How to Monkeywrench a Genocide

 

Palestine Action, condemned as a terrorist group in the UK, has embraced property destruction as a means to undermine the arms pipeline to Israel.

On a warm September night in 2020, in what would become the first of hundreds of acts of sabotage and vandalism, members of the UK-based protest group Palestine Action (PA) occupied the roof of a factory in the town of Shenstone, in Staffordshire, and started hacking at it with sledgehammers. The goal was to destroy the roof, make the site unviable, and stop production for as long as possible. Operated by Elbit Systems, Israel’s largest weapons manufacturer, the Shenstone facility specialized in the fabrication of drones that included so-called “loitering munitions,” otherwise known as suicide units. The purpose of loitering munitions, a hybrid drone-and-cruise missile, is to float for as long as possible behind enemy lines, await target acquisition, then self-destruct when dropped on the target. Loitering munitions have been used to horrific effect in the Gaza genocide.

The actionists had spent weeks scoping out the weaknesses at the Shenstone site. The factory had no guards posted at night, and the rooftop of the two-story building could be accessed simply by slapping a twenty-foot ladder against its side. In the darkness of the early hours of September 13, 2020, with the ladder positioned, they hauled their equipment onto the roof for an occupation planned to last five days. They carried tents, sleeping pads, a supply of food, many gallons of water, banners, spray-paint, and sledgehammers.

Once installed on the roof, the actionists went to work with the hammers. They bashed holes in the tarmac, broke windows, and smashed air conditioning units. They draped Palestinian flags on the façade of the building alongside a banner that said “SHUT ELBIT DOWN.” As day broke and the sun started to beat down, the exposed roof became a furnace and baked them. They held on for three days, negotiating with police who surrounded the facility.

Huda Ammori, the 31-year-old co-founder of Palestine Action and daughter of a Palestinian émigré to the UK, was one of the occupiers at Shenstone. “We barely got any sleep,” she told me. “It’s very surreal when you’re like, ‘We managed to shut down an Israeli weapons factory!’ It’s the best place to be, really—the most liberating as a human being.” Ammori grew up in a small town north of Manchester, hearing stories of her father’s flight into exile in England after the 1967 war that ended in Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. She organized peaceful protests for Palestine starting in her teens. She lobbied parliament, drew up petitions, and participated in boycotts and divestment campaigns at the University of Manchester, where she studied business and finance. But her efforts led to no substantive change.

When she joined with Richard Barnard, a longtime left-wing activist in the UK, to start Palestine Action in 2020, she decided to turn toward property destruction. “Our goal was to end British complicity in colonization and apartheid,” said Ammori. At the same time that the group aimed at ambitious change, however, it was also “focused in order to achieve solid, tangible victories.” Ammori and Barnard settled on Elbit Systems as the solid target whose destruction would entail a tangible victory. “Society has conditioned us that even when we see things happening that are wrong, we are powerless to change that,” Ammori told me. “But it’s not true. We have the power to shut Elbit down and that is what we’re going to do.”  (more...)

How to Monkeywrench a Genocide