Hello Gorilla History listeners, this is Henry, and today for you we have a special bonus episode of sorts.
For those of you who have been listening to the very very bitter end of recent Gorilla History episodes,
you will have noticed that we have been mentioning that Gorilla History has recently launched a spin-off show titled Gorilla Radio,
which is hosted by a series of hosts on a rotating basis.
A very interesting show, we already have released several episodes of it on the Gorilla Radio,
podcast feeds, wherever you get your podcasts.
Today we wanted to bring to you the latest Gorilla Radio episode for two reasons,
one of which is to encourage you to subscribe to Gorilla Radio, wherever you get your podcasts,
and we will of course also put a link to the show in the show description of this episode.
And also because we want you to listen to this episode of Gorilla Radio,
which is really a fantastic episode, it's hosted by two of our co-hosting collective titled The Partisan Brigade, James and Sheda.
They talk with the founders of Palestine Action, which is a group that takes direct action against Albert Systems in the UK.
Albert Systems is a weapons manufacturer, and I call them a death profiteer that makes their profit on the death of Palestinian children
by selling their weaponry to the Israeli Zionist regime.
So we wanted to bring to you this episode, this conversation with the founders of Palestine Action,
because I think that you will find all of the content of the episode fascinating, but also to let you know
that you should be subscribing to Gorilla Radio, where you'll be hearing episodes like this,
an episode that James and I recently co-hosted with several of the strike organizers of the Temple Graduate Student Association.
They're on strike right now, we've talked to them, an introductory episode.
We have much more coming out, including planned episodes upcoming, talking about Kanaka, Maoli, Native Hawaiian, Marxism, and much more.
There's more that's planned, and it will be coming out very frequently.
So this is your call to subscribe to Gorilla Radio, that's G-U-E-R-R-I-L-L-A radio, wherever you get your podcasts, and enjoy.
You can also keep up with the latest releases of Gorilla Radio by following Gorilla History on Twitter.
We announce when those episodes go out as well.
You can do that at Gorilla_Pod G-U-E-R-R-I-L-L-A_Pod.
And now without further ado, listen to this episode of Gorilla Radio hosted again by James and Shedda with the two founders of Palestine Action.
Hello everyone, you're listening to Gorilla Radio, a companion to the Gorilla History podcast.
I'm one of your co-hosts today. My name is Shedda, and I'm joined with James, a member of Gorilla's History Preserver Grid as well.
We don't have Henry here with us today, but I want to shout him out really quickly, because he is going to be spending all the time editing this.
So today, I am so excited to have Palestine Action join us. They're an organization that physically and materially disrupts the supply chain of one of Israel's largest arms, drones, and security manufacturers that facilitates the brutal Zionist colonization of Palestine and the ongoing genocide and repression of the Palestinian people.
Alba's system also tests its weapons on Palestinians, a captive colonial body, before it exports its violence to other repressive regimes globally, a phenomenon that Jeff Halper refers to as the export matrix of control.
So today we have Huda Amori in Richard Bernard, the founders of Palestine Action, so if you guys could introduce yourselves for us.
Yeah, thank you for introduction. So I'm Huda and I'm a co-founder of Palestine Action. I'm also Palestinian and Iraqi.
And before Palestine Action was campaigning to end the complicity between Britain and the colonization of Palestine through a number of different methods before taking down its action.
And yeah, I'm Richard and I'm a co-founder of Palestine Action. I've been involved in many previous movements using direct action.
Both against Israeli arms companies, the war machine generally and environmental causes. Okay, great. So to start off for people who haven't come across who you guys before, what is Palestine Action?
So in short, where a direct action network and we take direct action is our only tactic really that we use in order to target the war machine, Israel's largest arms company in Britain.
Our overall goal is to end all complicity with the colonization of Palestine, but our key campaign is to shut Albert down, which we do using direct action. And so we launched in the summer of 2020, so about two and a half years ago now.
And it was really in a reaction to understanding that the political establishment and all the other methods of appealing to the powers that be to the British government, to other institutions to create those changes were working.
And even when there were some successes in nowhere near match the success that we needed in order to cut off those ties from the source. So we were fed up of this and and we decided to take direct action.
And we launched by storming the London headquarters of Albert systems and we went in there is some spray paint cans and a videographer and then we just kept going back to the same site. And then went on to occupy arms factories and build a movement, which now involves hundreds of people who have taken direct action against Albert systems in Britain.
I think I just add to that, I think that key phrase that we said is we're a network or movement. Yeah, we're not replicating some of the met or we want to say mistakes of the past. And we're like literally groups of people. Yeah, I'm a counselor, stay kid. I think in America, you call it someone from the projects.
And we keep things simple, right. So the key to our like strategy and they says is about engaging local normal people right there. We don't make this an intellectual exercise.
We make it talking about going straight to the source. And the reason I got involved for is this was I live near one of these factories is as simple as that and people.
They don't want to live next to them. And once you explain a little bit about what these what these factories do. How they uphold design instances regime.
They're only there to kill Palestinians and and as you would have seen in lots of our actions and the hood of touch on them using this blood red paint as a kind of symbol of the slaughter and their profits are all about the blood of the Palestinians.
For us, that symbolism and that action, that key thing is about acting first. And this speaks to normal people like you and me who don't need masses of knowledge on this on this stuff.
Political education might come afterwards, but it's action first. And I think that has been the key for us growing the movement and also gains successes.
No, that's amazing. I mean, you and you would both talked about a previous experience in other organizations, other organizing strategies, etc. What kind of brought you all together and really brought Palestine action into.
I guess action in a way like what what what kind of that you hear.
So for me, I had been involved in student campaigns, getting building a campaign for my own university to divest from companies like caterpillar who supply the Israeli military with the bulldozers used to demolish Palestinian homes.
And I was working with other shenan groups to try and do a similar similar stuff, basically. And in a small scale, you could just see how the most basic requests, right, which even you know the institution's own policies were in favor of one paper, which since there was a constant obstacle because you were talking about Palestine.
And it was and do you just realize that constantly you're just knocking against a brick wall. And we did get some successes, you know, but it took years to get that.
And that was for one university out of 150 that invest in in these companies. And then after for me, I went to work and an NGO.
And calls at which was focused on Palestine. And then I was I was kind of running campaigns national campaigns and boycotts, boycott campaigns, banks, pension funds, institutions, etc.
And I was working alongside other people and there was such a heavy focus on I would say in general in these organizations on lobbying efforts on using the same tactics again and again and again, even when you've seen that it has failed.
And you know in Britain, for example, there was a moment in time when there was Jeremy Corbyn, the need of the Labour Party and everyone felt like, oh, this was a problem.
moment that we could actually make some change for Palestine. And obviously that doesn't work.
Lots of very clear now. But also, but then the tactics never changed, right? So it still
became, we're still going to appeal to work here. Starma, that's never going to work. He's a proud
Zionist, right? So it's like, there's, there's all of this funds coming in. But the output, if there's
no real actual oversight, and maybe there's a lot of willingness to say, what are we doing here?
How are we actually going to achieve what we want and how are we going to win? And, you know,
for me, I just got a Fed up of doing things, which weren't, which I didn't believe had the right
effect that was needed. And especially when you realize, you know, for me, I'm Palestinian and
Iraqi. And when you realize how much privilege you have and your role in this, in the global
struggle, which is, you know, I've got a British passport, right? And these companies are operating
on my doorstep here in Britain. They'd never build weapons in front of Palestinians in Gaza.
