Tuesday, October 1, 2024
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Debunking Zionist Disinformation: Attacks on Samidoun and the Palestinian prisoners’ battle for freedom

Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network has recently been subjected to a series of attacks by Zionist and far-right publications, particularly in the United States. Part of these attacks has been an all-out assault on our fiscal sponsor, the Alliance for Global Justice, a grassroots, internationalist and progressive organization that provides fiscal sponsorship to over 140 progressive organizations working for migrant justice, Black liberation, anti-colonialism, anti-imperialism and prisoner solidarity. 

These attacks have led to the corporation that provided credit card merchant processing to the Alliance for Global Justice, Card Connect, cutting off AfGJ’s access based on right-wing smears and Zionist attacks. In many ways, this comes as no surprise — large corporations and the financial and tech industry have been mechanisms of repression used against left and anti-imperialist forces broadly and the Palestinian movement specifically over the years. For example, organization after organization have reported processors like PayPal cutting off access to Palestinian and Palestine solidarity organizations, at the same time that PayPal fails to even process payments for individual Palestinians while doing so for illegal Israeli settlers. 

The big tech companies like Meta, Google, and Twitter have repeatedly censored Palestinian media, cut off Palestinian accounts and routinely label images of Palestinians as “dangerous” or “violent,” while at the same time allowing the Israeli occupation army — not to mention the CIA, NATO and the U.S. military — to promote itself relentlessly using these services while marketing its war crimes and crimes against humanity. After all, these corporations are driven by a profit motive and are linked at the highest levels to the perpetuation of U.S. imperialism and its hegemonic control, and as has always been apparent, the Palestinian liberation struggle faces not only Zionism and Israel alone, but also, centrally, imperialism and the reactionary forces that collaborate with it. 

The attacks on Samidoun are not happening in a vacuum. Instead, just like the labeling of Samidoun as “terrorist” by the Israeli occupation two years ago, this is meant as an attack on the practice and advocacy of solidarity with the Palestinian prisoners, the Palestinian people and their resistance, and on organizing by the Palestinian people in exile and diaspora to play their role in the liberation struggle. In fact, this most recent attack on Samidoun began during the very successful international week of action to free Ahmad Sa’adat and all Palestinian prisoners, and accompanied the infamous assault by the fascist Itamar Ben-Gvir and the Zionist regime on the Palestinian prisoners’ movement. 

Right now, the Palestinian prisoners’ movement is gearing up for the Battle of “Freedom or Martyrdom,” with a collective hunger strike announced to begin on 22 March with the beginning of Ramadan, a strike with “one sole demand — liberation.” This is coming as the Zionist regime levies provocation after provocation against the prisoners, from cutting off access to bread to locking down the showers to threatening to post an Israeli flag in every prisoner’s room, and as it adopts laws to strip citizenship and make stateless the Palestinian prisoners from occupied Palestine ’48, criminalize the raising of the Palestinian flag — especially after it was raised to celebrate the release of the longest-held Palestinian prisoner, Karim Younes — and now to officially legislate the ongoing practice of medical neglect that threatens Palestinian lives on a daily basis. 

This is the context in which the colonial project wants to shut down, silence, divert, distract and sabotage the popular organizing to stand with the Palestinian prisoners’ movement and uphold their demands. This is not just meant as an attack on Samidoun but as an attack on the prisoners and all organizations and activists who stand with them, everywhere in Palestine and around the world. 

In particular, these attacks rely on well-worn smears and disinformation campaigns propagated by outlets like “NGO Monitor,” which exist only to repeatedly demand the criminalization and targeting of any organization that even advocates for Palestinian human rights at the most basic level, let alone upholding the central role of the Palestinian prisoners and the resistance in struggling for the liberation of Palestine from the river to the sea. 

Let us be clear: 

  • Samidoun is a legal, public organization that does its work in the public eye. Our politics and our commitment to the Palestinian people is fully addressed in all of our public statements and advocacy.
  • It is only the Israeli regime that labels Samidoun as “terrorist” — a regime that follows a policy and practice of designating advocacy, human rights and community-based organizations as “terrorist” in an attempt to deprive them of funding, support and access to media. These attempts have failed and continue to fail, and using the “terror” label is a well-worn, empty designation that merely indicates that we do stand with the Palestinian people until victory, liberation and return.
  • Donations to Samidoun are completely legal and legitimate and go to support our public advocacy and efforts to support the Palestinian prisoners and the Palestinian people. While credit card payments are not currently working, you can still make a donation to support our work with a check (Mail them to AFGJ, 225 E. 26th St., Suite 1, Tucson, AZ 85713, and put “Samidoun” in the memo line).
  • The Collectif Palestine Vaincra is running a very strong campaign to stop the twinning of Toulouse with Tel Aviv and has already achieved an important first-stage victory at the Council of State in France against the attempt to criminalize the Collectif and other Palestine organizations in France. The Collectif does powerful, agitational and principled work for Palestine and has been placed in the crosshairs of targeting by Zionist organizations for this reason alone.
  • This is an action by a financial corporation responding to right-wing, Zionist propaganda. Private corporations, especially large tech and financial firms, have repeatedly shown themselves to stand on the side of imperialism. In many ways, we can only expect corporations of this type to continue to participate in such attack, as we are committed to anti-imperialist, revolutionary politics and organizing.

