. DISARMAMENT & SECURITY .

A statement by Black activist individuals and organizations

The following statement was signed by Black people in 25 different countries, 37 U.S. states, and the District of Columbia, including South Africa, Australia, Ghana, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Egypt, Palestine, & Puerto Rico. Of the 1,100+ signatories, there are 650 activists or organizers, 400 current students, 240 artists, 165 scholars or professors, and 22 clergy. 11 currently incarcerated political prisoners, at least 5 former members of the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense, and 6 professional hip-hop artists signed the statement. Nearly 50 organizations signed onto the statement:

Photo courtesy of Christopher Hazou

The past year has been one of high-profile growth for Black-Palestinian solidarity. Out of the terror directed against us—from numerous attacks on Black life to Israel’s brutal war on Gaza and chokehold on the West Bank—strengthened resilience and joint-struggle have emerged between our movements. Palestinians on Twitter were among the first to provide international support for protesters in Ferguson, where St. Louis-based Palestinians gave support on the ground. Last November, a delegation of Palestinian students visited Black organizers in St. Louis, Atlanta, Detroit and more, just months before the Dream Defenders took representatives of Black Lives Matter, Ferguson, and other racial justice groups to Palestine. Throughout the year, Palestinians sent multiple letters of solidarity to us throughout protests in Ferguson, New York, and Baltimore. We offer this statement to continue the conversation between our movements:

On the anniversary of last summer’s Gaza massacre, in the 48th year of Israeli occupation, the 67th year of Palestinians’ ongoing Nakba (the Arabic word for Israel’s ethnic cleansing)–and in the fourth century of Black oppression in the present-day United States–we, the undersigned Black activists, artists, scholars, writers, and political prisoners offer this letter of reaffirmed solidarity with the Palestinian struggle and commitment to the liberation of Palestine’s land and people.

We can neither forgive nor forget last summer’s violence. We remain outraged at the brutality Israel unleashed on Gaza through its siege by land, sea and air, and three military offensives in six years. We remain sickened by Israel’s targeting of homes, schools, UN shelters, mosques, ambulances, and hospitals. We remain heartbroken and repulsed by the number of children Israel killed in an operation it called “defensive.” We reject Israel’s framing of itself as a victim. Anyone who takes an honest look at the destruction to life and property in Gaza can see Israel committed a one-sided slaughter. With 100,000 people still homeless in Gaza, the massacre’s effects continue to devastate Gaza today and will for years to come.

Israel’s injustice and cruelty toward Palestinians is not limited to Gaza and its problem is not with any particular Palestinian party. The oppression of Palestinians extends throughout the occupied territories, within Israel’s 1948 borders, and into neighboring countries. The Israeli Occupation Forces continue to kill protesters—including children—conduct night raids on civilians, hold hundreds of people under indefinite detention, and demolish homes while expanding illegal Jewish-only settlements. Israeli politicians, including Benjamin Netanyahu, incite against Palestinian citizens within Israel’s recognized borders, where over 50 laws discriminate against non-Jewish people.

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Presenting the Palestinian side of the Middle East, Is it important for a culture of peace?

Are we making progress against racism?

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Our support extends to those living under occupation and siege, Palestinian citizens of Israel, and the 7 million Palestinian refugees exiled in Jordan, Lebanon, Syria and Palestine. The refugees’ right to return to their homeland in present-day Israel is the most important aspect of justice for Palestinians.

Palestinian liberation represents an inherent threat to Israeli settler colonialism and apartheid, an apparatus built and sustained on ethnic cleansing, land theft, and the denial of Palestinian humanity and sovereignty. While we acknowledge that the apartheid configuration in Israel/Palestine is unique from the United States (and South Africa), we continue to see connections between the situation of Palestinians and Black people.

Israel’s widespread use of detention and imprisonment against Palestinians evokes the mass incarceration of Black people in the US, including the political imprisonment of our own revolutionaries. Soldiers, police, and courts justify lethal force against us and our children who pose no imminent threat. And while the US and Israel would continue to oppress us without collaborating with each other, we have witnessed police and soldiers from the two countries train side-by-side.

