BAE Systems is Europe’s largest arms company. It provides the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) with key components of fighter jets, munitions, armoured vehicles and missile launching kits.
BAE makes parts for the F-35, the “most lethal fighter jet in the world” which has been used by the IDF to carry out its devastating attacks in Gaza.
The murderous assault on Gaza since October 2023 has been apocalyptic in its scale and intensity, and while the blood of thousands of Palestinians has been shed in Israel’s onslaught, for BAE Systems, business has been booming.
Shares in the company rose by 14% between 7th October 2023 and the beginning of 2024. On 1st January 2024 its value had risen to almost £35billion.
Under constant and relentless bombardment, tens of thousands of Palestinians have been slaughtered, half of them children. Hospitals, residential buildings, schools and refugee camps have all been bombed.
Palestinian trade unions have appealed to the labour movement internationally to “end all forms of complicity with Israel’s crimes – most urgently halting the arms trade with Israel, as well as all funding and military research”.
We believe that it is our duty to stand with our Palestinian siblings, to do everything we can to disrupt and defeat Israel’s war machine.
This means disrupting the activities of companies like BAE Systems who provide the Israeli state with the weaponry and hardware it employs to carry out genocide. Read the Campaign Against Arms Trade’s fact file on BAE Systems for more information on this utterly abhorrent company.
BAE Systems have offices on the fourth floor of the Blue Fin Building, 110 Southwark Street, SE1 0SU.
They have already been the target of recent pro-Palestine protest: in November 2023, a hundred adult and children from the group Parents For Palestine stormed the building, occupying the lobby and releasing balloons.
We appeal to BAE workers to demand their employer stops arming Israel.
So long as BAE facilitates genocide by the Israeli state, we want to see its activities stopped. We appeal to workers in the Blue Fin Building – security staff, cleaners, office workers – to join with us to shut BAE Systems down.