#Palestine Liberation Organisation

[savage-kult-of-gorthaur]

"IF I FALL -- TAKE MY PLACE."

PIC INFO: Spotlight on a Palestinian propaganda poster published by the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO), c. 1970. Posterntranslation courtesy of the Palestine Poster Project. 🇵🇸

Source: www.palestineposterproject.org/poster/if-i-fall-take-my-place.

[thoughtlessarse]

The Arab League has called for a UN peacekeeping force in the Palestinian territories as well as an international peace conference at a summit in Bahrain that was dominated by the ongoing Israeli war on Gaza. It also called for all Palestinian factions to come together under the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) banner. In a concluding statement following a meeting in Manama, the 22-member grouping called for “international protection and peacekeeping forces of the United Nations in the occupied Palestinian territories” until a two-state solution is implemented. It also adopted calls by host Bahrain’s King Hamad and Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas to “convene an international conference under the auspices of the United Nations, to resolve the Palestinian issue on the basis of the two-state solution”. The meeting of Arab heads of state and government convened in Bahrain more than seven months into the conflict in Gaza that has shaken the wider region and threatened to spread. Having made headway towards establishing ties with Arab states in the last number of years, Israel has become increasingly isolated in recent months due to the level of death and destruction it has wrought in Gaza, and especially over its plans to invade the southern city of Rafah, where about 1.5 million Palestinians have sought refuge.

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[claraameliapond]

A literal baby angel asking a journalist if they can record him so he can share the truth to the rest of the world : "While we are walking please." "Do you want to talk while we walk?" "Yes. Okay. We are in Nasser Medical complex. You have this. May mercy be upon us. May mercy be upon us. They are not willing to let us into the bathrooms. Bathrooms. Bathrooms. We tell them "even if it's dirty". They don't agree.

We are tired of this life. Take us back to our homes. Please. Please. We don't have food. We don't have a small piece of bread. This is unfair.

The martyrs are lying on the ground in Hamamda. 30 martyrs today.

[ladychlo]

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[brw]

Nah after the whole mess with various members of the AO3 staff being made "uncomfortable" by a volunteers' pro-Palestinian views that eventually ended in them no longer volunteering, it's absolutely justifiable to say it's questionable to continue to dedicate money to the organisation until they release an official apology. The person who was removed themself said to stop donating. You cannot donate to an organisation that puts its anti-censorship status in the bin to prosecute someone for being Pro-Palestine in good faith while claiming to be for Palestinian liberation. And if someone calls you spineless, sorry that makes you uncomfortable and feel bad, but... you are. Frankly.

[halalchampagnesocialist]

To understand why Israel keeps targeting UNRWA infrastructure and UNRWA workers (and by extension, human rights activists) aside from the accusations they're ~secretly Hamas~, we must put it into the context of which these organisations operate.

To put it lightly, Israel is not a fan of international NGOs and human rights organisations at all, but especially the ones whose existence revolves around advocating for Palestinian rights and exposing the crimes of the occupation. It is not a fan of Palestinian ones at all either, but that goes without saying. I would even suggest that Israeli organisations like "Breaking the Silence" and "BtSelem" fall under this category, even liberal ~coexistence~ type groups like "Standing Together" are seen with suspicion to a degree as they pose a threat to the status quo. The Israeli state and Zionists also see the work of such organisations as a method of "delegitimising Israel" and "singling out Israel" and so on. There is even a pro-Israel organisation called "NGO Monitor" which exists to combat this exact thing.

In the case of UNRWA, there is a specific criticism made by Israel against them (aside from the secret Hamas operative one), and that is they "indoctrinate" Palestinians to hold onto their right of return by perpetually keeping them refugees. Obviously, it's a silly argument that is not worth entertaining. There are a lot of genuine criticisms to be made about UNRWA (which is largely to do with the NGOisation of the Palestinian struggle but that's another post) but they have helped sustain Palestinian existence and livelihoods by providing aid, employment, education and so on. In times of war and crisis, UNRWA has been providing important aid to Palestinians. It's hard not to see Israel's attack on UNRWA as an attack on that.

