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Palestine Action has been designated a terrorist group in the UK as well after sabotaging military aircraft (the article says they sprayed paint, but does not s

by graemep 2mo ago

Palestine Action has been designated a terrorist group in the UK as well after sabotaging military aircraft (the article says they sprayed paint, but does not say it was sprayed inside jet engines, rendering them inoperable). Masar Badil supports "armed struggle". One of the other groups ("hammer") recently designated a terrorist group (and linked to A/I Collective in another article I read ) got its name by attacking people in Germany with hammers. Designating A/I Collective a terrorist group is different as it is not directly supporting violence, but it is providing free services to people who do, and it says it provides services to groups its aim is to "provide support exclusively to individuals or groups we feel we have an affinity with.". On the other hand their terms forbid "military use" which is broadly defined enough to rule out terrorism. I think its likely they do have sympathy for violent groups, n the other hand, unless they have been going out of their way to support violence in some way I do not see reasonable grounds for banning them. Lots of commercial services have dodgy users. My fear is that is is heading in the direction of "if you do not hand info to the US authorities on demand you will be deemed a terrorist"

deaux 2mo ago
> I think its likely they do have sympathy for violent groups The US regime is an extremely violent group, so I that's certainly the issue.
- vorpalhex 2mo ago
  [flagged]
  - deaux 2mo ago
    You're not suggesting that most, if not all of these, are things the US hasn't done, are you? Surely not. The one you might try and dispute is the "50,000 protestors" one, as you know the other ones are clear as day.
    - vorpalhex 2mo ago
      I notice people always respond with "but the US does this too!" and never actual incidents. No, I'm not going to just high five your vague head nod at wrong doing you can't even describe. Seriously, sit down, make a list of incidents, including weighing the outcome of those incidents. If it's a case where an officer or a soldier did something wrong, list what happened after (court, punishment, cleared of wrongdoing, etc) Then do the same for your favorite alternate country that you think is superior. If you want to pick team Iran or Russia, then lay it out for them. Make the same list.
      - NewJazz 2mo ago
        The shootings took place on May 4, 1970, during a rally opposing the expanding involvement of the Vietnam War into Cambodia by United States military forces, as well as protesting the National Guard presence on campus and the draft. Twenty-eight National Guard soldiers fired about 67 rounds over 13 seconds, killing four students and wounding nine others, one of whom sustained permanent paralysis. Eight of the shooters were charged with depriving the students of their civil rights, but were acquitted in a bench trial. I'm not going to make an exhaustive list of all the terrible shit perpetrated by the US government and its agents. It would be too detrimental to my health. But you choosing to bury your head doesn't prove anything either, so I guess I have one up on you.
        TiredOfLife 2mo ago
        the difference is literally 10000x
        NewJazz 2mo ago
        https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49482598 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49482598
        NewJazz 2mo ago
        The obvious key to the whole charade Would be to run down all of the games they played: Remember Dita Beard and ITT, the slaughter of Attica The C.I.A. in Chile knowing nothing about Allende at this time In the past, as I recollect, Augusta, Georgia The nomination of Supreme Court Jesters to head off the tapes William Calley's Executive Interference in the image of John Wayne Kent State, Jackson State, Southern Louisiana Hundreds of unauthorized bombing raids The chaining and gagging of Bobby Seale Somebody tell these Maryland Governors to be for real!
  - nish__ 2mo ago
    Right. But when when a group blows up hospitals, schools and other infrastructure and murders 70,000 civilians (Israel)... Why is that not disignated terrorism?
    - nailer 2mo ago
      [flagged]
    - inigyou 2mo ago
      Because it's the kind of terrorism the king^H^H^H^Hpresident agrees with, and he makes the rules.
flumpcakes 2mo ago
You have a very nuanced take that I broadly agree with. I would add that they were probably targeted for political reasons, it's not like the current administration is going out of their way to tackle right wing "terrorism".
- deleted 2mo ago
  [deleted]
giraffe_lady 2mo ago
> Palestine Action has been designated a terrorist group in the UK as well after sabotaging military aircraft This is already an extreme perversion of justice all on its own. Damaging military equipment is absolutely outside any useful definition of terrorism. This is simply armed conflict.
- graemep 2mo ago
  Damaging property for political ends has been part of the definition in the UK, and I think the US, for decades. I would say the case for targetting military equipment is stronger than for damaging most other things. > This is simply armed conflict. Armed conflict by residents and citizens against the state is usually a serious criminal offense everywhere.
  - slowin 2mo ago
    > Damaging property for political ends has been part of the definition in the UK, and I think the US, for decades. Does that include property in Gaza, the West Bank or Lebanon? Because if the people who spray painted something are "terrorists", I want to know what the people who wiped Rafah off the face of the earth are called. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rafah https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rafah
    - retromario 2mo ago
      Colinizers?
    - antonvs 2mo ago
      The correct term is genocidal monsters. Israelis and others who support this have shown that the lesson they took from the Holocaust is that they believe it's morally fine as long as they're the ones doing the killing.
  - roughly 2mo ago
    > Armed conflict by residents and citizens against the state is usually a serious criminal offense everywhere. I think it’s worth considering that you’re much more likely to be a resident or a citizen than a state when you’re deciding how you feel about these kinds of things.
