The Holy Land Five are five Palestinian charity workers in the United States who were relentlessly harassed, targeted and pursued in a travesty of justice, until they were finally convicted for their work providing for people in Palestine living in poverty. Three of the Five remain imprisoned in the U.S. today: Ghassan Elashi and Shukri Abu Baker, both sentenced to 65 years, and Mufid Abdulqader, sentenced to 20 years.
Recently, Within Our Lifetime, together with organizations like the Coalition for Civil Freedoms and Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network, re-launched the campaign for their release. Join the Masar Badil for a discussion about the case, the campaign to free these Palestinian political prisoners in U.S. jails, and how you can get involved — in North America and around the world.
Hear from: Nerdeen Kiswani (Within Our Lifetime); Zaira Abu Baker (daughter of Shukri Abu Baker); Charlotte Kates (Samidoun)
Organized by the Masar Badil (Palestinian Alternative Revolutionary Path Movement), with Alkarama Palestinian Women’s Mobilization and Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network
Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network expresses its strongest solidarity with and joins in the demand for the immediate release of four Palestine Action activists in British prison for taking direct action to disrupt the flow of arms to the Israeli occupation. The four activists were arrested after shutting down the Teledyne Labtech facility — which manufactures missile seeker heads, electronic warfare systems, radar technologies used to enforce the Israeli siege of Gaza and drone guidance systems used to operate Israeli surveillance and assassination drones — where they covered the building in red paint, broke computers and smashed machinery.
Their action was even more urgent as the Israeli occupation has recently issued orders to use drones for yet more assassination attacks in the occupied West Bank of Palestine against the growing Palestinian resistance.
These four activists are political prisoners — remanded to prison in pretrial detention for taking meaningful action to shut down the flow of weaponry directly responsible for the surveillance and murder of thousands of Palestinians, not to mention the blockading of 2 million Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. This remand to prison also comes as Palestine Action has won victory after victory in the courts, as activists defeat attempts to criminalize their direct action resistance to the British-Israeli war industry.
It is no surprise that the British state is imprisoning strugglers for justice in Palestine; after all, it is Britain that continues to provide ongoing support on all levels to Zionist colonization after its responsibility for creating the Nakba, issuing the Balfour declaration and colonizing Palestine through its imperial Mandate. We urge all supporters of Palestine to support Palestine Action activists, protest at British embassies, and take action at Elbit, Teledyne and related facilities to demand freedom for the imprisoned four activists and to shut down the war machine targeting the Palestinian people!
Four Palestine Action activists have been remanded after taking direct action to shut down the Teledyne Labtech factory in Presteigne, Wales. According to the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), the group caused over £500K of damages to the factory. Their actions caused significant disruption to the flow of arms from Britain to Israel’s apartheid state. Demonstrators tore up offices, broke computers, smashed machinery and covered the building in red paint and began an occupation of the roof in an attempt to force the factory to suspend its operations.
The group has stated that “Britain is now a hostile environment for all companies involved in the brutalisation and murder of Palestinians. Elbit Systems is one such company, but Teledyne Technologies are another major player. They supply surveillance equipment for Israel’s apartheid wall, and targeting systems for their fleet of combat drones.”
The factory the group targeted, Teledyne Labtech, manufacture technologies “integrated into the world’s most sophisticated defence systems”, including in military radar systems, electronic warfare systems, missile seeker heads, military communications and other capacities. The American-owned firm hold weapons export licences for both Israel and India, where their surveillance and targeting systems are used in the repression and killing of indigenous Palestinians and Kashmiris. Teledyne also produces image sensors for military applications, as well as radar technologies around the borders of the occupied West Bank and Gaza.
