On Wednesday, 18 May, Palestinian lawyer Jawad Boulos announced that Palestinian prisoner Sami Janazrah had resumed his hunger strike after a one-week partial strike (consuming liquids only). Janazrah engaged in a hunger strike for 70 days and suspended the strike on Wednesday, 11 May, during the one-week period directed by the Israeli Supreme Court to resume the investigation of Janazrah’s case.
Janazrah, 43, a Palestinian refugee from Al-Fuwwar refugee camp near al-Khalil, has been on strike in protest of his administrative detention, Israeli imprisonment without charge or trial. He has been imprisoned since 15 November 2015, and his detention extended shortly after he began his strike on 3 March 2016. The Israeli military prosecution today requested an additional seven days to complete the claimed “investigation into new evidence” in his case. As Janazrah is held without charge or trial on the basis of secret evidence, he has no means of challenging any evidence alleged against him, or even knowing the content of such material.
“We’ve tried to fight the occupation in every way possible. It is our legal right to fight against this occupation,” Janazrah’s brother Mahmoud told Al-Jazeera. “Sami is only fighting this occupation to try to get our rights back. He is like any other Palestinian who refuses the occupation.”
Janazrah resumed his hunger strike – as he had stated he would do when suspending it one week prior, as his administrative detention order remains in place. He is one of 750 Palestinians held under administrative detention, a practice widely condemned internationally.
Also on hunger strike are Adib Mafarjah and Fouad Assi, two more Palestinians held under administrative detention without charge or trial. On their 46th day of hunger strike, both are held in Barzilai hospital as they continue to refuse food and demand their freedom.
Organized by the Committee to Stop FBI Repression – Tampa
Come out to support Palestinian leader Rasmea Odeh in Tampa, on the same day as her upcoming court hearing. She is currently under attack by the US government and facing imprisonment and deportation. A former political prisoner and torture survivor, Rasmea is struggling for justice. Learn more about her case at justice4rasmea.org.
As these words were being written, three Palestinian prisonerswere on hunger strike in protest against their imprisonment without trial, a practice cloaked by the anodyne sounding term “administrative detention”. Sami Janazra was on his 69th day and his health has sharply deteriorated, Adeeb Mafarja was on his 38thday, and Fuad Assi was on his 36th. These prisoners are amongstat least 700 Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails who are currently being held in administrative detention, a practice that Israel routinely uses in violation of the strict parameters set by international law.
Palestinian political prisoners have long used hunger strikes as a form of protest in response to violations of their rights by Israeli authorities. Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association traces the first use of hunger strikes by Palestinian prisoners to as early as 1968. Since then, there have been over 25 mass and group hunger strikes with demands ranging from ending solitary confinement and administrative detention to improving imprisonment conditions and allowing family visits.
As more and more Palestinian prisoners are forced to embark on lengthy hunger strikes as a “last resort” form of protest by inflicting violence on their bodies until they win their rights, it is worth reviewing the use of this political tool across countries and centuries and spotlighting the way in which Palestinian prisoners are using it to counter Israel’s monopoly on violence within the prison walls.
Past and Present Use of Hunger Strikes
While the exact origins of hunger strikes – the voluntary refusal of food and/or fluids – are not well known, there are examples of their use in various historical periods and geographical locations. The earliest uses of hunger strikes aretraced to medieval Ireland where one person would fast on the doorstep of another who had committed an injustice against them, as a way of shaming them. More recent and better-known uses of hunger strikes include those by British suffragettes in 1909, Mahatma Gandhi during the revolt against British rule in India, Cesar Chavez during the struggle for farm workers rights in the United States, and the prisoners incarcerated by the US in Guantanamo Bay.
There is great danger of irreversible physical harm to the body through hunger strikes including loss of hearing, blindness and severe blood loss. 1 Indeed, death has been the outcome of many hunger strikes as in the case of the 1981 Irish Republican prisoners’ strike.