Even groups which are headed by Palestinians, both in the diaspora and in Palestine, such as International Solidarity Movement (ISM) or Youth Against Settlements, face constant attacks by settlers and soldiers. The purpose of these groups is to demonstrate civil disobedience and resist the occupation non-violently yet still face violence. Others exist merely to just document.

Israel is also so used to operating with impunity that any organisation shedding light on Israel's atrocities against Palestinians is a blow to their propaganda. All the reports, documentaries, and findings produce evidence that then becomes hard to deny or hide. There is a reason why Israel is currently not letting in any journalists or aid workers into Gaza, and even the ones it is letting in it is targeting as we've seen time and time again over the past year.

The problematic nature of NGOisation and the apoliticisation of the human rights framework aside, many of these organisations have played a role in presenting the case of the Palestinian struggle in front of a world audience. The ability to not just document or advocate but be believed is a privilege Westerners have and that's where these organisations tend to come in. As long as these organisations exist and/or have a reason to be in the West Bank and/or Gaza, then Israel cannot do what it actually wants to i.e. constant settlement building, attempted ethnic cleansing and more importantly, trying to convince the world that Palestinians do not have a justified struggle against the occupation and the allegations against Israel are merely "false."

[gothhabiba]

do you know where are the the best places or mosteffective to donate to help palestinians atm? like charities ect

In terms of direct aid it is better to give money directly to families in Ghazza than to a charity. Charities, governmental and nongovernmental organisations &c., are seldom able to use funds to distribute aid right now, as few trucks are getting through, and none to the north of Ghazza.

ETA on Charities in Ghazza:

Taawon Association (in partnership with the Bank of Palestine) are distributing hot meals in Ghazza.

The World Food Programme (WFP) is getting food parcels into Ghazza, though I can't find them sharing a more specific location anywhere. Donate here.

The Palestinian Children's Relief Fund (PCRF) is providing medicine, food, and water. Their website specifically mentions food relief in north, central, and south Ghazza, and water delivered to north and south Ghazza.

Direct aid to Ghazza:

Money given directly to families in Ghazza is used to help them cross the Rafah crossing into Egypt, and/or to purchase plane tickets and apply for visas so they have somewhere to go after arriving in Egypt.

Help Christians in Ghazza get visas to leave

Help Hala Abu Ramadan's family of six leave Ghazza (organized by Mohammed Samhouri, vouched for by @psychoticgerard)

Help Dr. Intimaa AbuHelou's family of 22 leave Ghazza (organized by professer Steve Tamari)

Help Shayma and her family of 16 leave Ghazza (organised by Fardowsa. You may remember a link to a paypal going around to help Shayma; however, paypal has frozen those funds)

Help Shaymaa's family of 13 leave Ghazza (organised by Shaymaa herself, who is in Canada)

Help Sanaa and her family of 5 leave Ghazza and establish themselves in Belgium (organised by Eyad M, vouched for by Motaz Azaiza)

Help sisters Duaa and Deena leave Ghazza and get medical treatment in Cairo (organised by Shereen Alhayek, @.littlestpersimmon's friend's acquaintance)

Help Ahmed (@90-ghost) and his family leave Ghazza via ko-fi, paypal, or gofundme (@unionfish is offering stickers and prints in exchange for donations)

Help a family of Ghazzan refugees in Egypt get medical care and relocate

Buy an e-sim for use in Ghazza

Interruption of arms sent to Israel:

Palestine Action targets arms manufacturers in the US and UK

Palestine Legal offers legal defense for those who get arrested &c. in the course of protest or sabotage on behalf of Palestine

If you have some barrier to donating or to buying e-sims yourself (someone looking through your transactions, no room on your phone for new apps, don't want to mess up the instructions, don't have time to keep up with what's being called for at the moment, literally whatever), I can buy e-sims and move funds on your behalf. My venmo is @gothhabiba; paypal paypal.me/Najia; squarecash $NajiaK; DM me for Zelle information. Feel free to leave a note about where you want it to go (specifically for e-sims; aid to people in Ghazza; &c.)

BDS (Boycott, Divest, Sanctions)

You asked specifically about donations, but if you haven't looked into the boycotts being called for by the Palestinian Campaign for Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) and the Palestinian BDS National Committee (BNC), I urge you to do so.

