BDS Austria and the Palästinensischen Jugend Österreich (Palestinian Youth in Austria) organized a demonstration on Sunday, 17 April marking Palestinian Prisoners’ Day at Stephansplatz in Vienna.
Participants distributed information and posted art displays, large signs and banners highlighting the struggles of Palestinian prisoners, and calling for the boycott of Israel. A long panel of displays highlighted various aspects of the situation of 7,000 Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails, including over 400 children and approximately 700 Palestinians held without charge or trial under administrative detention.
Participants distributed information and materials to passersby about the situation in Palestine, their banners, artwork and displays with large Palestinian flags drawing attention in the crowded square.
Photos by BDS Austria and the Palästinensischen Jugend Österreich
Activists in Lebanon protested outside the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Hamra, Beirut on 17 April, Palestinian Prisoners’ Day, demanding the company cut its contract with G4S, the British-Danish security corporation that provides security systems, control rooms and equipment to Israeli prisons, checkpoints and police training centers.
Following on their ongoing campaign to call on Lebanese businesses and United Nations institutions to stop doing business with G4S and their previous protest outside the offices of UNICEF in Beirut, activists presented hotel management with a letter while chanting, dancing and protesting for Palestine and Palestinian prisoners outside.
Participants included the Campaign to Boycott Supporters of Israel in Lebanon, the boycott movement in Palestinian refugee camps, the international campaign to free Georges Ibrahim Abdallah, and the Palestinian Cultural Club at the American University of Beirut. The event included speeches by the Campaign to Boycott Supporters of Israel in Lebanon and the Georges Ibrahim Abdallah campaign, as well as dabkeh dance performances by a children’s troupe from Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon.
Protesters demanded that institutions and corporations end their contracts with G4S until the company fully withdraws from Israel and ends all of its contracts with the Israeli security regime. G4S has pledged to exit these businesses within the next one to two years, but activists have emphasized the importance of continued protest until G4S is no longer involved in the oppression of Palestinians.
Dr. Samah Idriss spoke on behalf of the Campaign, highlighting the struggle of Palestinian prisoners. He discussed the experiences of torture suffered by Palestinians under interrogation, and the growing number of imprisoned Palestinians, noting G4S’ involvement in providing equipment and systems for Ketziot, Megiddo, Damon and Ofer prisons. He highlighted the international boycott movement against G4S and recent contract losses by the company because of its role in Israeli prisons, and stated that the campaign would continue protests at various businesses and institutions that continue to contract with G4S in Lebanon.
Photos: Campaign to Boycott Supporters of Israel in Lebanon and Samah Idriss
Palestine activists in London marked Palestinian Prisoners’ Day on Saturday, 16 April, joining the mass anti-austerity march through the British capital with a Palestine Prisoners’ Parade.
Coming together around the case of imprisoned 24-year-old circus teacher and performer Mohammed Abu Sakha, held in administrative detention without charge or trial, the participants called for justice and freedom for all 7,000 Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails. Participants wore clown makeup and circus gear both to highlight Abu Sakha’s case and to draw attention to their creative protest and calls for freedom.
Participants danced dabkeh and capoeira and engaged in performance, street theater and creative protest representing the struggle for freedom for Palestinian prisoners.
On Sunday, 17 April, London was once again the site of a Palestinian Prisoners’ Day event as Inminds activists distributed information, protested and raised awareness about the situation of Palestinian prisoners – and especially the over 400 imprisoned Palestinian children – at the Southbank.
Participants distributed leaflets and calls to action while Palestinian flags flew high. Speakers highlighted the stories of Palestinian child prisoners while also demanding a boycott of G4S, the British-Danish security corporation that provides security systems, equipment and control rooms to Israeli prisons, checkpoints and detention centers. It is subject to a global boycott call not only for its involvement in the imprisonment of Palestinians, but for its role in imprisoning youth in the US and UK. G4S has pledged to exit these businesses within the next one to two years, but activists have emphasized the importance of continued protest until G4S is no longer involved in the oppression of Palestinians.
16 April photos via James Tierney and Free Abu Sakha.
17 April photos via Seymour Alexander and Inminds.
Participants highlighted the over 7,000 Palestinian political prisoners, including over 400 children and 700 administrative detainees, new Knesset laws targeting Palestinians, violations of the Geneva Conventions, and the injustice of military courts convicting Palestinians at a rate of over 99%. In addition, they highlighted the call to boycott G4S, the multinational security corporation that provides security systems, equipment and control rooms to Israeli prisons, checkpoints and police training centers. G4S has pledged to sell off its Israeli subsidiary, but Palestinian organizers have emphasized the importance of boycotting the corporation until this actually takes place, as its equipment is still daily used to imprison and oppress Palestinians.
Students for Justice in Palestine – Maastricht welcomes you to Het Landhuis Maastricht on Monday 25th at 4pm for an afternoon of cultural appreciation as we explore traditional Palestinian dance, food, poetry and clothing through workshops and relaxation!
16.00: Hear personal experiences from a former Palestinian political prisoner.
16.30: Workshop on Dabke dance – Let’s learn some moves!
17.30: Break- Homemade Palestinian delights including hummus, labneh, salad, bread, mint tea and more will be provided for participants.
18.00: Palestinian poetry recital in both Arabic and English.
19.00: End
The founder of Pure Palestine will be with us hosting a small exhibition from his photoshoots and with the original kufiyas on sale directly from the last standing kufiya factory in Palestine.
Please send an email to sjp.maas@gmail.com to indicate your participation in the Dabke dance workshop.
We’re looking forward to enjoying a wonderful afternoon with you! Students for Justice in Palestine – Maastricht x
On 17 April, Palestinian Prisoners’ Day, Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network salutes the struggle of 7,000 Palestinian prisoners inside Israeli jails: struggling for not only their own freedom, but for the freedom of the land and people of Palestine. Palestinian prisoners struggle through torture, solitary confinement, abuse, repression, denial of family visits, arbitrary imprisonment and brutal racism on a daily basis. Yet they not only persist and exemplify “samidoun” – those who are steadfast – the Palestinian prisoners are leaders of the Palestinian liberation movement, and of the global struggle for justice and liberation.
Each year, on 17 April, in Palestine and around the world, Palestinians and supporters of justice in Palestine come together to review the situation of Palestinian prisoners and demand their freedom. It is an opportunity to renew our work and our activity to free Palestinian prisoners, and to examine the last year of struggle, inside and outside the prison walls.
Imprisonment has always been a weapon of colonialism in Palestine. From the British colonizers who suppressed Palestinian revolts through mass imprisonment, home demolitions, and execution – and who first imposed the “emergency law” of administrative detention used against Palestinians today – to the Zionist colonizers who for 68 years have imposed a system of occupation, apartheid, criminalization, racism and dispossession upon the Palestinian people, the colonizers of Palestine have imprisoned strugglers, leaders, fighters, and visionaries. Imprisonment targets all sectors of the Palestinian people: workers, strugglers, teachers, journalists, doctors and health workers, farmers, fishers; from Jerusalem, the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, Occupied Palestine ’48; refugees in the camps inside Palestine and around the world – millions denied their right to return and yet pursued and imprisoned in international jails.
In the past year, as throughout this history of struggle, we have witnessed time and again the resilience, resistance and struggle of Palestinian prisoners. It is not only the case that thousands of Palestinians have been jailed since October 2015 in an attempt to stop the rising intifada in the streets and villages of Palestine; it is also the case that Palestinian prisoners are engaged in daily intifada, daily resistance, behind the prison walls. They are part of the struggle – indeed, leaders in the struggle – confronting occupation, colonialism, settlements, home demolition, land confiscation and extrajudicial executions.
From Palestinian lawyer Muhammad Allan, to Palestinian journalist Mohammed al-Qeeq, to baker and resistor Khader Adnan, to the strugglers of the “Battle of Breaking the Chains” – Nidal Abu Aker, Ghassan Zawahreh, Shadi Ma’ali, Munir Abu Sharar and Badr al-Ruzza – Palestinian prisoners have put their bodies on the line in hunger strikes, demanding not only their own freedom but an end to the system of administrative detention without charge or trial that currently holds approximately 700 Palestinians in Israeli prisons. Today, Sami Janazrah, Fouad Assi, and Adib Mafarjah are on hunger strike against administrative detention. Eyad Fawaghra is refusing food, demanding an end to the denial of family visits. Shukri Khawaja is demanding an end to solitary confinement, joined by up to 88 other Palestinian prisoners expressing their solidarity in daily hunger strikes.
Today, 17 April, thousands of Palestinian prisoners are refusing food in a one-day hunger strike in support of prisoners in Nafha subject to violent attacks by Israeli occupation prison guards and special forces on 14 April. Throughout the prisons of the south, prisoners have joined across political lines in rejection of the violent raids that are a constant of Palestinian prisoner life in Israeli jails.
Statistics: Israeli jails hold approximately 7,000 Palestinian prisoners. These include over 400 children and 70 women prisoners, held in 22 prisons and interrogation centers. There have been 4,800 arrests since October 2015, including 1,400 children and minor teens. Approximately 700 Palestinians are held in administrative detention without charge or trial.
Women Prisoners: The number of women prisoners is now 68, including 17 girls under 18. Imprisoned in Hasharon and Damon prisons, injured women prisoners are being denied access to needed medical services and are instead supported by their fellow prisoners. The longest-serving woman prisoner, Lena Jarbouni, has been imprisoned since 2001. The youngest girl prisoner, Dima al-Wawi, is 12 years old. Khalida Jarrar. Palestinian parliamentarian, leftist and prisoner advocate, serving a 15-month sentence, is also among the women prisoners at Hasharon.
Administrative Detainees: Approximately 700 Palestinians are imprisoned without charge or trial under administrative detention by Israeli military order. Administrative detention orders are issued on the basis of secret evidence hidden from both the detainee and their lawyer. These orders are indefinitely renewable and are often renewed repeatedly over years.