Photo credit: Vladimir Morozov
Israel’s armed drone fleet, deployed in successive assaults on Gaza since the 51-day attack in 2014, are also outfitted with Teledyne targeting systems. These enable Israel to precision target children and schools, as they did in 2014, when 547 Palestinian children were killed during Operation Protective Edge. Teledyne Technologies’ products are therefore directly attributable to the surveillance and murder of thousands of Palestinians. The fact that IDF commanders have been told this year to use drones in targeted assassinations in the West Bank means that Teledyne will be responsible for many more deaths.
The pre-trial detention of activists comes after Palestine Action’s primary target, Elbit Systems, was forced out of a £280 million set of contracts with the Royal Navy. The British state is reacting to a series of victories for Palestine Action, including the closure of an Elbit arms factory in Oldham and of their London Headquarters. Palestine Action has been taken to the courts multiple times but the state has found it hard to secure convictions. Notably in Southwark Crown Court, activists from the group were unanimously acquitted by a jury. Elbit Systems faces a crisis of confidence from the British government and direct action from the British people. Activists have stated that it is only a matter of time before the company is forced out of Britain.
In response to the imprisonment of the activists, Palestine Action states:
“The imprisonment of the four activists is a desperate attempt by the state to deter disruption of Israel’s military supply chain, and facilitate the ongoing military repression of the Palestinian people. Their protection of apartheid and settler colonialism in Palestine demonstrates why our actions are necessary. We call for the immediate release of our political prisoners, and vow to continue to disrupt the war machine until Palestinians are also free”
Palestine Action have said that an immediate appeal will be put in to the Crown Court requesting the activists’ release and ask supporters to donate to their legal fund: Legal Defence Fund – Palestine Action
We are sharing this important call for papers on the colonial theft of Palestinian and Arab natural gas from the International Center for Palestine Studies. Please share this important call widely! To participate, send your abstract (150-250 words) and a short CV to info-icps@protonmail.com before 1 February 2023.
The International Center for Palestine Studies will conduct a comprehensive research into the colonial theft of Palestinian natural gas by the Zionist settler-colonial entity. This research aims at deepening and popularizing our collective understanding of the natural gas issue in Palestine and its political-economic implications. The research will be published in the fall of 2023.
Natural gas reserves were discovered off the coast of occupied Palestine at the end of the 20th century and form an important political-economic asset worth billions of dollars. The Zionist entity has been exploiting and exporting the Palestinian gas, using it to provide for its own energy supply and to gain revenue – thereby strengthening the occupation.
However, in the dialectical relationship between colonial resource extraction and the struggling people, the Zionist exploitation of Palestinian gas also opens new avenues of struggle. Palestine activists in Arab and European countries have been protesting against imports of stolen Palestinian gas. And different resistance organizations inside and outside Palestine have targeted the colonial gas infrastructure, causing millions of dollars’ worth of damages and losses.
This research will include multiple papers about various topics and aspects related to the gas, such as:
History: What is the history of gas exploration, development and exploration in Palestine? Which companies have been involved in this process?
Colonial theft: What is the history of colonial natural resource theft in Palestine?
The Zionist entity: What has the Zionist entity done with the gas and what are its future plans? What are the Zionist entity’s strategic energy interests?
Palestine: How does the Palestinian Authority relate to the natural gas? What is the history of the Gaza gas fields? What is the general energy situation for Palestinians in Palestine? What creative solutions have Palestinians developed amid energy scarcity?
Resistance: What Palestinian, Arab and international campaigns exist against the stealing of Palestinian gas? How do Palestinian, Arab and Islamic resistance forces relate to the gas?
Export: Which Arab states import stolen Palestinian gas and what effects does this have on normalization? What is the significance of exporting stolen Palestinian gas to the European Union?
Mapping the gas: What does the infrastructure of the colonial gas- and energy sector in Palestine look like? We specifically ask visual designers and map makers to create visuals that help our understanding of the gas- and energy infrastructure.
The ICPS calls upon all students, activists and writers to send proposals for papers consisting of an abstract of 150-250 words plus a short CV by 1 February 2023 to: info-icps@protonmail.com
Note: The ICPS is not a bourgeois academic institution. If you are interested but think you lack the necessary academic experience, please send us your idea. We are interested in your knowledge and creativity, not your diplomas.
