Waters is a nut bag and his politics are revolting, but yeah sorry, in a free society he’s allowed to have them. To me even the idea that he could face 14 years in prison for voicing support to an organization that the government doesn’t like is revolting. Hell, 14 years for donating to a cause the government doesn’t like is obscene. Know what country it sounds like?
Laws like this do not belong in a modern liberal democracy.
“This organization is a bunch of terrorists!”
“How can you be sure?”
“Nobody denies it.”
“Because people who do are prosecuted!”
“As they should be, for speaking in support of terrorists.”
That seems like a law that’s instantly problematic.
Just to clear some confusion: Elbit Systems is an Israeli arms manufacturer, the largest in the country, and a major international exporter. That equipment in British warehouses? That wasn’t British equipment intended for the Israeli military - it was Israeli equipment intended for the British military.
Naturally. British citizens have the right to legally protest the fact that their government is purchasing weapons from Israel. That goes without saying. But the actual equipment they destroyed was not going to be killing anyone in Gaza. It was going to be killing whoever the Brits decided to kill in the next war they fought.
…there is no confusion.
In my post I mentioned “Elbit Systems Ltd”, which has subsidiaries in the United Kingdom, however the parent company ultimately is the target here as it’s them that are contributing to the genocide of the Palestinian people in Gaza. You don’t get a pass on atrocities because you have a convoluted ownership structure.
Juries in the past in the UK have decided that property damage specifically in order to stop war crimes is reasonable. It’s likely that could have decided the same way here.
But now Palestine Action have been proscribed, things may go differently. Which is probably the point. We will find out in a couple of years when those detained for damages at the RAF base eventually goes to trial. The prosecutor has confirmed they will argue these offences had a “terrorist connection”. In the meantime, they’ve been remanded in custody.
And the RAF planes they damaged are alleged to being used to refuel surveillance flights over Gaza. It was a direct action to stop war crimes.
It’s the war crimes and genocide that matter here. Along with overreach by the UK government on civil liberties. It isn’t just attacks on protest groups and movements. Multiple independent journalists in the UK have been targeted by the authorities, been detained, had computers and equipment confiscated, and even been demanded to give up their sources in Gaza.
All to protect a country that is starving a civilian population.
This of course doesn’t have a lot to do with “Roger Waters is a tankie.” But I’m not the one who bought up Palestine Action. So if we are going to talk about it: let’s be crystal clear what they are fighting for. And that these actions are not those of a terrorist organisation but of one that you would reasonably take in order to stop war crimes on a massive industrial scale.
I’m not going to argue Gaza with you, again, and not being British, the state of civil liberties in the UK is none of my business. I just don’t understand how damaging equipment earmarked for the British military is going to cause the Israeli military to purchase less equipment of its own from the same manufacturer. I’d also like to see some proof to your allegations that the RAF is assisting Israel with refueling or surveillance or anything else besides shooting down the occasional Iranian drone.
As far as I can see, their attacks were attacks against the British military, and no-one else.
…you can’t avoid the fact that Palestine Actions actions are to try and stop the ongoing genocide in Gaza. And if you want to have an opinion on that, we are going to have to discuss that. Because as I’ve said before, similar actions taken in the past after the 2000 Terrorism act resulted in wet bus tickets and acquittals. And it’s likely that would have happened again here until Palestine Action were proscribed.
It’s to create awareness. To make things more difficult for them to operate in the UK and leave. It’s to hurt the bottom line.
I said alleged. The details of UK surveillance flights are kept secret.
Here is the MOD admitting that yes, they flew surveillance flights, admitting to only limited scope.
Here is the Foreign Secretary who, when asked directly what the surveillance flights were for, refused to answer.
(Facebook link)
The British military, along with the UK government, are complicit.
How? How is the British military “complicit”? Is it because you believe that, for some unfathomable reason, they’re providing surveillance intelligence to Israel - the equivalent of carrying coal to Newcastle? Or is it because you believe that the UK should be bombing Israel?
…is this seriously the hill you want to die on Alessan?
You’ve avoided the topic of what Israel are doing to Palestinians in Gaza all over the boards. But you want to nit-pick about top-secret operations conducted by the British military?