They would never be able to. So then you start to realize, well, I think I can do so much more.
And when we, as, and, you know, I can have written to explain about his journey into it, but when
we started Palestine action, not only did I feel like it was the most effective thing I'd ever done,
but it was probably the most liberating thing I'd ever done, because no longer was I confined to,
oh, this is how you have to do things, you have to just keep appealing to the same impressors
again. And again, I actually know was we're taking power back into your own hands,
climbing onto an arms factory, smashing their windows, stopping them from operating and going,
wow, that was probably the most effective, you know, three days of my life stood on top of that
arms factory, you know, rather than riding a boat to letters to the same, the same institutions
and the same MPs who send the same response back, no matter what happens.
Yeah, but he's been from my own perspective. I never really wanted to write letters because
I can't spell. So no one would understand them in any case. Um, but joking aside, also I'm,
I'm pre impatient and, um, and I don't want to wait to go through these processes and when I hear
stories, um, from people directly, um, from Palestine and from other parts of the world, I don't
think, um, for me, I can't see a random way or go through some kind of process that requires years
or, you know, highly educated people to talk to people who are then just going to ignore you, um,
they are, you know, example from where I was going up, people would always say, oh, you speak
to the character if you want this thing tied up and I was always of the opinion that screwed out,
if I'm going to do that, I'm just going to go and get a bunch of mates and go and do it and that
was kind of like my principle generally, right? Um, it wasn't, it's just not my kind of like way
of doing that. And that, I think that in patients and I suppose, for me, it probably came to a head,
um, um, with the Iraq war. Um, so I went with the a million people
through London on the march against the Iraq war. And when Hooder talks to me about her family
and how they lost contact with them for a long period of time during the Iraq war, I'm like, is
that all I did was go on a march where they told me to go and there was a million people there
and you're never going to get more than a million people on the street. So why would I do that?
To me, that seemed like futile and, and it's often repeated. Could I have done something else?
And then I suppose I got involved in various things. I, you know, one example would be I broke into
a, um, a, a, a, a American military base in Germany where they store illegally stored nuclear
weapons. And, and I went there and I'm, and we did a bit of spray pay in and this and we got
nicked and all that. But you know what? It was a sense of going that was still slightly
performative, right? Yeah. It was all very like peaceful and nice and we went in there and drew on
it. And we got arrested. We got through it in jail and German jail was a really efficient,
right? And, and, and really nice compared to English ones. Um, and you're out quite quickly
and all that sort of stuff. But to me, there was also a sense of what's that about? So coming back
and then doing an action at L bit, um, um, in England, and this was prior to Palestine action.
And we went in, so we managed to trick our way past the curie, occupied the site for a day.
And at the end of the day, the cops went to us, you can just go home and we'd like spray pay in
in front of the cops that we were like, really confused. And this got me thinking a bit at
still about that and go in. Why is that, right? The NMI have been some sort of secret stuff in
the background. We don't want to prosecute them. But actually for me, it was like, we're not doing
enough, right? Yeah. Okay. This is still great. I went home feeling great. I didn't even get
nicked and managed to do this. It felt good about myself. But actually I needed to check in with
myself. Well, is that feeling good about myself in that way? Yeah. So as a, you know, white person,
I could go home at the end of the toilet day and the police didn't treat me badly. Yeah.
If I would have been a person of color, would they have done the same thing? Um, and therefore,
for me, it was like, then when a few of us met mehoda, it was like, no, this needs to have a more
often, right? This happened needs to happen week in week L. And this fits into like, that we don't
have fear is right, because we're an action group, right? But looking at like direct action
movements from the past and things that have succeeded in or there was like, that was a key one for me,
right? You need to be sustained action. It needs to happen week in week out. And we need to get more
than just 10 anarchist Marxists in and somewhere else that no one knows. We need to get loads of
people, right? We need to get the people out in Lester. We need to get the people out in old and
we need to get the cash mirrors out. We need to get everybody out. Um, and therefore providing
opportunities for that and making it happen more often. So those sustained actions were key for
me to understand that needs to happen more. It needed to be continually disruptive. So I'd
done other actions that, you know, the, the, the arms, the, the air force based ones, an example,
it probably disrupted them for about half an hour, right? That's not enough, right? It needs to
disrupt them constantly. So we needed to do disruptive actions, which could have been blockades,
could have been climbing on roofs, have been smashing everything up as Huda's described. And then
the third one I thought, which was, which is an interesting one, um, was about like having a
some kind of sacrificial element to it, yeah? Now, like Western secular liberal culture doesn't
like this idea of sacrifice. So yeah, but most religious traditions have this idea of sacrificial
actions being really important. Um, and we obviously, population, we much prefer it if we didn't get
nicked yet. But again, Huda's described it. If you're on the top of a roof for three and a half
days, and there's a hundred police officers surrounding you, and they said anyone can buy us a
helicopter, we didn't gain away, right? Um, and, and the part of that is at, there's actually a beauty
in that, yeah? And we have actions where people get away and people don't, but being arrested,
carried off a roof, stretch it off in front of a watching crowd actually makes people question
why you're doing it in a good way. They go, why the fuck are those people doing that for people
that don't even know? Yeah? Um, and it actually makes people think, yeah, I might be able to do that.
It's a kind of counter-intuitive thing. Um, boy, I'm now free. What's for?
Deliver. Deliver. You gotta create a dilemma. So when we, when we have that one, like when I was
talking about in Ken, we weren't in, once every 12 months or once every six months and felt good
about ourselves, weren't we gray activists, yeah? We didn't actually create any dilemma for the company
because they probably just went, oh, you look, coming to work a bit earlier tomorrow. And let's
make weapons more quickly. And the British state, will I, these activists are just crazy, whatever,
we'll leave them alone, we'll ignore them, right? You've got to create a dilemma for the company
and the state. And we've seen that play out, yeah? In the, obviously, a great dilemma so much,
there's so much economic sabotage that they've got to do one and leave their factory and sell it
as ideal. And then recently we found we created such a dilemma between the state, British state
and this company that they cut 280 million pound contract because of security breaches because
people were breaking in so often. So, so this dilemma element is really key. And then there's
out of the fifth one, is it be focused with your target, yeah? So, we want to go after every
company in Britain, you know, in any way deals with the Zionist entities, you know, operations.
But, but that, but you know, to win, you must go after one at a time or two at a time,
go after them hard and the ones that uphold them. So, they're landlords, they're managing agents,
their suppliers, their people who drive their lorries, not the people that the companies that drive
their lorries. And, and that's how you do it, you go focused. And for us, going after Elbit First
was the easiest, right? Alazette, I'm a simple kid, I ain't got no university education, I don't
even finish school, right? But saying this is, this is the worst company, right? Even HSBC Bank,
who are not knowing for being particularly ethical, well, we invest in them, they are literally
market their weapons as bowel tested on palleted Palestinians yet. I've said that a million times,
it still freaks the fuck out of me by hearing it, yeah? And then they can be that brazen about
what they're doing. Explaining that, explaining that they're then used on an occupied colonized
people that all of us understand is really easy, just makes it damn easy to bring loads of other
people into your movement, yeah? No more people from the streets, yeah? People from other movements,
whether they be environmental movements, you know, other causes, it makes you really simple. So,
that single focus target not only puts pressure on them, but helps you bring more people in.
I've rammed away off the question and I, no, I love it, ramble away, honestly.
No, because I have so many questions and like my brain, I'm asking it and you guys are
answering it while you're saying it, so it's perfect.
