Intropy

Lift the Ban: Released Under Investigation for a Section 12 Offence

2026-10-21T14:30:41.171+01:00

This is one of a series of posts about my experience of the Defend our Juries (DoJ) 'Lift the Ban' campaign. See my Lift the Ban page for more.

Yesterday (20 October 2026) I got yet another letter from the Met Police, this one telling me that I have been 'released under investigation' (RUI) following my fourth arrest (outside Westminster Magistrates Court on 30th July). This means I don't need to go down to Plumstead police station next week to answer my bail, but they are keen to warn me that I am still under investigation and, importantly, it confirms in writing that this one is for a Section 12 offence (of the Terrorism Act 2000). My other arrests and the two charges are Section 13. Although the difference in what you do to contravene S12 rather than S13 appears subtle, the consequences are very different. Maximum sentence of S13 is 6 months in jail. For S12 it is 14 years!

In summary now (See my Lift the Ban page for more about each of them):

S13 arrest 9 Aug 2025: charged and entered my not-guilty plea
S13 arrest 11th April 2026: charged
S13 arrest 12th June: RUI
S12 arrest 30th July: RUI
S13 arrest 27th Sept: de-arrested but still under investigation
I'm also under investigation for a possible S12 offence due to my little video.

If you'd told me just two years ago that this is how my retirement would unfold I would have thought your were fey. But then if you'd told me four years ago that Britain in 2026 would be complicit in genocide I wouldn't have believed that either.

Lift the Ban: charged for the second time

2026-10-19T23:45:22.077+01:00

This is one of a series of posts about my experience of the Defend our Juries (DoJ) 'Lift the Ban' campaign. See my Lift the Ban page for more.

Just before the six-month cut-off I've been charged for the second time that I was arrested (on 11th April).

Here's the letter:

The stuff about not attending these administrative hearings is hilarious. It has gradually evolved from 'you must attend' through 'you do not need to attend' (sometimes saying both in the same letter) to now, in bold red type: 'Do not attend'. 🤣

We have the legal right to attend, so you may be sure that most of us, perhaps 2000 of us, will do!

Meanwhile, at the time of writing when Andy Burnham has become Labour Leader and therefore Prime Minister, there has been an attempt to recover some of the lost support over Palestine. The Foreign Secretary, Ed Miliband, has said things that have not been said before, about war crimes, about how Israel is deliberately making 'the two state solution' impossible by the actions in the West Bank. Strong words condemning Israel. He and others in government have also said that the arrest of elderly peaceful protestors was never the intention. FWIW, I believe Miliband is genuine, but I'm not so sure about Andy Burnham. Remember that his accession to role of Labour Leader was in the end managed by the same people who gave us Sir Keir.

And meanwhile again, nothing has really changed. There's no suggestion that the government wants to reverse the proscription of Palestine Action, and the arrests of us peaceful protestors continues. The 'Filton 4' are still in jail serving terrorist sentences despite not even being charged with terrorism and the trials of other Palestine Action activists continue.

Worse of all, the murder of innocent Palestinians continues daily in Gaza, but it is so normalised that it's not even reported, while settler violence in the West Bank continues unchecked.

Fifth arrest (and de-arrest). 27 September 2026

2026-09-28T14:24:17.500+01:00

This is one of a series of posts about my experience of the Defend our Juries (DoJ) 'Lift the Ban' campaign. See my Lift the Ban page for more.

Another new experience from this one. I was manhandled by the police.

This was back to our original sign-holding, arranged to take place in Liverpool outside the Labour Party conference.

We wrote our placards and took our seats in silence, facing away from the conference centre, at 1pm. The police started arresting people quite soon after 1 but were being ridiculously slow. I think it was at a rate of about six an hour, despite the fact that there was a massive police presence. In London they always did lots of arrests in parallel: here it was one at a time. (Perhaps they only had one police station to take us to, so were only arresting people the rate they could process them at the station.) They had been trying to encourage us to give up our placards and give them our personal details in exchange for being allowed to leave. We were not willing to do that.

However at about 6 pm the message was going around (in whispers) suggesting we all walk away together en masse at 6:30. We tried to do that and it took the police by surprise (I'd thought they might have realised what we were planning, but it seems not). They looked panicked, and tried (mostly successfully) to stop us by 'kettling'.

S (who I'd travelled up with from MK) and I managed to break through their ranks but were caught by "outfielders". If we would give up our placards and give them our details they said they would let us go. That would have just been capitulating to what they had wanted us to do anyway, so we refused. There was a bit of a kerfuffle with them pushing us around, and us passing our placards between us, and by the end of that I had both placards and S managed to walk away. The police didn't pursue her, presumably since she didn't have a placard.

I still refused to give up my placards (I now had two 😀) so they arrested me which meant they could force me to hand them over. At that stage I had a decision to make: do I give them my details (they had said that if I did that they would be de-arrested me and I could go) or do I hold firm and not give them my details which would force them to take me to a police station for processing? I found this difficult and stressful because by now I really wanted to go home, but I also knew that Defend our Juries would want me to force them to take me to a police station.

I chose the former, giving them my details, justifying it to myself with the argument that I had not voluntarily given up my placard so it was not just capitulation to what they had wanted. They de-arrested me (see comment below) but said they had evidence of my contravening Section 13 of the Terrorism Act (photographs, video and TWO placards, of course) and would follow it up by post. My arresting officer even apologised for manhandling me, but claimed it was necessary.

I have since heard that some of those who didn't escape the kettle - the vast majority of the 100 - were there being arrested until long after midnight.

There were reasons I wanted to get away when I did. If I didn't get the 20:43 train from Lime Street I wouldn't be able to get another train until 9:43 the following morning, and there was a lot to do back home. But all the same, I feel a bit of a failure not to have held out, and have massive respect for the heroes who were there in the cold and dark into the early hours of the morning.

I don't really know what de-arresting is (I've not yet made any effort to find out). In practice, the arrest/de-arrest seems to have just been a wheeze to force me to give up my placard, without the need to take me to a police station. Does the de-arrest have the effect of wiping away the arrest? Or is the arrest still on my record? At some other protests, the police have set-up a tent on location where they can process people and then issue them with 'street bail'. Most recently, most people who have been arrested and given bail (either on the street or at a police station) have subsequently been 'released under investigation' RUI. That has now happened to my second and third arrests (I've been charged following my first arrest and the bail from my fourth arrest is still in place). On de-arresting me, the police said they would continue investigate my deemed contravention of Section 13, so that sounds very much the same a RUI and the arrest/de-arrest sequence seems as though it should have pretty much the same consequence as street bail. Anyway... they said they would be writing to me, so maybe I'll find out in due course. At the moment, the whole lot it is just a load of paperwork for me.

Reflections

It is really important that I come back to why I'm doing this, and that it is not about me. Any discomfort to me is trivial compared the sacrifices of the (mostly young) people fighting the Elbit Beast, and in turn they say that even their sacrifices are trivial compared to what has been done, and continues to be done, to the Palestinians. Remember: more than 70,000 killed, of which more than 20,000 are children and more than 1000 are babies. Everyone of us at the protest would say the same, and indeed, several protestors were interviewed at the time and said just that.

If I'd had any doubts about going ahead with this action (and I am always trying to rethink things, to make sure I know what I'm doing) they were more than overcome by watching Channel 4 Dispatches: Britain’s Gaza Secrets Exposed last week. Britain has been selling arms to Israel, long after we knew they were in violation of international humanitarian law (IHL) in the most heinous way imaginable.

And one final, maybe controversial, reflection. I have been impressed (-ish, sort of) by the diversity of the police in London. The police in Liverpool did not look diverse. I don't remember seeing any of them who were not white. (I'll delete this comment if someone shows me that I just didn't see them!). And, this made me uncomfortable. The fact is that I find an all-white squad more intimidating than a diverse squad. That's just how I feel.

Lift the Ban: Who will slay the Elbit beast?

2026-09-12T12:30:00.724+01:00

This is one of a series of posts about my experience of the Defend our Juries (DoJ) 'Lift the Ban' campaign. See my Lift the Ban page for more.

Because this (getting arrested) is such a departure from what I've done before, I'm constantly questioning myself. The answer so far has always been: yes, absolutely you should be doing this. I convince myself, but I also want to convince other people. That is more difficult, because there is so much I need to say and I can hear their refutations in my head. I've got answers to them, but to write it up would take ages. And there's all the back story, because, despite what I've been saying about how I've changed, it didn't come from nowhere. Bizarre though it may seem, I believe it started for me with my introduction to the Fairtrade movement in about 1980 (when I bought shares in Traidcraft). But that's for another time.

Most recently, any doubts I had were squashed by listening to the recording of a session at Greenbelt: Who will slay the Elbit beast?

The session was Joey Hinchcliffe and Joey's mother, Clare, reading some of their poetry and recounting their experiences. Joey is one of the 'Filton 6': six young people who broke into the Elbit Systems factory in Bristol and damaged drones which they knew were destined to slaughter innocent people in Gaza. Joey was charged, went to trial and was eventually found not guilty - but only after spending 18 months in jail on remand. Four of the six were found guilty, sentenced as terrorists (despite not having been charged with terrorism) and are now serving an unreasonably long time in jail. They are, quite rightly, appealing their terrorist sentences.

There is SO much more to say about this! But that's not what I want to do with this post.

This post is for Clare's poem. So here it is. (It is even better if you listen to Clare reading it at Greenbelt.)

Who will slay the Elbit beast?

Where did it come from, this vile thing?

It must have crawled out of

the north Atlantic depths

while we were all asleep

and now it's here

growing viler and more bloated by the year

and while it's too disgusting to describe

I can tell you there's an orifice beneath its tail

that pumps out bombs and drones and piles of stinking cash

for anyone who can stand the smell

Its face is too hideous to see

- think of something like a baby's brain

hanging from its bombed out skull -

but we don't have to look at it

it's screened off behind

the shiny websites, offices and names

Lockheed Martin, Rafael,

British Aerospace

and Elbit Systems, pride of Israel

offering 'solutions', 'security' and of course 'defence'

and other polished forms

of deadly excrement

It's groomed and fed

by the billionaires it's made

and the politicians it controls

it has many, many mouths

and as each one shrieks for more

ministers disembowel their budgets

and feed it with our money

that was intended for the poor

When they meet behind closed doors

world leaders aren't discussing security or peace

they're only middle ranking sales reps

doing deals for the beast

What does this creature want from us?

A world of endless war, austerity and death

ruled by a handful of the super rich?

Do this chosen few not realise

that when the ship goes down

the beast will feast on their flesh too?

Who will slay this monster?

The long arc of the universe

bends in unexpected ways

bringing justice

not through politicians judges or police

but through our children

armed with not much more

than courage and outrageous love

who go into the monster's lairs

poke it with their sticks

pull its tail and crack its teeth

They get rounded up, arrested and detained

but more of them return in waves

it doesn't matter that this monster

meets weekly with police

or that puppets in their wigs and gowns

call them 'terrorists' and send them down

the authorities cannot compete

with those who don't fear prison

if a child's life is saved

And each time it's poked

the monster roars and rises up

so at last its belly

swollen with the blood of innocents

becomes exposed to public view

and ends all talk of ‘self defence’

One day in the future

when its rotted corpse

has long been thrown back in the sea

they will know it was our children

they will say it was our children

they will sing about our children

who've slain the Elbit beast

Clare Hinchcliffe

Lift the Ban: Visit from the police

2026-09-01T17:58:23.974+01:00

This is one of a series of posts about my experience of the Defend our Juries (DoJ) 'Lift the Ban' campaign. See my Lift the Ban page for more.

Some other people who had made escalation videos had full-scale dawn raids. I was one of those who just had a friendly visit.

I knew that I was at risk of home raid or a visit because of the experience of other people who had made the videos, but when the doorbell went at about 10:30 on the morning of Saturday 29th August 2026, it still took me by surprise when my wife called to me to say it was the police. I'd started to think it wouldn't happen.

We have had visits from the police before, but in the past they were always there to help me (like when my son had had his bike stolen from him by a couple of people stopping him on the Redway), or, most recently, when they were asking us whether we could help them with information concerning a crime in the neighbourhood. (It was, terribly, a 'domestic' murder a few doors down the street. We couldn't help, but would most definitely would have done so if we could.) So this was the first time they were after me!

It was another of these surreal experiences. They asked if they could come in but I asked them if they had a search warrant and when they said they didn't and that they didn't have an arrest warrant either, I politely refused them entrance. (Actually I think I just stood at the door and didn't invite them in. They made no further effort to get me to allow them in). They went on to explain that they were not here to arrest me, just to inform me that I might be getting a summons through the post because there had been a video posted in which they believed I was violating Section 12 of the Terrorism Act. They had a piece of paper with a screen shot from the video, and were clearly comparing the face in that with me. They also read out the spiel about 'you don't need to say anything but anything you do say etc etc.', which slightly confused me because I thought police only read out your 'rights' like that when they arrest you.

They then asked me if I could show them anything which proved that this was my home address. That was a bit weird, as I pointed out, since they had come to my door and found me there. They said that nevertheless it might be that I don't live here, and was only here temporarily. That made no sense at all since presumably the only reason they came here was because they had already found that this was my home address. Even so, they claimed that it was in my interests to prove my address because if a summons was sent to the wrong address and I didn't go to court having not received the summons, I could be in trouble. The fact that I have already had documents through the post relating to my ongoing Section 13 charge didn't seem make any difference! I really don't know why they wanted this, but when I said I'd rather not give them anything, again they didn't argue and our meeting ended cordially.

What was this all about? I think they were doing two things: confirming the names and addresses of all of the people who had made the videos, and, while they were about it, seeing if they could gather any information (something they might see in my house) which could be used in a prosecution. My guess is that they won't be proceeding with charges now, while the legality of the proscription of Palestine Action is still going through the appeal processes, but they are gathering material now in case they want to use it later. And, as I understand it (I may be wrong!), there is no limit on when they can prosecute for a Section 12 terrorism charge (unlike the 6 month limit for a Section 13 charge).

So, there we go, another new experience in my retirement!

Lift the Ban: Fourth arrest, 30th July 2026 "Graduation Day"

2026-07-16T14:00:30.387+01:00

This is one of a series of posts about my experience of the Defend our Juries (DoJ) 'Lift the Ban' campaign. See my Lift the Ban page for more.

Note: in case you are wondering why this post is date before 30th July, that was when I first put wrote a post saying that I was going to take part. I've edited today, 2 August, with an account of what happened.

DoJ billed this as 'Graduation Day'. This is what they said;

On July 30th, 152 people were arrested at what should have been a “Graduation Day” celebration outside Westminster Magistrates Court.

More than 1,500 people had received letters stating that a hearing relating to their prosecution would take place on July 30th at the court. Their names were listed for court hearings on the day.

Instead of being permitted into the court for their listed hearings, 152 people were arrested, mostly under the Terrorism Act, while peacefully attending an event outside the court. Some were arrested just for speaking to the crowd, others for trying to put up a small platform for performers and speakers to stand on, some were even arrested for clapping!

I was one of those, listed for a court hearing (arising from my arrest on 9th August 2025 and subsequent charge under Section 13 of the Terrorism Act (TA 2000)), and then arrested on the day. They said they were arresting me under Section 12 of TA 2000, because I said something like:

"I am a member and a supporter of Palestine Action and I encourage everyone to do the same because saving lives is not terrorism"

I say 'something like' because that is what I intended to say but the day was a bit chaotic and I was nervous, so I may not have said exactly that. Also, when they didn't seem to be arresting me, I got up and said it again, facing straight at the police to make sure they heard me, and I don't know whether I said exactly the same things both times! If they decide to charge me they will need evidence, so presumably they've got video footing of the event and may have a recording of me speaking. Or else this Blog post might be used as evidence, but since I'm saying that I don't know exactly what I said - really don't! - it would be pretty weak evidence. I understand that they may also raid my home for evidence, but if they do, I hate to disappoint them but I don't think they will find anything incriminating!

The routine is getting familiar now, and I was taken in a Pixie (police van) to Plumstead police station (which is where I was taken last time too). It took over 90 minutes to get from outside Westminster Magistrates Court to Plumstead police station, and then we sat in the Pixie for a couple of hours in the police station car park, waiting in the queue for processing. When I finally got in, it was all very calm and un-threatening. Once again there was no sense that any of the police that I had dealings with thought for one moment that I was criminal. TBH, I'm finding it quite interesting meeting all these young (very young compared to me) police men and women. I'm not going to say anything in more detail because I don't want to get them into trouble. And, I need to say again, the experience may be very different for someone who is not a white, British man like me. (Although this time I wasn't wearing my Christ the Cornerstone t-shirt because we'd been asked to wear something red. I wore my Jeremy Corbyn t-shirt which I thought might not have been universally popular, but no one said anything about it.)

But the police were not ALL like that. One constable who seemed to be directing proceeding outside Westminster Magistrates Court for part of the time suddenly started to get angry, and his face turned positively venomous. He pointed to one us and shouted that he was was tripping people up. It didn't look like that to me and TBH it looked very personal on the part of the police constable.

Section 12 of TA 2000 is a more serious offence than Section 13, with a maximum penalty of 14 years in jail. I'm working on the assumption that it will not come to that! DoJ and their lawyers are pretty confident that it won't, for someone like me (middle class white man), but I have to be prepared for that as a possible outcome. To put it dramatically, I have to be prepared for the eventual outcome (starting quite some way in the future, since there are still appeals pending on the proscription of Palestine Action and that, combined with the chaos in the courts as noted in the DoJ quote above, means that any conviction is still a long was off), for the eventual outcome of me spending the last years of my life in jail.

So you will appreciate that I am constantly wondering whether I am right to be doing this. Not only, though, in terms of whether I am right to be risking own liberty, but also more importantly whether the cause I am supporting is just. The news from Gaza and the West Bank, and the treatment of the Palestine Action activists*, indicates very clearly that it is.

*Most recently reports that those found guilty of smashing windows and spraying red paint on Barclays Bank are likely to receive a 'terrorism' sentence, as happened to the Filton four.

Lift the Ban: Escalation video

2026-07-01T21:03:48.513+01:00

This is one of a series of posts about my experience of the Defend our Juries (DoJ) 'Lift the Ban' campaign. See my Lift the Ban page for more.

WARNING [from DoJ] - Replicating this video comes with significant risk of arrest under the UK Terrorism Act. Before doing so, you should read our Action Briefing Document IN FULL at www.defendourjuries.net/savinglives. An arrest under Section 12 of the Terrorism Act could mean house raids, tech stolen by police, and potentially up to fourteen years in prison.

Here is the video I made for the Defend our Juries escalation of the Lift the Ban campaign on the DoJ BlueSky channel.

It is an escalation, because by calling on other people to support Palestine Action it challenges Section 12 of the Terrorism Act (2000) which is a more serious offence than Section 13 which we have been challenging to date.

Transcript:

“One day, when it’s safe, when there’s no personal downside to calling a thing what it is, when it’s too late to hold anyone accountable, everyone will always have been against this.”

Hello my name is David and I’m a retired University Academic who used to teach the theory and methods of information technology and telecommunications

The other thing I’d like you to know about me is how incredibly law-abiding I was for the first 67 years of my life.

I once got a speeding fine because I didn’t notice the speed limit on a road in Bletchley, but that was about the limit of my law-breaking

So when I was arrested on the 9th August last year and locked in a police cell in Kentish Town it was surreal, and not a little frightening

So what changed?

What changed is that my government has been complicit in genocide.

Complicit in war crimes, in ethnic cleansing and in genocide

Those words that I read at the beginning of the video are on the cover of a book by the American journalist Omar Al Akkad and I’d like to read you something more from that book.

Quoting Palestinian Poet Rasha Abdulhadi he says:

“Wherever you are, whatever sand you can throw on the gears of genocide, do it now. If it’s a handful, throw it. If it’s a fingernail full, scrape it out and throw. Get in the way however you can”

Palestine Action has been throwing sand into the gears of genocide and THAT is why I support them, and that is why I ask you to support them too.

Saving lives is not terrorism. I support Palestine Action and I urge you to do so too.

Lift the Ban: Third Arrest 12th June 2026.

2026-07-01T19:38:44.388+01:00

This is one of a series of posts about my experience of the Defend our Juries (DoJ) 'Lift the Ban' campaign. See my Lift the Ban page for more.

Just a holding page for the moment, to keep the sequence of events in place

Outside Woolwich Crown Court when the (awful!) judge passed sentence on the Filton 4.

Slight change to the placard wording for this one:

Saving Lives is not Terrorism. I Support Palestine Action

I was taken to Plumstead police station. (They weren't doing street bail this time which was unfortunate because this time I would have been happy give them my full details so that I could get street bail on go home earlier.) So it all the usual routine as before - including the fact that they really struggled with the electronic finger-print machine!

My arrest appeared in a photograph in the i-newspaper.

Lift the Ban: second arrest 11th April 2026

2026-06-05T23:30:19.317+01:00

This is one of a series of posts about my experience of the Defend our Juries (DoJ) 'Lift the Ban' campaign. See my Lift the Ban page for more.

Things haven't got any better. There is supposedly a ceasefire in Gaza but the killing of Palestinians continues almost daily. Alongside the assault in Lebanon and the hostilities with Iran, Israel continues its policy of ethnic cleansing in both Gaza and the West Bank. World opinion seems less and less sympathetic to Israel, and more and more commentators and politicians in the UK are condemning what they are doing, but that doesn't lead to real pressure on Israel. They were even allowed to participate in Eurovision (unlike Russia) and their football teams are still welcome in international matches (again, unlike Russia). But more importantly Britain continues to allow arms exports to Israel.

Palestine Action remains proscribed (despite the Judicial Review saying the proscription was unlawful), and brave and idealistic young people have spent months in prison before even coming to trial. Some of them eventually found not guilty: more than 18 months in prison and not guilty of anything!

So on 11th April 2026 I participated in the DoJ 'Everyone Day' action. After the Judicial Review judgement the Met Police initially said they wouldn't make any more arrests pending the outcome of the Home Secretary's appeal of the Judicial Review, so originally DoJ thought we wouldn't be arrested on Everyone Day - but the Met changed their minds and we were 😒.

I sat in Trafalgar Square and on the stroke of 1pm, wrote on a placard "I oppose Genocide. I support Palestine Action". I was duly arrested, put in a police van (a 'Pixie': no-one seems to know why they are called that!) and taken to the triage point. Then, because I again managed to remain anonymous (so they couldn't give me Street Bail) was taken to a police station for processing. This time it was Peckham.

There isn't a lot more to say about it really. I could do some comparisons between Kentish Town and Peckham (perhaps I should put them up on Trip Advisor)! The cell was cleaner in Kentish Town, in Peckham they didn't take the staples out of my London Review of Books, they phoned the solicitors for me quite quickly in Peckham (they didn't at all in Kentish Town) but were very slow in letting me make my own phone call, so it was a long time before Joy knew where I was. They didn't have the computer problems in Peckham that they'd had in Kentish Town so I was locked-up much sooner and released quite a bit earlier, allowing me to get to Euston before the last train home.

Thanking God (or not)

2026-03-25T13:25:00.000+00:00

The theme of the Lent study group that I've been participating in had the theme of 'Saying thank you to Jesus' this week. It looked at this passge from Luke 17 (vs 11-19, NRSV):

On the way to Jerusalem Jesus was going through the region between Samaria and Galilee. As he entered a village, ten lepers approached him. Keeping their distance, they called out, saying, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!” When he saw them, he said to them, “Go and show yourselves to the priests.” And as they went, they were made clean. Then one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice. He prostrated himself at Jesus' feet and thanked him. And he was a Samaritan. Then Jesus asked, “Were not ten made clean? But the other nine, where are they? Was none of them found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?” Then he said to him, “Get up and go on your way; your faith has made you well.”

I don't really know what we are suppose to learn from this passage. It reads to me like a story very specifically addressed to (criticising) his Jewish audience (hence the reference to 'this foreigner') and when I encounter things like that in the bible I try to see how they would translate to Christians (that works well for the parable of the 'Good Samaritan' for example), but I don't really get it for this story.

So, here's my problems with thanking God or Jesus.

In an interview a while back I heard the Revd. Luke Larner talk about some of the issues he has with a certain sort of evangelical Christian, and as an example he made reference to Christians thanking God for helping them get a parking-place at the supermarket. I remember that sort of thing from my days in 'Christian Union' groups when I was an undergraduate at Oxford. Someone gets lucky on a visit to a busy supermarket because a spot comes free as they arrive, so they give thanks to God/Jesus. (OK when I was an undergraduate it wasn't about parking cars - none of us had cars - but you get the idea.) We can laugh at that, but there's something quite insidious if, as is often the implication, if not explicit, that they see it as God singling them out for help because they are a Christian. It feeds into the 'chosen people' narrative. That we Christians are God' s chosen people (replacing the Jews). This idea of Christians being God's "Chosen People" comes up quite explicitly sometimes, and it is used to make Christian communities feel good about themselves. The trouble is that if you have chosen people by definition you have people that have not been chosen. God gave you that parking space rather than someone else. To see where that leads look at Zionism (both Jewish Zionism and Christian Zionism) which is used to defend Israel's treatment of the Palestinians. A bit of a stretch from thanking God for finding you a parking space at a supermarket and ethnic cleansing with genocide, you think? I'm not so sure. It only seems absurd because we are safe and comfortable in England, insulated from the harm we are doing elsewhere on the world, and we can do that thing that we English are especially good at: hypocrisy.

But there things that I want, feel the need, to give thanks for. There are lots of wonderful things in my life and it is good to appreciate them. For general things like the beauty of the world, for flowers and good weather, which are for everyone. There are also personal things that I'm grateful for, like my own good health and my friends and family. To be thankful, but not thanking God or Jesus for giving them to me, as though they are personal presents like the birthday presents from family members.

I would say, BTW, with a SoF hat on, that the need to give thanks is one of the purposes for creating God. We feel delight in the world and want a something/somebody to give thanks to - as well as something/somebody to blame for the bad things in the world. But that is whole other discussion for another time.

Coming back to the bible passage. Being healed from leprosy is clearly on a different scale from getting a parking space at a supermarket, but it is in the same category in the sense that if you are healed and someone else isn't, then it might seem that you have been 'chosen', or even 'deserved' to be healed rather than that other person. So I'm still struggling with knowing what, if anything, I should take away these verses, and for the moment don't have a lot of use for them.

Lift the Ban: Judicial Review of the Proscription of Palestine Action. Part 3: proportionality

2026-03-14T20:21:00.007+00:00

Important Disclaimer! This is me, David Chapman, with no legal training, trying to make sense of what has gone on. I will come back to edit it as I understand things better.

This is one of my Lift the Ban posts. See especially Part 1 and Part 2 of my discussion on the Judgement of the Judicial Review of the Proscription of Palestine Action.

Paragraph 25 in the introductory section (Section A) of the Judgement:

It is plain then that through the Underground Manual, Palestine Action encourages its members and others who align with it to plan and cause damage to property. There is no suggestion of restraint or proportionality. On the contrary, and entirely consistent with its objectives, Palestine Action encourages the causing of more, rather than less harm.

Note the sentence "There is no suggestion of restraint or proportionality."

Whenever you refer to 'proportionality' there is a comparison involved. This is (or is not) proportional to this. As I allude to in Part 2 of my discussion, the judges when discussing Ground 2, commendably, spend a lot of time comparing the useful consequences of proscribing Palestine Action (prosecuting the perpetrators of crimes which are terrorism in the meaning of the 2000 Act) with the damaging consequences of the proscription (excessive infringement of the rights of individuals under Articles 10 and 11 of the European Convention on Human Rights). They conclude that the damage as a consequence of the latter outweighs the merits (in their opinion) of the former and therefore they uphold Ground 2.

When it comes to Paragraph 25, on the other hand, as far as I can see, there is no explanation whatever of what the harm caused by the actions of Palestine Action is being compared to when they say "There is no suggestion of ... proportionality."

I can only think that they don't address this because they don't like the answer. Because the comparison which is staring you in the face is with the genocide. And what is especially stark is the comparison of the destruction of 80% of the buildings in whole of Gaza with the damage to property perpetrated by Palestine Action. The thing is, one of the disputed aspects of the 2000 Terrorism Act is how it allows damage to property to be defined as terrorism. OK, there are indeed good reasons to recognise that damage to property can be terrible and can justifiably be deemed terrorism. Witness Israel's targetting of the hospitals of Gaza.

In a way, I'm surprised that the judges kept the word 'proportionality' in the paragraph. The paragraph would have worked without 'or proportionality' and having it there cries out for the comparison with the destruction and genocide of Gaza.

Lift the Ban: Judicial Review of the Proscription of Palestine Action. Part 2: the judgment

2026-03-14T19:41:00.008+00:00

Disclaimer! This is me, David Chapman, with no legal training, trying to make sense of what has gone on. I will come back to edit it as I understand things better.

This is one of my Lift the Ban posts

The 'Open Judgment' of the court which undertook the Judicial Review of the Proscription of Palestine Action.

Content

There are 150 numbered paragraphs in the judgment, divided as follows:

Part A 'Introduction' (paragraphs 2-46) sets the context, subdivided:

(i) The decision, the claim and the proceedings Paragraphs 2 - 8
(ii) The power to proscribe under the 2000 Act and the consequences of proscription Paragraphs 9- 14
(iii) Palestine Action Paragraphs 15 - 30
(iv) The Home Secretary’s decision to proscribe Paragraphs 31 - 46

Part B. Decision (paragraphs 47 - 145) addressing each of the four grounds for the review:

(1) Ground 8. Procedural Fairness. Paras 47 - 67 This ground was rejected by the judges
(2) Ground 5. Failure to consider relevant matters. Paras 68 - 71 This ground was rejected by the judges
(3) Ground 6. The decision to proscribe was contrary to the Home Secretary’s own policy. Paras 72 - 96 This ground was accepted by the judges
(4) Ground 2. Conventions rights Paras 97 - 145 This ground was accepted by the judges. Discussion subdivided as follows:

(i) The claimant’s case Paras 97 - 98
(ii) Is proscription a specific measure or a general one? Paras 99 - 102
(iii) The interference with Convention rights consequent on the offences in the 2000 Act. Paras 103 - 106
(iv) Preliminary matters Paras 107 - 115
(v) The claimant’s evidence in this case Paras 116 - 124
(vi) Is the interference prescribed by law? Paras 125 - 127
(vii) The importance of the objective Para 128
(viii) Rational connection between proscription and the legitimate aims Para 129
(ix) Less intrusive measures Paras 130 - 134
(x) Has a fair balance been struck? Paras 135 - 142
(xi) Article 14 Paras 143 - 145

Part C. Section 31(2A) of the Senior Courts Act 1981 (Paragraphs 146 - 149)

If I understand it right, this was an argument made by the Home Secretary that even if the court upheld Ground 6 (or any of the other grounds, except Ground 2), it didn't matter because it wouldn't have affected the decision to proscribe. The judges didn't agree with the Home Secretary on this point.

Part D. Disposal Just one paragraph, paragraph 150, which says:

"For the reasons given above, Grounds 5 and 8 of the claim fail and are dismissed, but the claimant succeeds on Grounds 6 and 2 of her claim. To this extent the claimant’s claim is allowed. Subject to any further representations on relief, we propose to make an order quashing the Home Secretary’s decision to proscribe Palestine Action."

However, the Home Secretary asked to be allowed to appeal, the court has allowed the appeal to proceed, and the judges have said that the proscription should remain in place until the outcome of the appeal (see Case number: AC-2025-LON-002122). So at the time of writing (26 Feb 2026), Palestine Action remains proscribed.

Some observations

1 The objectivity of the judgement.

I was expecting a legal judgment to come across as cold and impartial. I was thinking in terms of academic writing for which you are not supposed to use the first person and write instead in the passive voice. It is often in reality a pretence, but the idea is that you are presenting facts which are objectively true and independent of the author. But that was not how it came across in the judgment. For one thing the first person is used throughout ('we' appears 52 times).

For example paragraph 57

On consideration of the detail in this case, we do not accept the claimant’s submission that fairness required the Home Secretary to give Palestine Action notice that she was minded to exercise her power to proscribe, to provide such reasons as she could, and to permit Palestine Action to have the opportunity to make representations.

OK, as I said, even in academic writing the absence of the author is often a pretence and I guess it is the judgment of the judges, so maybe this is just my ignorance of how courts work.

But there was something else in there which I find more worrying. In places the writing comes across to me as 'taking sides'.

Take, for example, Paragraph 23:

23 The core hallmarks of civil disobedience, namely the objective of seeking a change in the law or government policy, an approach to law breaking that is characterised by restraint and acceptance of the legal consequences of their actions, are emphatically not the hallmarks of Palestine Action’s campaign. Its campaign is intended to close down the operations of a company pursuing a lawful business. The campaign has not been pursued with restraint. The wide range of targets is significant. It lays bare that Palestine Action’s campaign and pursuit of criminal damage is designed to intimidate the persons and businesses targeted so they end their commercial relationships with Elbit. Palestine Action is not engaged in any exercise of persuasion, or at least not the type of persuasion that is consistent with democratic values and the rule of law.

(Emphasis added.)

My point is that 'emphatically' and 'lays bare' are things you say to convince someone, not just to describe something.

2 Why did they uphold the review?

As I explain above, I don't see the judgement as an 'objective' conclusion from the evidence. To be fair, I don't think absolute objectivity is possible, and maybe that is never what judges do. Perhaps they use their judgement... But also, as a number of people have observed, the conclusion almost appears, in footballing terms, to come "against the run of play". In much of the discussion their dislike of us lot, Palestine Action and those of us who joined the 'Lift the ban' campaign, is palpable. So why did they find in favour of two of the grounds? I've seen two explanations.

Craig Murray has a sinister reading: he argues that they have set things up for the Home Secretary to win the appeal. He argues that they pack the judgement with reasons for not uphold the review, and then find in favour on the thinest of grounds which will easily be rejected on appeal.

One of the members of Huda's legal team, however, in a presentation to us 'Lift the ban' activists, has a different take which I find more convincing from my reading of the judgement. This is that while it is true that they, the judges don't like us and don't approve of the either Palestine Action or the Lift the Ban campaign, nevertheless they believe in international law and at a time when many countries are trampling over human rights embedded in international agreements like the ECHR they felt that is was important to put a marker down. You can see from the paragraph count above that their biggest concern addressed the ground that the proscription of Palestine Action interferred excessively with the human rights enshrined in Articles 10 and 11. They argued that even though three of the actions of Palestine Action had been terrorism in the definition of 2000 Terrorism Act, those crimes could be prosecuted in other ways and that proscribing Palestine Action had a disproportionate consequence on the human rights of other people. There is a lot of space given over to addressing this question of proportionality in the context of ground 2. While I applaud that, to my mind it provides an interesting contrast with another question of proportionality in the judgement, which I address in a separate post.

Lift the Ban: Judicial Review of the Proscription of Palestine Action. Part 1, timeline and overview

2026-02-21T18:27:00.002+00:00

Important Disclaimer! This is me, David Chapman, with no legal training, trying to make sense of what has gone on. I will come back to edit it as I understand things better.

This is one of my Lift the Ban posts

1 The Home Secretary proscribes Palestine Action

23 June 2025. The Home Secretary, Yvette Cooper, made a written ministerial statement in the House of Commons. She explained that she proposed to make an order adding Palestine Action to the list of proscribed organisations under the Terrorism Act 2000 (“the 2000 Act”). The draft order added PA, together with two other organisations—the Maniacs Murder Cult and the Russian Imperial Movement—to the list of proscribed organisations. It was affirmed by each House (the House of Commons on 2 July and the House of Lords on 3 July).

2 Huda Ammori (PA) requests a Judicial Review

Huda Ammori (PA) requested a Judicial Review, submitting the papers on 27 June, including an application for interim relief to restrain the Secretary of State from making the proscription order or, if made before the hearing, to suspend its effect.

3 Interim decisions

4 July 2025. Justice Chamberlain gave judgement on the request for the interim relief on 4 July (ref. [2025] EWHC 1708 (Admin)). Conclusion: the application for interim relief is refused. [Included in the judgement is a statement apparently indicating that Justice Chamberlain does not consider PA to be a terrorist organisation in the colloquial meaning of the word. But if this is a problem he notes that it has been for 25 years since it is to do with the definition of terrorism in the Terrorism Act of 2000.)]

The judgement is immediately appealed by Ammori and a decision as to whether an appeal will be allowed is given that same day. Court of Appeal: Lady Chief Justice (The Lady Carr), Lord Justice Lewis and Lord Justice Edis. Judgement: Permission to appeal is refused. (ref [2025] EWCA Civ 848)

4 Proscription takes effect

Since the interim relief was not allowed, the proscription comes into effect as of 5 July 2025 (I think - need to confirm that date.)

5 Judicial Review allowed

30th July 2025: Justice Chamberlain gives judgement allowing a Judicial Review: "I grant permission to apply for judicial review on grounds 2 and 8, but refuse it on all the other grounds." (Ref. [2025] EWHC 2013 (Admin))

These are the eight grounds from Ammori:

Ground 1 that the order is ultra vires and/or was made for an improper purpose
Ground 2 that the proscription order is contrary to s. 6 of the Human Rights Act 1998 because it is incompatible with the rights of the claimant and others under Article 10, 11 and 14 ECHR.
Ground 3 that PA is not “concerned in terrorism”.
Grounds 4 and 5 These grounds allege that the Secretary of State took into account irrelevant considerations, namely the views of the Israeli Government, Elbit Systems and pro-Israel lobby groups, while failing to take into account matters which told against proscription.
Ground 6 that the Secretary of State failed to apply her published policy
Ground 7 that the Secretary of State breached the public sector equality duty in s. 149 of the Equality Act 2010.
Ground 8 that the decision was taken in breach of natural justice and/or in breach of Article 6 ECHR because PA was not consulted in advance.

6 Home secretary appeals (and not only loses but gives the Review more grounds!

17 October 2025 Judgement from Court of Appeal (Lady Chief Justice (The Lady Carr), Lord Justice Lewis and Lord Justice Edis) ref. [2025] EWCA Civ 1311

Conclusion: We dismiss the appeal. Two further grounds added to those allowed by Justice Chamberlain:

Ground 5 that the Secretary of State failed to have regard to relevant considerations
Ground 6 that the Secretary of State failed to apply her published policy

So after the appeal, the Judicial Review will proceed, with four grounds:

Ground 2 that the proscription order is contrary to s. 6 of the Human Rights Act 1998 because it is incompatible with the rights of the claimant and others under Article 10, 11 and 14 ECHR.
Ground 5 that the Secretary of State failed to have regard to relevant consideration
Ground 6 that the Secretary of State failed to apply her published policy
Ground 8 that the decision was taken in breach of natural justice and/or in breach of Article 6 ECHR because PA was not consulted in advance.

7 Decision of the Judicial Review

The Judicial Review was due to be heard by Justice Chamberlain, but just before it commenced he was removed and replaced by a panel of three: Dame Victoria Sharp DBE, President of the King’s Bench Division, Mr Justice Swift, and Mrs Justice Steyn DBE. It was generally believed at the time that this change was detrimental to the case for Ammori. I've no idea how the decision on who hears the case is made, or who has the authority to make it and make changes.

The judgement was issue on 12 February 2026 (ref [2026] EWHC 292 (Admin)). To general surprise, the judgement was:

150 For the reasons given above, Grounds 5 and 8 of the claim fail and are dismissed, but the claimant succeeds on Grounds 6 and 2 of her claim. To this extent the claimant’s claim is allowed. Subject to any further representations on relief, we propose to make an order quashing the Home Secretary’s decision to proscribe Palestine Action.

So the two that were allowed were:

Ground 2 that the proscription order is contrary to s. 6 of the Human Rights Act 1998 because it is incompatible with the rights of the claimant and others under Article 10, 11 and 14 ECHR.
Ground 6 that the Secretary of State failed to apply her published policy

(It is perhaps worth noting that Ground 6 was only under consideration because the Home Secretary appealed the decision to allow the review!)

Despite the decision, the press-release associated with the judgement said:

The court has directed the parties to provide written submissions by 20 February 2026 on the terms of the order that should be made in the light of this judgment. [150] Palestine Action remains proscribed until further order of the court because the court has yet to hear argument on whether there should be a stay of any order setting aside the proscription Order pending the possibility of an appeal.

The proscription Order remains in force until further order of the court...

(TBH, I don't understand that because it references paragraph 150 which is the paragraph that I quote (in full) above. Maybe it is the "Subject to any further representations on relief".)

The judgement is 46 pages with 150 numbered paragraphs. I have read it all and, while I struggle to understand a lot of it, there are things that I want to address, which I will do in another post.

Lift the Ban: Gaslighting

2026-01-28T15:33:00.004+00:00

The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command". George Orwell, 1984

The word of the decade surely has to be Gaslighting [1]. I thought this during the smears against Jeremy Corbyn, but it has been off-the-scale over Gaza. (One of my Lift the Ban posts.)

I've been delaying writing this because there's so much I want to say, but it is so important, to my mind, that I'm going to get something down and published, even if I have come back change it. (I almost certainly will.)

Israel is committing ethnic cleansing and genocide [2]. For more than two years, it has been slaughtering Palestinian men, women and children in the most ruthless way imaginable ("shooting fish in a barrel"). It, Israel, has commited the most hideous of crimes. I'm not going to go through the details: they are readily available for anyone not wilfully turning away. Saying otherwise is a lie: gaslighting

Britain is complicit. Both main political parties and all the mainstream media is 'on the side of' Israel. The lives of Palestinians are worth infinitely less than the lives of Israelis. See Peter Oborne's book and my post Britain's Complicity in Genocide: Peter Oborne’s Litany. To pretend that Britain has made any effort to hold Israel to account is obviously not true: gaslighting.

Palestine Action is a direct action protest group. They are not a terrorist organisation. Mr Justice Chamberlain has accepted that Palestine Action is not a terror organisation in the ‘colloquial’ meaning of the term (see David Renton, What is the Meaning of Support, London Review of Books, v47 n14/15 14 August 2024). How can anyone look from Palestine Action vandalising warplanes to the IDF killing 20,000 children in Gaza and Israel torturing prisoners and claim that the former is the one which is terrorism? Gaslighting.

Perhaps the most insideous gaslighting, though (because it enables everything else), is the claim that speaking out against the crimes of Israel is antisemitism. The large number of Jews who do just that - speak out against the crimes of Israel - somehow, incomprehensibly, counts for nothing. Gaslighting.

Notes

1 I'm sure everyone reading this knows the meaning of Gaslighting. If you don't, you can easily find it on the web but I also recommend watching the 1944 film that gave it it's name: Gaslight. It has a specific meaning in relationships, describing a type of psychological abuse, but more generally it is the manipulation of someone into questioning their perception of reality.

2 In a recent podcast in which Chris Hedges talks with Norman Finkelstein there was what I think a key insight: genocide is not the goal of Israel: the goal is ethnic cleansing. Israel wants rid of all Palestinians, and genocide of one of the methods being used to achieve the goal. Israel is making Gaza uninhabitable so that the Palestinians have to leave, but if they stay and die, that is OK with Israel.

Britain's Complicity in Genocide: Peter Oborne’s Litany

2026-01-28T14:21:00.003+00:00

‘A litany’ in the common meaning is ‘a sizeable series or set’ (Merriam Webster), but for me the specific religious usage is more meaningful. See The Litany from the Book of Common Prayer of the Church of England: https://www.churchofengland.org/prayer-and-worship/worship-texts-and-resources/book-common-prayer/litany.

The CofE Litany headlines our sinfulness and need for forgiveness, starting thus: “O God the Father of heaven: have mercy upon us miserable sinners” and although I have profound problems with a lot of it, at the same time I love it! I love its structure and the way it is used (not that it is used very often these days, as far as I know), if not all of its content. There’s a lot more I’d like to say about this litany (I differ from many other liberal Christians in the importance I place on our sinfulness and need for forgiveness, for example), but that is for another time.

When I read the text below from Peter Oborne’s ‘Complicit’ (OR Books, New York and London, 2025, pp 258-261), it sounded to me very much like a religious litany. To my mind, that 'we' in the introductory paragraphs, meaning 'Britain', rightly indicates that I, as a Briton, can't escape at least some degree of responsibility.

See what you think.

---------------

The Role of Britain

We bear a heavy responsibility for the deaths in Gaza, third in line only behind Israel and its primary patron and collaborator the United States. We helped enable the daily slaughter, destruction, disease, starvation, and human misery. We could have stopped arms sales. We could have sanctioned Israel. We could have ended military support.

We could have come to the aid of the Palestinians. We could have supported a special war crimes tribunal, as we did in former Yugoslavia and Rwanda. We could have submitted evidence at The Hague, as we did after the Bosnian Genocide. We could have deployed sanctions, as we did against Putin, and held Israel's leaders personally accountable for their atrocities. We could have sent British navy ships to Gaza to relieve the blockade. We could even have made the moral case for a no-fly zone over Gaza to protect its inhabitants, as we did to protect Kurds against Saddam Hussein

Damn you Keir Starmer. Damn you Rishi Sunak. Damn you Lammy, Cameron, Cleverly. A second damn for Lammy for shaking Benjamin Netanyahu's bloodstained hand.
Damn you Mitchell and Falconer, the bag carriers.
Damn you Lindsay Hoyle, Commons Speaker who wrecked a ceasefire motion and got Starmer off the hook.
Damn the Foreign Office officials who put their pensions before Palestinian lives.
Shame on the British military which trained, advised, and supported the genocidal Israeli army. Damn you Admiral Sir Tony Radakin. As chief of the defence staff you had the power to stop this. You have brought Britain's armed forces into disrepute.
Damn the arms manufacturers who have profited from supplying the Israeli military. Damn you BAE Systems, profiteers from death.
Damn the special relationship. It's led Britain into a cesspit.
Damn the politicians and journalists who never reported on or cared about the deaths of Palestinian journalists targeted and killed by Israel.
Damn the blood-soaked British newspaper industry. Damn you Murdoch. Damn you Rebekah Brooks. Damn you Victoria Newton, editor of The Sun. Damn you Tony Gallagher. You are The Times editor who awarded space to Yoav Gallant, wanted by the ICC for alleged war crimes including the use of starvation as a weapon of war and crimes against humanity. Damn you Professor Niall Ferguson for co-writing that article. [1]
Damn you Chris Evans, editor of the Daily Telegraph, for turning your newspaper into one of Israel's propaganda tools. Damn you Zanny Minton Beddoes of The Economist. You allowed your renowned journal to denounce the International Court of Justice genocide judgment as a ‘show trail’ [2]. You knew that Israel was turning Gaza into a 'hellscape' yet still demanded: 'fight on' [3].
Damn you Daily Mail editor Ted Verity and your offshore proprietor Lord Rothermere. Damn you Michael Gove. Damn The Spectator.
Damn the ignorant, lavishly paid, cruel, canting newspaper columnists and studio hosts. Damn the know-nothing reporters who peddled lies and twisted the facts. Damn the reporters who were too afraid to search out the truth.
Damn those who passed by on the other side. Damn the Archbishop of Canterbury, who refused to meet a Bethlehem pastor [4]
Damn the moral cowards at the top of the BBC: Samir Shah, Robbie Gibb, Tim Davie, Richard Burgess. Damn you for failing to understand the meaning of the great institution you have disgraced, or why it mattered so much.
Damn the atrocity deniers. Damn those who treated Palestinians as less than human. Damn those who viewed Palestinians as statistics. Damn the ideologists. Damn the 'clash of civilisation' barbarians. Damn the Great Replacement conspiracists. Damn the neoconservatives – never embarrassed, humbled, or sated.
Damn the extreme right for your bigotry and racism. Damn you Nigel Farage. Damn you Tommy Robinson. Damn you Douglas Murray.
Damn you Priti Patel. Damn you Kemi Badenoch.
Damn the self-appointed guardians of public discourse who smeared those who marched for peace as terror supporters. Damn Suella Braverman. Damn Yvette Cooper.
Damn the supporters of Israel who turned the charge of antisemitism, one of the great evils of human history, into a cheap propaganda weapon to cover for Israeli crimes.
Damn the lobbyists. Damn you Conservative Friends of Israel. Damn you Labour Friends of Israel – with a second damn for your disreputable jolly to Tel Aviv at the height of the slaughter. [5]
Damn those who didn't care. Damn those who did care but were afraid to act. Damn those who intimidated them into inertia. Damn the cowards and the careerists.
Damn those who put power before morality. Damn the pragmatists. Damn those who had their doubts but didn't voice them.
Damn those who didn't know. Damn those who didn't want to know. Damn those who didn't understand. Damn those who didn't want to understand.
Damn all who were complicit in this brazen, public, and protracted crime against humanity.

I expect you all think you will get away with it. You have in the past. But the world may be starting to change.

Notes and references.

1 Niall Ferguson and Yoav Gallant, ‘Israel Has Done Most of the Job – now Trump Can Finish It’. The Times (20 June 2025)

2 Editorial, ‘Charging Isreal with Genocide Makes a Mockery of the ICJ’, The Economist (18 January 2024)

3 Editorial, ‘Why Israel Must Fight On’, The Economist (2 November 2023)

4 On the grounds that he had shared a platform with Jeremy Corbyn MP. The archbishop, to his credit, later apologised to Pastor Munther Isaac. Patrick Wintour, 'Pastor Says Welby Would Not Meet Him If He Spoke at Palestine Rally with Corbyn, The Guardian (21 February 2024).

5 'LFI Delegation Visits Israel and Palestine as Conflict Reaches 600 Days’, lfi.org.uk (30 May 2025). See also: Hamish Morrison, 'Labour Politicians Fail to Declare All-Expenses-Paid Trip to Israel’, The National (14 July 2025).

Lift the Ban: reflections from cell number 6 at Kentish Town Police station

2025-12-08T17:36:00.003+00:00

This is one of a series of posts about my experience of the Defend our Juries (DoJ) 'Lift the Ban' campaign. See my Lift the Ban page for more.

Note: this is work in progress and I shall be coming back to edit it from time to time.

OK, I'm not writing this in the cell. It is four month later but these are thoughts that at least began in the cell on 9th August 2025.

I was locked in the cell in Kentish Town Police station for a total of about 4 hours. (I'm not sure exactly how long I was in there. I was in a state of, not shock, but bewilderment for most of the day, and after my arrest they took my phone and my watch off me which was surprisingly disorientating). After 67 years of complete conformity with the law and coming from a 100% law-abiding family, it felt quite incredible when they locked the cell door.

Now here though is what I wasn't expecting: I felt an extraordinary sense of peace locked in the cell. Trying to understand this, I think that some sources of deep-seated anxiety had been cleared by what I had done and what had happened. This is how I explain it (at the moment, ie, provisionally)

1) I'd done something completely aligned with my religious faith. There's an almost paradoxical twist to this, because my religious beliefs have become increasingly less 'real', and yet more sincere, in the past year (while I've been editor of Sofia, the magazine of the Sea of Faith Network). It was like as if I was, for the first time in my life, sincerely serving God - but it was a God that I didn't believe existed and I was fine with that! There's a lot more that I want to say about this, the 'religious' angle, but that is for another, later, post.

2) I'd done something brave, or at least 'authentic'. I've never thought of myself as brave person (a bit timid and maybe cowardly, if I'm honest) and was gobsmacked at what I'd done!

3) I found that I wasn't afraid of what might be to come. In the short term I wasn't in any real danger. The police were treating me OK (they'd even given me what was really quite an acceptable vegan pasta dish to eat) and I knew that I would be released some time in the next few hours and that I could get home safely. But also longer term, I realised that if the worst case scenario came about and I ended-up (I end-up: this is still a possibility, albeit unlikely) spending some time in jail over the next few years, I was, sort of, OK with that because of #1 above.

I found myself thinking about how much I've time got left. I'm 67 and my parents both remained healthy into their mid to late 80s so I'm reckoning on up to another 20 years, but I've lost a couple of friends of my own age just this year, so who knows? Would I resent having to spend some of my remaining precious years of life in jail? My answer was again a surprise to me because it was 'no', if it is for a good cause. I found myself thinking of my future years as 'capital' and I should chose how to spend it. I am going to die eventually, and I want to use my remaining life for something meaningful. Opposing genocide is meaningful.

Lift the Ban: do I support Palestine Action?

2025-12-08T17:34:00.006+00:00

This is one of a series of posts about my experience of the Defend our Juries (DoJ) 'Lift the Ban' campaign. See my Lift the Ban page for more.

Note: This is work in progress and I shall be coming back to edit it from time to time.

I was arrested because I wrote 'I support Palestine Action' on a placard in Parliament Square. It was part of the Lift the Ban campaign organised by the organisation Defend our Juries aimed at getting the proscription of the group known as Palestine Action overturned. Part of the defence in court for those of us arrested is likely to be that writing 'I support Palestine Action' did not necessarily mean that we actually 'support' Palestine Action. We wrote those words in order to get the prosciption overturned, not to 'support' the group.

So: do I support Palestine Action? As shall explain, the question really ought to be: what do I mean by saying I support Palestine Action?

I need to pause to emphasise at this point that what I'm writing here is entirely my personal position. I've not even discussed it with other defendants.

As suggested by the use of the inverted commas earlier, it comes down to what you mean by the word 'support'. What does it mean to support something or someone? This is not a trivial question, as David Renton argued in "What is the meaning of support?" in the London Review of Books (Renton 2025) earlier this year. In what follows I try to work-through what I meant when I wrote 'I support Palestine Action' - starting with an analogy from football.

All my friends know that I support the MK Dons. That is not problematic. Well, for some people it is a problem that I support this particular football team, but there is no confusion about what I mean when I say it. I'm a season ticket holder and attend as many matches as I can. I'm happy when they win and sad when they lose. So far so good, but now suppose in the neighbouring town of Northampton an extreme council comes to power which for some ideological reason outlaws the playing of team games, including football. Not only is Northampton Town Football Club prevented from playing or practicing, but anyone known to be fan of the club is at risk. Northampton Town Football Club Supporters Trust start a campaign to protect the club and call on the support of football fans everywhere to show solidarity. Under these circumstances I might travel to Northampton and display a banner saying 'I support Northampton Town' - and I would support Northampton Town for the purposes of the campaign. But noone would think this meant I was now a fan of Northampton Town instead of the MK Dons. If the ban is lifted by Northampton Council you won't find me on the terraces of Sixfields Stadium singing the praises of Northampton Town. When I said 'I support Northampton Town' I was saying that I support football in general and specifically I support the right of Northampton to have a football club.

And so, and so much more deadly seriously, it is with my support of Palestine Action. I am not a member of Palestine Action (if they even have membership as such) and have never taken part in any of their direct action. I don't have any plans to do so even if they are de-proscribed. But I don't believe it is a terrorist organisation (see below). I believe that its proscription is a significant, a dangerous, over-reach of terrorist legislation. I believe that direct action is a legitimate form of protest. If there is criminal damage as a result of direct action then it should prosecuted as such - those taking part in direct action are aware of that and should be (I assume are) prepared to take the consequences. But they should not be treated as terrorists. That is what I support about Palestine Action.

But there's more to take from the football analogy. I chose football (rather than, say, cricket) for the analogy because I am a football fan and I can empathize with the Northampton Town fans. It is about the cause as well as the method. So it is not just the general principle that direct action should be legitimate form of protest, I also, very strongly, support the cause for which Palestine Action are taking direct action. Like them, I believe that Britain, my country, is complicit in war crimes. As I said when I entered my plea:

[I believe that] my country has been complicit in war crimes, including the slaughter of more than 20 thousand children, some of them buried alive in the rubble. And not only that, the government is trying to suppress opposition to the genocide. I cannot stay silent. I need to act according to my conscience, and so I plead not guilty.

I believe that the proscription of Palestine Action is not being done to prevent terrorism - I don't believe the direct actions of the group is terrorism - I believe it is a political act to suppress opposition.

Next question: how do I know that PA are not using terrorism, and if they were, would I still have taken part in the action and written those words? Starting with the second question with a simple answer: no, if I believed PA was a terrorist organisation I would not done what I did. A simple answer, but even that needs to be qualified by questioning what you mean by terrorism. Mr Justice Chamberlain accepted in the injunction proceedings that Palestine Action is not a terror organisation in the ‘colloquial’ meaning of the term (Renton 2025) and it is that colloquial meaning of the term that I have in mind. Or, indeed, the Concise Oxford Dictionary (7th Edition, 1982) definition of terrorist: One who favours or uses terror-inspiring methods of governing or of coercing government or community. If I believed Palestine Action were using terrorism in that sense, I would not have writtten what I did, even allowing for the nuanced understanding of the meaning of 'support' discussed above. Terrorism in that sense is absolutely what the government of Israel is doing in both Gaza and the West Bank, but is not what Palestine Action are doing.

Why do I think I can say that Palestine Action are not using terrorism in that sense? Because of what Mr Justice Chamberlain has said, for one thing, but also from what I have read of their actions elsewhere. Before they were proscribed there was video available online showing some of their direct action: it did not look like terrorism to me.

Renton 2025 What is the meaning of support? London Review of Books, Vol. 47 No. 14/15

Lift the Ban: plea hearing

2025-12-06T00:05:00.008+00:00

This is one of a series of posts about my experience of the Defend our Juries (DoJ) 'Lift the Ban' campaign. See my Lift the Ban page for more.

Note: I shall be coming back to edit this from time to time.

My first hearing, the plea hearing when I entered my Not Guilty plea, was at Westminster Magistrate's Court on 24th November. There is a degree of 'batch processing' going on because of the huge numbers of defendants that the courts will have to get through. Although they've so far only charged a relatively small proportion of those arrested they are claiming that everyone will eventually be charged, and as I write this there have been more than 2000 arrests so even accounting for the many re-arrests they are going to charging more than 1000. The court therefore had a group of five defendants in the dock at one time, and on 24th November there were five sessions, so 25 people in the day. This was the first time I'd ever been inside a law court of any sort, but my wife, Joy, used to be a children's social worker and had been to family courts in connection with Adoption Orders, so was able to tell be a bit about what to expect (although the cases that Joy was involved in, and her role in it, was very different). But also the support both from the DoJ people and my fellow defendents was excellent. A few defendents were entitled to legal aid and they are represented by lawyers from HJA Solicitors, who are working with DoJ. The rest of us, including me, are for the moment 'self-representing'.

Once again, I found everyone friendly enough! Before I went into court I was given my 'Evidence Bundle' (that really is what they call it!) by the prosecution, which contained the basic facts of what they held against me. The main thing in it was the statement by my arresting officer. I was keen to see this, because when I'd been telling people how friendly my young arresting officer had been and that I'd had some conversations with him, I was warned that that may have been a mistake: even if he was friendly he might come under pressure from his superiors/colleague to malign me. I had also heard of many cases in which the bundle was full of basic errors - like containing a photograph of the wrong person! None of that was the case for me. My judgement of my arresting officer was right and his account was accurate and fair, and there was a photo of me with my sign (which you can see in the first of these accounts).

When it came to my turn to enter my plea, the judge wanted me simply to say 'guilty' or 'not guilty' but, like many of my fellow defendents, this was when I made a statement:

I am 67 years old and have never been arrested before. But my country has been complicit in war crimes, including the slaughter of more than 20 thousand children, some of them buried alive in the rubble. And not only that, the government is trying to suppress opposition to the genocide. I cannot stay silent. I need to act according to my conscience, and so I plead not guilty.

My trial date is 1st July.

Lift the Ban: charged

2025-12-05T15:18:00.015+00:00

This is one of a series of posts about my experience of the Defend our Juries (DoJ) 'Lift the Ban' campaign. See my Lift the Ban page for more.

Note: I shall be coming back to edit this from time to time.

After release from Kentish Town police station at 12:30am on Sunday 10th August there was a nice welcoming committee from DoJ outside, but all I wanted to do was get home, so I got the tube to Euston where I (eventually) got a bus-replacement service to Milton Keynes and cycled home from the station at about 3am. I was down to do a reading at the 10am service at the Church of Christ the Cornerstone that morning so after a few hours sleep I cycled up to the church where the minister welcomed me and told the congregation, with broad approval, what I had done the day before. I think it is significant that there is general surprise (amazement) that I would do such a thing, but I've not yet met anyone in the congregation that disapproves (if they do, they've not told me).

My bail had just one condition: "Not to attend or participate in planned or unplanned demonstration in support of Palestine Action", and I was to return to Kentish Town police station to report back on bail on 21/10/2025. My wife and I had a holiday booked for the whole of October (a five-week Interrailing trip around Europe), so I emailed the Met police to see if my bail return date could be delayed until we got back. They politely refused, so we built into our trip a day return for me from Lille to London (fortunately my bail appoinment was for 2pm so the timing was OK to do it on a day return).

There was nothing in my bail conditions that stopped me from traveling abroad, but I was worried in case I missed any important communication from the police, so I emailed them and told them what I was doing, and that I wouldn't be picking up post but I could be contacted by email. They were fine with that, and once again it was somewhat surreal, as emails came to me signed:

Best regards.
Alistair (not his real name*)
Constable | Investigations | Pod 1 - Team 2
Metropolitan Police | SO15 Counter Terrorism Command

(*Name changed because it seemed like the right thing to do.)

How kind to send his best regards! And in one email when I'd asked him to send me a pdf of the charge papers, even:

If there's anything else I can help with, please don't hesitate to get in touch.
Best regards
Alistair

This 'respectful' response all the way along suggests to me that the people I am dealing with in the Met police (including the "Counter Terrorism Command"), the CPS (Crown Prosecution Service) and the courts do not consider me a criminal. Maybe I'm being unfair to have expected otherwise: maybe they treat all suspects like this, since everyone is supposed to be innocent until proven guilty. Anyway, I am grateful for it: thank you not-his-real-name Alistair.

I especially wanted to know if and when I was charged, because I'd heard that when people had been charged they would have a court appearance in November and their bail return was cancelled - so I wouldn't have needed to do the day trip back to London.

In the event I was charged and my bail appointment cancelled. I was one of the 'privileged' first 20 (out of more than 500) arrested on 9th August to be charged, but I first heard about it from a press release by the Met Police on 1st October. It was weird to see myself ("[CXXXIV] David Chapman (27.04.1958), of Milton Keynes") publically threatened by the Met police like this. But the whole saga has been one new and weird experience after another and that is why I'm writing it up here.

It was clear, by the threatening tone of the press release (detailing the awful consequences of being convicted of a terrorist charge) that the intention was to try to discourage people from taking part in the next Lift the Ban action that DoJ had arranged for a few days later. We were being made an example of!

Since I'm retired, quite a lot of this has little significance to me, and anyway my calculation is that all of these consequences are completely trivial compared to what is happening to the Palestinians. And as an intimidation tactic there is no evidence that it is working. Plenty more people keep volunteering to take part.

The Met had charged me by post but I'd not been home to get the letter. TBH, I wondered whether this way of serving the charge was allowed since they knew I was not at home, but people in the know tell me there is no point arguing about that.

So I cancelled my return trip to London (losing £50 in the process) and started planning (with the help of the brilliant people of DoJ) for my plea hearing on 24th November at Westminster Magistrate's Court.

Lift the Ban: arrest and bail

2025-12-05T00:04:00.006+00:00

This is one of a series of posts about my experience of the Defend our Juries (DoJ) 'Lift the Ban' campaign. See my Lift the Ban page for more.

Note: I shall be coming back to edit this from time to time.

It is difficult to convey quite how law-abiding and obedient I have been in my life. I once got a fine for inadvertently doing 36 mph in a 30 mile zone in Bletchley but that's about it. And yet earlier this year (2025), at the age of 67, I was arrested under Section 13 of the Terrorism Act.

On 9th August I joined the more than 500 protestors in Parliament Square and as Big Ben struck 1pm I wrote on a blank placard the words "I oppose genocide. I support Palestine Action”. We sat in silence (most of us) holding our placards and facing away from the Palace of Westminster to symbolically turn our backs on Parliament. For a while nothing happened and then small groups from the vast hordes of police surrounding the square moved in and took out some individuals. I was bizarrely reminded of a wildlife documentary as predators move in on flocks or herds of prey and select their victim. The arrests then picked-up pace. Some protestors resisted by ‘going floppy’ so they required several police officers to carry them, but many of us, myself included, allowed ourselves to be led away by a single officer. I was taken to one of the many police vans surrounding the square and thence to a nearby temporary 'triage' point set up by the Met Police in order to try to process us as quickly as possible. As recommended by the organisers of the protest (DoJ) I refused to give my details and, because I've never been arrested before they didn't have a record of who I was, they had to take me to a police station. Unfortunately the station I was taken to (Kentish Town) was having problems with their computer system so we queued outside for more than three hours (having already spent a couple of hours queuing for the triage) and I didn't get locked up in a police cell until about 8 pm. I was eventually released on bail at 12:30am the following morning.

The experience was surreal at times. Even while treating me as a criminal the police were respectful (maybe my ‘Church of Christ the Cornerstone’ t-shirt helped). The young constable who arrested me seemed quite nervous and I wondered if I was the first person he had ever arrested. He'd written the words he had to say to me ("you do not need to say anything but anything you do say..." - familiar to me only from watching police dramas on the TV) on the palm of his hand. The advice from DoJ was not to say anything after being arrested so we didn’t talk much, but because of all the delays we were together for about six hours in all and I found it impossible not to try some conversation with him. I maybe said more than was advisable but he was friendly and even kept me up to date with the MK Dons score (I'm a season ticket holder). When we finally parted ways at 8pm we shook hands and he said that he hoped never to see me again – for the best of reasons. In Kentish Town police station the officer taking my fingerprints struggled to get the machine to work and I sympathised as he complained about the poor equipment at that station. He assured me that it wasn’t like that in his own police station. After he’d taken my fingerprints as best he could, a DNA sample and several photos, he thought I could be released. But on learning that they were not ready to do that yet he said he’d take me back to my ‘room’ as though I was in a hotel – but he still locked the door of Police Holding Cell Number 6 behind me. But I was a long, long, way outside of my comfort zone, spent much of the time bewildered and occasionally it was undeniably frightening. When first locked in the cell, more than six hours after being arrested, I’d had no way of knowing the time (they'd taken my watch and phone off me), I’d not yet been allowed my one phone call so neither my wife nor any of my friends knew where I was (but would have realised I must have been arrested), I was hungry, having had nothing to eat for 12 hours (because the cafe at Westminster Hall doesn’t accept cash, but that’s another story) and I didn’t even have anything to read because they wouldn’t let me have my copy of the London Review of Books back until they’d taken the staples out of it. I did a bit of thinking. I've been doing a lot of that while this has been going on and I'll tell you about it in due course!

I was arrested under Section 13 of the Terrorism Act which has a maximum penalty of 6 months in jail. So why did I do it? Specifically, it is because I do not think that what Palestine Action does is terrorism and they should never have been proscribed. I agree with their aims - to stop Britain's complicity in war crimes and genocide - even if I would be unlikely to use their methods. As I see it, they are damaging property (and they should be charged for criminal damage) in order to draw attention to the fact that Britain is complicit in the genocide being committed by Israel against the Palestinian people.

In his book, One day, everyone will have always been against this [1], El Akkad quotes a Palestinian poet Rash Abdulhadi:

Wherever you are, whatever sand you can throw on the gears of genocide, do it now. If it's a handful, throw it. If its a fingernail, scrape it out and throw. Get in the way however you can.

I would like to think that the symbolic (and real) act of my getting arrested indirectly throws a few grains of sand into the machinery of genocide. I would like to think that, but even if in reality it won't have any effect I don't regret it one little bit. I'll write about that another time.

And, it is also about a broader issue to do with what has been happening in the UK in recent years because it was known at the time that the terrorism act was defining terrorism far too broadly, and could be misused. A step toward totalitarianism.

1 See my review of the book in Sofia

Christ in the Rubble

2025-07-06T20:09:00.003+01:00

Just a little post to say that IMHO, the idea of Christ being born in the rubble of Gaza is the most authentic manifestation of Christianity that I can imagine.

For more about where I'm coming from, see my review of 'Christ in the Rubble' by Pastor Munther Isaac in Sofia Magazine.

Helicopter hovering overhead.

2025-05-13T19:04:00.004+01:00

I'm in my back garden and there's a helicopter hovering overhead. I admire the technology, but find myself trying to imagine what it must be like to be in Gaza knowing that technology overhead could mean death at any moment. I try to imagine that, but, tbh, I can't, because for me it *doesn't* mean that. Limits to human empathy. That's why we need God. We need (even if we have to make him/her/it up) a God who is there with them. Christ in the rubble.

Wetting yourself

2025-04-10T12:23:00.004+01:00

This post describes three events in which someone wets themself: pees in their pants. It was motivated by the third event described below which took place in Gaza in February 2024. The first event, about an incident from my own life, is me clearing my throat before I speak. It has no significance to anything. The second is something I read a few years back and, IMHO, is significant. But the third is huge. That people will do this to a five year old child, and that we, my society, my government, the whole charade of Western 'civilisation' is complicit. It changes everything. As El Akkad goes on to say: "How does one live, hearing the screams, bearing witness to the bodies? How does anything else matter"?

Fleetwood, October 1969

At 11 years old I went to boarding school. It was not a nice experience. I was a very timid and home-loving child who, prior to this, had never been away from home - even finding staying at school for school dinners too frightening - but my parents were living in Germany and so I was sent to boarding school in England. One day in the first week I wet myself. This is on the only time in my life that I recall it happening. I was on my own in the music practice rooms, didn't know where the toilets were and couldn't hold on. In 55 years I've never told anyone about this, though some people knew I had wet myself because they saw my stained y-fronts.

Hillsborough. April 1989

On April 15, 1989, catastrophic failings of crowd management at the FA cup match at Hillsborough statium led to the deaths of ninety-six Liverpool football fans. Four days after the disaster, The Sun newspaper infamously published lies, blaming Liverpool fans for the deaths - something which was eventually, 27 years later, completely rejected by the official inquiry. One of the lies was that Liverpool fans urinated on police who were trying to help victims. In a later interview, one the survivors said that he had a full bladder after having been drinking before the match and that when trying to escape the crush, terrified, he had wet himself. So, yes, maybe he had urinated over people. Just think about that: the terror of that man among his dying friends and set it alongside the editor of The Sun, Kelvin Mackenzie, using the tragedy to further his career.

Gaza. February 2024

"On the second weekend of February 2024, the decomposing body of five-year-old Hind Rajab, whom the Israeli military murdered, is found in a car with her family, next to a burned-out ambulance that was dispatched to rescue her. Later, and independent investigation will find 355 bullet holes in the car Hind was in. But early on, the story is reported in multiple media outlets as though it were a missing-pesons's case, as though this child simply walked out of sight and then walked straight out of this life.
She had called for help. She had picked up a phone and begged for help. She cried, said she'd wet herself. She was five years old.
What is the word for what she felt? Because on the other side of the planet countless people are cheering on this liquidation will wake up and say they too are afraid. But if these are equal and offsetting fears then the word means nothing. As does any system, any was of living, that abides it."

Omar El Akkad "One day everyone will have always been against this" Canongate 2025 p147

The Fall of Jericho: biblical genocide?

2024-11-17T22:59:00.015+00:00

The guest preacher, Terry Boyle, at the Church I attend this morning (Sunday 17/11/2024) preached on this reading:

Joshua 5: 13–15 The Fall of Jericho

Now when Joshua was near Jericho, he looked up and saw a man standing in front of him with a drawn sword in his hand. Joshua went up to him and asked, “Are you for us or for our enemies?”
‘Neither,’ he replied, ‘but as commander of the army of the LORD I have now come.’ Then Joshua fell facedown to the ground in reverence, and asked him, ‘What message does my Lord have for his servant?”
The commander of the LORD’s army replied, ‘Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy.’ And Joshua did so.

Boyle's key message from the reading was that Joshua achieved success because he was obedient to God. And, he said: 'We all know what happened next'.

Indeed we do, and I remember as a child joyfully singing "and the walls came tumbling down".

It was a great triumph for Joshua because he followed the will of God, and Boyle took it for granted that we would all rejoice at this story of victory in the history of the Israelites. That is indeed always how I remember the story in my Christian upbringing.

But here's what the bible tells us happened after the walls came tumbling down:

"They devoted* the city to the Lord and destroyed with the sword every living thing in it—men and women, young and old, cattle, sheep and donkeys." Joshua 6:21

*A footnote to the NIV translation on Bible Gateway explains that the Hebrew term translated as 'devoted' refers to "the irrevocable giving over of things or persons to the Lord, often by totally destroying them".

And:

"Then they burned the whole city and everything in it...." Joshua 6:24

Sound familiar?

How did we deal with these passages when I read the story in the past? When singing the song you go no further in the narrative beyond the walls coming tumbling down, and you don't need to think about what happened next. From bible classes I have vague memories of worrying about killing so many people, but I think we read it as a story and which was no more real than, say, the Lord of the Rings. If it is 'just' a story it is an exciting tale! (The business with Rahab the prostitute sheltering Joshua's spies, Joshua 2, and Joshua in turn saving her and her household from the killing, Joshua 6:22, is weird but a memorable story.)

But now Israel is acting-out a modern-day slaughter of Palestinians and it is very, very real. Israel is destroying "men and women, young and old' and 'burn[ing] the whole city and everything in it' - but not just Gaza City, the whole of the Gaza strip. And people in Israel, and even more so Zionist Christians in America, are justifying it based on the authority of the bible.

As I said about Psalm 124, it is not good enough that churches use these stories without joining the dots. We can no longer stop at 'the walls came tumbling down'. We've got to ask about the slaughter.

What to do about Psalm 124?

2024-09-30T19:07:00.016+01:00

Yesterday (29th September 2024) I was on the rota for reading at Church, and found myself reading Psalm 124, one of the lectionary readings for the day:

1 If the Lord had not been on our side –
let Israel say –
2 if the Lord had not been on our side
when people attacked us,
3 they would have swallowed us alive
when their anger flared against us;
4 the flood would have engulfed us,
the torrent would have swept over us,
5 the raging waters
would have swept us away.
6 Praise be to the Lord,
who has not let us be torn by their teeth.
7 We have escaped like a bird
from the fowler’s snare;
the snare has been broken,
and we have escaped.
8 Our help is in the name of the Lord,
the Maker of heaven and earth.

I don't need to spell out the problems with this, in the light of the activities of the state of Israel over the past year, do I?

In the past I wouldn't have worried. or not much anyway. The psalms are notorious for 'difficult' content ("happy is the one who seizes your infants and dashes them against the rocks", psalm 137 v. 9) and need lots of interpretation. For example, I heard someone suggest that the infants being dashed against the rocks should be thought of as evil thoughts starting to grow in your mind: smash them before they become too big. For myself, I see the bible as a human creation and, like any book, open to criticism. We can contexualise all we like, we can interpret it in the light of modern understanding, but at some point we just have to say: no, I think that is wrong.

At the end of the reading, as is the custom, I said 'this is the word of the Lord', and the congregation responded 'thanks be to God'. I toyed with instead saying 'this is what it says in the bible' or something like that, but in the end I didn't have the courage to break with what we are 'supposed' to say.

But if this psalm is being read in churches across the world, at the very least we have talk about it surely? To put it crudely, is it saying that God is on the side of modern-day Israel? That the slaughter of 40,000 people in Gaza, and the bombing of Lebanon and the Yemen will succeed (is succeeding) because the Lord is with them?

And, before you shout 'anti-semitism', I'm talking about the state of Israel, and about Christian churches. And, let's be clear, the most ardent Zionists, the most dangerous Zionists, are right-wing Christians in the USA. I don't know what goes on in most Synagogues, but I do know that large numbers of Jews would have no sympathy whatsoever with Zionism, certainly not Zionism which leads to the slaughter of thousands of innocent civilians.

In my church, the minister's sermon was based on the New Testament reading* and made no mention of the psalm. I suggest that's not really good enough: we can't just have a reading which some people might read as giving religious cover to genocide, without at least saying something about it.

*Mark 9: 38–41. "Whoever is not against us is for us", and he spoke of the need for diversity and a range of perspectives in the church. This was fine, but could have been preached at any time. And, TBH, I've heard it plenty of times before.