“Wave of divestment” hits Israeli military contractor, Elbit Systems

Israeli companies profiting from the occupation of Palestine are increasingly subject to blacklisting and divestment due to the growing pressure exerted boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement. The movement of Palestinian organisations and solidarity activists pushes for divestment from Israeli companies involved in and profiting from the occupation and in recent months has seen millions of dollars withdrawn from Israeli companies, in particular Israeli military contractor Elbit Systems, a company involved in the construction of the apartheid wall and connected to the manufacture of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) , or drones. (more…)

Pittsburgh: A new testing ground for acoustic weapons

The mass mobilisation against September’s G20 Summit in Pittsburgh was met with a characteristically brutal response from US Homeland ‘Security’. In many ways, police repression of UK protests pales in comparison to American political policing, with activists being routinely arrested under various terrorism-related charges and local and federal law enforcement agencies rolling out military style operations, complete with temporary detention facilities and costing hundreds of thousands of dollars each. The Pittsburgh police, however, may well have distinguished themselves as hitting a new low in the erosion of US civil liberty. Alongside US police staples such as rubber bullets, tear gas and ‘flash bang’ stun grenades, the Pittsburgh authorities unleashed an acoustic weapon, one of a new generation of ‘non-lethal’ military devices, used not only to disperse and intimidate protesters, but to gain control over their behaviour. (more…)

Veolia tries to bail out of one apartheid project; two to go!

In 2005, just after the publication of the Palestinian call for boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) against Israeli apartheid, Palestinians began calling for an international boycott campaign against Veolia, a company involved in the Citypass Consortium, a scheme to build a tramline on occupied territory in the West Bank. Veolia is a huge multinational, that arguably has the biggest financial commitment of any international company to Israel’s colonisation of the West Bank. (more…)

NATO and the AMN for Beginners

First Published in September 2009
by Jack Anderson, Anti-Militarist Network (AMN)
If you’re anything like me, it wouldn’t be exactly revolutionary to declare that this century’s anti-war activism hasn’t been all that successful.
Similarly, it wouldn’t take a great leap of imagination to argue that, despite being the face of ‘benevolent interventionism’, NATO has been and remains a de-stabilizing and dangerous source of ruling class violence. It was with both these facts in mind that a handful of activists in late 2008 in Edinburgh decided to put together the UK’s first Anti-Militarist Gathering. (more…)