The tyranny of Palestinianism

So now we know: you can do pretty much anything you like in the name of Palestine. You can seemingly trespass on other people’s property. You can apparently damage things. You can seemingly carry a sledgehammer around. And a court will let you off. Your devotion to the cult of Palestinianism, your adherence to the bourgeois ideology of Israelophobia, will guard you from the consequences us lesser mortals would likely face if we behaved in a similar way for causes we believe in. There can be no doubt now: the elitist loathing for Israel is the most privileged ideology in 21st-century Britain.

I am referring, of course, to the clearing of some of the Palestine Action activists at Woolwich Crown Court yesterday. Six members of that aristocratic mob of Israel-haters that cosplays as a progressive movement were on trial for aggravated burglary following a break-in at an Elbit Systems factory in August 2024. Elbit Systems is frequently the target of the blind fury of the keffiyeh classes because it is a key provider of weaponry to that Jewish State they hate with such curious and venomous intensity.

The six were accused of aggravated burglary, criminal damage and violent disorder. The prosecution alleged that the activists were dressed in red boiler suits and carrying sledgehammers. It was also alleged that they used a van as a ‘battering ram’ to gain entry to the factory. There were claims that members of the gang used a sledgehammer against a police officer and then whipped a security guard – allegedly with a literal whip. The prosecution described their actions as ‘meticulously organised’. Video footage was submitted to the court allegedly showing the six engaging in trespassing and threatening behaviour.

Yet they’ve now been cleared by a jury. Yesterday, all six were cleared of aggravated burglary. Three were also found not guilty of violent disorder, while for the other three no verdict was reached on that charge. The jury was also unable to reach a verdict on allegations that one of the six – Samuel Corner – had caused grievous bodily harm by using a sledgehammer against a female police sergeant. All six now face a possible retrial. They’ve been released on bail, except for Mr Corner.

I’m going to be honest: the outcome in this case unnerves me. In fact I find it chilling. It would appear that the jury’s decision was at least in part shaped by an argument put forward in court that the six activists ‘genuinely believed’ their actions would ‘help the Palestinian cause in Gaza’. The activists’ defence team madly likened them to the Suffragettes and waxed lyrical about ‘their hope, their despair, their defiance and their dedication’. The activists themselves have hailed the court outcome as a ‘huge victory for moral courage’.

Let’s get real about what is being said here – that the activists’ beliefs, their infallible morality, their deep conviction that a ‘genocide’ is being committed in Gaza, allows them to behave in a way that would likely be judged criminal if anyone else had done it. It would seem that Israelophobia acts as a kind of talisman against conviction. If you subscribe to the cultural establishment’s burning contempt for the Jewish nation, you will be forcefielded from repercussions. You have a blank cheque to do what you want, so long as it’s ‘for Palestine’.

Where does this end? What else can you do ‘for Palestine’? Would burning down a building be acceptable? What about hijacking a plane destined for Tel Aviv? What about smashing up Jewish-owned businesses? Oh, wait – Palestine Action allegedly did that already, in Stamford Hill in May last year. The police’s enquiries are ongoing in relation to that suspected act of racially motivated criminal damage. God help us if it’s decided that racially motivated criminal damage also becomes just, or at least forgivable, if the alleged perpetrators are apostles of the cult of Palestinianism, if the fuel of their action is that chattering-class abhorrence for the Jewish nation.

These are not pedantic concerns. Court outcomes send signals. And the signal sent by this case – and more importantly by the cultural elites’ giddy crowing over the acquittals – is that the neo-religious belief that Israel is a genocidal entity enjoys special protection. It shields you from normal ramifications. For me, this case confirms that Israelophobia has become a kind of sainted theology, the most cherished bigotry of the establishment. And that compels us to ask what other kinds of behaviour might be permitted in its holy name. For the sake of our civilisation we need to know where the line will be drawn. Or if a line will be drawn.

I fear the emergence of a brutish system of two-tier morality, where those who hold ‘elite views’ are treated more leniently than those who do not. For example, I ‘genuinely believe’ – to quote the Palestine Action case – that a man cannot become a woman. Does that give me the right to trespass into Stonewall’s offices and smash the computers with which they propagate the trans lie? I ‘genuinely believe’ that non-crime hate incidents are an abomination against liberty. Would I be justified in showing my ‘defiance’ and ‘dedication’ on that matter by storming a police station and laying waste to all their logs of such incidents?

Of course not. It’s highly unlikely a court would acquit me for such behaviour. I’d probably be had up for the hate crime of ‘transphobia’ and for interfering with police business. And that suggests one thing very clearly – that in our supposedly free society, establishment beliefs enjoy greater legal protection than non-establishment beliefs. I am, by virtue of my moral convictions, a lesser citizen than those sons and daughters of privilege who have obediently imbibed their class’s contempt for Israel.

This is not an attack on trial by jury. It should always be juries that decide cases like these. But supporting jury trial doesn’t mean thinking juries always get it right – a jury convicted the Birmingham Six after all. No, the problem isn’t juries, it’s the culture. It’s the tyranny of Palestinianism. It’s the elite’s ceaseless promotion of the Israelophobic menace on our streets, in our institutions, in our media. Nothing good will come from giving free rein to the regressive loathing for the world’s only Jewish state.

Brendan O’Neill is spiked’s chief political writer and host of the spiked podcast, The Brendan O’Neill Show. Subscribe to the podcast here. His latest book – After the Pogrom: 7 October, Israel and the Crisis of Civilisation – is available to order on Amazon UK and Amazon US now. And find Brendan on Instagram: @burntoakboy.