Ali Abunimah
The Electronic Intifada / August 28, 2026
In an escalation of its assault on free speech and organizing against Israel’s genocide in Gaza, the Trump administration has imposed “terrorism” sanctions on the British group Palestine Action.
The US Treasury Department on 26 August sanctioned the group under an executive order issued after the 11 September 2001 attacks.
It also sanctioned Autistici Inventati, an Italy-based group that provides digital services to left-wing organizations, including Palestine solidarity groups, and the international pro-Palestinian organization Masar Badil.
The sanctions freeze any assets the groups may have under US jurisdiction and generally bar Americans from providing them with funds, goods or services.
This writer discussed the sanctions on The Electronic Intifada Livestream, as seen in the video at the top of this article.
While issued under a different legal authority, the sanctions will likely impose unconstitutional constraints on Americans’ rights to freedom of speech and association similar to those imposed by Trump administration sanctions targeting the International Criminal Court and several Palestinian human rights groups.
Palestine Action has carried out break-ins, occupations and property destruction targeting Israeli weapons manufacturer Elbit Systems, British military facilities and other sites complicit in Israel’s genocide.
The group’s co-founder Huda Ammori has suggested that a direct action in which activists spray-painted a golf course in Scotland owned by President Donald Trump last year may also have motivated the sanctions.
The Treasury accused Palestine Action of supporting “acts of terrorism,” citing damage to military equipment, alleged injuries to police and the group’s encouragement of similar tactics.
Importing British censorship
The US move follows the UK’s highly contested decision to outlaw Palestine Action under its Terrorism Act in July 2025, putting the group in the same legal category as organizations such as Islamic State.
That ban is being challenged in Britain’s Supreme Court.
British juries have repeatedly acquitted or refused to convict Palestine Action members charged in connection with actions at Israeli weapons factories.
Meanwhile, British police have arrested thousands of people over the last year, many of them senior citizens, often merely for holding signs reading, “I oppose genocide, I support Palestine Action.”
Responding to the US sanctions, Ammori, who is of Palestinian and Iraqi ancestry, called it “beyond hypocritical” for the country that destroyed both her homelands to label her a terrorist.
Ammori told Al-Jazeera that the measure “should be a wake-up call to anyone who cares about free speech and civil liberties.”
She warned that Britain’s ban had created a blueprint for authoritarian governments to suppress political dissent and criminalize British citizens living or traveling abroad.
The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, or FIRE, a prominent US free speech group, also warned that the US sanctions threaten fundamental rights. It said they could result in the United States importing British censorship.
FIRE noted that, unlike British law, the First Amendment of the US Constitution distinguishes between providing “material support” to proscribed groups and merely expressing ideas about them.
International crackdown on the Left
The sanctions come as the Trump administration broadens its use of “counterterrorism” powers against what it calls “far-left” organizations and networks.
This US campaign of repression appears to be advancing with the cooperation of European and other governments.
In July, officials from dozens of countries, including European Union states, Turkey and Israel, attended a conference hosted by US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on what the Trump administration claims is a “resurgence of political terrorism.”
Britain, France, Germany, Ireland, Denmark, Australia, Canada, Spain and numerous other close US allies all participated in a conference designed to coordinate action against “transnational far-left terrorism.”
As well as targeting Palestine solidarity, the crackdown is focusing on anti-fascist organizations that oppose Trump administration policies domestically.
Arrested for helping Palestinians ?
Days before that conference, Spanish authorities arrested US activist Fergie Chambers, a communist philanthropist and heir to the Cox family fortune.
He remains in a Spanish prison while fighting extradition to the United States.
According to a sealed indictment reviewed by Kit Klarenberg for The Grayzone, federal prosecutors accuse Chambers of international money laundering with intent to provide material support to foreign terrorist organizations.
Klarenberg reported that the indictment identifies transfers from US banks to Tunisia – where Chambers lived – but presents no evidence that Chambers donated money to any designated group. If extradited, he faces up to 30 years in prison.
Chambers sold his stake in the Cox business empire for an estimated $250 million.
He has reportedly donated more than $1 million to humanitarian projects in Gaza and pro-Palestinian activist groups and news outlets.
He has also funded Tunisian businesses, the Club Africain football team and bail and legal fees for imprisoned left-wing activists, including members of Palestine Action in the US.
His partner Stella Schnabel and other supporters describe the case against him as political persecution.
Journalist Max Blumenthal argued that the “Israel-controlled Trump administration has designated Palestine Action as a terrorist group to justify its paper thin indictment of Fergie Chambers, and to pressure the Spanish government into extraditing him.”
Democrats silent
That is plausible, but what is certain is that the latest Trump administration action forms part of a broader campaign against domestic dissent and international Palestine solidarity.
Fighting this ought to be the priority of any opposition party in the United States.
At the time of writing, The Electronic Intifada could find no elected Democrats, including so-called progressives, who had condemned the sanctions.
Ali Abunimah is co-founder of The Electronic Intifada and author of The Battle for Justice in Palestine, now out from Haymarket Books