Yes, if the British military are providing surveillance information to Israel about Gaza, and Israel are committing genocide in Gaza, the British military are complicit in that genocide.
The very least the UK can do is to stop the surveillance flights. They could kick out the Israeli ambassador. They could declare they would arrest the war criminals Netanyahu and Gallant if they stepped foot on UK soil. They could apply sanctions and international pressure and support South Africa in their legal case against Israel at the International Court of Justice.
There are a million things the UK government could be doing that don’t involve bombing Israel.
But it would involve firstly admitting that Israel are committing genocide in Gaza.
Since you want to dance around that point Alessan, can you admit that? Or do you want to run away from this debate as well? Because as starvation hits a critical level now in Gaza, where it is plainly obvious that we are beyond the point that even if food flooded Gaza tomorrow many Gazans wouldn’t ever recover, it’s more important now than ever before to put a stop to it.
So where do you stand on the deliberate starvation of the Palestinian people in Gaza? And do you think people like those in Palestinian Action are wrong for doing whatever they can to try and stop it?
And should people like Roger Waters risk going to jail for years just because he supports them?
I don’t want to discuss Gaza because it’s pointless. Nothing I say will ever convince anyone, and nothing you say will ever convince me, so what’s the point. But I will state, for the record, that Israel is not committing genocide in Gaza. Israel is fighting a very difficult, very challenging, very vicious war against an enemy that is doing whatever it can to ensure that as many as possible of its own people die, in order to elicit outrage from useful idiots like you. Hamas can end this war tomorrow by surrendering, laying down its arms and releasing the hostages; anything that happens until then is on them.
More to the point, the thought that Israel somehow needs assistance from the RAF in terms of surveillance is ludicrous. Israel has hundreds of surveillance drones in the air over Gaza at any given moment; the British have absolutely nothing to offer in terms of technology or capabilities that we don’t already have. The fact that you think the RAF is assisting Israel - and not gathering intelligence for its own purposes - shows just how far down the conspiracy theory rabbit hole you’ve gone.
Even more to the point, Pink Floyd were a technically brilliant but ultimately soulless band; they were so white they made ABBA look like the Temptations.
Feel free to respond to my post. I will not be engaging you further on the subject.
…Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, multiple reputable genocide scholars (including many Israeli ones), and the South African case currently going through the International Court of Justice provide compelling evidence you are wrong.
There is absolutely nothing defensible about the deliberate decision not to allow enough food, including baby formula, into Gaza. Every humanitarian agency on the ground right now are saying that its an emergency. A month ago they were saying it was the “hungriest place on earth.” Things have declined even further since then.
This isn’t a “difficult, very challenging” war at all. Israel have demolished Rafah. They’ve just finished flattening Beit Hanoun. They are bulldozing the country. Palestinians in Gaza have been concentrated into only 14% of their land while Netanyahu and co debate where best to ethnically cleanse them.
All of this is a matter of public record. I’m not making any of this up. I’m not a “useful idiot.” And history will be on my side.
Hamas have agreed to release all of the hostages and more importantly to step down from power. Absolutely everybody should know this. The words Alessan uses here are important.
But this isn’t enough. It requires more than just a cessation of power. It requires humiliation. It requires Hamas (which has been used to describe everything from the terrorists that conducted October 7th to low-level clerks in government) voluntarily agreeing to be targeted and killed, or thrown into one of numerous Israeli torture camps (that nobody even disputes exists.)
Not only do they have hundreds of surveillance drones, they have hundreds of sniper drones that deliberately target children. And lest you accuse me of blood libel, it’s not me saying it, it’s the New York Times.
What purpose would the UK government have for flying well over 500 flights over Gaza?
If you know, can you let the public know? Because Lammy wants to keep it a secret.
There is very little anyone can do about this. Both the Republicans and Democrats and the Conservatives and Labour support this. People take direct action when the government and the system do evil things and there is almost nothing else they can do. They target military contractors. They target the military. They aren’t shooting Palestinian children in the testicles like its some sort of a fucking game.
Roger Waters doesn’t deserve to go to jail for supporting them.
That’s exactly what a useful idiot would say, isn’t it?