Israel has repeatedly made clear that it aims to silence organizing for Palestine by attempting to cut off the Palestinian people, Palestinian organizations, and Palestine solidarity activism from access to funds and support from concerned donors and those who want to take a stand for justice in Palestine. It has used a variety of tactics to that end. This comes hand in hand with the imperialist policy of sanctions and unilateral coercive measures directed against states that reject imperial domination, and the use of lists of “terrorist entities” or “designated terrorist organizations” to criminalize liberation movements and resistance organizations in Palestine and around the world. We stand against imperialist sanctions regimes and “terror lists” as joint weapons of assault against the liberation movements, development and self-organization of peoples rising up against imperialism, Zionism and reaction. 

In this case, it is clear once again that large for-profit corporations stand with imperialism and Zionism against not only Samidoun, but the Alliance for Global Justice and the 140 important organizations to which it provides fiscal sponsorship. As AfGJ notes, “When you make out a check to AfGJ, you are engaging in direct action, in frontline resistance to a concerted effort by the most extreme right-wing groups to stop justice in its tracks. You are sawing away at the chains that bind us. You are pushing back against  those who prefer a world of inequality, white supremacy, imperialism, repression, and war.”

It is clear that the far right, Zionism and imperialism stand on one side of this battle — and the peoples of the world resisting those very forces also stand together, have resisted and will resist all of these attempts to divide, split and smear the movement and its unity. Samidoun salutes AfGJ and all of these organizations subjected to this attack; this is a form of collective punishment directed at the movement as a whole, and one that we must meet with collective resistance and solidarity.

Every day, the Palestinian prisoners, the Palestinian resistance, and the Palestinian people as a whole – inside Palestine from the river to the sea and everywhere in exile and diaspora  – resist and fight back on the front lines of the global struggle against imperialism, despite the most horrific conditions of siege, torture, extrajudicial killing, massacres, forced exile and displacement, home demolitions, land confiscation, colonial settlement and mass imprisonment.

We have an obligation to do everything that we can to live up to their example, and that includes refusing to bow to threats or attacks from any source. We do not expect these attacks to end any time soon, so long as we continue to organize and work and as the prisoners continue to resist. Similar efforts target multiple organizations on an ongoing and daily basis in an attempt to exhaust or suppress our collective efforts, from websites set up to target students to attempts to censor writers to demands to fire workers and teachers to the promotion of the notorious “IHRA definition of anti-semitism” to the ongoing use of “terrorist” threats against effective work for Palestine.

We are committed not only to continuing but to expanding and building our efforts – and working together in a unified manner with all others –  to stand with the Palestinian prisoners’ movement to resist all attacks and march forward toward liberation – of the prisoners and of Palestine, from the river to the sea. 

If you would like to support Samidoun or cover these attacks in an article or news item, please do not hesitate to contact us at samidoun@samidoun.net

Please also read: 

 

Samidoun in Berlin: The battle of “Freedom or Martyrdom” will not remain within the prison walls

  • The battle of “volcano of freedom or martyrdom” will not remain within the prison walls
  • We heard the call of the prisoners movement, and we will follow the decisions taken by their leadership.
  • The Palestinian people in the diaspora stand with the prisoners movement and the valiant resistance and will not abandon their responsibilities.
  • The shop owners in Berlin who joined the commercial strike and closed their shops on Friday are a national model that embodies the will of a unified people.

Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network organized a demonstration in Berlin, Germany on Friday, 24 February 2023, in response to the call of the Palestinian prisoners’ movement for a day of anger as it escalates the “Battle of Freedom or Martyrdom” in advance of a mass hunger strike called for 22 March 2023. This battle was launched by a series of attacks by infamous far-right Zionist Minister of National Security Itamar Ben Gvir on the prisoners’ movement; yet, the prisoners have emphasized that this is not merely a struggle for improved conditions but a battle for freedom. In addition to the street demonstration, multiple Palestinian and Arab businesses participated in the day of strike called for by the prisoners’ movement, closing their stores in support of the prisoners’ struggle.