Sick and ill prisoners: Over 1,700 sick prisoners inside Israeli jails suffer from various diseases, worsened by ill treatment, delay and denial of medical care, and dismissal of medical issues. Dozens of Palestinian prisoners suffer from serious diseases, including cancer, heart disease, kidney disease, rheumatoid arthritis, stomach ulcers and high blood pressure. There are 24 prisoners with cancer in Israeli prisons, and 23 Palestinians permanently confined in the Ramle Prison Clinic, infamous among Palestinian prisoners for its poor treatment. Some of them are unable to move from their hospital beds. Despite severe illness, they are consistently denied medical release or access to private physicians.
Child Prisoners: Over 400 Palestinians under 18 are imprisoned. Many are arrested in traumatic and violent night-time military raids on their homes, and Palestinian child detainees report very high levels of physical and psychological abuse and torture. Six children are held in administrative detention. Several Palestinian children between the ages of 12 and 14 are imprisoned in Israeli jails. Recent reports from Defence for Children International Palestine and Human Rights Watch highlight the abuse of Palestinian children in Israeli detention, interrogation and imprisonment.
Former Prisoners, Re-Arrests and Pursuit: Former prisoners, including over 70 released in the 2011 Wafa al-Ahrar prisoner exchange for captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, are pursued for renewed arrest and imprisonment. Under Israeli Military Order 1651, released prisoners in an exchange face the reimposition of their original sentence at any time on the basis of “secret evidence.” As in administrative detention cases, Palestinian prisoners and their lawyers are denied access to this evidence, which can include allegations such as “association” or “support” for a “prohibited organization,” a category which includes all major Palestinian political parties. 47 former prisoners have seen their sentences reimposed under this order. The targeting of former prisoners does not only happen inside Palestine. The pursuit, attempt to extradite, and killing of Omar Nayef Zayed in the Palestinian Embassy in Sofia, Bulgaria emphasizes the global nature of this targeting. Rasmea Odeh, Palestinian community leader in the United States, is threatened with imprisonment and deportation on the basis of her imprisonment – and torture – by Israeli forces in the 1960s and 1970s.
Torture is a constant reality of Israeli occupation arrest, detention and interrogation of Palestinians, including beatings, psychological torture, threats and insults, including threats of sexual abuse and violence and threats to family members; forced stress positions and shackling; sleep deprivation; long-term solitary confinement and isolation.
Palestinians are facing ongoing and increasing attacks. The extrajudicial execution of Palestinians under the control of Israeli occupation soldiers – including but not limited to the filmed and photographed executions of Abdelfattah Al Sharif and Hadeel al Hashlamoun – are a new attack on Palestinians that is part and parcel of the same system of terror and repression that carries out mass arrests and violent dawn raids on Palestinian homes. This comes alongside the ongoing imprisonment of the bodies of Palestinians killed by Israeli occupation soldiers. Some Palestinian corpses have been held for over 30 years. Today, the Israeli occupation forces continue to withhold 15 bodies of Palestinians. Nearly every week brings news of a new racist and repressive law being considered or enacted by the Israeli occupation: the “Law to Prevent Harm Caused by Hunger Strikers” permitting forced feeding; lengthy sentences for stone throwing; the imprisonment of 12-year-old Palestinians; threats to execute Palestinian prisoners.
The imprisonment of Palestinians is a collective attack on the Palestinian people and their struggle for liberation. These are not individual cases, but part of the comprehensive attempt of a colonial power to erase and suppress the indigenous Palestinian people and their collective struggle. We see this in the criminalization of Palestinian political parties, all declared “prohibited” by military order, and the military courts and trials that convict Palestinians at a rate of over 99% on the basis of these military orders that govern occupied Palestine. We see this in the targeting of Palestinian student organizers and leaders like Abdullah Ramadan, Asmaa Qadah and Donya Musleh, the ransacking of student blocs’ offices and the attempt to disrupt the vibrant political life of Palestinian students on campuses. We see this in the increased threats of arrests or denial of residence made against Palestinian BDS organizers and activists building the international movement for boycott, divestment and sanctions against Israel. And we see this, of course, in the imprisonment of Palestinian political leaders like Ahmad Sa’adat, General Secretary of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine; Marwan Barghouthi, Fateh leader; Khalida Jarrar, Palestinian parliamentarian and prisoners’ advocate; Hassan Yousef, Hamas leader and Palestinian Legislative Council member; and the countless local leaders targeted for administrative detention and military trials.
We see this in the imprisonment of over 18 Palestinian journalists – 43 in the past six months – and the forced closure of Palestinian TV and radio stations, and in the targeting of Palestinian researchers and human rights defenders like Eteraf Rimawi of Bisan Center, and also in the administrative detention of teachers like circus trainer Mohammed Abu Sakha, 24, who combined Palestinian identity with circus performance as he taught numerous Palestinian children.
We also see the targeting and imprisonment of Palestinians and strugglers for Palestine in international courts and prisons. Georges Ibrahim Abdallah, Lebanese Arab communist struggler for Palestine, has been imprisoned in French jails for 32 years, despite being eligible for release for 16 years. Hillary Clinton – today a US presidential candidate – personally intervened to pressure the French state to overturn its own judiciary to keep him imprisoned. The interior minister who agreed to do so, Manuel Valls, today threatens and supports the prosecution of dozens of Palestine solidarity activists across France for calling for boycott, divestment and sanctions against the Israeli state for its ongoing crimes against Palestinians. In the United States, the Holy Land Five are serving lengthy sentences for fundraising for charity for Palestinians among the Palestinian community. Rasmea Odeh, torture survivor and community leader, is facing imprisonment and deportation because of her time in Israeli prisons. Omar Nayef Zayed was pursued in Bulgaria for extradition and renewed imprisonment over 25 years after he escaped Israeli prisons, only to be found dead inside the Palestinian Embassy in Sofia, where he had taken refuge, on 26 February.
Towards Liberation
Just as imprisonment is a collective experience, the resistance struggle for the liberation of the prisoners is also collective. As the Palestinian Human Rights Organizations Council noted in their statement for Palestinian Prisoners’ Day, “The issues of prisoners transcends one of individual human rights; it is also one of collective rights of an entire people – the Palestinian people, who continue to be deprived of the right to self-determination and sovereignty.”
And so the struggle to liberate Palestinian prisoners – and all political prisoners – is not simply a struggle for an individual human right, but for collective liberation from occupation, apartheid and settler colonialism. This is one reason why this struggle finds such resonance with other struggles for justice and liberation, linked in collective confrontation of oppression, imperialism, settler colonialism, Zionism and racism.
The movement to boycott G4S, the British-Danish security conglomerate that provides security systems, equipment and control rooms for Israeli prisons, checkpoints and police training centers – and youth imprisonment, migrant detention and deportation contracts in the US, UK and Australia – has grown even more in the past year. Palestinian prisoners and Palestinian civil society organizations joined with hundreds of international organizations to demand the UN stop doing business with G4S, a demand that has achieved clear victories in Jordan and elsewhere. In the United States, prison divestment movements challenging the mass incarceration of Black youth and other oppressed communities in the US have won divestment from G4S and the cancellation of its contracts at multiple universities. Indeed, the collective movements against G4S have garnered so much strength that the corporation announced that it would be selling off its Israeli subsidiary and exiting other “reputationally damaging” industries like youth incarceration in the US and UK within the next one to two years. At the same time, on a daily basis, G4S and its “security” technology continue to contribute to the insecurity and oppression of Palestinians and other oppressed people. The struggle to boycott G4S must continue until it is out of occupied Palestine and the prison business.
Palestinian prisoners called for “the inclusion of our cause, as prisoners of freedom and fighters for the freedom of our people, human dignity, and the right to a dignified life, within the program of the boycott movement as a major issue of paramount importance.” The struggle of Palestinian prisoners is an essential and powerful part of BDS and boycott struggles, and builds our solidarity and our responsibility to act in support of other oppressed peoples and communities.
As the Black4Palestine statement highlighted, “Israel’s widespread use of detention and imprisonment against Palestinians evokes the mass incarceration of Black people in the US, including the political imprisonment of our own revolutionaries. Soldiers, police, and courts justify lethal force against us and our children who pose no imminent threat. And while the US and Israel would continue to oppress us without collaborating with each other, we have witnessed police and soldiers from the two countries train side-by-side.”
The United States, European Union and Canada are complicit in the imprisonment of Palestinians, funding Israel and its military, supporting its military research and development and defending it in international bodies from prosecution or condemnation for its oppression of Palestinians. At the same time, these states are responsible for the detention and incarceration of migrants, the mass targeting, criminalization and oppression of Black communities, police repression, racist incarceration in countries throughout Europe, and the colonial repression of Indigenous people and communities. These policies represent one logic, that of imperialism.
At the same time, these forces are confronted by a growing movement of joint struggle against racist imprisonment and mass incarceration, in North America and around the world. Black communities, migrant justice movements, Indigenous movements and others have been leading powerful upsurges against the state repression, violence and incarceration targeting entire communities and oppressed peoples. Palestinian and pro-Palestinian activists and organizations are involved – and must be more deeply so – in all of these critical struggles.
These powerful grassroots movements – including the movement for justice in Palestine – are witnessing breakthroughs on a popular level, witnessing real, mass public demand for an end to the policies of mass incarceration and the state violence of imprisonment and police repression. Prison divestment and abolition movements and demands are growing, gathering allies and support.
The movement to free Palestinian political prisoners – and to free Palestine – is a movement to confront settler colonialism, Zionism and imperialism. It is connected deeply to movements to free international political prisoners imprisoned by the same forces: Mumia Abu-Jamal, Leonard Peltier, Oscar Lopez Rivera, Ricardo Palmera, the political prisoners of the Philippines, of the Black Liberation Movement, and all prisoners jailed for their struggle for justice.
On 17 April 2016, Palestinian Prisoners’ Day, it is critical to escalate the struggle; to consolidate and build on the victories achieved in the G4S campaign; to deepen our collective movements against mass incarceration, racism, police repression and state violence; to raise high the voices, ideas and visions of imprisoned Palestinians, leaders in the struggle for a free and liberated Palestine; and to do everything we can, at grassroots, popular and official levels, to support the demands of the Palestinian prisoners, to seek the freedom of the Palestinian people, and to hold accountable and prosecute the Israeli officials responsible for their oppression and torture in all international arenas, from prosecutions in the International Criminal Court to the international grassroots isolation of settler-colonial Israel through BDS campaigns.
