The UK is witnessing the largest and most significant prison hunger strike since 1981. Since the beginning of November, a total of eight activists in pretrial detention for standing up against the Gaza Genocide, have been protesting against Israel’s continuing mass murder, Britain’s complicity, and their own abusive and petty treatment by, as it happens, the same infamous legal and incarceration system that used to torture Julian Assange on behalf of the US.
The hunger strikers’ demands also include releasing documents showing how Britain’s extremely powerful Israel Lobby has been influencing the government and an end to the absurd proscription of the activists’ own Palestine Action organization as ‘terrorist.’
The charges against the activists refer to two cases: the break-in at a British branch of Israeli arms manufacturer Elbit Systems and infiltration of a Royal Air Force base to damage two planes with red paint and crowbars. Elbit is one of the many Israeli and multinational companies that are deeply involved in Israel’s genocide in Gaza and its ceaseless other crimes elsewhere, as UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese has shown in her recent report “From economy of occupation to economy of genocide.”
Britain’s Royal Air Force has besmirched itself by flying reconnaissance missions over Gaza, supporting Israel and its genocide there. Official denials, insisting that these operations have exclusively served the rescuing of hostages, are “preposterous,” as Matt Kennard who has been tracking and analyzing the flights systematically has concluded. In addition, since the flights are embedded in Israeli intelligence gathering, which is notorious for routinely relying on torture, the flights also make the UK an accomplice to that specific crime.
Ages ago, as an undergraduate history student at Oxford, I could see with my own eyes the great, persisting pride still attached to the memory of Britain’s ‘finest hour,’ when the country faced off against the threat of invasion by a surging Nazi Germany that had just mauled France. Over a thousand brave Spitfire pilots who fought in World War Two must now be turning in their graves. They defended their country against a fascist, genocidal German regime. Now the Royal Air Force is helping a Zionist, genocidal Israeli regime commit mass murder.
What an incredible shame. By now – very, very late – some former officers of high rank, and with a minimum of a conscience and a sense of honor left, are finally raising their voices to demand that Britain end its self-degrading support for and cooperation with Israel.
Hellbound and Down 