Statement of Solidarity with Palestine

Statement of Solidarity with Palestine

The Feminist Library stands unequivocally with the Palestinian people in their long-enduring resistance to settler colonialism, apartheid, and occupation. We believe feminism is a political framework that demands people struggle for their freedom. We understand how gender is utilised during war and we stand with Palestinian Feminist Organisations in their struggle against disinformation and the violently racist tropes targeting Arab men as savages that continue to circulate in mainstream media and online. We understand gender as another mechanism through which states attempt to manufacture consent for forms of violence.

We write this statement in the spirit of radical feminist collectives that have come before us such as OWAAD* and the BWG*, who took firm stances against apartheid and settler colonialism in South Africa and Palestine and were founded on the principle of transnational solidarity. Our solidarity is based on political and ethical principles that exceed gender. Sara Salem writes “We come together not because we may identify as women; rather, we come together because we believe that we can only be free and live better lives with the end of capitalism, white supremacy, Western empire, and patriarchy.” Transnational feminist practice requires us to analyse how people in different geographical spaces are subject to unequal power relations and ensure that every person has access to dignified life regardless of the borders that separate us.

At present, the state of Israel has embarked on a brutal offensive against Gaza – killing over 1,500 people (including 500 children), deploying white phosphorus in civilian areas, and bombing residential buildings. Moreover, Israel has cut Gaza’s access to food, water, electricity, and gas – this is a community under siege. Israel is currently ordering the exodus of 1.1 million Gazans from their home in the north to the south which will have devastating humanitarian consequences. Most recently, Israeli forces opened fire on worshippers leaving Friday Prayers in occupied West Bank city of Hebron. We are watching war crimes take place in real time deployed by a state that has the full backing of imperial forces – including the United Kingdom and the United States.

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Nethanyahu has pledged for Israel’s military campaign to “reverberate for generations”, its Defence Minister Yoav Gallant has referred to the Palestinian people as “human animals”, and Major General Ghasan of the Israeli Army has promised to “open the gates of hell”. Make no mistake, this is the language of genocide. Furthermore, the National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir announced on Tuesday 10th October that his ministry is purchasing 10,000 rifles to arm ‘civilian security teams’ – allowing Israeli civilians to act with impunity.

For 75 years, Palestinians have been subjected to daily rituals of humiliation including endless bombardment, imprisonment, statelessness and expulsion from their homeland. Under apartheid law, Palestinian civilians are classified as combatants and subjected to arrest without trial and indiscriminate violence no matter who they are. The latest episode is just another iteration of the The Nakba of 1948 which marked the forced displacement of millions of Palestinians from their homes.

As an organisation based in the UK, we also cannot ignore Britain’s historic role in fuelling this crisis, including the Balfour Declaration of 1917 and the role Britain plays today in enabling the destruction and forced displacement of peoples in Gaza. The Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and Opposition Leader Keir Starmer have given their full support to Israel’s collective punishment of the people of Gaza. Meanwhile, the British Home Secretary has said that the mere act of waving a Palestinian flag may become a criminal offence. And of course, it was the British military which first established a police force in Palestine as part of its colonial rule of Palestine in 1917 which it then used to repress political mobilisation. They began to construct police fortresses, barracks, and more which eventually became permanent fixtures of the Palestinian landscape.

We acknowledge the power asymmetry present between an occupying power and the population it oppresses; Israel has a powerful military, the support of the world’s biggest nuclear power, and billions of dollars in aid from its allies in the West. Meanwhile, the Gaza Strip is a densely populated area with 2.2 million inhabitants with a median age of 18 without a comparable military infrastructure. The Palestinian struggle for liberation has a long and varied history which includes multiple actors and organisations and we encourage our community to study it. At this juncture, all forms of Palestinian activism are effectively criminalised; for example, in 2018/19 Gazans marched peacefully in their thousands to the border and were shot at by Israeli forces, appeals to international law by Palestinian humanitarian organisations have been routinely ignored, and BDS has effectively been criminalised by governments across the world. This begs the question: what does a permissible or palatable Palestinian resistance actually look like to the West?

As a feminist organisation that utilises an intersectional framework, we believe it is our duty to emphasise such a clear imbalance of power and reject the notion that the language of condemnation is more important than the protection of life. Irrespective of the scrutiny it may draw from the public, we believe in a free Palestine.

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*Organisation of Women of African and Asian Descent
*Brixton Black Women’s Group

*Links here: