Activism

We can’t breathe until we’re free! Palestinians stand in solidarity with Black Americans

The BDS movement calls on Palestine solidarity activists in the US and elsewhere to stand with the Movement for Black Lives and other Black-led organizations in their righteous struggle for justice

Editor’s Note: The following statement was published today by the Palestinian BDS National Committee. Mondoweiss occasionally publishes press releases and statements from organizations in an effort to draw attention to overlooked issues.

The Palestinian BDS National Committee (BNC), the largest coalition in Palestinian society that leads the global BDS movement, stands resolutely in solidarity with our Black brothers and sisters across the US who are calling for justice in the wake of the latest wave of insufferable police murders of Black Americans, including George Floyd in Minneapolis, Tony McDade in Tallahassee, and Breonna Taylor in Louisville.

The growing protests by “the unheard” against police brutality in the US are fundamentally an uprising against an entire system of racist exploitation and oppression, exacerbated and nakedly exposed by the Covid-19 pandemic and its disproportionate toll on African Americans. This system is organically connected to the crimes perpetrated by US imperialism against peoples of color worldwide and rooted in the violent, racist and colonial foundation of the US.

The genocidal destruction of native American nations, the pillage of their wealth and resources, and the savage enslavement of millions of Africans constitutes the most profound pillars of what became the US. The deeply-seated white supremacist ideology that has guided and attempted to whitewash these crimes is still alive, albeit in different forms. This exclusionary ideology is encouraged by the flagrantly racist Trump White House and an insidious, less-audaciously racist liberal establishment that rhetorically condemns racism, even spews some empty promises, yet consistently fails to act on reparations, racial and economic justice, and ending the horrific system of criminalization and mass incarceration of Black Americans.

As Martin Luther King, Jr. once said, the “great stumbling block” in the stride by Black Americans toward freedom is not the KKK, “but the white moderate, who is more devoted to ‘order’ than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice.”

We call on the Palestine solidarity movement in the US and elsewhere to stand with the Movement for Black Lives and other Black-led organizations in their righteous struggle for justice, and for an abolitionist approach to police reform, reparation, and liberation. We endorse calls for targeted and strategic boycott, defunding and divestment campaigns against institutions, banks and corporations that are implicated in the system of racial injustice.

As indigenous people of Palestine, we have firsthand experience with settler-colonialism, apartheid and racist violence wielded by Israel’s regime of oppression – with the miliary funding and unconditional support of the US government – to dispossess us, ethnically cleanse us, and reduce us to lesser humans. Our most important achievement as a people resisting colonial oppression, including through boycott campaigns, is our ability to remain steadfast and to resist their relentless attempts to colonize our minds with hopelessness, self-deprecation and surrender to their supremacy as fate.

Black people in the US, in South Africa and many other countries have survived centuries of the most inhumane forms of enslavement and racial oppression ever seen, teaching humanity as a whole precious lessons in perseverance, resistance and ingeniousness.

The system of structural racism in the US is violently enforced by paramilitary police departments, many trained by Israel, including the Minnesota police. These police forces have been tasked with doing whatever it takes to protect this rotten system of white supremacy and Black, Latinx and Indigenous disenfranchisement.

The indiscriminate, extrajudicial murder of Black Americans; the unconscionable US prison system; and the inhumane and racist treatment of migrants and asylum seekers at the southern borders are all symptoms of an increasingly militarized security state that is wreaking havoc and destruction against communities of color in the US and globally. As long as this system of oppression continues, it is up to our grassroots movements to work collectively and intersectionally to dismantle it, from the US to Palestine.

It is the duty of all people of conscience to uplift the struggle and the voices of our Black sisters and brothers. We call on our community to recognize the connections between the US’s domestic racial oppression and its racialized imperial oppression against people of color worldwide, as explained by Malcolm X and other Black thought leaders. Just as the occupying Israeli military forces serve to further entrench the apartheid system against Palestinians, the US police forces only serve to further entrench the system of American white supremacy and privilege.

