Upstream - [TEASER] Palestine Pt. 7: Direct Action w/ Max Geller of Palestine Action

Episode Date: March 5, 2024

You can listen to the full episode with Max Geller of Palestine Action by subscribing to our Patreon here: https://www.patreon.com/upstreampodcast As a Patreon subscriber, not only will you get access to at least one bonus episode a month, usually two or three, as well as early access to certain episodes and other benefits like stickers and bumper stickers, depending on which tier you subscribe to, but you’ll also be helping to keep Upstream sustainable and allowing us to keep this project going. Find out more at Patreon.com/upstreampodcast or at upstreampodcast.org/support. Thank you. Direct action is a strategy that has been utilized for a very, very long time by the left, as a way to achieve their goals— from all tendencies: anarchists, socialists, to communists. Direct action can take a wide variety of forms, from the forest protectors doing tree sit-ins in Atlanta’s Weelaunee forest as part of the Stop Cop City movement, to residents of the Bay Area congregating early in the morning at the port of Oakland to stop a boat carrying weapons for Israel from leaving the dock.  From climate change to police brutality to Indigenous resistance against pipeline companies, direct action has been used over and over to stand up to individuals, institutions, and state actors of all sorts. In this Patreon episode, we’re going to take a deep dive into direct action, focusing on how this strategy has been deployed here in the U.S. and in the U.K. in the context of Israel’s ongoing ethnic cleansing campaign against the Palestinian people. Max Geller is a public-facing member of Palestine Action in the UK who has been working with Palestine Action for about three and a half years, and has been doing pro-Palestine, anti-zionist work for many years with organizations such as Jewish Voice for Peace, the International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network, the National Students for Justice in Palestine Steering Committee, and with the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions, or BDS, movement. In this conversation we explore the work that Palestine Action is doing both in the U.K. and in the United States, we talk about direct action as a strategy and compare it to some other forms of action, we talk about some of the repression that activists have been facing—particularly here in the U.S. where anti-protest laws are beginning to become more and more common, we talk about Elbit Systems—which Palestine Action has targeted due to their prominent role in supplying weapons to Israel, and we explore Israel’s role as a major arms exporter to the rest of the world. Further Resources: Palestine Action

A quick note before we jump into this Patreon episode. Thank you to all of our Patreon subscribers for making Upstream possible. We genuinely couldn't do this without you. Your support allows us to create bonus content like this, and it helps us provide most of our content for free so that we can continue to offer political education media to the public and build our movement. Thank you, comrades. We hope you enjoy this conversation.

And an important disclaimer, neither upstream nor our guest in this episode and the organization he's representing is in any way encouraging or inciting anyone to participate in acts of violence or put themselves or others at risk of physical harm or injury, nor is upstream advocating for or encouraging anybody to conduct any illegal activities. This episode is intended to be an examination of direct action as a broader strategy and or incite any illegal or unsafe actions. Ah... Right now, we're materially engaged in ending this war on Palestine. Elbit is Israel's largest drone manufacturer. And drones and weapons in general are Israel's largest export. These drones are flying over Gaza as we speak, and they're being manufactured here in England as we speak.

And Palestine Action has spent the last three years waging an all-out sabotage campaign against every facet of Elbit's business here. We are determined to shut them down, and we have a very specific direct action strategy that has been consistently delivering benchmark results on our way to full victory. You are listening to Upstream. A podcast of documentaries and conversations that invites you to unlearn everything you thought you knew about economics.

I'm Della Duncan. And I'm Robert Raymond. Direct action is a strategy that has been used for a very long time on the left as a way to achieve goals. From all tendencies, including anarchists, socialists, to communists. Direct action can take a wide variety of forms, from the forest protectors doing tree sit-ins in Atlanta's Wilani Forest as part of the stop-cop city movement, to residents of the Bay Area congregating early in the morning at the port of Oakland to stop a boat carrying weapons for Israel from leaving the dock.

