WEBINAR: Palestine On The Ground: International Solidarity & Resisting Colonization
Saturday, December 19
11 AM PST – 2 PM EST – 7 PM UTC – 9 PM Palestine (EEST)
Register online to join the event: https://bit.ly/palestinewebinar
Join ISM Northern California for a webinar next Saturday, December 19, 2020 to learn about the current situation on the ground in Palestine, grassroots resistance and the work of the International Solidarity Movement. Hear from Palestinian rights defenders and international volunteers on the front lines of popular struggle in Palestine and learn more about how you can get involved.
Join us next Saturday, December 19th!
Speakers will include:
Abdel Karim Dalbah – Palestinian journalist, field researcher and human rights defender. An ISM coordinator for almost two decades and an educator in nonviolent resistance, Abdel has been campaigning for human rights and Palestinian emancipation since the 70’s.
Edmond Sichrovsky – Edmond is an ISM activist of Jewish origin, currently based in northern Europe. In the summer and fall of 2019 he volunteered with ISM in Palestine, taking part in solidarity actions in East Jerusalem, Hebron, and the Jordan Valley. Banned by the Israeli government from returning, he now works to advocate for Palestine locally and in media.
Sophie – International Solidarity Movement volunteer from Spain.
Organized by the International Solidarity Movement – Northern California https://ism-norcal.org/
solidarity@ism-norcal.org
ISM UK is offering a day of pre-training for prospective volunteers who are interested in joining the International Solidarity Movement on the ground in Palestine.
Attending the training session in north London will give you a chance to get a first impression of ISM and the kind of work we do, receive training, connect with former volunteers and have your questions answered. You will also be filled in on how Palestinians are resisting the occupation and how we as internationals can work in solidarity with them using non-violent, direct action methods.
There is no obligation to join ISM after the training.
Lunch will be provided however we ask participants to pay a fee of £5 to cover training costs.
Date: November 30, 2019
Time: 10:30-16:00
Location: North London
To sign up for the training, please contact training.ismlondon@riseup.net
18 September 2015 | International Solidarity Movement, Ramallah Team | Ramallah, occupied Palestine
ISM volunteers raising Palestinian flag in front of the Apartheid wall.
The International Solidarity Movement rejects any action taken by International individuals or groups in Palestine that is done without invitation or in coordination with the Palestinian community, and that consequently disrespects Palestinians.
The International Solidarity Movement (ISM) has had the honor of supporting the Palestinian struggle in the occupied territories for the last fifteen years. The role of International ISM activists is to support the Palestinian popular struggle.
The ISM is founded on the basic principle of being Palestinian-led. This means that ISM does not initiate actions. We only join actions initiated by Palestinian communities and Palestinian groups engaged in grassroots activism. In accordance with our principles, we refuse any acts of dictations which is a form of stripping Palestinians from the power of decision. Therefore, instead of forcing our own ideals in the decision making of the local communities we provide genuine solidarity. In addition all international ISM volunteers are trained to behave in a way that respects the diversity and depth of Palestinian culture.
Solidarity means standing with people not for people. We emphasis this in our training because some people misinterpret solidarity with saviorship or hero complex, it is not and these attitudes are not tolerated in our movement. Palestinians are not voiceless. They have a voice, they do not need us to be their voice or to protest in Palestine on their behalf. There’s a difference between speaking on behalf of Palestinians and amplifying their voices.
As solidarity activists working in Palestine we get hands on experience of Israeli occupation and Apartheid and we get the honor of working alongside, supporting and learning from Palestinian activists. But much of the work of a solidarity activist takes place when he or she goes back home. In our home countries, it is our role to protest and work against our own governments’ complicity and support for Israeli Occupation and Apartheid. ISMers play an active role as part of the global, Palestinian-led, Boycott Divestment and Sanction (BDS) movement.
In the 1970’s an Aboriginal activist, from Queensland, stated: “If you have come here to help me, you are wasting our time. But if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together.” For us this is solidarity.
21st August 2015 | International Solidarity Movement, Ramallah Team | Occupied Palestine
Update 6th September:
We are making an urgent call for volunteers to come and join us to support Palestinians in their daily resistance towards the Israeli illegal occupation of their land.
Just this last Wednesday, a 75 year old woman was brutally attacked by Israeli soldiers as she tried to defend her son from being kidnapped, in the village of Salem. The same soldiers then attacked and kidnapped 8 shepherds from that area. The shepherds of Salem struggle everyday to access their fields and do their work, and they urgently need our help to accompany them and secure a safe environment to prevent the soldiers from harassing and attacking them.
Likewise, in the Jordan Valley, Palestinian bedouins are suffering from massive house demolitions every week, leaving them homeless in extremely harsh conditions. There is an urgent need for international presence to prevent more destruction of houses, theft of land and construction of illegal settlements, and to call out for international actions and campaigns, as we did in Susiya.
And now that the season for olive harvest is soon to come, we also ask you to join us in October to pick up olives with the farmers. October is the time when the olives are ripe and ready to be harvested, but the Israeli authorities only permit farmers a very limited amount of time to do all this work, and they depend on our help to harvest as many olives as possible, since this is their main source of subsistence. Moreover, our international presence during harvest is crucial to prevent soldiers and illegal settlers from attacking the farmers during their work. This is why your presence makes a real difference.
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During the months of July and August, there has been an escalation of violence from illegal Israeli settlers and the Israeli army towards Palestinians.
ISM is sending an urgent call for volunteers to join us in Palestine. Check the join us section of our website or email ISM at palreports@gmail.com for more information.
On a weekly basis, people throughout the West Bank are being arrested without charges, houses raided during the night, new houses have been demolished, settler violence has increased in the city of Hebron and in other villages, and the Israeli navy has increased the number of attacks towards Gazan fishermen.
On August 1st, the infant Ali Dawabshe was brutally murdered with an arson attack to his house perpetrated by illegal Israeli settlers in the village of Duma. His father, Saad Dawabshe, died one week after from severe burn injuries. Both his mother, Riham, and his 4 year old brother, Ahamd, remain hospitalized with severe burn injuries all over their bodies, with high risk of dying.
Baby Ali’s bedroom in ashes, with his pictures
Since the end of the last Zionist massacre against Gaza there have been 1312 reported attacks against Gazan fishermen.
Since then, 22 boats have been stolen; 26 fishermen have been injured; one fisherman, Tawfiq Abu Riela, has been assassinated; 28 boats have been disabled by bullet fire; 2 big fishing boats have been sunken by rocket fire, one in Deir El Balah at 300m from the coast and one in Gaza City at 5 miles; 51 fishermen have been kidnapped while working and 3 fishermen remain prisoners until now.
Fishermen’s boats in the coast of Gaza.
The team in Hebron has reported an increase of night raids by Israeli forces and attacks by illegal settlers, which is terrorizing Palestinians living in Hebron. Two days ago, on August 20th, a group of French extremist Zionists intimidated and attacked international activists and local Palestinians. This group of extremists, called Kahane, which is considered a terrorist organization under Israeli law, was received with signs of sympathy by the soldiers.
The extremists proudly held the infamous yellow flag of Kahane groupThe soldier handcuffed and blindfolded a Palestinian young man
At approximately 5:00 am, on Wednesday, August 19, the homes of the Totah and Totanji families were demolished by the Israeli army in the neighborhood of Wadi al Joz, in East Jerusalem. This neighborhood has been under threat of demolition since December, 2014, despite the fact that there are no accountable papers presenting a demolition order, nonetheless, the army has been slowly carrying out this plan. Neighbors live in constant fear that anytime their homes will be torn down.
Nureddin Amro sitting on the rubble of his home, which was demolished on March 31st this year (photo credit The Washington Post)
In very similar conditions, the village of Susiya has been suffering from enormous fear by the threat of mass demolition orders issued by the Israeli government since 2012.
Village of Susiya
ISM also needs volunteers to join the 2015 olive harvest campaign.
ISM volunteers join Palestinian farming communities each year to harvest olives in areas where Palestinians face settler and military violence while working their land. Your presence can make a big difference, with Palestinian communities stating that the presence of international volunteers reduces the risk of extreme violence from Israeli settlers and the Israeli army.
The olive tree is a Palestinian national symbol, and the Israeli military systematically prevents agricultural fruition, in order to make life for Palestinians more difficult. The Israeli occupation provides a platform for Palestinian rights to be violated in an array of ways; the attack on agriculture is at the forefront.
Already documented this year, and to list a few cases; the trees have suffered settler sewage runoff , sabotaging fires, and being uprooted. Olive trees comprise of an essential 14% of the Palestinian agricultural economy.
We support Palestinians’ assertion of their right to earn their livelihoods and be present on their lands. International solidarity activists engage in non-violent intervention and documentation and practical support, which enables many families to pick their olives.
The campaign will begin during the last week of September and will last around 5 weeks. We request a minimum of 10 days commitment from harvest volunteers once they have finished their training, but stress that people staying for a longer period of time are needed as well. We ask that volunteers start arriving around the 20th of September, so that we will be prepared when the harvest begins.
Training
We request volunteers who join us any time of the year to commit for a minimum of two weeks after completing training, but stress that people who can work with us for longer periods of time are needed as well. In the case of the olive harvest campaign, we ask volunteers to commit with ISM for a minimum period of 10 days after completing training. The ISM will be holding mandatory two day training sessions which will run weekly on Wednesdays and Thursdays. Please see the join ISM page or contact palreports@gmail.com for further information.
Over 1,000 Black activists, artists, scholars, students, and organizations have launched a statement expressing their solidarity and commitment to ensuring justice for Palestinians. Signatories to the statement span a wide cross-section of Black activists and scholars, including Angela Davis, Boots Riley, Cornel West, dream hampton, Emory Douglas, Mumia Abu-Jamal, Pam Africa, Patrisse Cullors, Phil Hutchings, Ramona Africa, Robin DG Kelley, Rosa Clemente, Talib Kweli, and Tef Poe. 38 organizations signed on, including The Dream Defenders, Hands Up United, Institute of the Black World 21st Century, Malcolm X Grassroots Movement, and Organization for Black Struggle.
Picture of a Palestine2Ferguson sign at the main march during Ferguson October. (Photo by Christopher Hazou)
The statement is printed in full below:
“The past year has been one of high-profile growth for Black-Palestinian solidarity. Out of the terror directed against us—from numerous attacks on Black life to Israel’s brutal war on Gaza and chokehold on the West Bank—strengthened resilience and joint-struggle have emerged between our movements. Palestinians on Twitter were among the first to provide international support for protesters in Ferguson, where St. Louis-based Palestinians gave support on the ground. Last November, a delegation of Palestinian students visited Black organizers in St. Louis, Atlanta, Detroit and more, just months before the Dream Defenders took representatives of Black Lives Matter, Ferguson, and other racial justice groups to Palestine. Throughout the year, Palestinians sent multiple letters of solidarity to us throughout protests in Ferguson, New York, and Baltimore. We offer this statement to continue the conversation between our movements:
On the anniversary of last summer’s Gaza massacre, in the 48th year of Israeli occupation, the 67th year of Palestinians’ ongoing Nakba (the Arabic word for Israel’s ethnic cleansing)—and in the fourth century of Black oppression in the present-day United States—we, the undersigned Black activists, artists, scholars, writers, and political prisoners offer this letter of reaffirmed solidarity with the Palestinian struggle and commitment to the liberation of Palestine’s land and people.
We can neither forgive nor forget last summer’s violence. We remain outraged at the brutality Israel unleashed on Gaza through its siege by land, sea and air, and three military offensives in six years. We remain sickened by Israel’s targeting of homes, schools, UN shelters, mosques, ambulances, and hospitals. We remain heartbroken and repulsed by the number of children Israel killed in an operation it called “defensive.” We reject Israel’s framing of itself as a victim. Anyone who takes an honest look at the destruction to life and property in Gaza can see Israel committed a one-sided slaughter. With 100,000 people still homeless in Gaza, the massacre’s effects continue to devastate Gaza today and will for years to come.
Our support extends to those living under occupation and siege, Palestinian citizens of Israel, and the 7 million Palestinian refugees exiled in Jordan, Lebanon, Syria and Palestine. The refugees’ right to return to their homeland in present-day Israel is the most important aspect of justice for Palestinians.
Palestinian liberation represents an inherent threat to Israeli settler colonialism and apartheid, an apparatus built and sustained on ethnic cleansing, land theft, and the denial of Palestinian humanity and sovereignty. While we acknowledge that the apartheid configuration in Israel/Palestine is unique from the United States (and South Africa), we continue to see connections between the situation of Palestinians and Black people.
Israel’s widespread use of detention and imprisonment against Palestinians evokes the mass incarceration of Black people in the US, including the political imprisonment of our own revolutionaries. Soldiers, police, and courts justify lethal force against us and our children who pose no imminent threat. And while the US and Israel would continue to oppress us without collaborating with each other, we have witnessed police and soldiers from the two countries train side-by-side.
US and Israeli officials and media criminalize our existence, portray violence against us as “isolated incidents,” and call our resistance “illegitimate” or “terrorism.” These narratives ignore decades and centuries of anti-Palestinian and anti-Black violence that have always been at the core of Israel and the US. We recognize the racism that characterizes Israel’s treatment of Palestinians is also directed against others in the region, including intolerance, police brutality, and violence against Israel’s African population. Israeli officials call asylum seekers from Sudan and Eritrea “infiltrators” and detain them in the desert, while the state has sterilized Ethiopian Israelis without their knowledge or consent. These issues call for unified action against anti-Blackness, white supremacy, and Zionism.
We know Israel’s violence toward Palestinians would be impossible without the US defending Israel on the world stage and funding its violence with over $3 billion annually. We call on the US government to end economic and diplomatic aid to Israel. We wholeheartedly endorse Palestinian civil society’s 2005 call for Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) against Israel and call on Black and US institutions and organizations to do the same. We urge people of conscience to recognize the struggle for Palestinian liberation as a key matter of our time.
We offer this statement first and foremost to Palestinians, whose suffering does not go unnoticed and whose resistance and resilience under racism and colonialism inspires us. It is to Palestinians, as well as the Israeli and US governments, that we declare our commitment to working through cultural, economic, and political means to ensure Palestinian liberation at the same time as we work towards our own. We encourage activists to use this statement to advance solidarity with Palestine and we also pressure our own Black political figures to finally take action on this issue. As we continue these transnational conversations and interactions, we aim to sharpen our practice of joint struggle against capitalism, colonialism, imperialism, and the various racisms embedded in and around our societies.”
Visit www.blackforpalestine.com for the full list of signatories and more information. You can also follow the statement on Facebook and Twitter. Kristian Bailey is a co-author of the statement along with Khury Petersen-Smith.
