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Sunday, April 20, 2025
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Samidoun statement on the International Criminal Court, the Resistance, and justice for Palestine

For years, the Palestinian people, at all levels of organization and struggle, have been demanding that the leaders of the Zionist regime are held accountable in international courts, including and especially the International Criminal Court, for their ongoing genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity in occupied Palestine. Today, on 20 May 2024, ICC prosecutor Karim Khan announced his intention to seek arrest warrants against not only the Zionist war criminals Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant, but also against the Palestinian resistance leaders Yahya Sinwar, Mohammed Deif and Ismail Haniyeh.

Let us be clear: There is no equation to be made between the legitimate resistance of the Palestinian people and its leadership, including Yahya Sinwar, Mohammed Deif and Ismail Haniyeh, and the illegitimate Zionist colonizer. The attempt to equate victim and perpetrator is a fundamental injustice, not the pursuit of long-denied justice.

It is certainly true that the Palestinian resistance recognized this risk, especially given the powerful political interests involved and the track record of the ICC in prosecuting Africans and now, enemies of the imperialist West. In 2014, when the Palestinian Authority acceded to the Rome Statute, and again in 2024, the Palestinian resistance leadership, particularly Hamas, the Islamic Resistance Movement, has stated its openness to international investigations and its willingness to face the ICC if there is an attempt to meaningfully pursue justice against the occupiers and genocidaires of Palestine and their imperialist backers and accomplices.

However, the fact that the resistance is, as always, willing to sacrifice for Palestine, to be subjected to injustice so that their people may see freedom, does not make Khan’s actions any more just, acceptable or fair, nor does it make them legally valid.

Khan’s repeated references to the “rights” of Zionist colonizers, while failing to address Palestinian rights, as well as his legally invalid reference to the so-called “right of ‘Israel’ to defend itself,” when an occupier and colonizer has no right to defend itself against the people it is occupying and colonizing, highlight the ongoing bias of the ICC Prosecutor and his embrace of an imperialist framework for the operations of the Court. He made no mention of the right of the Palestinian people to resist and to liberate themselves through armed struggle, despite its broad support in international law.

It is, in fact, only because of the Resistance, because of the willingness of the resistance fighters, surrounded and nurtured by its popular cradle, that these arrest warrants for the Zionist war criminals are even being proposed and considered. It is the bravery, creativity and revolutionary steadfastness of the Palestinian people and their Resistance, including and particularly through the armed struggle, that has reset the balance of power to the extent that the crimes of the occupier can no longer be greeted with pure impunity.

Every legal achievement has been brought about not by the objective power or application of law, but by the shifting of reality brought about by the Palestinian armed struggle, accompanied by the regional and global forces of Resistance, especially the Lebanese resistance, the Yemeni armed forces, people, government and AnsarAllah movement, stretching through Iraq, Syria and Iran. It also speaks to the growing international popular cradle of the resistance, from student encampments to mass demonstrations to direct actions at arms manufacturers, that are making it clear that business as usual inside the imperial core is impossible so long as the genocide continues.

It is clear that 7 October changed the world. While Khan seeks to pretend that history began on 7 October and ignore the lengthy history of colonialism, ongoing Nakba and ongoing genocide since 1948, the Palestinian resistance made clear on 7 October that the horizon of true decolonization was opened in Palestine, that it was possible not only to imagine but to achieve a Palestine liberated from Zionism and a region liberated from imperialism.

The choice to seek warrants against Netanyahu and Gallant, while not against Benny Gantz, Gadi Eisenkot, Itamar Ben-Gvir, Isaac Herzog, Herzi Halevi and other war criminals, also indicates its bias toward appeasing the political leadership of imperialist powers. Of course, Netanyahu and Gallant are genocidal war criminals whose direction of the current genocide in Palestine cannot be overstated. They have the blood of over 40,000 Palestinians on their hands in just the past seven months alone.

However, the omissions seem to seek to clear the road for a Gantz (or other similarly affiliated) prime ministership of the Zionist regime. The fact that various imperialist powers, and even a significant sector of the Zionist security establishment, think that Netanyahu is not good for the future of the Zionist and imperialist project is not a secret; they believe that other figures are far more trustworthy to secure their prime colonial project in the region. They believe that Netanyahu is securing his own political future and protection from prosecution at the expense of the future of the Zionist project in the region, and this has been one of the major causes of the growing unrest and internal disarray within the “Israeli” regime.

The application for arrest warrants indicates that imperialist powers, including the United States and the European Union, are very worried about the future of the Zionist colony in the region and recognize that it is on the road to its defeat, removal and dissolution.

It must be noted that these imperialist powers, especially the United States, which has threatened a war if its leaders are indicted, refuse to be held accountable before the ICC, a fate they have traditionally deemed acceptable only for the targets of imperialism, especially Africans. The Zionist colonial project in Palestine has always been genocidal. Its existence is a war crime and a crime against humanity. The ICC prosecutor’s application for arrest warrants do not even begin to touch the magnitude of its crimes in Palestine.

These omissions are particularly egregious given that the ICC’s limited mandate in Palestine extends back to 2014, yet no crimes before 7 October 2023 are considered in Khan’s decision to seek these arrest warrants. This comes alongside the decision to charge three Palestinian leaders (of the legitimate resistance) as opposed to two Zionist officials (of the illegitimate settler colony and imperialist outpost), and to proffer eight charges against Palestinians, vs. seven against Zionists; and to fail to seek any charges under Article 6 of the Rome Statute, which covers genocide, against the Zionist war criminals.

It is particularly outrageous that while Khan seeks to charge Palestinian resistance leaders with “torture,” he has failed to seek any such charges against the Zionist regime, which is currently imprisoning and torturing over 9,400 Palestinian prisoners. Sixteen Palestinian prisoners’ martyrdom has been documented since 7 October 2023, while at least 27 Palestinians have been martyred in the concentration and torture camps for Palestinian civilians kidnapped from Gaza at Sde Teiman. Palestinian and international sources – and even Zionist whistleblowers – have repeatedly documented and exposed the horrific conditions, medical abuse, brutal torture, forced amputations and starvation being used against Palestinian detainees in both these concentration camps and the Zionist prison system. The photos of Palestinian detainees released after months in prison – such as those of Omar Assaf and Imad Barghouti – underline the level of mistreatment and torture that has become standard in the Zionist jails.

As a counter to the failure to seek to indict Gantz, his fellow members of the “war cabinet” and IOF chief Halevi – let alone all of the Zionist officials responsible for the crimes against humanity and genocide in Palestine since 2014, let alone 1948 — we see the indictment of Ismail Haniyeh, as a political leader of the Palestinian resistance. The pursuit of an indictment against Haniyeh appears to be an attempt to undermine Palestinian presence in current ceasefire negotiations and to add another level of pressure to the Palestinian resistance to accept permanent Zionist and imperialist occupation in Gaza.

It also makes clear that the indictments of Zionist war criminals are selective, while Palestinian resistance leadership is to be targeted in total. We have all confidence in the resistance’s willingness to sacrifice, ability to defend itself brilliantly in court and to win decisively in any fair trial.

The choice of charges against the resistance leaders (exceeding by one those against the Zionists in all cases), invoking numerous debunked and propagandistic Zionist claims, including “rape” and “extermination,” while failing to pursue charges of genocide and apartheid against the Zionist war criminals, further underlines this bias.

We all look forward to seeing Netanyahu and Gallant in the dock and appreciate this clear crack in the armor of impunity for the Zionist regime. We know that it is they who constantly travel around the world to receive billions of dollars in support from their imperial sponsors. At the same time, it is also clear that ICC Prosecutor is not acting as a truly neutral party and is instead carrying out the directives of imperialist powers who would not accept any charges against the Zionist leadership without a “both sides” clause targeting the already criminalized and repressed Palestinian resistance. The equation of the indigenous resistance with the illegitimate colonizer is part of the minimization of genocide rather than its prosecution.

It is further clear that the ICC is not an institution into which we can place trust, as evidenced by its own history and failures to hold accountable any of those responsible for the horrific attacks on Iraq and  Afghanistan, Libya and Syria; the starving of Venezuela through sanctions and blockades, the extraction of wealth in Africa, the attempted mass starvation and genocide in Yemen, the ongoing destabilization and destruction of Haiti.

