# Criminalization of solidarity with Palestinians

# new

As facilitators of a project documenting initiatives that organize care in response to the attacks on women seeking safe abortion, on queer people seeking equal treatment or on migrants seeking safety, documenting initiatives that openly stand against the systemic abandonment of the poorest and most vulnerable populations, we are enraged by the ongoing trend throughout many European contexts of criminalizing acts of solidarity with the Palestinian people. Ban on public expressions of solidarity and supression of public debate is a step further in abrogating political responsibilities.

Europe is complicit in the origins of this conflict. Over years it has grown complacent with the asymmetric warfare waged on Palestinians. It has grown indifferent to violence for as long as it was contained to the Palestinian territories. It has connived with the displacement of Palestinians from their lands and the creeping dismanteling of the preconditions for Palestinian self-determination. It has allowed its right-wing forces to supplement the continued antisemitism with islamophobia. For this reason, there is an urgency in opposing the current climate of censorship that has become normalized in the name of an extreme centre that kept legitimizing the ongoing violence.

It disheartens us to witness the personalization of Israeli victims, while the victims of Israel's asymmetric warfare and the current carpet-bombing of Gaza have been and continue to be reported in anonymous numbers. If caring is anything, it is organizing against the dehumanization of people. It disheartens us to witness the acts of solidarity on the Israeli side championed, while the peaceful efforts of Palestinians to protest occupation, their internal opposition to Hamas, or pro-Palestinian solidarity have been and continue to be ignored and repressed. If solidarity is anything, it is organizing to break the spiral of violence.

It is often remarked that care is labour, that caring takes work. Then, to care for values such as justice and peace in this moment, means to actively refuse the myriad of ways in which war puts us at work, in which it puts our doubts at work to breed more inaction, even when we do not live in its epicenter.

Solidarity involves the redistribution of risks, and we need to engage in both material and symbolic redistribution of resources to support those facing aggression. Ceasefire now.

# old

We are enraged by the ongoing trend of criminalizing acts of solidarity throughout various European contexts. In addition to the attacks upon women seeking safe abortion, queer people and migrant populations, and the systemic abandonment of the most poor and vulnerable citizens, there is now a continuous and targeted effort to undermine the ability to mobilize support and solidarity for the Palestinian people.

It disheartens us to witness the personalization of Israeli losses, while the victims of Israeli asymmetric war and current bombardment remain anonymous. It disheartens us to see the acts of solidarity on the Israeli side championed, while peaceful efforts of Palestinian and pro-Palestinian solidarity have been invisiblized and repressed for decades. If care organizing is anything, it's organizing against the dehumanization of people.

Europe is complicit in the origins of this conflict. There is a need to oppose the current climate of censorship that has become normalized in the European context, in the name of a supposedly extreme centre that indeed keeps legitimizing the ongoing violence, outside but also within its borders.

It is often remarked that care is labour, that caring takes work. Then, to care for values such as justice and peace in this moment, means to actively refuse the myriad of ways in which war puts us at work, even when we do not live in its epicenter.

Solidarity involves the redistribution of risks, and we need to engage in both material and symbolic redistribution of resources to support those facing aggression. Ceasefire now.

Moxie mars, [26 Oct 2023 at 15:04:50]:
i think this could be more explicit: ". It disheartens us to see the acts of solidarity on the Israeli side championed, whereas peaceful efforts of Palestinian and pro-Palestinian solidarity having been invisiblized and repressed for decades."

as in what are the acts of solidarity on the israeli side which are getting championed

and what are the peacuful efforts of palestinian

maybe we can say that the acts of critique and distance of palestinians from hamas were silenced and made invisible

and instead there's a big pressure on people which could be identified as palestinians by their or their parents place of birth, religion or whtever other means to make explicit denunciation of hamas without any sensibility of safety or other consequences for those same people...

Tomislav Medak, [26 Oct 2023 at 16:06:48]:
Maybe we can list the ones we supported, like Nida's organization or BDS.

The problem is that most of the times the West talks about Palestinians it's through dissenting Israelis such as Eyal Weizman, Avi Mograbi, Ariella Azulay,... Yet rarely through Plaestinians.

Bue and Manu with their Earthcare Twitter have highlighted Palestinian initiatives.

The point there would be that because no form of civic action by Palestinians was championed, all there is a recognition and ourage at brutal violence of Hamas (which btw also started as a peaceful association and radicalised only after the first Intifada).

Moxie mars, [26 Oct 2023 at 16:32:42]:
maybe we can say we are in support of peaceful critique of both israeli and hamas but unfortunately only one side gets championed and as a result we end up flattening down palestinians to brutality of hamas but the other side not equalled to apartheid