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Thursday, July 17, 2025
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Justice for Palestine in Germany! Support Khaled Barakat’s Legal Case

The case of Palestinian writer Khaled Barakat will be heard in a German court on 11 March 2022. Barakat is fighting back against the Berlin immigration office’s imposition of a political ban on him, barring him from participating in political and social events and activities, and their order that he be expelled from the country for four years. Barakat was deported from Germany in August 2019, and has appealed the action of the immigration office. Click here to make a donation to support this important legal battle.

Khaled Barakat’s case is not only an individual case of repression. It is part of the systematic attack on Palestinian organizing, political expression and thought in Germany. Germany is home to one of the largest Palestinian communities in Europe, but its official policies not only provide support to the Israeli colonization of Palestine but also harshly target Palestinian and pro-Palestinian expression inside Germany.

Since Barakat’s expulsion, multiple Palestinians in Germany have been subjected to similar actions by the immigration office, targeting public or even private political expression in support of Palestinian rights. Palestinian and pro-Palestinian academics continue to face systematic attempts to silence them and strip them of access to public space. Most recently, Deutsche Welle – the German state broadcasting agency – has fired Palestinian and Arab journalists based on their social media posts about Palestine or opposition to the threats to freedom of expression in Europe.

There have been important victories when people fight back in court! Most recently, Germany’s highest administrative court ruled that the city of Munich could not deny public space to groups for programs because they advocate for boycott, divestment and sanctions against Israel. The Humboldt 3 fought back and won against attempts to criminalize them for protesting against an Israeli official at the Berlin university.

Now, after nearly three years, Khaled Barakat’s case is going to court in Germany. Please help support this important effort to fight back against political repression. We must pay for legal fees, translation and court expenses. Click here to make a donation. All funds raised in excess of what is needed for this case will go to support other Palestinians and activists for Palestine facing similar repressive immigration cases.

Learn more about the case:

Who is Khaled Barakat?

Khaled Barakat is a Palestinian writer and activist whose writings have been widely published in English and Arabic. He describes why he was targeted:

“The main reason that the German authorities took this decision of banning me for four years from entering Germany is to silence and suppress the Palestinian and Arab communities inside Germany more broadly. This case began with the confiscation of the right to speak, with the political ban on my speech at the event on June 22, 2019, shutting down an event that was organized by three Arab community organizations. My planned speech at this event was a discussion of Trump’s so-called “deal of the century,” and they found it so unacceptable that I would address this, that they sent the police to prevent it from happening.

This began as an attack on speech and expression, and it remains an attack on speech and expression. Germany is attempting to create an “example” of me, to show that those who oppose Israeli policies and the German political position in support of the occupier and the colonizer, will be subjected to silencing and repression. They do not want Israel – or Germany – to face this type of open criticism.”

Read more about the case:

Watch this video from Redfish to learn more about the case:

What other cases of anti-Palestinian racism are taking place in Germany?

In the three years since the political ban on Barakat, anti-Palestinian racism and repression has only continued to grow. Several other Palestinians were delivered similar immigration notices, denying their visas or seeking to exclude them from the country for attending demonstrations or meetings in support of Palestine. Most recently, Arab and Palestinian journalists from Deutsche Welle were fired because of social media posts on Palestine.

This attack on freedom of expression comes alongside:

Legal action has won some important victories in Germany’s administrative courts, and this case is important to pushing back against the escalating attempts to silence the Palestinian community and people who stand for justice in Palestine.

How can you support?

1. Make a donation to support the legal expenses of fighting back! After nearly three years, Khaled Barakat’s case is going to court in Germany. Please help support this important effort to fight back against political repression. We must pay for legal fees, translation and court expenses.Click here to make a donation. All funds raised in excess of what is needed for this case will go to support other Palestinians and activists for Palestine facing similar repressive immigration cases.

2. Support Palestinian rights in Germany with a statement, picket or action. Write a statement from your organization about these cases and share the appeal with your members. Raise these issues at demonstrations for justice in your community, or protest at a German embassy or consulate.  Email us at samidoun@samidoun.net or contact us on Facebook about your statement, event or action.

3. Call the German embassy or consulate in your area and speak up about the ongoing attack on Palestinian rights in Germany. Use this link to find the German embassy or consulate in your area! For easy reference, the German embassy in the US can be reached at +1 (202) 298-4000; the German embassy in Canada at +1 (613) 232 1101; and the German embassy to the UK at +44 20 78 24 13 00. Find the German embassy or consulate near you at: https://embassy.goabroad.com/embassies-of/germany

When you call, say, “My name is _____ and I am calling from _____. I am calling about the ongoing attacks on advocacy for justice in Palestine in Germany. In particular, the political ban and expulsion of Palestinian writer Khaled Barakat in Berlin. His case will be in court on 11 March in Berlin, and Germany’s actions are  clearly undemocratic and a direct violation of fundamental human rights. Palestinians must have the right to speak.”

4. Write a letter to the German embassy or consulate in your area on behalf of yourself or your organization against the repression and deportation of Khaled Barakat and in support of Palestinian rights. Here is a quick sample letter that you can use or adapt as you wish:

Embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany
ADDRESS

To whom it may concern;

We are writing to express our deepest concern about the ongoing repression of Palestinian rights and advocacy in Germany. We are very concerned that a police state atmosphere is being developed to silence Palestinian activism, an atmosphere that reflects racism, repression and discrimination.