The ICC has served for too long as a weapon of colonialism rather than a tribunal of justice. We trust the revolutionary justice of the victorious Palestinian people. There can be no equation of colonizer and colonized, of the executioner and the victim.

Glory and victory to the Palestinian resistance, to the Lebanese and Yemeni resistance, to all of the forces of resistance in the region and the world.

Imperialism and Zionism will be defeated, and from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.

 

Free the Holy Land 5 and all Palestinian Prisoners! International Week of Action May 20-27, 2024 #FreetheHLF5

FREE THE HOLY LAND 5! FREE ALL PALESTINIAN PRISONERS!

Toolkit and Call to Action

From May 20th to 27th, 2024, join Samidoun Network’s international call to liberate the three remaining imprisoned members of the Holy Land 5, Palestinian prisoners in the U.S.! 

16 years ago, on May 27th, 2008, Mufid Abdulqader, Ghassan Elashi, Shukri Abu Baker, Abdulrahman Odeh, and Mohammed El-Mezain, were sentenced to federal prison after a wrongful conviction on false charges of material support for terrorism. Their so-called crime was providing charity, in the form of food and medical care, to Palestinian orphans and widows in Gaza and the West Bank of occupied Palestine. 

The Holy Land Foundation was the largest Muslim-led charity in the United States. It was headquartered in Richardson, Texas, and was founded and run by Palestinian-Americans based out of Texas. The work of the Holy Land Foundation included relief for Palestinian orphans, widows, and the families of martyred Palestinians in Palestine. During the racist, Islamophobic and imperialist “War on Terror,” the Holy Land Foundation was targeted by the Bush administration and was forced to cease operations in December of 2001. This attack led to the conviction and imprisonment of the five Palestinian leaders of the organization: Mufid Abdulqader, Ghassan Elashi, Shukri Abu Baker, Abdulrahman Odeh, and Mohammed El-Mezain. The HLF5 were ultimately convicted 16 years ago, in an illegitimate trial that drew on secret evidence and an anonymous expert witness who could not be cross-examined.

While Abdulrahman Odeh and Mohammed el-Mezain have been released, to this day, 3 of them, Mufid Abdulqader, Ghassan Elashi, and Shukri Abu Baker, are still in prison. Mufid Abdulqader is set to be released in January 2025, but Ghassan Elashi and Shukri Abubaker are still serving 65-year sentences.

The HLF5 were accused and convicted on false charges of “providing material support to a terrorist organization” despite having never been even accused of providing funding to the armed resistance forces resisting Zionist occupation and colonization. All of their financial records were legitimate and above board, and the Holy Land Foundation was donating funds to the same organizations that the Red Cross and USAID (United States Agency for International Development) provide funding to. Despite this, the U.S. government managed to convict the HLF5 based on illegitimate “evidence” brought in by an anonymous Israeli intelligence agent.

The accusation and conviction of the HLF5 was a clear attempt by the United States government to prevent Palestinians in the U.S. from providing Palestinians in their occupied homeland resources that they needed to resist displacement from their homes and remain steadfast in the face of violent zionist occupation and without the strings attached to similar aid from the U.S., the European Union, or other “donor states” that will only donate based on political concessions that favor U.S. and zionist interests.

During this week of action, we affirm that the actions of the Holy Land Foundation and the HLF5 were not only legal – but beautiful and noble. They provided critical support to the Palestinian people, support that they need to continue their steadfastness in the face of 76 years of displacement and genocide at the hands of zionism and U.S. imperialism. We defend the Holy Land 5 as we defend all political prisoners – from prisoners of the Black Liberation Movement to Palestinian prisoners in occupied Palestine. Join us from May 20th to May 27th as we say: FREE THE HOLY LAND 5! FREE ALL PALESTINIAN PRISONERS!

Take Action!

  • Bring posters, info sheets, and calls to #FreetheHLF5 to your demonstration, encampment, or any event calling for the liberation of Palestine!
  • Post campaign materials on social media, using the hashtag #FreetheHLF5
  • Organize your own event, film screening, or rally to defend the Holy Land 5 and all political prisoners
  • Write to Shukri, Ghassan and Mufid using the instructions and addresses listed below

HLF5 Campaign Flyer

Download, print and distribute the following flyer at your actions and in your community:

HL5 Flier Final

DOWNLOAD HERE

Who Are the Holy Land Foundation 5?

Ghassan Elashi was born in Gaza City, and lived there until age 14. He and his family then moved to Cairo, Egypt, where he eventually got his Bachelor’s degree in accounting from Ain Shams University in 1975. He lived in Saudi Arabia and London for a couple of years before finally migrating to the United States in 1978. He lived in Ohio for several months and then moved to Florida, where he got his Master’s degree in accounting from the University of Miami in 1981. Soon afterwards, Mr. Elashi began working in a company that created the world’s first Arabic computer. In 1985, Mr. Elashi married Majida and moved to Culver City, Calif. near Los Angeles. They lived there for about seven years before moving to Richardson, Texas near Dallas in 1992. There, he worked at a family-owned computer business and served as a chairman and volunteer for the HLF. Mr. Elashi and Majida have six children: Noor, Huda, Asma, Mohammad, Osama and Omar.  “I do not apologize for feeding orphans and needy families. I know what the government’s goal was, it was to make an example of me. But they failed, because I felt a love from my community that I couldn’t imagine,” he said.

Shukri Abu Baker, of Palestinian and Brazilian heritage, was born in Brazil in 1959. At age 6, he and his family moved to Silwad, Palestine, where they lived for a couple of years. In 1967, the family left to Kuwait and lived there for about a decade. Mr. Abu-Baker migrated to the United States in 1980, where he got his Bachelor’s degree in business administration from Orlando College. During that time, he also helped launch the first mosque in central Florida. After marrying Wejdan in 1982, Mr. Abu-Baker moved to Indianapolis, Indiana. There, he worked as an office manager for the Muslim Arab Youth Association. In 1990, they relocated to Culver City, California, near Los Angeles where he and a few friends opened the Holy Land Foundation. Then in 1992, the family moved to Dallas and the HLF moved with them. He and Wejdan have four American-born daughters: Zaira, Sanabel, Nida and Shurook. You can read Shukri’s Notes from Prison on his blog: https://notesfromshukri.wordpress.com/

Mufid Abdelqader was born in Silwad, Palestine in 1959, and lived much of his young adult life in Kuwait. In 1980, he migrated to the United States to receive a college education. He lived in Irving, Texas for a few months before moving to two Oklahoma cities, first Claremore, then Stillwater. To fund his tuition at Oklahoma State University, Mr. Abdelqader briefly worked as a dishwasher at an Italian Restaurant and a cashier at Wendys. He received his Bachelor’s of Science degree in Civil Engineering in 1984. In 1985, he married Diane. He received his Master’s Degree in Civil Engineering from Oklahoma State University in 1994. The family lived in Oklahoma City for several years before finally moving to Richardson, Texas in 1996. He and Diane have three daughters. Since 1996, Mr. Abdelqader worked for the city of Dallas as a Senior Project Manager in the public works and transportation departments. Mufid is a singer, served as a volunteer counselor in his community, and volunteered for the HLF.

The Holy Land 5 Case

The Holy Land Foundation was repeatedly targeted by Zionist organizations in a series of reports and investigations because of its effective work in providing support to occupied Palestine. The HLF was a large charity that raised millions of dollars for impoverished people in occupied Palestine, providing much-needed support and blunting the effects of the occupation on the Palestinian people. Leaders of the Foundation were placed under surveillance by the FBI since 1993 while notorious Islamophobic, racist and Zionist commentators like Steven Emerson repeatedly attacked the Foundation.

The situation of the Foundation was made more precarious in the post-Oslo era, with the adoption of first financial sanctions and then criminal law creating a list of “Foreign Terrorist Organizations,” a list that was explicitly created in order to criminalize and repress opposition to the “Middle East peace process,” which was in reality a process for the liquidation of the Palestinian cause. While the Elashi brothers’ business, INFOCOM, was raided by the FBI on allegations of selling computer technology to people in Libya, Syria and occupied Palestine, in early September 2001, the post-September 11 climate of intensified racism and “War on Terror” propaganda further propelled the attack on the Holy Land Foundation. Using the extremely broad powers of the Treasury Department, the HLF’s funds were frozen, offices raided, and it was declared a “Specially Designated Global Terrorist” organization.