دعوة لتقديم أوراق بحثية: الاستيلاء الاستعماري على الغاز الطبيعي الفلسطيني
سيجري المركز الدولي للدراسات الفلسطينية ICPS بحثًا شاملاً عن السرقة الاستعمارية للغاز الطبيعي الفلسطيني من قبل الكيان الاستعماري الاستيطاني الصهيوني. بهدف تعميق فهمنا الجماعي حول قضية الغاز الطبيعي في فلسطين وآثارها السياسية والاقتصادية وسيتم نشره من قبل مركز الدراسات في خريف عام 2023.
تم اكتشاف احتياطيات الغاز الطبيعي قبالة سواحل فلسطين المحتلة في نهاية القرن العشرين، وتُشكّل هذه الاحتياطات رصيداً سياسياً واقتصادياً مهماً قيمته مليارات الدّولارات. الكيان الصهيونيّ يستغلّ ويُصدّر الغاز الفلسطينيّ ويستخدمه لتوفير إمدادات الطّاقة الخاصّة به وكسب الأرباح عبر بيعه – أي أنه يستخدمه لتعزيز الاحتلال.
ومع ذلك، وفي العلاقة الجدلية بين استِخراج الموارِد واستعمارها والشّعب المناضل، يفتحُ الاستغلال الصهيونيّ للغاز الفلسطيني أيضًا طرقًا جديدةً للنّضال. احتجّ على سبيل المثال ناشطون فلسطينيّون في دولٍ عربيّة وأوروبيّة على استيراد الغاز الفلسطينيّ المسروق. واستهدفت قوى المقاومة المختلفة داخل فلسطين وخارجها البُنية التحتيّة للغاز الاستعماري، ممّا تسبّب بأضرارٍ وخسائرَ بملايين الدولارات.
سيتضمّن هذا المشروع عدّة عناوين وسيُخرج أوراقًا متعددة حول مواضيع وجوانب مختلفة تتعلق بالغاز الفلسطيني، ضمن المجالات الأتية:
• التاريخ: كيف تطور تاريخ التنقيب عن الغاز وتطويره واستكشافه في فلسطين؟ من هي الشّركات الّتي شاركت في هذه العمليّة؟
• السّرقة الاستعمارية: ما هو السياق التاريخي لسرقة الاستعمار للموارد الطبيعية في فلسطين؟
• الكيان الصهيوني: كيف تصرّف الكيان الصهيوني بالغاز، وما هي خُططه المستقبليّة؟ كيف يستغل الكيان الصهيوني مجال الطاقة لتحقيق مصالحه الاستراتيجية؟
• فلسطين: كيف تعاملت السلطة الفلسطينيّة مع قضية الغاز الطبيعي؟ ما هو تاريخ حُقول الغاز في غزّة؟ ما وضع الطّاقة بالنسبة للفلسطينيّين في فلسطين؟ ما هي الحلول الإبداعية التي طورها الفلسطينيّون وسط ندرة الطاقة؟
• المقاومة: ما هي الحَملات الفلسطينيّة والعربيّة والدوليّة ضدّ سرقة الغاز الفلسطيني؟ كيف تتعاطى المقاومة الفلسطينيّة والعربية والإسلامية مع قضيّة سرقة الغاز؟
• التّصدير: من هي الدّول العربيّة التي تستورد الغاز الفلسطينيّ المسروق، وفي أي سياق، وكيف يتم تسويق القرار في سياق حملة التّطبيع؟ وما الدور الاستراتيجي الذي يسعى له الاحتلال من خلال تصدير الغاز الفلسطيني المسروق إلى الاتحاد الأوروبي؟
• رسم خرائط الغاز: ما هو شكل البُنية التّحتية لقطاع الغاز والطّاقة الاستعماري في فلسطين؟ نود من المصمّمين وصانعي الخرائط على وجه التّحديد إنشاء صُور تُساعدنا على السعي لفهم البُنية التّحتية للغاز والطاقة.
