Demonstrators blockade the entrance of the BAE Systems site in Govan, Glasgow in solidarity with Palestinians and call for an immediate ceasefire, February 15, 2024
by Matt Kerr Scotland reporter
MORE than 100 demonstrators blockaded Scotland’s largest industrial site today to call for a halt of arms to Israel. Amid the ongoing slaughter in Gaza, more than 100 Glaswegian activists answered the call from Palestine trade unionists to disrupt Israeli arms supplies, descending on Govan at 5am to blockade BAE Systems during a shift change.
The controversial company is Britain’s biggest supplier of military hardware and maintains extensive long-term links with Israel, supplying high-tech weaponry.
Demonstrators did not limit their aims to disrupting BAE systems and called both the Westminster and Scottish governments to account for their actions.
Protesters not only demanded that the Tory government immediately stop the bombing of Yemen, but also challenged the Scottish government. One demonstrator, Aisha, a 37-year-old school teacher, said: “The Scottish government funds weapons manufacturers like BAE through Scottish Enterprise.
“This is absolutely disgusting and directly contradicts any lip-service the Scottish Parliament and First Minister pays towards backing a ceasefire or supporting Palestinians.
DOZENS of Welsh peace activists shut down one of Britain’s largest arms factories today.
Wales Peace Coalition campaigners held banners saying “stop arming genocide” and “UK weapons kill” as they blockaded BAE Systems’s factory in Glascoed, near Pontypool.
They said they wanted to highlight the company’s “complicity in the … unfolding genocide” against Palestinians by Israel, “including the suspected white phosphorous rounds” for the state.
A spokesman for Cardiff Stop the War, which supported the action, said: “We cannot rely on our local elected MPs or our unelected prime minister to take any action.
“Britain is an active collaborator and participant in the war crimes committed against Palestinians.
“We say no to selling arms and supporting atrocious war crimes, not in our name.”
Cardiff UCU said that it stood against the “use of British weapons in war crimes,” urging the British and Welsh governments “to act so that citizens do not have to feel the need to put themselves on the line to stop our country’s involvement in such crimes.”
Smoke rises as Israeli artillery units and howitzers stationed in the military zone launch attacks near the Gaza border in Nahal Oz, Israel on December 10, 2023. (Photo: Mostafa Alkharouf/Anadolu via Getty Images)
“As global resistance to war and apartheid grows, it is important that the public know exactly who is making this violence possible.”
As of Wednesday, a U.S.-based Quaker group’s online database listed over two dozen companies profiting from the bloodshed in the Gaza Strip, where Israeli forces have spent the last 10 weeks waging what experts call a “genocidal” war that sent defense stocks soaring.
Backed by $3.8 billion in annual military aid from the United States, Israel declared war on October 7 in retaliation for a Hamas-led attack that killed over 1,100 people. Since then, Israeli forces have killed over 20,000 Palestinians in Gaza—sparking massive protests demanding a cease-fire around the world, including many led by Jewish people.
“War and attacks on civilians will never bring safety or peace to Israelis or Palestinians.”
The growing death toll, displacement, destruction of civilian infrastructure, and difficulties in delivering humanitarian aid to the besieged enclave have also increased scrutiny of a $14.3 billion package for the war that the Biden administration requested from Congress as well as criticism of the U.S. weapon-makers and billionaire donors who are arming and enabling the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).
“The scale of destruction and war crimes in Gaza would not be possible without massive weapon transfers from the U.S.,” said Noam Perry of the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), the group behind the tool, in a statement Wednesday. “As global resistance to war and apartheid grows, it is important that the public know exactly who is making this violence possible.”
As the AFSC webpage details:
Shortly after October 7, the U.S. government started transferring to Israel massive amounts of weapons. Among these weapons, Israel received more than 15,000 bombs and 50,000 artillery shells within just the first month-and-a-half. These transfers have been deliberately shrouded in secrecy to avoid public scrutiny and prevent Congress from exercising any meaningful oversight.
Some of these weapons were purchased using U.S. taxpayers’ money through the Foreign Military Sales program; some were direct commercial sales purchased through Israel’s own budget; and some were replenished U.S. military stockpiles in Israel, which the Israeli military may also use. A list of known U.S. arms transfers is maintained by the Forum on the Arms Trade.
The webpage notes that the list is based on reporting, social media, and other open sources, and “focuses on weapons used by Israel because all Palestinian militant groups are already sanctioned and receive no support from Western governments or corporations.”
For example, Boeing, the world’s fifth-largest weapon manufacturer, makes F-15 fighter jets and Apache AH-64 attack helicopters used by the Israeli forces, as well as “multiple types of unguided small diameter bombs (SDBs) and Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM) kits” that have been used “extensively” during the war, including in a bombing of Gaza’s Jabalia refugee camp.
After decades of Israeli occupation forces using Caterpillar’s armored D9 bulldozers to “demolish Palestinian homes and civilian infrastructure in the occupied West Bank and to enforce the blockade of the Gaza Strip,” the machines “have been crucial in the Israeli military’s ground invasion” of the enclave, according to AFSC.
Israeli forces are invading the Nour Shams refugee camp in Tulkarem, bringing a bulldozer to destroy infrastructure belonging to the refugees there. This is on the same day that Israeli forces bulldozed and murdered displaced people and their tents in Kamal Adwan hospital, Gaza. pic.twitter.com/CH3gdoe1Zd
While both of those war profiteers are based in the United States, the list isn’t limited to U.S. firms, also calling out the world’s seventh-largest weapon manufacturer, the U.K.’s BAE Systems, and Israel’s largest weapon manufacturer, Elbit Systems, “one of the primary suppliers of weapons and surveillance systems to the Israeli military.”
Other companies on the list include weapons giants such as General Dynamics, General Electric, L3Harris Technologies, Leonardo, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, and RTX—formerly Raytheon—as well as vehicle companies AM General, Ford, Oshkosh, Toyota, and drone manufacturers AeroVironment, Skydio, and XTEND.
The list also targets U.S.-based Colt’s Manufacturing Company, which makes firearms including the M16, and Emtan Karmiel, an Israeli firm that “delivered some 12,000 rifles” to the country’s forces within a week of October 7. It also includes Israel Aerospace Industries, a state-owned manufacturer that “makes multiple weapons systems specifically for the Israeli military.”
Israeli journalist says Jews who want to live in Israel have no choice but to take up arms
There is no choice for a Jew who wants to live in the land of Israel, except to hold the Tanakh (Hebrew scriptures) in one hand, and in the other hand, hold an M16 rifle. pic.twitter.com/XlU19KS3Lp
Other Israeli firms listed include Plasan, which makes the SandCat light armored vehicle, and MDT Armor, which is owned by the Israeli company Shladot and makes the David Urban Light Armored Vehicle used by the military for patrols and reconnaissance.
The other foreign firms on the list are ThyssenKrupp, the German company that built four warships for Israel, and Nordic Ammunition Company, which makes the M141 Bunker Defeat Munition, a shoulder-fired “bunker-buster” rocket.
“As a Quaker organization with a long history of work in Palestine and Israel, including in Gaza, we support a full arms embargo to both Israeli and Palestinian militant groups,” Perry stressed Wednesday. “War and attacks on civilians will never bring safety or peace to Israelis or Palestinians. We need a permanent cease-fire and to work toward a just and lasting peace in the region.”
Acorn activists outside the entrance of aerospace and defence manufacturer Meggitt in Birmingham
THREE British arms firms supplying Israel with weapons were blockaded today when activists, local community members and tenants’ union Acorn went into action in defence of Gaza.
Acorn is active in towns and cities across Britain fighting on issues such as tenants’ rights, public transport and the cost-of-profits crisis.
Activists targeted weapons manufacturers in Birmingham, Bristol and Leeds today.
In Birmingham, the entrances to aerospace and defence manufacturer Meggitt were blocked; in Bristol, protesters turned away workers at defence and security manufacturer Leonardo; and in Leeds, the offices of BAE System were blockaded.
All three firms manufacture or provide components and systems for military aircraft being used in the bombardment of Gaza.
Acorn chairwoman Chelsea Phillips said: “Acorn will not stand by while entire communities are obliterated while ordinary people just like us are murdered in their tens of thousands by the Israeli government with the support of our government and using horrific weapons of war built by British companies.
Over 400 disrupt operations at BAE Systems site and call for ceasefire ahead of national march for Palestine 10 Nov 2023
HUNDREDS of trade unionists disrupted operations at an arms factory in Kent today, blockading entrances and preventing workers and deliveries from entering the site.
More than 400 activists targeted a factory belonging to BAE Systems, a key weapons supplier to Israel, in protest over the country’s ongoing bombardment of Gaza.
United under the banner “Workers for a Free Palestine,” members of Unite, Unison, GMB, NEU, BMA, UCU, Bectu, and BFAWU, halted operations and called for an immediate ceasefire.
BAE Systems, the largest weapons firm in Britain, manufactures components for Israel’s F-35 stealth combat aircraft.
The fighter jets are currently being used in ongoing attacks against innocent civilians in Gaza, where the death toll has risen to more than 10,000.
Notably, the “active interceptor system,” which is used by pilots to direct and manoeuvre the aircraft, is also produced at the site in Kent.
Alexandra, a teacher and NEU member taking part in the blockade, said: “Seeing 185 schools and other educational institutions in Gaza bombed is utterly heartbreaking.
“If our government and the Labour opposition won’t support a ceasefire, as workers we will continue to take action to stop the slaughter of civilians in our name, funded by our taxes.
“The British arms industry, which is subsidised by public money, is involved in the mass killing of Palestinians.
“We’re here today to disrupt the Israeli war machine and take a stand against our government’s complicity and we urge workers across the UK to take similar action.”
