AN ISRAELI arms factory in Kent was under siege today [yesterday] after Palestine supporters blockaded its entrance roads.
The Instro Precision factory is part of Israeli-owned Elbit Systems, which is believed to manufacture military drones, pilotless aircraft and other weapons for Israel.
Palestine Action mounted the blockade and vehicles were used to block the entrances.
Activists also covered the premises in red paint, symbolising “Palestinian bloodshed.”
Palestine Action said the factory’s products were not affected by last week’s government announcement that 50 [dizzy:30] out of 320 arms export licences were being suspended.
Across the United States, Australia, and the UK, Palestine solidarity activists took action on April 15 as part of global call to strike for Gaza
Protesters blockade the entrance to O’Hare International Airport in Chicago (Photo: Dissenters)
April 15 marked yet another global day of solidarity with Palestine, in which activists across the globe in countries such as the United States, Australia, and the UK took action for Gaza. Activists were responding to a global call to strike for Gaza, which originated within Palestinian civil society.
In the United States, the global strike for Gaza also coincided with the day that taxes are due in the country (Tax Day). Activists used this as an opportunity to highlight how much of taxpayer money goes to the weapons industry.
In several cities, activists strategically targeted sectors of the war machine, including the offices of Lockheed Martin in Arlington, Virginia, the largest weapons manufacturer in the world. Activists who occupied the Arlington office highlighted that Lockheed Martin receives billions of dollars in taxpayer money each year, which is used to produce the arms that Israel uses to kill Palestinians.
🚨🚨BREAKING🚨🚨 Palestine solidarity activists SHUT DOWN war profiteers Lockheed Martin to say NO MORE TAX DOLLARS FOR GENOCIDE! Lockheed Martin receives $4.7 billion in tax dollars PER YEAR to make the F-16s and F-35s that bomb Palestinians. The people say NO MORE! pic.twitter.com/CeVik3pFTK
— Claudia Jones School for Political Education (@ClaudiaJonesEdu) April 15, 2024
While activists occupied the building, protesters outside marched up to the office doors, staging a rally and shouting at employees inside the building to quit their jobs.
For Tax Day, protesters march in Arlington, VA against defense contractors that receive billions in U.S. tax dollars for war.
Activists marched on Lockheed Martin, the weapons manufacturer that made the F-35 stealth fighter used by Israel to bomb the Iranian embassy in Damascus. pic.twitter.com/GWYebadIkQ
Activists also blockaded the entrance to a facility belonging to Boeing, another massive weapons manufacturer that supplies Israel, in St. Charles, Missouri.
BREAKING: Organizers from St. Louis + Chicago in coordination with @a15action have blockaded the Boeing facility in St. Charles, MO.
This facility produces missiles and bombs sent directly to Israel at the hands of the US government❌ pic.twitter.com/ehuqFD9Uha
A facility of weapons manufacturer Pratt and Whitney was also targeted in Connecticut, where organizers blocked the entrance to the factory to impede production.
Activists shut down Pratt and Whitney's facility in CT for an A15 action in response to the manufacturer supplying Israel w/ military aircrafts for the illegal occupation beginning in 1947, & they’re currently sustaining the Israeli Air Force's fleet of F100-PW-229 engines. 🌹🇵🇸 pic.twitter.com/J5fKDlTZ3i
On the same day, several activists blockaded the road going to the Chicago O’Hare International Airport, blocking Terminals 1 through 3. Over 40 protesters were arrested after taking this action, who have as of now all been released.
BREAKING: Organizers are blockading the road entering O’Hare Airport in Chicago‼️‼️
Several bridge blockades took place in the Bay Area. Protesters first stopped traffic on the Golden Gate Bridge, holding banners that read “Stop the world for Gaza” and “End the siege on Gaza now!”
