tion­al sup­port. Just last week, Par­lia­ment vot­ed against a cease­fire, despite hun­dreds of thou­sands of peo­ple turn­ing up on the streets of the UK to demand one.

There could not be a big­ger dis­con­nect between polit­i­cal and cor­po­rate inter­ests and those of the pub­lic. In our mil­lions, peo­ple across the coun­try are call­ing for an imme­di­ate cease­fire, with a recent YouGov poll indi­cat­ing that 76% of adults in the UK sup­port this demand.

Through mass protests, sit-ins, pick­ets out­side arms fac­to­ries, local com­mu­ni­ty actions, and school strikes, thou­sands of us are also call­ing for an end to the occu­pa­tion and a lib­er­at­ed Pales­tine — with those across strug­gles unit­ed in our calls — from cli­mate jus­tice groups, to queer col­lec­tives, to trade unions. We know our move­ment for Pales­tin­ian sol­i­dar­i­ty is only grow­ing by the day. When Cop­watch took action last week, com­muters were over­whelm­ing­ly sup­port­ive — cheer­ing us on and even ask­ing to help.

The British state is afraid of our col­lec­tive pow­er, which is why it has aggres­sive­ly tried to sup­press this wide­spread dis­sent, using every tool at its dis­pos­al — even hyp­o­crit­i­cal­ly com­plain­ing about being named and shamed for last week’s vote. One tool has been the vio­lent polic­ing of Free Pales­tine protests, which has includ­ed mass arrests, oppres­sive protest restric­tions, the racist brand­ing of these protests as ​‘hate march­es’, and pro­test­ers being charged with ​‘racial­ly aggra­vat­ed offences’, and even hit with ​‘ter­ror­ism’ charges.

In Lon­don, the Met police has start­ed to dig­i­tal­ly sur­veil and tar­get pro­test­ers online, by post­ing pic­tures of people’s faces on social media and ask­ing the pub­lic to help find them. But we know the police are the real per­pe­tra­tors of vio­lence, danc­ing to the tune of the British state and assist­ing the repres­sion of Pales­tin­ian sol­i­dar­i­ty from peo­ple across the country.

Cop­watch Net­work stands against all forms of racism, includ­ing anti­semitism, Islam­o­pho­bia, and anti-Black­ness, and will chal­lenge it wher­ev­er it aris­es in our move­ments. But we will not stand by whilst the British state weaponis­es anti­semitism to try and sup­press our col­lec­tive move­ment for Pales­tin­ian lib­er­a­tion; a move­ment led by work­ing class Pales­tin­ian, Arab, Mus­lim, Black and Jew­ish com­mu­ni­ties, and sup­port­ed by those who share in our struggle.

We hope our action encour­ages more peo­ple to learn about the his­to­ry of vio­lent occu­pa­tion in Pales­tine, the impe­ri­al­ist aims of the set­tler-colo­nial state of Israel and its West­ern sup­port­ers, and the British state’s long-stand­ing com­plic­i­ty in enabling these injustices.

Now we must all stand in full sol­i­dar­i­ty with the peo­ple of Pales­tine and take action to ampli­fy their calls: to stop arm­ing Israel, for an imme­di­ate cease­fire, and for an end to the occu­pa­tion. Only with an end to Israel’s set­tler-colo­nial, apartheid rule, the return of Pales­tin­ian land and the right of dis­placed Pales­tini­ans to return, can there be true jus­tice and peace.

In the same way that sys­tems of oppres­sion are all con­nect­ed, from polic­ing, pris­ons, bor­ders to the Mil­i­tary Indus­tri­al Com­plex, so too are our strug­gles for lib­er­a­tion. In the words of Angela Davis: ​“If we say we abol­ish the prison-indus­tri­al com­plex… we should also say abol­ish apartheid, and end the occu­pa­tion of Pales­tine!” Because none of us are free, until we are all free.

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