Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network has joined with the Canadian BDS Coalition, Canada Palestine Association, Just Peace Advocates, Oakville Palestine Rights Association and Palestinian and Jewish Unity (PAJU) for the following action alert. Demand the Canadian government take action for Palestinian prisoners!
Take a minute to write to Prime Minister Trudeau, Global Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly with copy to all members of parliament to let them know you demand Canada hold Israel accountable under domestic and international law.
As our parliament is back in session in Ottawa, let elected officials know that you are concerned about ongoing war crimes committed by Israel, including specifically against Palestinian prisoners.
Several Palestinian prisoners are facing an increasingly urgent health crisis as they continue their hunger strike to end administrative detention, imprisonment without charge or trial. These prisoners have been forced to go without food or nutrition in order to seek justice or bring an end to their time behind bars.
It is important we make Canadian politicians aware of the current situation. Certainly, they will not hear about it in the media.
Realizing there are new members of parliament, it is especially important to remind all of our elected officials that Canada, as a high signatory of the Fourth Geneva Convention, is responsible under Article 1 for ensuring the Convention is upheld in all cases.
Regarding prisoners, this means Canada needs to take action to hold Israel accountable when there are no safeguards for proper trial and defence, when prisoners are removed from the occupied territory, when prisoners are not treated humanely and with respect, and when prisoners are treated violently. Regrettably, these are the norm for Palestinian prisoners, and so Canada is responsible under international law to hold Israel accountable for these violations of international law.
Under the Special Economics Measures Act, Canada is also responsible domestically for ensuring sanctions are in place when there are systemic and gross violation of human rights. Call on Canada to put sanctions on Israel until it complies with international law and human rights.
Student Prisoners
Earlier this year, over 350 organizations world-wide including many in Canada endorsed the call #FreePalestinianStudents. One Palestinian prisoner who just ended his hunger strike, Miqdad Qawasmeh, is a student jailed without charge or trial, who went without food for 111 days in order to bring his detention to an end. Meanwhile, students continue to be arrested and imprisoned on a daily basis for their participation in student activities on their campuses. Even events like book fairs and food sales have been criminalized by the Israeli occupation.
Palestine’s Children and Military Law
On June 18, 2021, Liberal Member of Parliament for Scarborough Center presented a parliamentary petition signed by almost 5,000 people calling for an urgent study by the Subcommittee on International Human Rights of the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development to review Israel’s treatment of children in Israeli occupied Palestine and compliance with its obligations under the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. The government did not respond prior to the election so a new parliamentary petition petition E-3608 has been put in place and is available to sign HERE.
What is administrative detention?
Administrative detention was first used in Palestine by the British colonial mandate and then adopted by the Zionist regime; it is now used routinely to target Palestinians, especially community leaders, activists, and influential people in their towns, camps and villages.
There are currently approximately 520 Palestinians jailed without charge or trial under administrative detention, out of 4,650 Palestinian political prisoners. These orders are issued by the military and approved by military courts on the basis of “secret evidence”, denied to both Palestinian detainees and their attorneys. Issued for up to six months at a time, they are indefinitely renewable, and Palestinians — including minor children — can spend years jailed without charge or trial under administrative detention.
Who are the prisoners on strike?
1. Hisham Ismail Abu Hawash, 39, from Dura, al-Khalil, has been on hunger strike for 98 days. He has been jailed without charge or trial since October 2020 under Israeli administrative detention. Over multiple arrests, he has spent eight years in Israeli prisons. He is married and the father of four children; his youngest child suffers from kidney failure.
2. Louay Al-Ashqar, 45, from Saida near Tulkarem, is held in the Jalameh detention center without charge or trial. He has been on hunger strike for 31 days under very harsh conditions after being detained by the Israeli occupation on 5 October 2021. He has previously been jailed for eight years by the Israeli occupation, between administrative detention orders and sentences. He is paralyzed in his left leg after being tortured and beaten by occupation soldiers in 2005 while under interrogation, and his brother, Mohammed al-Ashqar, was murdered by Israeli occupation forces in 2007 in the Negev desert prison.
Israeli occupation soldiers violently attacked prisoners with a purported training exercise inside the prison. When prisoners resisted the violent attack upon them, Israeli repressive units shot Mohammed Ashqar in the head. Later, Israeli commanders and soldiers celebrated the murderous attack as an example of “raising morale,” later posing for photos while joking and laughing.
Join us in taking action to contact the Canadian members of Parliament and demand accountability and Canadian sanctions on Israel.
Letters will be sent to Prime Minister Trudeau and all members of parliament, as well as Canadian diplomats in Tel Aviv and Ramallah.
The ask is for Canada to take steps economically and diplomatically to stop Israel’s violations of international law. This would include a call for the end of administrative detention, and the strict adherence to international humanitarian law including in regard to prisoners. Also, for the Human Rights Subcommittee of the Foreign Affairs Parliamentary Committee to immediately launch a review related to Israel treatment of Palestine’s children under military law.
Thanks to our partners on this campaign, Canadian BDS Coalition, Canada Palestine Association, Palestinian and Jewish Unity, Oakville Palestinian Rights Association and Just Peace Advocates.
The Zionist state of Israel operates with complete impunity, from its embedded legal framework to the massive military and diplomatic support it receives from Western governments, particularly, the US and Canada.
Its decades-long colonization of Palestine, home demolitions and ongoing ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, ongoing building of settlements, the imprisonment of over 4500 Palestinians in its jails with 520+ under illegal administrative detention orders, its endless attacks and blockade on Gaza, and recently, the designation of 6 civil society organizations as terrorist groups; all are steps in a process to not only silence Palestinians but to control, dominate and eliminate the Palestinian presence on their own land in a process explicitly designed to making the occupation and colonization of Palestine permanent.
Israel continues to colonize and kill Palestinians using its fraudulent claim of “self-defense,” but we are not deceived! The world is not deceived!
It’s time to put a stop to Israel’s exceptionalism, time to hold the Zionist state accountable for its crimes.
It’s time for sanctions.
It’s time for Palestine to be free from the river to the sea.
Join Actions4Palestine, Palestinian Youth Movement, Independent Jewish Voices, Students for Justice in Palestine, the Association of Palestinian Students UTM, Samidoun and Faculty4Palestine to honour the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People on Saturday November 27@ 2 PM EST, and to affirm that every day is a day of solidarity with the Palestinian people until they return to a liberated Palestine.
On Monday, 22 November, Kayed Fasfous and Ayyad Hraimi, two Palestinian prisoners on long-term hunger strike against their administrative detention — imprisonment without charge or trial — suspended their strikes with agreements for their freedom. Kayed al-Fasfous, 32, from Dura near al-Khalil, suspended his strike after 131 days, as doctors had warned increasingly urgently about his fragile health. His family has reported that he will be released in 23 days, having defeated the jailers and bringing his detention to an end.
Fasfous, whose brothers Akram, Mahmoud and Hafez are also imprisoned — with Akram and Mahmoud earlier joining the hunger strike and Mahmoud being forced to end his strike due to a severe health crisis — previously launched a 12-day hunger strike in 2019. He has been detained without charge or trial since July 2020. A fitness enthusiast, he is married and the father of a daughter, Joanne. He works for the Dura municipality, and he recently resumed his studies of computer science at Hebron University, which had been interrupted by multiple arrests and periods of detention.
Only hours earlier, Ayyad Hraimi, 28, from Bethlehem, suspended his hunger strike after 60 days, reaching an agreement for his release from detention without charge or trial on 4 March 2022. He had been jailed without charge or trial since April 2021. Over the years, he has been repeatedly detained by the Israeli occupation; in 2016, he also conducted a 45-day hunger strike to win his freedom.
Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network salutes Kayed Fasfous, Ayyad Hraimi and all of the hunger strikers and Palestinian prisoners, who embody resistance and steadfastness, on the front lines of struggle and confrontation against the colonial jailers. We look forward to their liberation and to celebrating with their friends, family and the entire Palestinian people upon their release. At the same time, it remains urgent to act to demand the liberation of their fellow long-term hunger strikers and all Palestinian prisoners in the jails of the occupation, imperialism and reactionary regimes.
Meanwhile, on 18 November, Alaa al-Araj suspended his hunger strike following the cancellation of his administrative detention without charge or trial, after 103 days without nourishment. However, he is now facing a new injustice at the hands of the Israeli occupation regime; during his hunger strike he was subjected to interrogation and his case moved to the Israeli military courts, where indictments have been filed against him. Israeli military courts are another form of a mockery of justice and a colonial weapon against the Palestinian people; they are a fundamentally illegitimate system that exists solely to enforce an unjust and unlawful occupation.
Two more Palestinian prisoners jailed without charge or trial under administrative detention orders are continuing their hunger strikes for liberation. Hisham Abu Hawash has been on hunger strike for 98 days, while Louay al-Ashqar has been on hunger strike for 43 days. Abu Hawash, 39 and from Dura in al-Khalil, has been frequently transferred to and from civilian hospitals, exacerbating his serious health condition after a lengthy hunger strike. He has been jailed without charge or trial since October 2020, and during his strike, a new six-month detention order was issued against him, later reduced to four months yet confirmed that it may be extended further. He is married and the father of five children.
Al-Ashqar, 45, from Saida near Tulkarem, is held in the Jalameh detention center without charge or trial. He has been on hunger strike for 31 days under very harsh conditions after being detained by the Israeli occupation on 5 October 2021. He has previously been jailed for eight years by the Israeli occupation, between administrative detention orders and sentences. He is paralyzed in his left leg after being tortured and beaten by occupation soldiers in 2005 while under interrogation, and his brother, Mohammed al-Ashqar, was murdered by Israeli occupation forces in 2007 in the Negev desert prison.
Israeli occupation soldiers violently attacked prisoners with as a purported training exercise inside the prison. When prisoners resisted the violent attack upon them, Israeli repressive units shot Mohammed Ashqar in the head. Later, Israeli commanders and soldiers celebrated the murderous attack as an example of “raising morale,” later posing for photos while joking and laughing.
Meanwhile, Palestinian prisoner Rateb Hreibat has also continued a solidarity hunger strike in support of the administrative detainees for 44 days. Fikri Mansour, from the village of Jat in occupied Palestine ’48, has been on hunger strike for 8 days against the repression of the prison authority. He is being held in solitary confinement, denied family visits and access to the “canteen,” or prison store. Jailed since 2005, he is serving a 17-year prison sentence.
Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network congratulates Kayed al-Fasfous and Ayyad Hraimi on their victories over the jailer. Once again, the steadfast resistance of Palestinian prisoners has broken down the colonial jailers. We urge all supporters of Palestine to take action to support the hunger strikers continuing their strikes and all Palestinian prisoners struggling for freedom, for their own lives and for the Palestinian people.
They are confronting the system of Israeli oppression on the front lines, with their bodies and their lives, to bring the system of administrative detention to an end. Take these actions below to stand with the hunger strikers and the struggle for liberation of Palestine, from the river to the sea!
Independent grassroots international activists have launched a petition in support of the hunger strikers and to end administrative detention. Show your support by signing on – in addition to taking action in person! Sign here: change.org/NoChargeNoTrialNoJail
Join the Social Media Campaign!
There is a growing social media campaign to #FreeThemAll. Use this hashtag to post on Twitter and Instagram. Post in all languages! Many people have been conducting online hunger strikes in solidarity with the prisoners. Take action and join the social media outrage and break the isolation imposed upon them by the Israeli occupation!
Take to the streets: Organize a protest in solidarity with Palestine!
Take to the streets and join the actions on our full list of events, which is constantly being updated as new actions are announced! Organize your own if there is none in your area, and send us your events at samidoun@samidoun.net.
Boycott Israel!
The international, Arab and Palestinian campaign to boycott Israel can play an important role at this critical time. Local boycott groups can protest and label Israeli produce and groceries, while many complicit corporations – including HP, G4S, Puma, Teva and others, profit from their role in support Zionist colonialism throughout occupied Palestine. By participating in the boycott of Israel, you can directly help to throw a wrench in the economy of settler colonialism.
Demand Your Government Sanction Israel!
The racist, settler colonial state of Israel and its war crimes against the Palestinian people are enabled and backed extensively by the over $3.8 billion each year given to Israel by the United States — targeted directly to support the Israeli occupation military killing children, women, men and elders throughout occupied Palestine. From Canada to Australia to the European Union, Western governments and imperialist powers provide ongoing diplomatic, political and economic support to Israel as well as selling billions of dollars of weaponry to the settler-colonial state. Meanwhile, they also purchase billions of dollars in weaponry from the Israeli state. Governments in league with imperialist powers, such as in the Philippines, Brazil, India and elsewhere, also buy weapons and “security” services — all “battle-tested” on the Palestinian population. Call your representatives, MPs, political officials and demand your government sanction Israel now, cut off all aid, expel its ambassadors, and stop buying and selling weapons!
