A Metropolitan Police sign on the side of a police vehicle
LAWYERS have submitted a formal complaint asking the Metropolitan Police’s counterterrorism unit to investigate current and former directors of Elbit Systems UK for complicity in war crimes.
The Public Interest Law Centre (PILC), with the support of the Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT), has asked the force to look into four British nationals who have led the weapons manufacturer at various points since the start of the genocide in Gaza.
Their request was prompted by recent reports that key decision-makers within the government have privately recognised serious crimes and breaches of international law took place in Palestine.
Leaked private messages dating back to 2025 showed Health Secretary Wes Streeting saying he believed the Israel was “committing war crimes before our eyes.”
“Israel’s genocide in Gaza would not be possible without Elbit Systems,” a CAAT spokesperson said.
“Elbit Systems is Israel’s largest arms producer, and Israel is the single largest market for Elbit’s products. It provides 85 per cent of the combat drones used by the Israeli military.”
Genocide denier and Current UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer is quoted that he supports Zionism without qualification. He also confirms that UK air force support has been essential in Israel’s mass-murdering genocide. Includes URLs https://www.declassifieduk.org/keir-starmers-100-spy-flights-over-gaza-in-support-of-israel/ and https://youtu.be/O74hZCKKdpAKeir Starmer objects to criticism of the IDF. He asks how could anyone object to them starving people to death, forced marches like the Nazis did, bombing Gaza’s hospitals and universities, mass-murdering journalists, healthworkers and starving people queuing for food, killing and raping prisoners and murdering children. He calls for people to stop obstructing his genocide for Israel.Orcas discuss Genocide-supporting and complicit Zionists. Donald Trump, Keith Starmer, David Lammy, Rachel Reeves, Angela Rayner and Wes Streeting are acknowledged as evil genocide-complicit and supporting cnuts.
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Metropolitan Police officers form a cordon to prevent hundreds of pro-Palestinian activists and trade unionists leaving following a blockade of the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office to demand that the UK government ceases arms sales to Israel on 28th November 2024 in London, United Kingdom. [Mark Kerrison/In Pictures via Getty Images]
When the Metropolitan Police declared it would arrest anyone chanting “globalise the intifada” after the Bondi Beach killings in Australia, it did more than just shift the boundaries of public order policing.
It blurred the crucial line between violent incitement and political expression, while openly revealing its own partiality.
Within days, two people were detained in London for simply shouting “intifada” at a protest. This is not about managing risk; it is a blunt attempt to muzzle anti-genocide activism.
Two facts should expose ministers and senior police officers’ inequity.
First, Australian investigators have identified the Bondi attack as inspired by the Islamic State group (IS), not a Palestinian-organised act. Yet, in Britain, politicians, Israeli embassy officials, and media voices have rushed to tie Bondi to a Palestinian protest slogan, offering no evidence but plenty of noise.
Second, our criminal law already contains clear thresholds for when speech becomes criminal. Encouragement of terrorism requires a statement likely to be understood as a direct or indirect call to commit terrorist offences (Terrorism Act), and prosecutions for racially or religiously aggravated public-order offences rest on harm, intent and context (Crime and Disorder Act 1998).
The Crown Prosecution Service and the Terrorism Act set those tests. They are not suggestions to be ignored simply because some elite and lobby groups in the country support illegal Israeli actions.
Banning or policing a slogan by decree turns ambiguity into a weapon.
“Intifada” is an Arabic word, not an Islamic one, meaning “shake off”. In Palestine, it surged in 1987 as a rallying cry to shake off or rise up against Israeli colonial occupation.
Slogans are the language of frustration, not tidy definitions for opponents to twist. When authorities adopt the most hostile interpretation, it paves the way for racist policing and a slide toward authoritarianism.
In Hong Kong in 2019, protesters were arrested for chanting “Liberate Hong Kong, revolution of our times” because the Chinese government branded “revolution” as sedition. Now, British police and the government treat “intifada” the same way.
Criminalising the word intifada is only possible because Palestinians have been racialised within the Israeli Zionist framework, which filters their language and political expression through Israeli racist and colonialist lenses.
So a slogan calling for an end to genocide and occupation – actions illegal under international law – is projected as “violent”. The slogan intifada can only be construed as violent to those determined to keep violence alive.
Banning a slogan also has a chilling effect, making it harder for peaceful campaigns to mobilise.
In fact, the repression of the right to a slogan saps organisations that rely on open, public participation while doing little to deter rogue, clandestine individuals.
The predictable result of the ban is the extermination of peaceful mobilisation and the further radicalisation of rogue individuals. Either outcome should make democratic politicians uneasy.
