Open letter from Asians and Asian Americans in support of Palestine and rejecting Zionism

Do not sponsor genocide. Our history teaches us better.

As a broad coalition of Asian, Asian American, Pacific Islander, and all communities who have been organizing in our communities for justice and equity, we are writing this letter to affirm that our struggle for liberation is intertwined with the people of Palestine and their fight for freedom. We join the millions of Palestinians and people of conscience all over the world in demanding an immediate and permanent ceasefire, an end to all US aid to Israel, and the end of Israel’s 76-year occupation and colonization of Palestine. We call on all organizations that claim to speak for Asian and Pacific Islander communities to join us in our commitment for justice in Palestine as part & parcel of the indivisibility of justice. 

Therefore, we are alarmed that on March 10th, the Jewish Community Relations Council (JCRC) plans to award the API Council the “JCRC Outstanding Community Partner Award”. 

We renew our call to API Council as well as its individuals and member organizations to return this award that is in direct opposition to the wishes of the communities API Council serves and JCRC’s decade-long attacks against our siblings, Arab, Muslim, and Palestinian communities and all advocates of Palestinian liberation, including our anti-Zionist Jewish siblings.

This award comes under the pretext of collaborations around “stopping Asian hate”, so we call on organizations like API Council to focus their energies on deepening their commitment to defending community members from violence against activists for justice in and for Palestine and visibly Arab, Middle Eastern, and Muslim individuals. Accepting this award silences and invisibilizes the attacks on freedom of speech and liberty of AMEMSA community members reportedly ranging from physical assaults, smear campaigns, academic/professional censorship, and doxxing by JCRC and its pro-Israel allies who will be present at this Gala.

Many of us are migrant community members or descendants from communities that have experienced the horrors of colonization and imperialist violence abroad, such as the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the Bombing of Bikini Atoll, the Rape of Nanjing, the continued occupation of Hawaii and Guam, the continued backing of dictatorships in the Philippines, the Kanto massacre and the WWII Incarceration Camps, as well as today’s detention, surveillance, and other forms of state violence which Arabs, Muslims & Palestinians have also suffered and continue to experience today.  

Because of our shared histories of colonization and resistance…

• We refuse to let our communities be co-opted for imperialist interests, and we refuse to go down in history as colluding with genocide. 
• We also refuse our movement against Asian hate to be co-opted by Zionists for legitimizing Israel’s genocide and settler colonialism against Palestinians. We are also learning from movements for Pasifika/Oceania self-determination that are fighting against the colonial classification of Pacific Islanders as AAPI. 
• We affirm our international solidarity with Palestinians fighting for their right to self-determination, return and freedom from occupation. 

Here in the belly of the beast, our communities are categorically opposed to bankrolling war,  occupation and genocide. Our communities are committed to our human right to housing, life-affirming healthcare, and work in dignified jobs with decent, living wages. 

We call on all organizations working towards social justice and equity to carry forward the legacies of liberation movements by Black, Indigenous, Latinx, and Asian communities in the United States to stand in solidarity with Palestinians resisting occupation in Gaza and the West Bank. 

Once again we demand that the API Council reject the JCRC award and instead join the broadest sectors of society & community member organizations to call for an immediate & permanent ceasefire and to unambiguously and firmly stand against genocide.

We call upon individuals, chapters, and organizations with ties to the API Council and invite the broader Pacific Islander and Asian American community members to add their signatories to this statement.

Signed, 

Organizations in API Council: 

1. First Voice Inc.

Organizations: 

1. Mauna Medic Healers Hui 
2. Feminists for Justice In/For Palestine
3. Westchester for Palestine
4. Free Kashmiri Political Prisoners
5. Japanese American Families for Justice
6. Alnaqab
7. Nikkei Resisters
8. Al-Awda, Bay Area
9. Free Palestine Movement
10. Arab & Muslim Ethnicities and Diasporas Studies, San Francisco State University
11. International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network
12. Teaching Palestine: Pedagogical Praxis and the Indivisibility of Justice
13. Sad Francisco
14. Nodutdol for Korean Community Development
15. UE Ethnic Studies Faculty Council 
16. Asian Refugees United
17. Heung Coalition

See individual signatories and sign here.