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Weapons makers

Palestine Action Blocks Arms Factories With Vehicles

Palestine Action started the week with a bang – despite the state having locked up so many of their activists. Undeterred, people once again shut down a weapons factory in Staffordshire crucial to the supply of arms to genocidal Israel and war criminal Benjamin Netanyahu. On Monday 25 November, activists from Palestine Action returned to the site of UAV Engines, locking on inside vehicles in front of the gates of the factory to prevent production of Israeli drone engines. Operated by Elbit Systems, Israel’s largest weapons company, the site has once again been targeted by Palestine Action activists.

Protests At Weapons Companies Expose Canada’s Involvement In F-35s

On Saturday November 16, hundreds of people gathered outside 16 factories and facilities across the country to expose Canada’s involvement in the production and maintenance of the F-35 fighter jets that are devastating Gaza and Lebanon, and to demand that Canada impose an immediate, two-way arms embargo on Israel. Each targeted company produces components of Lockheed Martin’s flagship war plane, which Israel is using to drop 2000 lb bombs on residential neighborhoods, schools, and refugee camps in what is already the most destructive bombing campaign of the twenty-first century.

Activists Target Logistics Firms Facilitating Israel’s Genocide In Gaza

Israel’s Ministry of Defense acknowledged a landmark on August 26: The Israeli military had received its 500th airlift of supplies from the United States since the attack by Hamas and other Palestinian militants on October 7, 2023. According to the ministry, those flights and more than a hundred sea shipments have delivered over 50,000 tons of military equipment, including armored vehicles, munitions and ammunition, “crucial for sustaining the [Israeli military’s] operational capabilities.” A month earlier, on July 31, activists organized a related “celebration” at the headquarters of cargo airline Atlas Air in White Plains, New York.

Climate In The Crosshairs

NATO spent $1.34 trillion dollars on the military in 2023, an increase of $126 billion in one year.1  It is therefore accelerating the climate crisis in a decade that the UN Secretary General António Guterres has called ‘climate crunch time’, where urgent action is needed on ‘every front’.2 NATO is currently responsible for 55% of total global military spending. In October 2023, TNI, Tipping Point North South and Stop Wapenhandel published, Climate Crossfire - How NATO’s 2% military spending targets contribute to climate breakdown. This report examined the climate impact of NATO’s 2% GDP target for spending on the military, and the related target of at least 20% of expenditure spent on equipment. I

Thank You To The SXSW Festival For Dumping The US Army

South by Southwest (SXSW) is an annual conglomeration of parallel film, interactive media, and music festivals and conferences organized jointly that take place in mid-March in Austin, Texas. It has been growing in size since 1987. The festivals just dumped weapons makers and the U.S. Army out the door: “After careful consideration, we are revising our sponsorship model. As a result, the US Army, and companies who engage in weapons manufacturing, will not be sponsors of SXSW 2025.” This wonderful development is not just something going right (such an unusual sight, in the words of Paul Simon), and not just somebody doing something right in Texas (I’m certain that it happens all the time, in the words of Lennon/McCartney).

Minnesota: Protest Demands BAE Systems Leave Maple Grove

Maple Grove, Minnesota – On April 6, the Free Palestine Coalition held a rally and march of 100 people outside the Arbor Lakes shopping mall in Maple Grove to protest the upcoming installment of BAE Systems in the Twin Cities. Protesters wanted to highlight the role of BAE Systems in the deaths of tens of thousands of Palestinians in Gaza since October 7. BAE Systems makes the F-15, F-16 and F-35 fighter jets that Israel uses in their attacks on Gaza. On March 18, the Maple Grove city council unanimously approved BAE Systems’ request for a $600,000 aid package to make soil corrections before their warehouse installment.

Korean Movements Demand: South Korea, Stop Arming Israel!

On January 19, 150 people protested in front of the Defense Acquisition Program Administration (DAPA) office in the city of Daejeon, demanding the South Korean government stop arming Israel. While Palestine may seem like a distant conflict to South Koreans, the South Korean military-industrial complex is a key pillar in the Israeli war machine. According to Peace Momo, Hanwha, South Korea’s leading defense company, signed a major technology cooperation and export deal with Israeli weapons company, Elbit Systems, at the Seoul International Aerospace & Defense Exhibition (ADEX) in 2021.

Inside The Youth-Led Fight For A Demilitarized Future

In January 2020, Dissenters — a grassroots, youth-led antiwar movement — began with the mission to connect violence against Black and brown communities in the U.S. to the systems of oppression that fund, arm and enable global militarism. While born from the legacy of the U.S. antiwar movement, Dissenters takes an intersectional approach that connects global wars with corporate elites, local police, border walls, surveillance and prisons. Operating across the country through campus chapters, training fellowships and a strong social media presence, Dissenters has been organizing for college divestment from weapons manufacturers, ending campus recruitment from military-affiliated companies and disbanding campus police departments.