The demands by hunger strikers vary but are, in all cases, a reflection of broader issues and social, political and economic injustices. For example, the 1981 Irish Republican prisoners’ hunger strike demand for the return of Special Category Status reflected the broader context of “the troubles” in Northern Ireland. 2
One of the earliest Palestinian hunger strikes was the seven-day hunger strike in Askalan (Ashkelon) prison in 1970. During this strike the prisoners’ demands were written on a cigarette pack as they were prevented from having notebooks, and included a refusal to address their jailers as “sir”. The prisoners won their demand and never had to use ”sir” again, but only after Abdul-Qader Abu Al-Fahem died after being force-fed, becoming the first martyr of the Palestinian prisoners’ movement.
Hunger strikes at Askalan prison continued to be carried out through the 1970s. In addition, two more prisoners, Rasim Halawe and Ali Al-Ja’fari, died after being force-fed during a hunger strike at Nafha prison in 1980. As a result of these and other hunger strikes, Palestinian prisoners were able to secure certain improvements to their prison conditions, including being allowed family pictures, stationery, books and newspapers.
In recent years, ending the practice of administrative detention has been a persistent demand by Palestinian prisoners, given Israel’s escalation of its use since the outbreak of the Second Intifada in 2000. For example, the mass2012 hunger strike, which involved nearly 2,000 prisoners, demanded an end to the use of administrative detention, isolation and other punitive measures including the denial of family visits to Gaza prisoners. The strike ended after Israel agreed to limit the use of administrative detention.
However, Israel soon reneged on the agreement, leading to another mass hunger strike in 2014 by over 100 administrative detainees pushing for an end to this practice. The hunger strike ended 63 days later without having achieved an end to administrative detention. The prisoners’ decision was reportedly influenced by the disappearance of three Israeli West Bank settlers and Israel’s large-scale military operations in the West Bank (which was followed by a massive assault against Gaza).
In addition, there have been several individual hunger strikes sometimes coinciding with or leading to decisions to begin wider hunger strikes. Indeed both the 2012 and 2014 hunger strikes were sparked by individual hunger strikes demanding an end to the use of administrative detention. The individual hunger strikers included Hana Shalabi, Khader Adnan, Thaer Halahleh and Bilal Diab, all of whom secured an end to their administrative detention. However, some of the individual hunger strikers were re-arrested after their release as in the case of Samer Issawi, Thaer Halahleh, and Tareq Qa’adan, as was Khader Adnan, who was released after a prolonged hunger strike protesting his re-arrest in 2015.
The Violence Israel Inflicts on Palestinian Prisoners
Israel continues to subject Palestinian prisoners to many forms of violence as has been well documented by human and prisoner’s rights organizations, as well as in the writings of prisoners and in a number of documentaries. 3 In a2014 report Addameer notes, “Every Palestinian who was arrested was subjected to some form of physical or psychological torture, cruel treatment including severe beatings, solitary confinement, verbal assault, and threats of sexual violence.”
In addition, and in violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention and the Rome statue, Israel has deported Palestinian detainees outside of the occupied territories and to prisons inside Israel, as well as threatening West Bank prisoners with deportations to the Gaza Strip if they do not confess. It also routinely and arbitrarily denies or restricts family visits. Prisoners are exposed to deliberate medical negligence and abuse, as well as restrictions on phone calls and access to lawyers, books, and television.
Furthermore, the Israeli authorities classify Palestinian political prisoners as “security prisoners” a classification that makes it legally possible to automatically subject them to many restrictions. This characterization denies Palestinian prisoners some of the rights and privileges enjoyed by Jewish prisoners – even those few who are labeled security prisoners – including home visits under guard, the possibility of early release, and the granting of furloughs.
The violence to which Palestinian prisoners are subjected must be seen within the context of Israel’s colonial project and its subjection of the entire population to different forms of violence, including the loss of their land, destruction of their homes, expulsion, and exile. It is worth recalling that since the Israeli occupation began in 1967, Israel has arrested more than 800,000 Palestinians, nearly 20% of the overall population, and 40% of the male population. This fact alone makes clear the extent to which arrests and imprisonment are a mechanism Israel uses to control the population while it dispossesses them, settling Israeli Jews in their place.
It is within this broader understanding of violence that hunger strikes emerge as a way in which Palestinian prisoners are able to counter the Israeli state’s various forms of violence.
Using the Prisoner’s Body to Subvert the State’s Power
Through hunger strikes, prisoners no longer remain silent recipients of the prison authorities’ ongoing violence: Instead, they inflict violence upon their own bodies in order to impose their demands. In other words, hunger strikes are a space outside the reach of the Israeli state’s power. The body of the striking prisoner unsettles one of the most fundamental relationships to violence behind prison walls, the one in which the Israeli state and its prison authorities control every aspect of their lives behind bars and are the sole inflictors of violence. In effect, prisoners reverse the object and subject relationship to violence by fusing both into a single body – the body of the striking prisoner – and in so doing reclaim agency. They assert their status as political prisoners, refuse their reduction to the status of “security prisoner”, and claim their rights and existence.
The fact that the Israeli state uses several measures to put an end to hunger strikes and to re-assert its power over the prisoners and over the use of violence demonstrates the challenge that the bodies of the hunger strikers pose to the Israeli state. Among other measures, the prison authorities continue to subject the striking prisoners to violence and torture. In fact, the violence to which the striking prisoners are subjected intensifies and changes form. For instanceduring the 2014 hunger strike, the striking prisoners were denied medical treatment and family visits and were shackled by their hands and feet to hospital beds 24 hours a day. They remained shackled when allowed to go to the bathroom, and the open bathroom doors denied them any right of privacy. The Israeli authorities also intentionally left food near the hunger strikers to break their will. Ex-hunger striker Ayman Al-Sharawna said, “They’d bring a table of the best food and put it next to my bed… Shin Bet knew I loved sweets. They used to bring all kinds of dessert.”
Israel has recently given legal cover to the force-feeding of hunger striking prisoners through the “Law to Prevent Harm Caused by Hunger Strikers”, which is tantamount to cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment, according to the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture. The law is also in contradiction with the World Medical Association’s Declaration of Malta on Hunger Strikes.
Israel also labels the striking prisoners “terrorists” and “criminals” to undermine their assertion of political agency and their efforts to reverse the object and subject of state violence. During the 2014 mass hunger strike, Israeli officials maintained that the hunger strikers were “terrorists.” Israeli Minister of Culture and Sport Miri Regev, one of the sponsors of the recent bill, said, “Prison walls don’t mean an action is not terrorism […] There is terrorism on the streets and this is terrorism in prison.” Gilad Erdan, Israeli Minster of Public Security declared that hunger strikes were a “new type of suicide attacks.”
The Vital Importance of National and International Support
Central to the success of any hunger strike is the ability of the strikers to mobilize communities, organizations and political bodies in their support and to exert pressure on the authorities to concede to the hunger strikers’ demands or negotiate an agreement.
Through hunger strikes, Palestinian prisoners have been able to continuously force their struggles onto the Palestinian and often the international political stage. Given that there are currently no alternatives through which prisoners can secure their freedom or a change in Israeli policies, the importance of mobilizing communities and political bodies around prisoners’ rights cannot be underestimated.
Grassroots, human rights organizations and official bodies both within and outside Palestine have mobilized during hunger strikes by Palestinian prisoners. The support has included daily gatherings, protests outside the offices of international organizations, calls on the Israeli government to heed the prisoners’ demands, and demonstrations outside prisons and hospitals. Local and international organizations including Addameer, Jewish Voice for Peace,Amnesty International, and Samidoun, among others, have highlighted the injustices faced by Palestinian prisoners to add to the pressure on Israeli authorities to concede to the prisoners’ demands and negotiate an agreement with them.
