Quote Originally Posted by baggieal View Post
Constructive post as always Omeg but for me the supporters should be allowed to attend with measures in place. I still say had these supporters been playing Spurs or in Manchester or Leeds with very large Jewish communities then there would be not the same arguments. That Palestinian Action Group were right to be branded terrorists and they all should have been jailed. The damage at Brize Norton was a national disgrace and cost millions. Anyone supporting this group regardless of what?s going on should be rightly arrested as they are.

As the Italian Leader has said - Starmer needs to get his own house in order as he?s an embarrassment. Although he knows himself this was the wrong decision to his credit for once.

The problem with this match now is if the decision is reversed as it should all the Palestinian/leftie loonies will turn up and there will be huge provocation. Perhaps the police should coach the supporters in and in this occasion for god sake - ban any counter protests with the warning of arrests and also ban any Palestinian or Israeli flags inside the stadium. Shouldn?t be difficult.
Your last para just about sums up the problem of now reversing the decision Al.

As for the Palestine Action Group, I am not convinced that this is quite so straightforward tbh. It got onto the proscribed terrorist list after defacing aircraft at Brize Norton and spraying paint inside their engines. Cooper has consistently said that many of those supporting it have been misled and that if they really knew what the Group had been up to, they might understand better the reasons behind this decision. Unfortunately, however, she has never really elaborated on this which may be why so many continue to support it and petition for its removal from the terrorism list.

Palestine Action was set up in 2020 with the stated intention to end global participation in what it claimed was Israel's "genocidal and apartheid regime following Netanyahu's actions in Gaza. I'm sure there are those who would deny that either is true but regardless of the heinous attack by Hamas, surely most clear eyed people would view Israel as coming perilously close to the former in Gaza and perilously close to the latter in the West Bank.

Very costly to correct certainly, but whilst spraying paint into an aircraft's engines will temporarily disable them it is hardly effective sabotage. It isn't blowing things up or killing people either. Nonetheless, it is, of course, an attack on military aircraft that form part of our country's defence. Activists also broke into Elbit Systems which supplies arms to Israel and, alongside vandalism, they also assaulted 3 people including a police officer. Clearly, both actions are indefensible but I am not aware of other activities that might meet the criteria for being proscribed a terrorist group.

Lord Walney -who had both Stop Oil and Palestine Action in mind-previously proposed that extremist protest groups should be banned under a separate category which seems more appropriate but this has yet come to fruition. Under the 2000 Terrorism Act there are currently 84 proscribed groups, many of which are Islamic Extremist ones. Palestine Action is on the list, Stop Oil is not nor is it banned despite criminal activities carried out by some of its activists.

I abhor anti-Semitism but there IS a difference between being anti-Semitic and criticising the actions and behaviour of the Israeli government under Netanyahu and the ultra right Zionist "settlers" who seek to illegally force Palestinians from their homes and land in the West Bank. ( A large number of such "settlers" btw hold American passports and Trump over-turned Biden's sanctions against them when he came to power). A growing number of Jews both within Israel and abroad feel similarly but in our increasingly bipartisan world this is too often ignored and distilled into a simple Muslim/Palestine v Jewish/ Israel conflict. This is both wrong and dangerous and small wonder that Jewish communities in this country (most of whom likely have little support for Netanyahu's actions) feel under threat.

Personally, I feel that any collective guilt felt by the West over either the Holocaust or it's long history of mistreatment and prejudices against Jewish communities should not blind them to what Netanyahu is enabling in both Gaza and the West Bank. Islamic extremists who wish the destruction of Israel are abhorrent and I am not naive enough to believe that there are not some pro-Palestinian protesters for whom the "from the river to the sea" chant really does mean that too but the vast majority, I am sure, interpret it as simply a call for an independent Palestinian state-something Netanyahu and the right wing in Israel vehemently oppose and do their utter most to prevent.