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December 2nd, 2023 
Awake Goy On November 20, three Palestine Action US activists were arrested in Merrimack, New Hampshire, for their protest at one of the operational facilities of Elbit Systems, an Israel-based international military technology company that is the Israeli military’s number one weapons provider. At the scene, police discovered spray-painting, smashed windows, and damage to HVAC equipment on the building. Activists were spotted holding up green-colored smoke flares, a nonviolent signature of pro-Palestinian resistance.
Immediately following the Merrimack arrests, state politicians, Elbit officials, and police flooded local and regional media with the usual talking points that are wielded towards anyone who vocally opposes the Israeli occupation and genocide, whether through civil disobedience or direct action. Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, who has accepted money from Elbit, and Gov. Chris Sununu have both publicly condemned the activists and called the protest antisemitic. Sununu’s statement added that “the people of New Hampshire stand with Israel and Elbit Systems,” signifying unconditional support of not only the State of Israel, but its lead weapons manufacturer. Police threw down heavy-handed, duplicate charges against the young activists, including riot, sabotage, criminal mischief, criminal trespass, and disorderly conduct.
These could land the protesters up to 37 years in prison. Merrimack police have also involved the FBI in its investigation of the incident to find any “co-conspirators.” According to their lawyers, the Merrimack Three’s next court appearances are January 23 and 24.
Media coverage has automatically conflated the Merrimack Three’s activism with terrorism, a dangerous trend that is rooted in the post-9/11 infrastructure of the “war on terror.” Right-wing media has especially perpetuated incendiary reports and false claims that activists were “firebombing,” even though it’s clear from photographic documentation that they were holding visual effect smoke flares, which have no flammable risks or put anyone in danger. A hit piece from the Boston Herald is one of several examples of extremely racist and sexist distortions in covering the events, wherein the author calls 19-year-old activist and arrestee Calla Walsh a “terrorist teenybopper” and “lefty media darling.” People on Twitter/X have also been ranting and raving, openly calling Walsh a domestic terrorist, celebrating the idea of incarceration for organizers.
Further, numerous reports failed to properly explain Elbit Systems’ role in the current genocide in Palestine. Reports referred to Elbit simply as an “Israel-based company,” which is true—but they failed to mention that Elbit is the top weapons manufacturer and provider for the Israeli military, currently supplying them with 85% of their armed drones. If it weren’t for the level of atrocities we are witnessing, this lack of reporting would be laughable to any journalist of conscience.
This “context collapse,” which is extremely common in Western mainstream media in covering the Israeli occupation and American activism in general, feels intentional to keep the public from understanding the basic anatomy of Palestinian oppression, or the material role companies and institutions in the U.S. play in it. As a result, the public is largely left to believe that the three young people who disrupted business as usual at an Elbit facility in New Hampshire that day were simply crazy, aimless, brainwashed leftists who have simply lost their way, rather than taking an intentional stand against the Israeli war machine.
In addition, none of these reports present any factual evidence that the protest at Elbit Systems in Merrimack put anyone in harm’s way or actually jeopardized anyone’s safety. Images from that day published online in various reports showed pictures of employees waiting in a line to enter their workplace—which, again, is the main supplier of Israel’s weapons that are currently being used to bombard Gaza, where the death toll has surpassed over 15,000 since October 7—but no suggestions of anyone being in physical danger. There were no injuries or displays of violence, and yet, this protest has been automatically condemned as hateful, violent, and even antisemitic by the state, right-wing commentators, and corporatized media.
The coverage of the Merrimack protest has, in fact, become exemplary of how, since October 7, activism for Palestinian liberation is being dangerously and intentionally misrepresented as “terrorism” within the mainstream discourse. This not only has deep repercussions for Palestine activists, but for the rights to free speech, right to assemble, and a free press that are evaporating before our eyes.
In fact, the case of the Merrimack Three hauntingly reminds me of the repression facing activists in Atlanta, my hometown and home of the Stop Cop City movement. I’ve been reporting on Cop City since it was first introduced in June 2021; the local news outlet I operate broke the story and was among the few to critically cover the legislation and anti-democratic process by which it was passed.
When local council members first introduced legislation to lease 381 acres of forested land for $10 a year to the Atlanta Police Foundation for the construction of the $90 million-plus police militarization facility, never did it cross my mind that we would be where we are today: grieving the police killing of Manuel “Tortuguita” Paez Terán, a 26-year-old climate activist who was sitting down in the forest when police shot them 13 times, leaving 57 bullet wounds; 42 people charged with domestic terrorism; raids on the local bail fund; 61 people charged under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act; local government’s refusal to verify over 116,000 signatures collected in a legal referendum effort to place the fate of Cop City on the ballot; and more recently, the state’s recent motion to admit the alleged personal diary of Terán into evidence against the 61 RICO defendants, in a sheer attempt to justify their murder, assassinate their character, and criminalize an entire movement.
A recent study from International and Public Affairs at Brown University entitled “Why Media Conflation of Activism with Terrorism has Dire Consequences: The Case of Cop City” explains that “the U.S. national security apparatus quietly broadened its definition of terrorism to include peace activists, environmental justice activists, animal rights activists, Black Lives Matter activists and others.”
The report mentions specific examples of extreme political repression in the Stop Cop City movement, including the fact that arrest warrants for those charged with domestic terrorism revolve around acts such as “throwing rocks,” which is chilling considering that Israel regularly imprisons children in Palestine for throwing stones at military tanks with sentences up to 20 years. All of the charges facing protesters in the Stop Cop City movement, which include locals and non-locals, are justified within a delusional framework that these activists are actually “terrorists.”
The “good protester” and “bad protester” trope is a classic form of divide-and-conquer, pitting movements and non-ruling class people against each other to pass moral judgment on what is a legitimate form of protest and what isn’t. It is imperative that we, as Americans, do not take the bait and fall for the Israeli hasbara or U.S. propaganda, especially right now when the stakes are this high. Property destruction is not violence. While it may be considered a crime in the U.S. to damage property, it is critical that we question the process of criminalization itself. In Atlanta, handing out flyers in support of Stop Cop City has been criminalized; having a jail support number written on your arm has been criminalized; the word “solidarity” has been criminalized; throwing rocks has been criminalized; having mud on their boots after spending the day in an outdoor music festival has been criminalized, mutual aid has been criminalized; a local bail fund has been criminalized; the list, unfortunately, goes on and on. I can tell you from first-hand experience here in Atlanta, the harsh repression of the Palestine movement that we are seeing in New Hampshire will not stop with only those taking direct action. It is the first step toward extending that repression against the movement as a whole.
The cases in Merrimack and Atlanta show that the issue isn’t damaging property, but challenging power. The clear mandate of liberation movements is to threaten the power of state imperialism and its war profit machine; this alone is what apparently warrants a label as “terrorist” in the eyes of the U.S. government and the dire legal consequences that come with it.
Do not fall victim to the belief that some protesters are better and more virtuous than others. Whether it’s mutual aid, BDS, or property damage, none of these actions can justify decades of imprisonment in the U.S. carceral system. We have to stand with the Merrimack Three just as we stand with those in the Stop Cop City movement, especially as genocide profiteers and killer police continue to roam free.
Aja Arnold
Aja Arnold is a journalist based in Atlanta, Ga. She is the director of Atlanta-based media outlet Mainline and a frequent contributor to nonprofit investigative outlet The Appeal. She has extensively reported on Cop City, policing, prisons, and liberation movements in Atlanta.
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