Okay, so I think you mentioned five things. I have sustained action, a sacrificial element,
dilemma, and focused. Is there a fifth one that I'm missing? Disruptive. Disruptive.
So that kind of brings me up into my next question, which is,
you guys have given kind of an overview of what it actually is and what you're doing,
but how does what Palestine action does? How does direct action differ from the other work
in the policy it's all dirty scene? And why is it so important?
Yes, I think in general, let's take the reactive element first, because I think there was a lot
of this in the Palestinian movement, which isn't necessarily always a bad thing, but it's not,
you need to be proactive to win, right? And for example, we saw in 2021 when when Palestinians
in Jerusalem were being evicted from their homes and Palestinians and Gaza were being bombed,
there was hundreds of thousands of people went out of the street to London,
and we seen this in 2014. We saw this in 2009, and it seems like everything just used to be on
repeat, and it does this constant way that we react globally to whatever is happening in Palestine,
and it's like a cycle that keeps happening. So take you 2021, for example,
hundreds of thousands of people come out on the streets, hundreds of thousands of people
sign their petition calling on the government to end to sanction Israel, the government debates
about it, they decide not to do anything at all on it, then things will die down eventually,
and it just keeps happening in that same, in that same way. And for us in 2021, we were
we existed at that point, and we had four activists go onto the roof of Elvis Factory in Leicester,
and at that time, just four people scaled onto that roof, and hundreds, if not thousands,
came out from the local community, the fire service came out, refused to take off the protesters
from that roof in solidarity with Palestine, even though the police were asking them to,
then the community stayed out there for six days straight, and the second they got wins that people
were going to start getting arrested from the roof of that factory, they had chained the gate
shorts, and this is like families from the local community, blocked the police, put their, you know,
really fancy cars, some of them had right in front of the cops, and they stopped the cops for like
several hours from arresting these people, and I think in that moment it was like everyone had
taken dire attraction at that point to keep that factory shut, so we had a material impact
on that site, and stopped them from being able to build Webquins, or which we know at that time they had,
I think about five million pounds worth of equipment that they were wanted to export to Israel,
so that was significantly disrupted and delayed, but in general, when you construct that with pay,
have the reactive element, and then sometimes these protests that they have, these big protests
in reactions to things, they have it in places like Hyde Park, right, and it's like you've got
all of these people in a park that are shouting at the trees to free Palestine, right, and this is
literally what is happening, and we know that this government and most governments, right,
arresting governments especially are so complicit when it comes to the colonization of Palestine,
they are the ones to uphold in the first place, and then we're constantly appealing to them
in ways that are not in any way inconvenient to those powers, to stop being the oppressors,
and that's not going to, it's just not going to work, right, there might have been a point 10,
20 years ago where we truly believed, okay, if we get the facts right, and we persuade all these
people, then they've got to change, right, because it's just so basically wrong, and you know,
sooner or later they'll realize that and change, that never works, it's never going to work, the only way
we can actually change the situation is by taking the power back to the streets, back into people's
own hands, and by bypassing those power structures completely, and for us by bypassing those power
structures by going straight to these factories, occupying them, block idling them, dismantling them,
and not seeking permission from the authorities, from the state to do so, and rather than appeal to
them to put place in arms embargo, we're just going to go directly and stop the weapons from
being able to be built in the first place, and that's a module that if everyone did it,
they just have no chance, right, they wouldn't be able to build these arms in these countries,
and I think when you look at the reasons why they do it as well, it shows that we actually have a
unique opportunity, as well as a duty to do these type of work, right, because they are able to
host their factories in countries like the US, Britain, Europe, because this country, these countries
have such a long-standing alliance with design and ascension, right, whereas when, and we know that
the powers that be, they establish me on the ones that uphold that, but when the people of those
countries say no, and they manage to get rid of it themselves, without appealing to those powers,
then it's a massive political embarrassment, so for the Israeli state, when they find out that
actually we can't even have an arms factory in the country that we deem one of our strongest
strategic allies because the people won't have it, and I think that's something that if replicated
everywhere, they'd be done for, yeah, they cannot operate in isolation, and that is where our role
kicks in, and I think what we do as well is expose the facts that these factories operate here in
the first place, and just how linked we are to the impression of Palestine, and also how much
possibility there is to assist in their struggle from abroad, in ways that you can't do elsewhere.
Yeah, I think I sometimes wonder what would happen, what would have happened in the world if no one
would have invented lobbying and protest, and what might have happened instead, and I sometimes
wonder who invented them, and for me, that phrase by David Graber protest is like begging the powers
that be to dig a well, direct action, is digging the well yourself and daring and to stop you,
is like a key, a key, if I'd probably just become a David Graber Quailer in a minute, because
the other one that he talks about, there's rather than I think very rather than sort of Palestinian
cause, is the red action is acting as though with the defining insistence as though you're already free,
and for me, that idea, which I did, right? Yeah, I've shamed free Palestine now, so I'd
use Radio Embassy, yeah? Well, that's going to do it in it, because the Israeli Embassy is suddenly
going to go, yeah, we'll give up this, and so you know, it's not a route to success, yeah? However,
emotionally, it's a kind of natural reaction, and I would never diss anyone for doing it, right?
Because that's what you do, and in some senses, some of those things can become displacement
activities, I'm someone I'll come up with who said that, yeah? Now, you do these things, and you,
you know, like I said before, you go away and you feel good about yourself, and you have done
something, and there's, you know, there's not wrong with people to do that or feel that,
but providing something else that goes, you can make a material difference, yeah? And that material
difference is the key one, right? Yeah, if you do, you know, if you sat outside the factory,
through the thing where you might sit outside the Israeli Embassy, and you stopped them for half
an hour, right? You would still stop them for half an hour doing something, and I think that's
the kind of like big difference, and I also want to say it's kind of, in some ways, it's more
empowering for normal people as well, to just say, you know, they can take part, they can do this,
we work on this principle of the Alliance of the Winning, so there's five mates who want to go and
do something, and action, they crack on and do it, they don't have to wait for someone to arrange
a large protest in a big city, or to fill in a thing, they can just crack on and get on with it,
and also I think it speaks to the time of time we're at, across many different movements that people
are seeing through these parishes, I was seeing through how states and bad faith actors act,
to sort of dampen down and have controlled dissenting, and people seeing that this is bullshit,
and going, no, I want to do this myself, and obviously there's variations with that within that,
in terms of people's, what they can do, whether that be from their status in that country,
whether that's possible or not, etc, so there's nuances within it, but I think it's that,
is that just kind of through the bullshit going straight to it, and saying that we do have
an element of power, if we're prepared to do those risks, and then sacrifice something ourselves,
that we can make those material changes ourselves, and we don't need to ask anyone else's
permission, in fact, asking people's permission is a bad thing, because they ain't going to give it.
Yeah, and I think as well, just going back to the NGO's thing, that's a big issue of it,
because when you're in a very futile way, which people know is futile, we had an MP here,
say, as well as fascists in Parliament,
and within a few hours they had to make an apology for saying that Israel is fascist.
And if that's the most basic thing you can say, right, like it's the most. and if you can't
even say that, then how are we tricking ourselves into believing that that view is going to work
to add to the imposed sanctions on Israel, right, which is what it leads it. And if you can't even
talk about it, how the hell are we going to get sanctions through that process? And I think
the NGOs want to so badly be respected by the political establishment, that they cater how
they words things, everything they do towards that, which just means you're always going to lose.
