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Redefining Liberation

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Palestinians take part in an event calling for the implementation of the Palestinian right of return near the border fence with Israel, in Maghazi refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip on July 1, 2021. (Photo: Ashraf Amra/APA Images)

Adalah Justice Project’s Sumaya Awad talks with Jehad Abusalim about Gaza, the Palestinian Authority, and the US movement for Palestine in the wake of the latest Israeli aggression on Gaza. “It is crucial to understand Gaza and its experience in the context of the Nakba and its unfolding and continuation since 1948. This has to be the starting point if people want to be serious and invested in understanding the current situation in Gaza,” Abusalim explains.

COVID-19 did not invent systematic injustice, but it has exposed and sharpened injustices already there. Israel’s refusal to vaccinate Palestinians is but the latest chapter of its decades-long practice of colonialism, ethnic cleansing, military occupation and, of course, apartheid against the Palestinian people. The U.S. is itself a settler-colony with centuries of systematic racism to its name, and the tolls of COVID-19 remain systematically centered around Indigenous, Black and brown people. There is a name for this, and it’s medical apartheid. It’s time to take a stand to end all military funding to an apartheid regime overseas and to demand the end to apartheid right here.

Palestinian workers at the Tayba checkpoint (Photo: The Palestine New Federation of Trade Unions)

Adalah Justice Project’s Sumaya Awad interviews Manal Shqair on the role of the Palestinian labor organizing in the liberation movement. “Dismantling of the Israeli settlement enterprise means that we Palestinians will be able to reclaim our land and natural resources. This, of course, will put an end to the exploitation of Palestinian workers by their Israeli employers,” Shqair explains.

Over 1 Million in Tahrir Square demanding the removal of the regime and for Mubarak to step down. February 9, 2011. (Photo: Jonathan Rashad/Wikimedia)

December 17 marked ten years since Mohammed Bouazizi, a street vendor in Tunis, set himself on fire in an act of defiance and desperation that triggered what would become known as the Arab Spring. Over the course of the last decade we have witnessed revolutions sweep the Middle East and North Africa, but we have also witnessed the sheer might and terror of counter-revolution as well. What are the lessons from the Arab Spring?