Free Palestine
These last few days have left me with more questions than answers and deepened my commitment to thinking, living, and creating beyond binaries. What we are witnessing with the escalation of violence in historic Palestine moves beyond “conflict” and reductive colonial logics. This violence is rooted in 75+ years of an (illegal) Israeli military enforced occupied apartheid state and over 16 years of Palestine existing as an open-air prison. I have grappled with the right words, the right resources, and how I understand solidarity and accountability beyond identity politics.
I am sitting at the seat of empire as a documented citizen of the United States of America and live on unceded land shepherded by the Tigua Pueblo peoples – right on the border of the United States of America and Mexico. The dehumanization and criminalization of immigrants along this border feels echoed in the nonchalant admission from Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant that Palestinians are “human animals”, and the normative framing of whose lives are grievable – who we deem innocent and the communities who are disposable. There are no clean equations for human rights and what one’s right to liberation looks like. There are no clean and neutral definitions that make “condemning violence” simple.
What I do know is that decolonization is not a metaphor (Eve Tuck), and we must remain steadfast in addressing the root causes of this ongoing violence as military attacks exacerbate and normalize human suffering. Naming the historical and ongoing functioning of Israel as an apartheid settler state is not justification for the violence led by Hamas – it is a necessary contextualization. We cannot turn only to theory and abstraction or false symmetries, because supporting the liberation of Palestine is not the same as supporting the actions of Hamas. We cannot conflate Judaism with Zionism or condemn all 2 million Palestinians held hostage in the world’s largest open-air prison (and their fight for sovereignty) for the actions of a few. And so, I locate myself in and honor collective struggle/the legacies of transnational solidarities that make clear that actions mean more than political platitudes. I cannot just wear Angela Y. Davis quotes on a tshirt, rotely memorize excerpts from the Combahee River Collective Statement, or post vague statements of support for peace. Decolonization is not an abstract theory or concept that we can just write about or teach without meaningful action.
Israeli occupation, incarceration, withholding resources and aid, etc. are examples of what Ruth Wilson Gilmore names as “organized abandonment” of life in Gaza and the West Bank. Even the logic behind the language in news/media of Israelis being killed vs. Palestinians dying eclipses decades long and current Israeli military-led settler violence. Supporting this apartheid state’s “right to defend itself” maintains the dehumanization of Palestinian Jews, Muslims, Christians, etc. and is integral to the project of White Supremacy and imperialism not only in Palestine, but here in the United States and across the globe.
It is vital to the ways the United States financially supports the Israeli military (Joe Biden once called Israel the best investment of 3 Billion US dollars), trains US police with Israel Security Forces (take a look at Cop City in ATL), increased immigrant detention and limited access to asylum seekers, enables global displacement and exploitation of people of color, and the recent violation of environmental law that moves building the US/Mexico Border Wall forward etc. Did you know that Palestinians living under Israeli occupation supported organizers being beaten and tear-gassed during the protests in Ferguson after the murder of Michael Brown? We cannot reduce this facet of history as an issue of faith as it is one of power. We need revolution and simply “condemning violence” is not enough; it’s time to abandon the rhetoric of “both sides” and “violence is never the answer” as it tells me that the genocide of Palestinians over the last 75+ years have been – and still is- acceptable. .
Whom is terrorizing whom? I am sitting at the seat of empire here in the United States and am not experiencing the constant threats to life that over 2 million Palestinians fight to survive daily. Decolonization is not a theoretical process. Any Palestinian who fights for real democracy (which Israel and the United States do not support) is labelled a terrorist. “War doesn’t necessarily take the shape of missiles and ground troops” (Noura Erakat)- right now it looks like withholding electricity, medical supplies, access to clean water and food, and leveling schools and hospitals. It looks like Israelis being able to claim birthright to land that generations of Palestinians call home (while holding dual citizenship in the Western world – only Israelis can literally leave). If you cannot support Palestinian resistance to decades of oppression then you would have condemned the resistance of the Haitian Revolution, the fight against chattel slavery in the US, the dismantling of the South African apartheid state, the Algerian revolution, our ongoing fight for Civil Rights…you actually don’t support the people of Ukraine, the liberation of Indigenous peoples and the fight for land back, (and I can go on). Lest I remind us that Nelson Mandela was on the US Terrorist Watch List until 5 years before his death.
No one is expected to be an academic who has read every piece of literature on Israel and Palestine, be fully educated on international law/conflict, or have all the “right” answers. But we can choose to inform ourselves and one another. I mourn the loss of life, the apathy that is so evident in the defense of state sanctioned violence (the status quo), the misconstruction of Antisemitism = Anti-Zionism, the justification of Antisemitism in the wake of this violence, and the empty calls for peace rooted in a racist, imperialist, and settler-colonial ideology. Selective outrage shows me who cares about power over people. This is not a singular event in time, and I remain committed to educating myself on the Israeli occupation of Palestine, the mechanisms of White Supremacy and the imperialism that shapes the place I call home, and being accountable to solidarity in action.
Here are some resources that I hope can help move us from binaries and false equivalencies. Free Palestine.
*Learning Modules on Palestine
*Running list of literature about Palestine’s fight for sovereignty curated by Palestinian Youth Movement
*Understanding Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS)
*Read the narratives of youth in Gaza and their call to end occupation
*Medical Aid for Palestinians call for resources and support:
*The Alliance for Middle East Peace is the largest network of Palestinian and Israeli collaborators for peace; you can explore their efforts and campaigns here
*Decolonize Palestine’s Reading List
*Jewish Voice for Peace (the largest global progressive Jewish anti-Zionist organization)
*Understanding Pinkwashing in Israel