The following presentation was delivered on Saturday, 20 November in Copenhagen, Denmark, by the Collectif Palestine Vaincra, a member organization of the Samidoun Network based in Toulouse, France. The presentation was delivered as part of the 50th anniversary conference and celebration of the Internationalt Forum, a long-time anti-imperialist organization based in Denmark. The Collectif attended the event alongside Samidoun members based in the Netherlands, Sweden and Belgium, as well as delegates from the Philippines, the Spanish State, Greenland and England. Below is the full text of the Collectif’s presentation on the occasion in solidarity with the Palestinian resistance and liberation struggle, as translated from the original French.
Comrades of Collectif Palestine Vaincra, Samidoun Nederland, Samidoun Gothenburg and more at the Internationalt Forum 50th anniversary event in Copenhagen
Thank you to the Internationalt Forum for the invitation to this meeting. We immediately accepted, as we appreciate your important work in support of Palestine and the boycott of the Zionist occupation for all these many years. Thank you also to the invited speakers, notably Palestine Action, to whom we reiterate our full solidarity in the face of repression.
I speak on behalf of the Collectif Palestine Vaincra (“Palestine Will Win” Collective), a Palestinian resistance support organization based in Toulouse, France that is a member of the international Samidoun Network and a participating organization in the Masar Badil, the Palestinian Alternative Revolutionary Path Movement. Our collective was founded in March 2019 following a decade of work in support of the Palestinian people and their resistance. We have the great pleasure to have as honorary members Georges Abdallah, Arab communist imprisoned in France for over 37 years, and Leila Khaled, icon of the Palestinian resistance.
Supporting Palestine: an anti-imperialist struggle
The founding of the Collectif was motivated by a simple observation. In France, the solidarity movement with the Palestinian people is largely dominated by a humanitarian approach, which in effect recognizes the “legitimacy” of the Zionist state and follows the capitulationist path of the Oslo so-called “peace” process.
Our organization has broken with this majority trend in the solidarity movement by adopting an anti-imperialist and anti-colonialist approach to the Palestinian cause. Israel is not a state like any other, it is the outpost of the imperialist powers in this region of the world, built upon on colonial settlement and the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people. Joe Biden, the current President of the United States of America, has stated this with great clarity when he said: “If there were no Israel, the United States would have to invent an Israel to protect its interests in the region.”
This is obviously the case for all the imperialist powers of the world that see in the Zionist state a reliable and faithful ally. In particular, French imperialism has played and continues to play a key role in the colonization of Palestine: from the Sykes-Picot agreements in 1916, which provided for the imperialist division of the region between France and Great Britain, to the vote on the partition plan at the UN in 1947, to the provision of nuclear power to the Israeli occupation in the 1960s, and on to the present day through numerous economic and military agreements.
To understand this is to understand that to support Palestine is not only to support the Palestinian people in their legitimate struggle for justice, dignity and liberation, but also to support ourselves and our communities and class in our struggle against our countries’ imperialism. For it is in the name of the defense of imperialist interests in this region, first British interests and then Western interests in general and those of the US in particular, that the Palestinian people have been the target of brutal colonization for 104 years now.
To understand this is also to understand that the Palestinian people are not only confronting the Zionist state but also the imperialist powers, and the reactionary Arab regimes in their employ, such as Egypt and Jordan. The movement for the liberation of Palestine has therefore a Palestinian, Arab and international dimension through which we each have responsibilities, not in humanitarian support, but in helping each other in our common struggle, an anti-imperialist struggle. The liberation of Palestine is an important lever for the Arab revolution and the struggle against the Western imperialist powers. This is why the defense of the Palestinian cause is a central issue.
Asserting a clear line for the liberation of Palestine
Within this framework and with this approach, our Collectif Palestine Vaincra was formed around the affirmation of the principles set out by the Palestinian revolution in the 1960s, in particular the defense of the vision of a free and democratic Palestine from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea, and the inalienable right of return for all Palestinian refugees expelled from their land.
One of our principles is therefore to affirm forcefully and unambiguously the illegitimacy of the Zionist state and the need for its dismantling. As the Palestinian revolutionary George Habash pointed out in 1974: “One day the truth will be clear to all, that there is no peace in the region with the existence of a fascist and racist state based on a reactionary doctrine and with the aim of serving imperialist interests. The slogan of a democratic society in Palestine, launched by the Palestinian revolution, is the only path to freedom and progress for all the peoples of the region, including the Jews, and it is the path to a permanent and lasting peace.” This demand requires the explanation of the real nature of the Zionist movement as a colonial and racist movement, and the real nature of this state, which is none other than one of the last colonial settlements on the planet. The whole of our practice and our political line is thus directed towards this objective.
Making this demand affirms the legitimacy of the Palestinian resistance in all its forms in order to confront Zionist colonialism. This principle is upheld in international law, in particular the UN resolution 37/43 adopted in 1982, but it is above all an anti-colonialist political principle. Yes, the Palestinian people have the right to resist colonization, occupation and apartheid! There is a vast international operation to delegitimize the Palestinian resistance and its organizations by labeling them as “terrorists”. In this perspective and in the face of the repression of the Palestinian people, we believe that support for Palestinian prisoners and their immediate release is a central issue. The Palestinian prisoners represent the front line of resistance against the Zionist occupation and they are subjected to a vast campaign of criminalization in order to isolate them from their people and from international support. Supporting Palestinian prisoners is therefore not simply supporting a demand for justice, although that is part of it, but it is first and foremost support for freedom fighters and the legitimacy of their struggle. Georges Abdallah, Ahmad Sa’adat, Khitam Saafin, Naël Barghouthi, Walid Daqqa and all the 4650 Palestinian prisoners are not “terrorists”, they are resistance fighters!
As we aim for the liberation of Palestine from the river to the sea, we defend the inalienable right of return of Palestinian refugees to their land. Today, defending the right of return for the refugees in the camp of Ein el Helweh in Lebanon, and for the Palestinian communities in exile in Europe, is to fight the founding crime, the creation of the Zionist state. It is to resist the Nakba that continues to this day, from the expulsion of 800,000 Palestinians from their land in 1948 to the ethnic cleansing in the Sheikh Jarrah and Silwan neighborhoods of Al Quds today.
And this is also why we promote a total boycott of the Zionist state, its institutions and its supporters. This boycott campaign does not intend to substitute itself for Palestinian resistance or to lock itself into the framework of so-called “international law” that recognizes the legitimacy of the Zionist occupation of the majority of Palestinian land, but to utilize boycott as a tool to isolate and delegitimize Israeli apartheid. This is, therefore, a boycott in the service of Palestinian resistance, in the tradition of the Palestinian, Arab and international boycott that has existed for nearly a century: from the boycott of the products of the first Zionist settlers in the 1920s to the boycott of the occupation economy during the Great Intifada of 1987.