Furthermore, through these networks, the struggle of the Palestinian hunger strikers, and of the prisoners more broadly, is internationalized with parallels drawn to past and present injustices facing peoples worldwide. In reporting and analysis on the Palestinian hunger strikes, references are continuously made to the plight of Irish prisoners during the “troubles,” mass-incarceration in the US and conditions at Guantanamo Bay, among others. In this way the struggle of Palestinian prisoners becomes part of the growing solidarity movements and campaigns demanding justice for the Palestinian people. This helps to counter the Israeli labeling of them as “criminals” and “terrorists” and its monopoly over the discourse.
As with other forms of resistance within and outside prison walls hunger strikes are acts of resistance through which Palestinians assert their political existence and demand their rights. It is vital to sustain and nurture this resistance. In addition to giving strength to and supporting the prisoners in their struggle for rights, this form of resistance continuously and powerfully inspires hope among Palestinians at large and the solidarity movement. It is our responsibility to both support Palestinian prisoners – and to work for a time when Palestinians no longer need to resort to such acts of resistance through which their only recourse is to put their lives on the line.
See Beresford, David, Ten Men Dead London: Harper Collins Publishers, 1994. ↩
See, for example, reports and testimonies by the Prisoners’ Center for Studies; Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association; Adalah: the Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel; Samidoun: Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network; Al-Jazeera’s documentary Hunger Strike; and Mai Masri’s film 3000 Nights; al-Nashif, Esmail. “Attempts at Liberation: Materializing the Body and Building Community Among Palestinian Political Captives”. The Arab Studies Journal 12/13 (2004): 46–79; and Abdo, Nahla. Palestinian Women’s Anti-Colonial Struggle Within the Israeli Prison System. Pluto Press, 2014. ↩
Following the Israeli arrest of over 150 Palestinians for postings on social media alleged to be “incitement,” Palestinian student Kifah Quzmar is currently being detained by the Palestinian Authority for investigation related to Facebook postings about the Palestinian Authority.
Quzmar, a leftist student and active organizer at Bir Zeit University with the Progressive Democratic Student Pole, was detained by Palestinian Authority security forces as he returned home from university on 12 May. His detention was then extended for an additional 15 days for interrogation and investigation regarding social media postings.
Quzmar was previously attacked by PA security forces for protesting against Palestinian Authority officials’ meetings and negotiations with Israeli leaders and officials, and had been summoned on multiple occasions for interrogation by PA intelligence.
The Palestinian Authority security forces engage in “security coordination” with the Israeli occupation forces, sharing intelligence and information with Israeli officials. PA President Mahmoud Abbas has boasted of the effectiveness of security coordination in undermining the intifada, while the Israeli occupation forces have praised PA officials for arresting Palestinians allegedly involved in resistance.
The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, the Palestinian leftist political party, demanded Quzmar’s “immediate and unconditional release as well as that of all political detainees and prisoners of security coordination in PA jails.” The PFLP further denounced “the policy of the attacks on students by PA security services which have escalated in recent weeks amid campus elections. This method of police repression against Palestinian students not only widens Palestinian internal division but also endangers the lives of students and political detainees in light of the actions of the occupation in arresting former PA detainees in the context of shared intelligence and security coordination.”
Students from various political and student groups, including leftists like Quzmar and members of the Islamic Bloc at Palestinian universities, are among the PA political detainees. Also among their number are five young Palestinians detained by the Palestinian Authority following reports of their torture under interrogation. As Samidoun noted at the time, “the context of these arrests is that of ongoing PA security coordination with the Israeli occupation. These young men are not a threat to Palestinian security; they are well-known, beloved members of their community and trusted strugglers for the freedom of the Palestinian people.”
UPDATED: Facebook friends of Kifah Quzmar have highlighted the post below as the reason for his arrest. The English translation of the text below is “Do you know why the mukhabarat (intelligence service) is a rotten agency? Because the entire PA is rotten. Seif al-Idrissi is under arrest! #Freedom for Seif (hashtag)” Seif al-Idrissi is a friend of Quzmar, also detained by the PA, in the photo with Quzmar below:
Two more Palestinian fishers were attacked and detained off the coast of the Gaza Strip on Tuesday morning, 17 May, Ma’an News reported. Samih and Ibrahim Zayid were attacked by an Israeli gunboat while fishing, ordered off the boat, and detained; their boat was towed to the Ashdod port.
