Zelda Da

Stop Arming Israel

We are appalled by the bombardment of Gaza from October 2023 through 2025. We are also uplifted beyond measure by the uprising of solidarity actions for ceasefire, for land back and for peace.

Wage Peace is connected with multiple direct action crews in Narrm, Gadi, Meanjin, Darwin, Mparntwe, on Turtle Island, in Latin America, the Pasifik and in the UK. We are united in our call: Stop Arming Israel.

People hold banners reading CEASEFIRE, STOP ARMING GENOCIDE, on a rocky headland in Northern Australia.

We aim to orient you on this website to the myriad of tactics and experiments in strategy, as people take action in Straya, to stop the flow of weapons to Israel. We demand an immediate two-way arms embargo with

If you are looking for a complicit weapons corporation check out our Weapons Map. Many communities are taking action against weapons corporations making parts and munitions in their areas: Woolongong, Geelong, Bendigo, Brisbane, Maryborough, Qld.

Australia is sending 155mm Howitzer shells into a vast river of 155mm shells that have been destroying and killing in Gaza AND Ukraine. Production has been ramping up everywhere – these are the killing consumable. But we are not clear about the transport methods. Australia is sending 155s from Thales in Benalla, Mulwala to the US and from Rheinmetall in Maryborough to Germany.

There has been an explosion of action including this group who attended Boeing twice in January 2024. But who faced court in early November 2024 with the message that Boeing Kills and is the major profiteer of the genocide.

Further to this have been a dozen or more strong actions at Ferra in Brisbane, at HTA in Dandenong, at Electromold in Thomastown and Rosebank. And then at the Port of Melbourne, ships have been challenged and stopped. The port itself has been shut down with almost a dozen people hanging from two or more cranes. The people of Straya are brave and have acted in strong solidarity with the people of Palestine against the weapons industry. Wage Peace has driven little of this outburst of solidarity and action against the weapons dealers. But we are standing alongside so many new and old friends in the ecosystem of courage. We can connect you to these communities of action – make contact with us through this website.

By November 2024 there was news that 16 products have been refused transport to Israel from Australia – an Arms Embargo of sorts is breaking through. STOP ARMING ISRAEL.

Thales Bendigo Blockade 05.12.2023

A large group of people sits across the entrance to the Thales weapons factory in Bendigo holding a Stop Arming Israel banner.

On Tuesday, 5 December 150 Palestine supporters converged on the Thales weapons factory in Bendigo and shut it down. The blockade also voiced solidarity with the people of West Papua. Bushmaster weaponised vehicles, manufactured at Thales Bendigo factory, are sold to Indonesia’s notorious special forces KOPASSUS.Thales is a multi billion dollar French corporation that makes bombs, missiles, propellants, drones and surveillance tech here in Victoria. Thales has partnerships with Israeli companies Elbit and Israeli Aerospace Industries. Thales’ products are killing in Gaza right now.

The blockade included both Palestinian and Jewish contingents, united in calling for an end to the genocide in Gaza. People of all generations and diverse cultural backgrounds stood together to demand that Thales stop Arming Israel. The blockade was supported by Wage Peace, Black Peoples Union, the Sit Intifada and Unionists for Palestine. Local people from the Bendigo region were also well represented at the barricade.

Thales put shade cloth on their front fence the day before the blockade, but the hundreds of weapons ready to wreak terror were clearly visible. There were moments of anger and outrage as the human beings of the blockade confronted the arms dealers who are literally making a killing from this genocide.

The ethic of community care was closely held by the group. Food not Bombs provided a delicious healthy lunch. Frontline Medics Narrm were on site with wonderful health care and knowledge to share. Melbourne Activist Legal observers were busy recording police interactions and overreach. Solidarity Sound System gave us tunes and amplified our poets. The cooperative spirit of the blockade was a joy to experience.

