On the heels of Indigenous People’s Day,we join communities all over the world in condemning the horrific aggression of the apartheid state of Israel against the people of Gaza and across Palestine. As an organization working to abolish of the prison industrial complex (PIC), we are in deep solidarity with the Palestinian struggle for liberation and with all struggles against colonialism, imperialism, and war.
The apartheid state of Israel has declared an all-out war on the people of Gaza in response to Palestinian resistance that its own repression has bred. Already, just since this past weekend, we have seen enormous backlash against pro-Palestinian speech and activism, similar to the wave of Islamophobia and anti-Arab racism post-9/11.
Yet what apartheid-Israeli politicians and their warmongering Western leader friends are willfully ignoring is the context for this recent declaration of war – that they in fact have been enabling and waging war on the Palestinian population for 75 years.
The recent apartheid-Israeli move to cut off all humanitarian supplies in Gaza as it indiscriminately bombards hospitals, residential buildings, and everything else with missiles is itself simply a hyper-intensification of what has already been the daily status-quo for the last 16 years – the air, sea, and land blockade and siege of Gaza, which has turned one of the most densely populated areas on earth with two million people into the world’s largest open-air prison. The apartheid state of Israel has also conducted deadly bombardments, attacks, and incursions against Gaza on an average of once a year since it began its blockade. Yet for the first time in these 16 years, the Palestinian people got a taste of freedom as they broke down this barrier.
We must reject the tired yet dangerous criminalization and dehumanization tactic by those in power to demonize communities in resistance. A people who are subjected to decades of control and repression of prison buildings, open air prisons, military occupation, apartheid, the violence of policing – or the combination of all these, as is the case in Palestine – have the absolute and undeniable right and justification to defend themselves and resist their oppression.
Even with all the historical and ongoing repression, we know that repression breeds resistance, and we uplift the connections of our movements, from Turtle Island to Palestine. Our vision for a world free of cops and cages does not stop at the constructed borders of the US; PIC abolition is international, and that includes supporting the struggle for the freedom of all Palestinian political prisoners enduring apartheid Israel’s prisons and jails, and for the complete dismantling of its racist and militarized systems of control.
Long live people’s resistance toward liberation, and long live international solidarity!
-Critical Resistance
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CR is looking for volunteers to support with data entry to help us audit and update our list of ~10,000 imprisoned comrades! Help us send Issue 40 of The Abolitionist and our annual end-of-year holiday postcard to all of our imprisoned contacts. Check out more information here, and sign up now!
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CRLA has joined CR New York and Oakland in building out CR's chapter mail programs. Starting this month, CRLA will begin hosting virtual volunteer nights, where people come together online and support CRLA correspond with imprisoned people in jails, detention centers, and prisons.
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