In its speech at the demonstration, Samidoun expressed its determination to continue working, struggling and organizing events in support of the Palestinian prisoners’ movement, emphasizing that “the demonstration that took place in Berlin was a cry for freedom, return and victory, and expressed the voice, will and conscience of our people in Palestine and in the diaspora. It comes in response to the decision of the Palestinian prisoners’ movement to declare Friday a day of anger and call for a strike in support of the prisoners and Jerusalem,” after the escalations made by the Zionist prison administration against the Palestinian prisoners.

Samidoun condemned the massacre committed by the Zionist soldiers in Nablus. “This heinous massacre committed by the occupation army in order to externalize the internal crisis of the Zionist project also reflects its failure to stop the armed struggle in the heart of Jerusalem and throughout occupied Palestine. It is also a desperate effort to divert attention from the heroic battle that the Palestinian prisoners are waging around the clock inside the prisons.”

In the speech in Berlin, Samidoun saluted the Palestinian revolution and the struggle of the Palestinian masses everywhere: “Today, we renew the pledge and commitment to our Palestinian people and the families of the martyrs, to continue our march of struggle until return and liberation. The blood of our people that is spilled every day is not cheap, and the enemy’s crimes will not be permitted to pass with impunity.”

The speaker emphasized that the Palestinian people continue to resist and to struggle for liberation, saluting “the strength and clarity of the strugglers in Jenin, Nablus, Tulkarem, Jerusalem, Hebron, Bethlehem and Ramallah, and in the valiant resistance in Gaza and throughout occupied Palestine.”

In response to the call of the prisoners’ movement for mobilization and action, Samidoun sent a message to the prisoners’ movement: “Our brave prisoners… You remain steadfast in the dungeons of the Zionists. We have heard the revolutionary call issued by you, and we have heard the call of the leadership of the prisoners’ movement. And we have come to implement your call, echoing from Gilboa prison, Ashkelon prison, the Negev, Nafha, Damon, Ofer, Ramon, Ramleh, Shatta and all the other prisons in Palestine. From the sites of struggle and confrontation, from the den of our lions and from the castles of the revolution… We are with you until victory. And with you until freedom, until return and the liberation of our land”.

“This confrontation will not remain inside prisons. We will work with our people in our homeland, Palestine, and everywhere in exile and diaspora, so that it is a struggle in every village, neighborhood, region, city and capital. Our people and our prisoners will be victorious over the criminal Ben Gvir and his fascist, racist government.”

Samidoun considered the brutal criminal escalation against our prisoners “an expression of the failure of the Zionist entity to stop the valiant resistance that is escalating in Jerusalem, the West Bank, Gaza and all of occupied Palestine. Therefore, the enemy wages a daily battle of revenge through which it tries to confiscate the achievements and rights of the prisoners’ movement, rights that were obtained at a high cost of blood, hunger, torment and continuous struggle over the past decades.”

The Samidoun speech concluded by saluting “our people in Berlin who stand with us today and to the honorable shop owners who closed their shops in implementation of the decision of the Higher Emergency Committee of the Palestinian Prisoners’ Movement that declared Friday a day of rage and strike. We salute this popular will in Berlin that presents a living example and confirms that in we are able to actively participate in the battle for freedom. A thousand greetings to you, and a thousand greetings to the shop owners who chose to participate with their people and chose to take a stand for the Palestinian position. We call for transforming this struggle into a popular expression, so that this example is the rule rather than the exception.. This is our people when they decide to unite as one body in the battle of common destiny, this is our people when they reject attempts to isolate them from their people in Palestine and choose to be one people, one body and one spirit that fights and wins.”

Massacre in Nablus: The Palestinian People’s Resistance Lives On!

On Wednesday, 22 February, Zionist forces invaded occupied Nablus and killed 10 Palestinians, including resistance fighters, elderly men, passers-by and a teen boy; they injured 97 more with their assault on the Palestinian people. As thousands of people have taken to the streets of Nablus in mourning for the martyrs, the Palestinian people and their resistance have affirmed that these ongoing crimes will not suppress or kill the Palestinian people and their resistance.

