London, United Kingdom – Jonathon Porritt, a 75-year-old Oxford ecologist, is one of the hundreds of people that the United Kingdom has suppressed their support for Palestinian action.
He was arrested and accused earlier this month, under article 13 of the law on terrorism, for having held a sign during a rally describing the government’s decision to ban the protest group.
“I oppose the genocide, I support the action of Palestine,” read the cardboard sign that he and many of the 520 others were arrested.
Its deposit hearing is scheduled for late October.
But Porritt is not a hardened criminal.
He spent 30 years advising the king on environmental issues when the monarch held the title of the Prince of Wales. He also chaired a sustainable development commission created by former Prime Minister Tony Blair, and throughout his career worked in politics, academic and led friends of the earth. In 2000, he received a CBE, a high -ranking prescription, for environmental protection services.
Tel Aviv Tribune spoke to Porritt of his activism, Palestine, the role of affairs and the effect of the manufacture of weapons on climate change.
Tel Aviv Tribune: While the Gaza crisis is getting worse, you have urged the United Kingdom to take action to stop the assault on Israel. With more than 700 other business leaders, you recently called for targeted sanctions against the accused of having violated international law, including war crimes. Does that include Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu because he is wanted for arrest by the International Criminal Court?
Jonathan Porritt: This would certainly include members of his cabinet who were very frank in the comments they made, which clearly breaks all understanding of the rights of people to exist … and indicates a desire to clean ethnically Gaza and indeed prepare to do the same in the West Bank.
It is very clear that these sanctions must now be put forward, and I think it is important that it is business leaders who suggest that you simply cannot authorize this kind of blatant attacks on the Palestinian people.
Tel Aviv Tribune: On an individual level, many people dismayed by the conduct of Israel in Gaza joined a campaign to boycott Israeli products, in an attempt to hit the economy that fuels war. Is it an effective way to resolve violence?
Porritt: This is something I do on an individual level. And it is purely personal, but I would be deeply unhappy by buying everything that exports to the United Kingdom in Israel. I think that the government of Israel at the moment and its history in terms of the situation in Gaza and in the West Bank is so repugnant for me personally that I feel uncomfortable to support the economic position of this country, so it is my personal choice.
I don’t do everything my best to suggest that everyone has to do that.
I think that lifestyle decisions are really important, ethical decisions are really important, but do they change a lot? Probably not, it’s reality, and many people just don’t know the problems behind these choices.
Tel Aviv Tribune: Your arrest at the beginning of the month made the headlines. What do you think that figures such as King Charles and Tony Blair, with whom you have worked, would make your radical activism?
Porritt: I was at ease to assume establishment roles as chairman of the commission (launched by Blair), for example, (and) helping to set up the Prince of Wales’ commercial and sustainability program, all this kind of thing. But my life started as an activist in the Green Festival and in the Friends of the Earth, so they probably always known that I was more predisposed to this tactical path than to the inner track that I nevertheless spent 30 years to continue.
Tel Aviv Tribune: With several wars that are raging, the link between soldiers and arms societies, who are the main polluters of carbon, and climate change speak enough?
Porritt: No, and it bothers me a lot.
Investing in nuclear weapons of one type or another, improvements all over the world and increasing the number of warheads again – it’s simply crazy, and on the occasion of the 80th anniversary of Hiroshima, you think, how can it be?
And then, you look at the environmental impacts of all of this, of course, including the CO2 imprint of large increases in weapons expenses, and it’s just the worst possible way of trying to increase people’s safety in their own country – to make these investments extremely at high carbon and destructive intensity and even more weapons of mass destruction.
Tel Aviv Tribune: The United Kingdom has prohibited action in Palestine as a terrorist organization, but its donors say that the group’s ban is a way to silence dissent while Israel waged war in Gaza. He now legally relys on the ban. What does Palestine represent, in your opinion?
Porritt: What the action of Palestine really represents is the desire to use violence against property in the context of its campaign tactics against, in particular, these arms societies (which are) deeply accomplices in the continuous genocide in Gaza. They consider to be proportionate when they take place against the current devastation in Gaza.
This choice on tactics is morally based, completely defensible … and in no case indicating an officially designated terrorist organization.
In recent years, there has been an astonishing legal repression of fundamental rights in this country, in particular the right to freedom of expression and the right to protesting
The designation as a terrorist organization … is to try to silence the action of Palestine. This is where I come back to the now incontestable proof of the complicity of the British government in this genocide, and because of this complicity – its continuation of the licenses for weapons being very clearly used to massacring innocents through Gaza – if you look at this complicity, they needed something more. They needed an even greater stick to close the action in Palestine so that the citizens of the United Kingdom were not allowed to recognize how horrible the behavior of this government is.