It was in 2004 that the homes of the Holy Land Foundation Five — Ghassan Elashi, Shukri Abu Baker, Mufid Abdelqader, Mohammed el-Mezain and Abdulrahman Odeh — were raided and the men arrested and not until 2007 that their trial began. Despite the admission of anonymous testimony from Israeli intelligence agents in court — who could not be properly subject to cross-examination by the defense — the first trial ended in a mistrial, with initially all 12 jurors voting for acquittal and then one changing his mind at the last minute.

As Within Our Lifetime notes, “One of the jurors noted that the case seemed ‘strung together with macaroni noodles. There was so little evidence.’ The jury issued not-guilty verdicts on nearly every one of the 197 charges until one of the jurors suddenly changed their mind and claimed they never agreed to those verdicts. Later, evidence came out to suggest that this juror was improperly influenced by those who sought to see the HLF5 imprisoned.”

While the HLF5, their families, and supporters for justice in Palestine celebrated, the government refused to accept defeat and once again brought the HLF5 before the court in Dallas, again exhibiting sensationalist, unproven and unrelated testimony from Israeli occupation intelligence agents. Noor Elashi, the daughter of Ghassan Elashi, said, “It was the only time in the history of the United States that a witness inside a courtroom was allowed to remain anonymous, so the defense couldn’t cross-examine him.” There was one prior similar incident, however — the case of Abdelhaleem Ashqar and Mohammed Saleh in Chicago, Palestinians charged on more dubious “terror” allegations, once again facing occupation agents in court granted a veil of anonymity. The Holy Land Foundation Five’s family members’ political affiliations were cited as a form of even more dubious “evidence” against them.

In the end, the HLF5 were convicted and granted extraordinarily long sentences. “Shukri Abu Baker and Ghassan Elashi were given 65-year sentences each. Abdulrahman Odeh, Mohammed El-Mezain, and Mufid Abdulqader were sentenced to 15 to 20 years each. Two of Ghassan Elashi’s brothers, Bayan and Basman Elashi, were tried and convicted seperately of charges stemming from InfoCom and the Holy Land Foundation. The brothers were arrested in 2002, spent two years in solitary confinement, and went to trial in 2004. They each received 84-month sentences, and were released from prison in 2009 before being deported to Gaza.”

Abdulrahman Odeh and Mohammed el-Mezain were finally released in 2020 and 2022. When El-Mezain was released, he was detained by ICE — US immigration agent — and then deported to Turkey. Shukri Abu Baker, Ghassan Elashi and Mufid Abdelqader remain behind bars — while Abdelqader is scheduled for release in 2025, Elashi and Abu Baker are sentenced to 45 more years in US prisons. They earlier spent many years behind bars, including a number of years in ultra-repressive, maximum security “Communications Management Units.” All of their legal appeals have so far been exhausted, which is why it is so critical to engage in the political and popular struggle for their liberation.

The struggle to free the Holy Land 5 is part and parcel of the struggle for the liberation of all Palestinian prisoners and the liberation of Palestine. As we march and organize to confront U.S. imperialism in occupied Palestine and the Arab region and U.S. responsibility for Zionist genocide in Gaza, we also call for the liberation of these Palestinian political prisoners in U.S. jails. 

Write The Holy Land 5

Writing to prisoners is an important part of showing solidarity and building morale. Whether you are writing to Palestinian prisoners in Zionist jails, Georges Abdallah in France, or the Holy Land 5 and other political prisoners in the U.S., your letters show these imprisoned strugglers that they are not forgotten, abandoned or isolated despite all attempts to do so, and they also show the jailers that these prisoners have external support.

Please remember that any letters sent to the HLF5 are liable to be opened and read by prison staff. Avoid writing anything sensitive that could be read into by guards and prison officials. Make sure to include both their name and their register number on the envelope.

SHUKRI ABU BAKER 32589-177
USP BEAUMONT
U.S. PENITENTIARY
P.O. BOX 26030
BEAUMONT, TX 77720

GHASSAN ELASHI 29687-177
USP MCCREARY
U.S. PENITENTIARY
P.O. BOX 3000
PINE KNOT, KY 42635

MUFID ABDULQADER 32590-177
FCI SEAGOVILLE
FEDERAL CORRECTIONAL INSTITUTION
P.O. BOX 9000
SEAGOVILLE, TX 75159

Download and use these posters

Free the Holy Land 5 (Download PDF)

Free Ghassan Elashi (Download PDF)

Free Shukri Abu Baker (Download PDF)

Free Mufid Abdelqader (Download PDF)


Further Resources

Here are some resources you can use to organize for the Holy Land Five:

We stand with Samidoun’s Charlotte Kates! Let’s raise our voices for Palestine, Palestinian resistance and liberation! 


The above graphic was designed by an artist in Gaza for Samidoun.

Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network stands with our International Coordinator Charlotte Kates who was arrested and charged by the Vancouver Police Department this week for a speech she gave on April 26 expressing support for the Palestinian resistance and calling for the Palestinian and Arab resistance – specifically Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and Hezbollah – to be removed from so-called ‘terrorist lists’ in Canada and elsewhere.

VPD officers nabbed Kates while she was on the bus riding home after attending the establishment of the Palestine solidarity encampment at the University of British Columbia, and charged her with “public incitement of hatred” and “willful promotion of hatred”.  After two hours of questioning she was released with the condition “not to attend any protests, demonstrations and assemblies”.

The attack on Kates is an attack on Samidoun and our work in solidarity with Palestinian prisoners and the Palestinian struggle for liberation. The attack on Kates is an attack on the Palestinian people, part of a longstanding effort by Israel and its imperialist allies to criminalize and de-legitimize Palestinian people, their political organizations and their allies. The attack on Kates is an attack on working class and oppressed people in Canada, signalling that our ‘liberal democratic rights’ will only be tolerated so long as they don’t present any meaningful challenge to the establishment. The attack on Kates is an attack on the people of the world who everywhere are rising up and demanding an end to the Israeli genocide and an end to imperialism and colonialism and are being met with criminalization, repression, expulsion and slander!

As Kates pointed out in her speech, the historic mobilization that we are seeing across the world, is not only a response to witnessing the criminal Israeli genocide.  It is equally a response to the inspiring example of Palestinian resistance and steadfastness which, in the face of a century of colonization, 76 years of brutal ethnic cleansing and occupation, and more than 200 days of a genocidal bombing campaign, continues to stand up and struggle for the rights of Palestinians to exist, to resist, to return, and to liberation!

Photo: Michael Y.C. Tseng

The threat that the Palestinian resistance and the Palestinian liberation struggle pose to U.S.-led imperialism, including Canada, is long recognized by the ruling classes of the imperialist countries which is why all factions of the Palestinian resistance are included on the Canadian, European and U.S. so-called terrorist lists. The effort to criminalize Palestinian struggle and to de-link the struggle in Palestine, including the armed struggle, from its international support, has been a feature of the imperialist powers’ political strategy at least since the 1980s.

It’s also why the political establishments and their mainstream media instruments in countries like the United States, Canada, Germany, the United Kingdom, France and the Netherlands are so desperate to paint Operation Al Aqsa Flood as some kind of ‘barbaric’ assault, beyond the pale of legitimate resistance, and why they continue to produce, disseminate and propagate outrageous lies and atrocity propaganda about October 7. What they can’t admit is that the Palestinian resistance in Gaza, even in the face of the criminal siege, the campaign of assassinations, and the periodic bombings and massacres, were able to mount a brilliant and heroic counter-attack, to defeat the occupiers, break the siege and take prisoners for exchange for the thousands of Palestinians held in Israeli jails.  Through its heroic operation on October 7 and its ability to continue to fight the genocidal invading Israeli army in the following months up to this very moment, the Palestinian resistance has exposed the weakness and illegitimacy of Israel, and by extension its imperialist backers in the United States, Canada, the European Union and elsewhere.