It requires Hamas to not have the means to repeat October 7.
I understand why you would have a problem with that, since attempts at “decolonization” like we saw on October 7 are going to be difficult without Hamas.
You’re not being coherent enough to dispute, BanquetBuddy. If I knew what the fuck you were talking about, I’d dispute that torture camps exist.
That’s not what your link says, you lying piece of shit. It says the pictures aren’t “fabricated”, this does not mean that every delusional claim made by the original source is true.
They want their own sources on what is going on? How fucking delusional do you have to be to think that Israel needs British plane pictures from Gaza? Does Netanyahu also need Starmer when he wants to reach the top shelf?
In other words, there is wide bipartisan support for Israel’s defense of itself in both countries, so people who oppose Israel enough have to take “direct action” (IE violence) against British targets in order to change people’s political opinions? Gee, I wonder why anyone would call this “terrorism”.
If BanquetBuddy wasn’t a delusional liar, he wouldn’t make up deranged conspiracies about armies of child hunting drones, and he’d understand that a person killed by a sniper and a person killed by a stray round from a suppressive burst fired a block away are both going to have a single 5.56 bullet in their head or body.
Simple geometry should explain why a stray from a burst is most likely going to be the only bullet that hits; and the deaths involving shots to the head or body specifically is reverse survivorship bias. People grazed by a stray don’t show up in the hospital dead.
If Israel’s drones aren’t hunting children with rifle ammo (what an absolute banger of a theory, you really have to have a special mindset to believe something like that), they’re free to do recon, and Israel doesn’t need the UK to do it for their next door neighbor 
…and they don’t anymore.
You keep using the word “decolonization” as if I’ve EVER used that word in the context of this discussion. I don’t recall ever using that at all.
You’ve got a fantasy version of me living in your head. Its very sad.
https://www.btselem.org/publications/202408_welcome_to_hell
Yes, the Israeli bullets embedded in Palestinian children were verified, after the NYT received hundreds of comments calling the evidence fake.
Because thats all you’ve got. The evidence is simply so overwhelming that all you can do is deny deny deny.
https://www.npr.org/2024/11/26/g-s1-35437/israel-sniper-drones-gaza-eyewitnesses
Because…Israel are lying to them? They don’t trust them?
Responding with questions isn’t answering the question.
In the history of the world, there has often been support for evil regimes from other countries that are also evil, or others that, for whatever reason, are complicit.
There are also countries out there, like South Africa and others that are members of the Hague Group, that oppose what is Israel are doing. There isn’t universal support for Israels actions. The way you characterise this is incorrect.
And I’d be happy to discuss this further over in the discussion thread. This thread has already been hijacked enough.
ETA to correct a mistake.
…I don’t know your credentials. But I’ve cited multiple people with more experience than me. If you’ve got experts that support the position that they are all lying please, by all means, provide them over in the discussion thread.
I didn’t claim that they lied about the bodies, you slimy little fucker.
They said they saw a body with a bullet hole in the chest or head. I’m sure they did. They jumped to the conclusion that this meant Israel “sniped” those people. That’s not a lie, that’s just bad reasoning.
You slimy little fucker.
…I’ve taken this over to the discussion thread.
I was going to post something similar. I agree that giving verbal support to a group, no matter how vile, is part of free speech.
Hell, even The Economist thinks Europe has a free speech problem:
(Gift links are one-time use there, but I think they allow a couple of freebies a month; apologies if you can’t read it)
There’s a reason a black lawyer from the ACLU defended a bunch of Nazis.
The article had a lot of unanswered questions, including this one, which is why I left my update pretty vague. I’m not even sure that attacking military assets is even terrorism, rather than warfare, but since it is not really helping the Palestinian cause, I think that makes it more relevant to this thread, in that it is a further demonstration of Waters’ tankieism - supporting the harming of the West no matter what.
I was also deliberately vague in my update about what Waters did, since part of me didn’t want to accept that you could face severe jail time for voicing simple agreement with a group. I thought the story had to be more complicated than that. Jailing casual supporters of a militant group is about the last thing I’d consider when taking measures against those who want to harm society.
Now that’s a criminal thing to say. 