If you're constantly reacting to the parameters your oppressors stay, then you're bending for them,
not the other way around. And that's just that's just a losing formula. And I think when you add
into that a whole load of people internationally and internationally in Britain who really care
about Palestinian liberation don't know what to do. And they're being led down these paths where
where it's known that it's it's going to be futile and it's going to be ineffective and they're
going to give their £10 a month or however much it is towards these efforts. Then there is a point
where you have to start questioning, you know, a whole load of people being misled by by these
organizations. And for us, we just were just very straight open and honest. We're going straight
to the source. We're going to make a material difference. We're not going to appeal to anyone else.
And I think that when we launched a lot of people were skeptical about people going around
smashing up as early arms factories, right. But now, but actually most people were refreshed and
excited and joined in and were like, yes, this is what I want to do. And I think because it is
empowering rather than just being constantly knocked back or told you can't do this and you can't
do that because it's going to make us look a bit too, you know, too impactful. Yeah. We'll start
a phrase as well as a phrase in there that says the definition of an insanity is doing the same
thing over and over again and expecting different results. Yeah. And so when people would call us
crazy for what we do, I'm like, no, the crazy ones are the ones keeping doing those things that
don't work. Try something else. If what we did stop working, then we'd have to do something else.
Yeah. It could be fluid on those things and accept that none of us really know the exact answer
to these things and you have to try new things. No, absolutely. And I love how it did something that
like directly involves the local community. And you don't from what I'm grasping have to have a
specific political orientation. You don't have to have some like specific theoretical, you know,
framework. It is just local people getting involved in through praxis and through the mature
action is how they're able to get politically engaged. And it's not one or the other. It's kind
of both. So I wanted. I think essentially key is that not to put like political parameters on it.
Yeah. I'm saying you've got to be this or that because you is screwed a bunch of people, right?
And there's people who've taken action with management who have different wider political,
they need to be right on Palestine polls. Yeah. But they have wider political things. You know,
we have everything from, you know, conservative Muslims to anarchists to Marxists and various
others. Yeah. So I think that's really key when you're coming together for a single cause,
you need to spread the base on that and not stop people coming in. You know, and then some of that
can go from there. Sorry. So then that kind of takes me into my next question is obviously we know
that Israel exporting these weapons, these security systems don't only target Palestine. It
is tested on Palestinians and advertise that way. But this goes to, you know, surveilling immigrants
on using these weapons in places like Kashmir. So how do you guys see yourselves within a broader
international struggle? Yeah. It's very good point. So for us, Albert actually embodies that answer
very well because Albert, as you said, uses the colonization occupation of Palestine as a way
of developing their weapons and marketing them as tested, which means that Albert,
Albert Hold Business model is basically built on the destruction of Palestine. Then they expand it
to countries like Britain and elsewhere and also sell them onto other oppressive regimes
to be used against other oppressed people across the world and taking Britain first of all
on what they do here. So the fact that they have these weapons which are tested on Palestinians
means that they want to expand their work basically by being able to sell onto the British
Ministry of Defence here by saying, hey, look how both these weapons work in Gaza, do you want to
buy the same thing? And for us, that way of selling on the weapons is just as deadly and has to be
stopped, should as much as the way of it being built here and exported back to Israel, which is also
happening. So it's a two way thing because by buying those weapons, you're encouraging the
continuation of the occupation and colonization of Palestine. And if you spend 100 million pounds
on something which is just in May 2021, for example, the drone swarms been used in Gaza,
then that's going to say it's going to signal to Albert going right next time we've got a useful
analysis in Gaza and then we're going to get the same contract with the Ministry of Defence here.
But also they are, you know, as you said, using it, so the watchkeeper drone is a drone which is
built out and based on the drones that are used in Gaza. And also now in Nablus we saw it was used
as well, the Hermesport 50 and also those drones are used to, basically, to surveil the channel
and stop migrants from seeking refuge in this country. They also do very similar things in America.
So the US, Mexico wall has is built partly by Albert systems. Again, the same technology that they
used in the wall in the wall in Palestine. And also just on that point, just in in every Palestinian
knows this and I think they called it an Israeli TV channel called Israel's worst kept secret that
all of these drones, most the majority of them have been armed. So we, you know, they are used
constantly to surveil Palestinians and, you know, that's constantly enchanting, for example, in
Gaza, the occupation of Gaza and you have to see the same drone which has been used to kill your
family or kill your neighbor, destroy your community is constantly hovering above your head.
Every, every moment of every day surveilling and watching you and it's it's mental torment as
which is a physical torment for the people of Palestine that these weapons are used. But the
fact that Albert uses Palestine as a starting point and then can sell it on to be used in the
occupation of Kashmir to be used in Afghanistan and Iraq just shows as well how central Palestine is
to the global struggle against imperialism. And I think the very way Albert's business model
operates shows that very well. I mean, when we see India, for example, they buy 50% of
of the arms exports from Israel and we know that they are using them against the occupied people
of Kashmir. All of them, the occupied people of Kashmir were very strong solidarity with the
Palestinian people and their oppressors are linked not just by, you know, their training
methods and everything else that they share but also literally by the arms and the same weapons
that were developed on Palestinians are used against the Kashmir people. And we see this
happening in so many different settings across the world where Israel is
exporting these techniques of surveillance and massaging the Palestinians to other places
across the world. And I know the example, which is slightly different but we know that they're
their cameras that they're using Glasgow. They have these Scotland people's enemy Glasgowers in
America. So the surveillance cameras that they use are used by the unit 8200 and they are basically
they watch for any movement. They can basically read your mind by your facial, you know, by how you
act, etc. And the Israeli military were using this to blackmail Palestinians and then we saw the
Glasgow City Council get a contract for these same drones or even in a western point of view.
The surveillance tactics that, you know, written when the most surveilled country I think in
the rest anyway at least and have come and been developed in Palestine first. So not only should
people be doing this because there's just a neutral, this is a moral obligation of our time.
And if you continue to allow this to happen to Palestine then those same methods and tactics
are going to be used against and have been used against oppressed people across the world
and are and are aiding in in the oppression of people across the world as I said but also here
you know, we're not going to be real.
are massively privileged in Western countries compared to in Palestine and elsewhere, but
for example, our police force now wants to is trining out Albert's drones to surveil
people across Britain. So that surveillance is only going to get more intense and, you
know, worse. And we started this all off in the first place, right? Britain with the
Balfour Declaration with issuing the statement and signing over the land of Palestine to the
Zionist militia, training the Zionist militia for the Nacaba. And, you know, my own great
granddad was killed by a British soldier in the 1920s. And to this day, we're seeing that
it's not changed. We're still colonizing Palestine, we're just doing it through the military
industrial complex. And that has to, then we have the power to stop that. And the only power
we have to stop that is I truly believe through direct action. Appealing to some government
has been doing this for 100 years isn't going to work, you know, that direct action does work.
And we've proven that at work. So we've shut down our own facts, we're in order, we shut
them down in London. And recently they lost 280 million powers were for contrast with the
Ministry of Defence. And if this is advocated across the world, they've got no chance, you know,
and I think that's what's so exciting about our traction as well. Obviously it comes with its
consequences. But when you compare those consequences to the consequences of not doing it,
then I think it makes that a very easy choice to take. Cool. I'm very sure, but to add, just in
terms of the question. So for me, the kind of funny quote about world imperialism as late
as head over, et cetera, et cetera. But whenever you strike it and wherever you strike it,
you make a cause for the world revolution. So for me, that's what we do. We strike it here where
we are and we'll continue to strike it. No, absolutely. And it is a brief aside to give context
for like an American audience as well. Like the US and its arms industry are obviously equally
as complicit as something like LBIT. But something notable, I think that a lot of people don't
understand in the US is that kind of connection in that overwhelming map of oppression that exists
as a result of Israeli occupational actions. In the US context, you have the deadly exchange where
law enforcement agencies all across the country, in every major city essentially, are training
actively with Israeli occupational forces. They're going to Israel that the NYPD has an office
in Tel Aviv. Right? They're traveling over to Occupied Palestine, receiving training that
is honed in from decades of oppression against people in the West Bank and East Jerusalem and Gaza
and the 48 territories. And taking that back and saying, how can we apply this in Atlanta?