يدعو المركز الدولي للدراسات الفلسطينية جميع الطلبة والنّشطاء والباحثين المهتمين إلى إرسال مقترحاتٍ للأوراق البحثية على شكل مُلخّصٍ من 150-250 كلمة بالإضافة إلى السّيرة الذّاتية بحلول 1 فبراير 2023 إلى:
ملاحظة: ICPS ليست مؤسّسة أكاديميّة رأسمالية. إذا كنت مهتمّاً ولكنّك تعتقد أنّك تفتقرُ إلى الخِبرة الأكاديميّة اللازمة، رجاءً أرسل فكرتَك إلينا. نحن مهتمّون بمعرِفتك وإبداعِك، وليس بشهاداتِك
On Friday, 9 December, the Collectif Palestine Vaincra — a member of the international Samidoun Network — organized a Palestine stand in Toulouse, France, near the exit to the Bagatelle metro station. With a large banner reading, “For Christmas, I’ll boycott Israel,” the stand focused on the need to celebrate the winter holidays and the end of the year ethically, with anti-colonialist principles. Several multinational companies heavily marketing their goods as gifts, such as HP and Puma, are directly implicated in the colonization of Palestine — and these brands, like all companies that support the economy of the Israeli occupation, must be boycotted to hold them accountable.
🇵🇸 Aujourd'hui dans le quartier de Bagatelle à Toulouse, nouveau stand de solidarité avec le peuple palestinien et pour le #BoycottIsrael !
Organizers also distributed hundreds of flyers inviting people to attend the upcoming Solidarity with Gaza evening on 15 December at the Bagatelle Neighbourhood Center. For more than 15 years, the over 2 million inhabitants of the Gaza Strip have been subjected to an Israeli-Egyptian blockade causing a dramatic humanitarian situation. However, Gaza is still alive and truly resilient, continuing to courageously confront colonial oppression.
During this evening, participants will have the opportunity to discuss with Nawras Shalhoub, Palestinian artist who was present in Gaza during the last major Israeli assault in August 2022. All profits from the evening will be donated to Al Awda Hospital in Gaza. If you would like to support but cannot attend, please make an online donation to support this campaign. The Collectif also extended thanks to many local businesses that posted invitations to the event in their windows.
🇵🇸 Dans les commerces des quartiers de Bellefontaine et de la Reynerie à Toulouse, affichage pour annoncer la soirée-débat "Solidarité avec Gaza" organisée jeudi 15 décembre dès 19H à la Maison de quartier de Bagatelle !
Despite the wintry cold weather, the stand was an excellent opportunity to meet, discuss and share solidarity with the Palestinian people and against the siege on Gaza.
The Collectif Palestine Vaincra regularly organizes information stands and various initiatives to support the Palestinian people in different neighborhoods of Toulouse. Do not hesitate to contact the Collectif if you wish to mobilize in Toulouse and to follow the Collectif on our various social networks (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, TikTok and Telegram).
Salah Hamouri, the French-Palestinian lawyer and human rights defender, remains under constant threat of forcible deportation from Jerusalem at any time. While a court hearing has been scheduled in his case on 1 January, the Israeli interior minister — the notoriously far-right Ayelet Shaked — announced on Friday, 9 December, that she rejected the arguments put forward by Salah’s lawyers at the 6 December court hearing and that she sees no reason to reconsider his deportation or detention, the Justice for Salah campaign reported.
The campaign noted that “The hearing that is scheduled for 1 Jan 2023, is no guarantee that Salah will not be deported before that date,” linking this process to the ongoing psychological torture and harassment directed against Hamouri and his family. Salah Hamouri is currently detained without charge or trial at Hadarim prison as a “high-security detainee.” Campaigners also warned about the upcoming December holidays, noting that Israeli officials may seek to take advantage of the distraction to force deportation on Salah, who was born and lives in his home city of Jerusalem, Palestine.