A practice geared towards these goals
As we said at the beginning, the Collectif Palestine Vaincra is the result of 10 years of work in support of Palestine. The elaboration of this political line is therefore first and foremost the result of many meetings, first and foremost with Georges Ibrahim Abdallah. A Lebanese Communist and resistance fighter, he has been imprisoned for 37 years in a prison not far from Toulouse. It has been first of all through our commitment to his liberation that we have developed a new approach to support for Palestine, in a profound break with the currents that dominate the French activist scene. During our monthly meetings for many years, we have been attending his political and militant school. It is first of all at his side that we discovered and learned about the lengthy history and the immense heritage of the Palestinian resistance in general and of the Palestinian left in particular.
But the elaboration of this line was also done through a militant practice in contact with today’s reality. Indeed, to carry these slogans would have no meaning if they were not embodied in a coherent and consistent practice. This is the practice we are attempting to implement with the Collectif Palestine Vaincra. Our objective is to normalize these demands in the political space, in particular in the left-wing movements, and to bring them to the daily life of the inhabitants of Toulouse. The situation is difficult but we have developed our influence in a significant way and organized new people little by little, in particular young people.
Every month, we hold at least one information and mobilization stand in the heart of the city center and in a popular neighborhood. These spaces become meeting points, training sessions and discussions with hundreds of people. It is an opportunity to raise the flag of Palestine and to reaffirm the legitimacy and relevance of the Palestinian cause in public space. But it is also a space of confrontation as our mere presence arouses strong hostilities from the various organizations supporting the Zionist extreme right.
A secondary but nevertheless important aspect of our work is the development of media campaigns, agitation and propaganda through communication tools such as video, graphics or social media. The aim here is to combine fieldwork with online information and propaganda and to create a broad spectrum of visibility for the Collectif and its campaigns.
One of the central activities of our collective is, of course, the campaign for the release of Georges Abdallah. We support his release not only as an individual, but first of all because Georges Abdallah embodies a resolutely anti-imperialist alternative for the Palestinian and Lebanese people. Every October, we carry out a large-scale awareness-raising campaign by distributing tens of thousands of flyers and organizing a large delegation to the annual demonstration in front of the Lannemezan prison where he is jailed. This year, this campaign has reached an important qualitative and quantitative threshold, notably by gathering more than 1000 people during this dynamic and militant march.
We also carry out campaigns focusing on immediate demands, in particular the various campaigns to boycott Israel. For example, we led a major campaign for the end of the twinning between Toulouse and Tel Aviv during the previous municipal elections. While this subject had been ignored for many years, we succeeded in making it a theme of the political debate of this term with the signing of a petition by more than 5000 inhabitants of the city, regular actions and activities, and the systematic questioning of the different candidates. Newly elected municipal opposition officials have publicly supported our campaign while the mayor of the city has multiplied the insults and allegations against us.
We also actively participate in the campaigns of the international Samidoun network, in particular in support of Ahmad Sa’adat and the imprisoned Palestinian students. Like our solidarity with Georges Abdallah, these solidarity campaigns are tools to build solidarity with Palestinians in occupied Palestine and to embody the path of resistance in the here and now. This Palestinian, Arab and international network includes multiple chapters and affiliated organizations, like our collective, in many countries, notably in Palestine, in several European countries, in North America, in Brazil and in Iran. It plays a significant role in supporting Palestinian prisoners and we invite you to join it.
Facing repression
However, such a line and such a practice obviously provoke strong reactions from the French authorities, and especially from Zionist organizations and supporters of Israel. Since its creation, our collective has faced a vast campaign of intimidation and pressure from the authorities and the Zionist lobby. This is obviously not an isolated case.
We have seen in recent years various charges, allegations and trials against activists who support the boycott of Israel in France, most recently with the legal case between the president of EuroPalestine, Olivia Zémor, and the Israeli pharmaceutical company Teva. The pro-Palestinian activist won the case at the trial level. These legal cases are taking place despite the condemnation of the French government by the European Court of Human Rights for hindering freedom of expression. Nevertheless, the French government persists in its attempts to criminalize the boycott of Israel, notably through a recent circular from the Minister of Justice.
Another tool of the policy of repression of the supporters of Palestine is the shameful political maneuver of falsely equating anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism. This takes place in particular through the adoption of the new IHRA definition of anti-Semitism, which includes in its examples of expressions of anti-Semitism the questioning of the Zionist project and the recognition of Israel as a racist endeavor. Resolutions supporting this definition have been adopted in France by the National Assembly, the Senate and the city of Paris.
With the classification of Samidoun and the Collectif Palestine Vaincra as a “terrorist organization” by the Israeli occupation last February, we have reached a new stage. Obviously the main objective is to try to intimidate and isolate the organizations that are affected by this type of designation. This is even more obvious today when we see that 6 Palestinian NGOs have just suffered the same type of attack. In France, the consequences following this designation were quick, with the launch of a campaign by NGO Monitor for our dissolution, a campaign that was relayed by a member of the majority party of President Emmanuel Macron, who sent an official request for our dissolution to the Ministry of the Interior. Obviously, this is still minor, compared to the attacks on Palestine Action. Nevertheless, it is worrying to see how the criminalization of support for Palestine is intensifying in France, including against simple actions like anti-Zionist and anti-imperialist discourse and awareness campaigns.
In the face of this, we believe it is necessary to build a broad united front to confront repression. This is what we have managed to do in France following these threats, when all the main left-wing organizations and the trade union movement at the national level issued a statement of support for our collective. This shows that their strategy to isolate us is not only failing but is having the opposite effect.
But one thing is certain, we are more determined than ever to continue to support the Palestinian resistance, until return and the liberation of Palestine from the river to the sea. And these meetings are of paramount importance in building and strengthening the anti-imperialist movement throughout the world.
Down with imperialism and Zionism!
From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free!
Kampanj: Palestinska schackforumet || Support the Palestinian Chess Forum! || حملة دعم الملتقى الفلسطيني للشطرنج || Kampagne: Palästinensisches Schachforum ||Campagne: Het Palestijnse Schaakforum
Som den enda schackklubben i de palestinska flyktinglägren inom Libanon är det “Palestinska Schackforumet” i Shatilalägret inte bara en ungdomsklubb utan även ett centrum för allmänheten. Det lär ungdomar och barn att spela schack, anordnar bokcirklar, konstworkshops, poesikvällar, språkkurser, kompletterande skollektioner, föreläsningar och mycket mer. Genom att erkänna sitt ansvar och de palestinska ungdomarnas och barnens nödvändiga politiska roll i flyktinglägren utgör Palestinska schackforumet ett centrum för nationellt och politiskt arbete. Detta kan ses i allt från dess schackturnering som heter “Den palestinska revolutionen inledning” till dess kulturella tävling “Vem är Ghassan Kanafani?”
