A notorious Brighton activist has been found guilty of planning to damage a drone factory he believed was supplying arms to Israel.
Tony Greenstein, who is well known in Brighton both for his anti-Israel activism and for being expelled from the Labour party for abusing fellow members, was one of four defendants found guilty today.
A jury at Wolverhampton Crown Court failed to reach a verdict against a fifth defendant following an eight-week trial.
Following the verdict, Greenstein, 69, was also ordered by the judge to take down several blog posts in which urged jurors to acquit him and his co-defendants as a matter of conscience – which the judge said constituted “serious contempt”.
His Honour Judge Michael Chambers said: “It has been brought to my attention Mr Greenstein has been running an open commentary as to what’s been happening in the trial on his blog.
“Had the jury not come back, I was going to consider whether his liberty should be maintained.
“Not only has he been running a log of what’s happened, including matters not in front of the jury, it’s also been inaccurate.
“He’s also been calling on jurors to return outcomes according to conscience. That’s a serious matter of contempt.
“It’s a serious contempt to invite jurors to return outcomes which are not in accordance with the facts, but in accordance with their conscience.
“He will remove all this material from the log and desist.
“He needs to understand that if he fails to do so he will be brought back here under a warrant and will be remanded in custody.”
He added: “I don’t spend all my time reading blogs, but there are some people who do.”
Following a short break, Greenstein’s barrister Danielle Manson said: “The blogs have all been taken down. I don’t have a written undertaking, but he has heard you.”
Sentencing has now been adjourned until 26 June, with Judge Chambers warning all the defendants they could be sent to prison.
During the trial, the jury heard Greenstein hired a van on March 8, 2021, from Choices Vehicle Rentals in Beaconsfield Road, where the manager said he seemed frantic.
The van was then driven to Walsall in the West Midlands, where it was loaded up with sledgehammers, smoke bombs, ladders, superglue, a crowbar and fire extinguishers adapted to spray red paint.
Greenstein also picked up five other members of Palestine Action, a group whose stated aim is to shut down Israeli arms company Elbit Systems.
When police stopped the van in the early hours of the next morning, they found members of the group in the back wearing red boilersuits, which its protesters wear when ‘occupying’ targets.
Greenstein told police he was just going for a drive, but after he was released on bail, he posted on his blog that he had been arrested “whilst driving a van to Elbit Systems Shenstone factory.
“We were intent on redecorating the premises of Elbit in the blood red colour of their victims.”
The police investigation subsequently found that Parker, whose mother lives in Walsall, used the name Bob Palmer to order the red boilersuits, which were delivered to his mum’s house.
An Airbnb was also booked in the town under the name of Huda Ammori, the joint founder of Palestine Action.
On the day, text messages to the Airbnb’s owner said someone called Bob would be picking up the keys – keys which were later found in Parker’s possession.
After the six were arrested, packaging for the boiler suits was found in the Airbnb – where the beds appeared not to have been slept in.
Greenstein and the other five people in the van were all charged with possessing an article with the intent to destroy property.
Bethany Croarkin of no fixed abode pleaded guilty before the trial began. Greenstein, who now lives in Belgrave Place, and Ibrahim Samadi from Cambridge were found guilty by 11 jurors to one and Alex Waters from Ashurst Wood and Jeremy Parker from Birmingham were unanimously found guilty today.
The jury failed to reach a verdict against the final defendant, Helen Caney from North Shields.
This was not Greenstein’s first brush with the law. In December 2021, Greenstein was given a restraining order forbidding him from contacting the Labour party’s disputes team.
The order was passed after an agreement with the CPS, which offered no evidence on two counts of harassment, one against the party’s disputes team and the other against one of its employees, Megan McCann.
The previous year, he lost a libel case against the Campaign Against Anti-Semitism who had described him as a “notorious anti-Semite”.
The high court judge said that given his public statements, this was a reasonable opinion for the CAAS to hold.
This article was amended on 7 September to clarify the van was loaded with equipment in Walsall, not Brighton, and that only people in the back of the van were wearing boilersuits when it was stopped by police.
The Judge hopefully give a custodial sentence. All these lot want to do is cause mayhem, the terrorist he support have only ever supplied homicide belts to blow up buses trains concert halls and pizza parlours.
Can you explain what you mean by ‘terrorist’?
Does terrorism include deliberately bombing crowded hospitals and U.N shelters, killing fleeing women and children waving white flags, dropping white phosphorus on civilians and hospitals, bombing children playing football on a beach, bombing children’s playgrounds, randomly shelling residential areas, bombing a police cadet graduation ceremony and killing 251 cadets, using civilians as human shields on more than 1,200 occasions, raping and murdering 10 year old girls, bombing the family homes of senior doctors, killing 9 year old schoolgirls as they sit at their desks in class, deliberately killing 215 unarmed civilians at the Gaza fence, including 3 medics, 5 journalists, 50 children, and a wheelchair-bound double-amputee, etc?
Thsnkyou for giving some context to this . The materials of terror that was contained in that factory makes a little red paint pale into insignificance
Couldn’t agree more with David Rogers and Byrnzie. When it comes to the Palestinians and other oppressed people desperately trying to survive, the word terrorist is used to further dehumanize them. Nelson Mandela was once deemed a terrorist by Thatcher. Tony Greenstein and all those who stand on the right side of history deserve a medal.
Well said, you are correct with all you say.
The Palestinians would like self determination and the right to return to their homelands stolen by Israel from 1948 onwards and an end to the brutal occupation of their country . They are fully justified in resisting. an illegal occupation just as Ukrainians in Kyiv would be if Russians entered their capital . THERE ARE NO SUICIDE BOMBERS
In 2008 one person died in a suicide bomb . Nobody has been killed this way since but in 2014 Israel killed 2,200 Gazans including 514 children . That my friend is mayhem
What a load of rubbish.
Looks like it’s a spot of choky this time for Tony
‘The order was passed after an agreement with the CPS, which offered no evidence on two counts of harassment’ Yet this paper has previously stated as fact that Mr. Greenstein was guilty of harassing other Labour members, something he was not guilty of. Just because the media refuse to report the crimes carried out by the Israeli government against the Palestinians does not mean that these don’t take place. Elbit manufactures drones which are used to kill innocent people but those who were convicted today were not allowed by the so-called court of law to mention this in their defence. In fact they were not allowed to offer any defence at all. To convict protestors while ignoring the greater crime of genocide ( which the products of Elbit factories enable) is a miscarriage of justice.
He is being convicted of HIS crime. If Elbit have committed a crime, report it. Simples.
The judge refused to allow any mention of Elbit’s crimes, because the authorities know that as soon as they do, the case would fall apart, as it’s illegal to sell weapons to rogue states to be used against civilians.
True, and he was not charged with anti-Semitism. The court simply ruled that his accusers had a right to their “opinion” and that because it was merely an opinion they did not need to provide any proof.
The establishment just doesn’t like Greenstein because he speaks truth to power, and so they’ve been bending themselves out of shape to silence him on behalf of the Apartheid state of Israel.
Exactly . This “ article “ is loaded with prejudiced bias and borders on the libellous .. Mr Greenstein is the (obviously ) Jewish son of a Rabbi and just because he doesn’t support Zionism (a political ideology not a race ) and doesn’t support the Israeli occupation of Palestine , (deemed illegal by every international court of law ,) does NOT make him sn anti semite . Nor does it make him “ notorious “. It actually puts him on the side of Geneva Convention law and racial equality
Serious errors in Mike Craig’s comment need to be corrected.
1.) Greenstein was kicked out by the Labour party for abusive behaviour.
2.) Hamas & Islamic Jihad manufacture rockets to kill Israeli civilians.
3.) Drones used to stop Hamas & Islamic genocidal crimes are manufactured in Israel. Elbit does not manufacture drones in the UK for Israel
@Sambazza – there might be errors in Mike Craig’s comments but Israel do use Elbit drones to kill Palestinians.
I hate to correct these comments but Sambazza is wrong on every count
i. I was expelled from the Labour Party as part of the fake ‘antisemitism’ campaign by the right.
ii. Hamas rockets cannot be compared to the guided missiles of Israel, which only last week killed 10 civilians inc. 4 children in order to assassinate 3 members of Islamic Jihad.
iii. Drones of Elbit are manufactured in Britain and certainly their parts are otherwise they would not need to maintain 10 factories here churning out the means of committing war crimes.
If I and the others are imprisoned for preventing war crimes then that is a badge of honour just as the suffraggettes were imprisoned, not for criminal damage as was alleged at the time, but for fighting for the right of women to vote. Same old excuses a century and more later.
Yes I was threatened with imprisonment for exercising my right to freedom of speech and the article reports this without comment.
Mr Greenstein
Evidence dictates that in 2018, you were expelled from the Labour Party for “harassment” and “abusive language”, following accusations of antisemitism.
You failed in your bid to sue Campaign Against Antisemitism for libel after the group called you “a notorious anti-Semite
Further that you were charged with two counts of harassment in connection with various emails sent to the Labour party between 2019 and 2020, according to a report.
In December 2021 it was reported that you had been given a two-year restraining order, banning you from contacting the Labour Party disputes team.
Tony, I’ve just read a letter that purports to come from UK Lawyers for Israel. I found it on Craig Murray’s blog It was addressed to the Judge and draws his attention to your blog posts. Is this letter authentic? This pro-Israel lobby group, also wrote to the University of Manchester asking them to take appropriate disciplinary action against Alistair Hudson, the Director of the Whitworth Art Gallery, when he staged a pro-Palestinian art exhibition. Inter alia, they objected to a statement that said Israeli bombing caused earthquakes and other forms of environmental destruction.
I enjoy correcting Greenstein’s fake comments.
1.) Many Labour party members were victims of Greenstein’s abusive behavior. In addition he was expelled by the Unison Union for “disrespectful & intimidating behavior”.
2.) Hamas & Islamic Jihad rockets are used indiscriminately to murder civilians. Last week over1,000 rockets fired at Israel killed an 80 year old Israeli lady, & a Palestinian worker. Israeli drones are used ONLY to take out the terrorist leaders hiding in civilian areas, with pinpoint accuracy.
In the article above, the Judge states Greenstein’s blogs have been “INNACURATE”. The Judge also advised Greenstein’s commentary amounted to “SERIOUS CONTEMPT”.
Isn’t it sad – Greenstein gets battered, everywhere he goes !
This nonsense about Israel’s razor sharp targeting is deeply offensive . and utterly untrue .. Their giant missiles may enter a specific victims apartment but they are so huge often whole apartment buildings collapse as during the 2018 blitzkrieg when hundreds of civilians died or 2014 when 500 children were bombed into oblivion . And who were all these children who died in their beds last week ? Eviscerated with no warning given They were hardly “militants “ were they ? Yes dozens of rockets do get fired especially when a political prisoner has been allowed to starve himself to death but they are rather pointlessly symbolic Two Israeli casualties compared to 35 Gazans ? Since Israel voted for a far right racist coalition of self confessed neo fascists, hundreds of Palestinian civilians have been killed by terrorist settlers and the IDF army of occupation
Overall out of every 100 deaths since Israel illegally annexed Palestine 90 have been Palestinian and we arm this butchery from Israel’s Elbit arms factories in the U.K. . Arms are now our second most profitable national industry : it is deeply shameful that we merchandise death rather than life and anyone who selflessly puts their liberty at stake by demobilising their evil trade should be lauded not persecuted
Phelim unceremoniously ejected and now Brighton & Hove’s own ‘notorious antisemite’ brought to heel and the sun is shining. 😊
end international support for Israel’s oppression of Palestinians and pressure Israel to comply with international law.
The guilty verdict is very concerning. This has not been a fair trial as the defendants have not been allowed to explain why they were planning the action they were arrested for, although it was not carried out. They were intent on highlighting the injustice of the extreme abuse of Palestinian rights which include the detention and slaughter of Palestinian children. An issue that receives little media coverage and the majority of reporting weighs heavily in support of the State of Israel. Voices for Palestinian rights have been silenced and free speech has been shut down so much so that it would have been very difficult to acquit. The Judge made sure they were not in full possession of the facts. This sets a precedent and many more of us may find that we are prevented from speaking out and taking action about the things we care about if they do not fit with a certain political agenda. Tony Greenstein has refused to be silenced though he faces imprisonment through the Judge’s ruling of contempt of court. His Blogs bear witness and we must make sure they are read by as many people as possible.
Kate Adams
The guilty verdict bang on correct.
Law of court doesn’t care why they were planning the action.
Law in this case is going equipped to perform criminal activity.
They can highlight the injustice’s in different ways, not by criminal activity.
We are not prevented from speaking out at all, the way we do it is however questionable.
Tony Greenstein has ‘allegedly’ committed contempt of court in relation to his Blogs that by the sound of it were inaccurate and wrong and have been removed and therefore one should be cautious if we believe the content.
Mr Greenstein has a history of being aggressive and abusive but his actions however, for whatever the cause, do him no favours.
The hearing was a whitewash. Clearly they refused to allow any political element to be mentioned as this would expose Elbit, the arms industry, and the government, as breaching the law and supplying weapons to a rogue state to be used against Palestinian civilians – which are War Crimes.
Hopefully they’ll appeal this travesty of justice. Elbt systems has no place in this, or any supposed civilized, country.
Byrnzie
This case was about the intent to cause criminal damage not the rights and wrongs of governments.
Surely if Elbit and the government have breached the law, why haven’t this group taken this further, like through the courts ?
Sambazza may enjoy making mistake after mistake (how can my comments be fake – they exist!!) but why he enjoys doing so he doesn’t say
1.) No Labour party member was a ‘victim’ of my ‘abusive behavior mainly because there was no abuse. Sorry I correct myself. My expulsion hearing found that Louise Ellman MP was a victim because I described her as a supporter of Israeli military child abuse. They said I had ‘shamed’ her. In parliamentary debates she had defended blindfolding children, arresting them in their beds in the early hours of the morning, holding them in the cold for hours, beating and in some cases sexually assaulting them. My response was that she was shameless.
Sambazza alleges I was expelled by Unison for “disrespectful & intimidating behavior”. Wrong again. I was suspended because I called out a scab UNISON official who had refused to defend a member who was sacked for mentioning Zionist-Nazi collaboration. The member involved, Stan Keable, went to Employment Tribunal and won unfair dismissal, a decision the Employment Appeal Tribunal upheld. Union officials who betray their members should be criticised without their critics being disciplined.
2.) Hamas & Islamic Jihad rockets are used indiscriminately to murder civilians. Last week over1,000 rockets fired at Israel killed an 80 year old Israeli lady, & a Palestinian worker. Israeli drones are used ONLY to take out the terrorist leaders hiding in civilian areas, with pinpoint accuracy.
Why does racist Sambazza not mention the dozens of Palestinians killed last week and indeed continuously. Why are only Israeli lives worthy of mention? Hamas rockets are in response to extremely powerful Israeli guided missiles there is no comparison in the number of casualties or accuracy. Gazans don’t have an Iron Dome to shoot down Israeli missiles. perhaps they should have them?
In the article above, the Judge states Greenstein’s blogs have been “INNACURATE”. The Judge also advised Greenstein’s commentary amounted to “SERIOUS CONTEMPT”.
What the Judge states and what is fact are 2 different things. The Judge was wrong. Surprisingly Judges can be wrong sometimes, unless you live in a police state where the word of a judge is sacred.
