I cannot tell you the joy I have right now. Joy that I have not felt in many, many weeks but the joy that I feel right now in your company. The joy in being able to gather with a testament to our ancestors with a testament, a commitment to the generations after us. That we are fighting. That we fought for our humanity. That we were here. That we said no. That we gathered. That we had no fear.
I am so happy to be with you here with the folks in the Riverside Church with the folks that are are streaming with us. When I thought about the this evening I did not know if I should speak to you as a teacher and tell you about Gaza (Ruza). Should I tell you that Gaza was once a city district of historic Palestine that sits on the eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea that its harbor and fertile land has made it a focal point of trade and Empire for centuries, including the Romans, the Mongols and Napoleon’s France. That prior to 1948 the Gaza District contained almost 90 towns and villages. It was 38 times larger than the current 140 square-mile strip making it the largest District in mandatory Palestine until until Zionist militias destroyed a majority of these towns.
Should I tell you that upon Israel’s establishment a severely truncated Gaza absorbed nearly 25% of Palestinian refugees exiled from their former homes increasing its population from 80,000 to 280,000. That that number has grown to 2.2 million today, who are predominantly refugees and children, dependent on food aid for survival. Do I explain to you that Israel began to circumscribe this Palestinian territory in 1993 as it was entering into the Oslo Peace Accords that it began a process of de-development, isolation, containment of Gaza with the intent to make it a Palestinian statelet and to instead focus on annexing the West Bank whose land it coveted and whose natives it also sought to remove. In this context I can tell you that Israel imposed a land siege and a naval blockade hermetically sealing this coastal enclave, placing it on a subsistence diet just above starvation, relegating it to conditions of bare life and then systematically pummeling it with advanced weapons technologies in a bid to take the land without the people. To achieve in Gaza by warfare what it seeks to do in the West Bank through marshal law, in East Jerusalem through administrative law and throughout historic Palestine through civil law.
Or should I speak to you as an attorney and tell you that when Israel withdrew its settlers and military infrastructure in 2005 that it maintained its effective control over the population registry, the skies, the underground water sources, the electromagnetic spheres, all points of ingress and egress and thus remains an occupying power with the duty to protect its civilians. That Israel has no right to self-defense against territory that it occupies. It has no right to self-defense against territory that it occupies no more than Portugal had the right to self-defense to protect its hold on Mozambique and Angola.
Should I explain that people fighting against colonial domination alien occupation and racist regimes, Palestinians have a right to use armed force, so long as it’s regulated by the laws of war. Would it be help helpful to tell you that any force must be bound by principles of distinction and proportionality and that Israel has promised to disavow both. Its top military and political brass have made clear that their purpose is destruction not accuracy. There are no Palestinian civilians, that hospitals and schools and sources of electricity and fuel are not afforded the presumption of civilian infrastructure. Do I remind you that they have expressed a specific intent to destroy in whole or in part a people based on racial ethnic national or religious grounds. Should I remind you that they need not kill a single person in order to be prosecuted for the crime of intent and incitement according to the genocide convention.
Should I recite the numbers anyway that in 26 days Israel has killed more Palestinians that were murdered in the Bosnian genocide. Do I tell you that for the past two decades Israel has not gotten away with murder but has changed international law to make its grotesque violence permissible. That it says Gaza is not occupied nor is it sovereign, it is a hostile entity.That it claimed that this is not a civil war nor is it an international armed conflict but it’s this new category an armed conflict short of war. That Palestinians participating in hostilities are not merely legitimate targets when they pick up arms, but even when they lay asleep next to their partners in homes filled with their families that the lives of their soldiers are more worth more than the lives of enemy civilians and proportionality is forward-looking so that untold destruction is reasonable and recommended in the language of law.
Do I remind the world. Do I remind you all, that what happens to Palestinians now sets a new precedent. That means that everywhere anywhere in the globe is not safe.