We are particularly concerned about the case of Palestinian writer Khaled Barakat, which will be heard in court in Berlin on 11 March. The allegations against his speeches and writings are false and inaccurate; his writings challenge colonialism and injustice and present a vision of universal justice and liberation. For this, he was subjected to a political ban and deported from Germany for four years.

Once again, we are appalled by the ongoing silencing and suppression being directed at Palestinians and advocates for Palestine in Germany, and we see that fundamental human rights are at risk and already being violated.

Further, we also urge the Federal Republic of Germany to uphold human rights in international forums and take meaningful action to stop ongoing Israeli attacks on the Palestinian people, including supporting a military embargo on Israel.

Sincerely,

XXXXXXX

A list of German embassies and consulates is available here: https://embassy.goabroad.com/embassies-of/germany

5. Take an individual or group photo or video with the campaign poster (below), make your own sign and share on social media! Tag us on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram to show us your solidarity with Khaled Barakat and support for Palestinian rights!

You can show your solidarity with the graphics below! Print the signs and posters and bring them to a demonstration, or take a selfie and post on social media. You can use the cover photo on your Facebook or elsewhere to show your support for Khaled Barakat and your opposition to the escalating attempts to criminalize support for justice in Palestine in Germany and around the world. Download the images below:

Poster: (download at full size)

Social media cover or banner image (download here)


List of organizations and statements in support of Khaled Barakat (under construction)

Here are some of the solidarity statements we have received, as well as articles covering the situation:

French administrative court refuses to order expulsion of Georges Abdallah: Continue the struggle for freedom!

We republish the following statement of the Collectif Palestine Vaincra in response to the ruling of a French administrative court, which rejected a legal request to order the expulsion of Georges Abdallah from France to Lebanon. Abdallah, a Lebanese Arab Communist struggler for Palestine, has been imprisoned in France for over 37 years. The struggle continues for the liberation of Georges and all Palestinian prisoners! 

Today, Thursday 10 February, the Administrative Court of Paris rendered its judgment and rejected the request to order the expulsion of Georges Abdallah from French territory. This appeal was filed more than a year ago by Abdallah’s lawyer Jean-Louis Chalanset, because Abdallah’s release has been conditioned on the signing of an expulsion order by the French Interior Minister. Abdallah has been eligible for release for nearly 23 years, since 1999. During that time, he made eight requests for parole, the last of which (in 2013) was accepted by the Sentence Enforcement Court at first instance and on appeal. This was conditioned on the signing of an expulsion order which was to be signed by the Minister of the Interior, Manuel Valls. Unsurprisingly, he refused to do so.

This new court decision confirms the political nature of the imprisonment of Georges Abdallah. If Georges Abdallah is the target of such relentless attacks, it is because he remains what he has always been: a Lebanese communist and a Palestinian resistance fighter. Engaged in the resistance against the Israeli occupation of Lebanon in the 1980s, he has today become a symbol of the struggle against imperialism, Zionism and the reactionary Arab regimes.

This new refusal to release Georges Abdallah reaffirms the need to continue the mobilization and to intensify it in France, in Lebanon and everywhere in the world. Year after year, the campaign grows and with it the struggle of Georges Abdallah. As the French presidential election approaches, we must put at the heart of this campaign the demand for the release of the man who has become the longest-held political prisoner in Europe. This is the meaning of the #Palestine2022 campaign that we invite you to join.

Palestine will win! Freedom for Georges Abdallah!


10 February 2022
Collectif Palestine Vaincra, member of the international Samidoun Network

#BiebsStay4Justice: Artists & civil society organizations ask Justin Bieber to say NO to Apartheid

Samidoun supports the following campaign by the Canadian BDS Coalition:

Dozens of artists and organizations from around the world say #BiebsStay4Justice

Fellow artists and civil society organizations ask Justin Bieber to say NO to Apartheid

Justice Bieber is scheduled to play in Tel Aviv in October 2022 as part of his “The Justice World Tour”

This is his third time performing in apartheid Israel. In 20011, fellow-Canadians called on Stratford Ontario born Bieber to honour the Palestine civil society boycott call. Check out the parody (used with permission by John Greyson) created at the time.  Bieber went on to again perform in the zionist state in 2017, even as Snoop Dogg, Lauryn Hill and U2 were cancelling their gigs!

Let’s see if “The Biebs” can get with the anti-apartheid program on his third try!  Roger Waters, Brian Eno, Reem Kelani, and many other join to send this message, along with organizations from Palestine to Europe, and from Australia to Africa to the Americas.

All those who wish to sign the petition can do so HERE.

Message to Justin Bieber from dozens of Artists about his Justice World Tour 2022.

It is admirable you are focusing on “Justice”. However, there is a country on the tour whose actions undermine the values we as fellow artists espouse very deeply. We are dismayed that you have chosen to schedule performances in Israel, a state that practices apartheid.

We write to ask you to cancel your October 2022 concert performance in Israel.

