Palestine campaigner to address Bloody Sunday March

“Being asked to speak at a Bloody Sunday March is probably the biggest honour I could have.”

This was the reaction of Huda Ammori, keynote speaker for the annual march and rally in Derry on Sunday - organised by the Bloody Sunday March committee.

Speaking to Derry Now, Ms Ammori, co-founder of Palestine Action - a direct-action network - also acknowledged the inspiration she drew from the 2006 actions of Derry’s Raytheon 9, anti-war activists.

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Ms Ammori referenced the huge influence her family history has had on her activism.

“I am Palestinian and Iraqi,” she explained. “My father’s side is Palestinian and my mother’s side is Iraqi. I grew up in England but my great-grandfather was assassinated by the British in 1936 during the Palestinian Uprising against British colonial rule before 1948 and my father was forced out from his home in Palestine in 1967 by the Israeli military.

“I have been involved in pro-Palestine campaigning for quite a long time, however, a few years ago, I decided to focus on direct action as a means to ending British complicity with the colonisation of Palestine.

“The main reason for that was I was doing protests and campaigns for institutions to divest from Israel and you get to a point when you realise you are essentially appealing to the oppressors, constantly, to make the changes and change their stance on Palestine.

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“Britain has been crucial in the colonisation of Palestine, since the Balfour Declaration in 1917 - when it signed away the lands of Palestine. And  every single British Government, every single political party, since then has sustained that position,” said Ms Ammori.

She explained that Palestine Action engages in direct action against the Israeli Weapons trade in Britain.

Its campaign began in July 2020.

“Our main target is Elbit Systems - Israel’s largest weapons manufacturer,” said Ms Ammori.

“We started off with a few of us going inside their headquarters in London. We would occupy their factories. We were on the roof of one of Elbit’s factories which produces the engines for the Israeli military drone fleet. We dismantled the factory.

“Since then we have had hundreds of people join Palestine Action and it has become a sustainable, direct action movement against the Israeli interests in Britain - the Israeli weapons trade and also those who facilitate its weapons trade.

“As many people are in Palestine Action, we were then facing charges. At first I was facing blackmail charges for demanding the landlords of Elbit evict the weapons manufacturer. I also faced conspiracy charges - conspiracy to commit criminal damage and conspiracy to commit burglary.

“Eventually they combined all of these actions into one trial, so I was on trial from November 13 last year. In total, I ended up facing 11 charges. There were 8 of us altogether, with 35 charges between us.

“We were found not guilty by the jury on 13 charges, which was a huge victory. The jury failed to reach a verdict on the remaining charges.”

She and her co-defendants expect to be retried on those charges at a date in the future.

She added: “When the trial started, we were told to expect four to five years in prison if we were found guilty of the blackmail charges.

“To be honest thought, with everything that is going on in Gaza at the minute, the genocide, you have to put everything in perspective. Facing re-trial is not at the front of my mind. I am not really bothered about it.

“I will just go in a couple of years and explain exactly what Elbit and Israel are doing, if I am given the opportunity to highlight what is going on.

“But I think, when you choose to resist the Israeli weapons trade and fight against it in this country, the imperial core, it just becomes a part of life and I am just more pleased that I am choosing or I am actually able to do something tangible for the Palestinian people,.”

In terms of comparisons between Bloody Sunday and Gaza, Ms Ammori observed the Irish have been fighting against an “occupying force”.

She added: “In many respects it is the same occupying force as in Palestine. Historically Britain played a crucial role in Palestine and continues to play a crucial role in the occupation of Palestine today.

“And we can see the savagery and the barbaric nature of how the occupiers can shoot down protestors. They did it Bloody Sunday and the same barbarity is happening today to the Palestinian people and not just today.

“One of the examples was the Great Return March (2018 to 2019) when people were marching into the fence which entrapped them at the brutal siege in Gaza.

“They were sniped down and deliberately disabled. The Israeli Defense Force would shoot them in the kneecaps to deliberately disable young Palestinians. They shot medics with their hands up.

“I think as well, not only is it that the occupier has similarities in their tactics and their barbaric colonial nature, I think the people are similar in their resistance,” said Ms Ammori, who added: “As a Palestinian, you grow up knowing about Ireland and you always feel an affinity automatically with their struggle and it is the same visa versa.”

Ms Ammori praised the actions of Derry’s Raytheon 9, who she described as a “big inspiration” for Palestine Action.

“Seeing what the Raytheon 9 did and what others did against the Raytheon factory in Derry, going inside, taking it apart, when Lebanon was being bombed, in a show of solidarity, was a huge inspiration to us in Palestine Action.”