In Britain, resisting a genocide is now treated as terrorism
Palestinian political analyst and playwright. At a moment when Israel and its leaders stand accused before international courts of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity, Britain has chosen to direct some of its most powerful legal tools not at those enabling the destr
At a moment when Israel and its leaders stand accused before international courts of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity, Britain has chosen to direct some of its most powerful legal tools not at those enabling the destruction of Gaza, but at activists protesting against it.
The sentencing of the Filton 4, therefore, raises questions that extend far beyond the fate of four individuals. Whatever one’s view of their actions, the case forces Britain to confront an uncomfortable contradiction: why does opposition to Israel’s actions increasingly attract the language of extremism and terrorism, while support for those actions remains firmly within the bounds of respectable politics?
For more than two and a half years, the world has witnessed the destruction of Gaza on a scale unprecedented in Palestinian history. What began in October 2023 has evolved into what growing numbers of legal scholars, United Nations experts, human rights organisations and genocide scholars have described as a genocide. Entire neighbourhoods have disappeared. Hospitals, schools and universities have been destroyed. Aid has been obstructed. Starvation has been weaponised. Much of Gaza has been rendered uninhabitable.
Yet in Britain, an increasing share of the political conversation appears to focus not on the genocide itself, but on those opposing it.
The Filton 4 case centres on damage to property. Gaza has witnessed the destruction of an entire society. Yet it is the former that is increasingly discussed through the language of terrorism.
Terrorism legislation occupies a unique place within any democratic legal system. It exists to address conduct regarded as posing an exceptional threat to public safety and national security. The deployment of such legislation carries significance beyond the punishment of any individual. It sends a signal about what the state considers dangerous and what it regards as legitimate political concern.
The question is not whether activists should be above the law. Nobody is arguing that they should.
The question is why opposition to Israel’s actions in Gaza is increasingly being viewed through a security lens while support for those actions remains politically protected.