BREAKING: Protestors have shut down the Golden Gate Bridge this morning. Folks in Marin County advised to go the long way…Richmond-San Rafael Bridge down to the Bay Bridge. pic.twitter.com/pukbwMMp8a
Protesters later took further action and shut down the Interstate 880 in Oakland. Altogether, the California Highway Patrol announced the arrests of 38 people.
In London, activists with Palestine Action targeted the office of BNY Mellon, demanding that the bank divest with Elbit Systems, Israel’s largest weapons company. BNY Mellon offices in Manchester were also targeted.
BREAKING: Palestine Action target BNY Mellon’s London office during the global economic blockade for a Free Palestine.
BREAKING: Once again, offices of major Elbit investors BNY Mellon disrupted in Manchester this morning as part of the @a15 global day of action. We will not rest while genocide profiteers walk free in our cities! All colonisers must fall! Shut Elbit Down! @_YFFP_@GMF_Palestinepic.twitter.com/7usrFXQ5Zn
In Adelaide, Australia, pro-Palestine activists occupied the office of Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong’s office. Activists said this action had been undertaken to “protest the government’s ongoing complicity in, and facilitation of, the genocide occurring in Gaza—a genocide which has been enabled by international forces, like Australia, to continue for over six months.”
I was incredibly proud to be part of international movement A15.
30+ young people, scientists and supporters occupy Science Museum’s new climate gallery in protest over its sponsorship by coal-producing conglomerate Adani
Group announce plan to remain over weekend ahead of the opening to school groups next week
Naturalist Chris Packham says sponsorship deal is “beyond greenwash – it’s grotesque” and attends to support the protesters
Science Museum criticised over ties to conglomerate involved in manufacturing drones for the Israeli military amidst bombardment of Gaza and destructive coal mining operations in India and Australia opposed by Indigenous groups
This evening, more than 30 protesters led by young people from Youth Action for Climate Justice and members of Scientists for Extinction Rebellion have occupied the Science Museum’s new climate gallery, Energy Revolution, over its sponsorship by the coal giant and arms manufacturer, Adani. Naturalist and broadcaster Chris Packham joined the group as they began their protest, with scientists and young people now intending to remain in the museum over the weekend, with the first school visits to the gallery beginning on Monday.
Chris Packham, who famously claimed that peacefully breaking the law is the ethically responsible thing to do when it comes to protecting the planet, told the protesters: “For me science is the art of understanding truth and beauty and a lot of that beauty lies in the natural world. Science tells us that the fossil fuel industry is responsible for the accelerating destruction of our natural world. The Science Museum is a place to spark imagination, to provide answers but also to encourage us to ask questions. The question I’m asking today is a big one, “why on earth are we allowing a destructive industry to sponsor an educational exhibition whilst simultaneously setting fire to young peoples futures?” This is beyond greenwash – it’s grotesque. We urgently need an ‘Energy Revolution’ to steer us away from the course of planetary destruction on which we are heading. We need a rapid, just transition to renewables – that revolution means an end to coal, and starts with the young people and scientists occupying this space this evening. Science tells us the truth, and the truth is that we must change.”
Naturalist Chris Packham at the Science Museum occupation 12 April 2024. Image: Extinction Rebellion.
The Energy Revolution gallery opened to the public just a few weeks ago amidst protest, with over 150 people taking part in a day of creative action. A few days earlier, guests arriving for the private VIP launch were greeted by protesters as they arrived, as well as the museum throwing a lavish dinner for the Adani Group’s billionaire chairman, Gautam Adani, with the Adani Group’s logo plastered on screens around the room.
To coincide with today’s protest, activists have released a new video exposing the truth behind the misleading claims made by Gautam Adani during his speech at the opening of the gallery. While he discussed the energy transition from oil and gas, he neglected to mention coal, the industry from which the Adani Group derives 60% of its revenue. The Science Museum has attempted to defend its sponsorship deal by claiming it has only partnered with the Green Energy division, although evidence clearly shows that it is directly linked to Adani’s coal business and that the museum has maintained a relationship with the main Adani Group.