Member of European Parliament Manu Pineda, who chairs the commission on relations with Palestine, denounced the order to deport Salah Hamouri:
La decisión de la ocupación israelí de deportar al #HRD Salah Hammouri constituye una grave violación de los #DerechosHumanos. Como europarlamentarios pedimos a las autoridades responsables que tomen medidas inmediatas. #JusticeForSalahpic.twitter.com/qAVYk8ysB7
On 2 December 2022, United Nations experts, including the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian Territory occupied since 1967, and the UN Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights while countering terrorism, called for a full investigation and accountability for alleged Israeli war crimes committed in the occupied Palestinian territory, emphasizing that “ “forcibly deporting protected persons from the occupied territory and forcing their allegiance to the occupying power, constitute grave breaches of international humanitarian law.” Further, on 2 December 2022, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and many other national and international civil society organisations, urged French President Emmanuel Macron to act immediately against the forcible deportation of Salah Hammouri and stop the war crime against him and the precedent it sets. We note the French Government’s oppositionto Salah Hammouri’s forcible deportation and efforts to ensure he is allowed to live a normal life in his hometown Jerusalem. However, due to the gravity of the situation, we urge for more concrete measures to prevent Salah’s forcible deportation.
The International Association of Democratic Lawyers adopted a resolution on 4 December urging the immediate release of Salah Hamouri and the return of his Jerusalem residency, also calling on France to refuse to cooperate or accept a deportation of Salah to France, noting that:
Israeli authorities routinely use the forced revocation of the residency of Jerusalemite Palestinians as a means to displace indigenous Palestinians and create a “Jewish majority” in occupied Jerusalem, as well as to silence and suppress Palestinian human rights defenders, organizers and political representatives. Between 1967 and 2015 alone, at least 14,500 Palestinian Jerusalemites have been stripped of their Jerusalem identity and expelled from their home city, which constitutes a war crime and a crime against humanity under the Rome Statute..
This is only the latest incident in the ongoing persecution of Hamouri, a French-Palestinian lawyer who has been repeatedly targeted for administrative detention, imprisonment without charge or trial. He has been jailed arbitrarily since March 2022 and has been fighting the attempt to strip him of his residency rights and deport him from his native Jerusalem since 2021 on the basis of “breach of allegiance” to the colonial occupation, an act constituting a war crime. His wife and children are barred from entering Palestine, forcing him to live apart from his family. He was one of six Palestinian human rights defenders who were proven to be surveilled through the infamous “Pegasus” spyware sold by the NSO group. He was imprisoned for 7 years until his release in 2011, in a case that became well-known, especially in France, as an example of the illegitimacy and injustice of the Israeli system of incarceration.
As France attempts to criminalize the boycott of Israel and ban organizations working for justice in Palestine, such as the Collectif Palestine Vaincra (a member organization of the Samidoun Network), it once again shows its complicity with Israeli apartheid by its near total inaction to uphold the rights of Salah Hamouri despite the positive positions taken by the mobilization of hundreds of associations, parliamentarians and local elected officials. French officials have expressed that Salah should be able to live free with his family in Jerusalem, but France must impose real pressure to defend its citizen’s rights — including imposing sanctions on the Israeli regime, cutting off the arms trade and, practically and immediately, refusing to accept a deportation flight for Salah Hamouri.
Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network denounces the attempt to strip Salah Hamouri of his Jerusalemite identity and his Palestinian presence in the land of Palestine. We demand an end to the ongoing imprisonment of Salah Hamouri, the use of administrative detention to target Palestinian leaders and human rights defenders, and the ongoing Israeli ethnic cleansing project in Jerusalem targeting the Palestinian people and identity of the city, the capital of Palestine. We urge all supporters of Palestine to take action to demand the liberation of Salah Hamouri and every Palestinian prisoner jailed in the occupation prisons.