This comes after the detention and boat confiscation of 10 Palestinian fishers on Sunday, 15 May. Two of the fishers, Khamis Baker and Hasan Madi, remained imprisoned while the other eight were released. Two more fishing boats were confiscated on Sunday. Another fishing boat was damaged and submerged by the gunboat’s attack; the damaged boat was later recovered by Palestinian fishers. Dozens of shells were fired at the fishers and their boats; the fishers were ordered to take off their clothes, jump into the water, and swim toward the gunboats.
While Israeli authorities in April expanded the fishing zone designated for Palestinian fishermen to nine nautical miles in the southern Gaza Strip, and retained the six-mile zone in the north, fishermen regularly report detentions, live fire, and boat confiscation within these limits,” reported Ma’an.
According to the Palestinian Center for Human Rights, Israeli forces detained 71 fishermen and confiscated 22 fishing boats throughout 2015, and opened fire on Palestinian fishermen at least 139 times over the course of the year.
PCHR noted that it “considers that attack as a grave violation of the fishermen’s right to sail and fish freely and to protect their property in the Gaza waters. Moreover, PCHR believes that such attacks against Palestinian fishermen constitute a form of collective punishment against them which aims to target fishermen and their livelihood. Furthermore, PCHR calls upon the international community to provide protection for Palestinian fishermen and their right to sail and fish freely, and to stop all forms of collective punishment against fishermen and their property which violate the international humanitarian law and the international human rights law.”
The Union of Agricultural Work Committees, a Palestinian grassroots organization, works with fishers and farmers in Palestine to defend their land and seas and their right to farm and fish in the face of occupation attacks. Saad al-Deen Ziadah of UAWC said that “Most of these attacks and violations occurred within the allowed fishing area by Israeli navy forces. These arrests are generally carried out under very intense situations – the Israeli navy shooting bullets and shells at the fishermen and their boats. It has been recorded that the Israeli navy targets the outboard engine of the boats, which is the ‘soul of the boat’, as the fishers say.”
Palestinian hunger strikers Adib Mafarjah and Fouad Assi, on their 45th day of hunger strike, are now being held in Barzilai Hospital in the same room, reported Palestinian lawyer Ashraf Abu Sneineh. This is the first time throughout the strike that Mafarjah and Assi, who launched their strike against Israeli administrative detention without charge or trial on 3 April, have been held in the same place.
Mafarjah has been imprisoned without charge or trial since 10 December 2014, while Assi has been imprisoned since 9 August 2015. Both are demanding their freedom and an end to the system of administrative detention in which 750 Palestinians are currently held. Previous prominent hunger strikers, like Mohammed al-Qeeq, Khader Adnan, Muhammad Allan, Nidal Abu Aker and Ghassan Zawahra have also been imprisoned without charge or trial under administrative detention. The practice violates international law and has been widely internationally condemned, most recently by the United Nations Committee Against Torture.
Abu Sneineh also reported that an Israeli Supreme Court hearing will consider Mafarjah’s appeal on 1 June. Both Assi and Mafarjah are from Beit Liqiya near Ramallah.
Abdel Jaber Fuqaha, member of the Palestinian Legislative Council, was attacked and arrested by Israeli occupation forces on Tuesday, 15 May, after a dawn raid by occupation forces on his home. Fuqaha, 49, who has been arrested several times and has spent years in Israeli prison, most frequently under administrative detention without charge or trial, is a member of the Palestinian Legislative Council representing the Change and Reform Bloc, allied with Hamas.
After Fuqaha’s release in 2011 after 27 months of administrative detention, he was arrested again in 2012, and then again in June 2013. He was last released in April 2015. He has spent over six years in Israeli prison; he was beaten during his arrest and his home ransacked. He is one of seven members of the Palestinian Legislative Council currently imprisoned in Israeli jails, including prominent Palestinian leaders Ahmad Sa’adat, Marwan Barghouthi, Khalida Jarrar, and Hassan Yousef.