How can we apply this in New York? How can we apply this in Chicago LA? And the direct action that
you all do, the direct action that you've noted is something that you can expand is so unbelievably
critical because you're taking in the fight to the very actors who are directly materially benefiting
from the occupation itself. And I think there's something so beautiful in that and also simultaneously
so genuinely effective that you just don't get in like an electoral framework. You don't get in
some of these like kind of liberal NGO, like human rights oriented, it oriented frameworks, right?
And you know, in the US context, I think a lot of a lot of the left in the US when it comes to
Palestine doesn't I think entirely always understand the interconnected nature of Palestine is an
occupational struggle, right? It goes beyond even a decolonial struggle in and of itself. It's a
global anti-imperialist like foothold. If you don't uproot, it's hard to combat imperialism on
a global scale without targeting. And I think it's just an interesting thing. Sorry, I think a brief
aside, but something that I wanted to ask you all is when you, you know, you would say that there
are a lot of a lot of companies. I mean, we know it's like you're just looking at like a BDS list.
There's so many companies that exist in materially benefit from the design and stack patient.
What made you all say, okay, when we're looking at this list of hundreds of companies,
LBIT is the one because it's a good, it's a great target. It's like the best target to be totally
honest, but what is it that made you all go? Yeah, that's the one we want to spend the next like
two years sitting on top of the roof up. I think it's kind of cheeriness.
Yeah, I wish I was on the roof two years. Thank you, Richard. How have you been?
I'll do it to stop out a bit. Yeah, so actually, I think for Alban, like you said, it was really
the one for us. I think for a number of reasons, and when you look at other companies, for example,
not other arms companies, but just other companies in general, right? And they're still legal
in their own ways and you can't deny that. But for something like let's take JCB as an example,
terrible company, right? They build bulldozers and part of what they do is assisting the
occupation and the destruction of Palestinian homes, right? But it's what necessarily their
whole business model. But with Alban, it's literally everything they embody the whole essence
of what the Zionist regime is doing to Palestinians. They are like the privatisation of that whole
regime in a company. And so and and and actually it made it a very easy choice in that sense.
And also, Alban has such a huge presence in Britain. So they had only started off. They had ten
sites. Now they have eight. We're hoping to get that down very soon. But that meant that it was
actually something which we felt like it was an inherent problem in our society. And that's
something that has had to go, right? It was like we can't. It literally is the worst of the worst
to be perfectly honest in terms of what they do. And also is something that will by stopping it,
you have the most direct impact on the on the colonisation of Palestine. And so by targeting them,
you're literally directly disrupting the profits that they make from developing on Palestinians.
The weapons that they're going to make to use against Palestinians and other people across the
world. So it meant that every time we hit them, we had an impact. And that every action was a
big treat in and of itself. If you could stop it for a minute, you stop it for a day, you stop it for
a week. That that's massively impactful and guesses towards our goal. And also because of how
they're set up. It means that most arms factories, in fact, the vast majority of them won't build
a whole weapon in one facility. They'll build parts of each weapon in different facilities
and assemble it somewhere and pull it all together. So every time you knock out one part of that
supply chain, it disrupts that whole supply chain. And in Britain, you can see how these companies
work together. So if they can't get the engines from the factory in Shenstone to building the factory
in Leicester for ages, then that factory in Leicester is going to have a knock on effect, which means
its customer in Israel is going to have a knock on effect. And they're all going to get pissed off
basically every time as an action at any of these Albert sites. So it meant that you could have the
most material impact. And but I think when we started, it was just like, it was going to be
hell, but you know what I mean? And I think then it then talking through it, you understood the
reasons why, but it was, this isn't Israeli arms manufacturer. And I think just the very
essence that people were like, oh, this actually happens in Britain, you know, when you started
the actions, so like through the actions, you know, not only are we disrupting and damaging
their sides, but we're exposing the fact that this exists in the first place. And also every time
they arrest us or they raiders or they do something which is quite repressive in the state towards,
you know, people taking this type of action, then we expose the refer, the how complicit
this state is with what's happening in Palestine and how desperate they are to not protect us,
but to protect Israel's arms trade. And so every time we do an action, we expose that
complicity further, which people before might have gone, oh, I do care about Palestine,
but it's something really far away, which I mean, it's a stupid thing to ever think, right,
especially in Britain and the US, because literally it's in Britain, with the valve decorating,
did start off all of this stuff in the first place, but still people might have that
a very cognitive dissonance that the right words.
I'm sorry, I didn't think that that distance basically from that situation and what
we're doing here, whereas when you're targeting it in people's towns, in people's cities,
then they can't ignore it and they can't avoid it. And I think that's why in places like
Alderman, we had a massive, massive chewing e-support, because they're really, it's really stupid
and insulting where they place these factories, right, because they put them in places like
Alderman, that's the north of England, it's the town in the north of England, not far from
where I spent a lot of my childhood, and it's a lot of, it's a very diverse community,
a large Asian community, a large Kashmiri population there, same with Leicester, Leicester was
the most diverse city in this country, massive Muslim population there, again, Kashmiris,
people, Arabs, people from different backgrounds, and you're putting Israeli armors back to
being a missile of that, and then the second you start taking these actions, people respond,
they go, what, you know, how did I not know this was happening in the first place, and now
I know I would have supported everyone.
every effort there is to take this factory, this factory down. So I think all of that aids
in the fact that, you know, they are, it's not hard to show Albert for being as evil as
they are. It's literally just says all over their website, right? And every time we do something
to expose it, more people get to know about it, more people who take action, more people
who stand against it and the bigger our movement, the bigger our movement grows. And that's
Albert's biggest downfall because they wanted to be able to hide in plain sight in these buildings.
You know, you don't have a massive science saying, hey, it's Albert. You know, this is what
we do at their factories. They operate on the different names and they try and, they try
and hide the fact of what they really are. So by exposing that, you know, you've already
done half of the job. I think the first thing I want to say is just for JCB, pure anybody
else watching this, yeah, we are coming for you soon as well. Yeah, no, I think you've
got away with it. But I think, I think everyone who has been there is true as well, right?
When you're trying to go for and going for the most evil of the evil first, yeah, like,
if you said, let's go in and smash up a Puma stall, although I probably know some people
who would be up for guiding Nick some Kuma shoes, yeah, it just doesn't have the same thing
as like damaging his weapons. And also, if they're going to take the piss by putting their
factories in areas of communities, you don't want them yet, then we're going to take the
piss and we're going to go after the surveillance, the highly miniaturized one and we're going
to show how pathetic you are by getting into your sights and getting on your roofs constantly.
And actually, once we go after the most difficult one first, it shows how easy the other ones
will be, subsequently. And also shows to them immediately by going, "Shit, are we going
to be on their list next?" And might mean that they don't even deal with that and stuff.