In 2018, Israel proclaimed the Nation State Law to officially enshrine ethnic/racial discrimination in Israel’s Basic Law — the state’s constitutional equivalent. The legislation stipulates that “Israel is the historic homeland of the Jewish people, and they have an exclusive right to national self-determination in it.” It also establishes Hebrew as Israel’s official language, and downgrades Arabic — a language widely spoken by Arab Israelis — to a “special status.” It also enshrines “Jewish settlement as a national value” and mandates that the state “will labor to encourage and promote its establishment and development.” In addition, there are over 65 additional laws that discriminate directly or indirectly against Palestinian citizens in Israel and/or Palestinian residents of the occupied Palestinian territory (oPt) on the basis of their national belonging.

In January 2021, the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem cited the bill as one of the many reasons for their conclusion that Israel is an apartheid state that “promotes and perpetuates Jewish supremacy between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River.”

On October 23, 2019, Michael Lynk, the United Nations Special Rapporteur for the OPT told the United Nations General Assembly that decisive international action was needed, and the “international community has a responsibility and legal obligation to compel Israel to end its 52 year-long “occu-annexation” of Palestinian territory and to remove barriers preventing Palestinian self-determination.” We call on you to join fellow Canadian, Michael Lynk, in leading the way by showing this decisive international leadership against Israeli settler-colonialism and war crimes.

When international artists perform in Israel, they help to create the false impression that Israel is a “normal” country like any other. This is the call from Palestinian writers, artists and cultural centers. There is a growing number of anti-colonial Israelis and people worldwide who support the Palestinian civil society BDS call including the cultural boycott of Israel. We are glad to be part of this support and urge you to join by canceling your concerts in Israel.

Don’t be used by Israel to “artist-wash” its brutality and crimes against entire populations.

Join with those who stand with “justice” and “stay” away from apartheid and war crimes.

Sincerely,

Roger Waters, musician
Barbara Collier, classical singer
John King, composer/musician
Reem Kelani, singer/musician/broadcaster
Alisa Gayle-Deutsch, pianist
Larry B Harder, professor of landscape architecture (retired)
Raymond Deane, composer
Cathy Gulkin, film maker
Prof. Haim Bresheeth-Zabner, filmmaker, photographer, author
Jord Samolesky, drummer – Propagandhi
David Peters, musician
Sara avMaat, visual artist
S.L. Bondarchuk, artist and community organizer
Jessica Ball, professor and author
Zaina Arekat, musician, Bahrain
Huda Salha, visual artist/ PhD student
Richard Fung, artist
Maryem Tollar, musician
Thurston Moore, musician
Eva Manly, retired documentary maker
Leon Rosselson, singer/songwriter/children’s author
Shameema Soni, singer/musician
Ernest Tollar, musician/composer
Abu Parker, Musician Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Waleed Abdulhamid, multi-instrumentalist, composer, vocalist, music and film producer,
Wally Brooker, musician, journalist (retired)
Kaushalya Bannerji, visual artist, poet
Carmen Aguirre, theatre artist/author
Chris Hannah, musician: Propagandhi
Faith Nolan, singer/ songwriter, Turtle Island
Sameena Amien, Undiscovered Country South Africa
Nathania Rodman, art therapist
Sarah Abu-Sharar, storyteller
Kathy Wazana, filmmaker
Checkpoint 303 Sound Art Collective – Beats for justice and human rights, Canada/Tunisia/Palestine
Tom Ballard, Comedian, Melbourne Australia
John Greyson, Director, videomaker, curator, writer, performance artist, teacher, activist.
Bob Farrow, flaming-eck.com
Brian Eno, musician
Taqi Spateen, artist, working include George Floyd mural on the Separation Wall
Mohammad Ali: Progressive Hip Hop Artist
Rehab Nazzal, visual artist, photographer
Michal Sapir, musician and writer, Tel Aviv
Lia Tarachansky, Israeli-Canadian filmmaker
Timna Rose, Israeli artist, Neve Ilan
Nirit Sommerfeld, actress, singer, author, Germany
Guy Elhanan, theatre director, Haifa Palestine
Paul Salvatori, journalist, musician, activist

Other artists are invited to join the statement HERE.

Dozens of Civil Organizations from across Canada and around the world join to say #BiebsStay4Justice

We write to ask you to cancel your October 2022 concert performance in Israel.

In 2018, Israel proclaimed the Nation State Law to officially enshrine ethnic/racial discrimination in Israel’s Basic Law — the state’s constitutional equivalent. The legislation stipulates that “Israel is the historic homeland of the Jewish people, and they have an exclusive right to national self-determination in it.” It also establishes Hebrew as Israel’s official language, and downgrades Arabic — a language widely spoken by Arab Israelis — to a “special status.” It also enshrines “Jewish settlement as a national value” and mandates that the state “will labor to encourage and promote its establishment and development.” In addition, there are over 65 additional laws that discriminate directly or indirectly against Palestinian citizens in Israel and/or Palestinian residents of the occupied Palestinian territory (oPt) on the basis of their national belonging.

In January 2021, the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem cited the bill as one of the many reasons for their conclusion that Israel is an apartheid state that “promotes and perpetuates Jewish supremacy between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River.”

On October 23, 2019, Michael Lynk, the United Nations Special Rapporteur for the OPT told the United Nations General Assembly that decisive international action was needed, and the “international community has a responsibility and legal obligation to compel Israel to end its 52 year-long “occu-annexation” of Palestinian territory and to remove barriers preventing Palestinian self-determination.” We call on you to join fellow Canadian, Michael Lynk, in leading the way by showing this decisive international leadership against Israeli settler-colonialism and war crimes.