At 2pm on Saturday, the occupiers will invite members of the public to join them for an interactive assembly inside the gallery to discuss alternatives to toxic fossil fuel sponsorship at the Science Museum. The group plans to tell the public the truth about the gallery’s sponsor and the urgency of keeping fossil fuels in the ground for a liveable future. Throughout their occupation, the protesters are also constructing sculptures of fragments of coal as a poignant reminder of Adani’s core polluting business.
Ian McDermott, a Chemistry teacher who will no longer organise school trips to the museum, has said: “For decades I ran a couple of trips to the museum a year, but I just don’t think it’s in the students’ interests to engage with the greenwashing of the companies destroying their futures.”
Protest placard reads Greenwash detected
Adani is the world’s largest private developer of new coal mines and coal-fired power plants, including Australia’s largest, the Carmichael Coal Mine built on Wangan and Jagalingou ancestral land. This ongoing investment in coal mining and power flies in the face of the scientific warning that most fossil fuel reserves cannot be burned and emitted if global warming increase is limited to 1.5°C, or even 2°C above pre industrial levels.
Anya, a young person occupying the gallery said: “To have a coal company sponsoring an exhibition on the future of energy is blatantly deceiving. Through this sponsorship deal, the Science Museum is helping Adani attach itself to the image of a positive and sustainable future when in reality it is a coal giant, weapons manufacturer and genocide supporter. It’s plain wrong for the Science Museum to be deceiving visitors, including young people like me, when it comes to the climate crisis.”
This is not the only instance of the museum welcoming fossil fuel companies to sponsor and influence its science education programmes and galleries. The Museum’s STEM Training Academy, which aims to support teachers in delivering science education, is sponsored by oil and gas giant BP, while the Museum’s interactive children’s gallery is named after Norwegian oil and gas company, Equinor.
Dr. Aaron Thierry, a scientist, who has researched climate impacts in the Arctic, is among those currently occupying the museum: “It’s not just Adani’s brand that the science museum is greenwashing, they’re also allowing the oil and gas giants BP and Equinor to sponsor their exhibits, disregarding the fact that these companies continue to expand fossil fuel production against the warnings of climate scientists. The latest science has shown we must leave the majority of fossil fuels unburned to prevent catastrophic changes to our climate. That an institution like the Science Museum is working with such rouge companies is a disgrace. The museum’s management needs to follow the example of Britain’s other leading cultural institutions and drop all ties to the fossil fuel industry.“
Scientists for Extinction Rebellion and Youth Action for Climate Justice (who have led this action) are members of Fossil Free Science Museum Coalition who are campaigning for the Science Museum to end its sponsorship by fossil fuel companies.
Youth Action for Climate Justice (formerly UKSCN London) is a radical youth organisation mobilising for climate justice. YACJ aims to create a new generation of young activists who are educated about society and the change we need, in order to work with other movements to change the system we live in. The group was previously part of Youth Strike for Climate Movement and coordinated the London youth climate strikes in 2019 and 2020, which brought thousands of young people to the streets of London. Instagram | Twitter
Other groups involved are: International Solidarity for Academic Freedom in India (InSAF India), India Labour Solidarity (UK), Students for Survival; and numerous Extinction Rebellion groups.
PRESSURE mounted on Barclays to sever its ties with Israeli arms firms today, as growing numbers of customers joined calls to boycott the bank.
More than 1,500 people closed their accounts in protest against the bank’s “bankrolling of Israel’s genocidal attack on Palestinians,” on a boycott day spearheaded by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC).
According to PSC, Barclays has invested over £1 billion in companies supplying weapons and military technology to Israel and provides nine firms with over £3bn in loans and underwriting.
The companies include General Dynamics, which produces the gun systems that arm fighter jets used by Israel to bombard Gaza, and Elbit Systems, which produces armoured drones, munitions and artillery weapons used by the Israeli military.
The bank previously faced a similar boycott campaign over its financial support for South African apartheid. It was eventually forced to divest in 1986.
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.”