From climate change to police brutality to indigenous resistance against pipeline companies, direct action has been used over and over again to stand up to individuals, institutions, and state actors of all sorts. In this Patreon episode, we're going to take a deep dive into direct action, focusing on how this strategy has been deployed here in the US and in the UK in the context of Israel's ongoing ethnic cleansing campaign against the Palestinian people. Max Geller is a public-facing member of Palestine Action in the UK, who's been working with Palestine Action for about three and a half years

and has been doing pro-Palestine anti-Zionist work for many years with organizations such as Jewish Voice for Peace, the International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network, the National Students for Justice in Palestine Steering Committee, and with the Boycott Divestment and Sanctions or BDS movement. In this conversation, we explore the work that Palestine Action is doing both in the UK and in the United States. We talk about direct action as a strategy and compare it to some other forms of action. We talk about direct action as a strategy and compare it to some other forms of action. We talk about the repression that activists have been facing, particularly here in the

US, where anti-protest laws are beginning to become more and more common. We talk about Elbit systems, which Palestine action has targeted due to their prominent role in supplying weapons to Israel, and we explore Israel's role as a major arms exporter to the rest of the world. And now, here's Robert to have you on the show. I really appreciate you coming on on such short notice. Yeah, it's really good to be here. I have been a line time listener and it's really nice to be heard by all of your lovely Patreon subscribers.

Oh, well, that's really awesome to hear. Yeah, thank you so much for sharing that. And yeah, I guess I'm wondering if you could just start us off by introducing yourself and maybe telling us a little bit about how you came to do the work that you're doing. Sure. My name is Max Skeller. I am a public facing member of Palestine Action here in the UK. As you can hear, I'm from Boston and originally, but I moved to London about four years ago and have been working with Palestine Action for about three and a half years now. And when I moved here, you know, Palestine Action was already had already began its campaign to shut down Elbit. You know, I've been doing Palestine related organizing anti Zionist

organizing for more than a decade now. I've been active in several local Jewish voice for peace chapters. I was a longtime organizer with the International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network. I was part of the National Students for Justice in Palestine steering committee and I did some pretty serious BDS organizing on a campus level, on the municipal level when I lived in New Orleans. And so Palestine Action is a welcome departure from all of that, almost all of that really. And it's a, you know, fundamentally different approach to campaigning and to the type of organizing.

And I think I'm really proud of the way Palestine Action is meeting the moment. And we have since we began, we've forced the permanent closure of two the permanent closure of two Elbit sites here in the UK. And it's funny, like this is not an exaggeration, but I spent a lot of my own time, once upon a time, organizing to remove Sabra Hummus from the shelves of my campus convenience store. And noble as that might be, right now we're materially engaged

in ending this war on Palestine. Elbit is Israel's largest drone manufacturer and drones and weapons in general are Israel's largest export. These drones are flying over Gaza as we speak and they're being manufactured here in England as we speak. And Palestine Action has spent the last three years waging an all out sabotage campaign

against every facet of Elbit's business here. We are determined to shut them down and we have a very specific direct action strategy that has been consistently delivering benchmark results on our way to full victory. Wow, from Sabra to weapons systems, like something on a grocery store aisle to a weapons factory. I mean, it's truly the most noble, beautiful. I would be remiss if I don't spend more time just shouting out the people who are like the anonymous members of this movement, people who have been arrested multiple times,

people who have over 400 different people in England have been arrested at Elbit Weapons Factory sites in the last three years. We have repeatedly shown up again and again and again. We're creating this dilemma for Elbit. We're forcing them to ask themselves if it's worth it to remain here. People are willing to go to jail to cost them their profits. And we're also, I mean, like it's also really important to sort of point out to your listener is that, especially to your ones who might be in North America,

the extent to which the laws are different here are hard to overstate, but worker safety laws in the UK are so strong that if actionists can get on the roofs of weapons factories, those weapons factories have to close until the action is removed. And sometimes that can take days. Indeed, during the last bombing campaign in 2021,

we had some activists on the rooftop of factories for four days, some for five. And when they're finally removed, they sometimes don't open again for three months. So we're talking about incredible acts of solidarity here, really redefining what's possible in terms of what a sustained campaign can look like. And that also tells me how much forethought goes into strategy and tactics specifically, and what tactics work in specific material conditions.

