On Monday, 29 June, Samidoun Network in occupied Palestine organized a press conference in Ramallah at the offices of Wattan TV, urging widespread participation and action in the protests and mobilizations taking place in Palestine and around the world to protest annexation, colonization and Zionism on and around 1 July, including the 5 pm mobilizations in Ramallah and Bethlehem and the 7 pm mobilization in Wadi Ara.
Full video below (in Arabic):
The press conference opened with a statement from Samidoun, presented by Najd Hussam, followed by a presentation by Mohammed Khatib, Samidoun coordinator in Europe, who focused on the mobilizations taking place in Palestinian communities in exile and diaspora and solidarity movements around the world, and emphasized that the cause of the Palestinian people is return and liberation.
Finally, Hamza Zbeidat – of the Jordan Valley – highlighted the history of Zionist colonization in Palestine and ongoing attacks on Palestinian people and land in the Valley, where Palestinian agricultural villages are subjected to encirclement, land confiscation and hostile attacks by occupation military bases and colonial settlements on a daily basis.
The full initial statement from Samidoun is below:
On behalf of Samidoun Network, we welcome you to this special press conference on the demonstrations taking place on Wednesday, 1 July inside Palestine and around the world. We thank you for your presence, your participation with us and your coverage of our press conference and activities.
As we begin this press conference, let us extend our greetings and salutations to the families of the martyrs and the prisoners and to the masses of our Palestinian people confronting siege, blockade and occupation in all forms, who confront projects of liquidation, violations and crimes of the Zionist entity throughout all of occupied Palestine and in exile and diaspora.
We also extend a special greeting of struggle to the Palestinian prisoners’ movement in the occupation prisons, the leadership of our national liberation struggle, the solid core of the Palestinian resistance and the front line of defense for our people.
It is important for us in the Samidoun Network to confirm that all of these colonial projects, including the most recent Zionist-U.S. annexation project, are not a new policy for our people. They reflect the policies and practices of the occupation and the Zionist entity since before 1948, and the so-called annexation plan targeting the northern Dead Sea, the Jordan Valley and colonial settlements throughout the occupied West Bank, will not be the last such colonial assault. This project is sponsored by the United States and supervised by its Zionist Ambassador David Friedman.
We in Samidoun consider this to be yet another step aimed at perpetuating the system and legal framework of racist settler colonialism throughout occupied Palestine. At the same time, it is a dangerous precedent for yet even more repression and crimes directed against the Palestinian people, especially the farmers and workers in the occupied West Bank in particular.
At the same time, we consider this moment to be a real opportunity for the Palestinian people and our national liberation movement and resistance. It is important to take hold of this opportunity and work to change the course of the relationship that some have pursued with the occupation entity. This means: putting to an end all forms of reliance on the so-called “negotiations” and “peace process” or depending on verbal official positions issued daily by the United Nations and other international institutions, which have no value as our people see no reflection of such statements in their material reality.
This also means that, first: We want to say to the world and to all of Palestine that the project of the so-called “two-state solution” has been destroyed forever and it will not return. All agreements, from Madrid and Wadi Araba to Oslo and the Paris Protocol have fallen with it. Second: We must work to make this period a meaningful moment of struggle in which the Palestinian people will regain their popular unity on the ground and in the fields of struggle and joint action, as a transition to a new stage.
The truth is that this annexation project, from our point of view, is no different in essence and form from the Prawer Project in the occupied Naqab, nor from the land expropriations that occur daily on an incremental basis in order to provide the Zionist settler colonies on our land with control over the land, resources and wealth of the Palestinian people – especially water and the agricultural sources of life and livelihood. It is also similar to the projects taking place every day in occupied Palestine ’48.
Today, we want to present to you and to the masses of the Palestinian people a direct report and call to participation in the popular marches that will start on Wednesday in Ramallah and Bethlehem at 5:00 pm and in Wadi Ara at 7:00 pm in occupied Palestine 48. We appeal to all of the Palestinian people to engage and participate actively and massively in these popular marches so that our voice may be heard in rejection of all colonial projects, confirming that the defeat of the occupation is inevitable, and liberation is inevitable throughout Palestine, from the river to the sea.
We also present popular Palestinian community and solidarity activities around the world. These events and activities were organized by the Samidoun Network and dozens of Palestinian community organizations and solidarity groups. They come to coincide with the declaration of the occupying entity that 1 July will be the date of the official announcement of its step to publicly and unlawfully steal one-third of the occupied West Bank and annex the colonial settlements.
With us today is our colleague Mohammed Khatib, coordinator of Samidoun Network, who will discuss actions and events taking place around the world in the coming days. With us is also our colleague Hamza Zubeidat from the village of Zubeidat in the Jordan Valley, to highlight the situation and the seriousness of these threats of colonial annexation.