The Palestinian resistance, together with its fellow resistance forces in the region, stretching from Lebanon to Yemen, where the government, armed forces, people and AnsarAllah movement are shutting down the supply lines of genocide, Iraq, Syria, Iran and beyond, are proving that a Palestine free of Zionism and an Arab nation and an entire region free of imperialism are not only possible, but inevitable.

While zionists, their imperialist backers and the corporate media have tried to smear the whole movement in solidarity with Palestine with the brush of antisemitism, constantly and purposefully conflating anti-zionism and support for the Palestinian struggle with antisemitism, it has mobilized more severe and punitive repression for those who speak out in support of the Palestinian resistance and specifically the right to armed struggle against occupation and colonization.  For example, Natalie Knight, who on October 28, 2023, gave a speech expressing support for the Palestinian resistance and upholding Operation Al Aqsa Flood as a brilliant and amazing act of resistance, was suspended, then fired from her teaching position at Langara University in Vancouver, British Columbia.  U.S. academic and author Jodi Dean was ‘relieved of classroom duties’ specifically in response to a blog post upholding the Palestinian right to resist, including by armed struggle.  Thousands of students have been arrested in the United States in militarized raids by police across the country, including in New York, Florida, North Carolina, California, New Hampshire and Chicago. In France, the Collectif Palestine Vaincra has been resisting attempts to ‘dissolve’ it by the French Ministry of the Interior.

Samidoun, as an organization that has clearly upheld the right of the Palestinian people to resistance and armed struggle, has been targeted for repression by multiple imperialist governments.  In Germany, Samidoun has been banned as part of the imperialist German state’s crackdown on all visible solidarity with Palestine.  On April 15, Nicole De Moor, Belgium’s Secretary for Asylum and Migration, called on Belgian immigration agencies to withdraw the refugee status of Samidoun’s Europe Coordinator Mohammed Khatib, a Palestinian refugee born in Ain el-Helweh refugee camp in Lebanon.  And in Canada, zionists and right-wing media have for more than a year been hysterically calling for repression against Kates and against Palestinian writer and Masar Badil Executive Committee member Khaled Barakat, a call that has now been implemented by the Vancouver Police Department.

It is incumbent on us, as a movement of support for Palestinian liberation, to resist this divide and rule strategy of the zionists and imperialists that seeks to limit our demands and discussion to ‘peace’, ‘ceasefire’ and ‘humanitarian aid’ and to intimidate us from talking about the right to armed resistance, the right of return, and the substance of liberation for the Palestinian people. Resisting this imposed division goes hand in hand with the broad struggle against the whole array of repression being meted out to those who speak out against genocide, especially at this moment of mass arrests and repression faced by student encampments across the U.S. and in Canada and Europe.

Armed struggle is an indivisible and indispensable component of the Palestinian revolution.  Dividing Palestinians from this aspect of the national liberation struggle, and steering the solidarity movement away from understanding and supporting armed struggle is a key strategic objective of zionism and imperialism. This is the moment in which we all must fight back – by raising our voices in support of the Palestinian armed resistance — including the heroic and momentous operation Al-Aqsa Flood, launched on October 7 — and by calling for the removal of Palestinian and Arab resistance movements from the so-called terrorist lists. We stand together with Charlotte Kates and all those targeted for repression, and we stand together with the heroic Resistance.  From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free!

Long live October 7! Long live the Palestinian Resistance! Long live international solidarity!

 

 

Join the Amsterdam student encampment for Palestine!

Revolutionaire Eenheid and Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network fully support the students who today started an encampment for Palestine in the Roeterseiland campus, Amsterdam. These students are on the frontline of the resistance against the Israeli genocide in Gaza and Dutch complicity. They follow the example of students in Palestine, the United States and several other countries.

The Amsterdam universities UvA, VU and AUC have various ties with the genocidal apartheid state and it is high time that these ties are broken. The students are determined and will not stop until their goals are achieved. Attempts to repress or breakup the encampment by the authorities will be met with resistance.

Revolutionaire Eenheid and Samidoun call on all students, youth and supporters of Palestine to join these heroic students. We fully support the students’ demands and points of unity:

The demands:

  1. Full cooperation with the Freedom of Information request and full disclosure of all ties between our universities and their ties to Israeli institutions and companies, and ties to companies that profit from genocide, apartheid and the exploitation of Palestinians and their land.
  2. Boycott all academic collaborations with Israeli institutions that are complicit in genocide, apartheid and the exploitation of Palestinians and their land.
  3. Divest and terminate all contracts with Israeli and international companies that profit from genocide, apartheid and the exploitation of the Palestinian people and their land.

Points of Unity:

  • One democratic Palestine from the river to the sea;
  • Palestinians have the right to resistance, including armed resistance;
  • The Palestinian diaspora has a right of return.

Stop the Israeli genocide and all complicity with it!
Victory to the Palestinian people and their resistance!
Long live international solidarity!

Follow these accounts for live updates:

Telegram: https://t.me/IntifadaUniversityNL
Instagram:Amsterdam.encampment; Students for Justice in Palestine Amsterdam; Workers For Palestine; Dutch Scholars for Palestine; AUFreePalestine; ROSA Radical Students

 

Below is the full initial statement from the students in Amsterdam:

🔻ENCAMPMENT ACTION🔻

Come to REC CAMPUS NOW to join us as we create a liberated zone, in solidarity with Gaza! All students, staff and humans are invited to join us NOW as we show UVA, VU and AUC that there is no business as usual when a genocide is unfolding. YOU DO NOT HAVE TO BE A STUDENT – all are welcome in our liberated university!

We will occupy and hold the line against any attempt to evict us. We need mass mobilization, and lots of support! Join us as soon as possible, we plan to STAY. Bring tents, sleeping bags and pack your belongings with you. We need both campers and supporters day and night!

We expect repression, so we request our communities to stand by in solidarity with us. We cannot exist without your support.

P.S. PROTESTING STAFF AND LECTURERS WELCOME – Join the brave staff and faculty as they conduct a solidarity demo at 6 PM in support of Gaza and the student intifada.

Location: UvA Roeterseiland Campus, Amsterdam

Time: 12 PM onwards!

Free Palestine!

CPA statement: Stop Harassing anti-Genocide Advocates for Palestine!

The repression against Palestinians and their supporters has been mounting across Canada in recent months; in every major city, there are cases of fraudulent charges (often later dropped) brought against activists who dare to clearly challenge the Zionist narrative.

The latest of these politically motivated charges happened a few days ago in Vancouver BC, where Charlotte Kates, the international coordinator of Samidoun was briefly detained and charged with alleged “hate speech” offenses.  She was released on the outrageous condition that she does not attend any “protests, rallies or assemblies” until the court date of October 8 (five months away). All this apparently for supporting the right of the Palestinian resistance to fight back against Zionist military oppression and saying “Long live October 7” during a rally speech on April 26.

The Zionist lobby has been on a witch-hunt against Kates, Samidoun and her husband, Khaled Barakat, for several years now. They have been pushing the federal government to include Samidoun on Canada’s “terrorist” list, and CIJA even included this demand as part of their last election platform. However, Kates questioning why Palestinian resistance groups are already on that same list is somehow unacceptable.

We are sick of the double standard at play here. Zionist groups are free to bring actual Israeli soldiers on campuses to offer their “insights from the ground”, their supporters are publicly declaring they are “arming themselves”, but someone daring to even show verbal support for the Palestinian right to resist foreign occupation and aggression is charged with “hate speech”!

Are our politicians not ashamed of the way they all line up to “pile on” and attack whoever the major pro-Israel groups decide is the current persona non grata? And that they do this within just a few hours of each other? From mayors to provincial premiers to federal politicians, time and again we have seen this pattern of rushing to condemn some specific protestor or group.  Our politicians, and many of the mainstream media, seem to have no shame when it comes to proving their loyalty to the Zionist project.