When international artists perform in Israel, they help to create the false impression that Israel is a “normal” country like any other. This is the call from Palestinian writers, artists and cultural centers. There is a growing number of anti-colonial Israelis and people worldwide who support the Palestinian civil society BDS call including the cultural boycott of Israel. We are glad to be part of this support and urge you to join by cancelling your concerts in Israel.

We ask you to not allow your tour to be used by Israel to “artist-wash” its brutality and crimes against entire populations.

Join with those who stand with “justice” and “stay” away from apartheid and war crimes.

Sincerely,
Canadian BDS Coalition

along with

AFPS, ACAT France, UJFP
Africa4Palestine
Association of Palestinian Arab Canadians
Australian Palestinian Professionals Association
Australians for Palestine
BACBI – Belgian Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel
Boycott from Within (Israeli citizens for BDS)
Canada Palestine Association
Canadian Foreign Policy Institute
CJPME Okanagan
Coalition Against Israeli Apartheid Victoria
Collectif Judéo Arabe et Citoyen pour la Palestine
CUPE 3903 Executive Committee
Daily tous les jours
Edmonton Small Press Association
Educators for Justice (Waterloo Catholic School Board))
Football Against Apartheid
Friends of Sabeel North America (FOSNA)
Global Peace Alliance Society
GT4BDS
Hamilton Coalition To Stop The War
HR4A Saskatchewan
Independent Jewish Voices – University of Toronto
Independent Jewish Voices – Winnipeg
International League of Peoples’ Struggle in Canada (ILPS-Canada)
Jews for Boycotting israeli Goods J-BIG
Just Peace Advocates
Just Peace Committee
Lambeth & Wandsworth Palestine Solidarity Campaign
Let Kashmir Decide
Mid-Islanders for Justice and Peace in the Middle East
Oakville Palestinian Rights Association (OPRA)
OPIRG Carleton
PAJU (Palestinian and Jewish Unity)
Palestine Network Shining Waters Region
Palestine Solidarity Network – Edmonton
Palestine Solidarity, St. John’s NL
Palestinian Youth Movement – Toronto
Regina Peace Council
Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network
Socialist Action
United Australian Palestinian Workers
US Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel
Women for Palestine

Organizations are invited to sign the statement HERE

Others:
Bruce R. Allen Paralegal
Ed Corrigan Law Office
El Hafi Holdings Inc.

Israeli representative confronted by protesters at the University of Amsterdam

Read the original report/statement in Dutch

On the evening of 7 February 2022, Samidoun Netherlands took action to protest an Israeli diplomat at the Roeterseiland complex at the University of Amsterdam (UvA) in the Netherlands’ capital.

The association of international relations student organized an event on “Israel’s Foreign Policy,” inviting career Israeli diplomat Karin Eliyahu-Pery to speak. She currently is the head of media and public relations at the Israeli embassy in the Netherlands.

It is outrageous that an educational institution like the UvA offers a warm welcome and open platform to a representative of the Israeli apartheid state in order to promote its propaganda.

In addition, student associations and organizations have a responsibility to reject normalization of settler colonialism, racism and apartheid. There is no “constructive discussion” to be had with official representatives of the Israeli occupation while they continue to colonize Palestine. Instead, stand for justice: boycott Israel!

Samidoun NL made clear with flags, slogans and a strong presence of confrontation that such events will always be met with protest, rejection and response. This type of showcase for a representative of colonialism must not be repeated.

Boycott Israel!

Free Palestine from the river to the sea!

12 February, NYC: #BoycottPuma Speak Out

Saturday, 12 February
3:00 pm
PUMA Flagship Store
609 5th Ave, NYC
Facebook Event: https://www.facebook.com/events/898450857498907/

Join us on Saturday, February 12th, outside the PUMA Flagship store in Manhattan, as we demand that PUMA ceases its sponsorship of the Israel Football Association.

This event is part of of the international day of action to #BoycottPUMA. In New York City, we stand in solidarity with Palestinian football players and global sports justice activists who have called on the company, which purports to follow a human rights mandate, to end its support for Israeli colonialism and apartheid.

Samidoun Hungary rallies in Budapest to #FreePalestinianStudents

On Sunday, 30 January, activists with the new Samidoun Hungary chapter organized a vigil in central Budapest to call for the freedom of imprisoned Palestinian students. Participants carried signs and pictures of Palestinian students locked behind bars in Israeli jails, calling for their immediate liberation.


Students in Hungary set up their display of information on Palestinian students and delivered speeches about the situation of Palestinian prisoners outside St. Stephen’s Basilica, the most well-known basilica in Budapest and a central gathering point in the capital city. As the new academic semester begins, over 300 Palestinian students are being denied access to their education due to the Zionist settler colonial occupation.

The protest aims to raise awareness about Palestinians’ right to education and the use of imprisonment as a colonial weapon against Palestinian students and youth. This is only the first event for Samidoun Hungary, and organizers are planning to expand the campaign and hold more demonstrations in the near future. Please contact Samidoun Hungary for more information about how you can get involved!