isityettime 2mo ago
> Palestine Action has been designated a terrorist group in the UK as well after sabotaging military aircraft (the article says they sprayed paint, but does not say it was sprayed inside jet engines, rendering them inoperable). That pretty much tells you everything you need to know. Definitions of "terrorism" that extend to sabotage against occupying or invading militaries and their allies are meaningless and hollow dilutions. At that point the discourse has been reduced to something like "violence is scary". This use is also interesting (and galling) because it frames disarming as an unacceptably violent act. There are some definitions of terrorism that leave room to designate attacks against professional agents of state violence as "terror", e.g., attacks on soldiers who are off-duty, attacks on civilian police forces, attacks on nominally civilian intelligence organizations like the CIA, etc. Imo such uses of the words "terror" and "terrorism" should be considered carefully, because sometimes they are meaningful or useful, but often they are essentially attempts to hoodwink the public. Effectively they are designed so that any attack against an occupying army by a faction too weak to muster a permanent standing army of equal strength falls into the "terrorism" category, which means invasion is "war" but resistance is "terrorism". The notion of "civilian" or "non-combatant" isn't always straightforward, either. In the history of the PKK, for example, one of the "civilian" forces targeted by bombings and shootings were a local militia whose sole purpose was suppressing popular unrest among local Kurdish populations who were forbidden from speaking their own native languages, celebrating their holidays, etc. Formally these militias were not part of an army. But their scarcely concealed function was suppression of the local population, unlike (for example) a proper civilian police force whose role is at least nominally to promote public safety, assist vulnerable (weak, elderly, disabled) citizens with daily life, investigate crimes, mediate/de-escalate disputes, etc. Anyway, it's worth sitting down and thinking through a few different serious definitions of terrorism and asking yourself what use they are. One or more definitions will likely stand out to you as particularly useful when it comes to thinking through things like the safety of innocents, the morality and bounds of acceptable political activism, and other topics that might directly affect your comfort and safety. You'll often find that governments and large press organizations try to trade on the emotional impact of those definitions while operating under rather different ones that are more convenient for themselves.
- graemep 2mo ago
Fraterkes 2mo ago
Here's my "nuanced" take: If a pro-zionist group were officialy designated as terrorists for spraying paint into a jet-engine I would find that ridiculous too.
- ls612 2mo ago
  Sabotage of military aircraft is political violence.
  - inigyou 2mo ago
    It's direct action. Violence is direct action against people's bodies, not property directly involved in genocide.
    - graemep 2mo ago
      How are British refuelling and transport aircraft directly involved in genocide? https://ukdefencejournal.org.uk/palestine-group-attacks-raf-base-damages-voyager-aircraft/ https://ukdefencejournal.org.uk/palestine-group-attacks-raf-... Its definitely not OK to vandalise things, and if is not terrorism what is it? War? In which case expect the military to shoot back. What about their attack that disabled a police officer mentioned in this thread. That is an attack on her body.
      - Fraterkes 2mo ago
        I don't think a country is well-served by an overly broad definition of terrorism. You might disagree: the fact that you mention the military "shooting back" when we're discussing a jet-engine being sabbotaged suggests that you believe a state is allowed to be / ought to be disproportionate in its violence towards its citizens.
        graemep 2mo ago
        > the fact that you mention the military "shooting back" when we're discussing a jet-engine being sabbotaged suggests that you believe a state is allowed to be / ought to be disproportionate in its violence towards its citizens. That is in no way a good faith interpretation of what I said.
RIMR 2mo ago
Spraying paint into the jet engine of a military aircraft is not "terrorism". It may be criminal, but it was not in any way a violent crime. Given that it disabled the aircraft, it counts as more than mere vandalism, but calling this an act of terror is outrageous. The logic seems to be that Hamas has committed terrorist attacks against Israel, and is also the government of Palestine, so anyone fighting for the human rights of Palestinian people is actually materially supporting Hamas terrorism against Israelis. That does not really track if you know anything at all about what's going on in Palestine right now, or what people's actual criticisms of Israel are.
- philipwhiuk 2mo ago
  Terrorism is often defined as actions designed to invoke political change. There's no actual requirement for violence for it to be terrorism.
  - dbdr 2mo ago
    An event encouraging people to vote in an election or a peaceful demonstration against a proposed legislation are "actions designed to invoke political change". I don't think any of those are commonly understood to be terrorism, nor should they.
  - harimau777 2mo ago
    I think that's down to people stretching the definition of terrorism to suit their political ends.
  - Synaesthesia 2mo ago
    Terrorism has to include violence, by my definition at least. It's in the name. Terrifying people into compliance. Well that isn't the case here.
  - echoangle 2mo ago
    So holding a public debate is terrorism too? That’s a pretty lacking definition.
nilshauk 2mo ago
The genocide of the Palestinians (as argued by the UN) triggers the genocide convention obligating states and individuals to act. It even comes in the effect at the very probability of genocide occuring. Preventing new armaments being sold to Israel is thus the rational and responsible thing to do, for example what Spain has been doing by refusing the transportation of arms through their country. This off course earns you some powerful, heavily moneyed enemies. Edit: This was an attempt to explain why civilians are spray painting Elbit's military planes.

