TEXT OF THE STATEMENT BELOW
Note: The purpose of this statement is to mobilize Black people to shift the conversation and transformative capacity of those based in the United States given the government’s enabling of Israeli violence. The initial draft of the text below came out the initiative of the New Internationalism Project at the Institute for Policy Studies and it is now being circulated as a shared statement for Black people across organizations, institutions and affiliations.
We are currently collecting signatories with the intention of making the statement public--all signatories will be updated via email before doing so.
TEXT OF THE STATEMENT:
We are speaking out as Black people who cannot be silent while Palestinians in Gaza face genocidal violence by Israel at this moment.
We affirm the sanctity of life, reject the targeting of civilians–any civilians–and mourn the thousands of lives lost last week. Even as we do so, Israel is threatening the entire population of Gaza with lethal force.
President Biden could stop this violence TODAY. The US is Israel’s number one ally, and we urge the White House to call for a cease fire and stop sending weapons to Israel, which only escalates the bloodshed.
Two million Palestinians live in the besieged Gaza Strip, and Israel and Egypt control all of its borders. Since 2007, Israel and Egypt have kept Palestinians locked in Gaza, which is why many call it “the world’s largest open air prison.” Israel has prevented people from leaving, prevented people from entering, and restricted food, electricity, and water going into Gaza long before the current crisis. For days now, Israel has been bombing this confined population, as it has done repeatedly over the past sixteen years.
Now Israel has announced that it is preparing to escalate the violence with a ground invasion into one of the most densely populated places in the world, where half of the residents are children.
We are horrified that Israel’s defense minister Yoav Gallant said on October 9 that “we are fighting human animals and acting accordingly” when imposing the complete blockade of Gaza. Israel then cut off all food, water, electricity, and fuel–which is a violation of international law.
As residents of the United States, we are outraged that the White House has not condemned this dehumanization of Palestinians and these violations of international law that the US is party to, despite the fact that both the Secretary of State and Secretary of Defense have personally traveled to Israel since Gallant made these comments and imposed this policy.
As Black people, we know what it means to be dehumanized. The phrase “Black lives matter” remains a controversial one in the United States, revealing the fact that Black life is treated with lesser value than others. Black neighborhoods are cast as dangerous places where life is expendable. US government policies treat Black people throughout the world with disrespect, abandonment, and often with military violence.
We call for the immediate lifting of the blockade so that aid, water, electricity, and fuel may enter Gaza and people may come and go freely.
We are witnessing one of the great atrocities of our time. But the worst of it can be prevented if we act now. We know what it means to be brutalized, isolated, and abandoned. We refuse to abandon the people of Gaza.