Sambazza would really benefit from living in Putin’s Russia, Zelensky’s Ukraine or similar police states
Isn’t it sad – Greenstein gets battered, everywhere he goes
“Hamas rockets are in response to extremely powerful Israeli guided missiles there is no comparison in the number of casualties or accuracy”.
Wrong as usual with this guy. It is the other way round. In fact Israel is responding to the constant barrage of Hamas rockets.
At the end of the trial the judge thanked the Jurors for their service saying the jury system is “the bedrock of our criminal justice system “. All I can say is that if punishing people who stand up for human rights under international law then it’s the system that is criminal.
Agree ! A justice system that gags a defendant from saying anything in defence of his motives is a chilling new development in a slew of anti protest and anti free speech legislation rushed through parliament recently, We must act according to our conscience not to corrupt law . Hitler twisted German law to suit his brutal regime . Israel is currently removing the independence of its judiciary in order to rush through illegal annexations and institutionalise an apartheid society
The law must be fair unto all : to the defendants as well as the persecutors if it is to be respected
Elizabeth Morley
They didn’t attend court on a human rights matter but for criminal intent, and there lies the difference.
Either you support what Tony did in order to prevent arms sales to Israel or you don’t. I do.
Juries have been able to return verdicts based on their conscience, whatever the facts may be, since the 17th century & still can.
The Labour Party likewise can be entirely blase about the facts & expel members based entirely on prejudice.
Tony you are a hero. Solidarity. A biased article, can’t expect anything else from Jo Wadsworth.
There is something both distasteful and patronising in the papers reporting of the trial of Mr Greenstein and his co defendants.The enlightened,multi cultural, multi political, multi religious population of this city understand well the history of the Middle East,the background to the founding of the state of Israel the ongoing oppression and violation of the rights of the Palestinian people and seeming indifference to International law.Equally they understand and view with sadness and shame the threat to the integrity of the once respected Judiciary of the United Kingdom increasingly politicised and demonstrating a total disregard and abandonment of due legal process.They see too a breathtaking display of double standards as evidenced in the response to the eighteen month threat to the people of Ukraine to the 70 year threat to the people of Palestine and they also witness the failure of the fourth estate to honour its role to question and challenge.The people of Brighton and Hove deserve better.
Deadly rocket and mortar fire on Israeli cities by Palestinian militant groups in Gaza constituted war crimes, Human Rights Watch said.
Rockets that misfired or fell short also killed or wounded “an undetermined number of Palestinians in Gaza.”
This does not constitute an appropriate response to the wider historical, political and legal issues which do and should concern the citizens of this city and indeed the country as a whole.
This is not a numbers game, if it were previous contributors to this discussion have laid them before you in stark and irrefutable detail.
Eloquently and accurately put.
I considder it utterly appalling that a defendant can be threatened with contempt of court for merely stating their defence to a jury. What has the legal system in this country come to ?
Mike Davies
Recommend you read the whole article. His comments on his website were allegedly incorrect, though he himself denies this yet hasn’t stated he will be taking legal action in this obvious liable situation.
Sorry, but Tony Greenstein thinks he is being clever by lamely trying to divert a comment into something that isn’t there in some hope of persuading people he is hard done by.
I love people like this and can see straight through him. His aggressive comments show exactly why he was booted out of various organisations. He’s been charged with harassment and there’s been allegations of bullying and he shows a lack of intelligence, if he thinks we are foolish enough to believe he hasn’t tried to influence the jury, but that’s my own opinion.
We will have to see if he puts his money where his mouth is and make official complaints, bearing in mind he has already lost a case in a bid to sue Campaign Against Antisemitism for libel.
If he is so hard done by, then lets see if he is man enough to start official complaints, I’m sure there’s plenty of solicitors out there who will take on his case.
It is strange that at no time in the archaeological record or in history has there been mention of a Palestinian ethnic group,State or tribe or even culture.The middle East was settled by Jews,Zoroastrans,Buddhists and Christians.The area was invaded by Islamiic bandits around the time their religion was created in 650 AD.Nomadic shepherds followed them out of the Arabian deserts using natural grass growth as the seasons changed to feed their sheep and goats.these nomads were the gypsies of the middle East their numbers boosted during Ottoman occupational Libyan and Circassion labour required for road and rail building.It is these nomads and imported labourers who from 1960 call themselves Palestinians.They are regarded as troublemakers by most Arab nations of the middle East.The only regular supporters are the terror regimes of Iran , Syria and Russia and the Religious fanatics of Saudi Arabia.For a so called religion of peace Islam which has existed for just under 1400 yrs has a history of terrorism and persecution like no other in modern times.The term terrorist is more aptly applicable to the Palestinians than anyone else.In history the Gaza strip was occupied in biblical times by the biblical terrorists known as the Philistines .It is rather strange that the present batch of religious terrorists happens to also occupy the Gaza strip which is very apt and shows how history repeats itself.I could go on about grand mufti of Jerusalem being a friend of Adolf Hitler ,visiting Concentration camps in Germany and collaborating with the Nazis against Allies during WW2 he also created Palestinian SS Division which was sent to Greece where they massacred Christians.The atrocities carried out at Shatila and its sister Christian Palestinian refugee camp in Lebanon were carried out by Islamic Palestinian terrorists not Israelis.I could go on quoting historical facts that are concealed from general knowledge by what I call fakestinian propaganda.I will add one more interesting item .The infamous terrorist yasser Arafat was related to grand mufti of Jerusalem ,he changed his name to conceal the fact his family supported the Nazis.Then went on to attempt assassination of King of Jordan and take over Jordan in a coup which failed and the Jordanians threw them out into the West Bank.They tried the same.e in Lebanon and after the Satila atrocities were shipped off to the only country willing to take them Tunisia where since there arrival has had nothing but political unrest.
