Palestine Solidarity Working Group

Fall 2023, Palestine Organizing Toolkit

Shareable Link: https://bit.ly/pali-toolkit 

Table of Contents:

• Is There a Protest Near You?
• Demands:
• Key Resources:
• Take Action! Organizing Ideas:

• 1) Palestine & BDS 101s
• 2) Film Screenings
• 3) Rally/March/Direct Action
• 4) Fundraiser Event
• 5) Organize to pass a local Anti-Zionist Resolution (MSR12)

• Protest Safety
• Messaging Guidance:
• Where to Get Your Information:

Is There a Protest Near You?

Check these calendars to see if there’s a protest near you (or to submit one!):

1. Calendar for Shut It Down 4 Palestine!

1. Guide for planning ShutItDown Actions

2. Gaza Is Palestine
3. ANSWER Coalition
4. Samidoun
5. USCPR

Demands:

1. US out of Palestine – End ALL US Aid to Israel.

1. Not just military aid – all aid to Israel supports the colonization of Palestine and continued violence against Palestinians.

2. End the Bombardment – Stop the Genocide

1. The Zionist project’s current bombardment of Gaza — its fifth in 15 years — represents their latest and most severe genocidal campaign  against besieged Palestinians in the region. The missiles, drones, and planes used to inflict this brutality are supplied by the United States and paid for by our tax dollars.

3. Lift the Siege on Gaza.

1. An immediate end to the food, water, fuel, medical supplies blockade. Gazan hospitals are on the verge of collapse. Gazans are trapped in an open-air prison, besieged by land, air and sea by the US-backed Zionist forces.

4. Ceasefire NOW.  

1. A ceasefire is the floor of our demands. A ceasefire is being called for by the people of Gaza and is the most immediate tactic to stop the current Zionist assault and allow full uninhibited humanitarian aid to flow in.  
   

Key Resources:

• AFSC: Targeting Tool - Companies Complicit in Israeli Genocide in Gaza 2023
• USCPR: Toolkit for Planning ShutItDown Actions 
• NSJP: Student Week of Action Toolkit & Day of Resistance Toolkit
• Palestinian Feminist Collective: Digital Action Toolkit
• USCPR: City Council Ceasefire Organizing Resource Toolkit
• PYM: All the Walls Will Fall: 2023 Palestine Liberation Resource List
• PSWG: Movement Security and Digital Hygiene Resources
• PSWG: Endorsed Electeds Brief on the Uprisings
• PSWG: Endorsed Electeds Palestine Primer & FAQ
• PSWG: 2023 Primer on Zionism/Anti-Zionism
• PSWG: Public Primer & Responses to Bad Faith Questions
• Let’s talk Palestine: 8 things to know about what’s happening, understanding armed resistance, and Spotify Podcast

Take Action! Organizing Ideas:

1. Palestine & BDS 101s

1. Request a Palestine & BDS 101 from the Working Group’s political education team using this form. This is not just for DSA/YDSA chapters, any solidarity formation can request a Palestine 101!

2. Film Screenings

1. Free streaming link for Gaza Fights for Freedom w/ Abby Martin.
2. Check out this guide with dozens of free Palestine films you can screen!
3. See IAW organizing guide here (from 2022) - Section E “Organizing Ideas and Inspiration” and subsection 1 “Film Screenings.”
4. See film suggestions and screening links here. 

3. Rally/March/Direct Action

1. PYM Chant List and USPCN Chant List
2. Direct Action Resources & Guides (thanks to Ruckus Society)
3. Protest Signs & Posters to Print/Bring (thanks USCPR!)
4. Follow the lead of any Palestinian grassroots or Palestine solidarity groups (i.e. PYM, SJP, AMP, USPCN, etc.) in your community. If they are already organizing actions, reach out about how you can support them,

1. DO NOT center DSA in this moment - do not condition your support on DSA branding or DSA logos on the event.
2. Ways your chapter can materially contribute: use your infrastructure/lists for turnout. Offer financial support (if your chapter is able). Loan supplies (i.e. megaphones, marshal vests, etc). Offer volunteers (i.e. red rabbits for marshaling if you have a trained team).

5. If there are no Palestine groups in your community (make sure you check first!), reach out to other aligned groups and plan a coalition protest.
6. For Direct Actions:

1. Check out this step-by-step guide to organizing a direct action.
2. Hub for all direct action resources!
3. Take inspiration from comrades in Cambridge who led a Palestine Action inspired action to #shutelbitdown. Check out Palestine Action’s Manual.
4. Check this list of arms manufacturers that are key targets.