So going to the most difficult one first, although it seems kind of like, "Oh, you could
have gotten an easier one, I think is more powerful." But it just rallies people. Real
people are really pissed off when they hear about these things. And I don't think I would
necessarily apply to some of them all lowering out targets. They were all valid targets still.
Yeah, but I think as well, that's the key point as well. As you win this campaign, you
shut Albert Down in this country and every other company is looking at that, "Oh, we're
not dealing with Zionists anymore. It's just not worth it. They're going to come through
us next." And that sends a message to all of them by getting rid of the worst of the
worst. And arguably, one of the worst powerful as well. But like you said, it is quite funny
because they're like defences of aliens and whatever, highly secure facilities. And it's
like, we're just repeatedly getting inside. And that actually is an effective tactic,
which we didn't realise at the start. But every time they have a security breach, they
have to report it to the Ministry of Defence. They have to report it to all of their customers
saying, "Right, we've just compromised all of your classified information again." And
then that's why we're talking about this Ministry of Defence. And I'm losing these two
age-related money pounds of contracts. They said that it's about operational sovereignty
standards. And that basically on their most highly secure contracts, Albert was a risk.
Albert was a security risk because of that constant, you're not, they do deal with classified
stuff, which we didn't really think about at the start. That wasn't the main aim of it.
But it's a very positive consequence that they do have to report all of these security
breaches to their customers.
Yeah, well, no, they're like, "Oh, sorry. I want to buy something." If you were not
buying a security system, but if you were looking to buy an alarm, you would definitely
not choose someone who's just been broken to their own premises. You'd be like, "That's
fucking stupid." Well, I was going to say, too, I mean, like a British government's looking
at it, and they're going, "Well, this guy and like five of his mates can go down and
just say, "Oh, we're going to jump on the roof and get in." Like, who else can realistically
get into the facility? Which is a great just psychological tactic to be playing on a company
like this that's entirely dedicated to like high profile and I assume classified military
procurement. Like, that's amazing. When you all are looking at kind of how you went through
that process then, were there any like significant struggles that you had to encounter in beginning
the process of direct action and going under it? I mean, I know like, typically there's
of course like police responses, there's state surveillance, things of that nature, I assume
that go into play when you're kind of talking about direct action against an arms manufacturer
in the West. But like, what were some of the pitfalls and issues that you kind of had
to work through as an organization as you were going through the direct action planning?
Yeah, I mean, what we noticed was there's been a bit of light head up and down in terms
of state repression or state response to our direct action. And so at the start, there
was actually, there was a meeting. So this was about a month or five weeks in to the campaign
between the Israeli Ministry of Strategic Affairs, Dominic Rab, who was the Foreign Secretary
of this country at the time and Benny Gantz, who was his well defense minister at the time.
And they met with Israel and they basically referred to our direct action against the
Elbet's London office and told Britain to crush us. And I found this because I was just
trolling through the Zionist press. And I was like, oh, this is great. This is really
great to see. Just for the record. I wasn't saying that. I was going, shit, they're going
to get us. Oh my gosh. But it was like, oh, well, you know, you've been doing campaigned
all this years. You're like, oh, wow, this is really, this is really getting to them.
You know, you're like, okay, we're definitely doing the right thing here. And it was, it
was shortly after was then we had, there were a series of things that happened. We got
stopped. Basically in England, the probably other places, whenever you travel through
poor or something like that, they have this scheduled seven counterterrorism stop. And
so they can stop you when to counter terrorism laws. And you don't, normally when you get
arrested, you got like, you can say no comment. You just don't say anything. And you have
a right to your lawyer and all of this. And when you stopped under that, you don't have
that right. And if you don't answer all their questions, then they say you're going
to go to prison for three months, et cetera, et cetera. So we were interrogated for several
hours by counterterrorism and this is only about three months in. And it was all about, you
know, for me, it was about my family, what religion I was, if I was sunny or sheer. And when
I said both, they were very confused about which terror group I would, I could be involved
in. And all of these things. And they did the same with Richard and then they held us.
And we did get released after that. But it was like, that was Canadian intimidation tactics
that they use to try and, trying to stop us at the start. And then we'd got raided
twice in the same day. And Richard was arrested for blackmail, which is quite a serious, it's
a prophetic charge, but it's relatively serious in this country. And then stole our passports,
the police took both of our passports at that point. And then there was all of these
things that were happening within the first few months of Palestinian action. And it was
very clear that they were sending a message, like, stop, you know, stop while you're still
growing, you know, we had, we had done quite a bit at that point, but we were like, where
we are now and we did have the amount of followers or supporters or people in the movement
as we had at this point. And so it was clear that they had a concerted effort to try
and crush us while you're beginning before you get to a point where they can't really
do that as heavily because you, they're in the public eye at that point, you know, if
they do something, they did stuff to us then. It was like, yeah, we post a bunch of people
would talk about it, but that was it. So it was like, they could crush us in silence,
but you keep going. And I think that we always need the start of this that we weren't going
to just start taking master's action against Elbit and have a really easy ride and that
they were going to put up every obstacle in your way to try and stop you from achieving
your ultimate goal. And if they didn't, it would mean that we weren't doing something
that was effective or, you know, going to really impact what we wanted to impact. And
so for us, every time we overcome an obstacle and they do stuff like that and we still persevere
and we still get through it, then it's like, okay, we're getting closer. We're getting closer,
you know, that we've not, we've not given up on them, we're not going to give it in.
And you know, we've seen, we've seen lots of different tricks by them that they continue
to try and do, but I think when you have embodied within what you do, the sense of resistance
against the state's complicity with Elbit and also inspiration from Palestinians on the
ground to be sustained day out on our facing way worse measures than we are, we are, then
it makes it, it makes it a lot easier to keep going.
I think, Joe, I think there's an important thing and I heard as instrumental in that in
going, this is what happens if you're successful, yeah? And you could easily just go underground
and hide and we'll have you and get overly worried about this. But the two ways, one
responding in that way and also I think embarrassing the state by continually publishing
details of it, right? Because they probably think that you're going to be really scared
about it and you want to keep it all secret. But remembering that a sacrifice principle,
we literally put everything on there. You know, I think our rest for the, for the black
male, when they've been arrested, if you've filmed it, and then publicized it straight
away. And they're probably assuming that we'd be like scared and we wouldn't all these things
out because it's a put people off. But it works the other way. When repression happens and
you publicize it everywhere, people go, well, that's not all. I'm going to join. And even
you even get like English people go, that's really not cricket. This is not the English way.
We're going to join this group now because they'll be in bad to them. And you do that
and it brings it away around. I think the only thing I would add today is that there was
a, which I think is scandalous, right? Where we were living at the time in a large community
where we lived with 24 asylum seekers who have no recourse to any public funds, no money.
And we lived there with them in solidarity. And the cops had got into a school in England
is like a primary school. So it's the youngest age as I five to 11 year olds. And the cops
had put a camera in the school pointing at our front doorway where all these people live.
And we didn't even spot until somebody knew about cameras came and I as I said, I've seen
that. And then we rang up the school and went, if you go a camera point in our front door
and the receptionist, I don't think she was on message at the time. She went, oh, you
know, police came out last week and put that in. Oh, I better refer you to the business
manager. And this is just like a scandalous thing. But again, laughing in a way in the
face of adversity, right? Yeah. We see one of our workshops we put the video in of Palestinians
being smiling when they're arrested. Now, I always find that tangent because I never
smile when I get arrested. But, but this kind of idea of laughing in the face of adversity
and just publishing it all, right? Because this is what they're, hey, when they're being
all secret inspired. And if you just publish it all and you're open about it, people kind
of like, it's weird. They like it. And they're like, yeah, come on. I'll be part of that.