We invite activists and organizations to build on and intensify their work on Palestinian prisoners in the coming year, as we seek to do this in our own organizing. We invite organizers to form Samidoun chapters in your own cities and areas, or to form Samidoun committees and subcommittees to work on Palestinian prisoners in your existing organizations. To join us, please email us at samidoun@samidoun.net.
Saturday, 23 April 5:00 pm Piazza dei Ciompi Firenze (Florence), Italy
Italian mobilization to support the international campaign for the freedom of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails, symbolized by Marwan Barghouti, imprisoned Palestinian parliamentarian and prominent Fateh leader.
Event sponsored by ARCI Firenze, Assopace Palestina, COSPE: Together for Change, and Amicizia Italo-Palestinese.
En un momento de creciente resistencia a la violencia estatal y la injusticia en el mundo entero, una delegación de diecinueve activistas estadounidense de los campos laborales, académicos, y anti-prisión viajó a Palestina en marzo de 2016. Nuestra delegación estaba integrada por ex presos, incluyendo ex prisioneros políticos detenidos por los Estados Unidos, ex-miembros del Partido Pantera Negra, abolicionistas de prisiones, sindicalistas y profesores universitarios. Somos la primera delegación de EE.UU. a Palestina enfocándose específicamente en encarcelamientos por motivos políticos y en la solidaridad entre los prisioneros palestinos y estadounidenses. Nuestra delegación también se centró en las recientes luchas laborales en Palestina para el pan y la dignidad, y en las luchas de los intelectuales de Palestina para hacer valer las reclamaciones legítimas de los palestinos indígenas a sus tierras, cultura e historia.
En este 17 de abril el Día Internacional de Solidaridad con los Presos Palestinos, exigimos la libertad de los 7.000 presos políticos Palestinos detenidos al momento en cárceles israelitas y todos los que luchan por la justicia en todas partes, incluidos los presos políticos en las cárceles de los Estados Unidos.
Durante nuestro viaje de diez días, escuchamos a diversos grupos de palestinos que resisten diariamente las ejecuciones sumarias, las detenciones en masa, la confiscación de tierras, las demoliciones de viviendas, las restricciones al acceso al agua y la restricción de movimientos. A la vista del sistema de terror racial de Israel, los palestinos mantienen su compromiso a “somoud.” Esta palabra árabe tiene vínculos históricos con el movimiento de liberación anticolonial de Palestina y se define como “firmeza”, o parándose de pie con dignidad, una forma de la resistencia. Vimos esta resistencia, y fue una inspiración para nosotros, una y otra vez durante nuestra visita.
Habiendo sido testigo de primera mano de somoud, nos solidarizamos con la lucha anti-colonial palestina y con la liberación de Palestina, incluyendo el derecho a regresar, los derechos de auto determinación, la justicia y la paz. Condenamos las violaciones impactantes y continuas de los derechos humanos llevadas a cabo con impunidad por Israel con el apoyo estratégico del gobierno de EE.UU.. Estamos con el creciente movimiento mundial de Boicot, Desinversión y Sanciones (BDS) del colonialismo y el apartheid israelita. Hemos aprendido del movimiento palestino de que la firmeza no sólo es posible sino necesario, especialmente en las condiciones más opresivas.
Nuestros viajes nos llevó a tierras colonizadas por Israel en 1948 y ocupados en 1967: de Jericó y el valle del Jordán hasta Naqab, Haifa, Yafa, Jerusalén y Nablus; de Ramala y Belén y Nazaret a Lydd; y desde Dheisheh a Ayn Hawd. Nos encontramos con decenas de ex presos políticos, organizaciones de apoyo a los presos y defensores de derechos humanos, profesores e intelectuales, líderes políticos, miembros de las comunidades de beduinos y campesinas amenazadas por el desplazamiento, mujeres líderes, organizadoras de género y la justicia sexual, trabajadores de la cultura, y sindicalistas de comercio que están luchando por condiciones dignas de trabajo.
Nuestros anfitriones insistieron en que examináramos las condiciones terribles de la vida palestina no sólo en el contexto de la ocupación militaría de Israel de Cisjordania y Gaza desde 1967, pero como consecuencia de la invasión sionista y la incautación de 1948. La Nakba de 1948, o ” catástrofe “, desplazo 85% de los palestinos de sus tierras a la Ribera Occidental, Gaza y los países árabes de Jordania, Siria y el Líbano. Sometido a un régimen militaría israelita de1948-1966, palestinos que permanecieron fueron desplazadas en su propio país, confinados en sus regiones más pobres, prohibido circular libremente, despojados de derechos a la tierra y sometidos a un brutal sistema de apartheid racial.
Los residentes palestinos en los territorios colonizados por Israel en 1948 continúan viviendo con muchas de las mismas formas de terrorismo estatal que se asocian comúnmente con la ocupación militaría de 1967 de los territorios Palestino – un sistema de leyes y reglamentos orwelliano, incluyendo la detención racial, la segregación, la violencia de los colonos israelitas, la confiscación de tierras, la reubicación forzada, las demoliciones de casas y violaciones de los derechos civiles de todo tipo. Hemos sido testigos del proyecto de la venta al por mayor de la colonización sionista – la mayor amenaza para la vida, la seguridad y los derechos humanos del pueblo palestino.
El objetivo del proyecto sionista era -y sigue siendo- la creación de un estado exclusivamente judío a través del desplazamiento violento de los palestinos y su sustitución por inmigrantes judíos. Después de 1948, Judios que habían sido una minoría numérica se convirtió en la mayor parte a través del proceso calculado de matanzas, la expulsión forzada, la inmigración judía de Europa y la confiscación de tierras por los colonos sionistas. Por estas razones, los palestinos con que hablamos insistieron en la enmarcación de las raíces de los problemas actuales en día en el contexto histórico del régimen del apartheid colonial y asentamientos israelitas.
Con tanta fuerza como nos vimos obligados a examinar la historia vergonzosa y brutal del colonialismo sionista en Palestina y las condiciones terribles de la vida palestina, fuimos a su vez obligados a aprender acerca de la continua resistencia del pueblo palestino. Una y otra vez, la gente expresó su compromiso de garantizar que Palestina será libre. Y una y otra vez, hubo un hincapié en que una Palestina libre será una tierra de la pluralidad religiosa y que respeta las diversas espiritualidades, de acuerdo con la Carta Nacional Palestina de 1969 y de 1988 Declaración de Independencia de Palestina.
Israel: Un Carcelario y Colonial Estatal
Consciente de que Israel es el único país del mundo que procesa a los niños en los tribunales militares, nuestra delegación observó el procedimiento de tres tribunales militares israelitas contra la juventud palestina. Fuimos testigos de un niño palestino de 16 años de edad, tratado como un adulto y acusado de dirigir un vehículo sobre un israelita. El muchacho se enfrentó a dos sentencias de cadena perpetua en una prisión de adultos de Israel, y estaba siendo juzgado con la evidencia presentada en forma de una representación de vídeo, construido a partir de la teoría del fiscal del acto y con detalles probablemente obtenidas mediante la tortura, una práctica rutinaria de los administradores de la prisión militaría israelita. Más del 99 por ciento de todos los casos juzgados en los tribunales militares terminar en condena.
Legalizado desde 1987 por el Tribunal Supremo de Israel como “presión física moderada,” las tácticas de tortura israelitas pueden incluir largas sesiones de interrogaciones, las palizas, la vinculación de los detenidos en “posiciones de estrés”, la privación del sueño, y el abuso psicológico, como amenazas de hacerle daño o matar a los miembros de la familia de los presos. Los ex presos con los que nos encontramos contaron sobreviviendo simulacro de ejecución, la tortura que dura hasta tres meses, el abuso sexual, negligencia médica y la incomunicación.
El caso de los niños prisioneros es particularmente angustioso. Los abogados de derechos humanos con los que hablamos compartieron los resultados de los informes internacionales sobre el tratamiento de los niños palestinos en los tribunales israelitas, en comparación con el tratamiento de los niños israelitas. La doble estándar racista de Israel exime a los niños israelitas de procesamiento como adultos hasta la edad de 18 años, mientras que los niños palestinos tan sólo de 12 años son juzgados como adultos. A menudo acusado de lanzamiento de piedras, los niños palestinos son sometidos a largas penas en prisiones para adultos. Organizaciones de ayuda legal Addameer y Defensa de los Niños Internacional (DNI) nos informaron que los niños a menudo son separados de sus familias en el medio de la noche, y luego esposados y sus ojos vendados durante el transporte a los lugares de tortura, donde se les niega la representación legal o el acceso a sus padres durante meses. Un ex preso político nos dijo que su propia experiencia de la tortura tras las rejas fue amplificada cuando escuchó, en una celda cercana, la voz de un niño que lloraba por su madre.
Para los palestinos de cualquier edad, el precio de resistir al fin del apartheid colonial es a menudo la muerte. Entre octubre de 2015 y de marzo de 2016, unos 200 palestinos, entre ellos 41 niños, han sido asesinados extrajudicialmente a manos de las fuerzas militares israelitas. Nos encontramos con padres palestinos cuyas casas fueron demolidas y que les impusieron fuertes multas por supuestas acciones de sus hijos. En flagrante violación del derecho internacional y la decencia humana, el ejército israelita ha negado a liberar los cuerpos de sus hijos, que continúan manteniendo en un estado de suspensión –literalmente congeladas – durante más de 6 meses.
Un adulto palestino que nos encontramos en la ciudad vieja de Hebrón fue testigo y registró de vídeo, a finales de marzo, la ejecución, por un oficial militar israelí, de un joven herido e incapacitado. Este testigo fue posteriormente acosado por los colonos israelitas e investigado por el ejército israelita cuando aún estábamos en Palestina, un escalofriante recordatorio de las repetidas detenciones en los Estados Unidos de Ramsey Orta después de grabar en el 2014 el estrangulamiento de Eric Garner a manos de la policía en Staten Island, Nueva York.