BDS chapters in your locality may be calling for their own boycotts, so look into that as well. Think creatively about how to minimise purchase of boycotted goods (e.g., getting your union to refuse to shelve Israeli groceries).

Monday strikes

The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) has called for weekly strikes on Mondays. Talk to your union or coworkers about strikes or work stoppages on Mondays, if you can. At least avoid making any purchases (goods, recreation, entertainment, food, &c.) on Mondays.

[fairuzfan]

AMAZING article about what it means to participate in anti-Zionism work both online and in person.

If your anti-zionism does not in any way acknowledge that it is a way of thought and practice led by and for Palestinians, then you need to reevaluate your "anti-zionism" label.

Some passages that felt especially relevant to tumblr:

If we accept, as those with even the most rudimentary understanding of history do, that zionism is an ongoing process of settler-colonialism, then the undoing of zionism requires anti-zionism, which should be understood as a process of decolonisation. Anti-zionism as a decolonial ideology then becomes rightly situated as an indigenous liberation movement. The resulting implication is two-fold. First, decolonial organising requires that we extract ourselves from the limitations of existing structures of power and knowledge and imagine a new, just world. Second, this understanding clarifies that the caretakers of anti-zionist thought are indigenous communities resisting colonial erasure, and it is from this analysis that the strategies, modes, and goals of decolonial praxis should flow. In simpler terms: Palestinians committed to decolonisation, not Western-based NGOs, are the primary authors of anti-zionist thought. We write this as a Palestinian and a Palestinian-American who live and work in Palestine, and have seen the impact of so-called ‘Western values’ and how the centring of the ‘human rights’ paradigm disrupts real decolonial efforts in Palestine and abroad. This is carried out in favour of maintaining the status quo and gaining proximity to power, using our slogans emptied of Palestinian historical analysis.

Anti-zionist organising is not a new notion, but until now the use of the term in organising circles has been mired with misunderstandings, vague definitions, or minimised outright. Some have incorrectly described anti-zionism as amounting to activities or thought limited to critiques of the present Israeli government – this is a dangerous misrepresentation. Understanding anti-zionism as decolonisation requires the articulation of a political movement with material, articulated goals: the restitution of ancestral territories and upholding the inviolable principle of indigenous repatriation and through the right of return, coupled with the deconstruction of zionist structures and the reconstitution of governing frameworks that are conceived, directed, and implemented by Palestinians.  Anti-zionism illuminates the necessity to return power to the indigenous community and the need for frameworks of justice and accountability for the settler communities that have waged a bloody, unrelenting hundred-year war on the people of Palestine. It means that anti-zionism is much more than a slogan. 

[...]

While our collective imaginations have not fully articulated what a liberated and decolonised Palestine looks like, the rough contours have been laid out repeatedly. Ask any Palestinian refugee displaced from Haifa, the lands of Sheikh Muwannis, or Deir Yassin – they will tell that a decolonised Palestine is, at a minimum, the right of Palestinians’ return to an autonomous political unit from the river to the sea. When self-proclaimed ‘anti-zionists’ use rhetoric like ‘Israel-Palestine’ – or worse, ‘Palestine-Israel’ – we wonder: where do you think ‘Israel’ exists? On which land does it lay, if not Palestine? This is nothing more than an attempt to legitimise a colonial state; the name you are looking for is Palestine – no hyphen required. At a minimum, anti-zionist formations should cut out language that forces upon Palestinians and non-Palestinian allies the violence of colonial theft. 

[...]

