The following report is translated from the French original, available at the site of Collectif Palestine Vaincra. The collective, based in Toulouse, France, is a member organization of the Samidoun Network.
On 9 June 2020, Collectif Palestine Vaincra was informed though a brief email that its PayPal account “has been permanently restricted.” In addition, the money in the Collectif’s account has been frozen for a period of 180 days. The online payment company referred in its message to a “violation of the terms of service,” without specifying what type of violation was alleged. The Collectif Palestine Vaincra is self-funded and independent; it calls upon all supporters to help defeat this attack by making an online donation to support its work.
Unfortunately, this attack is nothing new. PayPal has arbitrarily closed the accounts of many associations and organizations supporting Palestine in recent years. In France, PayPal closed the accounts of AFPS and BDS France in 2018. It closed the Samidoun international network account in 2019.
A few hours after the account was closed and without any public announcement from PayPal, many pro-Israeli apartheid sites and far-right organizations published sensationalist articles welcoming this action. This shows their growing fear and concern at the growing global support for the Palestinian resistance and the boycott of Israel.
In particular, they aim to attack the collective by noting that the great struggler Leila Khaled is an honorary member. This obsessive focus by right-wing forces only speaks to the continued vitality of the political project she continues to represent after a lifetime dedicated to defending her people.
Defenders of Israeli apartheid are making immense efforts to silence the many and growing supporters of Palestine everywhere around the world. One of these means of pressure is, obviously, aiming to cut off funds to these organizations, but also by multiple campaigns of defamation and intimidation. The Collectif Palestine Vaincra denounces these pathetic attempts and reaffirms its commitment to struggle for Palestinian rights and to support the Palestinian resistance fighting for the liberation of Palestine from the river to the sea.
Read the Samidoun statement on PayPal from 2019 at this link.