by graemep 2mo ago

deaux 2mo ago

> I think its likely they do have sympathy for violent groups The US regime is an extremely violent group, so I that's certainly the issue.

vorpalhex 2mo ago
[flagged]
- deaux 2mo ago
  You're not suggesting that most, if not all of these, are things the US hasn't done, are you? Surely not. The one you might try and dispute is the "50,000 protestors" one, as you know the other ones are clear as day.
  - vorpalhex 2mo ago
    I notice people always respond with "but the US does this too!" and never actual incidents. No, I'm not going to just high five your vague head nod at wrong doing you can't even describe. Seriously, sit down, make a list of incidents, including weighing the outcome of those incidents. If it's a case where an officer or a soldier did something wrong, list what happened after (court, punishment, cleared of wrongdoing, etc) Then do the same for your favorite alternate country that you think is superior. If you want to pick team Iran or Russia, then lay it out for them. Make the same list.
    - NewJazz 2mo ago
      The shootings took place on May 4, 1970, during a rally opposing the expanding involvement of the Vietnam War into Cambodia by United States military forces, as well as protesting the National Guard presence on campus and the draft. Twenty-eight National Guard soldiers fired about 67 rounds over 13 seconds, killing four students and wounding nine others, one of whom sustained permanent paralysis. Eight of the shooters were charged with depriving the students of their civil rights, but were acquitted in a bench trial. I'm not going to make an exhaustive list of all the terrible shit perpetrated by the US government and its agents. It would be too detrimental to my health. But you choosing to bury your head doesn't prove anything either, so I guess I have one up on you.
      - TiredOfLife 2mo ago
        the difference is literally 10000x
        NewJazz 2mo ago
        https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49482598 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49482598
        NewJazz 2mo ago
        The obvious key to the whole charade Would be to run down all of the games they played: Remember Dita Beard and ITT, the slaughter of Attica The C.I.A. in Chile knowing nothing about Allende at this time In the past, as I recollect, Augusta, Georgia The nomination of Supreme Court Jesters to head off the tapes William Calley's Executive Interference in the image of John Wayne Kent State, Jackson State, Southern Louisiana Hundreds of unauthorized bombing raids The chaining and gagging of Bobby Seale Somebody tell these Maryland Governors to be for real!
- nish__ 2mo ago
  Right. But when when a group blows up hospitals, schools and other infrastructure and murders 70,000 civilians (Israel)... Why is that not disignated terrorism?
  - nailer 2mo ago
    [flagged]
  - inigyou 2mo ago
    Because it's the kind of terrorism the king^H^H^H^Hpresident agrees with, and he makes the rules.