Nuestra visita a Palestina dejó en claro que el encarcelamiento es una característica central del proyecto de asentamiento-colonial sionista. En las reuniones con los ex presos y organizaciones de asesoramiento legales, incluyendo Adalah, Addameer y la Asociación Árabe de Derechos Humanos, aprendimos que los palestinos enfrentan a uno de los índices de encarcelamiento más alta per cápita en el mundo: uno de cada cinco palestinos ha sido encarcelado en algún momento de su o su vida, incluyendo el 40 por ciento de la población masculina palestina. Desde 1967, Israel ha encarcelado a aproximadamente 800.000 prisioneros políticos palestinos.
Al igual que en los Estados Unidos, el encarcelamiento impone un castigo colectivo a las comunidades. Las familias de los encarcelados en Palestina se ven obligados a viajar largos trayectos de hasta 15 horas para visitar a sus seres queridos. En las prisiones, los visitantes son sometidos rutinariamente a, búsquedas de cuerpo completamente humillantes y acoso sexual por los guardias israelitas, una humillación que ha llevado a algunas mujeres a suspender sus visitas. Una vez dentro, los familiares sólo se permite una visita de 30 a 45 minutos: no hay contacto, separado del prisionero por paredes de plexiglás. En frente a la represión, presos palestinos tienen huelgas de hambre con éxito empleadas para mejorar las condiciones de reclusión y lograr la liberación de los presos, incluyendo los presos mantenidos bajo detención administrativa –prisioneros detenidos sin cargos, juicio o condena.
Inspirado por el respeto del pueblo palestino para sus presos políticos y mártires caídos –reflejados en las imágenes en las paredes públicas, en los momentos de silencio, en conversaciones diaria, nuestra delegación está aún más comprometida a dar a conocer la existencia de docenas de presos políticos en los EE.UU.. Muchos presos políticos estadounidenses fueron condenados a penas draconianas por su activismo político en las luchas antiimperialistas y movimientos de la liberación de grupos oprimidos durante los años 1960 y 1970. Prescindiendo de ellos como “criminales”, el gobierno de EE.UU. se niega a reconocer la naturaleza política de su encarcelamiento.
Nuestra delegación se basa en la larga historia de la solidaridad entre los movimientos anticolonial y antiimperialistas en los Estados Unidos y Palestina, expresado recientemente en 2013, cuando miles de presos en la prisión Pelican Bay en California , Guantánamo y Palestina , se fueron en huelga de hambre en el mismo momento , haciendo declaraciones de solidaridad emitidos entre ellos mismos. La presencia y las historias de dos antiguos miembros del Partido Pantera Negra en nuestra delegación sirven como un recordatorio constante de los años de solidaridad entre el movimiento de liberación Negro y Palestina.
Violencia Colonial y Resistencia Indígena
Israel, que se presenta al mundo como una nación de leyes, ve a los organizadores de la sociedad civil que llaman la atención sobre sus crímenes como una amenaza. Se nos recordó durante nuestra visita a las oficinas de DNI que uno de los coordinadores de plomo de la organización fue muerto a tiros, al estilo ejecución, por un francotirador del ejercito israelita, mientras observaba una protesta palestina contra el asalto israelita contra Gaza en 2014. Hemos sido testigos de primera mano de la escalada de terror israelita contra el pueblo palestino cuando oímos en las noticias y discutimos con el Comité Nacional de Boicot–las llamadas de los Ministros de Israel por el asesinato “cívica” de los líderes de BDS. Esto se trata de una escalada de terror sancionado por el estado que incluye el asalto a Gaza en 2014; la quema de vida del juventud palestino Mohammad Abu Khdair a manos de los colonos; la quema viva de la familia Dawabsheh en el pueblo de Duma por colonos israelitas; y la intensificación de las detenciones, la confiscación de tierras, el desplazamiento y deportaciones. Estas condiciones han impulsado la juventud palestina a tomar el asunto en sus propias manos y participar en los actos de resistencia, que muchos han llamado una tercera Intifada. Como reacción a esta resistencia, Israel ha utilizado los levantamientos como pretexto para intensificar la violencia contra la juventud palestina.
Durante nuestra visita, hemos escuchado el mismo mensaje a través de una sección transversal de fuerzas organizadas: que los Acuerdos de Oslo de 1993, han 1) legitimado y continuado la violencia estatal y re-creado una estructura colonial camuflados como modelo de la autonomía palestina; y 2) debilitado el movimiento palestina de liberación anticolonial. Veintitrés años después del fracaso de Oslo, las organizaciones sociales, culturales y de base (grassroots), así como representantes de una amplia gama de partidos políticos palestinos, incluyendo los de las instituciones de masas de la Organización de Liberación de Palestina (PLO), hicieron hincapié en la necesidad de acabar con las divisiones políticas en a fin de reconstruir el movimiento para liberar a Palestina.
Mientras nos concentramos principalmente en las experiencias de las personas recluidas en prisiones oficiales, nuestras visitas a las ciudades de las tierras tomadas por los sionistas, tanto en 1967 y 1948 dejaron claro que, como en la Franja de Gaza, donde casi dos millones de personas están actualmente bajo asedio – gran parte de Palestina, (Nakba)— después de 1947— es equivalente a una prisión al aire libre. En ciudades como Jerusalén (Al-Quds), Lydd y Hebrón (Al-Khalil), los palestinos encuentran los puestos de control (checkpoints), vigilancia omnipresente, con torres de vigilancia en prácticamente todos los rincones, una pared que asfixia las vidas cotidiana de los palestinos, el apartheid racial y la vulnerabilidad a la ejecución extrajudicial diariamente. La antigua ciudad de Al-Khalil es el epítome de una prisión al aire libre. ¿Cómo más se puede describir una situación en la que los niños tienen que caminar por las calles de alambre forrado de púas con soldados con ametralladoras sobre ellos desde torres de vigilancia, o en el que los residentes indígenas de esa ciudad están obligados a erigir pantallas de malla sobre su mercado para protegerse de la basura, orina y heces que los colonos sionistas les tiran en ellos desde las ventanas de sus apartamentos robados por encima? Estábamos igualmente mortificados al ver que una sección del muro del apartheid israelita ha cortado literalmente este barrio histórico palestino por la mitad. En consecuencia, los miembros de familias en Al-Khalil ahora son incapaces de verse el uno al otro sin pasar por un puesto de control militar. Severas restricciones para viajar y el cierre de calles han convertido el antiguo mercado que era a un tiempo vibrante en una ciudad fantasma, ya que la gente no pueden viajar a través del mercado o incluso tener acceso a sus propios hogares.
La Pobreza, La Economía y Los Derechos de los Trabajadores Palestinos
Colonialismo de los asentamientos en Palestina tiene como objetivo la destrucción de la vida palestina a través de un complejo de la red colonial que incluye campos de refugiados, el asedio y el bloqueo de Gaza, la prisión y el exilio, y el enjaulamiento de las comunidades en todos los lados por la “barrera israelita de Cisjordania”(West Bank)—más realista, el muro del apartheid que serpentea a 280 millas a través de la ocupada Cisjordania y confisca tierras residenciales y agrícolas palestinas en su camino. Este intento de destruir la fábrica social y económica de la población indígena es el modus operandi de un estado sionista cuyo objetivo es mantener una demográfica de mayoría judía. La explotación de mano de obra palestina es parte e integrante del proyecto de colonización. Sindicalistas palestinos detallaron esta explotación histórica y contemporáneamente a nuestra delegación. Explicaron que la Histadrut-la federación laboral israelita que goza de una relación fraternal con la AFL-CIO—ha sido una parte integral del movimiento sionista y la colonización de Palestina antes de la creación del estado de Israel. La Histadrut explota a los trabajadores palestinos en Israel mediante la deducción de una parte de sus salarios para los beneficios que nunca reciben. Líderes obreros palestinos también compartieron los resultados de un proyecto de informe sobre las condiciones terribles de las mujeres palestinas trabajadores, incluyendo las que están empleadas en los asentamientos israelitas en Cisjordania y están sometidos a largas horas de trabajo, salario reducido, y el acoso sexual en los puestos de control. Ninguno de los trabajadores palestinos empleados por las empresas israelitas gozan de la protección de la federación laboral israelitas o de la legislación laboral israelitas. Sindicalistas palestinos llamaron en nosotros para realizar una campaña entre los sindicalistas estadounidenses a desprenderse de los fondos de pensiones de los trabajadores estadounidenses de bonos israelitas. Sindicalistas palestinos también nos hablaron de las condiciones socioeconómicas devastadoras que han estado empeorando constantemente desde la firma de los Acuerdos de Oslo de 1993. Los Acuerdos legislo y legitimado el aumento de la dependencia de la economía colonizada de palestina sobre la potencia colonizadora israelita, y ha amenazado algún potencial para el surgimiento de una economía independiente palestina. El continuo bloqueo de Gaza y las restricciones impuestas a los agricultores palestinos y pequeñas industrias han estrangulado la economía palestina y llevado a la degradación de las condiciones de vida, lo que llevo a niveles alarmantes de pobreza en las zonas ocupadas de palestinas en 1967, así como entre los palestinos en las áreas capturado por Israel en 1948.
Organizadores de mano de obra palestina nos hablaron de la crisis en los campos de refugiados palestinos producidos por los recortes en los servicios de la Agencia de Ayuda y Trabajo de las Naciones Unidas para los Refugiados de Palestina (UNRWA). Los recortes en los servicios del UNRWA en la educación y la salud, junto con la discriminación institucionalizada en el cuidado de la salud, la educación y el empleo, han creado disparidades impactantes. La esperanza de vida para los palestinos es, en promedio, 10 años menor que la tasa de Israel; muertes infantiles son el 18,8 frente al 3,7 por cada 1000 nacimientos; y la muerte de las madres palestinas debido a complicaciones del embarazo o el parto es de 28 por cada 100.000 nacimientos en comparación con el 7 para los israelitas. Estas condiciones han dado lugar a huelgas generalizadas por parte de empleados palestinos que exigen una escala salarial equitativa y la restauración de los servicios de salud y educación.