Thales closed their factory for the day. This is a win for the movement for peace and freedom. Justice is still a distant land, however. Actions like the Thales Blockade that materially disrupt the supply of weapons take us one step closer to that land.

Join us

Thales HQ Occupation 20.11.2023

Report on a Day of Occupying a Harms Dealer

contributed by Frankie Antispe

On a brisk morning a group of activists gathered by the riverside to enact our plan of occupying the Thales head office at the Docklands in Naarm (so-called Melbourne) to protest the company’s role in abetting war crimes.

Over a slice of cinnamon toast, united by our need to disrupt business as usual for the war machine, we finalised our plans and in small groups of 3 or 4 we walked over to the site – hearts full of solidarity with those oppressed by Thales and other warmongers.

As we stood on the escalators leading to the Thales office, some activists placed Kufiyeh scarves around their bodies as a sign of solidarity with the Palestinian resistance and in preparation for the messaging that would soon follow.

We were able to access the office quite easily and greeted the reception worker with “we are here in peace”. She was quick to tell us we were not welcomed but we proceeded to begin to occupy the space. The space was lacking any sign of life – a few pro-genocide magazines on a small table and a Thales promotional video on repeat.

Around 30 activists collectively began to redecorate the Thales reception area. We quickly transformed the dead office foyer into a space full of resistance and life as we unfurled banners and protest signs in solidarity with those targeted by Thales – “Stop Arming Israel, Free Palestine”, “Thales Drives Death”, “Stop Profiting From Genocide”.

We chanted “Ceasefire now!” repeatedly and the sound of “War crimes start here, end the corporate reign of fear” echoed through the reception area. The activists spoke out against the atrocities committed by Thales in many countries around the world including in Palestine and West Papua. We shared information about Thales, we sang songs of peace and resistance music such LowKey’s track “Long Live Palestine” reverberated throughout the reception area. There was even an impromptu die-in.

We challenged a couple of staff about their connection to a company facilitating genocide and whilst many of the Thales staff members curiously came to observe our occupation, for the most part they were quick to hide around the corner – because who wants to be associated with the war machine? Well apparently not Thales staff.

The police liaisons did a great job of keeping the gun wielding cops away from our peaceful occupation and eventually they, alongside a Thales staff member, informed us that they were “revoking our license to be on the premises”. We occupied the space for around three hours. On the way out a comrade helped themselves to a welcome flyer. We’d hate for this information to be of any use for future occupations.

*“Please be vigilant for unauthorised persons following staff into secure areas”*

Cops and Thales staff discussing how much they miss us.

We returned back to our meeting spot to debrief and chat about the occupation, an open and non-hierarchical discussion where people were able to share their feelings about the action and what we could do next.

At the meeting spot, we were greeted by the local ducks and their ducklings. It’s also important to remember that a wide range of weapons are tested on other animals – so for us, the ducks’ presence at the start and at the end of our action was a sign of solidarity and camaraderie.

When we protect all life, everyone wins.

Want to take action with us? Click to sign up here.

So…why Thales?

As a speaker stated during the occupation:

“…this is where war crimes begin, where the handshakes happen, where the deals get made, that lead to genocide. Those deals are made in offices like this. War crimes start in corporate boardrooms. That’s why we’re at the corporate headquarters of Thales today in Naarm”.

Thales is a multi-billion $$ French weapons maker, currently partnering with Israeli companies ELBIT and Israeli Aerospace Industries. Thales and ELBIT own UAV Tactical, making killer drones for export and for use in the UK and Israel. The Thales / IAI partnership has produced the ‘Sea Serpent’, a surface-to-surface guided missile with a kill range of 200 kilometres. Thales is one of the richest weapons corporations in the world and they are manufacturing weapons and surveillance technology right here in Victoria.

Over the past six years, the Australian government has approved over 350 individual defence exports to Israel, with 52 items approved this year alone.According to Sweden’s International Peace Research Institute SIPRI, which monitors global arms sales, Australia was the 15th largest exporter of major arms globally in 2022.