flumpcakes 2mo ago

You have a very nuanced take that I broadly agree with. I would add that they were probably targeted for political reasons, it's not like the current administration is going out of their way to tackle right wing "terrorism".

deleted 2mo ago
[deleted]

giraffe_lady 2mo ago

> Palestine Action has been designated a terrorist group in the UK as well after sabotaging military aircraft This is already an extreme perversion of justice all on its own. Damaging military equipment is absolutely outside any useful definition of terrorism. This is simply armed conflict.

graemep 2mo ago
Damaging property for political ends has been part of the definition in the UK, and I think the US, for decades. I would say the case for targetting military equipment is stronger than for damaging most other things. > This is simply armed conflict. Armed conflict by residents and citizens against the state is usually a serious criminal offense everywhere.
- slowin 2mo ago
  > Damaging property for political ends has been part of the definition in the UK, and I think the US, for decades. Does that include property in Gaza, the West Bank or Lebanon? Because if the people who spray painted something are "terrorists", I want to know what the people who wiped Rafah off the face of the earth are called. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rafah https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rafah
  - retromario 2mo ago
    Colinizers?
  - antonvs 2mo ago
    The correct term is genocidal monsters. Israelis and others who support this have shown that the lesson they took from the Holocaust is that they believe it's morally fine as long as they're the ones doing the killing.
- roughly 2mo ago
  > Armed conflict by residents and citizens against the state is usually a serious criminal offense everywhere. I think it’s worth considering that you’re much more likely to be a resident or a citizen than a state when you’re deciding how you feel about these kinds of things.

isityettime 2mo ago

> Palestine Action has been designated a terrorist group in the UK as well after sabotaging military aircraft (the article says they sprayed paint, but does not say it was sprayed inside jet engines, rendering them inoperable). That pretty much tells you everything you need to know. Definitions of "terrorism" that extend to sabotage against occupying or invading militaries and their allies are meaningless and hollow dilutions. At that point the discourse has been reduced to something like "violence is scary". This use is also interesting (and galling) because it frames disarming as an unacceptably violent act. There are some definitions of terrorism that leave room to designate attacks against professional agents of state violence as "terror", e.g., attacks on soldiers who are off-duty, attacks on civilian police forces, attacks on nominally civilian intelligence organizations like the CIA, etc. Imo such uses of the words "terror" and "terrorism" should be considered carefully, because sometimes they are meaningful or useful, but often they are essentially attempts to hoodwink the public. Effectively they are designed so that any attack against an occupying army by a faction too weak to muster a permanent standing army of equal strength falls into the "terrorism" category, which means invasion is "war" but resistance is "terrorism". The notion of "civilian" or "non-combatant" isn't always straightforward, either. In the history of the PKK, for example, one of the "civilian" forces targeted by bombings and shootings were a local militia whose sole purpose was suppressing popular unrest among local Kurdish populations who were forbidden from speaking their own native languages, celebrating their holidays, etc. Formally these militias were not part of an army. But their scarcely concealed function was suppression of the local population, unlike (for example) a proper civilian police force whose role is at least nominally to promote public safety, assist vulnerable (weak, elderly, disabled) citizens with daily life, investigate crimes, mediate/de-escalate disputes, etc. Anyway, it's worth sitting down and thinking through a few different serious definitions of terrorism and asking yourself what use they are. One or more definitions will likely stand out to you as particularly useful when it comes to thinking through things like the safety of innocents, the morality and bounds of acceptable political activism, and other topics that might directly affect your comfort and safety. You'll often find that governments and large press organizations try to trade on the emotional impact of those definitions while operating under rather different ones that are more convenient for themselves.

