RE: Black and Palestinian solidarity in light of recent resurgence of violence in East Jerulasem, Gaza and West Bank
“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”
– Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
The forced removal of Palestinian residents from the neighbourhood of Sheikh Jarrah in East Jerusalem and an assault on the Al-Aqsa Mosque during the holiest week of the month of Ramadan sparked a resurgence of violence in the occupied Palestinian territories. We witnessed, horrified and powerless, another arbitrary and illegal displacement of Palestinian peoples off their lands by the Israeli government. Although a cease-fire was reached between the State of Israel and Hamas on May 21, thus putting an end to 11 days of deadly violence, justice and accountability have yet to be served, and peace is far from being reached. Palestinians continue to be under occupation, to be abusively detained and arrested, to be subjected to deadly violence at checkpoints in the West Bank, and more. Last Tuesday, the Flag March, an Israeli ultranationalist event during which demonstrators chanted “Death to Arabs!” in front of Damascus Gate, fueled the deployment of incendiary balloons by Palestinians and, the next day, renewed Israeli airstrikes in Gaza.
The Black Law Students’ Association of McGill (BLSAM) recognizes the interconnectedness of Palestinian, Black, and many other peoples’ struggles across the globe. Freedom is incomplete without the liberation of all oppressed peoples. We cannot stay silent in the face of injustice. As a student organization committed to the values of social and racial justice, we are impelled to reaffirm our unconditional solidarity with the Palestinian people and honour the long history of Black-Palestinian kinship by standing with the people of Palestine in their fight against apartheid and settler colonialism. We condemn the ongoing institutional discrimination and persecution of Palestinians by the State of Israel and the complicity of various Canadian and Quebec institutions, including governments, the media, and the academy.
Canadian and Quebec Complicity in Israeli Settler Colonialism
Beyond the oppressive silence, we regret the abeding of this state sanctioned violence. In its official Policy on key issues in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the Government of Canada claims to either oppose or not recognize “Israel's unilateral annexation of East Jerusalem,” “permanent Israeli control over territories occupied in 1967 (the Golan Heights, the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip),” “Israel's construction of the barrier inside the West Bank and East Jerusalem,” and “expropriations and the demolition of houses and economic infrastructure carried out for this purpose.” However, in the same policy, the Government of Canada affirms its support of “Israel’s [so-called] fight against terror.” Not only does the Government of Canada fail to sanction Israel for its violations of international law, but it also implicates itself in those violations by maintaining trade agreements and entering into arms deals with Israel. In 2020, more than $1.8 billion worth of merchandise was traded between Canada and Israel. As stated by New Democratic Party Leader Jagmeet Singh during question period at the House of Commons on May 12, “[b]y arming one side of the conflict [Canada] is undermining the peace process and it is supporting illegal occupation.”
The Quebec government is also implicated in Israel’s international law violations. Quebec’s Ministry of Economy and Innovation and Ministry of International Relations and La Francophonie fund research projects involving partnerships between Quebec and Israeli companies. Furthermore, in May 2017, Hydro-Québec concluded an agreement with the Israel Electric Corporation.
Settler colonialism in Palestine is inseparable from settler colonialism in what is now known as Canada and Quebec. The recent discovery of the remains of 215 Indigenous children at the former Kamloops Residential School in British Columbia, as well as renewed attention to the mass graves of 104 at the former Brandon Residential School in Manitoba, 35 at the former Regina Industrial School in Saskatchewan, and 35 at the former Muscowequan Residential School in Lestock, Saskatchewan, forces our collective consciousness to reckon with historical and ongoing settler colonialism in Canada. We cannot afford to look away. We must not look away.
Complicity of Universities
We deeply regret the oppressive silencing and dismissiveness in the academy when it comes to addressing the violence against those most marginalized in our society. We share the concerns of faculty and staff regarding Provost’s Manfredi’s pre-emptive Media Relations Office (MRO) communication and the selectivity of McGill’s invoking of Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) in response to an open letter addressed to the university administration. As a Black student group championing Black students’ rights and equality at McGill, we have time and time again witnessed this administration deploy equity jargon to justify or dismiss the mistreatment of Black students and other underrepresented groups at this institution. We must interrogate the governance structure that allows for an all-white McGill administration to deploy their privilege to pick and choose whose livelihood matters. While EDI is a game of picking and choosing, we must remind the McGill administration that human rights are inalienable and indivisible and not contingent upon the corporatist agenda of the neoliberal university.
As we call for solidarity with the people of Palestine, the BLSAM anchors its show of support in the rich histories of kinship between Palestinians and Black peoples around the world.
Palestine and South Africa
One location for such history is the decolonial struggle in South Africa, especially in the context of resistance against apartheid. Support for the Palestinian struggle continued after the formal ending of South African apartheid in 1994. Nelson Mandela, in a 1997 address at the International Day of Solidarity with Palestinian People in Pretoria, stated that the freedom of South Africans “is incomplete without the freedom of the Palestinians.” A statue was erected in the city of Ramallah to honour the late South African president. Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu has been and continues to be a strong advocate for a global boycott of, and divestment from, Israel. The South African anti-apartheid movement inspired the Palestinian-led Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement, launched in 2005. This should be unsurprising given the strong similarities between the two peoples’ struggles; indeed, Human Rights Watch has characterized the control imposed by the State of Israel on Palestinians as an apartheid. Those who have, or would have, condemned apartheid in South Africa should also condemn apartheid in Palestine.
Palestine and Black America
Black and Palestinian solidarity has existed for decades, with Black Americans connecting the plight of Palestine to the US Prison-Industrial Complex and the billions of dollars in US military aid to the State of Israel. In the 1960s, the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee, led by revolutionary Kwame Ture (then known as Stokely Carmichael), and the Black Panther Party took an anti-Zionist stance largely due to the Black Panther’s conceptualization of Black Americans as “a colonized people within a colony.” El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz (also known as Malcolm X) spent time in the Gaza Strip and wrote about Israel’s ‘camouflaged’ colonialism, which resonated deeply with both diasporic and continental Africans, who are on either stolen or occupied land. Modern day Black and Brown activists such as the Dream Defenders sent delegations to Palestine in 2016 and 2017 to build connections with Palestinian organizers, including Afro-Palestinians who, with their unique identity and struggles, have played a key role in the Palestinian resistance movement since 1948. When the Dream Defenders visited Palestine, one of their tour guides was an Afro-Palestinian who had served 17 years in prison for resisting Israeli oppression. This support is not one-sided: Palestine has continuously shown support to Black America, such as Palestinian political prisoners showing support to Dr. Angela Davis while she was incarcerated or when she was rescinded a human rights award from the Alabama’s Birmingham Civil Rights Institute in 2019 because of her support of Palestine.
Conclusion
Silence is complicit, that is why we choose to further the Muslim Law Students’ Association’s invitation to all law students to stand with Palestinians’ rights. We encourage you to reflect on your role as law students to learn and speak about this issue. The knowledge of the law is a privilege and it imposes on us a great responsibility. As jurists and future legal professionals, we must use it carefully to uphold what is right.
We stand with Palestinian students. While the McGill administration may dismiss you, we see you, we value you, and we will always stand with you.
In solidarity,
The Black Law Students’ Association of McGill (BLSAM)