Let’s discuss this issue of censuring anyone talking about October 7 (unless it enhances the Zionist narrative of course). It has nothing to do with concern for alleged “racism” or “hate crimes”. Rather, it has more to do with Israel trying to protect its veneer of military invincibility and its much-vaunted cyber security and intelligence. That is the real crux of all the misinformation and blatant (often later debunked) propaganda around what happened on October 7. This brief but decisive dismantling of the Israeli military deterrence is what now drives the revenge campaign of genocide going on in Gaza.

We will support and defend all our community activists. This is not the first case of fraudulent charges being brought against pro-Palestinian advocates and it won’t be the last. Although many of these charges are later dropped, the Zionist lobby groups engaging in this “lawfare” type activity have another agenda…to waste time and resources, to confuse the solidarity movement, and to create a “chill” and an atmosphere of fear and self-censorship.

We will not stand by nor stand down. Palestine will be Free!

Canada Palestine Association, Vancouver

Endorsed by:
Al-Jamia Masjid Vancouver
BDS Vancouver/Coast Salish Territories
Canadian BDS Coalition
Canadian Foreign Policy Institute
Greater Toronto 4 BDS (GTA4BDS)
Just Peace Advocates/Mouvement Pour Une Paix Juste
Ontario Palestinian Rights Association (OPRA)
Palestinian and Jewish Unity Montreal
Niagara Movement for Justice in Palestine Israel
The Regina Peace Council
The International League of Peoples’ Struggle in Canada (ILPS)

_____________________________________

Background Information and Premier David Eby’s Slander

The Zionist ethnic cleansing and genocide started with the 1948 Nakba, where two thirds of the Palestinian population were kicked out of their homeland and over five hundred towns and villages were wiped off the map of the world. Like today, this was accompanied by tens of brutal massacres, and 80% of the Gazan population are refugees from the original 1948 Nakba still waiting to return to their homes and properties. In 1956, Israel occupied Gaza and committed many massacres against the civilian unarmed population, one of these massacres was documented by the UN in Khan Yunis. In 1967 Gaza again came under Israel occupation alongside the West Bank and other Arab lands; since then, Israel is in violation of two UN Security Resolutions (242 and 338) that called on Israel to withdraw from all those occupied territories and called “For achieving a just settlement of the refugee problem”.

In January 2006, Hamas was elected and won 74 of the 132 seats (while Fatah trailed with 45) in the Palestinian legislative election. For almost twenty years, Gaza has been under tight Israeli siege and the scene of many brutal and fascist Israeli aggressions.

October 7, 2023 was not the start of the conflict, it came as a result of a continued Israeli Apartheid, ethnic cleansing and genocide and Israeli and western denial of Palestinian human and national rights.

Oct. 7 was a legitimate military operation against one of the most brutal and longest occupations in modern history. In fact, UN resolution A/RES/43/106 of Dec. 8, 1988 “Reaffirms the legitimacy of the struggle of peoples for their independence, territorial integrity, national unity and liberation from colonial domination, apartheid and foreign occupation by all available means, including armed struggle;”

Israel, its lobby and apologists, in an attempt to cover up Israel’s military blunder, are trying to slander the Palestinian people and their resistance movement. They are also trying to criminalize those who recognize what the UN weapons inspector to Iraq, Scott Ritter, called “the most successful military raid of this century”. In a recent article he detailed Israel’s (and its apologists) lies, fabrications and propaganda; many other interviews/articles have also debunked this Israeli false narrative, especially reporters from The Grayzone and Electronic Intifada.
Nonetheless, Canadian corporate media and Canadian politicians on all levels of governments and political parties have rushed to parrot and amplify these manufactured claims. The level of complicity and lack of any critical judgement is shocking, and simply proves the unbreakable alliance between the Zionist state and the over-arching imperialist agenda to control the region and its resources.

The premier of British Colombia, David Eby, adopted the Zionist narrative from the beginning, with no regards for the Palestinian victims of this settler colonialist movement:
On Oct. 17, 2023 he was quoted as saying:
“There can be no justification for the brutality and terror Hamas visited on innocent victims. None…They are advocates for genocide,” Eby said. “Anyone who attempts to contradict this basic truth should rightfully be denounced … But let’s be clear about something else. Hamas does not represent the Palestinian people, not in Gaza, not in the West Bank. They don’t represent our Palestinian friends and neighbours living here in British Columbia.”

First, Mr. Eby, it is outrageous and unconscionable to accuse people who are supporting Palestinian liberation as “advocates for genocide”, your silence on Israeli genocide is complicity in it. The Palestinian people have been the victims of Israeli GENOCIDE for the past 76 years.
Second, Hamas and more accurately the Palestinian resistance movement did not engage in “brutality and terror”; it was a military operation to break the chains of their slavery and tormentation.
Third, yes Hamas does represent the Palestinian people, they were elected by the Palestinian people in 2006 by a larger majority than your NDP government. And NO, Palestinians living here in British Columbia don’t wish to be friends with such an anti-Palestinian racist and bigot.
Finally, your ignorance in conflating Israeli genocide and atrocities with the Jewish people actually promotes anti-Jewish racism.

More recently on April 30, Mr. Eby doubled down on his ignorance and was quoted as saying about the April 26 rally speech: “Celebrating the murder, the rape of innocent people attending a music festival, it’s awful,” … “It’s reprehensible, and it shouldn’t take place in British Columbia.” His slanderous accusation of rape is unsubstantiated, similar to the accusation of UNRWA workers participating in the Oct. 7 revolt. How long will we wait for Mr. Eby to publicly condemn and acknowledge the violence (including sexual violence) against Palestinian women and girls that Israeli soldiers continue to enact right now in Gaza?

If Mr. Eby thinks that his rampage against Palestinian liberation supporters will succeed and put a chill on the Palestinian support movement, he should think again. All he is doing is certifying himself as a committed Zionist and an anti-Palestinian RACIST.

Mr. Eby, we will remember your racism against the Palestinian people next provincial election and beyond.

Statement: Student organizations in the Gaza Strip in solidarity with the Student Intifada in the United States

In the name of God, the most gracious, the most merciful…

We, the students of Gaza, salute the students of Columbia University, Yale University, New York University, Rutgers University, the University of Michigan, and dozens of universities across the United States who are rising up in solidarity with Gaza and to put an end to the Zionist-U.S. genocide against our people in Gaza. As we remain under the bombs of occupation, resisting Nazi genocide, grieving for our martyred colleagues and faculty, and witnessing the destruction of our universities, we welcome the examples of solidarity offered by students facing arrest, police violence, suspension, eviction, and expulsion in order to demand that their universities end their complicity in the Zionist-U.S. genocide and renounce their support for the occupation and the war profiteers that arm it.

We have seen hundreds of students arrested across the United States as they work to transform their universities into “Popular Universities for Gaza.” Students, faculty, and staff are disrupting university operations and making clear that while universities in Gaza are being bombed, university business cannot continue as usual in the United States. These actions come as university administrations collaborate with members of Congress to discredit conscientious student activists and faculty, expel students, ban events, shut down student organizations such as Students for Justice in Palestine, and condemn activists working to end the Nazi genocide. At the same time, these same universities invest in the same companies that profit from the continued sale of weapons to the Zionist regime to continue its genocidal offensive.

Our students – and our educational system as a whole – in occupied Palestine are subjected to ongoing genocidal aggression: our universities destroyed and bombed, our student organizations banned, and our student leaders subjected to torture, assassination and mass imprisonment. However, in Palestine and around the world, the student movement has always been a driving force of our struggle for liberation. When we see videos and images from American universities today, we are reminded of our history of student struggle as well as the student uprisings of 1968, which challenged imperialism from Vietnam to Palestine and reshaped the face of Europe and the United States. Now, in 2024, the student movement is once again leading the way.

From here in Gaza, we see you and salute you. Your actions and activism matter, especially in the heart of the empire, in the United States. As members of Congress agree to provide $26 billion in additional weapons to bomb our people and continue the Zionist-U.S. genocide, you are taking meaningful action to shut down the war machine on your campuses. It is clear that a new generation is rising that will no longer accept Zionism, racism and genocide, and that stands with Palestine and our liberation from the river to the sea.

Your global student solidarity is breaking boundaries, and it is time to smash the US imperialist war machine. From Gaza to Columbia, to Ann Arbor and Berkeley, our hands are joined to end Nazi genocide and achieve our collective liberation.

