By Khury Petersen- Smith
As I write this, Gaza has no water. For weeks now, families have spent their nights in the dark, because Israel has cut off electricity to the Palestinian enclave and also prevented residents from leaving. Gaza residents deal with nightly Israeli bombing raids of historic proportions, in the darkness. Those wounded by the bombs are in the hands of a health care system in collapse. Dedicated and exhausted, nurses and doctors work to save lives, also in the darkness, without running water, anesthesia, or other basic medicines and supplies. In three weeks, nearly 10,000 people have been killed—1,400 in Israel, and 8,000 Palestinians in Gaza, more than 3,000 of whom are children—overwhelmingly by Israel’s siege.
In response to this horror—and to make our contribution to ending it—more than 5,000 Black activists, scholars, artists, and workers have demanded an immediate ceasefire, an end to Israel’s siege, an end to the United States’ support for it, and urgent humanitarian relief to let the people of Gaza live.
We are directing our demands to the U.S. government, which has been directly complicit in this catastrophe. When Israel’s defense minister referred on television to residents of Gaza as “human animals” and declared that Israel would cut off water, fuel, food, and electricity, U.S. officials did not object to the dehumanizing language or the violent act—which is illegal under international law.
Instead, the secretaries of state and defense traveled to Tel Aviv to voice their support, followed by President Joe Biden himself. Since that visit, Biden has given multiple speeches in support of Israel—as it targets mosques, churches, schools, and hospitals. And he has called on Congress to give $14 billion to Israel in “emergency” military funding, in addition to the $4 billion that the U.S. gives annually.
Israel is seeking to isolate Gaza, trapping its people within, keeping aid workers and others from entering, and cutting off its residents’ phones and internet at will. But we refuse to let Gaza bear this alone. Our hearts are with its people, and we raise our voices against the governments besieging them.
In demanding a ceasefire and relief to Gaza—and an end to U.S. support for its occupier—we are upholding a tradition of Black freedom struggle that sees justice as a matter that extends across and beyond national borders.
In 1967, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. spoke out against the U.S. war in Vietnam at the Riverside Church in New York, declaring that “my own government” was “the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today.”
That same year, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) declared support for Palestinians after the 1967 War.
In 1970, 56 Black activists published, “An Appeal by Black Americans Against United States Support for the Zionist Government of Israel” in The New York Times, declaring “complete solidarity with our Palestinian brothers and sisters, who like us, are struggling for self-determination and an end to racist oppression.”
The Black Panthers built warm relations with the Palestinian Liberation Organization.
These are only some of the most well-known examples of Black internationalism during the 1960s and 70s, but they barely scratch the surface of a whole universe of Black solidarity with people fighting colonialism and oppression all over the world.
We formed Black for Palestine—which organized the writing and signing of the aforementioned statement—in 2015, following the previous year’s Ferguson Uprising after the police murder of Mike Brown, and the 2014 Israeli bombardment of Gaza, which happened at the same time.
That moment, captured by slogans such as “Black Lives Matter,” and “I Can’t Breathe,” was one of the most significant Black-led revolts that have shaken this country. Black people called attention to pernicious and ongoing racist police violence, mass incarceration, discrimination in housing and schools, racialized health disparities, and countless other aspects of American life that are marred by anti-Black racism. The movement has also pointed to the deep roots of these contemporary problems, launching a renewed conversation about slavery and episodes of white terror—as in the 1921 Tulsa Massacre—and other racist abuses that have shaped the foundation of the U.S. economy and society.
A year after the 2020 racial justice uprising, many people in this country looked at Palestinians resisting displacement, police violence in Jerusalem, and yet another Israeli bombardment of Gaza with different eyes.
Additionally, there has been a significant uptick in pro-Palestinian activism in the U.S. overall. The growth of Students for Justice in Palestine has made conversations about Israeli apartheid impossible to ignore on campuses across the country. The global campaign for Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions—led by Palestinian civil society organizations—has invited people in the U.S. and around the world to engage in activism to advance Palestinian rights. And, we have seen the work and success of groups like Jewish Voice for Peace, most recently engaged in direct actions in the U.S. Capitol and New York City’s Grand Central Station to demand a ceasefire.
These are just a few examples of a movement that has been educating and organizing for Palestinian rights. In combination with a different collective consciousness regarding racism driven by the Movement for Black Lives, more and more people in the U.S. have come to sympathize with Palestinians and understand their condition as shaped by structural oppression.
Now it is time to turn that sympathy—which grows in the face of the latest Israeli assault—into action, demanding an end to the hell rained down on our relatives in Gaza in the form of U.S.-made bombs, paid for by U.S. taxpayers, and dropped by U.S.-made aircraft.
Ultimately, we must work for long-term justice and peace for Palestinians. But the first step is stopping the assault by winning a ceasefire. We demand it. The people of Gaza deserve to live.
KHURY PETERSEN-SMITH is the Michael Ratner Middle East Fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies. He writes about US empire, the War on Terror, solidarity with Palestine, and anti-racism in the United States. He is a contributor to In These Times, The Nation, Truthout, and Common Dreams. Khury is based in Boston, MA, and speaks English. He can be reached on Twitter @kpYES
This article was originally published in YES Magazine .