US and Israeli officials and media criminalize our existence, portray violence against us as “isolated incidents,” and call our resistance “illegitimate” or “terrorism.” These narratives ignore decades and centuries of anti-Palestinian and anti-Black violence that have always been at the core of Israel and the US. We recognize the racism that characterizes Israel’s treatment of Palestinians is also directed against others in the region, including intolerance, police brutality, and violence against Israel’s African population. Israeli officials call asylum seekers from Sudan and Eritrea “infiltrators” and detain them in the desert, while the state has sterilized Ethiopian Israelis without their knowledge or consent. These issues call for unified action against anti-Blackness, white supremacy, and Zionism.

We know Israel’s violence toward Palestinians would be impossible without the US defending Israel on the world stage and funding its violence with over $3 billion annually. We call on the US government to end economic and diplomatic aid to Israel. We wholeheartedly endorse Palestinian civil society’s 2005 call for Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) against Israel and call on Black and US institutions and organizations to do the same. We urge people of conscience to recognize the struggle for Palestinian liberation as a key matter of our time.

As the BDS movement grows, we offer G4S, the world’s largest private security company, as a target for further joint struggle. G4S harms thousands of Palestinian political prisoners illegally held in Israel and hundreds of Black and brown youth held in its privatized juvenile prisons in the US. The corporation profits from incarceration and deportation from the US and Palestine, to the UK, South Africa, and Australia. We reject notions of “security” that make any of our groups unsafe and insist no one is free until all of us are.

We offer this statement first and foremost to Palestinians, whose suffering does not go unnoticed and whose resistance and resilience under racism and colonialism inspires us. It is to Palestinians, as well as the Israeli and US governments, that we declare our commitment to working through cultural, economic, and political means to ensure Palestinian liberation at the same time as we work towards our own. We encourage activists to use this statement to advance solidarity with Palestine and we also pressure our own Black political figures to finally take action on this issue. As we continue these transnational conversations and interactions, we aim to sharpen our practice of joint struggle against capitalism, colonialism, imperialism, and the various racisms embedded in and around our societies.

Towards liberation,

DISARMAMENT & SECURITY .

An article by Mairead Maguire for Transcend Media Service

Our delegation has just spent five days with the people of Syria visiting the cities of Damascus, Homs, Tartus, Qara and Ma’alula. We have been deeply moved by the kindness and warmth of the Syrian people whom we have had the privilege and joy of meeting. Although they have suffered unimaginable violence, they have inspired us by their vision of a peaceful Syria and deep commitments to solutions in their country. These are the findings of our delegation, consisting of eleven peace and human rights advocates from six countries. Over the course of five days, we met with internally displaced persons, refugees, affected communities, religious leaders, combatants, government representatives and many others in Syria.

Mairead Maguire

We call on the international community to protect the territorial integrity of Syria and to respect the fundamental rights of Syria as a sovereign State. We deplore any intent to breach the integrity of Syria’s frontiers or to damage the unity and rich diversity of the Syrian people.

We recognize the legitimacy of the aspirations of the Syrian citizens for change, reforms and an end to all violence and we support those working for the implementation of a democratic life that respects and protects the fundamental rights of all citizens and we believe that effective and lasting reforms can only be achieved through non-violent means.

Our primary appeal is that all countries stop their interference in Syrian affairs, more specifically, that they halt the supply of arms and foreign combatants. If foreign countries agree to stop the influx of arms and fighters, we are confident that Syrians can find their own solutions to their problems and achieve reconciliation.

We consider it beyond debate that the Syrian people have the right to determine their own government and their own future. Foreign interference is currently preventing the Syrian people from exercising their right to self-determination. We are concerned that such pernicious intervention is tearing apart the fabric of the country itself, with long-term consequences that can only be imagined.

The cautionary examples of Iraq, Libya, Yemen and other countries serve to remind us of the dire consequences of such international folly. This humanitarian crisis is already spilling into neighboring countries. A collapse of Syrian society will destabilize the entire region. We appeal to the international community that it can learn from history and make better choices in the case of Syria that will spare further tragedy for the courageous Syrian people.