Med det förvärrade ekonomiska läget och den bredare finanskrisen i Libanon, särskilt de palestinska flyktinglägren, hotas Palestinska schackforumets kontinuerliga aktiviteter och den centrala roll det spelar i lägret. Eftersom det är vår plikt att stödja självständiga, folkliga gräsrotsinitiativ i de palestinska flyktinglägren, uppmanar vi dig att stödja det “Palestinska schackforumet” i Shatila och se till att dess funktioner och utrymmet det erbjuder barnen och lägret i allmänhet förblir aktiva och hållbara.
Hur kan du hjälpa till?
Vi kan alla stödja centret tillsammans med en enkel handling av stor betydelse och enorm inverkan. Vi kan trygga centrets fortlevnad genom att donera med länken:
Självständiga ungdomsklubbar i palestinska områden i vårt hemland, Palestina, och i diasporan, spelar en huvudsaklig roll i att förvalta det ansvar mot vårt folk som inte erbjuds av någon stat eller regering. Av denna anledning är det en viktig prioritet att stödja och stärka dessa initiativ som är nära sammanflätade med vårt folk och som erbjuder viktiga sociala program. Våra bidrag idag stärker orubbligheten hos vårt folk och banar en väg mot befrielse och återvändo.
Support the Palestinian Chess Forum! || حملة دعم الملتقى الفلسطيني للشطرنج || Kampagne: Palästinensisches Schachforum ||Kampanj: Palestinska schackforumet ||Campagne: Het Palestijnse Schaakforum
As the only chess club in all Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon, the “Palestinian Chess Forum” in Shatila camp is not only a youth club, but also a community center. It teaches youth and children chess, hosts reading circles, art workshops, poetry evenings, language courses, supplementary school lessons, seminars and so much more.
Recognizing its responsibility and believing in the necessary political role of the Palestinian youth and children in refugee camps, the Palestinian Chess Forum is a hub for national and political work. This can be seen from its chess tournament, entitled “The launch of the Palestinian revolution,” to its cultural competition “Who is Ghassan Kanafani?”.
With the worsening economic conditions and financial crisis in Lebanon in general, and in the Palestinian refugee camps in particular, the continuing activities of the Palestinian Chess Forum in Shatila and the central role it plays in the camp is under threat. Because it is our duty to support independent, grassroots and popular initiatives in Palestinian refugee camps, we call upon you to support the “Palestinian Chess Forum” in Shatila and ensure that its functions and the space it provides for the children and for the camp in general remains active and sustainable.
How can you support?
All of us can support the center together with a simple act that carries a lot of weight and has a huge impact. We can ensure the continuation of the center by donating above or through the link: https://afgj.salsalabs.org/samidoun-lebanon-donation/index.html
Why do we support?
Independent youth clubs in Palestinian communities in our homeland, Palestine, and in the diaspora, play an essential role in carrying out the responsibilities for our people that are not provided by any state or government. Therefore, it is a major priority to support and empower these initiatives that are closely intertwined with our communities and carry out important social programs.
Our contributions today strengthen the steadfastness of our people and pave a path towards liberation and return.
On Friday, 19 November, the US Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel hosted a webinar on “Comparative Criminalization: Repression and Resistance Across Borders.” Charlotte Kates, international coordinator of Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network, participated in the event alongside a range of activists, scholars and advocates confronting repression.
From the Israeli designation of Palestinian civil society organizations as “terrorist,” to San Francisco State University’s repression of Palestine in the classroom, to the repression student activists and faculty face on campus, the Palestinian liberation movement and Palestinian narratives face criminalization across borders. The discussion also looked at how we can fight back and seek collective liberation.
Speakers:
Alum from Students for Justice in Palestine at Butler University Rabab Abdulhadi, SFSU/AMED Studies Ayed Abu Eqtaish, Defence for Children International – Palestine Charlotte Kates, Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network/USACBI Tomomi Kinukawa, SFSU/WGS Nerdeen Kiswani, Within Our Lifetime David Miller, writer and scholar sacked from the University of Bristol
Moderated by Omar Zahzah, USACBI/PYM/Eyewitness Palestine
Co-Sponsoring Organizations:
Within Our Lifetime – United for Palestine
Eyewitness Palestine
Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network
International Campaign to Defend Rabab Abdulhadi
National Students for Justice in Palestine
Adalah Justice Project
Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network expresses its strongest solidarity with the Wet’suwet’en people’s struggle to defend their territory from Canadian settler colonialism and the Coastal GasLink pipeline, and urges action and solidarity to free detained land defenders and break the RCMP siege of Indigenous land. We stand in solidarity with all Indigenous struggles for liberation, sovereignty and self-determination in the face of settler colonialism, we salute Indigenous resistance, and we demand the immediate release of Sleydo’ Molly Wickham and all detained land defenders and journalists.
“The Palestinian struggle and Indigenous struggles in North America are, in many ways, one struggle, because we are fighting the same enemy. We are fighting for the cause of justice, self determination and freedom. There will never be justice in North America or in Palestine without the victory of Indigenous people and the assurance of their inalienable rights to self-determination, sovereignty and liberation. The same companies that exploit the land and steal natural resources, exploit impoverished workers, are the same companies stealing the natural gas of the Palestinian people for the benefit of the Zionist occupation. If the camp of the imperialists, the oppressors, the exploiters, are united, then the natural response of the oppressed peoples and communities is to be united in an international, indigenous popular front for liberation.
Racist Stephen Harper was just dining with Zionists in Montreal to raise funds for NGO Monitor and B’nai Brith to attack Palestinian organizations and communities, while at the same time, the RCMP was being sent in to attack Indigenous land and water defenders, approved of by a provincial NDP government and a federal Liberal government. In a way, Canada is ‘greater Israel.’”
On 18 and 19 November, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) stormed the Gidimt’en camp on the Wedzin Kwa (Morice) River, arresting land and water defenders alongside journalists who were covering the Gidimt’en eviction of Coastal GasLink. Among those arrested was Sleydo’ Molly Wickham, a spokesperson for the Gidimt’en checkpoint, as was Jocey Alec, daughter of Hereditary Dini ze’ (Chief) Woos and 13 others, including journalists Amber Bracken and Michael Toledano.
On 19 November, the RCMP stormed the homes and cabins set up by unarmed Indigenous women with canine units and snipers, breaking down the door to a Tiny House with an axe. The arrested land defenders and journalists were transferred to Smithers and then Prince George. Earlier, on 18 November, the RCMP also detained land defenders, journalists and legal observers, who were released the following day. In all cases, the arrestees have been accused of “breaches of the injunction” in place at the hands of Coastal GasLink, despite the fact that these arrests — and the injunction — are taking place on the unceded Indigenous land of the Wet’suwet’en people.