This is an excellent example of the racism not only of Zionism but colonialism more generally.
Of course in the eyes of colonialism the indigenous people were invisible. In Australia it was ‘terra nullis’. In South Africa the Black population were also considered invaders.
Saying that ‘For a so called religion of peace Islam which has existed for just under 1400 yrs has a history of terrorism and persecution like no other in modern times.’ is a good example of the racism I mention.
It also demonstrates Hussar’s pig ignorance, which is not surprising in bigots. Who was it who murdered thousands of Jews as they set off for the holy land in the 11 and 12th centuries but the Christian Crusaders.
It was the Muslim Saladdin whose forces saved the Jews of Jerusalem from being massacred. Who was it who provided a place of refuge for Jews after and b4 the Inquisition but Muslim North Africa.
And if we are to compare religions as to who is more bloodthirsty then Judaism can certainly match Islam. What is the book of Joshua but a Book of Genocide. The inhabitants of Jericho were to be massacred, yeah every man, woman, child and suckling infant. The only non-Jews saved were the prostitutes that the spies had slept with in the city.
You would think, judging by Hussar’s rabid ramblings that the Holocaust had happened in Arabia not Christian Europe. If he knew anything about the Holocaust, and having just brought out a book on the Holocaust and Zionism, I do know a great deal. The ONLY country under Nazi occupation where the number of Jews INCREASED during the war was Muslim Albania. Not one Jew was deported to the extermination camps as ordinary Muslim peasants protected them.
Contrast this with the ethnic Christian states of Romania, Slovakia, Croatia and Hungary. To say nothing of Poland and the Baltic States where between 90 and 95% of Jews were killed, often as in the case of Latvia and Lithuania by local ‘Christian’ collaborators. In Romania half the Jews (300K) were murdered and it was the Iron Guard of St Michael the Archangel who were the most bloodthirsty. Same in Hungary with the Arrow Cross/Nyilas where nearly half a million Jews were deported in less than 3 months.
Slovakia, ruled by a Catholic priest Fr. Tiso was the first state in Europe to deport its Jews and as for CHristian Croatia, where Catholic priests ran the satellite camps there was the only extermination camp in Europe not run by the Nazis, Jasenovac.
So what are we to make of this? Does this mean Christianity is a bloodthirsty religion? No. In Denmark and the Netherlands Christians were to the fore in rescuing Jews. Religion takes on the colour of the surrounding society so I make no such judgements. In my book Zionism During the Holocaust I point out that the Catholic Church was probably responsible for saving a quarter of a million Jews, unlike the Zionist movement which everywere collaborated with the Nazis.
The Grand mufti of Jerusalem was certainly a collaborator with the Nazis but who elected him? Not the Palestinians. He was appointed by the ardent Zionist High Commissioner, Herbert Samuel. He also betrayed the Palestinians but given that the Zionist terrorist group, the Stern Gang, which was led by future Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir, twice offered a military pact to the Nazis in 1940, I don’t think anyone is in a position to accuse the Palestinians of collaboration, quite the contrary.
In 2015 Netanyahu speaking at the World Zionist Congress in Jerusalem alleged that it was the Mufti, at a meeting with Hitler in November 1941, had given Hitler the idea for the Holocaust. This was historically illiterate as the Holocaust had already started but Hussar follows the same theme. It is to blame the victims of Zionism for the holocaust and to absolve all those neo-Nazis like Tommy Robinson who so love Israel today.
Religion is not to blame for the evils of colonialism. But when you base a state on the ethnicity of one religion you are bound to have a racist state that discriminates against those who are not of that religion. That is what Hussar in his blind rage doesn’t understand. Israel is an ethno nationalist Jewish state just as Romania was a Christian ethno nationalist state.
“…the defendants have not been allowed to explain why they were planning the action they were arrested for…”
The time for explanation is during the Police interview. Hence the Official caution ‘It may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned something you later rely on in court’
A court hears evidence. A jury decides their verdict on the evidence given from both prosecution and defence. They do not decide the verdict on emotions.
I forgot that one of Hussar’s comments was seriously bizarre. He said that ‘The atrocities carried out at Shatila and its sister Christian Palestinian refugee camp in Lebanon were carried out by Islamic Palestinian terrorists not Israelis’.
I visited these camps. They were not Christians particularly. The massacres were carried out by Israel’s allies, the Christian Phalange, whilst Israeli troops lit up the night sky with flares and stopped anyone escaping.
They killed over 2000 people, cutting off women’s breasts and castrating young boys. To try and defend this by blaming the Palestinians demonstrates the depths that Zionist supporters will go to distort history
@Tony – you would do your cause better by not using so many sock puppets. Your style of writing is so obvious that the multiple names you have used in this thread is much more obvious than you realise.
