‘A fantasy’: How the Palestine Action ruling whitewashed the history of civil disobedience
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Katherine Hearst
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Wed, 06/17/2026 - 09:02
Court upheld the ban on Palestine Action, denying it is a direct action group 'like the suffragettes'
Police detain a demonstrator following a Court of Appeal ruling on the lawfulness of proscribing Palestine Action under terrorism laws, outside the Royal Courts Of Justice in London, 15 June 2026 (Reuters)
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On Monday, five judges quashed a High Court ruling that found the UK government's proscription of direct action group Palestine Action to be unlawful.
In its judgement, the Court of Appeal noted the group's "covert" nature, saying that it is not "as it claims, a direct action civil disobedience group like the suffragettes".
"It is a covert organisation that operates using secret cells to avoid the detection and prosecution of those using violence to destroy the property of third parties. Palestine Action’s activities have caused injury as well as property damage," Lady Chief Justice Sue Carr said.
Commentators have pointed to the misconstruing of the suffragettes' campaign as non-violent and "operating transparently in the open".
"They are propagating a fantasy," former government lawyer Tim Crosland told Middle East Eye.
"The whitewashing of that history, making out that they broke at half time to have cucumber sandwiches with the police is quite alarming."
The Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU), the militant wing of the British suffrage movement, initially campaigned openly but escalated its tactics after 1912, carrying out arson and bombing attacks targeting public venues, infrastructure and the homes of anti-suffrage politicians.
With the adoption of more militant tactics, the movement shifted to operating more covertly - in a manner that academic researchers have said met "the definitional criteria of what we call a 'covert social movement network' (CSMN)". A secret cell, known as the Young Hot Bloods, was set up to conduct the attacks, with members pledging to "danger duty".
While the attacks primarily targeted property, they caused some injuries and fatalities. The women planted crude homemade bombs in packed train carriages and even sent vials of phosphorus in the post, severely burning postmen.
The police denounced their campaign as a "reign of terror", while newspaper headlines branded their actions as "Suffragette Terrorism".
In a pamphlet entitled Why We Are Militant, the movement’s leader, Emmeline Pankhurst, said: "The only justification for violence, the only justification for damage to property, the only justification for risk to the comfort of other human beings is the fact that you have tried all other available means and have failed to secure justice."
'Completely disingenuous'
Palestine Action co-founder Huda Ammori dismissed the court's characterisation of the group's activities as "covert", insisting that the majority of its activities were "accountable".
"Things like blocking a factory, getting on top of the roof of a factory, occupying a factory, knowing you're going to get arrested and the idea being you're willing to bear the consequences," Ammori told MEE.
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The written ruling referred to the group's "underground manual", which they said "advocates the disruption and destruction of and damage to its targets and avoiding detection".
"I would describe it as a bringing together different resources on how to take action and volunteer from different places, most of which is already available in different websites, from different groups," Ammori said.
"Even if you’re taking an accountable action, you will engage in digital security and take measures to protect yourself. Because otherwise, your movement is not sustainable".
Crosland, who has previously provided legal advice to climate groups, emphasised that "covert planning" is inherent to all direct action groups.
"Otherwise, you’ll be stopped when you leave the house," Crosland said.
"So it's completely disingenuous to use that to try and distinguish Palestine Action from other direct action groups.
"I think it's part of needing to push back against this idea that this is an authoritarian move by saying no, actually, nothing in the past was like this."
‘A misrepresentation of history’
The ruling also stated that "Palestine Action has little or nothing in common with…the anti-apartheid or Iran War protest groups".
The African National Congress, which campaigned against apartheid in South Africa, while initially committed to passive civil disobedience, shifted to armed struggle following the 1960 Sharpeville Massacre, when police opened fire on a crowd of protesters.
The movement was subsequently outlawed, forcing it underground and to adopt more militant tactics of sabotage of public infrastructure.
'The whitewashing of that history, making out that [the suffragettes] broke at half time to have cucumber sandwiches with the police is quite alarming'
- Tim Crosland, lawyer
Its leader, Nelson Mandela, said while he was on trial on charges of sabotage in 1964: "I came to the conclusion that as violence in this country was inevitable, it would be unrealistic to continue preaching peace and non-violence. This conclusion was not easily arrived at. It was only when all else had failed, when all channels of peaceful protest had been barred to us, that the decision was made to embark on violent forms of political struggle".
The Court of Appeal also cited a landmark 2006 ruling in the case of R v Jones, which related to activists who broke into an Royal Air Force base and damaged fuel tanks and bomb trailers to prevent US armed aircraft from participating in the invasion of Iraq in 2003.
At the time, the court heard that the appellants, Margaret Jones and Paul Milling, "had in their possession articles which they intended to use to destroy or damage the runway at the base and aircraft belonging to the United States Air Force", and that another defendant, Josh Richards, "attempted to set fire to an aircraft".
In his opinion, Lord Hoffmann affirmed the "long and honourable history of civil disobedience," and recognised that "people who break the law to affirm their belief in the injustice of a law or government action are sometimes vindicated by history," explicitly referencing the suffragettes.
He noted that protesters who "behave with a sense of proportion" can expect the state to act with restraint - setting the terms of what became known as "Hoffman’s bargain".
The appellants were handed a conditional discharge and a curfew order.
The Court of Appeal cited the landmark case, saying that Palestine Action represents "the antithesis of the kind of civil disobedience protest group" outlined by Hoffmann.
"To be saying that Palestine Action is on a totally different level is just a misrepresentation of history in order to justify a totally different response," Crosland said.
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