In an unprecedented action, more than 130 leading scholars and public figures are risking arrest on terror charges after writing an open letter to the Court of Appeal concerning Palestine Action.
The letter, dated 24 April 2026, simply reads:
We oppose genocide, we support Palestine Action.
The words that have become synonymous with the campaign to Lift the Ban.
Sally Rooney, Greta Thunberg, and Judith Butler were among the first to put their names to this defiant declaration. Joining them are prominent artists and musicians such as Nadine Shah, Brian Eno, Massive Attack’s Robert Del Naja, the actor Billy Howle, writers China Miéville, Lina Meruane and Tariq Ali, and political activists like Lindsey German of Stop the War and Vijay Prashad of the Tricontinental Institute.
The letter is on the Defend our Juries website. And there’s also a sign-on form that allows anyone who supports the scholars’ action to add their name.
Professors and researchers from University of Oxford, University of Cambridge, London School of Economics, Durham University, University of Warwick, University of Exeter and many other UK universities pledge their support for Palestine Action.
The list of signatories includes several senior professors of law: Yvette Russell from University of Bristol, Maria Aristodemou from Birkbeck, and Neve Gordon FacSS, Penny Green FacSS, and Hans Lindahl all from Queen Mary University of London.
Other prominent UK-based professors on the list are Nicola Pratt the president of the British Society for Middle Eastern Studies and Eyal Weizman the founding director of Forensic Architecture.
The letter exposes the paradox of terror charges
If the police proceed to arrest these scholars on terror charges, it’ll further expose the authoritarian nature of the ban. But if they don’t, the more than 3,000 previous arrests of people for saying precisely the same thing will appear not just unlawful but arbitrary and discriminatory.
Today’s action by the scholars is organised by a number of academic critics of the ongoing genocide in Palestine. Many of them are signatories to previous open letters hosted by the group Protest is not Terrorism.
Over the last couple of years Israel has destroyed all of Gaza’s universities and killed scores of Palestinian scholars. Given the UK’s increasingly authoritarian response to anti-genocide protest, the organisers of this letter did not circulate it among colleagues in the West Bank.
Nevertheless, Palestinian academic voices are still represented by Abdaljawad Omar (Birzeit University), Karma Nabulsi (University of Oxford) and Rashid Khalidi (Columbia University), author of perhaps the most widely read recent history of the century-long war against Palestine.
Many well known international figures and political thinkers have signed the letter in solidarity. These include Verónica Gago (Professor of Social Sciences at University of Buenos Aires), Michael Hardt (Professor of Literature, Duke University) and Jacques Rancière (Emeritus Professor of Philosophy, University of Paris 8).
The letter arrives just days before the government’s appeal to uphold its unlawful proscription of Palestine Action comes before the Royal Courts of Justice on 28-29 April.
With more expected to sign the letter over the weekend, the scholars’ defiance is further evidence that the public does not support the government’s attempts to ban legitimate and necessary action to prevent a genocide.
Signatories comment
Penny Green, Professor of Law and Globalisation at Queen Mary University of London, said:
It is both indefensible and revealing that peaceful protesters opposing genocide are being branded as terrorists while the Labour government, itself complicit in Israel’s state terror, avoids all accountability.
Neve Gordon, Professor of International Law at Queen Mary University of London, said:
Instead of meeting its legal obligations as set by the Genocide Convention and international humanitarian law, Keir Starmer’s government has been providing military and diplomatic support to Israel as it perpetrates atrocity crimes while simultaneously silencing the messenger by proscribing Palestine Action as a terrorist group.
The decision to appeal the ruling rendering the proscription unlawful is yet another sign of the government’s moral bankruptcy.
Catherine Rottenberg, Professor of Media and Cultural Studies at Goldsmiths University of London, said:
With the ongoing genocide and ethnic cleansing in Palestine and an illegal and horrific war raging in the Middle East, the insistence on proscribing a direct action group is not merely absurd, it is absolutely unconscionable.
In the name of defending freedom and democracy, our government is undermining both democracy and freedom. We the people must stand up and defend our freedoms, with Palestine Action as our most urgent test case.
Peter Hallward, Professor of Philosophy at London’s Centre for Research in Modern European Philosophy, said:
For anyone familiar with even a few strands of post-war European thought, it’s almost incomprehensible to think that we have so quickly forgotten a principle that once commanded universal and uncontroversial assent – that ‘never again’ really means what it says. Never, ever, anywhere. Especially not with our collusion!
The 1948 Convention remains categorically binding on us all, and it obliges us to ‘prevent and punish’ genocide by all the necessary means at our disposal.
If our government refuses to honour this obligation it is up to us to insist on it.
Başak Ertür, a Reader at Goldsmiths’ Centre for Research Architecture, said:
The use of the sharpest end of criminal law against people who inconvenience political power by acting with conscience is a textbook feature of authoritarianism. I’ve been wary of signing collective letters since I was put on trial in Turkey some years ago, along with hundreds of others, for adding my name to the Academics for Peace petition in 2016.
But the proscription of Palestine Action by executive fiat seems to me no less preposterous than what I have experienced, and therefore it feels exactly right that I now sign this letter, because indeed, I do oppose genocide and therefore support Palestine Action.
A spokesperson for Defend our Juries said:
The scholars who have signed this letter have spent their lives analysing complex political situations and moral problems and today have decided to put their liberty and reputations on the line because saving lives is not terrorism.
If the police start arresting these scholars on terrorism charges for peaceful expressions of political speech the state’s authoritarianism will be fully exposed. But if they don’t, the arrests of more than 3,000 people for saying precisely the same thing will be shown to be not just unlawful but also discriminatory.
We applaud the signatories of today’s letter in joining thousands of people who have publicly declared their support for Palestine Action.
Featured image via the Canary
By The Canary
From Canary via This RSS Feed.