We salute and mourn the martyrs:
1. The elderly martyr Adnan Sabaa Baara (72 years old)
2. The martyr Mohammed Khaled Anbousi (25 years old)
3. The martyr Tamer Nimer Ahmed Minawi (33 years old)
4. The martyr Musab Munir Mohammed Awais (26 years old)
5. The martyr Hussam Bassam Aslim (24 years old)
6. The martyr Mohammed Omar Abu Bakr “Junaidi” (23 years old).
7. The martyr Walid Riyad Hussein Dakhil (23 years old)
8. The elderly martyr Abdelhadi Abdelaziz Ashqar (61 years old)
9. The child martyr Mohammed Farid Shaaban (16 years old)
10. The martyr Jasser Jamil Abdelwahhab Qaneer (23 years old)

The Palestinian Ministry of Health noted that there are 26 people injured with live bullets at the Rafidiyeh Government Hospital, including four seriously injured; 20 injured at the Nablus Specialist Hospital, including one critically injured; 7 injured at An-Najah Hospital from live bullets, including one critically injured; 9 injured with bullet wounds at the Women’s Union Hospital; and 9 more injured with bullet wounds at the Arab Specialist Hospital. These injured Palestinians were only transferred to hospital after evading occupation forces that continue to prevent medical crews from carrying out their work.

In fact, two of the nurses and paramedics called to evacuate the martyrs and save the wounded were Elias al-Ashqar, the son of Abdelhadi Ashqar, and Mohammed Baraa, the son of Adnan Baraa.

The massacre came as one of the notorious assassination raids carried out by occupation forces, as they stormed an area in Nablus’ Old City disguised in a civilian truck, surrounded a home, and battled with resistance fighters for over three hours before the occupation forces targeted the home with an anti-tank missile, causing plumes of smoke to rise from the home of the fighters. This was the home of Mohammed Omar Abu Bakr Junaidi, 23, and Hussam Bassam Aslim, 24, both resistance fighters and leaders in the Lion’s Den resistance brigade of Nablus.

All schools in the West Bank, Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip have announced they will close tomorrow for a day of mourning, part of a comprehensive commercial and labour strike. People have taken to the streets throughout Gaza to express their outrage, and the resistance factions have vowed that this crime must not be allowed to pass unpunished.

Imperialist powers like the United States, Canada, Britain, and the European Union countries are directly implicated in this latest crime against the Palestinian people. These countries continue to provide aid and cover to the Israeli occupation, and the U.S. provides over $4 billion each year in military aid — buying the arms and weaponry that go directly to kill Palestinians. Britain was initially responsible for the colonization of Palestine, the support of the Zionist movement and the infamous “Balfour Declaration.” Throughout 100 years of colonialism and 75 years of ongoing Nakba, Zionism and imperialism have been partners in arms. The United States has most recently been working avidly to streamline Palestinian Authority “security cooperation” with the occupation by demanding to set up a special unit to target the resistance in Jenin and Nablus.

This also comes as the Zionist state is witnessing its own internal crisis and dispute over judicial decisions and political power, amid the rise of overt fascists like Itamar Ben Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich. In order to resolve this crisis and preserve “national unity” among colonialist forces, Zionist forces seek to externalize the crisis and unite by massacring Palestinians.

This attack is also partner to the assault on Palestinian prisoners in occupation jails, and these murderous raids are intended to have multiple outcomes: assassination and arrest, dual weapons of the colonizer to target the resistance. As the prisoners are rising up inside the prisons to demand their liberation, so too do the Palestinian people rise alongside them, confronting massacres, colonialism and ongoing Nakba.

Throughout massacres and mass imprisonment, under colonization, in exile and diaspora, the Palestinian people and their resistance have made clear that the struggle continues for the liberation of Palestine from the river to the sea, just as Nablus is once again affirming today as it mourns and honours its beloved martyrs. This crime must impel all of us to act, to organize, to engage in direct actions, to isolate the occupier, to build our collective resistance and to support the Palestinian people and their revolutionary movement on the front lines of struggle for justice and liberation.

 

 

Khader Adnan on hunger strike for freedom for 17th day

Leading Palestinian prisoner and multiple long-term hunger striker Khader Adnan is once again on hunger strike for the 17th day as he resists yet another arrest by Israeli occupation forces.

He launched his hunger strike immediately after his arrest on 5 February. He is being held in isolation in harsh, cold winter conditions without blankets to protect him from the weather in retaliation for his hunger strike.

Khader Adnan has been detained 12 times by occupation forces and spent 8 years in Israeli jails, mostly in administrative detention — imprisonment without charge or trial — or accused of membership in the Palestinian Islamic Jihad movement.

He has launched five hunger strikes, including four to reject administrative detention, and participated in collective hunger strikes. His first hunger strike was in 2004, when he went on strike for 25 days to protest his isolation. Eight years later, in 2012, his 66-day hunger strike captured the attention of people in Palestine and around the world, as he challenged his administrative detention with no charge or trial and won his freedom. Adnan’s hunger strike helped to kick off a wave of individual and collective hunger strikes, particularly those challenging administrative detention. There are currently approximately 900 Palestinians jailed in administrative detention out of 4,750 total Palestinian prisoners.