Dirigentes sindicales palestinos también expresaron gran preocupaciones por la disminución de las condiciones de la educación pública en áreas de la Autoridad Palestina. Ellos hicieron eco los sentimientos de los profesores palestinos, administradores y padres que protestaron contra el empeoramiento de condiciones de trabajo para los profesores palestinos e insistieron en unirse a las marchas locales y nacionales durante un mes entero, a pesar de los intentos de las fuerzas de seguridad palestinas para reprimir sus manifestaciones.
Los líderes sindicales también destacaron las condiciones de apartheid en Israel, donde se segregan las escuelas. La proporción del gasto en educación en estas escuelas es de 1: 9, y los estudiantes palestinos que viven en Israel se ven obligados a aprender un plan de estudios que niega su propia historia y exalta la historia engañosa de los colonizadores.
Unimos nuestros esfuerzos con nuestros compañeros en el movimiento de mano de obra palestina y saludamos la lucha de los maestros en huelga, sindicalistas y trabajadores exigiendo justicia económica, la independencia y la autodeterminación nacional de las estructuras coloniales. Nos comprometemos a hacer campaña en las filas de la mano de obra EE.UU. a desprenderse de los bonos israelitas y cortar los lazos entre la AFL – CIO y la Histadrut.
El Despojo y La Lucha por la Tierra y La Devolución
Un profesor universitario con el que nos encontramos explicó cómo el sistema de la colonización sionista es uno de los sistemas más intensamente territorializados de control espacial que el mundo haya visto. En 1948, Israel destruyó al menos 531 ciudades y pueblos palestinos, y dentro de cinco años, creó 370 nuevas poblaciones de asentamientos judíos, el 95% de los cuales fueron construidos en tierras confiscadas de palestina. El estado de Israel ahora controla el 93% de la tierra capturada en 1948.
Hoy, ocho millones de refugiados palestinos estan prohibido regresar a su tierra natal. Los que están en Cisjordania están sujetos al sistema ubicuo de los puestos de control que restringen severamente su capacidad de viajar al trabajo, la escuela, mezquitas e iglesias, y a los hospitales para recibir tratamiento médico. En virtud de la Ley de Propiedad Ausente, los palestinos pueden perder sus derechos como dueños de casa por cualquier número de razones, incluyendo la renovación o expansión de sus casas para alojar a una familia en crecimiento. El estado de Israel rara vez concede a palestinos permiso para construir o ampliar viviendas, lo que les obliga a la construcción “ilegal” de las casas, que luego son objeto de órdenes de demolición.
En el pueblo de Ayn Hawd, cerca de Haifa, un anciano explicó cómo Israel confiscó las casas de los palestinos y convirtió el pueblo en un parque e una colonia de artistas, sustituyó a la mezquita con un restaurante, y protegió los asentamientos de los sionistas que viven en robadas casas de palestinos. Hemos visto cómo los colonos han destrozado y destruido varias veces el viejo cementerio palestino. Allí, como en todas partes, fuimos testigos del papel central del Fondo Nacional Judío (JNF) en la destrucción permanente de Palestina.
La vista de las excavadoras en la cima de una colina marcó la destrucción inminente de la aldea de Um El heran en el desierto de Al – Naqab, un territorio colonizado en 1948. Um El Heran es uno de los 46 “pueblos no reconocidas ” que no existen en los oficiales mapas del gobierno de Israel y por lo tanto se les niega electricidad, agua, carreteras, escuelas y todos los servicios esenciales otorgados por el Estado a la cercana ciudades israelitas de colonos judíos “reconocidos “. A lo largo de Palestina, se observó tanques de agua y paneles solares fijados a los techos para compensar la restricción israelita de agua y electricidad, mientras que las casas de los colonos judíos disfrutan de servicios patrocinados completos por el estado que incluyen piscinas.
Los Intelectuales Públicos y Culturas Anticoloniales de Resistencia
En todos los lados en Palestina fuimos testigos de signos de una cultura de resistencia. Jóvenes activistas en el Naqab nos contaron acerca de su uso de la poesía para resistir los intentos sionistas de arrancar de sus tierras. En las áreas urbanas de 1948 de Yafa, Lydd, Haifa y Nazaret oímos de proyectos de historia oral para contrarrestar el programa sistemático de borradura histórico y cultural desplegada por Israel a través de la destrucción pura y simple de los sitios y los signos de la vida palestina, e su sustitución con la invenciones de mapas y señales de tráfico, y la eliminación de la palabra “Palestina” de los libros de texto y programas de estudio. También hemos escuchado de las organizaciones de base y activistas sobre campañas para desafiar la prohibición de Israel en la conmemoración de la Nakba, sobre proyectos, incluyendo uno de la organización Zochrot, que traen los niños palestinos a los sitios de los pueblos destruidos de sus familias, y sobre otros que utilizan la historia oral para transmitir la memoria colectiva de un pueblo que se niegan a someterse a un proyecto de asentamiento colonial destinado a la negación de su existencia en su tierra.
Visitamos el Centro de Artes Ibdaa en el campo de refugiados de Dheisheh y el Centro de Artes Populares en El Bireh y vimos, pintada en las paredes interiores, murales que desafian la prohibición de la ocupación israelita en el arte de resistencia en las paredes públicas. Figuras de la cultura palestina nos dijeron que Israel continúa apagando actuaciones de teatro, danza y música que desafían su dominio colonial. Hemos aprendido que, en un intento de acabar con la ola de protestas que envuelve actualmente Palestina, el primer ministro israelita, exigió que la Autoridad Palestina prohíbe los taxistas de la reproducción de música palestina en sus radios.
Participamos en dos conferencias organizadas por el Instituto de Estudios de la Mujer de la Universidad de Birzeit y la Universidad Nacional de An-Najah, ambos co-patrocinado con las Etnias árabes y Musulmanes y Diásporas Estudios (AMED) en la Universidad Estatal de San Francisco (SFSU). Compartimos la plataforma con académicos palestinos que se dedican a la lucha diaria de su gente y que insistían en la definición de la academia como un espacio de lucha por la dignidad de todos los palestinos. Comparamos nuestros respectivos análisis de los Estados Unidos e Israel como los regímenes coloniales de asentamientos y sus intenciones de destruir la vida indígena y los movimientos del Tercer Mundo que han surgido para desafiar el colonialismo y el imperialismo.
La solidaridad fue forjada cuando ex presos políticos en Palestina y ex presos políticos detenidos por Estados Unidos en nuestra delegación analizaron experiencias paralelas. Audiencias palestinos en ambas conferencias fueron movidos por los mensajes que traíamos con nosotros en una colección de cartas de prisioneros políticos estadounidenses, algunos de los cuales ya han servido 40 años y más, a sus hermanas y hermanos palestinos. Nuestros colegas en el Instituto de la Universidad de Birzeit de Estudios de la Mujer tradujeron las letras en árabe. La solidaridad era palpable durante el plenario final de la conferencia de Birzeit, cuando sonó el teléfono y oímos la voz de EE.UU. preso político Mumia Abu Jamal. Mumia estaba llamando desde la institución correccional Estado Mahanoy en Pennsylvania para expresar su solidaridad y amor por el pueblo de Palestina.
Aprendimos que las universidades palestinas ofrecen una enseñanza gratuita a los ex prisioneros palestinos y que cada acto de graduación rinde homenaje a los estudiantes palestinos, profesores y los personales que ha sido martirizado o encarcelados por Israel durante el año académico. Por el contrario, Israel ha prohibido el acceso a la educación de los presos palestinos, negando incluso algunos la posesión de un lápiz y papel.
Hablando junto a los miembros de ambas comunidades universitarias que fueron encarcelados por el Estado colonial de Israel, y siendo testigos de cómo las universidades palestina honran a aquellos que sacrificaron sus vidas por su gente, acentúa nuestro compromiso de insistir en que nuestras propias instituciones académicas resistan el modelo neoliberal de educación, de reclamar la misión de la educación pública, y de restaurar las ganancias luchadas por las generaciones anteriores de los estudiantes, incluyendo el Comité de Coordinación Estudiantil No Violento; Sindicatos de Estudiantes Negros; el Frente de Liberación del Tercer Mundo en la Universidad Estatal de San Francisco(SFSU); Ocean Hill-Brownsville; la Huelga admisión abierta de 1969 en la City University of New York. Esta lucha continúa hoy en día en nuestros campus y espacios comunitarios. También rechazamos Israel y los intentos del movimiento sionista para emplear tácticas de McCarthy para intimidar, acosar y silenciar defensores por la justicia dentro y fuera de Palestina, y activistas y estudiosos que defienden la justicia en los campus universitarios, escuelas públicas y en la vida pública en todo el mundo.
Conclusión
Nos pidieron varias veces que levantáramos estas historias de despojo palestino y firme resistencia de vuelta a los Estados Unidos. Gran parte de lo que vimos en Palestina llama imágenes de la vida en los Estados Unidos. Al igual que Israel, Estados Unidos es una colonia de colonos construida sobre el genocidio y la negación de los derechos de los pueblos indígenas; el secuestro y esclavización de los africanos; la colonización de México, Puerto Rico, las Filipinas, Hawai y Guam; la exclusión de los chinos; el encarcelamiento de los japoneses en campos de concentración; y el creciente desprestigio y criminalización de los inmigrantes de América Latina y de los árabes, los musulmanes y del Mediterráneo y del Sur y la gente de Asia Central. Al igual que Israel, Estados Unidos suprime la resistencia utilizando la cobertura de la ley. Los Estados Unidos sigue participando en las guerras y las intervenciones imperialistas en el Tercer Mundo, mientras que 2,3 millones de personas están encarceladas en las prisiones de Estados Unidos, jóvenes Negro, latinos / -as, y las personas indígenas están siendo dirigidos y ejecutados mientras que las instituciones educativas se vuelven cada vez más privatizadas y mercantilizadas. El 99% están cada vez más empobrecida, mientras que el 1% se enriquece. De manera significativa, los Estados Unidos financian a Israel por una suma $ 4 mil millones al año y es compatible con la ideología distorsionada del sionismo.
