The Fool on the Hill: On Terrorism, and Genocide

What am I doing?

I'm expecting to go on a demonstration tomorrow — or strictly speaking, today, since it's already past midnight.

At that demonstration, I have a fair expectation that I will be arrested. Which, if it happens, will be a real nuisance, I have a busy week ahead of me and I don't really have time for this. And if I am arrested, and tried, I could well face a considerable prison sentence, which would be still more a nuisance.

So there must be some very significant cause for me to take this action.

There is.

Why am I doing this?

My government — the government which claims to represent me, the government of the nation state in which I was born, and of which I continue to be a citizen — is at best deeply complicit in, at worst a willing participant in, an ongoing crime of genocide. While other acts of genocide have happened in my lifetime — in Rwanda, in Cambodia, in Bosnia — but the United Kingdom government did not condone these, and one in East Timor, where the UK sold war planes to the offending government, a matter I'll come back to.

But the UK has never before in my lifetime directly taken part, as we are doing now with (at least) surveillance flights. So this is a very different situation, a very serious one, one which places a duty on every citizen to publicly protest and resist. Because if we do not, if we simply pass by on the other side, then we too are complicit.

Genocide is a crime. It was declared so by resolution 96 of the General Assembly of the United Nations, on 11^th December 1946. It was declared to be a crime under international law, which means everywhere, for all people and nations. It was formalised into the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide by resolution 260 A (III) of the General Assembly on the 9^th December 1948, came into force as international law on the 12^th January 1951, and was acceded to by the United Kingdom in 1970.

How do I know that genocide is taking place?

Francesca Albanese is the senior international civil servant appointed by the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights to monitor and report on the state of human rights in 'Palestine and other occupied Arab territories.' In her report presented on the 26^th March 2024 the United Nations Human Rights Council, she concluded:

"The overwhelming nature and scale of Israel’s assault on Gaza and the destructive conditions of life it has inflicted reveal an intent to physically destroy Palestinians as a group. This report finds that there are reasonable grounds to believe that the threshold indicating the commission of the following acts of genocide against Palestinians in Gaza has been met: killing members of the group; causing serious bodily or mental harm to groups’ members; and deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part. Genocidal acts were approved and given effect following statements of genocidal intent issued by senior military and government officials." [source]

How do I know that the UK Government is complicit in genocide?

Supply of F35 parts

The UK government defended and, on 30^th June 2025, won a case on the legality of continuing to sell parts of military attack aircraft to Israel. This was

1. After the International Criminal Court had issued arrest warrants for Netanyahu and other Israeli officials; and
2. After Ms Albanese's report described above.

Therefore, it must be assumed that the government was then aware of both these things.

In its defence, the government acknowledged

"there was therefore a clear risk that military equipment exported to Israel which might be used in that conflict might be used to commit or facilitate a serious violation of [International Humanitarian Law]" [source].

So, in the knowledge that parts supplied by the United Kingdom might be use by Israel to continue an ongoing crime of genocide, the United Kingdom government made an explicit, positive decision to go ahead with these ('lucrative') sales.

Continuation of reconnaissance flights

Starting in December 2023, not long after the 7^th October atrocity, and continuing apparently into this year, the Royal Air Force has flown a large number of reconnaissance flights over Gaza. These flights have gathered data.

"Our military co-operation extends beyond arms sales; it is operational, especially when it comes to using our airbase in Akrotiri, Cyprus. In one year alone, from December 2023 to November 2024, the UK conducted 645 surveillance and recon missions, which amounts to almost two flights a day." Shockat Adam MP, quoted in Hansard.

The UK Government claims that these flights have been solely concerned with locating the Israeli hostages taken on the 7th October. But locating a few individuals, all of whom are believed to be held underground, in an area of three hundred and sixty five square kilometres and inhabited by two million people, is not something which can be done by aircraft; and if it could be done by aircraft, would not take 645 flights.

