Why We Occupied the British Museum
On Sunday, activists occupied the British Museum to demand that it end its partnership with BP after Israel granted the energy firm gas exploration licenses off the coast of Gaza. Here, the activists write about why they occupied the museum.
British Museum, London, England. (Claudio Ciabochi / Education Images / Universal Images Group via Getty Images)
Over the last four months, countless solidarity groups have emerged with different proposed strategies for the best way to target and disrupt British complicity in Israel’s settler-colonial project. We are acting from the imperial core, where militarization, global capital, and politics are heavily dependent on the world energy market. We have chosen to respond to the call from Palestinian workers, trade unions, and civil society groups for an international energy embargo on Israel as a renewed tactic to end Western imperialist backing of Israel’s colonial genocide.
Inspired by previous successful energy embargos, including the 1973 Arab energy embargo on countries that backed Israel, and Yemen’s recent humanitarian intervention in the Red Sea, we launched our “Energy Embargo for Palestine” campaign with three central aims:
Put political pressure on British politicians to call for a cease-fire
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