Gaza Youth: Don't distort our speech!

[blake 3:17]

Don’t distort our speech!

Many activists reject our movement and consider us as some Zionist machinery because in the manifesto, we’ve been denouncing Hamas – among others. It’s always amazing to see the shortcuts people’s minds can take and how good they are at condemning without even trying to understand. We’d like to remind all our goal: yes we are frustrated and tired of being oppressed, killed, humiliated and kept from even leaving to study in other countries, yes we denounce political parties governing us because they didn’t help in anything, but we denounce ALL of them, not ONLY Hamas. We are TIRED of the status quo, from all sides. Political parties have all had the time and chances to BRING THE CHANGE, but we haven’t seen anything yet.

We’re NOT calling for a political coup, let’s be clear on this. We’re young people who want to work for thePEOPLE, we denounce the misery we live in, we denounce their division, and reject their fight, because they are not helping us. But more than Fatah and Hamas, who remains Palestinians just like us, ABOVE ALL we denounce the Occupier & its puppet the International Community who fails, day after day, in its duty to impose sanctions on “Israel”.
Our followers, readers, and those who are not supporting us yet must keep in mind THIS message: we haveONE enemy which is the Zionist Occupier. Hopefully this call will shake our political leaders, wake them up and remind them that they are responsible of us! Hopefully they will realize that what we want is UNITY, and NO MORE DIVISION, because it makes Israeli terrorism’s impact on our lives even worse.

Our call is a call for SOLIDARITY, a call for PEACEFUL ACTION; we are holding out our hands & waiting for you to complete the bond. Make sure this is read, help us work for a better solution, HELP US MAKE IT!

And Please note this, the Gaza Youth Breaks Out Team have been banned from posting anything on theFacebook page (http://www.facebook.com/pages/Gaza-Youth-Breaks-Out-GYBO/118914244840679); we want you to go there and flood the page with your love to Palestine so those who misinterpreted our message can leave us.
Love and respect from Gaza,


GYBO Team

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http://gazaybo.wordpress.com/2011/01/04/dont-distort-our-speech/

[Sasha]

this is realted to the manifesto and acrticel posted in this thread: http://www.revleft.com/vb/gaza-s-youth-t147441/index.html

[Devrim]

ICC article on 'Gaza Youth':


A recent manifesto published in Gaza by a group of eight students has captured the attention of the Western media and gone viral on the internet. Gaza Youth's Manifesto for Change was described as “an incendiary document” by the UK Observer newspaper. Their Facebook page had attracted 5,000,0000 friends before Facebook stopped them from posting on it, and their manifesto has been translated into over twenty languages.

The manifesto itself starts “Fuck Hamas. Fuck Israel. Fuck Fatah. Fuck UN. Fuck UNWRA. Fuck USA! We, the youth in Gaza, are so fed up with Israel, Hamas, the occupation, the violations of human rights and the indifference of the international community!”, and proceeds to denounce the terrorism of the Israeli state, and the dictatorial rule of HAMAS in Gaza. Of course, these are sentiments that all internationalist communists can relate to, and given the situation in Palestine today, the anger which flows from the words of the manifesto is something that can only arouse feelings of solidarity, and respect on a personal level for the bravery of these young people who are obviously putting themselves at risk by these actions.

Nevertheless, when looking more deeply at the document, and surrounding discussions, it seems to us that despite the rejection of HAMAS and Fatah, it is still firmly on the ground of Palestinian nationalism, nor does it even hint at the idea that the only solution to the situation in the Middle east lies in the hands of the working class.
For us this is unsurprising. Over sixty years after the foundation of the state of Israel on ethnic cleansing, the brutality used by Israel in the occupied territories since 1967 and after seven wars, the Palestinian working class is virtually completely tied to the ideology of nationalism. For those in Gaza and on the West Bank, as well as those in the refugee camps of Lebanon, and scattered across the world, the Palestinian national movement seems to offer dignity, and hope for a better future.
Of course these hopes are illusory. Today the goal of a Palestinian state seems further away than ever. Fatah now plays its role as Israel’s policeman on the West Bank, even, according to Wikileaks urging the Israelis to attack HAMAS in Gaza; Gaza itself has been turned into the biggest prison camp in the world, and HAMAS, have taken on the role of the prison guards. This is what GYBO rails against when they talk of being ‘sick of being beaten by HAMAS.

GYBO still places its hopes in the Palestinian national movement though. They write “regarding Israel, it[HAMAS]’s just as it should be and any group fighting Israel has our full support”, and that “we have ONE enemy which is the Zionist Occupier. Hopefully this call will shake our political leaders, wake them up and remind them that they are responsible of us! Hopefully they will realize that what we want is UNITY, and NO MORE DIVISION,”. This is hardly surprising. When looking from the prison that is Gaza, it must seem that there is very little alternative.

The left (ie the left wing of capitalism) often talks about the Palestinian working class being undefeated. For us the working class in Palestine is the most defeated in the region, and is barely capable of asserting its own interests. Of course that doesn’t mean that it is non-existent, or that it doesn’t struggle at all. However, even when it does manage to struggle such as in the teachers’ strike of August 2006, which was joined by many other public sector workers who hadn’t been paid their wages for seven months, the demonstrations ended up turning into gun battles between the rival Palestinian factions. Incidentally HAMAS’ attitude to these strikes was very clear. They firmly denounced them, and called for workers to break the strike, which they said had “no relation to national interests”. This is, of course, a line heard by workers all over the world.