Por lo tanto, sentimos una urgencia y responsabilidad de presionar a los Estados Unidos de dejar de financiar los crímenes israelitas contra la humanidad. Expresamos nuestro apoyo a la lucha por una Palestina libre como una lucha central en el movimiento mundial contra el imperialismo EE.UU.. Estamos comprometidos con el empleo de una variedad de tácticas en solidaridad con Palestina, incluyendo el Boicot, Desinversión y Sanciones (BDS), y condenamos los ataques israelitas y sionistas contra los defensores de la justicia para / en Palestina en nuestras comunidades y en nuestros campus. Ponemos en contacto a los movimientos de prisioneros y de mano de obra a través de las fronteras; y aplicamos el espíritu de somoud a todas nuestras luchas por la liberación dentro de los Estados Unidos.
Soporte la justa lucha del pueblo palestino por la autodeterminación , el retorno y la soberanía, y la lucha contra el colonialismo de los asentamientos en los Estados Unidos, Israel y en otros lugares
Soltar los prisioneros palestinos y todos los políticos, entre ellos los de Estados Unidos
Poner fin a todo el personal militar estadounidense y el apoyo financiero de Israel
Soporte Boicot , Desinversión y Sanciones ( BDS ) de Israel
Rechazar el nuevo Macartismo israelita y sionista que pretende intimidar, acosar y silenciar a los defensores por la justicia en Palestina
En la lucha conjunta,
Rabab Abdulhadi, autor y profesora, San Francisco State University *, California
Diana Block, autora y activista, Coalición de las Mujeres Presas en California (CCWP) *, San Francisco, California
Susan Chen, facultad consejero, miembro de la Asociación de Profesores de California – San Francisco State University representante del capítulo y acción afirmativa, San Francisco State University *, California
Dennis Childs, autor y profesor de la Universidad de California *, San Diego
Susie Day, escritor, Monthly Review Press *, Nueva York, Nueva York
Emory Douglas, Artista Revolucionario y el Ministro de Cultura, Partido Pantera Negro, 1967-1982
Johanna Fernández, autor y profesora de la Universidad de Ciudad de Nueva York-Baruch College *; Organizador, Campaña para Traer a Mumia a la Casa
Diane Fujino, autor y profesor de la Universidad de California *, Santa Bárbara
Alborz Ghandehari, miembro del BDS Caucus de UAW 2865, Universidad de California-Los trabajadores de la Unión de Estudiantes *
Anna Henry, activista y miembro de la Coalición de las Mujeres Presas en California (CCWP) *, San Francisco
Rachel Herzing, investigadora independiente y co-fundador, Resistencia Crítica *(Critical Resistance, Oakland, California
Hank Jones, activista, estuvo preso en los Estados Unidos por razones políticas y miembro, Partido Pantera Negro, Los Ángeles, California
manuel la fontaine, estuvo preso en los Estados Unidos y miembro, Todos o Nadie * (All Of Us Or None), San Francisco, California
Claude Marks, estuvo preso en los Estados Unidos por razones políticas, Archivos de la libertad (Freedom Achives)*, San Francisco, California
Nathaniel Moore, archivista, Archivos de la libertad * (Freedom Achives), San Francisco, California
Isaac Ontiveros, miembro, Resistencia Crítica *, Oakland, California
Michael Ritter, facultad consejero; miembro de la CSU Senado Académico y Consejo de Administración CFA, San Francisco State University *, California
Jaime Veve, co – convocante, Laboral para Palestina *, Nueva York, Nueva York
Laura Whitehorn, estuvo presa en los Estados Unidos por razones políticas, Nueva York, Nueva York
* Todas las afiliaciones institucionales y organizacionales son sólo para propósitos de identificación
Recently returned from a ten-day trip to the Israeli-colonized Palestine, a US delegation of anti-prison, labor, and scholar-activists has issued the following statement to mark Palestinian Prisoners Day 2016. The delegation included three former US-held political prisoners, and a formerly incarcerated activist, two former Black Panther Party members, university professors, prison abolition organizers, and trade unionists. This was the first US delegation to Palestine to focus specifically on political imprisonment and solidarity between Palestinian and US prisoners. The delegation also paid special attention to the recent labor organizing in the West Bank and the efforts of Palestinian scholars and activists to reclaim the history, political identity and culture of the Palestinian people.
In recognition of International Day of Solidarity with Palestinian Prisoners, the US Anti-Prison, Labor, and Academic Delegation is demanding freedom for the 7,000 Palestinian political prisoners currently held in Israeli jails and all those fighting for justice everywhere, including political prisoners in U.S. prisons.
Reflecting information, analysis, and testimony gathered from meetings with close to 100 Palestinian activists, advocates, organizers, and former political prisoners from many social justice, human rights, labor, education, and political organizations and institutions, the US delegation’s statement concluded:
We feel an urgent sense of responsibility to pressure the United States to stop funding Israeli crimes against humanity. We express our support for the struggle for a free Palestine as a central struggle in the worldwide movement against U.S. imperialism. We are committed to employing a variety of tactics in solidarity with Palestine, including Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions, and we condemn Israeli and Zionist attacks against advocates for justice for/in Palestine in our communities and on our campuses. We connect prisoner and labor movements across the borders; and apply the spirit of sumud to all our struggles for liberation within the United States.
The U.S. Prisoner, Labor and Academic Solidarity Delegation to Palestine
March 24 to April 2, 2016
At a moment of growing resistance to state violence and injustice the world over, a delegation of nineteen anti-prison, labor and scholar-activists from the United States traveled to Palestine in March 2016. Our delegation included former U.S.-held political prisoners and social prisoners, former Black Panther Party members, prison abolitionists, trade unionists and university professors. We are the first U.S. delegation to Palestine to focus specifically on political imprisonment and solidarity between Palestinian and U.S. prisoners. Our delegation also focused on recent labor struggles in Palestine for bread and dignity, and on the struggles of Palestinian intellectuals to assert the rightful claims of Indigenous Palestinians to their land, culture and history.
On this April 17, the International Day of Solidarity with Palestinian Prisoners, we demand freedom for the 7,000 Palestinian political prisoners currently held in Israeli jails and all those fighting for justice everywhere, including political prisoners in U.S. prisons.
During our ten-day trip, we heard from diverse groups of Palestinians who daily resist summary executions, mass imprisonment, land confiscation, house demolitions, restrictions to water access and restriction of movement. In the face of Israel’s system of racialized terror, Palestinians uphold their commitment to “sumud.” This Arabic word has historical ties to the Palestinian anti-colonial liberation movement and is defined as “steadfastness,” or standing one’s ground with dignity—a form of resistance. We saw this resistance, and were inspired by it, over and over during our visit.
Having witnessed sumud firsthand, we stand in solidarity with the Palestinian anti-colonial struggle and with the liberation of Palestine, including the right to return, the rights of self-determination, justice and peace. We condemn the shocking and continuing human rights violations carried out with impunity by Israel with the full strategic support of the U.S. government. We stand with the growing worldwide movement for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) of Israeli settler colonialism and apartheid. We learned from the Palestinian movement that steadfastness is not only possible but necessary, especially under the most oppressive conditions.
Our travels took us to lands colonized by Israel in 1948 and occupied in 1967: from Jericho and the Jordan Valley to the Naqab, Haifa, Yafa, Jerusalem and Nablus; from Ramallah and Bethlehem to Lydd and Nazareth; and from Dheisheh to Ayn Hawd. We met with dozens of former political prisoners, prisoner support organizations and human rights advocates, professors and public intellectuals, political leaders, members of Bedouin and peasant communities threatened with displacement, women leaders, organizers for gender and sexual justice, cultural workers, and trade unionists struggling for dignified work conditions.
Our hosts insisted that we examine the harrowing conditions of Palestinian life not just in the context of the Israeli military occupation of the West Bank and Gaza since 1967, but as the consequence of the Zionist invasion and seizure of 1948. The 1948 Nakba, or “catastrophe,” displaced 85% of Palestinians from their lands to the West Bank, Gaza and nearby Arab countries of Jordan, Syria and Lebanon. Subjected to Israeli military rule from 1948 to 1966, Palestinians who remained were internally displaced in their own country, confined to its poorest regions, forbidden from moving freely, stripped of land rights and subjected to a brutal system of racial apartheid.
Palestinian residents in territories colonized by Israel in 1948 continue to live with many of the same forms of state terrorism that are commonly associated with the military occupation of the 1967 Palestinian territories—an Orwellian system of laws and regulations including racialized arrest, segregation, settler violence, land confiscation, forced relocation, home demolitions and civil rights violations of all kinds. We witnessed the wholesale project of Zionist colonization—the greatest threat to the life, security and human rights of the Palestinian people.
The aim of the Zionist project was—and remains—the creation of an exclusively Jewish state through the violent displacement of Palestinians and their replacement by Jewish immigrants. After 1948, Jews who had been a numeric minority became the majority through the calculated process of massacres, forced expulsion, Jewish immigration from Europe and land confiscations by Zionist settlers. For these reasons, Palestinians we spoke to insisted on framing the roots of current-day problems in the historical context of Israel’s settler-colonial apartheid regime.
Time and again, Palestinians made clear the distinction between Zionism as a racist and colonial movement and Jewish people. They emphasized that a free Palestine will be a land of religious pluralism and respect of diverse spiritualities, according to the Palestinian National Charter of 1969 and the 1988 Palestinian Declaration of Independence. Palestinians also stressed that historically and contemporarily there has not been a homogenous stand of Jews on Israel or Zionism. In fact, the intensification of Israeli violence and racism is leading a growing number of Holocaust survivors as well as younger Jews to invoke “never again for anyone” and “not in my name” to dissociate themselves from the Zionist state and its racist and genocidal policies.
As strongly as we were compelled to examine the shameful and brutal history of Zionist colonialism in Palestine and the harrowing conditions of Palestinian life, we were in turn compelled to learn about the continuous resistance of the Palestinian people. Time and again, people expressed their commitment to ensuring that Palestine will be free.
