The Electronic Intifada 18 March 2025
Daniel Day perched on the Big Ben clock tower with the Palestinian flag.
MEGAOn 25 February 2024, US airman Aaron Bushnell self-immolated outside the Israeli embassy in Washington, D.C. His words as he did so: “Free Palestine.”
On 8 March this year, people gathered in London outside the British parliament to support a man who had breached security to scale 25 meters up Big Ben, the parliament clock tower, where he perched for more than 16 hours, holding the Palestinian flag and tying a keffiyeh around the tower’s stonework.
Posting on Instagram intermittently, Daniel Day explained that his non-violent act of resistance at what he called the “so-called hub of democracy” was a call for the liberation of Palestine and an end “to state repression.”
That someone should engage in such a personally demanding act of protest in response to the genocide seems unfathomable to those in positions of power who are trying to curate society’s collective response to international affairs.
Indeed, mainstream media reports on the action mainly highlighted the security lapse at parliament, citing Conservative MP Ben Obese-Jecty’s concern that, “this protester was able to evade security so easily.”
The BBC led with the security review that parliamentary speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle wants, “to ensure lessons are learned” from the incident.
There was little interest among legislators or the media in interrogating why Day might have taken the risks both of breaching security and free climbing the tower.
Rational response
Day would have foreseen these risks, just as he would have foreseen his inevitable arrest. It is likely that he considered, too, a possible sentencing, given that he also called, while up there, for the release of the Filton-18, a group of young activists arrested, charged and imprisoned for their actions targeting Israel’s largest weapons company, Elbit Systems, at its production site in Bristol.
After Bushnell set himself on fire, according to a Guardian columnist, there were “wild speculations about his mental health.” Newsweek duly reported a police report stating that the 25-year-old was “exhibiting signs of mental distress” before his deadly acts.
Such critiques (unfounded and patronizing) of the mental health of activists are useful to those who would rather society remained chained to Plato’s cave, staring at the shadows, than confront the real issues: not only the reality of Israel’s genocide of Palestinians but also its decades-long occupation.
Addressing both of these egregious violations of international law would provide more accurate insight into the actual reasons why someone in America would brutally kill himself to draw attention to crimes against humanity on the other side of the world.
So far, no one in the public eye seems to have speculated about Day’s mental health. However, early comments, fuelled by ignorance or racism, on his social media posts did attempt to undermine the validity of his actions.
Yet at the same time, as the man who scaled Big Ben went viral internationally, many recognised that in this act of non-violent resistance, Day, 29, manifested the feelings of those in the West who have watched the genocide with a desperation increasing in tandem with our moral outrage over our governments’ complicity.
It is entirely rational to respond viscerally to the mass slaughter and starvation of hundreds of thousands of civilians by one of the most powerful militaries in the world. The moral chasm between the supporters of Day, Bushnell (and indeed all activists) and those who insist on defending Israel is nigh-on incomprehensible.
Actions count
Mainstream media (biased anyway) barely report on Gaza now, though that may change with the news that Israel killed over 400 people in a heavy bombardment in the early hours of 18 March, which would seem to spell the end the so-called ceasefire agreed in January.
And there is near-silence on both the spread of Israel’s genocidal methods to the West Bank and Israel’s actions in Lebanon.
Instead, the media attend to U.S. President Donald Trump, with his provocative assertions about turning Gaza into a riviera in the Middle East, his ghastly and crass PR, including an AI-generated promotional video on the same subject, alongside the litany of policy disruptions and implementations announced in his first 50 days in office.
It was on Palestine that Day refocused attention by scaling Big Ben. The media had no choice but to report on the security breach. Day’s statements forced BBC journalists to quote the word “Palestine” in their reporting, itself a powerful act of non-violent resistance, given that the corporation (like others in the UK and US) effectively bans journalists from using certain words, including “genocide” and “Palestine.”
Day’s action, therefore, orally, aurally and visually reasserted the right of Palestinians to life in the face of state-sponsored violence and erasure. His more than 16 hours on Big Ben represented more than 16 months of genocide. His choice of building drew attention to the gross moral chasm in which the majority of our politicians with a few notable exceptions operate. What Day did was therefore a reminder that our individual actions do count.
As emergency services crew in a cherry-picker lift attempted to negotiate him down, Day remained calm, articulating his goals and intentions and resisting delegates of a society whose leaders are determined to attempt to deflect our attention from what must be described as the immorality of our lifetime.
To free climb itself involves risk; to free climb barefoot more risk. To free climb barefoot, publicly, and to breach the security of the seat of government, requires immense courage.
Day’s courage reflects the acute desperation that so many feel and indeed live on a daily basis, as we question how the leaders of the so-called free world can continue so shamelessly to gaslight us into silence over such blatant evil as that perpetrated by Israel.
Shameful hypocrisy
Each day brings with it new atrocities, in Palestine, Lebanon and Syria, and new hypocrisies as Trump, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and their cronies become the embodiment of Orwellian doublespeak, seemingly ever more committed to adopting stances that are manifestly both immoral and illegal.
Day’s action exposes the real lunacy of this second quarter of our twenty-first century world. He undoubtedly knew when he scaled the tower that in daring to reveal the UK government’s complicity in war crimes, in daring to refocus the world’s attention on the right of Palestinians to live in freedom – and thereby reminding us of the actions of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, for whom the International Criminal Court has issued an arrest warrant for war crimes and crimes against humanity – he would himself be arrested.
And with his arrest for an act that has harmed no one, an act that has been a clarion call for liberation and freedom, the shameful hypocrisy of the ruling classes will be exposed once again.
Day’s wrists may be chained, but unlike those in Plato’s cave – unlike those in the U.S., UK and much of Europe who insist on ignoring the reams of evidence easily accessed through our now technologically interconnected world – Day’s mind is free. Along with the millions internationally supporting him, Day has left the cave and seen the truth that our politicians are desperately trying to obfuscate: freedom is achievable only through ending the decades-long occupation and oppression of Palestinians.
The man who climbed Big Ben will go down in history. His actions will forever yoke together the UK government with a genocide that, as so many of us have observed, one day, everyone will have been against.
Amy Abdelnoor’s debut novel Ever Land which grew from her experiences living in Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon and under Israeli occupation in Ramallah, is due in 2026. On Twitter/X: @amyabdelnoor.
