Israel sells arms to more than 140 states but buys arms from very few countries. The UK is a major partner of Israel, second only to the USA, the main paymaster of the settler-colonial apartheid regime. Israel sells arms to and buys arms from the UK. This long-tern partnership dates back to the 1917 Balfour Declaration which sealed committed the British Empire to support the Zionist colonisation project in Palestine.
JNP invites Palestine Action, the group of BDS activists disrupting the UK’s ELBIT plants, to describe the reasons, means and results of their campaign against UK arms-trading with Israel.
Chair: Prof. Haim Bresheeth-Zabner, SOAS and active in a number of Palestine rights groups – JNP, BRICUP and JVL, and author of the recent An Army Like no Other: How the IDF Made A Nation, Verso, 2020
Speakers:
Dr. Les Levidow, OU, JNP
Huda Ammori, Palestine Action
Joe Wilkes, Palestine Action
Richard Barnard, Palestine Action
Huda Ammori is of Palestinian and Iraqi descent, and an active campaigner against the military industrial complex and Israel’s apartheid regime. She is a co-founder of Palestine Action, a direct-action network targeting Israel’s largest private arms company, Elbit Systems,
Richard Barnard co-founder of Palestine action has also been active in both the environmental and anti-nuclear movement. He has been arrested for direct actions many times in the UK and mainland Europe often targeting the military industrial complex including actions at nuclear bases and against Elbit Systems. In this year been found not guilty twice by Crown Court juries in high-profile environmental cases.
Dr. Les Levidow has been involved in several Palestine solidarity groups since the 1980s. His current ones include Jewish Network for Palestine (JNP) and the British Committee for the Universities of Palestine (BRICUP).
Joe Wilkes – Newish and enthusiastic Palestine Action volunteer. Active in two trade unions: UCU / MU. Would like to see links between friendly political groups, libertarian socialist groups and direct-action groups. Would like to avoid hospital and prison. Here to listen and learn.