Israel controls the airspace over Gaza, and the RAF's reconnaissance aircraft are not armed. They could not operate over Gaza without explicit Israeli permission, and it is extremely hard to believe that the Israel Defence Force would allow these flights if they were not receiving the data gathered by them.

Of course, in the immediate aftermath of 7^th October 2023, the scale and nature of the Israeli response was not yet known. The starting of reconnaissance flights in the late autumn of 2023 is not evidence of complicity in genocide. But I would argue that their continuation after 26^th March 2024 is such evidence.

What is Terrorism?

Wikipedia defines terrorism as

the use of violence against non-combatants to achieve political or ideological aims [source]

That is clearly the consensual meaning of the word: the use of deliberately incited terror in civilian populations to bring about political change.

There are four components of this definition

1. The use of violence;
2. To incite terror;
3. Against non-combatants;
4. To achieve political ends.

The attack by Hamas on Israeli civilians on 7th 2023 was clearly an act of terrorism in this sense.

1. The violence included killings, maimings, rapes;
2. In places people went to enjoy themselves (a music festival) or feel safe (their own homes)
3. Where the overwhelming majority of those present were unarmed civilians
4. With the apparent intention of restarting open war with Israel.

But equally, so have been the ongoing attacks by the Israel Defence Force against Palestinian hospitals, medical staff, food distribution queues and other civilian targets over the years since.

1. The violence includes killings, maimings, rapes;
2. In places people went to have their injuries treated (hospitals), or to seek food (distribution sites);
3. Where the overwhelming majority of those present were unarmed civilians;
4. With the stated intention of driving the entire Palestinian population out of Gaza.

What isn't terrorism?

Daubing the offices of arms manufacturers, or the fuselages of military aircraft, with water soluble paint, is clearly not terrorism. It satisfies none of the criteria.

1. There's no violence;
2. No-one is terrorised;
3. Against targets all of which are actively involved in military action or preparation for it;
4. With the stated intention of ending UK complicity in genocide.

Let's be clear: you may feel that daubing paint on RAF planes is vandalism, or even criminal damage. You may feel that breaking into an airbase to do this is trespass. These things are crimes for which people can be punished. It would be perfectly possible for the government to prosecute the activists of Palestine Action who did these things for these crimes which, prima facie, they have committed.

So why would the United Kingdom Government proscribe an organisation as terrorist which clearly isn't terrorist?

Proscription as Distraction

Deliberate distortion of the truth has become a feature of modern politics. One of its early adopters, Steve Bannon, describes the practice as 'flooding the zone with shit'. When politicians deliberately say things which everyone knows aren't true, they undermine the concept of truth in the public sphere: they create a world in which truth no longer matters, only power.

Palestine Action says things the government doesn't like. In a free society, everyone has a right to say things which the government doesn't like. The right to freedom of speech, to freedom to assemble and protest, to disagree with, criticise and peacefully oppose the government of the day, are the core foundations on which democracy depends.

Keir Starmer knows this very well. He is a civil rights lawyer. He has defended the Ploughshares Four, a group who caused significant damage to a military aircraft in a direct action protest against the then-ongoing genocide in East Timor, in the European Court of Human Rights. He knows exactly what is justifiable protest against an unconscionable action by a government. He clearly know the damage between non-violent damage to (military) property and terrorism.

So if everyone has the right to say things which the government doesn't like, what sort of people ought to be able to be prevented from saying things which the government really, really doesn't like? Why, really bad people of course. Bad people like terrorists. So if the government defines people as terrorists, it can make it illegal for people to even say their name.

This isn't about truth: it's about power. The fact that the government can tell you to believe a thing which patently isn't true, which they themselves clearly don't believe to be true, and can punish you with imprisonment for failing to at least pretend to believe this thing which blatantly isn't true, is the point.

Because they hope this confected and risible accusation of terrorism will create a chilling effect on public comment on the ongoing genocide in Gaza, and thus suppress comment and investigation of the United Kingdom government's role in it.

Share on social media

I'm no longer offering links to kleptocrat owned social media. If you're still using it, please think about whether you should be.