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What Justice Requires: in Support of Palestine and Marc Lamont Hill

11/30/2018

“Regarding the question of Palestine, beyond words we must ask the question, what does justice require? To truly engage in acts of solidarity, we must make our words flesh. Our solidarity must be more than a noun. Our solidarity must become a verb.”

-Marc Lamont Hill, speaking to the United Nations, November 28, 2018

Black for Palestine expresses our full support for journalist and professor Marc Lamont Hill and condemns CNN's decision to fire him for speaking in support of Palestinian human rights.

Marc was the sole representative of civil society invited to speak at the United Nations’ International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People on November 28. By the following day, Zionist groups including the Anti Defamation League alleged that Marc was an anti-Semite and called on CNN to drop Marc as a political commentator. The corporate news outlet fired him a few hours later.

Marc has been an outspoken advocate for human rights for all people. His most notable work has been his advocacy for Palestinian rights and for Black people in the U.S. settler state. He was one of the only voices on CNN, Black or otherwise, with a commitment to speaking truth to power.

Groups like the Anti Defamation League and CNN claim to be liberal supporters of “civil rights” and “free speech,” except when it comes to the actual liberation of oppressed people, whether they are Palestinian or Black. The ADL’s attack on Marc Lamont Hill fits into a longer legacy of Zionists attacking Black activists for their stances on Palestine, including SNCC in 1967, the Black Panther Party, and UN ambassador Andrew Young, who was fired from his position for speaking to the Palestinian Liberation Organization in 1979.

At the end of his speech at the UN, Marc said “Free Palestine, from the river to the sea.” Zionists claimed this comment was anti-Semitic and suggested that Marc was advocating for violence against Jewish people. This is akin to the people who think “Black Lives Matter” is a call to kill or destroy white people.

Criticizing Israel is not the same as criticizing Jewish people. The Israeli occupation state (like the US settler state) is a political entity, not a religion or a people. Calling for the end of systems that have murdered, expelled and segregated innocent people is not anti-Semitism or reverse racism, it's justice.

Zionists and white supremacists are uncomfortable with the phrases “Free Palestine” or “Black Lives Matter” because they understand that Israel and the US are built on racism and oppression. They implicitly understand that righting these wrongs requires them to give up their privileges, including access to land, wealth and social power.

As other commenters have pointed out, we wish violence and racism against Black and Palestinian people was taken as seriously as allegations of anti-semitism. We live in a world that murders and subjugates us on a daily basis. Our own cries for justice are ignored or distorted by the media and politicians who justify our oppression.

Zionism and white supremacy are incompatible with human rights. Marc Lamont Hill spoke on a moral obligation to criticize American and Israeli state violence. His demonstrates what solidarity means as a verb and not just a noun.

We close with the closing remarks of his speech: "As we stand here on the 70th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the tragic commemoration of the Nakba, we have an opportunity to not just offer solidarity in words but to commit to political action, grassroots action, local action, and international action that will give us what justice requires. And that is a free Palestine from the river to the sea. "

Take action by signing this petition or contacting by phone, email, or Twitter:

Phone: +1 (404)-827-1500
Email: cnn.com/feedback
Twitter: https://twitter.com/CNN

View a full transcript of Marc's remarks here or watch the video below:

In support of Students for Justice in Palestine and Black UCLA students

11/16/2018

UCLA divestment hearing, November 2014 (courtesy of The Daily Bruin)

Black for Palestine joins human rights organizations around the country in supporting the National Students for Justice in Palestine conference taking place in Los Angeles this weekend. NSJP has faced attempts at legal intimidation and censorship from the UCLA administration, Zionist organizations, and even the Los Angeles City Council, which unanimously passed a resolution condemning and calling for the cancellation of the event.

While attacks on Palestine organizing are common, the institutional threats and intimidation against college students are deeply troubling. Black for Palestine has learned that members of UCLA’s Afrikan Student Union were added to a Zionist blacklist website in retaliation for their pro-Palestinian organizing on campus.

The Afrikan Student Union at UCLA has long been an ally in the struggle for Palestinian rights. The ASU used its success in pushing the University of California to divest from prisons to support SJP’s efforts to divest from Israeli human rights violations. SJP has in turn supported the ASU in its mobilizations for the Black campus community.

The students were apparently targeted for their participation in a protest during the spring quarter. Zionists filed a police report against the students and attempted to have them prosecuted.

The anonymous blacklist aims to threaten the professional aspirations of pro-Palestinian students, youth, and faculty by labeling them “anti-American, anti-Semitic, and anti-freedom.”

The site has received hundreds of thousands of dollars in support from US Jewish organizations including the Jewish Community Federation in Los Angeles and San Francisco. This well-funded pro-Israel site is engaging in class and political warfare against progressive youth who are low income, working class, immigrants, or from communities of color, as it has the potential to affect their livelihoods and make them targets for rightwing harassment.

This blacklist is part of a decades long history of Zionist assaults against progressive movements, including the Anti Defamation League's spying on Arab-American and other civil rights groups. Black students and youth from UCLA to Stanford to the Dream Defenders have also been targeted by this current blacklist for their solidarity work. The site also targets Black historian and UCLA professor Robin D.G. Kelley.

We offer our wholehearted support to National SJP, and to all Black students who have taken a principled stance in supporting our shared struggle in Palestine.

These smears are a clear attempt to redirect attention away from Israel’s human rights abuses and occupation of Palestinian territory. Israel is not only an enemy of Palestinian liberation but of peoples’ liberation struggles everywhere.

The Zionist state supported European colonial regimes in their fight against African national liberation movements: providing arms and military training to the Portuguese in Mozambique and Angola, and supporting the apartheid regimes in South Africa and Zimbabwe until their fall. As an ethno-supremacist political ideology supported by U.S. imperialism, Zionism represents a clear and present threat to Black and African liberation--on the continent and in the diaspora.

We join SJP and the Afrikan Student Union in calling for unity among all oppressed people from Los Angeles to Palestine!

What Justice Requires: in Support of Palestine and Marc Lamont Hill

Take action by signing this petition or contacting by phone, email, or Twitter: Phone: +1 (404)-827-1500 Email: cnn.com/feedback Twitter: https://twitter.com/CNN View a full transcript of Marc's remarks here or watch the video below:

In support of Students for Justice in Palestine and Black UCLA students

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Take action by signing this petition or contacting by phone, email, or Twitter:

Phone: +1 (404)-827-1500
Email: cnn.com/feedback
Twitter: https://twitter.com/CNN

View a full transcript of Marc's remarks here or watch the video below: