Since the massive growth of actions in solidarity with the Palestinian people coinciding with Israel’s increasingly genocidal actions in Gaza, the movement in different parts of the globe has been met with different forms of repression.

In Britain as elsewhere this coincides with more generalized attacks on the right to protest which also target climate activists as well as those in solidarity with Palestine.

The attacks on Palestine protestors include:

• The Filton 18 imprisoned during 2024 for taking action against Elbit, Israel’s largest weapons firm
•  Legal action against campus occupations in different parts of Britain
• The arrests and subsequent charges against key figures involved in the national demonstration on January 18 2025 on a completely fictitious basis
• The increasing difficulty of negotiating with the police certainly in London about routes for marches

It is noticeable that in most of these cases, allegations of supposed antisemitism are weaponised – even though the targets of these smears are often Jews themselves. The harassment of holocaust survivor Stephen Kapos is a grotesque example – but actually one of many.

 All of this is an attempt to intimidate and therefore weaken the movement, one which fortunately is failing.

What is happening here is not unique.

USA

Many people know about the case in the USA of postgraduate student and green card holder Mahmoud Khalil, arrested on March 8 and threatened with deportation by Trump. His fight to return home – and to see the child born while he was in custody is still ongoing.

Again this case is part of different processes coming together: specific attacks against the Palestine solidarity movement with the drive against all migrants and Trump’s determination to extend his own authority often in defiance of the courts.

But while Khalil’s fight for justice gets some coverage, fewer know that action over Palestine is still continuing on many US campuses and being attacked by both private security and state police, as recently at Columbia.

Repression is taking place elsewhere.

France

For example, in France at the end of April, the government moved to dissolve Urgence Palestine, one of the main organizations in France that mobilizes the youth of working-class neighborhoods in solidarity with Palestine.

This is not the first action by the French government to outlaw an organisation in solidarity with Palestine. In March 2022 Palestine Vaincra was similarly liquidated by the French state – again invoking outrageous allegations of antisemitism. And these attacks take place in the context of unprecedented Islamophobia in France, including the brutal murder of Aboubakar Cissé  on 25 April..

Your input is needed. Sign the petition in solidarity with Urgence Palestine here and in particular approach those with a public profile or position to do so.