For several years, apologists and supporters of colonialism and Zionism in Palestine have promoted the adoption of the “International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of anti-Semitism.” The primary function of the IHRA definition serves to link anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism.
Rather than addressing the main sources of anti-Semitism today (primarily the Western far right), seven of the eleven examples associated with the definition mention Israel. Thus, it would be anti-Semitic to “deny the Jewish people their right to self-determination, e.g., by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor.”
In the same vein, Liliana Córdova Kaczerginski, Jewish anti-Zionist activist and founding member of the International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network, states that, in her view, “the question of criticizing Zionism is not a new thing, an original or exotic invention, but it was born together with the creation of the Zionist movement within the Jewish communities that did not want to be dragged into that nationalist project…In Germany or the United Kingdom, where the movement was especially strong, from 1880 to 1945, these people expressed themselves as German or British, but with a Jewish confession or identity as well. But not in a Jewish national project. The propaganda apparatus says this is total heresy, it makes us bad Jews, which is almost funny because, for example, there is a group of very, very religious Jews, the Neturei Karta, who are really very observant and are militant anti-Zionists and pro-Palestinians. Anti-Zionism can be of all kinds: liberal, religious, leftist, revolutionary… but it is a common criticism and it is not new.”
The aim of the project to push adoption of this definition is, first and foremost, to legitimize the Zionist project in Palestine and criminalize anti-Zionist voices, especially Palestinians themselves. Any real fight against anti-Semitism has nothing to do with these transparent political manoeuvres!
Despite significant mobilization in opposition , Vancouver City Council in Canada also adopted the IHRA definition on November 16 after rejecting it in 2019. On this occasion, the Canada Palestine Association recalled that “the primary purpose of the IHRA definition is to legitimize Israel and slander all those who expose its illegal and inhumane activities, curbing Palestinian solidarity work and covering up Israeli war crimes. The “three Ds” of Israeli Hasbara are at work: they distort the nature of the Palestinian struggle, they deflect attention from the colonialist nature of Zionism and defame as anti-Semitic all those who denounce and condemn Israeli atrocities. This has always been the modus operandi of the Israeli establishment; we must not forget the original motto of the Mossad ‘By deceit, you will make war’.”
Elsewhere in Canada, the Waterloo Regional District School Board is soon expected to pass a motion to adopt this definition. Faced with this deadline, several associations are calling for action, pointing out that “the IHRA definition is used by its supporters to silence Palestinians, censor the way Palestinians express their common history, restrict academic freedom and repress expressions of Palestinian solidarity. In short, the IHRA definition is being used to covertly embed systemic anti-Palestinian racism in our society.”
Similarly, a Spanish legislative proposal aims to exclude organizations deemed “anti-Semitic” from subsidies. On the initiative of the right-wing MP Isabel Diaz Ayuso, this project incorporates the IHRA definition and therefore directly threatens the solidarity movement with Palestine in the Spanish state. Living in Madrid, Liliana Córdova Kaczerginski is firmly opposed to this project and believes “that there is a coordinated attempt by the Israeli foreign ministry to confuse legitimate criticism and solidarity with the Palestinian people with anti-Semitism because Israel wants to have a free pass in its disrespect for international law”.
It is more urgent than ever to confront the ongoing efforts to implement the IHRA definition, which seeks, through the adoption of its definition of anti-Semitism, to normalize the policy of occupation in Palestine and to criminalize the Palestine solidarity movement and stigmatize Palestinian history, identity and liberation struggle. It is the responsibility of the entire anti-racist movement to take up this fight and to reaffirm its support for the Palestinian people and their resistance confronting occupation, apartheid, Zionism and colonialism.