7. Wheatpasting - put up posters in high traffic areas. Crimethink’s guide to wheatpasting.
8. Check out the Protest Safety section below.
9. Legal assistance:

1. Palestine Legal

1. Intake form

2. Know your rights resources:

1. Palestine Legal’s Know Your Rights Student Handbook
2. Palestine Legal’s Know Your Rights Video Series 
3. National Lawyers Guild Know Your Rights: A Guide for Protestors

3. Anti-Doxxing Resources:

1. NSJP checklist of anti-doxxing tips
2. ReThink Media's Anti-Doxxing Resources
3. ReThink Media's Training on Anti-Doxxing

4. Fundraiser Event

1. Organize an event like a community dinner, a book reading at your local bookshop, a film screening, etc., and make tickets donation based! Choose a fundraiser below, or a fundraiser you have FULLY vetted, to direct donations to support our Palestinian comrades on the ground.
2. Vetted Fundraisers:

1. Medical Aid for Palestinians (MAP) - trustworthy UK based charity with staff on the ground in Gaza who are helping fill the massive medical services gap on the ground which has been heightened due to Zionists blocking medical supplies from entering Gaza.

1. UPDATE: MAP’s website came under attack by Zionists, for those looking to donate if the website is still down - https://www.justgiving.com/campaign/gaza-emergency2023

2. Hebron International Resource Network (HIRN) - Palestinian mutual aid organization based in the West Bank responding to material community needs (i.e. water, food, electricity, housing, transportation, etc).
3. Pious Projects - has a local team in Gaza doing direct material assistance to combat the horrific effects of the complete siege. They take no admin fee so 100% of your donation goes to their projects on the ground!

5. Organize to pass a local Anti-Zionist Resolution (MSR12)

1. Just because the right wing of DSA forced the Anti-Zionist resolution to be tabled at the national convention, doesn’t mean your chapter can’t act in alignment with the Palestinians grassroots call to make DSA anti-zionist through the Anti-Zionist resolution.
2. Take inspiration from Houston DSA and organize your chapter to pass a local iteration of the anti-zionist resolution!

Protest safety

• Many rallies are facing aggressive zionist counter-protesters who provoke the crowd to elicit confrontation. This is manageable with preparation.
• Make sure you have a number of protest marshals: the more, the better. Marshals are essential to keep counter-protesters separate from the rally and de-escalate confrontations so that counter-protesters don’t cause rally attendees to get arrested.

• Street Medic Austin’s De-escalation Guide
• ACT UP Marshal training

• Mask up and advise any comrades at heightened risk of doxxing, particularly Palestinians, to mask up and cover identifiable traits such as tattoos, hair, etc. Generally speaking, it is legal to film someone in public spaces, and zionist counter-protesters usually do so.
• Get volunteer Legal Observers from your local National Lawyers Guild chapter.

• NLG chapter list

• If you are planning on engaging in actions that may result in arrest make sure to have arrest support plans in place including jail support and legal defense funds.
• If possible, have a street medic present or someone with first aid training.

• Black Cross Health Collective’s Activist’s Guide to Basic First Aid
• Chicago Action Medical’s Street Medic Handbook

• Discuss in advance how you are going to deal with the police. It is a good idea to have one or a few designated police liaisons whose job is to be a point person communicating with police so that rally attendees do not volunteer harmful information.
• Make safety announcements at the beginning. Inoculate the crowd regarding the possible presence of counter-protesters. If they know what to expect and how to behave, it will be easier to manage rally attendees when needed.

• Examples of safety announcements:

• There are people here wearing green vests/arm bands. These are our marshals for the protest. Please follow their instructions!
• If any zionist counter-protesters show up today, DO NOT ENGAGE. They will say offensive things to make you react. They are trained to do this because they want to get you angry and push you into a fight so that you get arrested. The police don't care about who’s right and who’s wrong; they WILL arrest you. If they show up, do not engage in their provocations!
• Do NOT give any police officers information about what we’re doing. If any police officer asks you questions, just say “I don’t know, I’m not an organizer” and tell one of the marshals in the green vests/arm bands.
• We want everyone to stay safe today but if something goes wrong and you get arrested, there is only one word that should be leaving your mouth: LAWYER.

