What You Can Do For Palestinian Liberation
What You Can Do For Palestinian Liberation
A Four-Front Strategy for A New International Popular Uprising
“The Palestinian cause is not a cause for Palestinians only, but a cause for every revolutionary, wherever they are, as a cause of the exploited and oppressed masses in our era.”
– Ghassan Kanafani, Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine
We call for an international protracted popular uprising to end the occupation of Palestine and liberate the Palestinian people.
The following strategic plan of action is oriented to the United States, but we wish to unite with forces internationally along similar lines.
Core Principles:
The people of Gaza need more than a ceasefire. They need us to end the blockade of Gaza and the occupation of the West Bank. Peace under occupation and imperial subjugation is no peace at all.
We call for a just peace in Palestine. That is, a peace which provides transformational political resolutions to the exclusion, degradation, and exploitation inherent to the settler colonial project of Israel and all other imperialist impositions. A just peace is a means, not an end.
When we declare Free Palestine, we seek a secular democratic state from the river to the sea, where all residents are fully incorporated into the society without regard to religion and ethnicity.
We have identified four key fronts for waging peace in the struggle for the liberation of Palestine: cultural, political, economic, and military.
The Cultural Front
Culture is how we imagine and define who we are and what future we want.
Literature is a crucial aspect of how a people exist as a nation, and is of particular importance to oppressed nationalities who are denied political and economic self-determination.
The condemnation of the Palestinian Literary Festival at the University of Pennsylvania, and the subsequent withdrawal of millions of dollars in pledged donations to the university, were attempts to invalidate the cultural and national identity of the Palestinian people and intimidate the rest of us from recognizing or affirming Palestinian national culture.
What You Can Do:
Organize readings and literary events at your local libraries to recite the revolutionary works of distinguished Palestinian artists such as:
Mahmoud Darwish, known as the National Poet of Palestine
Ghassan Kanafani, award-winning novelist
The Political Front
Recognition is how states receive legal status within the international system. As Gaza faces an unprecedented, genocidal onslaught it is imperative for the rest of the world to recognize the legitimacy of its people.
What You Can Do:
Local Government Action:
Attend your local city council meeting and propose naming Gaza City your sister city, as a recognition of Palestinian self-determination and right to exist.
Many cities already recognize Gaza City as a sister city, including:
Barcelona, Spain
Turin, Italy
Brasília, Brazil
Moyle District Council, County Antrim in the Occupied Six Counties
State Legislative Action (full list of legislative dates for all states here):
Overturn state laws that criminalize condemnation of Israel by labeling it antisemitic hate speech subject to hate crime enhancements
30 states have adopted antisemitism hate crime legislation that codifies the working definition of antisemitism adopted by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, thus potentially subjecting citizens to hate crime charges for saying “the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor” or “drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis.”
Overturn state laws that ban the nonviolent protest campaign of Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS)
35 states have anti-Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions laws on the books to discourage nonviolent protest of Israel.
The Economic Front
The apartheid occupation of Palestine is perpetuated not only by force of arms, but also by the international trade of goods and services with the occupiers.
What You Can Do:
Participate in the Boycott, Divest, Sanctions Movement
Individuals, clubs, religious organizations, businesses, universities, local governments, and others can take direct action through consumer boycotts and institutional divestment thereby refusing to conduct business with enterprises that uphold the apartheid economy of Israel.
Refuse to Sign Anti-BDS Loyalty Clauses in State Contracts
Even though many states have anti-BDS laws to on the books to discourage boycotts, a federal judge ruled that states cannot outright forbid companies from boycotting Israel so any company or contract employee should reject such clauses.
The Military Front
Logistics drive the operational decisions in war. Contemporary conventional war relies heavily on ranged weapons systems, particularly artillery. In Gaza, artillery shells are crucial for Israel’s brutal siege against Palestinian civilians, and Israel has insisted “they urgently need artillery shells to prepare for a ground invasion in Gaza,” and in response, the U.S. has pledged to provide more artillery shells to Israel for its siege of Gaza, which will kill thousands of Palestinian civilians.
To meet the demand, U.S. manufacturers are accelerating the production of artillery rounds. Prior to the War in Ukraine, the U.S. produced approximately 14,000 artillery rounds per month. In order to sustain and expand the war machine, the U.S. aims to produce 90,000 artillery rounds each month. Currently, U.S. manufacturers are producing 28,000 per month and rising.
Artillery shell production is set to expand at some of the following U.S. Army locations:
Scranton Army Ammunition Plant in Pennsylvania
Iowa Army Ammunition Plant of Middleton, Iowa
Army Ammunition Plant of Kingsport, Tennessee
McAlester Army Ammunition Plant of Garland, Texas
What You Can Do:
Peace activists can engage in demonstrations at weapons manufacturing sites.
Call for an arms embargo against Israel, as well as a just transition for the workers of the arms manufacturing plants of Scranton, Middleton, Mesquite and elsewhere, so that their advanced production skills can be used to make socially-responsible goods that serve the people rather than kill us.
This moment of turmoil and despair demands of us, as the poet Sade once implored, to be soldiers of love. We are going to win, not by fighting what we hate, but by saving what we love. We must turn resistance into construction, and engage multiple fronts to call forth a world after empire.
This document is merely a starting point in forging a new popular struggle for Palestinian liberation. We want to hear from you if you take any of these actions or if you have any suggestions. We are sending this document to comrades around the globe, and if you know anyone who would benefit from this document, please share and put them in touch with us (including Sade, if you know her — she is our hero!). We can be reached at info@lifeafterempire.org.
After Empire is a partisan think tank and cultural institute dedicated to resolving the big contradictions of our shared world and advancing social life beyond the exploitation, degradation, and exclusion fostered by imperialism. After Empire seeks to unite with all people who desire a liberated society.