We are absolutely outraged that the Province of BC authorized a military-style raid on peaceful land defenders in order to allow Coastal GasLink (CGL) to build their Liquified Natural Gas (LNG) pipeline, while much of the Province is suffering from life-threatening, catastrophic flooding related events. The Province of BC continues to pretend that LNG can be clean energy and is a so-called ‘transition fuel’ when we know that LNG production carries critical environmental and health risks and is a non-renewable source of energy that requires incredibly large amounts of our precious water. Prioritizing fossil fuel expansion while British Columbians grapple with a climate emergency is an alarming, criminal and incredibly poor decision by Premier Horgan and Mike Farnworth, Minister of Public Safety and Solicitor General. We are calling on BC and Canada to recognize and uphold Indigenous Title and Rights, including the right to self-determination, and institute a moratorium on fossil fuel expansion in the wake of clear and present climate catastrophe.
The raids followed the 14 November action of the Gidimt’en clan to evict Coastal GasLink from their territory. The Gidimt’en members are acting to enforce the eviction notice served to Coastal GasLink in 2020 by the Wet’suwet’en Hereditary Chiefs, which has been entirely ignored to date. The Gidimt’en members gave CGL workers eight hours to evacuate the area before they closed the main road into their territory. Despite the Gidimt’en members clearly conveying their eviction to Coastal GasLink, the company did not inform employees, with workers later telling journalists that they would have left had they known of the Indigenous eviction.
Under Wet’suwet’en law, all five clans of the Wet’suwet’en have refused all pipeline proposals and have not consented to Coastal GasLink’s work or presence on Wet’suwet’en land. Further, they have held firm on their clear demand that the Wedzin Kwa River must not be drilled under for a pipeline:
The Wet’suwet’en Hereditary Chiefs represent a governance system that predates colonization and the Indian Act which was created in an attempt to outlaw Indigenous peoples from their lands.
The Wet’suwet’en have continued to exercise their unbroken, unextinguished, and unceded right to govern and occupy their lands by continuing and empowering the clan-based governance system to this day. Under Wet’suwet’en law, clans have a responsibility and right to control access to their territories….Will the entire region be overtaken by the fracking industry, or will Indigenous people asserting their sovereignty be successful in repelling the assault on their homelands?
Even Canadian settler colonial law has upheld the rights of the Wet’suwet’en people on their territories, and it has also been blatantly flouted by the RCMP, as affirmed in the Gidimt’en Camp press release:
“The 1997 Supreme Court of Canada ruling in the Delgamuukw-Gisdaywa court case affirmed that Aboriginal title – the right to exclusively use and occupy land – has never been extinguished across 55,000km2 of Wet’suwet’en and Gitxsan territories. Despite this, in 2019 and again in 2020, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) have trespassed onto Wet’suwet’en territory and undertaken a series of militarized assaults, enacting violent arrests and following the orders of fossil fuel behemoth TC Energy.”
In addition, the RCMP again set up an exclusion zone against journalists despite just being defeated in court on this same issue for its use of an exclusion zone to block media coverage of the Fairy Creek logging blockade, while entering the two Wet’suwet’en properties without warrants, all allegedly in the service of enforcing an injunction on behalf of a private corporation. Further, this took place while much of the province is suffering from disastrous flooding, mudslides and dangerous weather conditions that led to road closures and washouts, heavily linked to the climate crisis.
Indigenous peoples throughout Turtle Island have faced ongoing settler colonial genocide and crimes against humanity at the hands of the Canadian state, including forced displacement, residential school genocide, containment on reservations, colonial gendered violence against Indigenous women and girls, restrictions on movement, and colonial expropriation and land theft. The land and water defenders resisting the pipeline are part of hundreds of years of Indigenous resistance and struggle.
As an international, Arab and Palestinian movement in solidarity with Palestinian political prisoners struggling for freedom, we recognize the deep connections between the experiences of Indigenous peoples on Turtle Island and of the indigenous Palestinian people.
Palestinians and Indigenous peoples continue to be subjected to settler colonial violence, in various forms, at the hands of European colonial forces that continue to the present day, and continue to resist that colonialism through all means of struggle. The Palestinian national liberation movement, in its internationalist and anti-imperialist approach, has always stood hand in hand with liberation movements around the world, throughout Africa, Asia and Latin America, and with the Indigenous and Native peoples of North America resisting settler colonialism in the heart of imperialist domination. There is a lengthy history on Turtle Island of joint struggle and mutual solidarity between Palestinian and Indigenous organizations and communities, building a common framework for collective liberation.
The same Canadian state responsible for the ongoing genocide and settler colonial project targeting Indigenous nations and peoples has also been one of the earliest and strongest supporters of Zionist settler colonialism in Palestine. Lester Pearson of Canada chaired the UN committee recommending the partition of Palestine. Indeed, the Canadian state’s mechanism for the expansion of settler colonialism and control of Indigenous land and peoples could be considered a blueprint for the Israeli occupation.
We affirm our commitment to participate fully in the struggle to support Indigenous liberation, self-determination and sovereignty throughout Turtle Island, as we fight for the liberation of Palestine from the river to the sea.
We salute Indigenous peoples’ struggle and ongoing resistance and unceasing defense of their land and people. From Turtle Island to Palestine, colonialism is a crime! Freedom for all Indigenous and Palestinian political prisoners!
Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network condemns in the strongest terms the British government’s criminalization of the Hamas movement, specifically its political wing, through the use of the “terrorist” label, and demands that all such designations targeting liberation movements be cancelled or rescinded. It is particularly appalling to see such an action from the British state, which holds the greatest responsibility for the ongoing colonization of Palestinian land and dispossession of the Palestinian people. This declaration is nothing more than another British colonial crime against the people of Palestine, continuing a record of over 100 years of attempted subjugation of Palestinians.
British colonialism and crimes in Palestine
Britain conspired with other Western imperialist powers and especially France to divide up not only Palestine but the entire Arab region in the Sykes-Picot agreement. The results of this colonial assault on the Arab people continue to undermine all efforts for national liberation and self-determination throughout the region. In 1917, British official Lord Balfour was responsible for the notorious Balfour Declaration, that aimed to gift the Palestinian people’s land to the European colonialist, racist Zionist movement for a “national home for the Jewish people.”
Throughout the 1920s and 1930s, the British state supported, funded and armed the Zionist movement; reflecting its recognition of Theodor Herzl’s vision expressed in his letter seeking the support of Cecil Rhodes: “it is something colonial…put the stamp of your authority on the Zionist plan…quite good for England, for greater Britain.” The assault on Palestine was, of course, part and parcel of the crimes of British colonialism spanning the globe and particularly targeting Africa and Asia.