The case of the Holy Land Five – Mohammed el-Mezain, Ghassan Elashi, Shukri Abu Baker, Abdulrahman Odeh, and Mufid Abdelqader – is one of the most prominent, and most troubling, cases of Palestinian political prisoners imprisoned in US jails. Serving sentences of up to 65 years, the five imprisoned Palestinians were accused of nothing more than fundraising for charity in Palestine.
Prosecuted under the “material support” laws that have been used to criminalize financial and other support for Palestinians under occupation, the HLF5 were accused and convicted – after a hung jury in their first trial – of ” conspiring to give charity to zakat committees that prosecutors argued were fronts for Hamas.” The star witness for the government in the case was an anonymous Israeli intelligence officer allowed to testify under a pseudonym.
On 17-18 May, Al Jazeera Documentary channel will release a new, two-part documentary examining the Holy Land Foundation 5 case. The documentary will be presented in Arabic, with English subtitles.
Part 1 will air on Tuesday, 17 May, at 19:00 GMT and again at 23:00 GMT. (19:00 GMT is 2:00 PM Central US Time, or 9:00 PM Central European Time. Visit http://wwp.greenwichmeantime.com/ to convert Greenwich Mean Time to your local Time Zone)
Part 2 will air on Wednesday, 18 May at 19:00 GMT and again at 23:00 GMT. (19:00 GMT is 2:00 PM Central US Time, or 9:00 PM Central European Time. Visit http://wwp.greenwichmeantime.com/ to convert Greenwich Mean Time to your local Time Zone)
Hundreds of Palestinians and supporters of the Palestinian cause marched in New York City on Sunday, 15 May, in commemoration of the 68th anniversary of the Nakba, the expulsion of over 750,000 Palestinians from their homes and lands by Zionist militias in 1947-48 and the occupation of Palestine, demanding Palestinian refugees’ right to return and the liberation of Palestine. The rally and march was organized by the NY4Palestine coalition, of which Samidoun is a member organization.
Beginning at City Hall Park, participants marched over the Brooklyn Bridge toward a closing rally at Cadman Plaza. Two members of the recent Anti-Prison, Labor and Academic Delegation to Palestine, professor Johanna Fernandez and former US prisoner Laura Whitehorn, spoke about their experiences in Palestine and the struggle against mass imprisonment and racist repression in the United States and in Palestine. Ayman Nijim and Joe Catron spoke together for Samidoun, on the situation of Palestinian prisoners and the ongoing attacks, siege, and collective imprisonment of Palestinians in Gaza as a manifestation of the ongoing Nakba. Ayman shared his story of how Israel is preventing him from returning to see his family in Gaza, making him a refugee twice over.
Maggie Tobin of NYC Free Peltier spoke about the case of imprisoned indigenous struggler Leonard Peltier, alongside the struggles of imprisoned indigenous Palestinians. Speakers included representatives of New York City Students for Justice in Palestine, Al-Awda NY, the Palestine Right to Return Coalition, American Muslims for Palestine, International Action Center, Existence is Resistance, Jews for Palestinian Right of Return, Muslim American Society, BAYAN USA and other groups struggling for justice in Palestine and internationally.
Mike from Shut it Down NYC, part of the Black Lives Matter movement, spoke about the struggle against racism, brutality and police repression from NYC to Palestine. Shut it Down organizes #PeoplesMonday, a weekly protest highlighting a victim of police brutality and institutional racism; on Monday, 16 May, marking the Nakba, the #PeoplesMonday protest will highlight the case of Nadim Nuwara, killed by an Israeli Border Police officer as he walked down the street.
Marchers chanted for justice and liberation for Palestine, including chants like “We don’t want two states – we want 48!” “Settler, settler go back home, Palestine is ours alone!” and “New York City, you will learn, the refugees will return!” as they proceeded over the Brooklyn Bridge.