“The Open Air Prison”: Watchtower and apartheid wall, Bethlehem, Palestine.
Israel: A Colonial Carceral State
Aware that Israel is the only country in the world that prosecutes children in military courts, our delegation observed the proceedings of three Israeli military tribunals against Palestinian youth. We witnessed a 16-year-old Palestinian boy tried as an adult and accused of running an Israeli over in a vehicle. The boy faced two life sentences in an Israeli adult prison, and was being tried with evidence presented in the form of a video reenactment, constructed from the prosecution’s theory of the act and with details likely coerced through torture, a routine practice of Israeli military prison administrators. More than 99 percent of all cases tried in the military courts end in conviction.
Legalized since 1987 by the Israeli Supreme Court as “moderate physical pressure,” Israeli torture tactics can include lengthy interrogation sessions, beatings, the tying of prisoners in “stress positions,” sleep deprivation, and psychological abuse such as threats to harm or kill prisoners’ family members. Former prisoners with whom we met recounted mock execution, torture lasting up to three months, subsequent sexual abuse, medical neglect and solitary confinement
The case of child prisoners is particularly harrowing. Human rights lawyers with whom we spoke shared the findings of international reports on the treatment by Israeli courts of Palestinian children, compared to the treatment of Israeli children. Israel’s racist double standard exempts Israeli children from prosecution as adults until the age of 18, while Palestinian children as young as 12 are tried as adults. Often charged with stone throwing, Palestinian children are subjected to lengthy sentences in adult prisons. Legal aid organizations Addameer and Defense for Children International (DCI) informed us that children are often taken from their families in the middle of the night, then handcuffed and blindfolded during their transport to torture sites, where they are denied legal representation or access to their parents for months. A former political prisoner told us that his own experience of torture behind bars was amplified when he heard, in a nearby cell, the voice of a child crying out for his mother.
For Palestinians of any age, the price of resisting the colonial apartheid order is often death. Between October 2015 and March 2016, approximately 200 Palestinians, including 41 children, have been extra-judicially murdered at the hands of Israeli military forces. We met Palestinian parents whose homes were demolished and who were levied heavy fines for their children’s alleged actions. In blatant violation of international law and human decency, the Israeli military has refused to release their children’s bodies, which they continue to hold in a state of suspension—literally frozen—for over 6 months.
Our visit to Palestine made clear that incarceration is a central feature of the ongoing Zionist settler-colonial project. In meetings with former prisoners and legal aid organizations including Adalah, Addameer and the Arab Association for Human Rights, we learned that Palestinians face one of the highest per capita incarceration rates in the world: one in five Palestinians has been imprisoned at some point in his or her life, including 40 percent of the Palestinian male population. Since 1967, Israel has imprisoned approximately 800,000 Palestinian political prisoners.
As in the United States, incarceration imposes collective punishment on communities. The families of the incarcerated in Palestine are forced to travel long journeys of up to 15 hours to visit their loved ones. At the prisons, visitors are routinely subjected to humiliating, full-body searches and sexual harassment by Israeli prison guards, a humiliation that has led some women to discontinue their visits. Once inside, relatives are allowed only a 30- to 45-minute visit: no contact, separated from the prisoner by Plexiglas walls.
In the face of repression, Palestinian prisoners have successfully employed hunger strikes to improve prison conditions and win the release of prisoners, including those held under administrative detention–prisoners held without charges, trial, or conviction.
Inspired by the Palestinian people’s respect for their political prisoners and fallen martyrs—reflected in images on public walls, in moments of silence, in daily conversations—our delegation is even more committed to making known the existence of dozens of U.S. political prisoners. Many U.S. political prisoners were given draconian sentences for their political activism in the anti-imperialist struggles and liberation movements of racially oppressed groups during the 1960s and 1970s. Dispensing with them as “criminals,” the U.S. government refuses to acknowledge the political nature of their incarceration.
Our delegation builds on the long history of solidarity between anti-colonial and anti-imperialist movements in the United States and Palestine, expressed most recently in 2013 when thousands of prisoners in Pelican Bay, Guantanamo and Palestine, all on hunger strike at the time, issued solidarity statements with one another. The presence and the histories of two former Black Panther Party members on our delegation served as a constant reminder of the years of solidarity between the Black liberation movement and Palestine.
Colonial Violence and Indigenous Resistance
Israel, which presents itself to the world as a nation of laws, views civil society organizers who bring attention to its crimes as a threat. We were reminded during our visit to the offices of DCI that one of the organization’s lead coordinators was shot and killed, execution-style, by an Israeli military sniper, as he observed a Palestinian protest against the 2014 Israeli assault on Gaza. We witnessed firsthand the escalating Israeli terror against the Palestinian people when we heard on the news—and discussed with the Boycott National Committee—the calls by Israeli Ministers for the “civic” assassination of BDS leaders. This is an escalation of state-sanctioned terror that includes the 2014 assault on Gaza; the burning alive of Palestinian youth Mohammad Abu Khdair at the hands of settlers; the burning alive of the Dawabsheh family in Duma Village by settlers; and the intensification of detentions, land confiscation, displacement and deportations. These conditions have driven Palestinian youth to take matters into their own hands and engage in acts of resistance, which many call a third intifada. Reacting to this resistance, Israel has used the uprisings as pretext for intensifying violence against Palestinian youth.
During our visit, we heard the same message from a cross section of organized forces: that the 1993 Oslo Accords have 1) legitimized continued state violence and re-created a colonial structure—camouflaged as a model of Palestinian autonomy; and 2) weakened the Palestinian anti-colonial liberation movement. Twenty-three years after the failure of Oslo, social, cultural and grassroots organizations, as well as representatives of a wide array of Palestinian political parties, including those of the mass institutions of the Palestine Liberation Organization, emphasized the need to end political divisions in order to rebuild the movement to free Palestine.
While we focused primarily on the experiences of those held in official prisons, our visits to cities in lands taken by the Zionists in both 1967 and 1948 made clear that—as in the Gaza Strip, where nearly two million people are currently held under siege—much of post-Nakba Palestine is tantamount to an open-air prison. In cities like Jerusalem (Al-Quds), Lydd and Hebron (Al-Khalil), Palestinians encounter checkpoints, omnipresent surveillance, with watchtowers on virtually every corner, a wall choking off the daily life of Palestinians, racial apartheid and vulnerability to extrajudicial execution on a daily basis. The old city of Al-Khalil is the epitome of an open-air prison. How else can one describe a situation in which children must walk through barbed wire-lined streets with soldiers training machine guns on them from watchtowers—or in which the Indigenous residents of that city have been forced to erect mesh screens over their marketplace to protect themselves from the trash, urine and feces that Zionist settlers throw at them from the windows of their stolen apartments above? We were equally mortified to see that a section of the Israeli apartheid wall has literally cut this historic Palestinian neighborhood in half. Consequently, family members in Al-Khalil are now unable to see one another without going through a military checkpoint. Severe travel restrictions and street closures have turned the formerly vibrant marketplace into a ghost town, as people are unable to travel to the market or even have access to their own homes.
View from Al-Khalil (Hebron) marketplace up to Zionist settlers’ stolen apartments. The tarps have been erected by the Palestinians to protect themselves from the trash, urine, and feces that settlers throw down at them from their windows.
Poverty, Economy and Palestinian Workers’ Rights
Settler colonialism in Palestine aims at the destruction of Palestinian life through a complex colonial network that includes refugee camps, the siege and blockade of Gaza, imprisonment and exile, and the caging of communities on all sides by the “Israeli West Bank barrier”—more realistically, the apartheid wall—that snakes 280 miles through the occupied West Bank and confiscates Palestinian residential and agricultural lands in its path. This attempt at destroying the social and economic fabric of the Indigenous population is the modus operandi of a Zionist state whose goal is to maintain a demographic Jewish majority.
The exploitation of Palestinian labor is part and parcel of the ongoing colonization project. Palestinian trade unionists detailed this exploitation to our delegation historically and contemporarily. They explained that the Histadrut—the Israeli labor federation that enjoys a fraternal relationship with the AFL-CIO—has been an integral part of the Zionist movement and the colonization of Palestine even before the creation of the state of Israel. The Histadrut exploits Palestinian workers in Israel by deducting a portion of their salaries for benefits they never receive.
Palestinian labor leaders also shared the findings of a draft report on the horrifying conditions of Palestinian women workers, including those who are employed in Israeli settlements on the West Bank and are subjected to long work hours, reduced pay, and sexual harassment at checkpoints. None of the Palestinian workers employed by Israeli businesses enjoy the protection of the Israeli labor federation or Israeli labor laws. Palestinian trade unionists called on us to wage a campaign among U.S. trade unionists to divest U.S. workers’ pension funds from Israeli bonds.
Palestinian trade unionists also told us about the devastating socio-economic conditions that have been steadily worsening since the signing of the 1993 Oslo Accords. Oslo legislated and legitimized the increasing dependency of the Palestinian colonized economy on the Israeli colonizing power, and has threatened any potential for the emergence of an independent Palestinian economy. The continuing blockade of Gaza and the restrictions placed on Palestinian farmers and small industries have strangled the Palestinian economy and led to the degradation of living conditions, leading to alarming levels of poverty in the 1967 occupied Palestinian areas, as well as among Palestinians in the areas seized by Israel in 1948.
Palestinian labor organizers told us about the crisis in Palestinian refugee camps produced by cuts in the services of the United Nations Relief and Work Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA). Cuts in UNRWA services in education and health, combined with institutionalized discrimination in healthcare, education and employment, have created shocking disparities. Life expectancy for Palestinians is, on average, 10 years lower than the Israeli rate; infant deaths are 18.8 compared to 3.7 per 1000 births; and the death of Palestinian mothers due to complications of pregnancy or labor is 28 per 100,000 births compared to 7 for Israelis. These conditions have led to widespread strikes by Palestinian employees who demand equitable pay scale and the restoration of health and education services.
