{"id":33266,"date":"2022-08-06T08:00:25","date_gmt":"2022-08-06T07:00:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.redpepper.org.uk\/?p=33266"},"modified":"2026-02-15T15:43:04","modified_gmt":"2026-02-15T15:43:04","slug":"how-elbit-was-shut-down","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.redpepper.org.uk\/global-politics\/palestine-middle-east\/how-elbit-was-shut-down\/","title":{"rendered":"How Elbit was shut down"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

In February 2022, Amnesty International published a seminal report<\/a> on Israel that should have been a trigger for countries to end their supply of weaponry to the regime (Israel\u2019s Apartheid Against Palestinians: A Cruel System of Domination and a Crime Against Humanity<\/em>). The UN adopted an arms embargo<\/a> against apartheid South Africa in 1977; it\u2019s time global leaders took this preventative measure against Israel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Instead, those with the power to sanction Israel reacted against the report. In the US, Israel\u2019s largest arms supplier<\/a>, Congress rejected <\/a>it as \u2018anti-semitic\u2019, while in the UK, its fourth largest arms provider, the government launched a consultation<\/a> on increasing trade with Israel one day after the report\u2019s release.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Britain sold \u00a3387 million<\/a> in weapons to Israel between 2016 and 2020 and continues to supply them. Elbit Systems, the company responsible for up to 85 per cent<\/a> of land-based equipment sent to Israel, has ten sites across the UK. These produce armed drones, ammunition and other technology, which have killed over 3,600 Palestinians, many of them children.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While those in power will not halt this atrocity, campaigners are struggling to influence them. Organisations including Amnesty International<\/a>, War on Want<\/a> and the Palestine Solidarity Campaign<\/a> have long called for an arms embargo to no avail.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Last remaining strategy<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

In 2020, the insufficiency of standard protest tactics became obvious to Huda Ammori, an activist of Palestinian and Iraqi descent. At university she had established a Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) group. She leafleted, petitioned, protested and lobbied about 70 MPs without seeing change. Her final hopes were pinned on Labour\u2019s 2019 manifesto pledge to impose an arms embargo on Israel<\/a>. When the party lost the general election, she knew she could not continue in this vein.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Labour\u2019s manifesto was the vehicle for change we all depended on,\u2019 Ammori says, \u2018and when that didn\u2019t work I realised we had to do things differently.\u2019 Sustained direct action, whereby activists disrupt the source of a problem rather than lobbying the state, was the last remaining strategy she could imagine working. \u2018It was clear that the only way we could stop Elbit was by shutting it down ourselves,\u2019 she explains.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The group has occupied and sabotaged Elbit\u2019s sites almost fortnightly over the past two years, while the number of activists involved has risen from two to more than 2,000<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ammori had heard how activists from the Derry Anti-War Coalition<\/a> had successfully expelled one of the world\u2019s largest arms manufacturers from Northern Ireland through direct action. After years of campaigning, nine activists broke into Raytheon Technology\u2019s factory in 2006 to destroy paperwork and computers in a high-profile action that eventually forced<\/a> the company to shut its doors there in 2010.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Learning from this victory, she launched a UK-based direct action group, Palestine Action, along with former Extinction Rebellion activist Richard Barnard. Their plan was simple: repeatedly protest, occupy and damage Elbit\u2019s properties across the UK until disruption and financial losses end their UK operations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We will be back<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

In the early hours of one morning in August 2020, four activists staged Palestine Action\u2019s first action against Elbit. They threw red paint over the company\u2019s London headquarters and daubed it with the message: \u2018We will be back.\u2019 Their first occupation<\/a> the following month confirmed their intentions, with activists breaking into Elbit\u2019s UAV Engines factory in Staffordshire.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

True to their word, the group has occupied and sabotaged Elbit\u2019s sites almost fortnightly over the past two years. The number of activists involved has risen from two to more than 2,000. And while soft campaign work in support of Palestine has faltered for decades, the group\u2019s audacious tactics are already having effect.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For the first time, communities living near Elbit\u2019s sites know they have an arms factory as a neighbour. Activists who have faced arrest have been acquitted in every trial so far<\/a> and, most notably, one factory in Oldham has already closed<\/a>. After 18 months of direct action, ten security breaches and weeks of forced closure, Elbit sold one of its five UK subsidiaries, Ferranti Power and Control, despite previously flaunting its potential<\/a>. The \u00a39 million<\/a> it fetched fell short of the \u00a315 million in damage carried out by Palestine Action.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Uprooting the source<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

This success is a testament to the power of direct action, as demonstrated not only by the Derry Anti-War Coalition but many other UK movements. Ammori and Barnard drew on Extinction Rebellion\u2019s disruptive tactics, which helped it become one of the fastest-growing<\/a> climate movements in history and forced Theresa May\u2019s government to declare a climate emergency<\/a>. Years prior, Tony Blair felt the most pressure from direct action<\/a> rather than softer campaign tactics, when the mass blocking of oil refineries by fuel tax protesters in 2000 prompted his government to compromise on price hikes, in contrast to its response to the millions of people who marched against the war on Iraq. Palestine Action is also part of a long tradition of activists protesting and occupying Elbit factories \u2013 for example, the previously established network London Palestine Action organised<\/a> a mass action at a factory in 2015.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The moral obligation to act when lives are at stake is clear in the case of Palestine. Amnesty International\u2019s report is the third to assert that Israel is an apartheid state \u2013 a fact Palestinians have been trying to convey for decades. Yet despite Israel\u2019s repeated condemnation, Britain continues to stoke abuse there, as it has done for more than a century<\/a>. To bypass the stubborn complicity of those in power, direct action cuts off Israel\u2019s arms supply at its roots.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since the print publication of this article in June 2022, Palestine Action has successfully shut down Elbit’s headquarters in London.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This article first appeared in issue #236, Summer 2022, The War Racket<\/em>. Subscribe<\/a> today to get your magazine delivered hot off the press!<\/strong><\/h3>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Blyth Brentnall describes how a group of activists in the UK has managed to disrupt the activities of one of Israel\u2019s biggest arms suppliers<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":42009,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[167,620,848,186],"tags":[2794],"class_list":["post-33266","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-activism","category-corporations","category-palestine-middle-east","category-war","tag-blyth-brentnall"],"yoast_head":"\nHow Elbit was shut down - Red Pepper<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Blyth Brentnall describes how a group of activists in the UK has managed to disrupt the activities of one of Israel\u2019s biggest arms suppliers\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.redpepper.org.uk\/global-politics\/palestine-middle-east\/how-elbit-was-shut-down\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_GB\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"How Elbit was shut down - 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