And just not being afraid of taking the piss out and going, you know, we're not, you
know, we are organized and we're great and all this all stuff. But we're also just going,
look, we're concerned people who are doing this for the right reason. Yeah. And we're
going to do that on more face it. Yeah. And many people face it. We have people in prison
at the moment. And, and, and, and this is part of the struggle. This is where it goes.
When we internationalize that, as you've said, when we see that with our brothers and sisters
in occupied Palestine, who, you know, who face a 99.9% conviction rate, yeah. Then that's
the bare minimum that most of us feel that we can, we can put up and do, yeah, we, we
can do that where we are. And more and more people are recognizing that and doing it and
we don't want to be there. And we want to be out doing what we're doing. But if that's
part of the struggle, that's part of the struggle and we'll prepare people and we'll be there
and we'll see that as part of the fight because we know throughout history from Mandela
to whoever, yeah. They end up in prison or locked up for their, for their struggles and,
and, you know, that's part of it. Yeah. And I also just think on that, like, you know,
we see this happening to Palestinians all the time constantly and the issues of detention,
people being held for, you know, no reason whatsoever, just being held for an infinite
amount of time. And, and there's so many people across the world who stand in solidarity
with Palestine, but Palestinians are on the front line whether they like it or not, right?
And for us internationally, as activists who stand in solidarity with them, how far does
that solidarity really go? And especially when you think of what we face arrests and imprisonment
and, and whenever else and raids, et cetera, even that is incomparable to what Palestinian
space. And there's a very strong power and message in when they were sought to wake up
and realize that there's people in these countries in Britain, in the US, wherever else,
who are willing to go to prison in order to stop our complicity with what's happening
in Palestine. And I think that's the level we need to get to internationally in order
to, to assist what the Palestinians are already doing on the ground to liberate Palestine.
And that's where our role comes in. And obviously, that's not our main goal at all. Our main
aim has always been and will always be to direct materially impact these arms factories
and stop them from being able to manifest what they do in Palestine from where we are.
But as a consequence to that, we are facing those things and we are facing X, Y, Z. But
the fact that that doesn't stop you. And once you accept that, actually, it's like you're
completely free in a, in a word, kind of sense, right? Once you said that the worth they
could do to you is lock you off for a bit. And actually, and that's it. And you can destroy
arms factories. You can stop these wrappers from being made. And you don't have to face
what Palestinians face on the front line. And you can still have such a material impact
than his own, you know, why not?
No, I think that accepting it, that it's the worst that they can do to you. I didn't think
about it that way. In comparison to what Palestinians consistently go to, like, that's nothing.
Then I wanted to follow that up with people who are looking at it and saying, okay, I want
to get involved. This sounds incredible. What about, but are scared to work around the legal
systems or how arrests work? Could you give people a little insight on how to navigate
that?
Yeah, I think you're probably about to miss them, but I think just to start off, what
we do here isn't, isn't seen lightly by the state. Although we've been pretty, we've
done pretty well, I think, at maneuvering around the legal system and being effective
us also facing some consequences here and there for what we do. But there is many ways
to shut down an arms factory. And there are many different levels of actions you can take
to shut down an arms factory. And so there are different, you know, how ever people feel
comfortable, you know, for example, here, not everyone goes in and breaks in and smashes
up every single thing inside the factory. A lot of people blockade it, throw paint over
it, go on the roof. There are different levels to how you can, how you can do it in different
consequences as a result. And I think it's just about understanding what that suite, that
line is in terms of being able to do on a sustained basis, not always yourself, right? Because
that's why you have to build a movement. Because if you just kept doing it, you just be
locked up and then it stops. You have to have a way of building a movement where other
people join you and you share that liability, so to speak, yeah? In terms of taking that
action, but also finding a way of what can we do? What are we willing to accept as a
result of that in order to build a movement which is big enough to take on this arms factory?
So I think it's about finding that balance. Yeah, and I think I think often, especially
for like an American, well, have you all been of American audience? Often we hear there's
like different consequences in your local place and you have to understand that. But I would
also say from here, and myself haven't been involved in other movements, the way Palestine
and action have been pleased is a lot different to other movements, right? It's been racially
pleased, right? We've had people who are obviously Muslim, maybe we had a hijab arrested just
for turning up, right? They weren't doing anything, and very Palestine. So we have received
that differing level of things. And certainly the questions that have been asked to some
of us are very different when we've been in any other causes. And I think it's been
aware of that. And in terms of those, you know, legal consequences is about preparing
people, right? If you're making the free choice to say, I'm prepared to risk there, I'm
prepared to as to go and what you were saying before to contextualize this with our brothers
and sisters in occupied Palestine and what they're doing. And I'm prepared to take the risk
where I am. Then being informed about that and having the full knowledge of the likely
consequences, but also understanding that the state, you know, kind of anytime, you know,
they might not call the door here in five minutes. And you might not see us for a couple
of years, but that's part of the, that's part of the deal. Yeah. And understanding that,
but I think being informed so we run regular workshops where we go through both our
failure and direct action, but also go through demystified a process of what happens when
you're arrested and then and for certain different things. Also, I think it's worth saying
that we've had many actions where people have gone away, yeah, where people have not been
arrested. And we're not like, you know, some of the other movements that, you know, insist
that you have to stay and show your face and be all nice to everybody. Yeah. You know,
people can get away. People cover their faces in Palestine action for security reasons
for religious reasons, wherever we're, you know, we're cool with that. It's about wherever
it disrupts damage and destroy these companies. That's the key thing. And you can work that
out in your own context, how that works out legally and how that works out what risks
you can take. So the key takeaway from now, I think, is to be informed. Listen in your
local context to other groups, even with their groups, you might not share their exact
political stance with some of them have knowledge on mass arrests. I don't think in, you
know, groups, international group states, things in rebellion, have advice on that. There's
other movements, you know, within different countries that have similar, you know, had similar
experience have been arrested and tailored your actions to what?
But you can risk personally, and what that is, and being formed, and I'll reach out and
have conversations around that as well, I think.
Yeah, and we're happy for people to reach out to us.
Yeah, definitely.
And being, I think being going in with your eyes wide open, knowing what the likely or possible
consequences are, and saying I'm prepared to say that, I think is a key thing.
And as opposed, I would end on that, just on our personal thing again, right?
So I've been arrested for loads of things in my life, I've been arrested for things
that I am proud of necessarily.
Yeah, no, I'm not really proud of, right?
And it's a very different experience, even though it's never nice.
Yeah, I will buy this thing like the nice experience being arrested.
It's a very different experience to realize when you're seeing in a police cell or a prison
or, you know, to realizing you've done this for a good reason, and you are proud of what
you've done, rather than getting caught for something that you weren't really that proud
of, yeah?
And I was talking to someone just the other day, and they were talking about large-scale
Palestine protests, and a few people in that in London, it sort of, on the outskirts of
the protests, it kicked off, and they fought with police, and some of those received prison
sentences.
And they were sitting there thinking, we wish we'd done something more materially different,
right?
Rather than just being sort of not having revolution, I'm not dissing them at all, right?
Yeah, it is.
Yeah.
We're just going to be discipline in a way, right? And I think that's some of the key
things yet.
If you're going to get caught and doing things, make it worthwhile, and me as you can, you
know, when you sit there, how the tough it is, you can rely on the fact that you've stopped
that place operating for a while.