Palestinian trade union leaders also expressed grave concerns over the diminishing conditions of public education in Palestinian Authority areas. They echoed the sentiments of Palestinian teachers, administrators and parents who protested the worsening work conditions for Palestinian teachers and insisted on joining local and national marches for a whole month, despite attempts by Palestinian security forces to suppress their rallies.
Trade union leaders also highlighted the apartheid conditions in Israel, where schools are segregated. The ratio of spending on education in these schools is 1:9, and Palestinian students living in Israel are forced to learn a curriculum that denies their own history and exalts the misleading history of the colonizers.
We join hands with our comrades in the Palestinian labor movement and salute the struggle of striking teachers, labor organizers and workers demanding economic justice, independence and national self-determination from colonial structures. We further pledge to campaign in the ranks of U.S. labor to divest from Israeli bonds and sever ties between the AFL-CIO and the Histadrut.
Dispossession and Struggle for Land and Return
A university professor with whom we met explained how the system of Zionist colonization is one of the most intensely territorialized systems of spatial control the world has seen. In 1948, Israel destroyed at least 531 Palestinian towns and villages, and within five years, established 370 new Jewish settlement towns, 95% of which were built on seized Palestinian land. The state of Israel now controls 93% of the land captured in 1948.
Today, eight million Palestinian refugees are forbidden from returning to their homeland. Those in the West Bank are subject to the ubiquitous system of checkpoints that severely restrict their ability to travel to work, school, mosques and churches, and to hospitals for medical treatment. Under the Absentee Property Law, Palestinians can lose their rights as homeowners for any number of reasons, including renovating or expanding their homes to accommodate a growing family. The Israeli state rarely grants Palestinians permission to build or expand homes, forcing them into “illegal” construction of houses, which are then subject to demolition orders.
In the village of Ayn Hawd, near Haifa, an elder explained how Israel confiscated the homes of the Palestinians and turned the village into a park and an artists’ colony, replaced the mosque with a restaurant, and protected the settlement of Zionists living in stolen Palestinian homes. We saw how those settlers have repeatedly trashed and destroyed the old Palestinian cemetery. There, as elsewhere, we witnessed the central role of the Jewish National Fund (JNF) in the ongoing destruction of Palestine.
The sight of bulldozers on top of a hill signaled the looming destruction of the village of Um El Heran in the Al-Naqab desert, a territory colonized in 1948. Um El Heran is one of 46 “unrecognized villages” that do not exist on Israeli official government maps and are therefore denied electricity, water, roads, schools and all essential services extended by the state to nearby “recognized” Israeli towns of Jewish settlers. Throughout Palestine, we observed water tanks and solar panels fastened to rooftops to compensate for Israeli restriction of water and electricity, while the homes of Jewish settlers enjoy full state-sponsored services including swimming pools.
Bulldozers set to demolish Palestinian Bedouin village of Um El Heran, Al-Naqab desert. The village is to be destroyed in preparation for the construction of a Zionist settlement. The Jewish National Fund (JNF) flag flies alongside the Israeli flag.
Public Intellectuals and Anti-Colonial Cultures of Resistance
Everywhere we went in Palestine we witnessed signs of a culture of resistance. Youth activists in the Naqab told us about their use of poetry to resist Zionist attempts to uproot them from their lands. In the 1948 urban areas of Yafa, Lydd, Haifa and Nazareth we heard about oral history projects to counter the systematic program of cultural and historical erasure deployed by Israel through the outright destruction of sites and signs of Palestinian life, their replacement with invented maps and road signs, and the elimination of the word “Palestinian” from school textbooks and curricula. We also heard from grassroots organizations and activists about campaigns to defy Israel’s ban on the commemoration of the Nakba, about projects, that bring Palestinian children to the sites of their families’ destroyed villages, and about others that use oral history to pass on the collective memories of a people who refuse to submit to a settler-colonial project aimed at negating their existence on their land.
We visited the Ibdaa Arts Center in the Dheisheh refugee camp and the Popular Arts Center in El Bireh and saw, painted on interior walls, murals that defied the Israeli occupation ban on resistance art on public walls. Palestinian cultural figures told us that Israel continues to shut down theater, dance and music performances that challenge its colonial rule. We learned that, in an attempt to end the wave of protests currently engulfing Palestine, the Israeli Prime Minister demanded that the Palestinian Authority prohibit taxi drivers from playing Palestinian music on their radios.
We participated in two conferences hosted by the Institute for Women’s Studies at Birzeit University and the An-Najah National University, both co-sponsored with the Arab and Muslim Ethnicities and Diasporas Studies at San Francisco State University. We shared the platform with Palestinian academics who are engaged in the daily struggles of their people and who insisted on defining the academy as a site of struggle for the dignity of all Palestinians. We compared our respective analysis of the United States and Israel as settler-colonial regimes intent on destroying Indigenous life and the Third World movements that have arisen to challenge colonialism and imperialism.
Delegation members with colleagues and students at An-Najah National University, Nablus, Palestine
Solidarity was forged as former political prisoners in Palestine and former US-held political prisoners in our delegation discussed parallel experiences. Palestinian audiences at both conferences were moved by the messages we brought with us in a collection of letters from currently incarcerated U.S. political prisoners—some of whom have already served 40 years and more—to their Palestinian sisters and brothers. Our colleagues at Birzeit University’s Institute for Women’s Studies translated the letters into Arabic. The solidarity was palpable during the final plenary of Birzeit’s conference, when the phone rang and we heard the voice of U.S. political prisoner Mumia Abu Jamal. Mumia was calling from State Correctional Institution Mahanoy in Pennsylvania to express solidarity with and love for the people of Palestine.
We learned that Palestinian universities offer free tuition to former Palestinian prisoners and that every graduation ceremony honors Palestinian students, faculty and staff martyred or imprisoned by Israel during the academic year. In contrast, Israel has banned access to education for Palestinian prisoners, even denying some the possession of a pencil and paper.
Speaking alongside members of both campus communities who were imprisoned by the Israeli colonial state, and witnessing how Palestinian universities honor those who sacrificed their lives for their people heightened our commitment to insist that our own academic institutions resist the neoliberal university, reclaim the mission of public education, and restore the gains for which earlier generations of students—including the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee; Black Student Unions; the Third World Liberation Front at San Francisco State University; Ocean Hill-Brownsville; the Open Admission Strike of 1969 at the City University of New York—fought. This struggle continues today on our campuses and community spaces. We also reject Israel’s and the Zionist movement’s attempts to employ McCarthyite tactics to intimidate, harass and silence advocates for justice in and outside Palestine, and activists and scholars who stand for justice on university campuses, public schools and in public life the world over.
Conclusion
We were asked repeatedly to bring these Palestinian stories of dispossession and steadfast resistance back to the United States. Much of what we saw in Palestine called up images of life in the United States. Like Israel, the United States is a settler colony—built on the genocide and denial of Indigenous peoples’ rights; the kidnapping and enslavement of Africans; the colonization of Mexico, Puerto Rico, the Philippines, Hawaii and Guam; the exclusion of Chinese people; the incarceration of Japanese people in concentration camps; and the rising vilification and criminalization of immigrants from Latin America and of Arabs, Muslims and Mediterranean and South and Central Asian people. Like Israel, the United States suppresses resistance using the cover of law. The United States continues to engage in imperialist wars and interventions in the Third World, while 2.3 million people are incarcerated in U.S. prisons, young Black, Latina/o, and Indigenous people are executed and targeted while educational institutions become increasingly privatized and corporatized. The 99% are getting more impoverished while the 1% is getting richer. Significantly, the United States funds Israel to the tune of $4 billion annually and supports the distorted ideology of Zionism.
We therefore feel an urgent sense of responsibility to pressure the United States to stop funding Israeli crimes against humanity. We express our support for the struggle for a free Palestine as a central struggle in the worldwide movement against U.S. imperialism. We are committed to employing a variety of tactics in solidarity with Palestine, including Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions, and we condemn Israeli and Zionist attacks against advocates for justice for/in Palestine in our communities and on our campuses. We connect prisoner and labor movements across the borders; and apply the spirit of sumud to all our struggles for liberation within the United States.
Support Palestinian people’s just struggle for self-determination, return and sovereignty, and the struggle against settler colonialism in the United States, Israel and elsewhere
Release Palestinian and all political prisoners, including those in the United States
End all U.S. military and financial support of Israel
Support Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) of Israel
Reject the new Israeli and Zionist McCarthyism that seeks to intimidate, harass and silence advocacy for justice in Palestine
In Joint Struggle,
Rabab Abdulhadi, author and professor, San Francisco State University*, California
Diana Block, author and activist, California Coalition for Women Prisoners*, San Francisco, California
Susan Chen, counselor faculty, member California Faculty Association – SFSU chapter Affirmative Action Rep, San Francisco State University*, California
Dennis Childs, author and professor, University of California*, San Diego
Susie Day, writer, Monthly Review Press*, New York City, New York
Emory Douglas, Revolutionary Artist and Minister of Culture, Black Panther Party, 1967-1982
Johanna Fernández, author and professor, City University of New York-Baruch College*; Organizer, Campaign to Bring Mumia Home
Diane Fujino, author and professor, University of California*, Santa Barbara
Alborz Ghandehari, member of BDS Caucus of UAW 2865, University of California Student-Workers Union*
Anna Henry, activist and member, California Coalition for Women Prisoners*, San Francisco
Rachel Herzing, independent scholar and co-founder, Critical Resistance*, Oakland, California
Hank Jones, activist, former US-Held political prisoner and member, Black Panther Party, Los Angeles, California
manuel la fontaine, former US-held prisoner and member, All of Us or None*, San Francisco, California
Claude Marks, Former US-held political prisoner, Freedom Archives*, San Francisco, California
Nathaniel Moore, archivist, Freedom Archives*, San Francisco, California
Isaac Ontiveros, member, Critical Resistance*, Oakland, California
Michael Ritter, counselor faculty; member CSU Academic Senate & CFA Board of Directors, San Francisco State University*, California
Jaime Veve, Co-Convener, Labor for Palestine*, New York City, New York
Laura Whitehorn, Former US-held political prisoner, New York City, New York
*All institutional and organizational affiliations are for identification purposes only