In 2015, he again went on strike against his detention for 56 days and again in 2018 for 58 days. In 2021, he was once again arrested and ordered to administrative detention, and he went on hunger strike for 25 days. In each of these occasions, he was able to obtain his freedom and confront the jailer, breaking the chains of arbitrary administrative detention.

Jamil Elayan of the Muhja al-Quds Foundation for Martyrs and Prisoners responded to statements by occupation officials that they plan to indict Adnan before the military courts, saying that this is an attempt to undermine his hunger strike. Instead, Elayan emphasized that the prisoners’ movement is moving toward further confrontation: “We expect that the Palestinian prisoners’ strike in the coming month of Ramadan, in addition to Sheikh Khader Adnan continuing his strike, will burst in the Palestinian arena and lead to greater unity and strength for the Palestinian cause.” He urged that all tools and mechanisms that the Palestinian people have must be put in the service of the prisoners and their struggle.

Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network expresses our strongest solidarity with Khader Adnan and all Palestinian prisoners struggling for freedom. We call for his immediate release and the release of all imprisoned Palestinians in Zionist, Palestinian Authority and imperialist jails. Khader Adnan is a symbol of Palestinian courage, steadfastness and commitment to the struggle for freedom; he has become an international symbol of prisoners’ resistance. We will organize until the prisoners are free — and until Palestine is free, from the river to the sea! 

Palestinian prisoners confront repression with resistance: Rise up with the prisoners of Palestine!

Palestinian prisoners in Israeli occupation jails are in their eighth day of rising up in a collective call to action, demanding justice and liberation. They have announced an escalating program of struggle leading up to 22 March, the first day of Ramadan, when prisoners have declared they will launch a collective hunger strike.

The prisoners’ movement has risen up in response to repeated attacks by the occupation regime aimed at rolling back everything that has been won by the prisoners through decades of struggle, from preparing their own food in bakeries to having more than four minutes to shower. Further, these daily attacks inside the prison are combined with escalating political assaults, including the passage by the Zionist Knesset of a law designed to strip citizenship from Palestinians from occupied Palestine ’48 and force them into statelessness if they receive financial support from Palestinian entities. Even this new legislation pushed by Zionist far-right forces was an act of revenge after the Palestinian people and the world witnessed the joyous homecoming of Karim and Maher Younes after 40 years behind Zionist bars, as Karim raised the Palestinian flag high in Ara, occupied Palestine ’48.

The prisoners’ movement calls for action

In a statement, the Higher National Emergency Committee of the Palestinian Prisoners’ Movement declared: “In light of these challenges, we have decided to embark on a series of steps that begin with disobedience and end with an open hunger strike on the first day of Ramadan, bearing freedom as our sole demand. Everyone must carry this message of ours and our voice, as we can no longer tolerate the continued abuse against us day and night, the attack on our dignity and the dignity of our women prisoners…This strike is titled, ‘Freedom or Martyrdom,’ will be waged by every capable prisoner of all factions, and we will engage in this strike with unified demands and unified leadership — which we also want to see outside — and this unity is the main guarantor of the success of our struggle.”

Another statement followed on Saturday, 18 February by the prisoners serving life sentence: “As we go through this battle of dignity, we raise an open appeal to our people, all of our people, from the guns of the resistance and the revolution to the leadership ranks, to all of the factions, parties, forces and movements, to respond to our voice and break our chains by standing behind us and supporting us. While we are ready to take steps of struggle….the main solution to our issue is liberation by the same means by which the resistance and the revolution have liberated hundreds who preceded us in the path of pain we continue to walk, carrying the stake of our just cause with our chains for many years, which for most of us have reached two, three or even four decades. These have been a march in which we have increased our faith in the justice of the cause, and we hope we will soon reach the achievement of our freedom and emancipation at the hands of our people who we have never forsaken, a revolution that we have never abandoned and a resistance that lives within us.”

The Higher National Emergency Committee of the prisoners’ movement called for a day of anger this coming Friday, 24 February, in support of the prisoners and the struggle of Palestinians in Jerusalem fighting back against ongoing attacks, confiscation of their property and demolition of their homes. “Our battle has begun and will not stop except with our freedom…The jailer wanted to fight us for our most basic rights, and we will respond to him by demanding our complete freedom,” they said. Samidoun Deutschland has announced a protest in Berlin, Germany, at 6 pm on Friday, 24 February, gathering at Sonnenallee 36 to rally with the prisoners on this day of action.