The Thales factory in Bendigo produces Bushmaster weaponised vehicles, which they sell to the notorious Indonesian special forces KOPASSUS. Thales Australia is the nation’s largest manufacturer of munitions and military explosives, with weapons factories in Benalla and Mulwala. The Mulwala facility managed by Thales Australia manufactures military propellants used in missiles and explosives while the Benalla factory produces 155mm M795 artillery projectiles (bombs).

It’s bombs like these that rain hell on Palestine.

Going Forward

Direct action against the harms industry is one of the most effective front line defenses we have.

In a space where autonomous actions are encouraged and without a hierarchical top-down approach, the resistance organically disrupts the war machine in unpredictable ways that they struggle to respond to. The war machine is vulnerable.

We will remind them that liberation movements have deep seeded roots in every corner of the world. We will remind them that we breathe new life into the resistance against their death machine with every action of solidarity – small or large. From Gaza and West Papua to Naarm!

On 5 December, our comrades blockaded the Thales factory in Bendigo.

Where harms dealers are, we will follow. We encourage everyone to seek out their comrades and to occupy, block and shut them down! For a few hours or longer!

Free Palestine! Free West Papua!

thanks to Frankie Antispe for this wholesome tale

Blockade at Thales Benalla factory, April 2023

Thales, ELBIT and IAI are in the business of genocide. Their profits are our losses. Maiming and killing the people of Gaza is their product. Dispossession and displacement are their bottom line. War crimes start in corporate boardrooms, in the offices of Thales and other harms dealers. We stand with the people of Bendigo telling Thales to retool. Make wheelbarrows not warheads. Drop seeds not bombs. Grow forests not profits.

Take action!

Many hands, much blockade

Monday 27 November, friends from Mparntwe for Palestine and WACA staged simultaneous lock-ons at the entrances to Pine Gap spy base and the US consulate in Narrm. We love to see it!

Since the bombardment began we’ve blockaded the harms dealers Elbit, Thales and Boeing. We’ve disrupted the Defence Minister Richard Marles and the Defence Exports Office in Canberra. Our networks are growing in creative and inspiring ways. The Department of Defence and their weapons industry bosses are certainly aware of our opposition to the corporate killing in Gaza. War makers will always talk about how complicated everything is, and claim that we don’t understand. We assert one simple truth: weapons corporations profit from genocide.

The war on Gaza continues, and the war on West Papua is still underway. Wage Peace people are here for the long haul, for peace, justice, freedom and equality. We welcome all ages, all cultures, all genders and all abilities to collaborate for a future or #earthcarenotwarfare.

Disrupt Wars

Disrupt Wars

We are mobilising to Disrupt Wars!

From Darwin to Narrm, from Gadi to Gimuy, we welcome peace and climate justice allies to gather in opposition to the harms dealers, and towards #EarthcareNotWarfare.

All around the world, people are rejecting warmongering and resisting miltarisation. The demands for peace and justice are rising up to drown out the drums of war.

The demand for profit at any cost, on the other hand, is what’s rising for the people making a killing from the sleek offices of weapons corporations. Their profits are our losses. It is in everybody’s interest to disrupt the military-industrial-death-machine.

Disrupt Wars with Us!

Come to one of our antimilitarist events, or get in touch and contribute one! We have only two rules for our actions:
1) Do not physically harm any living beings
2) Respect everyone else in the protest space and respect the ways they choose to resist. Don’t diss other people who choose to protest differently to you. If you don’t understand what they are doing – why not ask them and make a friend in the process?

Let’s get connected and make some plans to Disrupt Wars.

GET YOUR ARMIES OFF OUR BODIES!

First Nations defenders of country and people of colour the world over are suffering far far far the most harm from the twin pillars of colonialism: militarism and extractivism. The two go hand in hand. In solidarity, and as repression of climate activism increases on this continent and across the globe, let’s get loud about ending invasion, dispossession, exploitation and organised violence. Killer drones are already smashing people in West Papua and Palestine. The corporations making a killing from wars in Gaza and beyond have offices and factories right here in Australia. We can shut them down.

From now until #ceasefire: stand with Palestine. #StopArmingIsrael!

CALL 4 CEASEFIRE

However and wherever you can,

Demilitarise

Decolonise

Regenerate

See you soon 😉

#ProtectProtest

Repression of activism is escalating

The past two years have seen laws passed in NSW, Victoria, Tasmania and South Australia specifically aimed at criminalising civil society actors who engage in protest to protect forests, waterways and our climate. Undemocratic legislation has given police even more power to close down democratic space. Policing in Western Australia and NSW has been particularly repressive, with activists facing counter-terror police squads and inflated charges for ordinary, non violent protest activity.

The repression of activism we are facing is everybody’s business. When people are charged with ‘conspiracy to commit an offence’ just for thinking about protesting, and then face a year of ‘non association’ conditions, meaning that they are prohibited from communicating with their friends or community, we have a crisis of repression on our hands.

Now Wage Peace has been targeted by the NSW police, after we disrupted a weapons dealers luxury cruise. Read our story here:

The protest at King’s Wharf, Gadigal country

Our friends disrupted the arms dealers at the cash-for-ministerial-contact schmooze fest on the eve of the Indo Pacific weapons expo in Gadi / Sydney.

Banners were held. Truths were told. Bodies were used to stop the AMDA events managers from whacking and pushing people. #StopArmingIsrael #StopBombingGaza. Stop taking tens of billions a year from Australian taxpayers and giving it to private weapons corporations. We need everything we’ve got right now for #EarthcareNotWarfare.

Statement from Wage Peace

Regarding the resistance that was live streamed from Wage Peace social media accounts on the night of Monday the 6^th of November 2023:

The action on Monday night was a non harmful act of resistance to the weapons trade, which is currently profiting from the siege on Gaza. The intention of the action was to draw attention to the fact that there are corporations and individuals in this world who profit from the sale of weapons, and thus have a vested interest in the continuation and escalation of armed conflicts around the world. The scale of the destruction currently being wrought on Palestinian people warrants a response from the general public, and our response was to draw attention to the corporate actors who benefit from genocide, being obliged as they are to maximise returns for their shareholders.

We non-violently disrupted a group of arms dealers as they boarded their dinner cruise, organized in connection with the Indo-Pacific Naval Exposition. This involved standing in their path as they attempted to board the Starship Sydney. Many of the arms dealers being prevented from boarding their cruise became aggressive toward us, and can be seen on the live stream videos pushing, shoving, and sometimes punching our people. Some of our people had to leave the protest space out of concern for their safety, including one person who was experiencing dizziness after being punched in the head. Before the passengers began boarding, some of the cruise organisers approached the people with megaphones and hit/ripped them out of their hands. Our people did not retaliate, because the intention of the gathering was to take a principled stance against genocide and call for a ceasefire. We went to King Street Wharf to bring our message directly to the employees of the companies that arm the Israeli Defence Forces.

At the time of writing, eight people have been arrested and charged in connection with this act of non-violent resistance, and have been given five charges, most notably unlawful assembly. An element of the unlawful assembly charge is the intent to use violence. At the time of arrest we were holding banners and chanting – ordinary protest activity. This comes as part of an ongoing and deliberate strategy by the NSW police to conflate non-compliance and disobedience with the intention to cause harm. We emphatically reject the accusation of intent to harm. In our resistance we impose only two rules on our allies and associates, the first of which is to do no physical harm to living beings. This is evidenced in our invitation to Disrupt Land Forces 2021 and 2022, and our invitation to Disrupt Sea Forces 2023, all of which are available on our website. Furthermore, once we were formally issued a move on direction, everyone moved on and left the area.

The NSW Police are out of control, and their response to civil resistance is disproportionate, heavy handed, and a total waste of policing resources.

Strategic Incapacitation

Policing of disruptive protest follows a pattern. The pattern begins with the characterization of protest activity as ‘unlawful’ and ‘violent’, through the conflation of an act of non-compliance with an intent to cause harm. There is no such thing as ‘unlawful protest’. Individuals might break laws while at a protest, but the act of protest itself is never unlawful. The growing use of the concept of ‘unlawful protest’ and the construction of ‘non-compliance’ as ‘violence’ creates space for unwarranted arrests. Once arrested, people are treated as though absolutely guilty. Police routinely apply inflated charges. With the inflated charges come onerous bail conditions and increased surveillance of civil society actors. Their strategy is to lay serious, inflated charges, then use the seriousness of the charges to impose bail conditions which effectively prevent people from participating in political activity. They then continuously adjourn the case to keep people on those bail conditions for as long as possible. The intention behind this strategy is to take people out of social movements, and break the network of relationships that sustain social movements. This is achieved through excessive non-association conditions, restrictions on a person’s movement and where they may reside, excessive reporting conditions that prevent people from travelling to participate in resistance, and heavy surveillance and targeted policing of individuals they have identified as participants.

We assert that the violence caused by the defence contracts held by the companies represented on the cruise that we disrupted is the issue that needs to be addressed. The Australian Defence Export Office has issued 322 export permits to Israel in the last six years, and weapons companies around the world continue to flout human rights agreements by arming Israel with full knowledge of the atrocities their products will be used to commit. Our act of resistance was a refusal to stand by as a genocide unfolds before our eyes.

We assert that the NSW police are more interested in protecting the property rights than human rights. Either those of the Palestinian people being indiscriminately bombed by a military power, or those of the people on this continent who seek to resist and disrupt state sanctioned violence in whatever ways they have available to them.

The police are currently deploying sophisticated equipment, technologies, and practices to protect arms dealers from the people calling for a ceasefire.

We assert that the real violence has been, and continues to be, perpetrated by the global weapons trade, and the security forces who protect it. We are, and have always been, a non-violent network committed to a world where everyone has the ability to love, be loved, be safe, be respected, and be free. From Western Sydney to West Papua to the West Bank, we demand a ceasefire.

… [Read more]

Nine hours, no bullets!

Closing the Nioa-Thales weapons factory at Benalla.

April 11 2023, 6am, Yorta Yorta country.

A heavy mist drenched the land in the long dawn light. Foraging roos and wallabies stared at our convoy in amazement as we wound our way through the swampy country. Silver and pink rays lit up stands of ghost gums, shivering and swaying as though they shared our excitement. We were on our way to blockade a bullet factory, one of two Guided Weapons and Explosive Ordnance facilities on the continent. The Australian Munitions plant just out of Benalla is owned by the Department of Defence, but in classic corporatist practice the site has been leased to two pernicious #harmsdealers: NIOA and Thales.

NIOA started out supplying guns and bullets to the ‘recreational shooter’ market in Queensland, but soon realised that the real money was in organised violence: the police and the military. In 2022 NIOA announced they had sold one billion bullets in Australia. That’s around 40 explosive projectiles for each human body.

Three of those bullets killed Kumanjayi Walker in Yuendumu in 2019. Four of those bullets killed Aubrey Donahue in Mareeba in 2023. In solidarity with everyone impacted by police violence and in consultation with Warlpiri elders, we were determined to shut NIOA down. Ours would be a practical step towards ending police shootings. We were determined that no bullets would be made that day.

The Corporations are Killing in West Papua

Thales is a French multi-billion-dollar weapons corporation that has been supplying the Indonesian navy for forty years. Guns sold by Thales mowed down protesters during the Biak massacre of 1998 in West Papua. Bombs and rockets sold by Thales are landing on West Papuan villages even now. Wars of dispossession are being waged against First Nations peoples all over this planet, causing immeasurable harm to communities, cultures and the biosphere. The disregard of harms dealers for the consequences of their business makes even fossil fuel magnates look decent. (They’re not).