I am not pro-Israel in any way. But you do the cause no good by abusing UK law in the way you have done here. You are in court on the facts – and that does not mean being able to do a speech on the weapons. That is a different court case.
Accept the fact you got caught attempting to illegally damage a property. What the owners of that property do is not an excuse you can use in a court room.
Breaking the law with your blog posts and attempts to contact and corrupt the jury is an insult to UK law. You are not “special” and immune to the law just because you think your cause is just. You would have been equally upset if Elbit had started contacting jurors.
Your errors are too many to correct. But it is a lie to suggest that I attempted to contact and corrupt the jury. Likewise it is a lie to suggest that I write under anything other than my own name. I notice you are not so brave as to supply your own.
How can you abuse a law? Law is a matter of interpretation. In only being able to think along straight lines you show no appreciation for things such as the development of common law and how it has been the subject of a long struggle between those who experience it and those who wield it.
It is no accident that those who do break the law in a big way, the fraudsters who siphoned off £16 billions in fake COVID contracts, aided by members of this government via their VIP lane, including the infamous Lady Mone who made £100m profit from £203m of contracts to supply unusable PIP, are completely immune.
The old saying that there is one law for the rich and one for the poor holds true today more than ever. The Metropolitan Police only investigated the blatant breach of lockdown laws at No. 10 when threatened with judicial review and even then only issued Boris Johnson with 1 ticket for the estimated 10 that he attended.
Why is it ‘illegal’ to damage property whose purpose is to enable war crimes? The values of people like yourself basically amounts to saying that property is worth more than people. Which is the philosophy of conservatism down the ages.
And then you say ‘You are in court on the facts’ as if there is just one set of facts. No doubt to you history is just a list of facts, all of which revolve round kings and queens rather than ordinary people.
It is a fact that Elbit supply 85% of Israel’s drones. It is a fact that those drones are used exclusively against civilians and are involved in the murder of unarmed men, women and children. It is also a fact that these are war crimes. But to those of your ilk these are not facts to your liking.
It is also a fact that the person who is not me (how strange that s/he can only define themselves as not being me, as if they have no positive identity) comes in a long line of people who were blind to the victims of British imperialism and who today are really nothing more than sycophants for a growing military industrial complex which is what this is really what this is about.
As to how you can ‘insult’ UK law I leave to people wiser than me
Well said Tony.
Indeed well done! I wonder what Rosa Parks, Sophie Sholl, Toussaint Louverture and many other brave, admirable people in history would have to say about this strange notion of ‘insulting UK law’.
This article is just a load of zionist inspired crap,typical right wing journalism.
Yes indeed James. Those miserable rightwingers who applaud the judges’ attacks on the right of protest and who applaud the fact that I may be imprisoned are the same people who, over a hundred years ago applauded the judicial crackdown on the suffraggettes.
In a BBC reconstruction of the prosecution of Emmeline Pankhurst in 1912, the Prosecutor told the jury that:
‘Suffrage is not the issue, it is the criminal behaviour of the suffragettes and their incitement to partake in militant activity at which 54 windows were broken.’
Would anyone now, with the benefit of hindsight, say the issue was the 54 windows that were broken in Oxford Street? The suffraggettes have statues in Parliament Square and plaques in the House of Commons. The miserable judges of the time and their pathetic chorus as reflected in some of the comments above have been forgotten. The brave women who stood out for the basic democratic right of women to vote are the ones who are remembered.
Who remembers the savages who ordered that James Connolly be taken from his hospital bed on a stretcher to be executed by firing squad for his role in the Easter Rising? Connolly, Pearse and the heroes who died are remembered.
I claim no such heroic status. I simply took part in a protest action against an arms factory that manufactures engines for drones whose missiles shred the flesh of its child victims. Yes they pack fleschettes into these missiles, tiny bits of metal that cut up any living thing within hundreds of metres. But the judiciary use a tortured ‘logic’ to say that those who die are too ‘remote’ from the actions we take. I have no doubt that history will vindicate us.
Incidentally the right of juries to acquit on conscience is an ancient one going back to the Bushell’s case of 1670. It is celebrated on a plaque outside the Old Bailey where a jury was held without food or water, fire or a chamberpot for 2 days in order to get them to convict. From there arose the right of a jury to decide to ignore the judge and decide that justice was more important than law.
All our freedoms have been won by those who were prepared to defy the law as interpreted by the judiciary. Those who applaud my conviction and others, as well as the attacks on climate change protesters are the same miserable people who applauded the attacks on the Chartists and Suffraggettes. We know who history will remember.
tony greenstein
Your right to protest haven’t been attacked, only the way you were going to it.
You went to this site armed with intent on causing vandalism, that’s your choice, that is not protesting, that’s pre-planned terrorism for the want of another word.
You have a history of aggressive behaviour, what worries me is the possibility of it becoming violence against the person had you been confronted.
There is enough destruction, violence and needless death across the world, you’re not helping the cause in my opinion.
As for the climax change protesters, you are aware of course that at least one arrived at a protest site in her fuel guzzling, environmental non friendly 4×4 pumping out those emissions she was protesting about, save the planet my back side.
