Palestine Action Iran Media Story ‘Planted’ by Israel-Linked PR Firm

The claim that Iran may have funded Palestine Action was planted in the British press by a PR firm working for an Israeli weapons company, according to a report.

The Times reported in June that the Home Office had launched an investigation amid concerns that Iran’s regime was making donations to the group “via proxies”. The story, which Palestine Action described as “baseless,” was later picked up by the Daily Mail.

Georgia Pickering, the managing director of PR company CMS Strategic, was heard claiming credit for getting the story into the papers, Private Eye magazine reported last week, citing a “trusted witness”.

CMS Strategic, which works for Elbit Systems, told the magazine it was categorically untrue that the firm was involved in the story.

The Times story in June came as the home secretary was rallying support for the proscription of Palestine Action as a terrorist organisation.

“The fabricated story came out days before Parliament voted to proscribe Palestine Action,” Huda Ammori, the group’s co-founder, wrote on X.

When Private Eye approached the Home Office for comment at the time, a spokesperson said they did not recognise the claims about funding from Iran.

Elbit arms factories have been repeatedly targeted by Palestine Action in raids that have caused millions of pounds worth of damage over several years.

In one incident near Bristol in August last year, activists used a prison van to smash through the perimeter of an Elbit research and manufacturing facility, where they damaged models of a quadcopter drone used in the genocide in Gaza. The Filton 24, as they’re known, are still on remand awaiting trial, in a case which has become emblematic of the government’s crackdown on direct action protests.

Palestine Action also targeted the offices of CMS in 2024, spraying them with red paint.

In June, five of the group’s members allegedly broke into an RAF base in Brize Norton on scooters and sprayed two Voyager aircraft with red paint, reportedly causing £7m worth of damage.

The Brize Norton raid was used as justification by then-home secretary Yvette Cooper for her plan to proscribe Palestine Action. The decision came into force on 5 July, marking the first time a non-violent direct action group has been proscribed under UK terror law.

The ban has met with large-scale civil disobedience. More than 2,000 people have been arrested under anti-terror laws for holding signs that read, “I oppose genocide, I support Palestine Action,” according to Defend Our Juries, which organises the protests.

The Times article also quoted an organisation called NGO Monitor, which accused Palestine Action of “a lack of transparency and accountability” in its finances.

The story described NGO Monitor as “a research institute that holds campaign groups to account and promotes transparency”, but did not mention its pro-Israel stance.

On its website the group describes the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign against Israel as “immoral collective punishment of Israelis” and says that “NGOs falsely portray the Arab-Israeli conflict as a dispute motivated by alleged Jewish race-hatred of Arabs.”

Former Israeli ambassador to South Africa Ilan Baruch wrote a report in 2018 accusing NGO Monitor of “defaming human rights organisations that criticise the Israeli occupation.”

On 25 November the High Court will hear a judicial review of the ban on Palestine Action that could lead to its proscription being overturned. The Home Office tried to stop the review from going ahead but the Court of Appeal ruled against it last month.