The New York City protest joins events around the world commemorating the Nakba and demanding Palestinian refugees’ right to return, including actions and events in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Austin, Chicago, Boston, Tampa, Berlin, Brussels, London, Paris, Marseille, Malmo, Milan, Turin, Toronto, Montreal, Winnipeg, Oslo, Tunis, Johannesburg and countless other cities.
Nerdeen Kiswani of New York City Students for Justice in Palestine wrote that “the rally was full of Palestinian youth, which gave me an intense feeling of hope and optimism, that the next generation does not forget their history, their roots, and the right of return. They cheered loudly whenever someone proclaimed that refugees languishing in camps in Jordan, Syria and Lebanon, don’t want to just go to the West Bank and Gaza, they’re entitled to go back to the homes they were expelled from. Back to Yaffa, back to Haifa, back to Akka. Although so many here today were people born and raised in Brooklyn, because their grandparents were displaced from Palestine, they know where their roots lie and that the right of return is not just symbolic but a key aspect of the Palestinian struggle.”
Video:
Samidoun will gather this Friday, 20 May at 4 PM outside the offices of G4S, the private security corporation that provides security services, equipment and control rooms to Israeli prisons, checkpoints and even the Beit Hanoun/Erez crossing where the siege of Gaza is imposed, at 19 W. 44th Street in Manhattan for the weekly protest against G4S and for freedom for Palestinian prisoners.
Mohammed Khatib, Palestinian youth organizer in Europe and Samidoun Europe coordinator, spoke on the Voice of Palestine online radio program with co-host Hanna Kawas on Saturday, 14 May, commemorating the 68th anniversary of the Palestinian Nakba.
Voice of Palestine has been broadcast both over the air and online for 29 years, from Vancouver, Canada. This week, Khatib spoke with Kawas about Palestinian youth organizing in Europe, his experience growing up as a Palestinian refugee in Ain el-Helweh camp in Lebanon, and the meaning of the Nakba and the struggle for the right of return of Palestinian refugees.
Listen online:
Selected quotes from Khatib’s interview (transcribed by Kristian Davis Bailey of Black4Palestine)
“I would like to mention that more than 80 percent of the population in Gaza are refugees– they are Palestinian refugees. In the West Bank 30 percent are refugees. The youth who are starting the intifada they are from Aida camp, Dheisheh camp, Jalazone camp.
The people who led the First and the Second Intifada in Gaza they are from Jabalia–they are from the camps. This class, this Palestinian class–the refugees–are the main one suffering from the occupation and they are the main ones ready to pay all that they have because have nothing to lose in confronting this occupation.”
“As a Palestinian refugee from Lebanon, who has to travel with a refugee document from the UN, I have nothing to do with this authority [the PA]. I say this as a Palestinian refugee from the outside that this authority doesn’t represent me. So they also don’t represent more than 7 million Palestinians who live in the diaspora. So who are they representing? And if they are not struggling for right of return, that means they are not representing 80 percent of the Palestinian refugees in Gaza. So who are they representing? So in reality, this authority has no authority at all.”
“The refugees should take a role from outside and this is what will make a change. We can not look for a real future and real change for Palestine without seeing the role of the Palestinian refugees from outside who are bringing the struggle from outside against our enemy. Because to be realistic, our enemy is not just in inside Israeli. We don’t see out enemy as the Jewish people who live in Tel Aviv and Haifa and the cities–our enemy is the system. I think you in the US and Canada know very well what kind of system settler colonialism is. You know the history of the indigenous people of Canada and the US. we are saying the same political reality of this regime, so our struggle should also be from the outside.”
“What you can do for us is to struggle for your rights in your country and to change your system because your system is affecting us. So any change in the US, any change in Canada – this is a change for Palestine. If the indigenous people in Canada will get their rights, this means we, the indigenous people of Palestine will be victorious. If the Black community in the US will get their rights and will lead the struggle for change in the US, this means we will be victorious.”
