We are living through an age where genocide, oppression and the moral breakdown of humanity, is being revealed live on our television and mobile screens. Hostile actions that were once conducted in the shadows are no longer overt but openly covert. Targeted assassination of leaders, journalists, aid workers and doctors deemed to be in opposition, is bragged about and normalised. This moral breakdown is happening because the powers that be, consider themselves to be untouchable and beyond the Law.
That might be changing, as evidence of a grassroots pushback is emerging. The UK Government’s proscription of Palestine Action as a terrorist organisation has sparked widespread criticism, protests and defiant acts of moral courage, across the country. The ‘ordinary’ man in the street has shown him/herself to be neither ignorant, nor despite government intimidation, to be a pushover. People are intellectually capable of understanding the brevity of and urgency to address the moral decline amongst ‘global leadership’, that we are facing.
When activists smashed weapons, that would otherwise have been used to support the genocide in Gaza, they were arrested and held on remand for eighteen months. The incident took place at the Elbit Systems UK, manufacturing and research hub, in Filton. Elbit is a subsidiary weapons contractor to Elbit Systems Israel. After the arrests the government and state sanctioned media tried to paint the activists as violent terrorists. Had they limited their description and described the activists as having committed acts of criminal damage, they might have got away with it, but they didn’t. Pushed to serve Zionist interests they revealed, not only a moral bankruptcy, but an hysterical overreach, that has seriously undermined their credibility.
The irony is that in International Law, when governments and institutions are aware that a genocide, or even the likelihood of a genocide, is taking place, they are required by law, to do everything within their power to prevent such an act. In destroying weapons, and weapons parts, that would likely have been used in the genocide of innocent Gazan civilians, Palestine Action, were not only acting in accordance with law, but were then legitimately able to argue the legal defence, of trying to prevent a greater crime.
When the trial was held at Woolwich Crown Court, London, on 4th February the jury unprecedentedly, went against the advice of the judge and refused to convict the defendants. It was a moment of celebration for the defendants and for all their supporters outside and beyond the courthouse.
In a later trial where Huda Ammori challenged the government over the banning and proscription of Palestine Action as a terrorist organisation, the panel of three senior high court judges went against the government and proclaimed the ban to be unlawful. Although the government have said they will appeal the decision, support for Palestine Action remains solid. Almost 3,000 people were arrested, and, although proscription hasn’t been officially removed, if the government attempt to re-enforce the ban it’s likely that number will rise significantly.
Elbit Systems, along with other weapons manufacturers, are deeply invested in continuing the genocide in Gaza. Israel uses high tech weaponry and sophisticated AI to track and target journalists, aid workers and everyone else they consider to be even loosely connected to resistance. In reality this includes, babies, children and animals, because, it has been said openly on Israeli television channels, there are no innocents in Gaza.
This industry rakes in huge profits. For Israel, Gaza is a laboratory where, through the aid of surveillance cameras, they can exhibit the lethal effects of their weaponry on a human population. Israel claims it is defending itself. It claims, with the support of Christian Zionist that this is a religious war, because as ‘God’s Chosen People’, they have entitlement to all the land of Palestine. However this claim shrivels into insincerity when one realises how much money this industry makes.
The evidence clearly suggests that this war is not about defence, religion or prophecy, it’s about profit. The money that the military contractors make amounts to billions of dollars annually. This revenue goes beyond weapons sales and into high tech surveillance. Lavender and Gospel are sophisticated AI surveillance and tracking programmes that can be exported and sold around the world.
The West Bank serves as an experimental environment for tracking and control of mass populations. The demonstrated effectiveness, of such a mass control system, is directly applicable to homeland security in many countries, especially the US. One can only speculate that if all of historic Palestine were to be engulfed entirely within the Israeli State, with no opposition, then the weapons industry would likely migrate further. Lebanon and Syria. Iran, Yemen and Sudan are clearly within their sights. Lebanon has underwater gas reserves and with the direct assistance from the US, they are actively trying to disarm, Hezbollah, Lebanon’s only real defence from total occupation.
The military industrial complex, however goes far beyond the borders of Israel, US and UK. It emanates from a fascist predatory ideology that has no national boundaries. Its supporters allegiance is to money and power — not the protection of citizens within their proclaimed countries. These surveillance technologies, produced globally, threaten to rupture all of society. By breaking down moral boundaries where genocide becomes acceptable and sending out the message that, if you resist you will be tracked and punished the aim to silence and control people, is far reaching.
The claims of ‘a one world order’ where we will own nothing and be happy, no longer sounds like a conspiracy theory, but a conspiracy of fact. What we are witnessing is the breakdown of national states — the corruption of Western leadership and the breakdown of international law where the most serious crimes against humanity are normalised.
While ignorance once provided a shelter where we could claim — ‘we didn’t know’, the falling of the veil has stripped people of those illusions. History is repeating itself and this time the current holocaust in Gaza is being made visible on our screens in real time. It should be a warning to all of us. If we allow this to happen to one, it can happen to all.
Visibility and knowledge equate to responsibility. How we respond to these revelations comes down to the individual. However, for us in the UK, if the courage of the activists, the courage of the jury in the Filton trial, the courage of the judges in overturning the banning of Palestine Action, and the courage of the thousands, who risked their liberty by holding up signs stating their opposition of genocide and support of Palestine Action, is any indication of a grassroots resistance, then we should be encouraged.
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This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Heather Stroud.