We are writers who unequivocally stand with Palestine and its fight for liberation against the illegal occupation of “Israel" and the violent settler colonial apartheid state. We strongly condemn the response of western media and political actors at all levels of government in their dissemination of misinformation and propaganda, intended to manufacture consent for the genocide of Palestinian people. Prior to the 1948 Nakba and for 75 years afterwards, Palestinians have relentlessly fought against zionist settler-colonialism and British imperialism. In the words of the Palestinian Youth Movement, “Gaza is the story of the Palestinian people. It is a story of displacement and refugeehood, of imprisonment at the hands of a foreign occupier. But, most importantly, it is a story of sumud (steadfastness) and resistance: resistance that is driven by a love for one’s people, a love for one’s homeland, and a love for life and freedom.”
Of the many events on Saturday, October 7th, which you can read about here, the resistance bulldozed part of the fence around Gaza and some Gazans set foot outside the boundaries of their besiegement for a moment. Right now, over 2 million Palestinians trapped in Gaza have no food, water, medical supplies, or electricity. They have faced 22 days of indiscriminate bombing by the IOF (“Israeli” Occupying Forces), which has killed 7,326 people. The occupiers have wiped out 825 families from the civil registry as of today, meaning that 825 entire generations and lineages of those families have been killed. In the past week, one million Gazans have been displaced. As said by Ahmed Abu Artema, a founder of the Great March of Return: “Backed by the United States administration, backed by the Western governments, we are seeing an extension of the genocide Israel started in 1948.” The occupier’s actions are predicated on denying Palestinians the right to self-determination.
As stated by the Teachers and Employees Union at Birzeit University, located in the West Bank: “We in occupied Palestine — and all Palestinians — have no illusions in the poetic dreams of the triumph of the pen over the sword because the sword has cut too deeply into our flesh at the hands of an enemy who has been granted by the hypocritical international community and the destiny of imperial history to claim a monopoly on both the sword (that which acts to kill) and the pen (that which narrates the acts of killing).”
We come from the lineage of Audre Lorde’s language acts—“for those of us who write, it is necessary to scrutinize not only the truth of what we speak, but the truth of that language by which we speak it.” Language is critical to how reality is shaped, to what is criticized, to what gets called a revolution. Islamophobic, genocidal, anti-Arab and anti-Palestinian rhetoric are all rooted in the languages we use. It is our responsibility to lay bare how language has been used to obscure and preserve the ongoing settler colonial project outside of Gaza—
1. The west is actively backing the ongoing settler colonial project that endorses either a slow or fast genocide, but is genocide either way. For those of us situated in the west, our financial allegiance as citizens and residents has already made us complicit; it’s that much more important that we are loudly and clearly in solidarity against “Israel’”s ongoing genocide against Palestinians.
2. Any form of Palestinian resistance is in no way equivalent to the daily violence of “Israeli” settlers, the IOF, and the entire “Israeli” state apparatus. Palestinian resistance exists because settler colonial occupation exists. The fight for Palestinian liberation is justified under international law, which states that Palestinians are entirely within their right to defend their ancestral homelands and their people. Palestinians should not have to adopt the role of the perfect victim for us to be firmly in solidarity and in support.
3. The resistance is an ongoing response to a long history of ethnic cleansing of Palestinians. The indiscriminate violence Palestinans are subjected to is the result of this asymmetry of power between “Israel” as a settler-state and Palestinians who materially live under occupation, and those in the diaspora who are denied the right to return.
4. Palestine has exhausted every possible avenue for diplomatic resolution for decades before 10/7 through appeals to the UN general assembly. The language that the UN has used—“Convinced that occupation itself represents a grave violation of human rights, and deeply concerned by the ensuing persistent violations of international law committed by Israel, including international humanitarian and human rights law, including discriminatory policies against the Palestinian civilian population in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem.”
5. Politicians at all levels of government internationally, primarily those in the west, are deliberately weaponizing islamophobic and orientalist language in order to manufacture consent for genocide in Palestine, heighten surveillance and policing domestically, and suppress any manner of showing solidarity with Palestine. Those supporting “Israel” include the United States, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Britain, Australia, New Zealand, and the European Union.
6. The conflation of zionism with Judaism has been used to justify or defend “Israel”'s continued aggression towards Palestinians. Judaism is a religion, while zionism is a nationalist movement advocating for the formation and continued support of an apartheid state in Palestine.
Writers within western literary institutions have specifically inherited, contributed to, and continue to benefit from a literary apparatus that has perpetuated these colonial ideas. Most recently, the Frankfurt Book Fair cancelled an award ceremony honouring Palestinian author and essayist Adania Shibli, whose novel Minor Detail won the 2023 LiBeraturpreis prize. The New York Times further incorrectly claimed this was a joint decision made with Shibli, before retracting their statement. After Harper’s Bazaar editor-in-chief Samira Nasr made a social media post criticizing “Israel’s” move to cut power in Gaza, parent company Hearst sent out an apology, with an insider revealing Nasr was likely forced to apologize as well.
Those of us who live in the west are especially active participants in funding, maintaining, and normalizing this genocide through our silence, our equivocations, and our tax dollars. We have put forth several calls to action for writers and their institutions—
To stand in firm, vocal, and unwavering solidarity with Palestinian resistance against their occupation until liberation, by amplifying Palestinian voices in a time of mass disinformation and silencing; and by openly discussing the occupation in your workplace, home, on social media, in your work.
To urge the literary organizations and institutions that you carry affiliation with to take an unwavering public stance in solidarity with Palestinian liberation in your workplace and online.
To boycott the awards, magazines, and support of the following Zionist literary institutions: Best American Poetry, the 92NY Discovery Prize, Milkweed’s Max Ritvo Prize, Giller Fiction Prize, PEN America, the Frankfurt Book Fair, United Agents, and Harper’s Bazaar. [Resource Doc]
To boycott all other literary institutions who profess Zionist affiliations.
To decline professional invitations to “Israel,” and to decline funding from any institutions linked to its government.
To engage with the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement, a Palestinian-led movement to end international support for “Israel's” oppression of Palestinians and all institutions complicit in “Israeli” apartheid and settler colonialism.
We refer to this article written by the Palestinian Youth Movement in The New Inquiry to clarify actions and modes forward, a reading list curated by the Palestinian Youth Movement, and a series of free e-Books offered by Haymarket Books as resources. Donations to support Palestine can be directed to Doctors Without Borders, Palestine Children's Relief Fund, Medical Aid for Palestinians, and the World Food Programme.
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Link to the full letter with names (updated by moderator): https://docs.google.com/document/d/1UVp2E4VoBgXTOYDs6BAAWI8fiaEUqFLOHoN50LKy4oI/edit?usp=sharing