I hesitate to respond to this illiterate rant. What is a ‘climax change protester’? What is ‘armed with intent on causing vandalism’?
As to our ‘right to protest haven’t(sic!) been attacked’ perhaps you didn’t see Police preemptively (that means before anything took place) arresting protesters against the Coronation. The new Public Order Act 2023 contains a whole raft of measures attacking the right to protest.
Your description of us trying to take out drones as ‘terrorism’ without one word to say about Israel murdering a family of 10, including 4 children, in order to murder their fathers is little short of despicable.
You call it ‘pre-planned terrorism for the want of another word’. It would appear that you find it difficult to find a word for most things. Opposition to genocide and war crimes is not terrorism and it is only a twisted mind that would equate opposition to war crimes as being terrorism though to be fair the Nazis also accused the French Resistance of terrorism.
It is a lie that I ‘have a history of aggressive behaviour’. Perhaps you mean I was an anti-fascist activist which seems to point to where your sympathies really lie. In fact I haven’t been convicted of any offence of violence.
Yes I agree. There is enough destruction, violence and needless death across the world, but when you that I’m ‘not helping the cause in my opinion’ perhaps you can tell us what you are doing?
tony greenstein
Illiterate rant ?
Oh please do forgive me for making a couple of typo errors, guessing you’ve never made a mistake in your life Mr Perfect, but of course your not perfect are you?
You must be ignorant not to realise I meant ‘Climate’.
What is ‘armed with intent on causing vandalism’? You ask?
Really? did you not have sledgehammers, smoke bombs, ladders, superglue, a crowbar and fire extinguishers adapted to spray red paint ?
I accept recent events and arrests have raised a few eyebrows, more to do with the event itself and security being understandably more of a concern.
Correct, I didn’t say one word about Israel murdering a family of 10, including 4 children, in order to murder their fathers is little short of despicable.
You didn’t mention the despicable actions of Hamas & Islamic Jihad whose rockets are used to murder civilians. Why is that ?
Lets get this clear, you went with intention of causing damage therefore that is ‘pre-planned’
Correct, opposition to genocide and war crimes is not terrorism and we would agree with that. How we respond and oppose however is the question that needs to be answered. Is what your doing an act of terrorism or just mindless vandalism ?
You have the audacity to use the term ‘twisted mind’ when nowhere I have stated ‘opposition to war crimes as being terrorism’. I questioned your methods, perhaps learn to read correctly.
We can disagree if you have a history of aggressive behaviour, there’s enough venom and twisted comments in most of your posts to give any casual reader to make up their own minds.
Thus far, you’ve given me no reason to believe otherwise with your comments that are twisted, aggressive and abusive.
Yes I agree. There is enough destruction, violence and needless death across the world.
Good I’m pleased we agree on that.
Perhaps you can explain in your own words why you feel the need to cause destruction when you know it isn’t going to help the cause you feel strongly about.
You ask what I am doing, looking at you and other groups wondering what the hell is wrong with you.
You have causes that are dear to your hearts and I fully support them, how you protest however is another matter, I don’t agree on how you do it.
Of course I have no problem with typos but some of it did verge on the illiterate.
Elbit supplies 85% of Israeli drones and 80% of its munitions, including White Phosphorous which was used to bomb UN schools in Gaza. It’s excuse was ‘illlumination’ but when it fell to earth any child who came into contact with it would be burnt to the bone and then more. A War crime? I’ll leave that to you to decide.
Of course I don’t mention Hamas/IJ rockets because I am more concerned with a superpower with an airforce and navy and drones etc. Hamas rockets are not guided, have low explosive etc.
In the last major conflict Operation Protective Edge 2,200 Palestinians, mostly civilians, including 551 children died from Israel’s merciless pounding of residential areas. A war crime.
The response from Hamas was that 72 died, of whom 66 were soldiers. https: / / www . rand. org / pubs / research_briefs /RB9975. html
The figures speak for themselves. Over 90% of those the Palestinians killed were military so the rockets were almost entirely ineffective. Israel on the other hand deliberaty targeted civilian areas, schools, hospitals etc.
Indeed in the May 2021 conflict the only hospital they didn’t bomb was the main Shifa one because of the publicity it would cause. Instead they bombed the road leading up to it preventing ambulances getting there.
Since Israel boasts of its ability to target a single room in a tower block we can assume these strikes weren’t accidental.
Gaza has been under siege for 18 years, deprived of all but essentials. Israel is the occupying power just as Nazi Germany was the occupying power in European countries. Would you have concentrated your fire on Nazi violence or the French/Yugoslav/Czech resistance? If not why do so with Gaza?
There are no rockets in the West Bank yet that doesn’t stop house demolitions, destruction of villages, large scale killing of civilians, arrests and torture of children.
Stop making excuses for western colonialism. I am Jewish unlike you. This idea that European settlers could come to another country and claim that they had the right to displace them because god gave them the land is what happened the world over. South African whites claimed biblical legitimacy.
Imagine someone comes to your home and says their ancestors lived their 2,000 years ago. Would you move out? That is the injustice that has been done and is being done to the Palestinians whose crops are burnt under the watchful gaze of the military.
