Organizations Signing the Statement in Support of the Resistance
We are encouraging organizations to sign this statement by sending an email to: Qawem[at]riseup.net. Names will be posted to the statement below.
We Support the Resistance in Gaza
The recent massacres in Gaza demonstrate the zionists’ capacity for violence. They also reveal their fear and weakness in the face of Palestinian armed resistance. Still humiliated by their defeat by Hizballah in Lebanon in 2006, they have chosen to inflict massive casualties on easy targets. The deliberate bombing of schools stands out among the atrocities, which now include the bombing of mosques, hospitals, ambulances, universities and all other forms of civilian infrastructure. Because the assault comes after a regime of mass starvation–with people forced to eat animal feed in the months before the military attack–we can predict that the secondary casualties from lack of food, clean water and medicine will dwarf even the staggering numbers from the attack itself.
The current attack can only be seen as the culmination of a deliberate plan to starve and kill the people of Gaza. The portrayal of zionist actions in corporate media as “retaliatory” and Palestinian resistance as “provocation” falsifies the nature and history of the zionist state. “Israel” is a colonial settler state founded on the racist ideology of zionism. It has followed the expansionist and genocidal logic of white supremacist, settler-colonialism for over 60 years: its aim is to completely eradicate the indigenous population—either by “transfer” or by total annihilation.
Historically, the only force that has stood between the zionists and the completion of this goal has been the armed resistance. It was the armed resistance of Palestinians in the 1930s that first forced the British to reconsider their goal of establishing a zionist state in Palestine. Armed resistance forced Ariel Sharon to scrap his plan in 2000 of bringing a million new settlers into the West Bank. Armed resistance drove Israel out of South Lebanon, and forced 5,000 settlers out of Gaza.
In the absence of armed resistance, zionist expansion has continued unhindered and without international attention–as in the case of the Naqab, where Bedouins have been driven from their traditional lands. As the collaborationist Palestinian Authority increasingly tightens its repression against resistance forces in the West Bank, settler atrocities against Palestinians—aimed at driving them from their land—now escalate unchecked.
Rockets fired from Gaza on settlements in ‘48 occupied Palestine (e.g. Sderot, Ashkelon) are not mere acts of symbolism: they have defeated the capacity of the zionist state to offer settlers “security.” Since “security” is now the main promise which the state holds out to its settler population, this defeat is quite significant. It has prevented the zionists from achieving their “demographic” goals: deluging Palestine with fresh new waves of colonial invaders.
We recognize that Palestinian resistance follows in the tradition of many other indigenous peoples who have had to survive and defend themselves against colonialism. First Nations peoples in the Americas, enslaved Africans in the United States, Canada, the Caribbean, Latin and South America, the Zapatistas in Mexico, the Herero in Namibia, the Mau Mau in Kenya, Aborigines in Australia, Arabs in Iraq, and the Macheteros in Puerto Rico have all had to, and continue to, defend themselves against white supremacist violence and land theft.
All in the international community who support the Palestinian people in their fight against zionist oppression must also support their struggle against the colonization of their land. This means supporting not just the right to resist, but the resistance itself—recognizing both its legitimacy and its viability.
The resistance has issued statements asking all supporters worldwide to state their support for the legitimacy of the Palestinian resistance and recognize it as as the sole alternative for Palestinian liberation. This was their only request.
We, the undersigned, answer this call:
1. We reject zionism as a white supremacist colonial ideology.
2. We recognize the legitimacy of the Palestinian resistance as an expression of the will of the Palestinian people. This includes the right to decolonize all of historic Palestine by any means necessary.
3. We support the Palestinian resistance and acknowlege that it is the sole legitimate alternative in the fight for Palestinian liberation.
-Qawem Coalition
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