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How can there be a political solution to the war in Syria?

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Secondly we appeal to the international media to stop the flow of misinformation regarding the Syrian conflict. We believe that every Syrian should be given the right to be heard and we do not see this reflected in the international coverage of this crisis.

Thirdly, we urge the international community to review and reconsider the crippling sanctions that are taking such a heavy toll on Syrian people.

Fourthly, we urge the international community to take seriously the vast numbers of refugees and persons who have been internally displaced by this conflict.

We appeal to the entire religious community to call the faithful to nonviolence and peacemaking, and to reject all forms of violence and discrimination, and we express our admiration and respect for the many Syrian religious leaders who have refused to endorse the use of violence and have dedicated their lives to working for a peaceful solution to this conflict.

We pay tribute to the Patriarch Gregorios III Laham and Grand Mufti Ahmad Badreddin Hassoun for their inspirational work for peace and reconciliation for Syria and the Patriarch Gregorios III Laham for his kind invitation to our delegation. Our delegation would like to express to Mother Agnes Mariam and Sheik Sharif Martini our deep gratitude and appreciation for all their commitment to peace and reconciliation in beloved Syria.

As we leave Syria we are filled with hope that the Syrian people will have peace and so be a light of hope to the world.

DISARMAMENT & SECURITY .

An article by Jamie Stall, Holy Land Trust

Earlier this month, we had the chance to visit Hebron and participate in a city tour with Breaking the Silence, an organization founded by former Israeli combatants who served in the Occupied Territories. The aim of the organization is to raise awareness about the daily realities of those living under occupation and stimulate public discussion of these issues among Israelis.

We started off the tour near Shuhada Street, where we gathered in a hidden room behind a souvenir shop. Our tour guide, Shai, began by giving us a view into his personal experience as an IDF combatant in the West Bank. He recounted several of his experiences for the group, including being ordered to chase a young child while holding a loaded firearm because the kid was playing near a security fence, and searching Palestinian households at random for the purpose of “making the IDF’s presence felt” within the community.

After the introduction, we began walking through an almost entirely deserted “ghost town.” As it turns out, this abandoned street is called Al-Shuhada Street and was the bustling commercial center of Hebron until about 20 years ago. Shay explained that in 1994 all its businesses were closed by the army “for security purposes” following the murder of 29 Muslim worshipers at the Cave of the Patriarchs by the Israeli settler Baruch Goldstein. As we walked down the street, we encountered several placards that told a very different story about the street’s closure. According to the signs, “these stores were closed by the IDF for security reasons after the Arabs began the ‘Oslo War’ [aka The Second Intifada] in September 2000, attacking, wounding and murdering Jews on this road.” A quick fact check proves this to be false as the reason for the street’s closure, not to mention that The Second Intifada began six years after the stores were closed. There is no doubt that the Jewish settler community in Hebron did experience many detestable acts of violence, including several murders, but that does not change the fact that the sign’s claims are nonfactual propaganda meant to mislead its readers and evoke a negative opinion of the city’s Palestinians.

As we continued up Al-Shuhada Street, passing a military base and several settlements, we encountered a pedestrian checkpoint separating the settler communities and a Palestinian commercial area. As we were finishing our tour near the checkpoint, a young Palestinian man began to walk through the checkpoint while singing a song to himself. One of the Israeli soldiers on duty told him “shtok!” (“shut up!”), but he continued walking, singing to himself as before. At this point he was stopped, searched, questioned and prevented from leaving for about ten minutes, all because he was singing.

Seeing and listening to the history and present-day reality of this small slice of Hebron was not easy. Frankly, nothing in Palestine has been easy. There is so much suffering and resentment on both sides of the separation wall that it can put a damper on your hopes for a better future. But hearing courageous testimonies and messages of hope from people like Shai and Breaking the Silence bring some of that hope and optimism back. I’m so appreciative of what they are doing. May there be more people and communities like them, willing to speak out against the occupation and work for truth, peace and reconciliation.

Presenting the Palestinian side of the Middle East, Is it important for a culture of peace?