Following from our Independence Day post, we’d like to go into more depth about Palestine and related movements in the US. Because every movement needs attention in multiple public spheres to succeed, as allies, we are committed to sharing the work that Palestinian organizers are doing on the ground. We welcome your solidarity in standing united against all apartheid states.
Our last post referred to the historical connection between the movement to free Palestine and various groups in the U.S. Civil Rights Movement (the American Indian Movement and the Black Panthers). That connection persists to this day—by exploring our present day struggles in the West, we hope to help you connect more deeply to the struggles of the Palestinian people.
One issue highlighted by AIM that is still overlooked by settler media today is the way the historic ethnic cleansing of our own indigenous peoples continues through environmental racism and the epidemic of femicide (Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls report) running rampant in both urban and rural areas. Our country continues to reckon with a broad range of examples of white supremacy; structural and institutional racism; and the ever-oppressive forces of capitalism. The apartheid we experience here happens in all levels of society, and we notice the most alarming consequences in our healthcare systems, such as through the examples of maternal mortality rates among black women and our housing institutions. Let’s not forget the continued occupation of our own Indigenous peoples’ sacred land and the occupation of our country’s colonies: Puerto Rico, Guam, American Samoa, the Northern Mariana Islands, and the US Virgin Islands.
This is all to say that we have every reason to support Palestinians in their efforts to free themselves from their oppressive situation and support their efforts to decolonize their own world because we must also do that for ourselves. This website provides quite a bit of context about the history of Palestine and current issues Palestinians face–ethnic cleansing, apartheid, and occupation–which aren’t so different from our own U.S. history and current issues. That said, so many settlers here in the U.S. are coming to terms with the historical ethnic cleansing of our own indigenous peoples, which still continues to this day.
This brings us to a very relevant and pressing issue in our own backyard: the Enbridge Line 3 pipeline. While this might feel like a disconnected issue, the reaction to the movement to resist pipelines is a form of environmental racism where people are forced to literally put their lives on the line to save their drinking water and ability to raise food (rice, in this case). Activists have been helping the effort. But none of it is enough. This issue links directly to Palestine because it brings to light a second community on the opposite side of the world oppressed by the economic and governmental forces who serve the forces of profit- and resource-hoarding rather than serving the people. In addition, the U.S. government supports Israel’s efforts to commit genocide while continuing the same racist policies against our own indigenous communities at home.
We can talk about this issue by examining many perspectives to assess our social responsibility to fight against colonization: Line 3 itself, representing the perspective of a corporation who is profiting from oil pipelines expanding into Indigenous land; the white people in neighboring towns who were able to use the legal system to keep Enbridge from laying the pipeline through their own communities; the businesses who were contracted for the work; the police agencies hired with premium pay to “protect” the project by violently arresting protestors; and the Indigenous leaders, Indigenous community members, and other supporters protesting resource extraction by corporations on Indigenous land. Each stakeholder has their own agenda in this situation, but ultimately the tribal nations are fighting to protect the Earth for us all while white communities are fighting to sustain their privileged livelihoods. These livelihoods afford them comforts at the future expense of us all, and at the immediate expense of Indigenous people and lands. This is the same exact war white settlers–with the protection of the government–have waged since before the country’s inception, and it perpetuates the racism that our current imperial powers wage against these same peoples.
We see the same thing happening in Palestine now, also with the help of the U.S. The struggle is the same here and abroad. We can’t fight alone. We need each other. We learn from each other, and the solidarity helps energize each other to keep up the struggle.
A Quick BDS (Boycott, Divest, and Sanctions) Update
So what is happening now months after the “Block the Boat” actions that took place in June 2021 at major ports in Oakland, LA, NY, Seattle, Detroit, and Vancouver against the infamous ZIM cargo ship? Aside from the success of the Block the Boat campaign, the BDS movement has led other important actions, such as leading the protest to convince professional international football squads (AKA soccer)–FC Barcelona, Inter Milan, and Atlético Madrid–not to play in Jerusalem. They succeeded with at least one team: FC Barcelona canceled their “friendly” game (a game that doesn’t count toward their record) against Beitar (a pro team in Israel). Plus, the BDS movement is currently working on a campaign to widely boycott Puma, as well as emailing the UN General Assembly and the UN Secretary-General to investigate the apartheid in Israel.
More than anything, we need to help resist the cyber-surveillance actions because these forms of repression impact citizens in the U.S., too. The cyber-surveillance corporations experiment and work out their procedures and protocols in places around the world before using their refined tactics on citizens in the U.S., as Angela Davis explains in her book Freedom Is a Constant Struggle. (Here’s just one example of a company currenty impacting U.S. citizens that most don’t even know about.) If we allow these corporations and oppressive corporations to use their violent methods to kill, segregate, and occupy those in other countries, then we waste opportunities to stop them before they have a chance to do harm in our very homes…and quite honestly, it’s so late at that point.
Ultimately, we are all linked, just like the water in the ocean; pollution in one area will eventually spread to the rest of the world. It might not happen immediately, and we may not acutely feel the consequences of Palestinian genocide, but we will not be able to live the healthiest and most productive lives. Let’s avoid this, and start showing our solidarity with our various communities here in the U.S., as well as those abroad. The worst that can happen is that you will feel good for helping someone.
1 The dropout age can vary state-to-state.
The Wobble 