Under the British mandate, Palestinians’ homes were blown up and Palestinians executed for rejecting British and Zionist colonialism. Indeed, the early poetry, songs and symbolism of the Palestinian prisoners’ movement was developed in British jails for revolutionary Palestinians. Many of the British “emergency laws” imposed on occupied Palestine have been continued today by the Zionist regime; for example, administrative detention, imprisonment without charge or trial, indefinitely renewable, on the basis of secret evidence.
Britain is directly responsible for the crimes of colonialism and Zionism in occupied Palestine; it is directly responsible for creating the framework for Zionist armed groups to perpetrate the Nakba against the Palestinian people, carrying out massacres, destroying hundreds of villages, and forcing the vast majority of the Palestinian people into exile as refugees. Nevertheless, Britain has not only avoided any accountability for these crimes, it has refused to even apologize to the Palestinian people for the blatant colonialism of the Balfour declaration. Instead, the British state celebrated 100 years of Balfour in 2017, with then-Prime Minister Theresa May inviting war criminal Benjamin Netanyahu to sit beside her as they celebrated the anniversary “with pride.”
British state: perpetrator of terror
The British state is the perpetrator of terror against the Palestinian people for over 100 years. Not only does it have no right or legitimacy to designate Palestinian resistance organizations, political parties or revolutionary movements as “terrorist” (nor did it in 1929, 1936 or throughout the history of the Palestinian struggle), but instead, it is British officials who should be forced to stand trial and be held accountable for these historic and ongoing state crimes against the people of Palestine and the peoples of the world.
To those everywhere subjected to British colonialism, it is the Tory (Conservative) Party and the Labour Party who may be considered terror organizations, funding and directing the perpetration of massacres, confiscation of people’s resources, destruction of popular organizations and imprisonment of leaders seeking freedom and self-determination throughout the bloody history of the British empire. This is not a long-forgotten history; the reverberations of British colonial crimes continue today across continents, while Britain continues to occupy and colonize the north of Ireland, carrying out ongoing colonial crimes.
This is, of course, not to mention the ongoing crimes of the state against workers, impoverished and marginalized people, oppressed communities and especially formerly colonized peoples inside Britain and the United Kingdom today. Rather than providing for the needs of the people, the British state continues to invest in “security” alliances, “terror” designations and militarized, racist policing, while corporate directors and politicians evade accountability for even their domestic crimes.
“Terrorist” listings: A colonial weapon
Palestinians, like other colonized and oppressed peoples, have the right to resist. They have the right to struggle, including by the use of armed struggle, for their freedom. Palestinians have a right to organize themselves into political parties, social movements and revolutionary groups to seek their liberation from the occupation on their land for over 73 years. Any attempt to label Palestinian organizations seeking to achieve this goal as “terrorist” flies in the face of international law and any sense of justice.
The systematic listing of Palestinians and their political organizations and organizations of resistance and revolutionary struggle as “terrorists” is meant as a colonial weapon, taken up by the imperialist powers of the world, in order to undermine the Palestinian liberation struggle. The same is true in the United States, Canada and the European Union, and this is also why we see these countries pressuring reactionary Arab regimes engaging in normalization with the Israeli occupation and acting as puppets for imperialist interests to also impose the “terrorist” label on Palestinians seeking to return to their homes and liberate their land.
Many Western countries and imperialist-backed governments — see, for example, the Duterte regime in the Philippines new Anti-Terror Bill, used against activists, peoples’ rights workers and revolutionary movements — have based their anti-terrorism legislation in many aspects on the U.S. list of “foreign terrorist organizations.” While far from the first step in the U.S.’ use of the “terrorist” label against Black, indigenous and working class movements at home and liberation struggles around the world, modern U.S. “anti-terror” legislation was introduced in 1995, 1996 and again in 2001.
“Terrorist” listings in support of the Oslo process
The first iteration of today’s list of “foreign terrorist organizations” was created by the United States government specifically to attack organizations that aimed to “disrupt the Middle East Peace Process” — that is, the Palestinian and Arab resistance that rejected the attempt to liquidate the Palestinian struggle through the Oslo process. This political framework — the use of “terrorist” designations to punish noncompliant Palestinians and those who refuse to relinquish their rights or their vision for liberation — continues to define the use of “terrorist” listing against Palestinians today. The “terrorist” label is used to impose conditions of defeat or surrender on the Palestinian people, while those that reject such conditions and continue to resist are criminalized.
In many ways, the “terrorist” lists in these countries bear a strong resemblance to the ever-growing lists of “illegal organizations” and “terrorist organizations” created by the Zionist state. In its zeal to criminalize the Palestinian movement inside Palestine and internationally, those lists have been expanded to encompass human rights organizations, student movements, solidarity organizations, cultural groups and others.
In February 2021, Samidoun was listed as a “terrorist” organization because of its international organizing to free Palestinian prisoners; this was followed in October by the listing of Al-Haq, Bisan Centre, Addameer, the Union of Agricultural Work Committees, the Union of Palestinian Women’s Committees and Defence for Children International Palestine. Throughout this time, multiple Palestinian community and advocacy organizations outside Palestine were similarly labeled, with vague allegations in their case of “supporting Hamas.”
While some states have expressed their hesitation to fully embrace the attempt to list the six human rights and legal organizations as “terrorist” (precisely at the same time these Palestinian groups aim to hold Israel accountable at the International Criminal Court), they continue to embrace the use of “terrorist” designations as a weapon against the Palestinian people overall.”
The war at home: Anti-Palestinian Repression in Britain
The listing of Hamas as a “terrorist” organization not only aims to undermine the Palestinian resistance inside Palestine and anti-imperialist resistance throughout the region, it also aims to terrorize the Palestinian, Arab and Muslim communities in Britain and even supporters of justice for the Palestinian people. In the United States, such listings have been used similarly to criminalize even charity work; the Palestinian political prisoners of the Holy Land Foundation Five remain behind bars today because of this type of abuse of the “terror” label.
Under the so-called “PREVENT” program, teachers and other workers are forcibly engaged as spies and informers for the state to report on “warning signs” of “radicalization.” As a result, children wearing buttons with a “Free Palestine” slogan have been questioned by police. Arab and Muslim families have found police at their doors, questioning them and criminalizing them, for expressing political opinions, especially about Palestine.
Most recently, a man wearing a t-shirt during the May 2021 Israeli attacks on Gaza and Jerusalem and the uprising throughout Palestine, which bore the images of the armed resistance wings of Islamic Jihad and Hamas, was put on trial for criminal charges. All of this is part and parcel of the application of the Terrorism Act, which aims in large part to repress freedom of expression and opinion in support of national liberation movements and resistance to colonialism.