The common choice to centre the Oslo Accords, international humanitarian law, and the human rights paradigm over socio-historical Palestinian realities not only limits our analysis and political interventions; it restricts our imagination of what kind of future Palestinians deserve, sidelining questions of decolonization to convince us that it is the new, bad settlers in the West Bank who are the source of violence. Legitimate settlers, who reside within the bounds of Palestinian geographies stolen in 1948 like Tel Aviv and West Jerusalem, are different within this narrative. Like Breaking the Silence, they can be enlightened by learning the error of colonial violence carried out in service of the bad settlers. They can supposedly even be our solidarity partners – all without having to sacrifice a crumb of colonial privilege or denounce pre-1967 zionist violence in any of its cruel manifestations. As a result of this course of thought, solidarity organisations often showcase particular Israelis – those who renounce state violence in service of the bad settlers and their ongoing colonisation of the West Bank – in roles as professionals and peacemakers, positioning them on an equal intellectual, moral, or class footing with Palestinians. There is no recognition of the inherent imbalance of power between these Israelis and the Palestinians they purport to be in solidarity with – stripping away their settler status. The settler is taken out of the historical-political context which afforded them privileged status on stolen land, and is given the power to delineate the Palestinian experience. This is part of the historical occlusion of the zionist narrative, overlooking the context of settler-colonialism to read the settler as an individual, and omitting their class status as a settler. 

It is essential to note that Palestinians have never rejected Jewish indigeneity in Palestine. However, the liberation movement has differentiated between zionist settlers and Jewish natives. Palestinians have established a clear and rational framework for this distinction, like in the Thawabet, the National Charter of Palestine from 1968. Article 6 states, ‘The Jews who had normally resided in Palestine until the beginning of the Zionist invasion will be considered Palestinians.’ When individuals misread ‘decolonisation’ as ‘the mass killing or expulsion of Jews,’ it is often a reflection of their own entanglement in colonialism or a result of zionist propaganda. Perpetuating this rhetoric is a deliberate misinterpretation of Palestinian thought, which has maintained this position over a century of indigenous organising.  Even after 100 years of enduring ethnic cleansing, whole communities bombed and entire family lines erased, Palestinians have never, as a collective, called for the mass killing of Jews or Israelis. Anti-zionism cannot shy away from employing the historical-political definitions of ‘settler’ and ‘indigenous’ in their discourse to confront ahistorical readings of Palestinian decolonial thought and zionist propaganda. 

[...]

In the context of the United States, the most threatening zionist institutions are the entrenched political parties which function to maintain the status quo of the American empire, not Hillel groups on university campuses or even Christian zionist churches. While the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) engage in forms of violence that suppress Palestinian liberation and must not be minimised, it is crucial to recognise that the most consequential institutions in the context of settler-colonialism are not exclusively Jewish in their orientation or representation: the Republican and Democratic Party in the United States do arguably more to manufacture public consent for the slaughtering of Palestinians than the ADL and AIPAC combined. Even the Progressive Caucus and the majority of ‘The Squad’ are guilty of this.

Leila Shomali and Lara Kilani

[musclesandhammering]

I am begging internet leftists to understand that, while Palestine deserves to be free and Israel deserves to be held accountable for what they’ve been doing to them for decades, Hamas is absolutely unequivocally not some freedom fighting organisation working to liberate the Palestinian Everyman.

It’s a terrorist group that not only has a specific goal to torture and kill Israeli civillians, but has also caused indescribable suffering for Palestinian people. They are extremists. They’re brainwashed by corrupted religious dogma. They do not care about freeing Palestine, they only care about killing Israelis and keeping Palestinians under their control.

If we really want an end to Palestinian suffering, we need to oppose both Israel’s government and Hamas.

[sayruq]

Hezbollah has spent the past 2 months attacking Israeli settlements, military sites and installations, and soldiers. Israel has swung from threatening war to asking the West to intervene, in between bombing Lebanese villages and killing civilians and journalist. We now have entered a new chapter

As this thread goes on to explain, Hezbollah would never agree to disarm even it means Lebanon regains all its territories. In fact, Hezbollah criticised Hamas' 2017 charter because it was willing to accept the 1967 border and therefore the two state solution. Nothing less than neutralising the Israeli threat would do.

The thread goes on to explain that Israel is hoping to use domestic pressures to get Hezbollah to agree to this plan. One problem: Hezbollah operates regardless if whether or not it has national support. At any rate, the organisation will never accept the proposed plan.

Weeks ago, a minister in Israel's war cabinet threatened to leave unless a war with Hezbollah is considered. As you can see in this post and in this article, tens of thousands of Israelis evacuated from the Northern territory want war with Hezbollah so they can return to their settlements. For weeks, the mayors of those settlements have made statements saying Israelis can never return unless Hezbollah is removed from the border. The general idea is that once Hamas is defeated in Gaza, Israel will go to war with Hezbollah.

