US Treasury Designates UK Group Palestine Action a Global Terrorist Organization

The US Treasury Department designated Palestine Action a Specially Designated Global Terrorist on Wednesday, freezing any US-based assets tied to the British direct-action group and barring Americans from doing business with it.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced the move alongside sanctions on two other groups: Masar Badil, which Treasury says is a front for the Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network, and Autistici Inventati, an Italian outfit accused of providing encrypted communications and web hosting to groups including Hamas and the Kurdistan Workers' Party.

"Far-left extremists, their fronts, and their enablers should be on notice," Bessent said in a statement. "We will bring the full weight of our economic tools to bear. Political terrorism has no place in our society, and we will continue to cut the financial lifelines of these groups until they are eliminated."

The designation was made under Executive Order 13224, the post-9/11 authority originally signed to target al-Qaida's financial networks, according to Anadolu Agency. It places Palestine Action, per Jewish Insider, in the same sanctions category as Hamas, al-Qaida and ISIS, and marks the first time a British left-wing activist group has been hit with American counterterrorism sanctions.

What Palestine Action did to get here

Palestine Action was founded in 2020 with the stated goal of "ending global participation in Israel's genocidal and apartheid regime," with a focus on disrupting Elbit Systems, an Israeli defense contractor with UK operations, according to Jewish Insider. The group's tactics escalated over several years. Breitbart reported that in June 2025, activists broke into RAF Brize Norton and spray-painted two military aircraft, an incident UK Home Secretary Yvette Cooper called a "disgraceful attack" before announcing plans to proscribe the group. The UK banned Palestine Action under the Terrorism Act 2000 in July 2025, making membership or support a crime carrying up to 14 years in prison.

The consequences of that ban have been substantial. More than 2,000 people face potential trial in the UK after being arrested at demonstrations for allegedly declaring support for the proscribed group, according to the BBC. The Independent reports more than 700 have already been charged. Four Palestine Action members were jailed in June for a factory break-in at a defense firm that caused over £1 million in damage, with one defendant sentenced separately for hitting a police officer with a sledgehammer, causing grievous bodily harm.

The legal fight isn't over

Palestine Action's UK ban was initially found unlawful by the High Court, then reinstated by the Court of Appeal in June, which ruled it a "justified and proportionate" restriction on free expression. The UK Supreme Court has agreed to hear the group's appeal, with a hearing scheduled for November, according to The Guardian.

Co-founder Huda Ammori, who is leading that legal challenge, rejected the US designation outright. "As a Palestinian and Iraqi, the fact the country which destroyed both my homelands is calling me a terrorist, is beyond hypocritical," she wrote on X. She argued the group's actions "have always been about saving lives by disrupting the Israeli war machine, which is committing a genocide in Gaza with the support of the US government," and called the US move "the final nail in the coffin of this dangerous, draconian and disproportionate ban," per The Guardian.

Ammori's position reflects a genuine free-speech argument: proscribing a protest group under terrorism law, and now sanctioning it as a global terrorist, is a serious step that criminalizes speech and association for people who never personally committed violence, just voiced support for the group. Critics of the ban argue it conflates property damage and civil disobedience with the kind of mass-casualty violence terrorism designations were built to fight, and that arresting thousands of people for holding signs is a disproportionate response.

Treasury's counter is that Palestine Action crossed a line well past protest. The department cited "multiple high-profile instances of breaking into defense infrastructure," the August 2024 assault on security personnel at an Elbit office, and social media posts the US says encouraged similar tactics "within the United States and along the US-Mexican border," according to Jewish Insider. The sledgehammer attack on a police officer, which resulted in a GBH conviction, happened, and someone was convicted for it.

The National News noted the Trump administration has now designated four European groups as foreign terrorist organizations since November, with rewards up to $10 million offered for information on their financing, part of a broader pattern of targeting what Treasury calls "far-left" networks abroad.

None of the sources indicate any US criminal charges have been filed against Ammori or other Palestine Action members individually. The designation is a Treasury sanctions action, not an indictment. The UK Supreme Court's November hearing will determine whether the underlying proscription survives judicial review. A decision either way will shape whether this fight continues in British courts long after Wednesday's US sanctions took effect.