Hundreds of organizations have joined the #FreePalestinianStudents campaign, which calls for:

  • Boycott, divestment and sanctions against Israel, including Israeli academic institutions, which are fully complicit in the systematic deprivation of Palestinian rights.
  • Ending all military and economic aid, military transactions, joint projects and direct funding to the Israeli occupation regime by governments around the world.
  • Challenging “normalization” programs that aim to legitimize Israeli occupation — this is an attempt to legitimize the criminalization and targeting of Palestinian students.
  • Organizing to build direct links of solidarity with Palestinian students and the Palestinian student movement, to ensure that they will not be isolated from their global community of support despite all attempts by the Israeli occupation.

After 295 days of kidnapping by Israeli apartheid, Juani Rishmawi is free

Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network welcomes and rejoices at the release of Juani Rishmawi in the face of the unfounded and pernicious judicial persecution imposed by the apartheid regime and Israeli occupation.

Juani, a Spanish aid worker naturalized as a Palestinian, contributes to the Palestinian cause from the humanitarian perspective and through political activism in the Health Work Committees, and therefore has faced the fabricated charge that the Zionist regime applies when it wants to impose collective punishment and reprisals against all Palestinians and against international solidarity that works for the improvement of the conditions of the Palestinian people — specifically, “financing of illegal organizations.”

As usual, the Israeli military court did not see proof of anything, and her detention resulted in a sentence of 13 months, 3 months of which will be spent under house arrest. There is nothing new here: 99% of Palestinians who pass through Zionist military courts are convicted. Nevertheless, on 7 February 2022, Juani was released from Zionist prisons and able to return home to her family.

On behalf of Samidoun, we congratulate Juani for her victory and release and the Support Group for the Liberation of Juani for their intense commitment and organizing from outside, taking Juani’s struggle to the streets and various institutions, especially in Spain.

However, the struggle continues until all Palestinian prisoners are released from Zionist prisons, especially the 4,500 who remain behind bars, including 180 child prisoners and 500 held in administrative detention without charge or trial and who are currently boycotting the military courts.

Boycott Israeli Wines! Spirited Vancouver protest calls on public stores to stop selling apartheid products

On Saturday, 5 February, activists in Vancouver gathered outside the downtown BC Liquor Store for a picket and literature distribution calling for the publicly owned stores to stop selling Israeli wines, many of which are produced in the occupied Palestinian and Syrian lands of the West Bank and the Golan Heights. Despite repeated calls to provincial officials noting that the sale of these wines means that BC Liquor Stores are directly implicated in war crimes, they have continued to take no action and market these apartheid wines.

The Canada Palestine Association has led the campaign for years to remove these wines from publicly owned liquor stores. Despite the fact that the British Columbia government is headed by the New Democratic Party, and the federal NDP has officially called for an end to trade with Israeli settlements, the NDP-run BC government continues to sell these products in the publicly owned crown corporation stores it is responsible for. Of course, all “Israeli” wines are based on the exploitation of colonized Palestinian land and labor.

Participants in the campaign to boycott Israeli wines distributed hundreds of leaflets to passers-by, many of whom expressed strong support for the campaign or were surprised to learn that these wines are carried in the publicly owned stores. Speakers at the picket also highlighted the settler colonial links between the BC government’s support for and involvement with the ongoing denial of Indigenous sovereignty and RCMP attacks on land and water defenders on Wet’suwet’en land and elsewhere and its ongoing economic ties to Zionist colonialism in Palestine.

Speakers representing Canada Palestine Association, BDS Vancouver – Coast Salish, Independent Jewish Voices, Canada Philippines Solidarity for Human Rights and Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network urged a boycott of Israeli wines, calling on people to join the campaign and take action by pressuring the BC government to put an end to its complicity in war crimes and colonialism in Palestine.

The Samidoun speech highlighted the struggles of over 4,650 Palestinian prisoners behind Israeli bars, noting that imprisonment and repression are colonial weapons used by the Israeli occupation and by Canadian settler colonialism, and called for solidarity with the 500 administrative detainees boycotting the Israeli military courts. Supporting the boycott of Israel is a meaningful way that people can participate in supporting the Palestinian prisoners, the Palestinian resistance and the Palestinian people, from the river to the sea.

People and organizations in various parts of the country, including Canadian BDS Coalition members, sent selfies in solidarity, and a Boycott Israeli Wines action was also organized in Victoria, on Vancouver Island.

To join the campaign to call for BC Liquor Stores to boycott Israeli wines and stop marketing apartheid, email BC Finance Minister Selina Robinson at FIN.Minister@gov.bc.ca. You can use this statement by the Canada Palestine Association, endorsed by Samidoun and dozens of other organizations including the Vancouver and District Labour Council and the Vancouver Peace Council, as your guide.

Video: Remembering Samah Idriss: An Organic Intellectual and his Literary and Socio-Political Paths

On Saturday, 5 February, the Palestinian Alternative Revolutionary Path Movement (Masar Badil) organized a webinar to remember the Lebanese revolutionary intellectual Samah Idriss.

“Remembering Samah Idriss: An Organic Intellectual and his Subversive Literary and Socio-Political Paths” included analysis of his literary and political contributions, memories of his life in struggle, and visions for future organizing presented by speakers, Prof. Rabab Abdulhadi and Prof. Rula Jurdi.

The event was co-sponsored by Arab and Muslim Ethnicities and Diasporas (AMED) Studies, Fondation Canado-Palestinienne du Quebéc (FCPQ), Palestinian-Canadian Academics and Artists Network (PCAAN), I Am Free Youth Organization (Ana Hurr), Al-Awda, Palestine Right to Return Coalition, Canada Palestine Association, Palestinian Youth Movement, Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network, Within Our Lifetime – United for Palestine

Watch the full video above.

Internationalism and local activity: Emancipation without false dichotomies – Judit Rodríguez Fernández

Photo: Álvaro Minguito

The following article by Judit Rodríguez Fernández  was published first in Spanish at laU – Revista de cultura y pensamiento. A French translation is also available, via the Collectif Palestine Vaincra. 

“What binds me to her is something that I could not explain exactly,
although perhaps it is her deep roots in that heroic and oppressed class,
thrown into the misery of the fields, that class in the midst of which I have lived and
with which I still live. I live, although I can’t say to what extent I live for her.”
Ghassan Kanafani, A Palestinian Trilogy. Um Saad. Asturias: Hoja de lata, p. 177

In recent months and thanks to the committed work carried out by the Collectif Vacame(s) Films, responsible for the production of the documentary “Fedayin: Georges Abdallah’s Fight,” as well as the activists of the Collectif Palestine Vaincra and Samidoun all over the world who organized screenings of this film in numerous theaters in various countries, hundreds of activists and a diverse public from civil society were able to find a space for reflection on the historical notion of internationalism. This forces us to recognize the active role that we play as civil society in the country where we live and to recognize our ability to influence the geopolitical context around us. The documentary is, without a doubt, an ode to the freedom that we still have, as communal subjects, to transform the world, no matter how big and monstrous it may seem.

The visual projection of the story of Georges Ibrahim Abdallah, a Lebanese communist of Christian origin who has been imprisoned in France for 38 years for dedicating his life to achieving the liberation of Palestine from the colonial yoke, invites us to revisit the question that many asked themselves, before leaving for unknown countries, becoming hundreds of thousands of women and men who, from all over the world, put their bodies at the service of the liberation of multiple peoples and communities ostensibly foreign to them. It is about the following question: “Why should I get involved in the struggle for the liberation of another people or give my life in another country that is not mine? Is it empathy? Universal love? Brotherly solidarity? commitment? or maybe madness?” The truth is that the triumph of liberation movements such as the Vietnamese or the Cuban movements in the 1960s and 1970s, as well as their impact and influence on other anti-colonial struggles, is not generated solely from a contagious emotionality, nor from the example of the superhuman daring of a few men and women.

As activists for the total decolonization of Palestine from the colonial structure that is Israel, as well as for emancipation from the neoliberal yoke in our countries of origin, we are convinced of the importance of reflecting upon and clarifying categories such as “internationalism” that, although often unnoticed, govern our daily political practice at the international, national and local levels. In the lines that follow we will try to explain the theoretical and practical reasons that lead us to the following affirmation: internationalism is not only a merely emotional question of international solidarity, historical memory or universal brotherhood and, although we understand the friendly and profoundly ethical intentionality behind these explanations, it is necessary to move beyond these slogans if we want this concept to become operational in defining a direction for successful political action.

In what follows we will highlight an aspect of internationalism that has more to do with a collective project of national and international emancipation than with almost heroic acts carried out by select individuals whose iron will and unparalleled level of empathy carry their memory into the annals of history.

Internationalism, a political practice and a project of national and international emancipation

In order to answer the question that begins our article, and whose answer is the engine that drives the internationalist’s determination, we will say that what moved Abdallah to give his body for Palestine was a profound understanding of the interrelationship between the political and economic crisis in Lebanon and colonialism in Palestine. Undoubtedly, all of this was affected by the broader Arab collective consciousness that, especially in those years, moved Arabs from all regions to join the action of the popular liberation commandos, the fedayeen, established mainly in Jordan and Lebanon.

It is not, therefore, about the action that a specific individual from a specific country exercises abroad, giving everything for a cause that is foreign to him and with which he feels solidarity. It is, instead, an action motivated by the deep understanding that in the suffering of two apparently different peoples there are common culprits and that, when we seek those responsible for the misery, hunger and death of our communities, we find that they are the same forces that are killing the popular classes of different countries. So internationalism from this perspective becomes a collective political action made up of heterogeneous subjects who understand their deep interdependence to achieve their freedom. That is to say, when in our countries, cities or neighborhoods, we ask ourselves who is responsible for reducing our lives to mere survival, we find that the strength of the enemy lies in the fact that their political agenda operates and feeds on dispossession in multiple places and that, therefore, to defeat them we need to build an alliance equal to or stronger than theirs.

The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine already detected in 1969 in the text of the Strategy for the Liberation of Palestine the overlap between the Palestinian national struggle with the international struggle of other popular movements against imperialism and capitalism. In the European context, Gramsci carried out numerous reflections on the relationship between the national and the international, especially on the need to internationalize the national question and nationalize the international perspective. This does not mean anything other than understanding that every internationalist militant starts from the circumstances and political problems of his own territory and that every national problem, in turn, experiences its fate on the world geopolitical chessboard.