But Hamas isn't being defeated and Hezbollah is significantly stronger than all the Resistance factions in Gaza. Israel is losing in Gaza. It has the gotten to the point where it can't even resupply its troops from the ground. So many of its soldiers are wounded and left disabled that they're now sending them to civilian hospitals because they've run out of space in their de facto military hospitals (the speculated number is over 10,000 injured since Oct 26th).

What this proposal shows is that Israel has never been more weaker. Israel is terrified of Hezbollah and I can't blame them because if they're struggling this much against the Gazan militia groups, imagine how badly things will go if they ever decide to make the conflict at the border into a war. They lost against Hezbollah twice already, a new war will make it three loses.

Israel would never negotiate unless it was backed into the corner. That's what the temporary truce also showed. Hamas sent their terms for a ceasefire, Israel laughed them off, then weeks later, after taking a great deal of damage, Israel returned to the negotiating table to hear the same exact terms that they were given before.

After Israel refused to extend the truce, Hamas has changed its approach. No more temporary truces. Hostages will only be exchanged after a comprehensive ceasefire. Rumour has it (its practically confirmed in Arab media) that Israel has asked Qatar and Egypt to restart mediation after pulling away Mossad negotiators two weeks ago.

Now, that Israel has shown its belly vis-à-vis Hezbollah, I expect all the Resistance Axis to continue tightening the noose around Israel.

Palestine has never been closer to liberation than it is now and it will be closer still tomorrow.

[probablyasocialecologist]

In November 2023, news broke that a number of Western energy companies, including British Petroleum (BP), were granted gas exploration licences in occupied Palestinian waters by the Israeli Ministry of Energy. While it will take years before these sites are converted into reliable sources of gas, activist groups in the US and Britain have protested these business deals, brokered in the shadow of an ongoing genocide. The motivation for Israel’s genocidal, Western-backed siege on Gaza cannot be reduced to the exploitation of its marine gas fields. The ongoing genocide should be understood as part of the logic of US imperialism and its proxy state which enacts its interests in the region: the Zionist settler colonial project, which seeks to ethnically cleanse all of historic Palestine, seize natural resources, and use and export its fuel supplies for the consolidation of its military and economic power.  Indeed, our protests against BP’s gas licences are not in isolation. Like other activist groups in Turkey and Colombia, we campaign against energy companies partnering with Israeli businesses to supply fuel to Israel. For this reason, we situate BP’s gas licence within its larger role in fuelling Israel. BP is the operator and largest shareholder of the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) oil pipeline, which is supplying Israel with 28% of its oil during its genocide. In this investigation we explore BP’s colonial history and the supply chain of the BTC pipeline. We also delve into the social licences that facilitate BP’s operations abroad. Social licences are a commercial and metaphorical concept describing corporations' process of acquiring public approval as an added layer of legitimacy for their ongoing profit-driven, colonial business practices. Focusing on the BTC pipeline reveals how Zionist settler-colonialism is central to the continued extraction of oil in the Middle East, and global uneven accumulation, where wealth is concentrated in the Global North. The liberation of Palestine and regional anti-Zionist resistance must therefore be central to the larger struggle against capitalism and for a just transition. Organising from the imperial core against the Zionist occupation of Palestine then becomes about much more than just holding the perpetrators of genocide to account. It is part of the bigger fight against imperialism – which exterminates populations and ecologies for the continued flow of value to the Global North.

9 September 2024

[aronarchy]

A copy of the first reading list, if you dislike clicking on Google docs links:

The liberal news media is working overtime to silence Palestinian voices. As we sit thousands of miles away, witnessing the massacre through social media, the least we can do is educate ourselves and work to educate others. Apartheid threatens all of us, and just to reiterate, anti-Zionism ≠ antisemitism.