No, no no. I should speak to you plainly as a mother. I should tell you that my heart breaks over and over every single day. That I cannot take another image of a baby covered in dust from the rubble that was her home gasping for air.That I cannot handle an other young girl running after her mother, her mother’s corpse, asking her to get up. That it pains me to watch a young boy begging the man about to bury his baby brother for a strand of hair from his baby brother’s head. That I have to admit that I am in sheer awe of Wael Dahdouh’s who buried his wife and his son and his daughter, who both wanted to be journalists like him and got up the next day in front of a camera to continue to report support the genocide of his people.
Shall I describe my acute stress imagining 130 newborns at risk of death because of lack of fuel and electricity, only to look up and hear news anchors ask me if the price is worth paying because some civilian life is sacred. Or that when I ask my cousin in Ramallah this morning how her children are fairing and she says they have learned a painful lesson these past weeks – that world powers agree that their lives are not worthy.
Do I speak to you as a Palestinian and tell you that we are a remarkable people, fighting for the noble cause of freedom. That we understand clearly that this is a genocidal campaign intended to complete the Nakba. To fulfill the Zionist fantasy of a land without a people, despite a valiant people that refuse to disappear, who vow to stay in their homes rather than become refugees again, whose pride and love and rootedness and tradition and song and prayer and belonging will forever, forever, haunt settlers who build nuclear weapons, marshal global superpowers and still tremble before the truth of our existence. We existed before Zionist colonial invasion. We exist now even among the rubble of humanity’s remains. We will exist when Zionism is dismantled, bit by every racist colonial bit.
Let me speak to you as a comrade and tell you that we must fight on. That we must rest and breathe and not tire. That our efforts are causing global vibrations and generational change filling streets from London to Cairo to Aman to Beirut to Istanbul to Senal, shutting down Congress shutting down Grand Central Station, shutting down Highway 101 in San Francisco, having a state department official resign, a UN Human Rights officer resign, having Chile, Colombia and Jordan rescind their ambassadors, watching Bolivia cut its diplomatic ties, listening and witnessing 2,000 plus Black allies signing on to a letter in Palestine when three million Belgian unionized workers refuse to transport Israeli weapons.
We have disrupted the Senate appropriations hearing asking for more money. We have watched hundreds of artists call for a ceasefire and pull 66% of Americans that oppose this genocide and call for a ceasefire now. That number keeps growing, that number keeps growing, and as your comrade I want to ask you and remind you that as we fight on to be vigilant because repression is growing.
To remind you that in our vigilance we can protect ourselves. We need not power. Palestine Legal, the only legal institution in the United States dedicated to protecting activists and allies in order to keep fighting, has documented 400 incidents of harassment, abuse, doxing in the past 3 weeks alone. On average annually they document 200 to 300 incidents. But in the past 3 weeks, 400 in incidents, alone. Law students who had their offers rescinded. Medical residents who have been fired. Editors and Chiefs of art magazines who have been fired. Entertainment agency executives who have been set aside for opposing genocide. And while this racist, warmongering media and political establishment has led to the stabbing of a six-year-old 26 times in his home in Illinois and the murder of a Muslim woman in Texas. The Biden Administration is mobilizing law enforcement to surveil social media of university students struggling for Palestinian Liberation the White House Press Secretary in absolute disregard for intellectual honesty and journalistic integrity in absolute offensiveness to us anybody with common sense has compared our calls for ceasefire and an end to genocide to tiki torch marches in Charlottesville.
These are incredibly scary times, but incredibly inspiring times of what we are capable of together. We can only win if we stand up and fight back. Do not be silenced but speak with vigilance and here if I can humbly ask for your support to donate to Palestine Legal for those who have not had the heart the will the opportunity the ability to speak up donate to Palestine Legal. Help Palestine legal which only has six staff attorneys taken on this entire edifice.
I end by telling you what we already know that we will continue, until there is a free Palestine, until all our kin are freed from cages, until these lands are free, these stolen lands are free, until all our siblings can live in safety and dignity until freedom, until freedom for all. May we be triumphant.
