Palestinians Reject All Racism and Bigotry

An important and timely affirmation from Palestinian people, published on Electronic Intifada:

The struggle for Palestinian rights is incompatible with any form of racism or bigotry: a statement by Palestinians

We the undersigned, as Palestinians living in historic Palestine and the diaspora, in the spirit of past statements, and in light of recent controversies, write to reaffirm a key principle of our movement for freedom, justice, and equality: The struggle for our inalienable rights is one opposed to all forms of racism and bigotry, including, but not limited to, anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, Zionism, and other forms of bigotry directed at anyone, and in particular people of color and indigenous peoples everywhere.

We oppose the cynical and baseless use of the term anti-Semitism as a tool for stifling criticism of Israel or opposition to Zionism, as this assumes simply because someone is Jewish, they support Zionism or the colonial and apartheid policies of the state of Israel – a false generalization.

Our struggle is anchored in universal human rights and international law in opposition to military occupation, settler-colonialism, and apartheid, something people of conscience of all ethnicities, races, and religions can support.

Finally, we call on people around the world to join us in a morally consistent stance that opposes racism and bigotry in all forms. An ethical struggle for justice and equal rights in any context entails zero tolerance for racial discrimination and racism anywhere.

Signed (in order of signature):

  1. Abir Kopty
  2. Danya Mustafa
  3. Nadia Hijab
  4. Shirien Damra
  5. Omar Barghouti
  6. Noura Erakat
  7. Remi Kanazi
  8. Andrew Kadi
  9. Dina Omar
  10. Sandra Tamari
  11. Maath Musleh
  12. Suleiman Hodali
  13. Dana Saifan
  14. Jess Ghannam
  15. Sami Kishawi
  16. Dalia Almarina
  17. Haidar Eid
  18. Samee Sulaiman
  19. Lubna Hammad
  20. Issa Mikel
  21. Dina Zbidat
  22. Esmat Elhalaby
  23. Linah Alsaafin
  24. Ramzi Jaber
  25. Randa May Wahbe
  26. Hilda Massoud
  27. Falastine Dwikat
  28. Jamil Sbitan
  29. Beesan Ramadan
  30. Alaa Milbes
  31. Tanya Keilani
  32. Adam Akkad
  33. Budour Hassan
  34. Ahmad Nimer
  35. Fajr Harb
  36. Susan Abulhawa
  37. Amira Dasouqi
  38. Lubna Alzaroo
  39. Samah Sabawi
  40. Ismail Khalidi
  41. Annemarie Jacir
  42. George E. Bisharat
  43. Sara Jawhari
  44. Amin Abbas
  45. Ali Abunimah
  46. Camillia Shoufani
  47. Dena Qaddumi
  48. Ramzi Kanazi
  49. Alaa Yousef
  50. Najwa Doughman
  51. Amal Atieh Jubran
  52. Mahdi Sabbagh
  53. Rania Jubran
  54. Amar Husain
  55. Omar H. Rahman
  56. Yazeed Ibrahim
  57. Zachariah Barghouti
  58. Nadine Darwish
  59. Rinad Abdulla
  60. Sana Ibrahim
  61. Rana Libdeh
  62. Huwaida Arraf
  63. Basil Farraj
  64. Riham Barghouti
  65. Jalal Abukhater
  66. Grace Said
  67. Wafai Dias
  68. Huda Asfour
  69. Musa Al-Hindi
  70. Halla Shoaibi
  71. Nada Elia
  72. Shafeka Hashash
  73. Linda Sarsour
  74. Nour Joudah
  75. Fadi Quran
  76. Rafeef Ziadah
  77. Muhammad Jabali
  78. Haneen Maikey
  79. Diana Alzeer
  80. Mouin Rabbani
  81. Zaid Shuaibi
  82. Sari Harb
  83. Suzy Salamy
  84. Diana Buttu
  85. Maryam Zohny
  86. Vivien Sansour
  87. Noor Fawzy
  88. Jackie Salloum
  89. Hatem Bazian
  90. Awad Hamdan
  91. Ahmed Moor
  92. Zahi Damuni
  93. Irene Nasser
  94. Sanah Yassin
  95. Sumia Ibrahim
  96. Hazem Jamjoum

Related Links

Granting No Quarter: A Call for the Disavowal of the Racism and Antisemitism of Gilad Atzmon

Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions – Pressuring Israel to End Its Oppression

Find out more about the logic of BDS – become involved with the international grassroots campaign for justice and rights for Palestinian people dispossessed of their Indigenous land and deprived of basic human rights by their oppressor.

More information about the One Democratic State Group can be found here. The ODSG believes “that the One State Solution is the only viable option that guarantees comprehensive peace in the Middle East. The establishment of a Secular Democratic State on historic Palestine for all of its citizens regardless of religion, race, or sex–after the return of Palestinian refugees–IS the solution to the Middle East conflict.”

The ODSG is also

“active in the Palestine-initiated campaign of Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) against Israel. These measures, similar to those applied to South Africa during the apartheid era, are necessary to bring an end to Israel’s genocidal policies towards Palestinians both within Israel and throughout the Occupied Territories. We believe that these non-violent measures should be maintained until Apartheid Israel recognizes the Palestinian people’s inalienable right to self-determination and the establishment of a democratic state on Mandatory Palestine; a state for ALL of its citizens.”