Repression and resistance

Last Friday, 17 February, the prisoners engaged in a sit-in following Friday prayers in all the prison yards, announcing that the state of alert and mobilization was intensifying. The prisoners have begun wearing their brown prison uniforms, refusing to exit their rooms for counts and security checks, banging on the windows and bars of the rooms and refusing to go out to the exercise yards. Sick prisoners have begun boycotting the prison clinics, themselves notorious for medical neglect and inappropriate treatment.

Palestinian women prisoners in Damon prison have also taken protest steps, with six women prisoners wearing the brown prison uniforms, sat down in the prison yard and raised a handmade banner reading: “No bread or water, we want freedom.” The six Palestinian women and girls who were subjected to penalties by the occupation included Nafeth Hammad, Shatila Abu Ayada, Tahrir Abu Sariya, Falasteen Nijim, Azhar Assaf and Aseel al-Titi. Their fellow women prisoners pledged to continue to close the sections until all penalties imposed on the six are lifted, and emphasized that they are an integral part of the prisoners’ movement.

As the mobilization of the prisoners escalates, the Zionist prison administration is attempting to suppress their struggle by further intensifying the repression directed afainst the prisoners. On Monday, 20 February, a large force of repressive units invaded several sections in Gilboa Prison, confiscating electrical appliances from inside the prisoners’ room. These repressive units are notorious for provoking the prisoners, ranscking their belongings and turning the rooms upside down, often in the middle of the night, in a deliberate exercise of repression.

On Tuesday, 21 February, repressive units stormed section 3 in Ramon prison, firing stun grenades, tear gas and rubber-coated metal bullets at the prisoners before forcibly transferring 80 prisoners to other areas, including isolation cells, while others were transferred to section 10 in Nafha prison.

The Israeli occupation prison administration informed the prisoners that they would be subject to various collective punishments in response to their disobedience, including the closing of the canteen (prison store), cutting off hot water in the bathrooms, locking the showers, closing morning exercise yards and shacking prisoners leaving their sections for any reason, including those in need of medical care. In Megiddo, Ofer and other prisons, basic electrical tools and heating coils have been confiscated from the prisoners’ rooms and their exercise time has been cut. In Nafha prison, a large number of ill prisoners were denied their medications, including diabetics who need insulin.

Take action!

The prisoners’ own calls have made clear that they are calling on the Palestinian people and all friends and supporters of Palestine to take action to stand with them as they put their bodies and lives on the line to struggle for freedom. Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network urges all to join in taking action to stand up with the Palestinian prisoners as they rise up and resist for freedom. The prisoners are doing everything they can to confront the occupation attacks — now is the time to show that they are not isolated, and that we stand with these imprisoned strugglers and leaders as they resist a vicious onslaught of repression. 

1. Mobilize actions, demonstrations, direct actions and creative interventions – Take to the streets to defend the Palestinian people and their resistance. Join with Samidoun Deutschland’s action in Berlin this Friday — and keep organizing up to and beyond 22 March. There is a vast depth of support for the Palestinian people everywhere around the world, including inside the imperialist powers. It is our responsibility to act and make it impossible to continue their support for the crimes against the Palestinian people. Direct actions like those taken by Palestine Action have already shut down multiple weapons facilities in Britain owned by Israeli arms companies, and even more action can provide further direct support to the Palestinian people.

2. Take a stand against “twinning” with Israeli occupation cities – Recently, the city of Barcelona took a strong stand against the normalization of occupation after years of campaign work by thousands of residents of the city, as all collaboration with the Israeli occupation and the “sister city” relationship with Tel Aviv were suspended by the Mayor. This important victory comes as the Collectif Palestine Vaincra is leading a campaign in Toulouse, France, to bring an end to that city’s “sister city” relationship with the apartheid capital. If your city has a twinning relationship with the occupation, launch your own campaign to bring that arm of complicity to an end!

3. Build the boycott of Israel – This is a critical moment to escalate the campaign to isolate the Israeli regime at all levels, including through boycott campaigns that target the occupation’s economic exploitation of the Palestinian land, people and resources as well as those international corporations, like HP and G4S, that profit from the ongoing colonization of Palestine.

27 February, Vancouver: Art and Banner Making Party for Palestine

Monday, 27 February
6:00 pm
Grandview Church
1803 E 1st Ave
Vancouver

Join Samidoun Vancouver on Monday, 27 February for a banner and art-making party for Palestine! Our banner drops, mural events, demonstrations and actions all involve eye-catching images.

Join us to make banners to drop and leave, permanent banners for use in multiple events, signs to bring to the next Palestine demonstration and more! Express yourself and volunteer to help paint and design new banner and sign ideas.