If we have used Abdallah’s story as a paradigm, it is, among other reasons, because he understood very well that getting involved in the Palestinian liberation struggle was fundamental to ending the Lebanese sectarian regime that, hegemonized by the political forces of fascism represented by sectarian Phalangism, in alliance with Zionism and US and European colonialism, turned Lebanon into a private preserve for financial capital, whose most voracious expression was and is found in investment funds and tax havens. Abdallah understood that the Lebanese political order was a project dependent on the interests that the European states, the US and “Israel” had in the region. Abdallah sharpened his gaze and saw clearly that what the Zionist movement was doing in Palestine was signboarding the project devised for the entire Arab world. For this reason, defeating Israeli colonialism meant breaking the pretense of establishing a world order whose priority was unlimited economic growth at the cost of the poverty and dispossession of the majority of the world’s population.

In clear contrast the Zionist insistence on categorizing the struggle against them as a race war fueled by Judeophobia, whose ambition would be to annihilate every Jewish person, Abdallah recognized the Palestinian liberation movement as an anti-colonial, democratic and progressive liberation movement that considered the existence of the state of Israel illegitimate, as it was and is a “military, political and economic establishment based on aggression, expansion and organic connection with imperialist interests.” The Palestinian liberation movement, while seeking to establish a democratic national state in Palestine in which all citizens live with equal rights and duties, where sovereignty rests with the people and the interests of the popular masses, won the adherence of Abdallah, who gave the most precious years of his life to strengthening the anti-colonial struggle because he knew to recognize that the achievements made in Palestine would have repercussions in his country of origin and would serve as an example for the establishment of progressive and democratic societies throughout the world. It is for this reason that his political practice did not understand pseudo-contradictions and was always attentive to the systemic interdependence between local and international politics.

In order to demonstrate that the case of the Lebanese feda’i is not foreign to us, citizens and activists in the Spanish state, and that we have more than enough reasons to embody a position that embraces this interconnection between our political activity at a local and international level, we will illustrate the positions theoretical exposed through the case of the real estate investment trust of Israeli origin VBare (VBA Real Estate), a company dedicated to real estate speculation that has been operating in Spain for six years and that today is one of the 20 largest owners in the entire country. country. This company is currently involved in the eviction of families in 26 different homes in the city of Madrid. Its biggest shareholders? Israeli war criminals responsible for crimes against humanity in Palestine.

Internationalism, from national territory and local work: the case of VBare in the Spanish State

The problems that our neighborhoods, towns and cities face do not have uniquely local causes or stem from the particular idiosyncrasies of Spanish politics, but rather respond to a complex combination of political and economic operations on an international scale. That is, of transnational political agendas. This combination acts together with the neoliberal policy carried out by the neocolonial axis headed by the United States, the European states, Israel and reactionary Arab regimes such as Saudi Arabia. The financial capital of these powers operates through their banks and companies in our closest geographical spaces, plundering our families, friends and neighbors.

In the Spanish state we are well aware of one of the most scandalous tools of institutionalized and unpunished dispossession, evictions. In 2018 alone, 59,671 evictions were carried out, in 2019 there were 54,006 and in 2020 there were 11,042, despite the health emergency caused by the pandemic.

Now, the speculative interests that operate in our State are connected to the extensions of the Israeli Zionist regime, one of its arms being that of the Israeli real estate investment trust VBare (VBA Real Estate), a company that, through blackmail, threats and a tax regime that allows tax exemption for this type of corporation, operates in Spain with complete freedom. VBare is currently responsible for the imminent eviction of the residents of the Vallehermoso 94 block, in the Madrid neighborhood of Chamberí.

Upon investigation, we found that the shareholders of VBare are investment funds headed by Israeli soldiers, war criminals, arms manufacturers, cybersecurity and espionage businessmen, such as Nir Barkat, Dan Ramoni and the Wertheim family, including Moshe Wertheim, who in his youth served in the Palmach group, one of the armed Zionist militias responsible, among many others, for the ethnic cleansing of millions of Palestinians in 1948. Later, this terrorist group would be included in the army of Israeli occupation. Moshe Wertheim later joined Mossad, the Israeli intelligence service responsible for the persecution, espionage, torture and killing of thousands of Palestinians as a routine practice.

Do we now understand the system of interdependence with respect to the international context in which our political activism and the daily struggle in our neighborhoods takes place?

The funds that the Israeli real estate investment trust VBare extracts from speculating on our homes and evicting our neighbors not only finance the ethnic cleansing of Palestine, but it is also the profits obtained from colonial theft that allows this company to establish itself as one of the largest real estate speculation companies in the Spanish state. So the concern is twofold: We should care about what happens in Palestine insofar as it is a war crime and insofar as it has repercussions on the impoverishment of our popular classes.

We understand, therefore, from this point of view that local and grassroots activism must raise and direct its gaze towards the international context, since the only way to properly guide our action is through an adequate analysis of the factors involved in the impoverishment of our lives. . Moreover, it is not that the perspective should be international, but that it must be internationalist.

Following Gramsci, it is important to emphasize the need to always start from local roots, that is, from the pavement of our streets in internationalist activism. All of us who are militant internationalists and who dedicate the best of ourselves to strengthening anti-colonial popular liberation movements come from and are in contact with the social strata of our own country. Among others, one of our objectives must be to always win over more people in commitment to the anti-colonial struggle. For this, speeches haranguing about internationalism in an exercise of sentimental euphoria are not enough. In order to develop political subjects who are aware of and actively committed to the internationalist struggle, we must present the material realities that show the obvious links, despite their differences, between our misery and theirs. Only in this way will an internationalist political action become sustainable, with the capacity to influence and transform society nationally and globally.