Israel Is Shutting Down Its Human Laboratory In Gaza

Cairo, Egypt - The Palestinians are human laboratory rats to the Israeli military, intelligence services and arms and technology industries. Israel’s drones, surveillance technology — including spyware, facial recognition software and biometric gathering infrastructure — along with smart fences, experimental bombs and AI-controlled machine guns, are tried out on the captive population in Gaza, often with lethal results. These weapons and technologies are then certified as “battle tested” and sold around the world. Israel is the 10th biggest arms dealer on the planet and sells its technology and weapons to an estimated 130 nations, including military dictatorships in Asia and Latin America.

People Block Raytheon Entrance To Protest ‘Genocide Economy’

A coalition representing "progressive Jewish anti-Zionist" and pro-Palestine organizations on Thursday staged a "die-in," blocking the entrance of Raytheon's Tucson office on Aeropark Boulevard. The initial action featured about 60 protesters, clad in black with masks covering their faces and signs with messages decrying "genocide in Gaza." They chanted "free Palestine" before lying down on the pavement. Over the course of the first 20 minutes, The Arizona Republic observed roughly a dozen vehicles make a U-turn in front of the entrance being blocked by the protesters. Those staging the “die-in” were lying behind a series of ladders and barricades that they erected, while other protesters stood in front of it, closer to the road.

Palestine Action Strikes Three Israel-Supplying Weapons Factories

This morning, three simultaneous actions have targeted weapons factories across Britain, to prevent the production of weaponry destined for use by Israel in their ongoing massacre of the Palestinian people. While Israel’s Instro Precision in Kent has been met with a 100-person-strong blockade, a lock-on and a rooftop occupation disrupted Leicester’s UAV Tactical Systems and Howmet Fastening Systems. At the Instro Precision factory in Sandwich, over 100 people have descended on the site, to blockade the two entrances to the Discovery Park business area. The site, which has faced protests for years and has previously been occupied by Palestine Action, has been forced closed.

Palestinians’ Legal Right To Resist; Their Fight And Showing Solidarity

On October 7, Hamas fighters broke out of Gaza, the world's largest open air prison, and directly attacked the Israeli State, including military facilities, illegal settlements and airports. Israeli Occupying Forces responded with sophisticated weaponry targeting civilian housing in Gaza and schools and hospitals where people sought refuge. Israel has now stopped all water, power and aid to Gaza. To understand what is happening and Palestinian rights under international law, Clearing the FOG speaks with Dr. Mazin Qumsiyeh, who resides in Bethlehem. In support of Palestinians' right to resist, massive rallies and marches are taking place around the world. Clearing the FOG also speaks with Priscilla Lynch and Clara Wagner about their direct action last week targeting L3 Harris, which provides military equipment to Israel, as part of a campaign by Demilitarize Western Mass.

Massachusetts: Blockade Of L3Harris Protests Military Industrial Complex

Northampton, MA - On the morning of Thursday, October 12, members and supporters of the Demilitarize Western Mass collective created a blockade at 50 Prince Street, Northampton, in front of L3Harris (the local subsidiary of weapons giant.) L3Harris is the ninth largest weapons manufacturer in the world, and this direct action is in protest of this part of the military industrial complex in the region, particularly their role in violence abroad and carceral surveillance systems. The blockade consists of protesters locking themselves to a large boat and three trailers, preventing cars from entering either of the driveways to L3Harris.

Launch Of 50-Target-Map Of Companies Complicit In Israel’s Weapons Trade

Israel has now declared a ‘full siege’ on Gaza, dropping 1,000 tonnes of bombs on the 25-mile long Strip and cutting off all supplies, food, energy and water to its 2 million inhabitants. Over 700 Palestinians have been killed, over 180,000 made homeless, and Gazans are preparing for worse to come – until now, it was unthinkable that their 17 years of captivity and starvation could be made any worse. At this moment, those of us living in the globe’s imperial core face a choice: between silence and complicity in the decades-long brutalisation of Palestine, or standing with the liberation efforts of those subjected to Israel’s brutality, apartheid, war crimes, and constant abuses of human, religious, and cultural rights.

Palestine Action Hits Every Office Of Elbit Recruiters In One Night

In the early hours of Monday morning, Palestine Action struck four offices home to iO Associates, the sole recruiters for Israeli arms manufacturer Elbit Systems. Offices in Manchester, Bristol, London, and Reading were sprayed with red paint from fire extinguishers, to symbolise the blood of the Palestinians that Israel continues to spill. This action follows two occasions in which activists stormed the new Manchester offices, the first time confronting iO’s Director Ross Markall, who assaulted the protestors unprovoked. Shortly after this, iO Associates removed all of Elbit’s job offers from their website, however they have since been put back up.

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Urgent End Of Year Fundraising Campaign

Online donations are back! 

Keep independent media alive. 

Due to the attacks on our fiscal sponsor, we were unable to raise funds online for nearly two years.  As the bills pile up, your help is needed now to cover the monthly costs of operating Popular Resistance.

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