Related Links

Strength to strength : As part of the ongoing campaign for solidarity with Palestine, the Palestine Action Group is calling another peaceful protest against Max Brenner at Parramatta Westfield. Max Brenner is an ongoing target of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign for its support for Israel and the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF). Mark the 8th November for protest action against apartheid Israel.

Diab wants Palestinians to seek citizenship of Israel. What of Palestinian refugees?

Diab’s Monty Pythonesque ‘Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestinians’ is frivolous and patronising – Palestinians lead their own struggle. Diab writes if Israel/Palestine is a movie set. He is pontificating of course. There’s no recognition by him of intrinsic Indigenous rights. Settler colonials don’t have the same relationship with the land as Indigenous people. Further, people shouldn’t have to do any deals to enjoy basic human rights, or equal rights either, though. They are non-negotiable.

Is Diab really promising the end of the racist, oxymoronic “Jewish democratic state” when he says “likewise it is the Israeli people who make Israel Jewish and so emancipating the millions of disenfranchised Palestinians will not make the state any less Jewish than it is today – only fairer and more just”?

I am reminded of words from Queensland Aboriginal activists : “If you have come here to help me, you are wasting your time. But if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together”. How can one liberate others if one is not first liberated, how can one decolonise the minds of others if one’s own mind is not decolonised first?

When the oppressor frames the dimensions of the struggle of the oppressed, colonialism is implicit. Do Palestinians see Diab’s proposal as ‘ideologically neutral’?

Other Links

Democracy and peaceful protest is alive and well in Venezuala : “The numbers on both sides of the campaign makes one thing plainly clear; there is something at stake in Venezuela. The people have said goodbye to the concept of “pacted democracy” – the choice of voting for two parties with near-identical policies, long since buried over here, but still alive and well in the UK – and they do not want it back. The opposition say they want to unite the country, but poor people have experienced the type of ‘unity’ that denies their existence, let alone their right to live a dignified life, many times before.”

The US is a gulag state.
Irreversible Warming Will Cause Sea Levels to Rise for Thousands of Years to Come, New Research Shows

A Quantum of Racism

Two young Palestinian Israeli citizens who came second in an international Physics Competition in Warsaw are omitted conspicuously in a racist report on the winners in Israel Hayom. It is notable that of all the Israeli winners, only ONE won a prize in the 24th European Union Contest for Young Scientists, and it was the Palestinian Israeli, Alfarook Abu Alhassan, who won the European X-Ray Free-Electron Laser Facility GmbH Prize.

*Even when you excel and you are an Arab, you remain invisible.

* Israel came first in an international physics competition, and it is trying to reach the same benchmark in racism.

First published: 1/10/2012 11:30:27am

On 20 September 2012 Israel Hayom published an article under the headline Quantum of success. It highlighted the success of the Israeli delegation from Ilan Ramon Centre at Ben-Gurion University in a competition held at the Institute of Physics in Warsaw.

The article contained the names of the winners, but not all of them…

It mentioned the first prize winner (Yuval Katznelson) and one of third prize winners (May Alon). The article quotes Professor Victor Malamud, head of the Ilan Ramon Centre at BGU, which coordinates efforts for the competition as saying that “We succeeded in showing the world the potential of the Jewish mind.”

On the surface, a cause for Jewish pride, indeed..

But what about the second place getter in the competition? The two second place winners, Magd Alfrawona and Alfarook Abu Alhassan were not mentioned at all. Probably because they don’t have a Jewish mind, or because they are Arabs …

What is the message that such articles give to the general public? What is the message that head of the program is providing to the students?

The conclusion is inescapable, instead of being proud of all those who represented the country and impel them further forward, there is a very clear delineation between the Arab and Jewish participants. This is not all that far from our reality which is full of physical and virtual fences marking the separation between the two peoples.

This statement is racist for several reasons: it ignores some of the delegation’s winners, solely because cultural/social/national differences. This statement tries to establish the superiority of some participants over others on the sole basis of their national affiliation. In addition to all this, the article tries to obliterate the Arab presence in the delegation, and their success. This is despite the writers being aware of a different picture being presented on the university’s English-language website (there the two Arab winners are mentioned, and they also appear in the team photo published in the newspaper).

It is a pity that a lecturer in such a distinguished university professor chose to speak in such a racist fashion as he died. We hope he’ll get his comeuppance when the university launches an inquiry and takes disciplinary proceedings against him, and those responsible for this letdown.

This article proves once again that academia is not free of racism …

Names of participants Winners: http://in.bgu.ac.il/ilanramon/Pages/FIRST%20STEP%20TO%20NOBEL%20PRIZE%20IN%20PHYSICS.aspx

Israel Hayom article:

English: http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_article.php?id=5841

Hebrew: http://www.israelhayom.co.il/site/newsletter_article.php?id=21508&hp=1&newsletter=20.09.2012

Translated by Sol Salbe of the Middle East News Service Melbourne, Australia

Hebrew original: http://fightracism.org/Article.asp?aid=328

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High on positivism
The French Political Science Association: A sanction that appears to be based on political grounds
Ha’aretz editorial: CHE’s recommendation stems from desire to punish faculty who dared offer their students a critical viewpoint
Netanyahu’s Likud party and its nationalist ally, Yisrael Beiteinu, have been cracking down on dissenters for months. It would seem that cowing the academy is one of their objectives. Of the current academic situation in Israel, Lustick told me, “there’s a real witch-hunt.”