The feeling of abstract humanist connection can be exhausted in a long and draining struggle such as those of the peoples’ liberation movements, but the political conviction that comes with the certainty that the problems of life in your neighborhood will not be solved if it is not accompanied by the defeat of the enemy that murders Palestinians on a daily basis. This understanding allows you to withstand years of protracted struggle against colonial forces. No one is obligated to remain in the struggle for years if it is entirely external to one’s own situation, and no one is forced to become involved if it is not considered relevant to the daily lives of people.

We consider that internationalism is a project that must be part and parcel of our grassroots work in our own country, which must appeal to our communities and their specific situations, because they have many more things in common than they may know with colonized peoples elsewhere in the world, and because addressing these urgent issues of life necessarily require the defeat of colonialism elsewhere.

Without false dichotomies, there are no contradictions

Until now we have only talked about the links between the national and international horizons from the perspective of those that Fanon called “the wretched of the earth”, subjects who inhabit all corners of the planet despite their imposed invisibility and oppression. But there are other aspects for which we must not fail to point out the interrelationship. Among these is the issue of the democratic nature of our institutions, whose radical transformation we aspire to achieve.

Who are we trying to deceive by cloaking in the guise of democracy those institutions whose foreign relations are fueled by political, economic and military alliances, agreements and treaties with colonial entities such as Israel? Do we perhaps believe that such institutions protect the interests of the popular masses they claim to represent? It is well known, or rather it should be known, that democracy as a philosophical and political concept is incompatible with its partial application. The democratic quality of a state is linked to a multitude of factors which we do not address here, but when we point out that our institutions lose democratic quality in their relations with colonial states, we do not simply refer to the tarnishing of their image, but rather to the fact that the internal functioning of these institutions is corrupted, and they cease to serve the popular interests, which, deprived of mechanisms by which to demand accountability from their institutions, lose all sovereignty.

There is a general tendency among political parties on the progressive spectrum and even among our popular movements to speak about “hegemony.” We are aware that taking away the monopoly of the construction of ideology from the far-right and neoliberal forces necessarily involves the construction of a popular hegemony that challenges all the political and community frameworks on the right. However, it seems that this notion of hegemony has a merely national space for action. We ask ourselves: Does hegemony not have a fundamentally internationalist aspect? Do we believe that the construction of popular hegemony is carried out without fighting the international forces that aim to impose a purely economic rationality in all areas of our lives? Building awareness and democratic institutions that serve and obey popular interests entails fighting a type of governmentality that, through multiple international agents, imposes political agendas in our countries that degrade the lives of our popular classes.

The construction of the dichotomy that turns the national level into the primary horizon on which to intervene, undervaluing and postponing the international significance of our daily concerns is a false antagonism that obscures the causes of our suffering, and, therefore, slows down and hinders our ability to eradicate these problems. Phrases like: “How are we going to worry about what happens in other countries if we are overwhelmed here?” are logics that are inserted in the political field by the neoliberal forces, whose fundamental strategy is to individualize suffering that is in reality collective and to disintegrate resistance actions that should be collective. It would seem from this dichotomous logic that those militants who take both levels into consideration in their activism always find themselves split in the contradiction between the local and international plane. However, we salute all those who give their time and their bodies to actively participate in the problems of their community, but also to internationalist practice.

It is the work done in common under the blue skies of many shades from different lands that gives the necessary encouragement for the long march and that accumulates the small daily victories that weaken the hundred-headed dog that is the enemy. It is a clear and rigorous analysis of the causes of the deterioration of our lives, and not emotional but empty slogans, that provide the political conviction that will allow us to carry out a long-term strategy of resistance, and it is the recognition of our interdependence with other diverse communities, which will allow us to remain united on the path to achieving lives worth living, avoiding the abandonment of our militants at the first dissent or obstacle encountered.

In this sense, from Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network, we recognize the latent potential in the union with the neighbors of Chamberí who, organized through the Chamberí solidarity network, are committed to give a collective response and resist the attacks by the Israeli real estate company VBare. We consider the collective work between both groups not as a conjunctural, strategic or temporary union, but as the beginning of the progressive construction of a network that it intends to build, from the local struggle and from the urgent and daily problems of ordinary people in the Spanish state, an increasingly broad and growing front that expands in parallel and points out those responsible, the common enemies who are strong enough to operate with impunity in the Spanish state thanks to the dispossession and systematic theft of Palestine. And who, in turn, are able to extend the colonial crime in Palestine thanks to the economic benefits they obtain from the exploitation and plunder of the working classes in our country.

For this reason, from Samidoun Spain, we give our most sincere thanks to the residents of Chamberí who are fighting for the right to decent housing. Thanks to them for considering the thread that unites them with the struggle of millions of Palestinians who risk their lives daily to build a home in which to live with dignity.

We hope that the story of this common experience will serve as an example for an efficient and influential internationalist and local political praxis that is capable, from the closeness of the land that dusts our shoes, to find the common ground from which we rise.

An internationalist and local practice understood in its radical nature allows us to break the solitude and isolation in which we usually find ourselves thrown, facilitating the construction of solid alliances capable of confronting the multiple and complex enemy that renders our lives expendable.

Judit Rodríguez Fernández ( @aiiitormenta ) is an activist in Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network, a member of the United Left and a philosophy student at the Complutense University of Madrid.

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