Deeply biased
A grotesque double standard is at play. The new policing stance echoes the demands of pro-Israeli lobbyists and Zionist interests eager to equate a vague slogan with violence.
Meanwhile, British citizens who aid genocide with weapons, money, or rhetoric are often excused as merely expressing political views or grief.
Police actions are both disastrous and deeply biased. The government is suppressing genuine solidarity with an occupied people, while tolerating rhetoric and actions that fuel ethnic hatred, genocide and daily violence against Palestinians.
This selective zeal of suppressing anything highlighting Israeli violations shatters any claim to impartiality and reinforces the charge of institutional racism.
Policing slogans hands a strategic victory to those eager to delegitimise marginalised, oppressed and underprivileged voices.
Hong Kong showed how Chinese authorities seized on a slogan, exaggerated its most alarming meaning, and used it to justify prosecutions that suffocated dissent.
London is following the same script – stoke fear, blur the line between protest and terror and make arrests routine. The end result is a democracy that punishes words while quietly supporting violence abroad.
If governments and police genuinely feared violence on our streets, they would follow the evidence.
They would investigate those British citizens who travel to fight, stop sending weapons to parties accused of international crimes and prosecute those backing illegal occupation, starvation and genocide, instead of criminalising vague political speech that calls for justice and peace.
The solution is both simple and urgent. Police chiefs must show how their new approach aligns with the legal standards set by parliament and the Crown Prosecution Service.
Ministers must resist turning politics into a security game to please powerful lobbies. Courts must remember that criminal law is not a stage for political drama.
Democracy endures because we tolerate uncomfortable, even ugly, speech. Democracy withers when the state decides which Arabic words are dangerous and whose voices are silenced.
We all agree that violent terrorism and hate must be eradicated. That is exactly why the law must be applied fairly.
Arresting people for chanting a vague slogan like “globalise the intifada”, without any plan for violence, is repression masquerading as public safety, and it is anti-Palestinian racism.
This article was first published at Middle East Eye on 23 December 2025
The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.
This work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Genocide denier and Current UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer is quoted that he supports Zionism without qualification. He also confirms that UK air force support has been essential in Israel’s mass-murdering genocide. Includes URLs https://www.declassifieduk.org/keir-starmers-100-spy-flights-over-gaza-in-support-of-israel/ and https://youtu.be/O74hZCKKdpAKeir Starmer objects to criticism of the IDF. He asks how could anyone object to them starving people to death, forced marches like the Nazis did, bombing Gaza’s hospitals and universities, mass-murdering journalists, healthworkers and starving people queuing for food, killing and raping prisoners and murdering children. He calls for people to stop obstructing his genocide for Israel.Orcas discuss Genocide-supporting and complicit Zionists. Donald Trump, Keith Starmer, David Lammy, Rachel Reeves, Angela Rayner and Wes Streeting are acknowledged as evil genocide-complicit and supporting cnuts.
Defend Our Juries (DOJ) said the action is planned on condition of at least 1,000 people pledging support, but hundreds more are said to be planning to take part, with a boost in support after a number of activists involved in organising the protests were arrested under terror laws.
Attendees are expected to refuse street bail, requiring more people to be taken into custody, and they plan to go “floppy”, forcing officers to physically carry them away.
Scotland Yard’s Deputy Assistant Commissioner Ade Adelekan warned that anyone showing support for Palestine Action would face arrest. He said the group was proscribed as a terrorist organisation and that police had the “officer numbers, custody capacity and all other resources to process as many people as is required.”
Palestine Action joke that appeared in the UK satirical magazine ‘Private Eye’.
Keir Starmer objects to criticism of the IDF. He asks how could anyone object to them starving people to death, forced marches like the Nazis did, bombing Gaza’s hospitals and universities,mass-murdering journalists, healthworkers and starving people queuing for food, killing and raping prisoners and murdering children. He calls for people to stop obstructing his genocide for Israel.
Keir “I support Zionism without Qualification” Starmer supporting genocide.Palestine Action joke that appeared in the UK satirical publication ‘Private Eye’.Vote Labour for Genocide.
Police officers make an arrest at a “Lift The Ban” demonstration in support of the proscribed group Palestine Action in Parliament Square on August 9, 2025.
“Let us be under no illusion,” said one organizer. “The government is criminalizing the people of Britain for standing up against the biggest genocide of the 21st century, as it’s livestreamed from Gaza.”
British campaigners reported Saturday that the sheer volume of people who showed up in London’s Parliament Square to support the nonviolent advocacy group Palestine Action presented a major challenge for the Metropolitan Police, who had threatened to arrest anyone supporting the organization.