You've stopped that weapon being built, and then you can have a different take on that.
And lots of the legal stuff I would want to say is often in our brain as well.
Yes, there's the reality, but there's also a psychological approach to that about how
we can take that. And if we go in informed, understanding what the likelihood is, understanding
when or if we may be released or not, then we can be prepared for that and contextualize
that with what political prisoners go through every day and see that as part of it.
No, absolutely.
I mean, so kind of outlining then, I know I've heard a couple of these, uh, these victories
that you've discussed from the money to the shedding that of factories, which congratulations
by the way, that's like really, really cool, uh, like if someone, if somebody lives in
the heart of empire, it's nice to see that factories are being shut down and not built.
It's a nice little thing.
Um, but what are, um, you just a short list of kind of the, the material victories that
you all have seen since you started the operations, just for the listeners, so they kind of like,
uh, to give us an idea of like what you've done so far.
Yes, so after a year and a half into our campaign, the Albert were forced to sell off their factory
in Alderm, and a massive loss, um, so basically we should all be down in Alderm, uh, that was
a massive arms factory they had there, then we, uh, shut down their London headquarters.
So they actually have two headquarters in Britain, which is, which is very strange in
Greece, um, one of them was in central London and after a sustained campaign there, they
were forced to abandon the site.
And then just at the end of last year, it came out that the Albert were forced to, uh,
were kicked out of over 280 million pounds worth of contracts with the Ministry of Defense,
which is actually their, their, their largest contracts that they've acquired in recent
years with the Ministry of Defense as well, um, and their next biggest contracts are under
the review.
So we'll see what happens, see what happens there.
I just want to add two things, which I think, so materials success is also every action
that happens, right?
Yeah.
So the last action that happened, um, uh, Leonardo, which provides radar parts for Israeli
war aircraft over two million pounds, they lost because of that, yeah.
And over 2000 work as well, 2000 workers couldn't go into work as free people climbed up on
a roof and shimmed down ropes and caused damage to all these, all this stuff.
Um, and I think we used to ride the start when I say, we, I mean, someone clever, you're
going to have things up.
Um, you used to add up how much they'd lost both in damage and release time, but it's got
so much now, we can't even add that up.
Yeah.
And I suppose one of the thing, even though we say this lately, and you know, we don't,
you know, we don't hold much state by the state of British justice.
There's been shown over many years to not be such a thing, right?
Um, however, we've only had one case go to a crown call when there's a jury, yeah?
Um, I've known people to side, and that jury after hearing these people jumped out
apparently in military position of a BMW and fired fire extinguishers of paint all over
the building and the scientists over there, you know, they're, you know, you know, you
know, even then, even from a British center, these people were found not guilty.
The jury came back in less than an hour and were like giving them a thumbs up, trying
to say, well done and found them not guilty.
And I don't think we should negate that's not why we do it to win call cases, but winning
call cases is part of the history, right?
In the occupies six counties, um, in the north of Ireland, where I mean, there was a factory
from Rayfion.
There was a fifth year of Rayfion nine went in and they smashed it up.
They went to got, got nine found not guilty.
Nine women were back and did exactly the same thing, smashed it up, got found not guilty.
And at that point, they went, oh, we need to leave now.
I don't know why anyone was clever to, to build a factory in dairy of all the revolutionary
cities there are, but, um, and, um, so we need to just bear that in mind.
We don't hold any stay or British justice, but when we do win, that's also a victory.
Yeah.
That's also a way of pointing things out to people and those members of a jury, random
jury in central London in one of the rich is, you know, one of the richest boroughs in
central London came back and said it was fine for these people to jump out of a BMW and
far, far, far as there is a pain all over everything.
That's, that's, that's unbelievably amazing.
I'll let, I'll let it take the next question when I just love this one.
No, that's incredible.
Okay.
So just took, James has so much to say.
And as soon as he heard six copies Ireland, he was like, okay, I need to get into it.
But, um, so just to close this off, you guys currently are based in the UK.
How can people, um, in America, in Canada, um, replicate the model and could you tell us
more if there are other, um, Elbit factories located elsewhere, um, in, in how they can go
about that?
Yeah.
So in, in terms of Europe, um, there are, there's obviously put in where we are and people
can just join us, um, we have, we are about to announce by the time the podcast is out,
a lot of in person trainings and talks across the country, um, including Scotland.
So people can come, come along to those and join us and we also have regular online work
workshops, which even if you're international, I think it's a good idea to come along to
it just to touch base, uh, with Palestine action and here's some of the fairy and how you
can apply that to your own, uh, context, but in terms of where they are, they are dotted
around Europe.
So they have a fact in Germany, um, other places in Europe as well.
I can't remember what's top of my head, um, but they also are all over the US, um, just
all over it.
I don't know any of the places by name, but they are jacks out, LB US, you'll find it,
I'm sure.
Um, and also in places like Australia, so they, they went to my, you know, the imperialist
countries.
There is an Albert side there, you know, um, in terms of joining, we, yeah, we're speaking
to people all over the world all the time, um, but we're very keen to maybe do something,
maybe, um, um, an online stuff with people in North America to talk about it.
We need to do that because we've got no idea of geography and we've talked to some people
and they're like, they're further apart than the whole of England is.
So it's like, we're trying to get them to meet up, um, but it would be really good to
kind of, you know, maybe we'll advertise something soon where we do a North American online
event.
And we can talk about that, um, but I think the main thing is, is, in reality, is, um,
if you want to start something off, get a group of mates together, who are willing to
do it.
We always say it's right in the light, so the willing, not everyone you speak to is going
to be on the same page, um, and that's okay.
Um, and, you know, those who are willing going for it, planning an action, doing an action
at an Albert site, or wherever else you want to do it, and having a way after it for
people to join, that's, that's the key, um, you know, launching with action, um, is
the only way to do a Palestine action.
No, that's, that sounds incredible.
I think an online workshop would be great.
I know a lot of people in America who want to get involved and who want to do something
similar.
And like, you guys on social media have been so great with being able to put out what
you've been doing.
Um, so I think a lot of people would be interested.
So how can people reach out?
How can they find you?
What are your socials?
So on Twitter, Instagram and TikTok, @pal_action, and we're on Telegram, uh, and I think that's
as t.me/pal_action, and you can email us at
[email protected].
Any of those methods to contact us will, will probably work.
Well, I think if I really ingest the senders, send us an email.
If you guys have your email on the website, yes, but I'll just have to say it again.
Yeah.
Sorry.
I didn't get that.
[email protected].
Incredible.
Okay.
Thank you guys so, so, so much for joining us.
This was incredible.
I've learned so much.
And I also feel like reinvigorated.
You want to go do something like something direct action like there isn't.
there are winds in the
Palestinian solidarity movement. They take time, and obviously this is like a
long-term effort, but being able to see these direct wins is something that like
really makes you motivated or want to do more. So thank you so much. This has
been Gorilla History Radio, and we will catch you guys next time.
Thank you.
You wanted more than a muddle home.
Every week we can always get it, yeah, a little better.
It's solidarity, yeah. I fuck with Adam for the changes. My family is the foliage.
The branches for the nameless. My roots is deep as holy as I console the
mothers who saw the streets as fathers, to raise a wildfielder who ended up amongst the scholars.
Yeah, that's why I'm praying for our daughters. So they can lead us through these
waters because we're mama's proud. She's the grace that we try to ambition is akin to intuition.
Every week we can always get it, yeah, a little better.
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