Baby Killers and the People Who Just Want Their Shopping: A Meditation on Certainty, Stupidity, and Why Google Maps Exists.

When you're absolutely certain you're fighting genocide, checking the address feels like collaboration with the enemy.

There’s a video doing the rounds on social media. Footage that appears to show pro-Palestinian protesters outside what they believe is an arms company office. Except it isn’t. It’s a block of flats. Just regular residential flats where regular people live regular lives that don’t involve manufacturing weapons.

Police turn up. “This isn’t an arms company,” they explain, presumably using small words. “This is a random flat.”

The protesters’ response? “BABY KILLERS OFF OUR STREETS!”

Yes. You read that correctly. After being told by actual police officers who presumably checked before attending that they’re screaming at a residential building, the protesters carried on anyway.

Now, you might think this is where the story ends. Someone points out you’ve got the wrong address, you apologise, and you leave. That’s what you’d do, isn’t it? That’s what any rational person would do.

But when you’re absolutely certain you’re on the right side of history, facts become optional extras like sat nav—or, better still, fully functioning brain cells.

Perhaps that’s why they raided Elbit Systems Bristol HQ—they were hoping to upgrade their own weapons-grade stupidity to something nuclear.

The Certainty Trap.

Here’s the thing about being convinced you’re fighting genocide: it immunises you against reality. Every correction becomes proof of conspiracy. Every fact-check becomes a collaboration.

Think about it. Police say it’s residential? Obviously, they’re covering for the arms dealers. Residents getting angry? Clearly, crisis actors are hired by Big Weapons. You can see how it works, can’t you?

It’s a beautifully closed loop. Being wrong is impossible because being told you’re wrong is exactly what they’d do if you were right.

And look, I get it. If you genuinely believed genocide was happening and you could stop it by screaming at a building, you’d scream. The problem is when “genocide” becomes the word we use for “thing I’m really angry about this Tuesday.”

Rwanda was the genocide—800,000 dead in 100 days, systematic extermination of Tutsis. Cambodia was genocide—a quarter of the population was murdered under Pol Pot. The Holocaust was genocide—six million Jews systematically exterminated.

These aren’t debatable. They’re documented, proven, legally established genocides.

But we’ve inflated the word. Now it gets applied to any military conflict with civilian casualties, any policy someone disagrees with, any tragedy that makes us feel strongly. And when everything becomes genocide, nothing is. The word loses its meaning. And when the word loses meaning, actual genocides—past and future—get lost in the noise.

The Somerset Precedent.

This isn’t Palestine Action’s first brush with misdirected enthusiasm. In April 2024, they targeted Somerset County Hall—a Grade II-listed public building—with red paint and graffiti. Not once. Not twice. Three times in a month.

Their crime? Somerset Council is the landlord of a building in Bristol’s Aztec West business park that Elbit Systems UK leases. Note: not Elbit itself. The landlord of a building that Elbit rents.

So naturally, the solution was to spray a public building with paint three times, racking up £13,300 in cleanup costs that came straight out of—you guessed it—public funds. Money that could’ve gone to schools, social services, or literally anything else.

But hey, at least they got the right county.

The Sledgehammer Speaks Louder Than Words.

Then there’s the August 2024 raid on Elbit’s actual premises at Aztec West. Finally, the right target! Except this time, one activist allegedly hit a police officer with a sledgehammer, fracturing her spine. Police Sergeant Kate Evans couldn’t work for three months.

Now those activists are on hunger strike while awaiting trial, painting themselves as victims. Because apparently, when you fracture someone’s spine with a sledgehammer during a break-in, you’re the one who needs sympathy.

The irony is exquisite. Screaming “BABY KILLER” at residents. Spray-painting public buildings. Fracturing police officers’ spines. All in the name of opposing violence.

The Performance vs. The Point.

Here’s what gets me: there are legitimate questions about arms sales to Israel. About UK foreign policy. About corporate complicity in military conflicts. These are real, complex issues that deserve serious scrutiny. You might even have opinions about them yourself.

But here’s what you already know: you don’t get serious scrutiny by screaming at people buying milk.

You don’t advance accountability by spray-painting council buildings.

You don’t stop weapons sales by fracturing police officers’ spines.

What you do get is:

• Residents who now hate your cause

• Public money wasted on cleanup

• Police injured

• Your movement proscribed as a terrorist organisation

• Actual arms companies are entirely unbothered

• And potentially, some time in prison, where you can go on hunger strike until you’re hospitalised and fed hospital food, which is legendarily awful. Though if you don’t fancy it, you could always bugger off to Gaza and live on aid parcels instead. They might actually be an upgrade

It’s activism as performance art. The performance matters more than the outcome. Being seen to do something matters more than whether that something achieves anything. Or whether you’re even doing it to the right people.

The Collateral Damage.

Somewhere in all this theatre, there are real people. The residents who got screamed at for the crime of living in flats that aren’t owned by Elbit, aren’t leased by Elbit, and aren’t connected to Elbit in any conceivable way. The council workers whose budget gets raided to clean paint off the listed buildings. Police Sergeant Kate Evans with a fractured spine. The taxpayers are footing the bill.

These aren’t “the enemy.” These aren’t baby killers. These are just people trying to exist in the world while activists who’ve confused certainty with accuracy treat them as acceptable collateral damage in a moral crusade.

And here’s the bitter irony: this kind of performative chaos actively undermines legitimate accountability journalism. When people think of “Palestine activism,” they’re not picturing careful FOI requests and detailed policy analysis. They’re picturing paint-covered buildings and residents getting screamed at.

That’s the real damage. Not to Elbit. Not to arms companies. To the possibility of actual scrutiny, actual accountability, and actual change.

The Baby Killers of Bristol (Or Wherever).

So we’re back to that video. The one you watched at the start. Protesters outside a block of flats, screaming “BABY KILLER” at people who just want to get their shopping in. Police explaining they’ve got the wrong building. Protesters are continuing anyway because correction equals confirmation of conspiracy.

And there you have it. The entire cycle in one clip. Certainty immunising against reality. Performance replacing purpose. Collateral damage to ordinary people is treated as acceptable casualties in someone else’s moral crusade.

It would be funny if it weren’t so bloody sad.

Sad for the residents being harassed. Sad for legitimate activism being discredited. Sad for the word “genocide” being inflated to meaninglessness. Sad for anyone who thinks this kind of performative certainty changes anything except public opinion—against you.

A famous comedian once said, “Think of how stupid the average person is, and realise half of them are stupider than that.”

But sometimes it’s not stupidity. Sometimes it’s worse. Sometimes it’s intelligent people so convinced of their righteousness that they’ve immunised themselves against reality. So certain they’re fighting genocide that checking Google Maps feels like collaboration.

And that? That makes two short planks look like a supercomputer.

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The Almighty Gob is a blogger covering Bristol City Council accountability and UK institutional dysfunction. If you value accountability that doesn’t involve screaming at random residents, subscribe.