The campaign group Defend Our Juries reported that as of 4:00 pm local time, at least 200 people had been arrested for joining the protest, where more than 1,000 sat silently in the square with many displaying signs that read: “I oppose genocide. I support Palestine Action.”
Others held signs reading, “Is this why you joined the police?” as officers arrested demonstrators including National Health Service workers; a blind man using a wheelchair; author Jonathon Porritt; and former Guantánamo Bay detainee Moazzam Begg, who now advocates for wrongly-imprisoned people swept up in the War on Terror.
BREAKING: Moazzam Begg, a never convicted former Guantanamo prisoner and senior director of CAGE international, was just arrested under the Terrorism Act.
Alongside approximately a thousand others, he held a sign which said "I oppose genocide. I support Palestine Action" pic.twitter.com/UNFgE4zQPi
“The fact that unprecedented numbers came out today risking arrest and possible imprisonment, shows how repulsed and ashamed people are about our government’s ongoing complicity in a livestreamed genocide, and the lengths people are prepared to go to defend this country’s ancient liberties,” said a spokesperson for Defend Our Juries, which also organized a protest last month where more than two dozen people were arrested.
The protests have been held to demand that the government reverse its June decision to proscribe Palestine Action as a terrorist organization after it vandalized two military airplanes. The ban on the organization means that anyone who publicly supports Palestine Action risks up to 14 years in prison.
Palestine Action was formed in 2020 to demand an end to Israeli apartheid policies in the occupied Palestinian territories including Gaza and the West Bank. It has organized nonviolent actions since Israel began bombarding Gaza and blockading nearly all humanitarian aid in October 2023—killing more than 61,000 Palestinians, injuring more than 150,000, creating the largest per capita population of child amputees in the world, and starving at least 212 people so far.
“Palestine Action and people holding cardboard signs present no danger to the public at large, whereas the people who have lobbied for this ban—the arms companies and Israel lobbies—have the blood of 60,000 Palestinians on their hands,” said Defend Our Juries.
The government’s ban, announced by Home Secretary Yvette Cooper, faces a legal challenge scheduled to be heard by the U.K. High Court in November. The court granted a full judicial review to Palestine Action co-founder Huda Ammori.
United Nations human rights chief Volker Türk warned last month that the U.K.’s proscription of the group “is at odds with the U.K.’s obligations under international human rights law” and noted that “according to international standards, terrorist acts should be confined to criminal acts intended to cause death or serious injury or to the taking of hostages”—not property damage.
Defend Our Juries said the mass arrest of Palestinian rights advocates is taking place as Britain continues to provide support to the Israeli military, which is moving towards a full takeover of Gaza under the orders of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
“They’re being arrested for holding signs in opposition to genocide and the ban of Palestine Action,” said the group as hundreds of people were carried away from Parliament Square by Metropolitan Police. “Meanwhile, the ones enabling the mass murder of Palestinians face no consequences.”
Mass arrests under the Terrorism Act are ongoing at Parliament Square.
They're being arrested for holding signs in opposition to genocide and the ban of Palestine Action.
Meanwhile, the ones enabling the mass murder of Palestinians, face no consequences pic.twitter.com/OWecwhX85J
Support from civil society groups for Palestine Action and the organizations demanding a reversal of the ban grew this past week ahead of the protest. More than 300 Jewish Britons including film director Mike Leigh; children’s author Michael Rosen; and Geoffrey Bindman, a former legal instructor to Prime Minister Keir Starmer, calling the ban “illegitimate” in a letter to Downing Street.
“The government should stop deflecting attention from genocide by linking nonviolent protest to terrorism,” read the letter.
Begg noted Saturday that “historically, civil disobedience has been employed in this country, as well as by the American civil rights movement and the anti-apartheid struggle in South Africa, to challenge unjust and oppressive laws.”
“This action is not about Palestine Action, but wider issues of how anti-terror legislation curtails basic freedoms and undermines the rule of law,” he said. “There can be no doubt that such laws have been, and continue to be abused and exploited, to suppress free speech and put in place an oppressive infrastructure that represents a danger to our civil liberties.”
“In such moments, all those who resist are acting in the public interest and are motivated by the desire to protect fundamental principles of fairness, equality, and justice,” he added. “How can it be a crime to call for an end to apartheid and genocide? The planned action on August 9 is motivated by the highest moral principles that have underpinned our society and made it the envy of the world.”
“Let us be under no illusion,” said Begg. “The government is criminalizing the people of Britain for standing up against the biggest genocide of the 21st century, as it’s livestreamed from Gaza. That is why it must be opposed.”in for standing up against the biggest genocide of the 21st century, as it’s livestreamed from Gaza. That is why it must be opposed.”
A Metropolitan Police sign on the side of a police vehicle