Vancouver banner drops, public interventions highlight Palestinian struggle for liberation

Samidoun Vancouver joined in the Days of Rage and Resistance – organized by the Masar Badil, the Palestinian Alternative Revolutionary Path Movement — with a banner drop in a busy area of the city on Sunday, 12 February 2023. Participants carried and waved Palestinian flags and hung banners with slogans including “Free All Palestinian Prisoners,” “Free Palestine: Return, Resistance, Liberation” and “End Israeli Apartheid.”

Participants emphasized that they were continuing to ensure that Palestine is visible in public space in Vancouver, especially after the right-wing City Council adopted the infamous IHRA definition of anti-Semitism over the objection of the vast majority of speakers in November 2022. (The next month, the neighbouring city of Richmond took the IHRA definition off the agenda after pushback.)

Other activists in Vancouver also responded to the call for the Days of Rage and Resistance by dropping their own banner at the Burrard Street Bridge with an anti-colonial message from Vancouver to Palestine.

Several days later, Samidoun Vancouver members posted images of Palestinian prisoners serving lengthy sentences in Israeli occupation prisons in a busy area of the city, part of the Over 30 Years: Pre-Oslo Prisoners campaign. Posters of Walid Daqqa, Mohammed Abu Tus and Ibrahim Abu Mokh were posted along Commercial Drive as part of the campaign’s first week.

These interventions in public space followed several other actions, including the posting of a large mural of imprisoned Palestinian leftist leader Ahmad Sa’adat as part of the international Week of Action to Free Ahmad Sa’adat.

The mural posting was followed by another banner drop by Quebec Street highlighting Palestinian prisoners and solidarity with the Palestinian people and their resistance on 18 January.

The mural and banner drop came one day after an evening event on the case of Ahmad Sa’adat, where Samidoun member Nadia provided an overview of the Sa’adat’s case and the role of various forces, including the Israeli occupation, the Palestinian Authority and the United States, Britain and Canada (all of which sent international forces responsible for keeping Sa’adat and his comrades imprisoned and colluded with the Israeli occupation to allow for his kidnapping).

Palestinian writer and activist Khaled Barakat provided an analysis of the Palestinian situation today, including the struggle of Palestinian prisoners and the meaning of the far-right Zionist forces and escalating attacks targeting Palestinians.

Samidoun Vancouver is continuing its activities in solidarity with the Palestinian prisoners, the Palestinian people and their resistance. On Monday, 27 February, Samidoun Vancouver is organizing a banner and art-making party for Palestine at 6 pm at 1803 E 1st Ave in Vancouver and all are invited to attend.

Rotterdam marches for Palestine on the Days of Rage and Resistance

Samidoun Netherlands and the Masar Badil — the Palestinian Alternative Revolutionary Path — held a march and rally in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, on Friday, 11 February, as part of the Days of Rage and Resistance. Protesters rallied against the massacres in Palestine, including the recent massacre in Jenin, against the crimes of the occupation and in support of the Palestinian people and their heroic resistance.

The rally included the participation of Turkish, Kurdish and Filipino comrades as well as the Palestinian Community in the Netherlands, Revolutionaire Eenheid and Socialisten 010. It came alongside other events in Toulouse, Brussels, Madrid, Vancouver, Gothenburg, Berlin, Paris, Turcuman and other cities and communities around the world.

Participants marched through working-class neighbourhoods in Rotterdam, where passers-by raised their hands in support and honked their horns to show solidarity with Palestine.

The marchers chanted for the liberation of Palestine from the river to the sea, freedom for all Palestinian prisoners and the boycott of Israel.

They carried signs and posters for martyrs like Ibrahim al-Nabulsi and for Palestinian prisoners, especially the women prisoners who have come under attack by occupation forces in recent weeks, including Israa Jaabis and Amani al-Hashem.

Gothenburg stands in solidarity with Palestine

Samidoun Göteborg joined fellow Palestine organizations in Gothenburg, Sweden, on Friday, 10 February for a stand in solidarity with the Palestinian people.

The action came as part of the Days of Rage and Resistance organized by the Masar Badil, the Palestinian Alternative Revolutionary Path Movement. Participants also expressed their solidarity with the peoples living, struggling and resisting imperialism and Zionist colonialism in Syria, Turkey and Kurdistan, especially amid the dire humanitarian emergency caused by the earthquakes and exacerbated by sanctions and imperialist attacks.

Participants came out in cold and rainy weather to distribute information and show solidarity with Palestine, the Palestinian cause and the Palestinian resistance. They especially highlighted the recent massacre in Jenin and ongoing attacks on the Palestinian prisoners’ movement.