Academic Works, Poetry and Memoirs

The Revolution of 1936-1939 in Palestine: Background, Details, and Analysis, Ghassan Kanafani (1972)

Palestinians: From Peasants to Revolutionaries, Rosemary Sayegh (1979)

Popular Resistance in Palestine: A History of Hope and Empowerment, Mazin Qumsiyeh (2011)

My Life in the PLO: The Inside Story of the Palestinian Struggle, Shafiq al-Hout and Jean Said Makdisi (2019)

My People Shall Live, Leila Khaled (1971)

Poetry of Resistance in Occupied Palestine, translated by Sulafa Hijjawi (Baghdad, Ministry of Culture and Guidance, 1968)

On Palestine by Ilan Pappé and Noam Chomsky (2015)

Gaza in Crisis: Reflections on the US-Israeli War Against the Palestinians, Noam Chomsky and Ilan Pappé (2013)

The Politics of Dispossession: The Struggle for Palestinian Self-Determination, 1969-1994, Edward W. Said (2012)

Queer Palestine and the Empire of Critique, Sa’ed Atshan (2020)

Stone Men: The Palestinians Who Built Israel, Andrew Ross (2019)

Ten Myths About Israel, Ilan Pappé (2017)

Blaming the Victims: Spurious Scholarship and the Palestinian Question, Christopher Eric Hitchens and Edward W. Said (2001)

Palestinian Walks: Notes on a Vanishing Landscape, Raja Shehadeh (2010)

The Gun and the Olive Branch: The Roots of Violence in the Middle East, David Hirst (1977)

Gaza: An Inquest into Its Martyrdom, Norman Finkelstein (2018)

Fateful Triangle: The United States, Israel and the Palestinians, Noam Chomsky (1983)

Israel and Palestine: Reappraisals, Revisions, Refutations, Avi Shlaim (2010)

Politicide: Ariel Sharon’s War Against the Palestinians, Baruch Kimmerling (2006)

The Holocaust Industry: Reflections on the Exploitation of Jewish Suffering, Norman G. Finkelstein (2015)

Light in Gaza: Writings Born of Fire, Jehad Abusalim (2022)

Nakba: Palestine, 1948, and the Claims of Memory, Ahmad H. Sa’di and Lila Abu-Lughod (2007)

Peace and its discontents: Essays on Palestine in the Middle East peace process, Edward W. Said (2012)

Three Poems by Yahya Hassan

Articles, Papers & Essays

“Palestinian history doesn’t start with the Nakba” by PYM (May, 2023) 

“What the Uprising Means,” Salim Tamari (1988)

“The Palestinians’ inalienable right to resist,” Louis Allday (2021)

“Liberating a Palestinian Novel from Israeli Prison,” Danya Al-Saleh and Samar Al-Saleh (2023) 

Women, War, and Peace: Reflections from the Intifada, Nahla Abdo (2002)

“A Place Without a Door” and “Uncle Give me a Cigarette”—Two Essays by Palestinian Political Prisoner, Walid Daqqah (2023)

“Live Like a Porcupine, Fight Like a Flea,” A Translation of an Article by Basel Al-Araj

Films & Video Essays

Fedayin: Georges Abdallah’s Fight (2021)

Naila and the Uprising (2017)

Off Frame AKA Revolution Until Victory (2015)

Tell Your Tale Little Bird (1993)

The Time That Remains (2009)

“The Present” (short film) (2020)

“How Palestinians were expelled from their homes”

Louis Theroux: The Ultra Zionists (2011)

Born in Gaza (2014)

5 Broken Cameras (2011)

Little Palestine: Diary of a Siege (2021)

Al-Nakba: The Palestinian catastrophe - Episode 1 | Featured Documentary

Organisations to donate to

Palestine Red Crescent Society - https://www.palestinercs.org/en

Anera - https://support.anera.org/a/palestine-emergency

Palestinian American Medical Association - https://palestinian-ama.networkforgood.com/projects/206145-gaza-medical-supplies-oct-2023

You First Gaza - https://donate.gazayoufirst.org/

MAP - Medical Aid for Palestinians - https://www.map.org.uk/donate/donate

United Nations Relief and Works Agency - https://donate.unrwa.org/-landing-page/en_EN

Palestine Children’s Relief Fund - https://www.pcrf.net/   

Doctors Without Borders - https://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/what-we-do/where-we-work/palestine

AP Fact Check

https://apnews.com/article/israel-hamas-gaza-misinformation-fact-check-e58f9ab8696309305c3ea2bfb269258e

This list is not exhaustive in any way, and is a summary of various sources on the Internet. Please engage with more ethical, unbiased sources, including Decolonize Palestine and this list compiled by the Palestinian Youth Movement.

[claraameliapond]

Every single time I think they couldn't possibly be any more sadistic - Israeli soldiers are WELDING DOORS TO PALESTINIAN HOMES SHUT WHILE CHILDREN ARE INSIDE

Decolonise Palestine immediately

[theoreticallysensible]

I have friends and family very concerned about the “from the river to the sea” chant, but most commentators I respect online support it, so I did a bit of research and this is the best article I found explaining it. Surprise surprise, the hegemonic narrative my friends and family had absorbed was wrong.

“From the river to the sea” is a recognition that apartheid began in 1948 when Israel was created through the ethnic cleansing of Palestine. It is no call for genocide. To call for the destruction of Israel as an apartheid state is not a call for the destruction of Jews living there, any more than the call for the destruction of apartheid in South Africa was a call for the destruction of white people.

…

Historically the slogan “from the river to the sea” dates at least as far back as the 1960s when the Palestinian resistance was led by the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO), a secular coalition of Palestinian nationalist and leftist parties.

In the late 1960s, the PLO put forward a visionary idea of Arab-Jewish coexistence in one democracy, arguing for Israel and the Occupied Territories to become “one secular, democratic state of Palestine” based on one person, one vote, where Arabs, Jews, Muslims and Christians would enjoy full equality.

[no-passaran]

[...] The International Olympic Committee, FIFA, UEFA, FIBA, and other sports organisations are complicit as they allow a continuous participation of the occupying apartheid regime in their events. Following a swift response and an instant suspension of Russia, it is now difficult for them to justify turning a blind eye to the Israeli government’s actions.

We must however take heart from history and support the liberation of Palestine as generations before us brought apartheid to an end in South Africa. That struggle took on all possible dimensions, with one of the earliest being suspension of sporting ties – which aided in peacefully isolating the South African regime, demonstrated a global rejection of apartheid and changed domestic perspectives in the country.

This act must now be extended to Israel – not only due to its practice of settler-colonialism, military occupation, ethnic cleansing, genocide, apartheid and illegal exploitation of natural resources on occupied territories – but also due to its brutal assault on cultural, academic and sporting life of the Palestinian society.

We thus urgently demand:

An immediate suspension of Israel from participation in all international sports until it fully complies with international law and sports regulations

For global and European sports governing bodies to immediately uphold their statutory obligations – especially their own rules on human rights and non-discrimination given Russian, South African and other precedents. This would include, inter alia, a ban on Israel competing at the 2024 Paris Olympics, UEFA’s European Championship and FIFA’s World Cup.

For a deeper analysis on the rationale to suspend Israel from international sports, please review this paper (also available in Spanish) that will be sent to sports organisations.

[halalchampagnesocialist]

I think us Palestinians know better than anyone that the only way of freeing Palestine was going to be through direct action. Liberals really assume that any kind of solution will come through negotiation or the involvement of the international community. Okay, Palestinians agreed to Oslo but all it did was fragment the West Bank further, and any "peace" negotiations/agreement is just used by Israel as a smokescreen to further its expansion of settlements and colonial activity. We have the United Nations and they've issued resolutions condemning Israel several times. What use is it though when they just get vetoed by the US? With that said, international law is mostly a guide, it is not enforceable at all. We've also organised and built up awareness around the issue, and the crowds at the rallies grow and grow. The boycotts grow and grow. That's still not enough to bring Israel down or end the occupation, especially when the Israeli population who are pro-Palestine are a mere minority to directly impact their own country. At this point, Israel does not care either, and to be honest, it never did. They want to cement the occupation for as long as they can. As long as Israel is treated in a legitimate manner, it's naive to think any international diplomacy was going to solve anything in Palestine. It really will be a combination of international solidarity actions + resistance from Palestinians on the ground.