This exists on a continuum with the ongoing efforts to silence support for Palestine in Britain, from the corporate/right-wing attacks on Jeremy Corbyn and any politician expressing the slightest sympathy for the Palestinian cause; the repression of student organizations engaged in action for Palestine; the false use of anti-Semitism claims to target advocates for Palestinian liberation; the firing of professors such as David Miller; and the expression of sympathy by both Tory and Labour officials for far-right, racist Zionist Israeli ambassador Tzipi Hovotely when she was met with a peaceful, loud student demonstration. Despite all of this, support for justice and liberation in Palestine continues to grow among trade unions, workers, students and all sectors of society.
At the same time, Zionist organizations appear to enjoy free rein to support and fundraise for colonialism in Palestine and support the Israeli army engaged in war crimes against the Palestinian people, even openly calling to “burn” Palestine, working hand in hand with the Israeli Embassy in Britain to target the growing support for the Palestinian people. The minister who issued this designation, Priti Patel, was forced to resign in 2017 from her previous position as Minister for International Development due to her multiple undisclosed and secret meetings with Israeli officials, Israel lobbyists and the Conservative Friends of Israel, in violation of the Ministerial Code.
Why this designation?
The British state does not only use the “terrorist” designation in Palestine, of course; it uses it most avidly, perhaps, in the north of Ireland, in order to implement ongoing British colonialism and continue to divide the Irish people. Issam Hijjawi Bassalat, a Palestinian doctor, remains imprisoned alongside many Irish republican prisoners in British jails in the north of Ireland, targeted by British intelligence for attending political meetings where he expressed solidarity between the Irish and Palestinian cause.
In the north of Ireland, “anti-terror” laws are used to justify long-term detention before trial; while Dr. Bassalat and the Saoradh 9 have been imprisoned without bail for over a year, almost no forward motion has been made at all on the charges against them. The long record of internment and imprisonment against the Irish movement has led to a strong political prisoners’ movement, which led to not only the hunger strikes and martyrdom of historic leaders like Bobby Sands but ongoing solidarity between Palestinian political prisoners in Israeli jails and Irish prisoners in British jails.
Today, Dr. Hijjawi Bassalat’s case once again illustrates the clear connection between anti-colonial struggles. This reminds us also of the case of Georges Ibrahim Abdallah, anti-imperialist Lebanese Communist fighter for Palestine, imprisoned in France for 37 years, whose freedom is an urgent demand.
This designation aims not only to target Hamas alone, but to target the entire Palestinian people, especially the resistance. It aims to give police a weapon to use against demonstrators and social movements on the streets expressing solidarity with the Palestinian resistance by all means. It must be noted that hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets in British cities and throughout the UK in May and June 2021 expressing full solidarity with the Palestinian people. That solidarity will not be suppressed or frightened into silence through this designation.
It is also intended to further isolate and entrench the siege on Gaza, implemented now for over 15 years and a form of punishment against the Palestinian people for making a democratic choice to vote for the resistance, an outcome unacceptable to the U.S., UK, EU and other imperialist powers. It also seeks to undermine the position of the Palestinian resistance in the ongoing discussions of a prisoner exchange, aiming to keep 4,650 Palestinian political prisoners — including national leaders like Ahmad Sa’adat and Marwan Barghouti — behind bars.
However, like all such efforts to destroy the Palestinian resistance through criminalization, “terrorist” labels, mass repression, imprisonment and assassination, such intentions will receive no satisfaction through this latest British attack on the Palestinian resistance and Palestine as a whole.
Fight back!
Like all such efforts to undermine Palestinian rights, this designation of Hamas as a “terrorist” organization requires organizations in support of Palestine to speak up, resist and fight back against the use of the terror label to criminalize resistance. Palestinians have a right to resist occupation and colonialism by all means necessary, including armed struggle. This is a principle not only of international law but of basic justice.
Palestinian resistance is a response to ongoing siege, bombardment, extrajudicial killings, land confiscation, mass imprisonment, home demolitions, settlement construction and the denial of millions of Palestinian refugees’ rights to return home. The most important work that groups in solidarity with Palestine can do is to reject the “terrorist” designation in full and strengthen their work to support Palestinian liberation, through demonstrations, direct actions, mobilization and action to confront the officials in Britain — and all imperialist powers — responsible for continuing to provide unlimited diplomatic, military, political and financial support to the Israeli occupation in Palestine, and to hold them accountable.
Of course, this includes intensifying actions to escalate the boycott of Israel, divestment from the corporations continuing to profit from colonialism in Palestine, and sanctions on the Zionist regime responsible for ongoing war crimes, including a military embargo. In this context, we view the actions by Palestine Action to confront the Israeli-owned Elbit arms factories in Britain, costing these arms dealers millions of pounds, as an exceptional example of confronting the real purveyors of terror in occupied Palestine. They have continued these actions despite arrests, raids and trials for their civil disobedience and direct action, and we express our strongest solidarity with Palestine Action.
We also urge all supporters of Palestine, in Britain and around the world, to escalate solidarity with the Palestinian political prisoners. They represent the Palestinian resistance in all of its forms, from protesting against land confiscation to organizing students to taking up arms in the fight for freedom, and a true leadership of the Palestinian people that Israel aims to isolate from their fellow Palestinians, the Arab people and our international movements for social justice and liberation. Their liberation from Israeli occupation prisons is a necessity.
We can confront unjust “terrorist” listings, criminalization and repression with stronger mobilization for Palestine and against all imperialist interventions in the region and in the world. Together, we can stand with the Palestinian people and their resistance, to achieve a free Palestine from the river to the sea.
Saturday, 27 November
3 pm
Hermannplatz
Berlin, Germany
Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network called for a public rally and gathering on Saturday, 27 November, to support the struggle of the Palestinian prisoners’ movement and the hunger strikers. Gather at Hermannplatz at 3 pm to join the demonstration.
On Saturday, 20 November, Samidoun Deutschland carried out a media day in the streets of Berlin, hanging up posters and distributing flyers in Arab and popular neighborhoods. They also published calls on social media to the Palestinian and Arab community and supporters of Palestine to participate widely in the demonstration in order to support the prisoners on the front lines in the struggle for Palestinian liberation.
Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network has joined with the Canadian BDS Coalition, Canada Palestine Association, Just Peace Advocates, Oakville Palestine Rights Association and Palestinian and Jewish Unity (PAJU) for the following action alert. Demand the Canadian government take action for Palestinian prisoners!
Saturday, 27 November