This mobilization was organized alongside actions in Rotterdam, Brussels, Vancouver, Madrid, Toulouse, Paris, Turcuman, Berlin and many other cities and communities around the world.

Samidoun Brussels event highlights Palestinian liberation from the river to the sea

Photos by Abdullah Awad

On Saturday, 11 February, Samidoun Brussels organized a symposium, “From the River to the Sea: Visions of Palestinian Liberation,” with a discussion about the future of the Palestinian liberation struggle starting from the point of the necessity of the total liberation of Palestine.

A full room greeted speakers at DK, where activists and organizers from a variety of organizations shared their perspectives on the Palestinian liberation struggle and the next steps forward. The event also served as the public launch event for the Brussels chapter of Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network.

Photos by Abdullah Awad

Speakers included Mohammed Khatib, coordinator of Samidoun in Europe and member of the executive committee of the Masar Badil (Palestinian Alternative Revolutionary Path Movement), Myriam De Ly of Plate-forme Charleroi-Palestine, Nermin Hwaihi of the Palestinian Refugees Movement for Rights and Justice, Eitan Bronstein of De-Colonizer and the Union of Progressive Jews in Belgium and representatives of two organizations, Classe Contre Classe and Bruxelles Pantheres.

During his presentation, Mohammed Khatib noted that the liberation of Palestine from the river to the sea has always been a central position of the Palestinian liberation movement and especially at the height of the Palestinian revolution. He emphasized that the need for an alternative now is against the path of liquidation of the Palestinian cause as represented by Oslo and the PA, and that this alternative is actually a return to the principles of the liberation movement.

Photos by Abdullah Awad

He also emphasized the importance of Palestinians in diaspora working together with the solidarity movement and all forces working for Palestine for the liberation of Palestine, rejecting the so-called “two-state solution.” The battleground of ideas in Europe, North America, Latin America, Africa and elsewhere is particularly important, and the Zionist forces also see these sites as central, particularly the imperial core in North America and Europe. In this context, he also noted the need to build ties between liberation struggles and peoples fighting against imperialism and oppression, with every victory for these movements also being a victory for Palestine.

Photos by Abdullah Awad

In her presentation, Myriam de Ly of Plate-forme Charleroi-Palestine (also an affiliate of the Samidoun Network), spoke about the history of the Palestinian revolution and how the armed struggle became a symbol of the dignity of the Palestinian people. She also discussed the history of the anti-imperialist workers’ struggle and of delegations to Lebanon and Palestine from social movements in Europe. Drawing from this history, she denounced the so-called “peace process” of Oslo and noted that the resistance continues, as reflected in the Great March of Return, the Unity Intifada/Battle of Seif al-Quds and the growth of armed resistance in the West Bank. She emphasized the need to take inspiration from the martyrs and the prisoners in building solidarity with Palestine.

Photos by Abdullah Awad

Classe Contre Classe spoke about the Palestinian revolution as a vanguard of the Arab nation and the world. They recalled the history of the Palestinian militant struggle outside Palestine, noting that the involvement of European strugglers in the Palestinian revolutionary movement amid the plane hijackings of the early 1970s reflected a two-way solidarity and a mutual struggle. They emphasized the need for a continuous anti-imperialist movement coming forward to the present day, resisting the EU as a machine for crushing peoples.

Photos by Abdullah Awad

The Bruxelles Panthères spoke about their solidarity with Samidoun and the Palestinian people, and their commitment to fighting imperialism and colonialism as central to anti-racist struggle. They emphasized that they supported the Algerian and Vietnamese resistance and now it is essential to support the Palestinian resistance by all means.

Photos by Abdullah Awad

Nermin Hwaihi emphasized the struggle of Palestinian refugees in Europe, noting the high level of scrutiny and surveillance that they face in order to remain at the same time that they are struggling to return to their homes and lands. She noted that the right to return is central to the struggle for Palestine and a commitment that continues from generation to generation for all Palestinians.

Eitan Bronstein spoke about the need to defeat Zionism and reject it entirely in order to imagine a different relationship in Palestine. He also noted that the current far-right government of the Israeli regime may in some ways portend the fall of Zionism, recalling earlier examples such as the French extreme violence that led to the victory of the Algerian anti-colonial liberation movement.

Days after this event, on 16 February, Samidoun Brussels joined Classe Contre Class and Bruxelles Panthères for an event organized by ZIN TV at Ciné Coop. The event focused on videos recorded that memorialize social struggles, including the ZIN TV report on the March for Return and Liberation in Brussels on 29 October.

Samidoun Brussels is organizing for the liberation of Palestine. To get involved with Samidoun Brussels, reach out on Instagram or email brussels@samidoun.net.

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Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network
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