And so I'm actually wondering if we can just maybe back up a little bit. And for anybody who's not familiar with Palestine Action, I think you've sort of given enough information that people can guess. You guys are a direct action organization based out of the UK. You also have a wing in the US now. I'm wondering if you can just maybe tell us a little bit more broadly about what Pal action or Palestine action is and maybe a little bit, because I think primarily our listeners are in the US, although we do have listeners in the UK, some very awesome ones. Yeah, but just maybe talking a little bit about how you moved your work into the US as well.

Yeah, I mean, it's not just the US. Since the genocide has unfolded, we've seen Palestine Action Chapter is launching Italy, France. We've seen direct actions against Elbit holdings in Toronto New York City all over the US. So indeed we're seeing sort of the globalization of Palestine action and It's about time really. I feel like it's what the the moment requires But yeah, I mean like I would love to talk specifically about our campaign and our tactics. Palestine Action is specifically trying to recreate the Raytheon 9. The Raytheon 9 case was this,

in the early aughts in the north of Ireland, Raytheon, which is, should be familiar to everybody, you know, one of the world's largest weapons companies opened a factory up in Derry in the north of Ireland. And that factory saw repeated direct actions. People went back over and over and over again, sit ins active tickets each time there are a recipe and there were charges brought and each time. They beat them they beat those charges eventually you know is is hard to find a dairy. Jerry that was willing to convict people who were shutting down. that was willing to convict people who were shutting down weapons factories in solidarity with the people of Iraq and Palestine. And after one particularly bad court loss for Raytheon, they just closed the factory and left and haven't been back since.

And I think it's important right to consider when you talk about something like that, it's not just the immediate material inconvenience for a company like Raytheon to have to move their factory and start their operations over. It inspires a whole generation of people who want to deliver their own popular victory and want to show the world that enough committed people who are willing to continuously pressure evil companies

can come away with incredible results. So I mean, one really good example is Elbit used to make drones, including combat drones, in a town in the UK called Oldham, which has a incredibly large Southeast Asian community. And when Palestine action began shutting down this factory and holding up signs and putting up billboards that said battle tested on Palestinians and being used on Kashmir, that turned out the entire community. And before you knew it, our direct action occupations of rooftops were being met by hundreds, if not thousands of local Pakistani and Kashmiri Muslims who would hold Friday prayers at our demos. And that factory doesn't exist anymore. That's all it took. Three months of sustained

campaigning like that and that factory is gone. It took seven weeks of sustained and I'm talking like multiple time a week arrests at the door blockades at the London central office. But I mean, we were coming every other day, it felt like, for five straight weeks and that fact and eventually they just left. And it's, we're past the time of signing petitions here in the UK. We're past the point of asking British Parliament to do something. It is time to take matters into our own hand. David Graber once said, protest is asking the powers that be to dig you a well and direct action is digging that well yourself and daring them to stop you.

And based on our context and as you said, our material conditions, we're not catching felonies here, felony charges. So it is not much hesitation when it comes to this level of risk. This was a clip from our Patreon episode with Max Geller of Palestine Action. You can listen to the full episode by becoming a Patreon subscriber. As a Patreon subscriber, not only will you get access to at least one bonus episode a month, usually two or three, as well as early access to certain episodes and other benefits like stickers and bumper stickers, depending on which tier you subscribe to, but you'll

also be helping to keep upstream sustainable and allowing us to keep this project going. Find out more at patreon.com forward slash upstream podcast or at upstream podcast.org forward slash support. Thank you.