Cover photo credit ( “Israel is a racist endeavour” ): Michael YC Tseng
Translated and adapted from original: Collectif Palestine Vaincra
Palestinian prisoner, writer and thinker Walid Daqqa is facing a serious deterioration in his health; on 7 December 2022, the Palestinian Prisoners’ Society announced that he was diagnosed with leukemia after medical examinations. The Palestinian prisoners’ movement declared that the delay in identifying his condition is due to Israeli occupation medical negligence and a policy of “slow killing” directed against the Palestinian prisoners as a whole — noting that the Israeli occupation and its prison administration is fully responsible for his life and health. On 15 December 2022, this condition was updated — in fact, he has myelofibrosis, a rare form of bone marrow cancer.
Walid Daqqa has suffered from health problems and concern about his blood for years; two years ago, he was told that he should receive regular blood tests two years ago. However, due to the constant delays in health care experienced by Palestinian prisoners as part of the occupation’s policy of medical negligence, he did not receive the ordered regular testing until now and his cancer remained undiagnosed.
Palestinian prisoners developing cancer, not being diagnosed in a timely manner, not receiving proper treatment and even being denied compassionate relief on their deathbeds — as in the case of Nasser Abu Hmaid, who has been near death in Ramla prison clinic and has been repeatedly denied release.
Daqqa is one of the most prominent and long-time Palestinian prisoners, known widely for his writing and cultural work from behind bars. Born in 1961 in Baqa’ al-Gharbiyya in occupied Palestine ’48, he has been imprisoned since 25 March 1986 along with Ibrahim Abu Mukh, Rushdi Abu Mukh and Ibrahim Bayadseh, for forming a military cell of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine that participated in a Palestinian resistance operation in 1985 in which an occupation soldier was captured and killed.
Once behind bars, he obtained a master’s degree in political science and wrote several books in the realm of political theory as well as fiction, including children’s fiction. On multiple occasions, he has faced harsh repression, including solitary confinement, especially targeted toward his expressive work. For example, Daqqa was thrown into solitary confinement when he published a new children’s book, “The Secret of Oil”; a launch event for the book in the town of Majd al-Kurum was shut down by far-right Israeli minister Aryeh Deri. In the preface to the book, Daqqa wrote, “I write until I am freed from prison, with the hope of freeing the prison from me.” This followed the defunding of a Haifa Palestinian theater that exhibited a play based on his work “Parallel Time.”
As Khaled Barakat wrote about Daqqa’s work, “This novel has been widely distributed among children and youth and is a living example of the need to move beyond the ‘symbolic relationship’ with iconic prisoners to a deeper, closer relationship between the reader and the writer. The prisoner in this case is a creative human first and also a writer and a struggler.”
In the book, Daqqa tells an imaginative story about a child born through smuggled sperm, where Palestinian prisoners smuggle sperm to their wives to allow them to have children from behind bars. In 1999, Daqqa married Sana’ Salameh, even as he was behind bars, and in 2020, Sana’ gave birth to their daughter, Milad, conceived from Daqqa’s smuggled sperm.
Sana’ Salameh and Milad Walid Daqqa waiting for a visit with their husband and father
Speaking about Milad’s birth, Sana’ Salameh said, “First, Milad was our dream and the idea of having a baby is possible for any couple who does not live in our circumstances. In other words, it is obvious for a married couple to have children after marriage. However, behind Israeli bars, it was kind of impossible to be a father or a mother. The dream of having Milad one day has been with us for 20 years. We even named her before her birth. In fact, the lack of possible liberation pushed us to the challenge and we succeeded in bringing a child that was one day a dream; 2020 was the birth of our beautiful daughter Milad. It was necessary to confront injustice and deprivation and not submit to despair. Milad’s birth was the candle that lit the world and the realization of the dream, so it became real.”
