The administration of US President Donald Trump on Wednesday designated the British anti-genocide movement “Palestine Action” as an international terrorist organization and imposed sanctions that prohibit Americans from conducting transactions with it or providing it with funds, goods or services.
According to a report published by the American platform Common Dreams, a prominent organization defending freedom of expression warned of the wide repercussions of the decision on freedom of expression, considering that the sanctions may criminalize political and legal activities related to solidarity with the Palestinians.
Under the designation, Britons who continue to donate to the group or participate in protests supporting it could face sanctions and a ban from entering the United States, while its founders, Richard Barnard and Hoda Amouri, would be barred from entering the United States for life.
Chip Gibbons, policy director at the Rights and Dissent Defense organization, said his organization was deeply concerned about the designation of Palestine Action, which he described as a nonviolent, direct action group, under an executive order issued by President George W. Bush following the September 11 attacks. He argued that the decision equates “civil disobedience for Palestinian rights” with al-Qaeda.
US Treasury Secretary Scott Bisent announced sanctions on Palestine Action, along with sanctions targeting Otisci Infinati, an Italy-based group that provides digital services to left-wing groups, and the Palestinian organization Masar Badil.
The Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control imposed the sanctions under Executive Order 13224, which prohibits transactions between persons within the United States and groups that commit acts of terrorism or support terrorism.
Bisent said that “left-wing extremists, their fronts, and those who enable them” should realize that the administration will use “the full weight of its economic tools,” adding that “political terrorism has no place in our society.”
Gibbons said that denying Palestine Action access to the global financial system and designating it a “Specially Designated Global Terrorist Organization” represents “retaliation against people who have been punished for taking political positions that the Trump administration does not like,” and also restricts the ability of American citizens to establish legal relationships with the group.
The US designation comes more than a year after the British government banned Palestine Action, following the vandalism of two aircraft at a Royal Air Force base by some of its members.
In August 2024, activists from the group stormed a facility belonging to the Israeli arms manufacturer Elbit Systems.
The group says its primary goal is to protest against and disrupt the "Israeli war machine," which it believes is committing genocide in the Gaza Strip with the support of the US government.
Amouri said Trump "was at the heart of the mass killing of Palestinians," accusing him of enabling Israel "at every turn."
The decision comes a month after U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio hosted representatives from more than 60 countries at a ministerial meeting on the rise of political terrorism, where he warned that the U.S. counterterrorism doctrine had long ignored “extremist violence from the political left” and called for global action against it.
Rubio and senior White House adviser Stephen Miller also warned in July of arrests and prosecutions targeting individuals and groups the administration classifies as “left-wing extremists,” as part of a national security strategy targeting left-wing organizations.
In Britain, five organizers of Palestine Action achieved a legal victory after a judge ruled against them being convicted as terrorists, while three judges in the British High Court granted Amouri the right to appeal the decision to ban the group.
On Wednesday, more than 250 academics and legal experts sent a letter to British Prime Minister Andy Burnham, calling for an end to British military support for Israel and the lifting of the ban on Palestine Action.
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