The irony is that if anyone is descended from the ancient Hebrews it is the Palestinians not the European Jews. Zionism was a Christian not a Jewish idea. It was Christian imperialists who wanted to see a Jewish state protecting the Suez canal, the main route to india, the Jewel in the Crown of the Empire.
So yes we intended to do minor damage to Elbit whose war crimes are monstrous and we will pay the price with our heads held high. perhaps if demonstrators had managed to cause criminal damage to IG Farben who manufactured the poison crystals that killed the inmates of Auschwitz you would have complained too?
You have to have some sense of perspective about these things. The British state protects Elbit because it is in an alliance with Israel militarily. Criminal damage is the excuse
And to those who are obsessed by the mere fact of breaking the law I refer them to the Judgment of Lord Hoffman, a senior law lord in R v Jones
(Margaret) [2007] 1 AC 161 at [89]:
“89. My Lords, civil disobedience on conscientious grounds has a long and honourable history in this country. People who break the law to affirm their belief in the injustice of a law or government action are sometimes vindicated by history. The suffragettes are an example which comes immediately to mind. It is the mark of a civilised community that it can accommodate protests and demonstrations of this kind.
Perhaps the Police State Democrats hear will try to get their heads round this!
And you avoid responding to Helen’s remark that you didn’t mention the rockets used to murder Israeli civilians by Hamas and Islamic Jihad. This is always the case when there is criticism of Israel’s response to attacks by Hamas and Islamic Jihad. How convenient!
Hendrik is correct. I didn’t mention these Hamas rockets. The relative casualty rates speak for themselves. In 2014 Operation Protective Edge 2,200 Palestinians died during Israel’s attacks, including 551 children.
Whereas nearly all Palestinians killed were civilians. The 70 odd Israelis who died were mainly military. The figures speak for themselves.
On side, a civilian population like in Nazi occupied France or Yugoslavia has basic weapons, no guided missiles just home made things that barely fly, no air defence systems etc. and the other has the state of the art weaponry.
But to the racist and the imperialist it is the violence of the oppressed NEVER the violence of the oppressor that concerns them. The continued demolitio of villages and homes in the West Bank does not concern them. The burning of crops, the settler pogrom at Huwara where the pogromists were aided in their attacks by the army is of no account.
A pogrom described as such in the Israeli press. Nor was the Flag march this week through East Jerusalem where the chants were ‘Death to the Arabs’ and ‘May your village burn’ and ‘A Jew is a soul an Arab is a whore’ of any account to racists like Hendrik (sounds like a White South African name) and Helen.
In Nazi Germany and Poland the slogn was ‘Death to the Jews’. The target has changed but the idea remains the same and no doubt the German and Polish Helens and Hendriks of the day were full of tales about the inquities of the Jews. As were many of the most pro-Zionist western statesman. Even Roosevelt noted how the Jews had occupied disproportionate positions in the German economy. Lloyd George was effusive in his praise of Hitler.
So our common and garden racist here are really just the heirs of the same people who tormented Germany’s Jews
Two days ago the annual Flag March was held. Thousands of settlers and their supporters marched through East Jerusalem chanting slogans such as ‘Death to the Arabs’. You can find these marches easily on the Internet from previous years.
This year was no different and you can see from the link below unprovoked attacks by Police on a Palestinian being interviwed by Israeli TV, a woman shouting ‘get the fuck out of here’ to a Palestinian shopkeeper and even a violent attack against a CNN journalist.
https : / /tinyurl. com /4epp8mav this site doesn’t like web addresses hence the spaces.
Of course Helen (but not others who would have said the same about similar attacks in Hitler’s Germany against Jews because they are thorough going racists) sees the situation in terms of Palestinian aggression and Israeli reactions. Because she and many others have a view of what Israel does framed by a BBC narrative that always places Israel as the victim and Palestinians as the aggressor.
The BBC has a bias against understanding. It never speaks of the Occupation or where it came from or indeed the continual dispossession of Palestinian land by European Jewish colonists.
The same was true when I was a child. I used to watch westerners and ask why the Indians kept attacking the peaceful cowboys because that is how Hollywood framed it. I later grew up to learn of the mass extermination of the native Americans, the drive to the West of Andrew Jackson, and all the other barbarities. But all we saw was Custer’s last stand as he and his mean were being attacked for no reason.
I grew up and hopefully some on these comments will also grow up and realise that they have been fed a diet of propaganda by the Western media
Interesting that nobody has commented on a serious contempt of court committed by the author of this article. I asked for clarification of what could be said regarding a certain person (not Greenstein) twice. The judge was very clear in his ruling and explained why. The judge was not wrong on this, but a contempt of court has been committed nonetheless. It will be interesting to see what happens over it.
“It is not whether it is legal or illegal but whether it is right or wrong”
– George Lansbury, during the Poplar Rates Revolt 1921
To all those who persist in making unsubstantiated ad-hominem attacks against the character and integrity of Mr Greenstein, I would suggest that you are weaponising the narrative in the service of imperialism, colonialism and fascism. It was Henri David Thoreau who, almost two centuries ago, stated that if the laws of man violate the principles of justice, then they should be overturned and abolished. To equate spraying a building with red paint, with spraying the streets of Jenin with the blood of innocents is symptomatic of the depravity we have descended into.