Daqqa is also one of the longest-held Palestinian prisoners and one of 26 who were held back from release through Israeli violations of the notorious Oslo accords; in the case of Daqqa and other long-term prisoners from Palestine ’48, the Israeli regime has refused to treat their release as a collective matter with other Palestinian prisoners because they are Israeli citizens. However, behind prison bars they are subjected to the same treatment as all other Palestinian prisoners, without the privileges granted to Jewish Israeli prisoners, such as weekend release and conjugal visits.
The Palestinian prisoners’ movement issued a statement upon Daqqa’s diagnosis: “We knew when we made our decision to resist this occupation what we could face, whether martyrdom or captivity, and all that entails. At the forefront of that are the diseases that ravage our bodies, but today we affirm that despite the pain that squeezes our hearts when we see disease ravage our brothers’ bodies, we are even more determined and committed to continue the struggle until liberation and self-determination.”
Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network joins with the Palestinian prisoners’ movement in highlighting the ongoing policy of medical neglect targeting the Palestinian prisoners, underlining that the occupation is fully responsible for Walid Daqqa’s life and health, as it is for the situation of all sick and ill prisoners. We demand the immediate release of Walid Daqqa and all Palestinian prisoners!
On the International Day for Human Rights, join local organizations from the International League of People’s Struggles (ILPS) for a solidarity rally. Hear reports from peoples’ struggles for justice and liberation across the world as we unite to demand people’s basic democratic rights and economic justice.
Disasters caused by capitalism, which include the climate crisis, the economic crisis and constant imperialist wars, are only getting worse. Human rights advocates, land defenders and other people committed to justice are facing increasing repression in the form of red-tagging, militarization of communities, imprisonment and extrajudicial killings.
As 2022 draws to a close, working people around the world are faced with inflation and rising costs of living, low wages, and precarious work. Unions in Canada have had to mobilize to defend things as basic as the right of workers to go on strike and negotiate their contract with their employer. Peasants throughout the global south struggle for basic subsistence as big landlords and international corporations monopolize their rightful lands and exploit their labour. While world leaders hesitate to pursue even the most moderate reforms to address climate change, the farmers who grow our food are driven to desperation by droughts, hurricanes and floods caused by imperialist global warming. We affirm that economic rights and environmental justice are part of the basic rights of all people!
Although our problems are worsening, our capacity to stand up and fight back is also growing. We are part of a broad wave of people’s resistance around the world that is rising up to stop imperialist aggression, block capitalist plunder, liberate the land and resist state terror! Defend People’s Rights! Long Live International Solidarity!
Friday, 9 December 7 pm Eastern (4 pm Pacific) Register online: Linktr.ee/mumia to attend the event. Click on “DEC. 9 RSVP”
A virtual rally calling for freedom for Mumia and all political prisoners will be held Dec. 9, 7 p.m. EST. Speakers will include representatives of the Ed Poindexter Campaign, Samidoun Palestine Prisoners Network, Imam Jamil Al-Amin Campaign, Leonard Peltier Campaign, Veronza Bowers Campaign, Kamau Sadiki Campaign and incarcerated environmental activist Bryant Arroyo who was with Mumia at SCI Mahanoy.
M&S is a symbol on Britain’s high streets of British collaboration with the racist, settler state of Israel. Its founders and early bosses were complicit in drafting the Balfour Declaration, with Arthur Balfour and Chaim Weizmann, a Zionist leader and first prime minister of Israel. This declaration gave British imperial support for a Zionist-backed state on one of Britain’s colonial properties.
The decades-long struggle for Palestinian liberation challenges Israeli occupation, land theft and massacres, as well as British imperialist ambitions for the Middle East.
Join our long-standing picket standing with the determined, organised, resilient resistance of the Palestinian people. Demand freedom for all Palestinian political prisoners! Victory to the Palestinian resistance! Break the chains of British imperialism in the Middle East! No to Arab-Israeli normalisation!
Hosted by:
London supporters of the Revolutionary Communist Group and Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism!
Samidoun – Palestinian Prisoners Solidarity Network
Victory to the Intifada!