We arrived at the munitions plant at 6.45 am. The mist was still thick around us, enveloping us in a fluffy white cloud and lending a magical quality to our movements. By 7am the glorious Lizard Car was chained to the front gates blocking all access to the bomb and bullet factory. Dressed as the reptile of her name, painted with slogans and adorned with replica Thales missiles, the Lizard Car became the centrepiece of our action.

Disarm Police – Ceasefire

Two of us ran up the road to let incoming workers know they had a day off, that a protest had closed the factory down. 7am shift: cancelled. Folks got busy laying out placards calling out the #harmsdealers and commemorating those we’ve lost to Thales and NIOA weapons. Images of West Papuan people murdered by Indonesian military and police formed the core of the display, a vivid representation of the racist, extractivist violence that is the end game of weapons production. Huge banners reading DISARM POLICE and CEASEFIRE were strung across the road. Lizard Car announced Earth Care Not Warfare. We settled in for the day.

Twenty-five of us occupied the road for a full nine hours. We had not expected this. We knew from previous incursions into #harmsdealer spaces that weapons makers are reluctant to press for arrest. Harms dealers get by on invisibility. They have no ‘reputation’ to protect. Weapons factories exist in our communities by stealth, never announcing themselves, never advertising their existence. They have no social license and they don’t need one: their patrons/ clients/lackeys are governments.

In the case of police, governments spend our money on weapons that will then be used against us. In the case of the military, most of the weapons our governments buy will never be used. The waste of our money is staggering. On the occasions where militaries do use their weapons, the waste is far worse. Contests for land and resources by the powerful end in displacement, dispossession and death for the (usually) brown-skinned people at the pointy end of colonisation and war. West Papuan faces looked up at us from the road to the NIOA and Thales weapons factory.

Nine hours and no arrests. The police did not even try to move us. We played games, read books, had a picnic, and redecorated the signage with pens and spray paint. Theory of liberation says ‘when you do not meet repression, expand the space of protest’. We danced around the Lizard Car. Staff at the factory watched our livestream and commented on our dancing. We constructed a second barricade, closer to the highway, out of branches, hay bales and the Ceasefire banner. Neither the police, nor the defence department personnel who were ostensibly keeping an eye on us, ever breached the Ceasefire barricade. We even took up some of the road, cracked as it was from the weapons-laden trucks exiting the factory. No trucks carried weapons out this day.

Nine hours, no bullets. Afternoon shift blocked: we heard the phone calls telling workers not to bother coming in. NIOA =0 Thales = 0 Peace = 100. The sun was arcing downward, and we decided to save the Lizard Car for another day. We dismantled our barricade, packed up our placards, folded our banners and left. Safe home, we were elated.

We had stopped the bombs and the bullets for the day. Occupying space in a liberatory way has meaning other than its material effects, however. The care, creativity, and commitment we shared sealed a bond that is – perhaps – stronger than profit. The assertion of freedom underpinned by an ethic of cooperation feels revolutionary. Another world is not only possible, it is already here, in our hearts. Nine hours, no bullets, max peace.

Zelda Grimshaw

No copyright. Reprint at will.

What Next

Well we do have plans for Victoria 😎. Keep an eye out. And if you want to – you can watch one of the beautiful live feeds.

There are a few things coming up. Make sure you are in touch with your local wage peace group. We also like you to reply to these emails! What do you think we should do to uncover the #harmsdealers? 20-30bn is spent each year right now by “our government”…

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Wage Peace News

Wage Peace actions, philosophy, history and future plans can be found in these pages. Find out what we’ve been up to, what we’re planning and who we’re doing it with.

All our work is oriented towards #EarthCareNotWarfare, using the politics and practice of nonviolence. We welcome new peace and climate justice activists.