• If the police detains you or arrests you, the only thing you should say is “I want to speak to a lawyer”. Do NOT give them any information about what you or other people here were doing. IT WILL NOT HELP, it will only make things worse for you. You can never talk your way out of an arrest but you can always talk your way into more severe charges.

Messaging Guidance:

Messaging Guidance for this moment (thanks NSJP!):

• When people are occupied, resistance is justified.

• The Palestinian people have the right to resist colonization and oppression – this right is enshrined in international law. The Palestinian people have the right to return to their homeland and free themselves from the complete land, air, and sea siege they’ve been subjected to; this requires resistance, and it is both morally just and politically necessary. These events are the natural and justified response to decades of oppression and dehumanization.
• The fight for Palestinian liberation is a necessary struggle against an occupying and colonial state; not a “war” or “conflict.” It is a struggle for national liberation.
• In the eyes of the West, there is no “right” way for Palestinians to fight for their freedom. Every tactic is met with repression.
• The occupation and the existence of Israel is not peaceful; there is no ‘maintaining the peace’ with a violent settler state.
• Settlers are not “civilians” in the sense of international law, because they are military assets used to ensure continued control over stolen Palestinian land.
• Responsibility for every single death falls solely on the zionist entity.They don't care one bit for the Geneva Conventions but demand Palestinians follow them to the letter.

• Gaza broke out of prison.

• Resistance fighters captured one of the bulldozers used to destroy Palestinian homes, and used it to breach the illegitimate border fence back into ‘48 Palestine – land where 2/3s of Gazans are refugees from.
• Gaza is being subject to collective punishment because the occupation knows liberation is inevitable.
• Zionists are telling Gazans to leave while also denying them freedom of movement – this is a call for genocide of Palestinians.

• “I say to the residents of Gaza: Leave now because we will operate forcefully everywhere.”--Netanyahu

• This is not “unprovoked.” Apartheid, ethnic cleansing, indiscriminate bombing, arbitrary detention, destruction of infrastructure, 75 years of settler colonialism are provocations.

• Liberation is material

• Liberation is not an abstract concept. It is not a moment circumscribed to a revolutionary past as it is often characterized. Rather, liberating colonized land is a real process that requires confrontation by any means necessary.
• In essence, decolonization is a call to action, a commitment to the restoration of Indigenous sovereignty. It calls upon us to engage in meaningful actions that go beyond symbolism and rhetoric.
• Resistance comes in all forms— armed struggle, general strikes, and popular demonstrations. All of it is legitimate, and all of it is necessary.
• “You don’t get freedom peacefully. Freedom is never safeguarded peacefully. Anyone who is depriving you of freedom isn’t deserving of a peaceful approach by the ones who are deprived of their freedom.” - Malcolm X

• Israel is fragile

• This action of resistance shatters the illusion of Israel as an impenetrable, indestructible entity. The zionist entity is fragile, and Palestinian resistance is alive. The iOF are still in disarray and the resistance fighters are still launching new attacks into ‘48.
• The zionist entity built a massive technological barrier to imprison Gaza that the resistance neutralized in hours. They massively underestimated the ingenuity of the resistance, and will continue to do so.
• Settlers are already fleeing the land; their dedication to the settler colony is easily broken. The dedication of Palestianians for their national liberation is unshakable
• From Rhodesia to South Africa to Algeria, no settler colony can hold out forever.

•   Unity Intifada

• The revolution is being waged across historic Palestine—not just cross-factional, but unifying our people in the name of resistance
• All Palestinian factions in Gaza appear to be participating under unified command.
• This Is The First Time since 1949 that a large-scale battle has been fought within ‘48 Palestine.

Check out this messaging and political education pamphlet (printable poli-ed) from comrades at the Resistance News Network!        

A few examples of strong statements from DSA chapters:

• San Francisco DSA statement
• Worcester DSA statement
• Pittsburgh DSA statement
• Baltimore DSA statement

Where to Get Your Information:

• Telegram Channels:

• https://t.me/PalestineResist
• https://t.me/gazaalannet
• https://t.me/areennabluss
• https://t.me/QudsNen
• https://t.me/LebUpdate                

• General News:

• Mondoweiss
• Electronic Intifada
• Democracy Now
• Al Jazeera

• Twitter Lists to Follow:

• USCPR/@PalestineToday list & IMEU list & Andrew Kadi's list