Student Frameworks Secretariat

• ⁠Islamic Bloc – Islamic Resistance Movement
• Student Unity Bloc – Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine
• ⁠Union of Student Struggle Committees – Arab Liberation Front
• Union of Palestinian Student Struggle Committees – Palestinian Arab Front
• Islamic League – Islamic Jihad Movement in Palestine
• Fatah Youth – Fatah movement
• Al-Mubadara Student Gathering – the Palestinian National Initiative Movement
• Student Action Front – Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine
• Palestine Liberation Youth – Palestine Liberation Front
• Al-Istiqlal Student Bloc – Palestinian Democratic Union Fida
• Student Struggle Bloc – Palestinian Popular Struggle Front
• The Land and Man Bloc – Popular Front (General Command)
• Progressive Student Union Bloc – Palestinian People’s Party

Repression in Catalonia: Arrests of Palestine solidarity activists and criminalization of the resistance

On March 18, the Mossos d’Esquadra (Editor’s note: autonomous police of Catalonia) arrested 10 comrades in Barcelona, ​​including one of our comrades from Samidoun Catalonia, as part of a coordinated repression operation targeting activists and participants in the day of struggle for Palestine on 7 February in Catalonia. This day of action, convened under the slogan “Estimem la vida, defensem Palestina, aturem el món” (Cherish life, defend Palestine, support the world), was a call to raise the level of disruption and protest and to directly highlight and target the institutions and businesses involved in and complicit with Israeli colonization and genocide in Palestine. Thousands of people came from dozens of cities in Catalonia to participate in the actions, and the demonstration ended in the afternoon in Barcelona.

In a coordinated manner, on 18 and 19 March, the Mossos followed the comrades throughout their daily activities until surprising them in different places and arresting them. After two nights held in jail, the comrades were accused of disturbing public order, causing damage, illegal demonstration and “criminal grouping.” On Wednesday 20 March, they were released with precautionary measures. Although the sentence being sought by the prosecutors is not yet known, if they are convicted, they could face penalties ranging from large fines to years of imprisonment.

It is worth mentioning that last November, in Barcelona, ​​the Mossos arrested 9 people for a disruptive action in a hotel belonging to a Zionist linked to the military and oil industry of “Israel.”

The criminalization of solidarity with Palestine is not new in Spain, nor in Catalonia. However, since the Palestinian resistance in Gaza launched Operation Al Aqsa Flood on 7 October, the Spanish state has strengthened its repressive strategy, in particular against disruptive mobilizations in support of Palestine, aligning itself with anti-Palestinian European policies, showing support for the Zionist regime and safeguarding its imperialist interests in the region. Examples of this European policy include the banning of Samidoun in Germany or the banning of demonstrations, keffiyehs and Palestinian flags in areas in France and the United Kingdom.

These arrests in Catalonia constitute a repressive measure that seeks to prevent more combative and challenging forms of action that not only highlight or question the responsibility of Spanish and Catalan institutions and businesses in the genocide, but also seek to inflict financial losses and extract a cost to their economic interests.

Currently, the Spanish state has more than six active cases of repression of activists related to the mobilizations in support of Palestine that have taken place since October 2023. Indeed, the accusation of belonging to a “criminal group” reveals the attempt by the Spanish state to extend to pro-Palestinian organizations the international plan aimed at criminalizing Palestinian resistance in Gaza through the accusation of “terrorism.”

As Samidoun, we reject the logic that seeks to force the internationalist solidarity movement to silence its support for the right of the Palestinian people to resist occupation by all means at their disposal. This right is also internationally recognized by resolution 3070 of the United Nations General Assembly.

If showing our support for Palestinian resistance in the form of street protests, boycotts, demonstrations, temporary closures and other direct actions against businesses involved in genocide means that activists in solidarity with Palestine will now be accused of “criminal grouping,” then the way forward is to escalate our strongest solidarity and organization against repression in order to respond effectively to this incident and similar and forthcoming cases.

At the same time, it is not only legitimate to increase the disruptiveness of our political activity at a time when the Israeli, Spanish and European war machine threatens the existence of the Palestinian people and the peoples of the world. It is our responsibility to do so and to emphasize the legitimacy of the right of the Palestinian people to armed resistance, using the means of protest at our disposal.

The Spanish government, with Pedro Sánchez at its head, with the liar and warlord José Manuel Albares in foreign affairs and with its government partner Sumar, are not only complicit in the Israeli genocide in Palestine, they are direct collaborators. They drop boxes of rice and sugar from helicopters that crush Palestinians in the Gaza concentration camp, while selling bombs, grenades, torpedoes, mines and missiles to the Israeli settler army so that it can carry out the massacre. It is clear to us that the Spanish government is an essential element of the NATO terrorist gang, which is the crutch of imperialism, and that it is teaming up with those who invaded Iraq, Afghanistan or Libya.

We are a part of the global resistance for Palestine, and the international anti-imperialist struggle in our country. We will therefore continue to work until the Spanish State cuts off all relations with the genocidal Israeli regime, in particular political, diplomatic and economic relations, represented by trade agreements and arms contracts. We will continue until we achieve the full repeal of the “gag law,” which today serves to suppress anti-genocide protests and many others. We will also continue to make visible and normalize in our territory the legitimate right of the Palestinian people to resist by all possible means.

Thus, from Samidoun in the Spanish State and our international network, we express our solidarity and unconditional support to the comrades arrested in Catalonia. We demand that all charges against them are dropped and we reiterate their right to demonstrate and mobilize strong and disruptive actions that are more necessary than ever to put an end to the complicity of the Spanish State in the Palestinian genocide, to end Zionist colonialism and to liberate all of Palestine, from the river to the sea!

Freedom to Palestine, freedom to the prisoners, long live the resistance!

Statement: Hands off Mohammed Khatib! Stand with Palestine!

Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network stands together with our Europe Coordinator, Mohammed Khatib, and urges the broadest expressions of solidarity and support against the targeting and repression he is facing. We note that this is not only an attempt to target Mohammed as an individual and Samidoun as an organization. It is primarily an attempt to silence the growing, massive voice of the people standing together with Palestine against genocide. It aims specifically to silence the movement to liberate Palestinian prisoners and to uphold the legitimacy and justice of the Palestinian resistance, especially the armed resistance, as part of the international, Arab and Palestinian global intifada. 

On 15 April 2024, Nicole De Moor, Belgium’s Secretary for Asylum and Migration, announced in a public statement that she was calling on the Belgian immigration agencies to withdraw the refugee status of Mohammed Khatib. Mohammed, born in Ain el-Helweh refugee camp in Lebanon, has been a refugee his entire life, denied his right to return to his home and homeland in Palestine, from which his family was forcibly displaced in the Zionist conquest of the Nakba in 1947-1948. De Moor’s statement is, in essence, an attempt to once again displace a Palestinian refugee who has already been displaced multiple times due to colonialism, imperialism, war and exploitation.

The Growing Movement for Palestinian Liberation

De Moor labeled Mohammed a “hate preacher,” in the latest example of the utter inversion of reality practiced by European, US and Canadian officials. There is currently a genocide being carried out by the Israeli occupation forces against the Palestinian people in Gaza, a genocide that is sparking intense global outrage against the Zionist regime, leading to protests that have taken the streets in Belgium for over six months involving tens and hundreds of thousands of people; direct actions targeting banks and arms manufacturers; a burgeoning student movement for Palestine paralleling that seen on US campuses like Columbia, Rutgers, Yale, the University of Michigan,and elsewhere; and wide-scale mobilization among the Palestinian population in Belgium. 

As the global movement in support of Palestine, the Palestinian people, and their Resistance has grown across borders and continents, bringing millions to mobilize in the heart of the imperial core, it has been faced with severe repression from the same states that are arming and funding the Zionist genocide in Gaza. This is not the only attack in Belgium; demonstrations organized by Samidoun in Brussels have been canceled and banned by the police. ZINTV, an independent collective, hosted an event organized by Samidoun on repression in Europe targeting Palestine in October 2023; since that time, they have been threatened by the local government and then, months later, in March 2024, subject to a sudden police raid and investigation into “terrorism financing” as retaliation for hosting this public political event. 