graemep 2mo ago

Fraterkes 2mo ago

Here's my "nuanced" take: If a pro-zionist group were officialy designated as terrorists for spraying paint into a jet-engine I would find that ridiculous too.

ls612 2mo ago
Sabotage of military aircraft is political violence.
- inigyou 2mo ago
  It's direct action. Violence is direct action against people's bodies, not property directly involved in genocide.
  - graemep 2mo ago
    How are British refuelling and transport aircraft directly involved in genocide? https://ukdefencejournal.org.uk/palestine-group-attacks-raf-base-damages-voyager-aircraft/ https://ukdefencejournal.org.uk/palestine-group-attacks-raf-... Its definitely not OK to vandalise things, and if is not terrorism what is it? War? In which case expect the military to shoot back. What about their attack that disabled a police officer mentioned in this thread. That is an attack on her body.
    - Fraterkes 2mo ago
      I don't think a country is well-served by an overly broad definition of terrorism. You might disagree: the fact that you mention the military "shooting back" when we're discussing a jet-engine being sabbotaged suggests that you believe a state is allowed to be / ought to be disproportionate in its violence towards its citizens.
      - graemep 2mo ago
        > the fact that you mention the military "shooting back" when we're discussing a jet-engine being sabbotaged suggests that you believe a state is allowed to be / ought to be disproportionate in its violence towards its citizens. That is in no way a good faith interpretation of what I said.

RIMR 2mo ago

Spraying paint into the jet engine of a military aircraft is not "terrorism". It may be criminal, but it was not in any way a violent crime. Given that it disabled the aircraft, it counts as more than mere vandalism, but calling this an act of terror is outrageous. The logic seems to be that Hamas has committed terrorist attacks against Israel, and is also the government of Palestine, so anyone fighting for the human rights of Palestinian people is actually materially supporting Hamas terrorism against Israelis. That does not really track if you know anything at all about what's going on in Palestine right now, or what people's actual criticisms of Israel are.

philipwhiuk 2mo ago
Terrorism is often defined as actions designed to invoke political change. There's no actual requirement for violence for it to be terrorism.
- dbdr 2mo ago
  An event encouraging people to vote in an election or a peaceful demonstration against a proposed legislation are "actions designed to invoke political change". I don't think any of those are commonly understood to be terrorism, nor should they.
- harimau777 2mo ago
  I think that's down to people stretching the definition of terrorism to suit their political ends.
- Synaesthesia 2mo ago
  Terrorism has to include violence, by my definition at least. It's in the name. Terrifying people into compliance. Well that isn't the case here.
- echoangle 2mo ago
  So holding a public debate is terrorism too? That’s a pretty lacking definition.

nilshauk 2mo ago

The genocide of the Palestinians (as argued by the UN) triggers the genocide convention obligating states and individuals to act. It even comes in the effect at the very probability of genocide occuring. Preventing new armaments being sold to Israel is thus the rational and responsible thing to do, for example what Spain has been doing by refusing the transportation of arms through their country. This off course earns you some powerful, heavily moneyed enemies. Edit: This was an attempt to explain why civilians are spray painting Elbit's military planes.