Shades of the 70s, and the Berrgians. Seven activists in Brighton, England, are acquitted of damaging an arms factory they believed supplied arms to Israel. Christopher Varley writes, "Here’s the only ‘existential threat’ that the country has ever really faced- its legitimacy revoked by the colonial powers that legitimized it in the first place":
The seven were cleared after they successfully claimed they had acted to prevent Israeli "war crimes" when the broke into the Brighton factory on January 17, 2009.
Hailed a great victory by pro-Palestinian activists, the seven from "Smash EDO" were acquitted of causing £180,000 worth of damage to the EDO MBM factory in Brighton – which denied ever having supplied Israel with arms equipment.
In his summing-up speech, in which he attacked both Israel and the United States, Judge George Bathurst-Norman told the Hove Crown Court jury: "You may well think that hell on earth would not be an understatement of what the Gazans suffered at that time."
…He also said of group leader Christopher Osmond [30] that "The jury may feel his efforts investigating the company merit the George Cross."