Repression Targeting Palestinian Organizing in Europe 

In Germany, perhaps the most extreme example, Palestinian organizations, including Samidoun, have been banned. Activists like Zaid Abdulnasser and Musaab Abu Atta have been subjected to political bans – followed shortly thereafter by prominent international figures, including Salman Abu Sitta, Dr. Ghassan Abu Sittah, and Yanis Varoufakis. Demonstrations and conferences have been forcibly shut down and dispersed by German police, who have beaten demonstrators on the streets of cities throughout the country. Hundreds of people have been arrested. Police raids have swept into the homes of Palestinian and Palestine solidarity activists amid government-backed media smear campaigns. Dozens of Palestinians are facing procedures to withdraw their residency, block their citizenship applications and deport them from the country. Organizations, including Jewish organizations, that stand against the genocide, have had their bank accounts shut down. The extreme level of repression in Germany comes at the same time that the German government has upped its arms exports to the Israeli regime 10x since 7 October 2023. 

While Germany is likely the most extreme example of repression in Europe, it is not alone. In France, which has already sought to dissolve or ban Palestine solidarity organizations like the Collectif Palestine Vaincra and the Comité Action Palestine, over 628 cases have been opened by prosecutors seeking to investigate or prosecute people for making statements in support of the Palestinian resistance, while officials and extreme right wing politicians and media threaten to dissolve Samidoun Paris Banlieue, CAPJPO EuroPalestine, Urgence Palestine and other mass movements. Demonstrations are now taking place across France, but this was only possible after mass participation pushed back the attempt to ban demonstrations for Palestine across the country in October and November 2023. In Spain, the Netherlands, and other European countries, related attacks on organizers for Palestine are continuing. Of course, some of the most extreme examples are the political prisoners for Palestine in European jails, including Georges Abdallah, jailed for nearly 40 years in France; Amin Abu Rashed, jailed for over 300 days in the Netherlands; and emerging cases in Italy, the Netherlands, Germany and other states.

In the Netherlands and Switzerland, particularly, multiple attempts have been made by the Israeli embassy and Zionist organizations to shut down events where Mohammed is speaking. These attempts have failed – largely because Mohammed is already a Belgian resident. The Israeli ambassador to Belgium has repeatedly issued demands to ban Samidoun and silence our events. It is difficult to see these latest attacks as anything other than an attempt to placate the same Zionist regime currently killing over 40,000 Palestinians in Gaza and bombing hospitals, schools, mosques, churches, residential buildings and refugee camps.

The Attack on Mohammed Khatib is an Attack on All of Us

The attack on Mohammed Khatib and the threat against his refugee status are part and parcel of this repression. It is meant as a threat to every other Palestinian and every other recognized refugee in Belgium that if they speak out – especially if they speak out loudly and clearly on Palestinian liberation and resistance – they will be targeted with the loss of their residency and their livelihood. The minister does not even attempt to allege that Mohammed and Samidoun have done anything other than organize demonstrations, protests, mass mobilizations and political education events for Palestine in Belgium – thus, the “threat level 3 out of 4” identified by unspecified “security agencies” is related to the “threat” posed of the growing movement for Palestinian liberation in Belgium. All of this is made even more outrageous by the note by Belgian public broadcaster VRT in an interview with Mohammed Khatib that “the security services mainly estimate that the organization [Samidoun] can damage Belgian international relations with Israel.”

Repression Targeting the Prisoners and the Resistance

The attack on Mohammed and on Samidoun is specifically intended to silence support for Palestinian prisoners. There are currently over 9,500 Palestinian prisoners inside the Israeli occupation jails. Thousands of additional Palestinians from Gaza have been kidnapped by the Zionist regime, especially health care workers and civilians in areas targeted for invasions by the Israeli occupation army. These Palestinian prisoners are being subjected to severe torture, starvation and abuse by the Israeli prison system. At the same time, the Palestinian prisoners are leaders of the Palestinian cause, targeted for their role in resisting occupation, from organizing students and workers to leading the armed struggle. The liberation of the Palestinian prisoners is precious to the Palestinian people and a whole and to their resistance. The Israeli regime wants to isolate them from their people and from our international movement – and this is the key reason why they attack Samidoun and label us “terrorists.” We are committed to amplifying ever more loudly and broadly the demand to liberate all Palestinian prisoners. 

Further, it is also an attack on the Palestinian Resistance. Increasingly, people everywhere in the world have made it clear that they recognize the illegitimacy and racism of Zionism, the need for a free Palestine from the river to the sea, and the legitimacy of the Palestinian resistance, particularly the armed struggle. Despite all of the attempts to smear and criminalize Palestinian resistance organizations, including listing them as “terrorist organizations” in the United States, the European Union, Britain and Canada, the people of the world – and even the imperial core – recognize that it is the Palestinian resistance (and their allied resistance forces in Yemen, Lebanon and throughout the region) who are defending humanity from genocide. Not only is the Palestinian right to resist by all means enshrined in international law, it is a fundamental and natural right of any people subjected to occupation and colonization. These attacks are, once again, not only aimed at Mohammed and at Samidoun but are an attempt to criminalize and repress the burgeoning support for the resistance in all of its forms, especially the armed resistance, in Palestine.

Anti-Palestinian Racism, Imperialism and the Right to Remain and Return

We also must emphasize that this attack comes as part and parcel of the ongoing structural racism against migrants in Belgium, particularly against Black, African, Arab and other migrants of colour. Right-wing politicians like Theo Francken engage in electoral campaigns that primarily traffic in Islamophobia and anti-Arab racism, while he holds up photos of Mohammed in the Belgian parliament and declares that the streets of Brussels demonstrating for Palestine “resemble Beirut or Gaza,” in what he considers a sign of “danger” and an insult to its residents. Palestinian children have been stripped of their Belgian nationality, while policing energies and violence are repeatedly targeted at communities of colour.

Of course, migration to Belgium is itself driven by colonialism and imperialism making life difficult to impossible around the world and imposing a form of forced migration upon the people of the global south while pursuing ever more wars, regime change, intervention and economic exploitation of the peoples of the south, their wealth and their resources. For Palestinians denied their right to return home for the past 76 years, they have lived through forced migration through forced migration, while being confronted with regimes of ongoing persecution, marginalization and exclusion, fighting simultaneously for the right to remain and the right to return to their homes and lands in Palestine. The struggle to defend Mohammed is a struggle against racism and repression in all of their forms. 

Stand with Mohammed. Stand with Samidoun. Stand with Palestinian prisoners, the Palestinian resistance, and the liberation of Palestine from the river to the sea. 

TAKE ACTION:

  1. The most important thing to do is to continue and escalate mobilizations, direct actions, encampments and all forms of organizing to bring an end to the genocide in Gaza and liberation for Palestine. Within that context, take a stand against repression and speak about this and other cases in your area. 
  2. Sign on to the campaign in support of Mohammed. Click here or use the form below to add your support!
  3. Issue a statement of solidarity. Organizations like Charleroi Pour La Palestine, LABO, UPJB, Bruxelles Pantheres, ABP,  have done so already. Issue your own statement and make it clear that Nicole de Moor does not speak for the people. 
  4. Invite Mohammed to speak. Whether this is a local event in Belgium or elsewhere in  Europe or a virtual event, Mohammed can speak about his case and the broader struggle for liberation. Email us at [email protected] to plan an event.
  5. Speak about the Palestinian prisoners and about the Resistance. Highlight the cases of Palestinian prisoners and their ongoing struggle for freedom and liberation. Emphasize the demands of the Palestinian people and their resistance for the liberation of Palestinian prisoners in a real prisoner exchange. Emphasize the legitimacy of the Palestinian resistance in your demonstrations and actions. 
  6. Demand to delist Palestinian, Lebanese resistance organizations from “terrorist lists” in the United States, European Union, Canada, Britain and other countries. These organizations represent the will and commitment of the Palestinian people to liberate their land from an illegitimate Zionist occupation. These listings are used not only to justify the ongoing Zionist genocide and imperialist funding and support but also to target Palestinian and solidarity activists and organizations.

SIGN ON:

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Joint statement: No war on Iran – Solidarity with the Resistance

Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network is a signatory of the following statement, issued by the Committee of Anti-Imperialists in Solidarity with Iran (CASI):

TO ENDORSE THIS STATEMENT, PLEASE EMAIL [email protected]

 

The Committee of Anti-Imperialists in Solidarity with Iran (CASI) and the endorsing organizations listed below firmly support Iran’s right to defend itself against Zionist aggression through the illegal attack on its embassy in Damascus, murdering high-value personnel who supported the Axis of Resistance in both Lebanon and Syria, and murdering civilians in the neighborhood.

CASI also stands against war and sanctions on Iran and calls on the US and its allies to end the genocide and blockade on Gaza immediately.  We not only support Iran’s right to defend its sovereignty in the face of imperialist aggression, we also view Iran’s actions as part of the long decolonizing tradition and expression of principled international solidarity among the peoples of the Global South.  This decolonizing tradition transcends political rhetoric and takes material action to advance the Palestinian struggle for freedom and national liberation.

The occupation state is a regional proxy of the United States and one of its most valuable client states, one which cannot function without US weaponry, capital, and strategic guidance.  It is the primary aggressor in West Asia, committing a genocide against the Indigenous Palestinian peoples and repeatedly violating the sovereignty of other nations in the region.  As such, it has no right to self-defense against a population under its subjugation or against nations that it repeatedly violates and attacks. The events of April 14 proved to the world that this entity cannot function without the continued support of US imperialism.  The US must immediately stop the Zionist bombing of Gaza, end the blockade to allow the delivery of aid, and cease all attacks on Iranian sovereignty and other sovereign states in the Axis of Resistance.

For decades, the United States has sought to destabilize Iran, a critical Asian power situated at the intersection of three major continents and multiple waterways.  The first CIA orchestrated coup toppled the democratically elected Prime Minister of Iran, Mohammad Mossadegh, in 1953.  Since then, Iran has weathered both the direct and indirect effects of U.S. imperialism, culminating in a brutal eight-year military aggression (1980-88) and a devastating sanctions regime that has denied Iranians’ access to basic medical supplies, infrastructure, food staples, and led to astronomical inflation.  Over the last few decades, Iran has suffered assassinations of its scientists and generals, bombings of critical infrastructure, and repeated violations of its sovereignty and attacks on its national development. The Israeli bombing of its embassy in Syria on April 1, in violation of the 1961 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic and Consular Relations is only the latest aggression against Iran.

Despite this long history of attacks, Iran has practiced great restraint in the face of Zionist aggression.  Current events are no different.  Following the April 1 embassy attack by the Zionists, Iran indicated that it would refrain from responding if the Security Council condemned the embassy attack.  The Security Council once again proved to be an instrument of U.S. imperialism; opposing votes from the US, UK, and France blocked the Security Council from condemning or taking effective measures against the occupation state’s blatant violations of international law.  This further highlights the inadequacy of existing international institutions to defend the sovereignty of the Global South. In the face of an international legal order created to uphold European and US power, force is a legitimate response to the genocidal occupation state’s aggressions.  In fact, force has become the only response that deters the occupation state and mitigates the damage its violence continues to cause throughout West Asia.

After the failures of the Security Council, Iran notified the United States that it would refrain from acting in self-defense in response to the violation of its sovereignty should the occupation state withdraw from Gaza and agree to a definitive ceasefire.  Iran’s offer to deescalate came even despite the fact that Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations authorizes self-defense against foreign threats.*  Still, both the US and Israel refused to respond favorably and end the genocide against Palestinians in Gaza.  The US instead backed the Zionist regime, contradicting the media propaganda which claims that the Biden government seeks de-escalation.

The US no longer has control over West Asia.  Put simply, the days of the US subjugating the nations of the region are over. This is owed to the steadfastness of Palestinian resistance and the growing deterrence capabilities developed by the Axis of Resistance from Palestine to Iran, Lebanon, Iraq, Syria, and Yemen. At this critical juncture facing humanity, the U.S. has two options.  The first option is to deescalate—end the genocide of Gaza and the blockade, cease bombing Yemen, Lebanon, Iraq, and Syria, and ensure that the Zionist state refrain from any further attacks on Iranian sovereignty.  This option would prevent yet another war at the junction of Eurasia, which already suffers from the US and NATO proxy war in Ukraine.  The second option is for the US and the Zionist state to continue their genocide in Gaza and their attacks on Syrian, Yemeni, Lebanese, Iraqi, and Iranian sovereignty, an option that would likely shift the ongoing tit-for-tat engagements to a regional war.  The balance of powers in the world is changing to favor the Global South, the previous subjects of European pillaging and colonialism.  It is incumbent upon the US to read global events correctly.

WE STAND FOR LIBERATION, SOVEREIGN PEACE, AND JUSTICE, NOT WAR.

STOP THE GENOCIDE & BLOCKADE OF GAZA! FROM THE RIVER TO THE SEA, PALESTINE WILL BE FREE! NO WAR ON IRAN! STOP BOMBING LEBANON, YEMEN, IRAQ AND SYRIA!

*Nothing in the present Charter shall impair the inherent right of individual or collective self-defence if an armed attack occurs against a Member of the United Nations, until the Security Council has taken measures necessary to maintain international peace and security.

INITIAL ENDORSING ORGANIZATIONS

  • Al Awda, Palestine Right to Return Coalition (National, NY/NJ)
  • Anakbayan-Manhattan
  • ANSWER Coalition
  • Black Alliance for Peace (BAP)
  • Bronx Anti War Coalition
  • Friends of Swazi Freedom
  • International Action Center (IAC)
  • International Association of Democratic Lawyers (IADL)
  • Masar Badil: Palestinian Alternative Revolutionary Path Movement
  • National Lawyers Guild-International
  • National Students for Justice in Palestine
  • Nodutdol for Korean Community Development
  • Palestinian Youth Movement (PYM)
  • PAL National
  • Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network
  • Sanctions Kill
  • Teaching Palestine: Pedagogical Praxis and the Indivisibility of Justice
  • The People’s Forum (TPF)
  • United National Antiwar Coalition (UNAC)
  • Workers World Party

Protest against the visit of war criminal Isaac Herzog to Amsterdam!

Workers for Palestine and Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network call on all progressive organizations, social movements and supporters of Palestine to protest on Sunday, March 10, against the visit of the president of the Zionist settler-colonial apartheid state, the war criminal Isaac Herzog, to Amsterdam for the opening of the National Holocaust Museum together with Dutch King Willem-Alexander, Prime Minister Rutte, Austrian Federal President Van der Bellen and German Federal Council President Schwesig.

Workers for Palestine and Samidoun call on all friends of the Palestinian people to join organized demonstrations and to organize their own actions against this visit of a war criminal who has the blood of more than 30,000 Palestinians on his hands. Willem-Alexander, together with Rutte, van der Bellen and Schwesig, also have Palestinian blood on their hands and support the Israeli genocide with money, weapons and words.

The opening of the Holocaust Museum should be about the struggle against racism and fascism. That is the opposite of bringing modern genocide perpetrators together to wash their hands in innocence. The Zionist state abuses the holocaust to justify its own Nazi-style atrocities against the Palestinians. Let this opening be a moment of mass solidarity with the Palestinian people, who are not only victims of genocide, but who are also bravely fighting for justice, liberation and return.

Workers for Palestine and Samidoun call on all Palestinian, Arab, Islamic, Jewish and Christian organizations to actively participate in the demonstrations against Herzog’s arrival and to make their voices heard about the criminal genocide and occupation of Palestine. We call on all social and progressive forces, the alliance of friends of the Palestinian people, to escalate anti-fascist and anti-Zionist actions as part of the global Intifada, and to expel Isaac Herzog from the Netherlands. If there is a place in this country for war criminals, it is in the International Court of Justice in The Hague.

Let us join the Palestinian people and their resistance in the struggle for liberation from the river to the sea, and the establishment of a democratic Palestine free from colonialism and racism. From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free! Boycott Israel!

 

Public demonstration organized by Erav Rav starts at 11:00 AM on Sunday at Waterlooplein, Amsterdam. Follow their social media for more information.

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Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network
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