We echo the sentiments of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee’s recent statement saying, “now is a time for us to listen to Black Americans and Black civil rights groups about their unique experiences and about how we can best support our collective struggle against injustice. It is also our duty … to educate ourselves on the struggles our Black brothers and sisters face and how we can do our part to tackle anti-blackness.”

To our Black brothers and sisters, your resilience in the face of brutal dehumanization is a source of inspiration to our own struggle against Israel’s regime of occupation, settler-colonialism and apartheid. We support calls such as this initiative from Minneapolis organizers to divest from militarism and policing and instead invest in community-led health and safety.

Recognizing that justice is won, not simply conceded, we reflect on James Baldwin’s advice to his nephew, “Please try to remember that what they believe, as well as what they do and cause you to endure, does not testify to your inferiority, but to their inhumanity and fear.”

We can’t breathe until we’re free from oppression and racism. #BlackLivesMatter

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http://www.dci.plo.ps/en/article/15392/Dr-Ashrawi-Israel-is-on-a-killing-spree
 
Press Release: The Palestine Liberation Organization, May 30/20
 
Dr. Ashrawi: “Israel is on a killing spree”
 
(May 30, 2020): “In the past few days, Israel has escalated its rate and scale of crimes against Palestinian civilians. In the past twenty four hours, Israeli occupation forces have committed two acts of cold-blooded and unjustified murders against defenseless Palestinian civilians, including an autistic man killed this Saturday in Jerusalem. The latest execution-style killing brings, to at least 21, the number of Palestinians killed by Israeli occupation forces in such senseless acts of violence since January.
 
“The escalation of Israel’s crimes and violations coincides with concrete steps on the ground in preparation for the looming formal annexation, which is the ultimate and final act of land grab and mass displacement in Israel’s colonial project. Murders, land appropriation, home demolitions, and other acts of structural violence are on the rise. 
 
“Israel will continue to act in this rogue manner and with absolute disregard to international law and Palestinian lives so long as it is shielded from legal and political accountability. 
 
“States must realize that allowing this structural violence to continue against the Palestinian people, including such crimes that are anchored in racism and impunity, normalizes these crimes worldwide. Stopping this brutal and violent colonial regime is an international responsibility the world cannot avert any longer.”
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
30
 
 
 
 

Lots of links here, but one I found particularly interesting: https://waronwant.org/israeli-apartheid-factsheet
 
Click on “Israeli officials on apartheid”: “One of the first people to use the word apartheid in relation to Israel was Israel’s first prime minister, David Ben Gurion. Following the 1967 June war, he warned of Israel becoming an “apartheid state” if it retained control of the occupied territory, which it has done.”
 
“David Ben-Gurion, like Kerry, warned of future Apartheid”:
 
https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/david-ben-gurion-like-kerry-warned-of-future-apartheid/

If there is a strong similarity between the racist police brutality here, and what the poor Palestinians have had to suffer with for decades, there are good reasons:
 
“U.S. Police are Being Trained by Israel—And Communities of Color Are Paying the PriceIn recent years, Georgia has experienced troubling trends in fatal police shootings. As this has unfolded, the state continues to pursue a “police exchange” program with the state of Israel.”
 
https://progressive.org/dispatches/us-police-trained-by-israel-communities-of-color-paying-price-shahshahani-cohen-191007/
 
Amnesty Int.
https://www.amnestyusa.org/with-whom-are-many-u-s-police-departments-training-with-a-chronic-human-rights-violator-israel/

‘The dogs bark…..but the caravan moves on’.
 
 
The caravan moves on.

I’ve just read that not only are U.S. police officers trained by Israeli trainers, but also the “knee-to-neck” technique so fatal in the Floyd case has been developed in Israel (where it is quite usual since around 2006) and has from there been diffused into other countries. (Possible other countries trained by Israel would be Bolivia or Brazil.)
Now, I must warn to use this information because I cannot judge the reliability of the source (a far-left journal in Britain):
https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/minnesota-cops-trained-israeli-forces-restraint-techniques
Are there any experts here who can tell if this is true or beyond the edge?