Unlike the Trotskyists, Maoists and others we don’t cheer on the war against Israel from afar. We don’t think that it offers any future for the working class in Palestine except getting them murdered in defence of HAMAS’, or Fatah’s ‘national interests’. For us, we don’t see that there is a solution to the problems within either Palestine or Israel. It is not, for us, a question of endless arguments about whether the Palestinians should be fighting for a one state, or two state solution. The answer lies somewhere else completely.

At the moment there is much talk in the Arabic media of a new Intifada in Tunisia, and not only in Tunisia alone as it seems to be spreading across the border into Algeria. Here we have working class people fighting not for the interests of the nation, but for their own class interests. For us this offers a glimpse of where the solution to the Palestinian question lies, in workers uniting across international boundaries to fight for their own interests, not ‘national interests’. These struggles go beyond just the Arab world and are exactly the same struggles against austerity and job cuts faced by workers everywhere.

http://en.internationalism.org/icconline/2011/gaza

Devrim

[Fulanito de Tal]

The internet is getting dangerous for US bourgeoisie interests. They have removed Cubadebate from YouTube and a Facebook group demanding that Cubadebate's YouTube Account be reinstated. Now, Facebook has deleted a group containing th Gaza Youth Manifesto.

[blake 3:17]

The left (ie the left wing of capitalism) often talks about the Palestinian working class being undefeated. For us the working class in Palestine is the most defeated in the region, and is barely capable of asserting its own interests.

The Palestinian working class has been defeated so badly that it barely exists. The Zionist occupiers do not want to exploit Palestinian labour, all they want is the land. The founding principle of Labour Zionism was to exclude Palestinians from the work force -- the Israeli labour movement is completely founded on racism and continues so til this day.

To try to resolve this through some magic class struggle politics while completely ignoring the role of nationalism and racism will not get us any closer to justice. This is a war for the existence of a people and an opposition to barbaric colonialism. To apply class reductionist logic is to completely miss the point.

[Devrim]

To try to resolve this through some magic class struggle politics while completely ignoring the role of nationalism and racism will not get us any closer to justice. This is a war for the existence of a people and an opposition to barbaric colonialism. To apply class reductionist logic is to completely miss the point.

I don't think that it is in any way ignoring nationalism, and racism. Merely pointing out that it has nothing at all to offer the working class. I am not quite sure what you mean by 'justice', nor am I sure how you think that we can get there, but I think that it is quite clear that nationalism offers no way forward.

Even within your own terms, it is clearly impossible for the Palestinian nationalists to defeat the Israeli state. The only way that that could happen would be with a real shift in the international balance of power and regional war. Something that would be disastrous for the region as a whole, not only leading to tenor hundreds of thousands of workers being massacred, but also reinforcing nationalism across the region.

Conversely, it would be absurd to suggest that a class solution can be found within Israel and Palestine themselves. As you point out the working class in Palestine is utterly defeated. It is at the point that even when it tries to struggle as a class its struggles get dragged into shootouts between different nationalist gangs.

In our opinion the only answer to the problem in Palestine lies in a wider resurgence of class struggle on a a regional and international basis.

Devrim

[blake 3:17]

Thank you for the thoughtful reply. Having re-read the statement and your response, we're not as far away politically as I thought we were. Many of us were excited that gazan youth were speaking out and finding their own voices -- what direction that goes in is up to them and what hardships and opportunities they face.


Conversely, it would be absurd to suggest that a class solution can be found within Israel and Palestine themselves. As you point out the working class in Palestine is utterly defeated. It is at the point that even when it tries to struggle as a class its struggles get dragged into shootouts between different nationalist gangs.

In our opinion the only answer to the problem in Palestine lies in a wider resurgence of class struggle on a a regional and international basis.

In the mean time our duty is to stop the physical destruction of the Palestinian people and their displacement from the land. In this struggle the division between class and nation I think loses its usual distinction.

This isn't to be an apologist for either Fatah or Hamas. Abbas' son has been living in Canada and he's very clearly a corrupt capitalist crook, making his millions from selling cigarettes to Palestinian workers, employed or unemployed.

I can't speak to earlier periods, but at this point the Palestinians in isolation, even with a united democratic leadership, can't defend themselves to achieve basic civil rights.

Many of the corrupt autocratic Arab regimes prop themselves up by doing a bit of this or that for that for the Palestinians while treating them like dirt when they cross their borders.

We need to fight like hell to give the Palestinian masses and the working classes in the region the breathing room to survive, work out their differences in civil and democratic ways and develop new leaderships.

Going through historical works in the past while I was impressed by the vision the PLO articulated in the early 70s -- a secular, multiparty, non-racist democracy. For those of us in the global North some of this stuff may seem obvious, but given how it was quashed and punished when signs of it emerged in the region, it was a very brave vision.

I'll just remind folks looking at this thread that, at present, the most effective Palestine solidarity work is the international boycott, divest and sanctions (BDS) movement. To learn more please see: http://bdsmovement.net/

[Devrim]

In the mean time our duty is to stop the physical destruction of the Palestinian people and their displacement from the land. In this struggle the division between class and nation I think loses its usual distinction.

This brings up to questions. The first is whether the working class is powerful enough to assert itself internationally on a level like this.

The second is why Palestine is particularly special. If we look around the region we can see many instances of national oppression, not least the one in our country, Turkey, where if we were just to look at the death toll alone, the oppression of Kurds had been much worse than the Palestinians. In addition to that the Israeli state has never tried to cultural destroy the Palestinians to the same extent that the Turkish state has tried to destroy the Palestinians in the way that the Turkish state has tried to destroy the very idea of Kurdish identity. Only as recently as a few years ago, it was illegal to even use the word Kurd in the Turkish media, and speaking Kurdish in the privacy of your own home carried an automatic prison sentence of six months

Now, I am not trying to create a hierarchy of oppressions, but merely pointing out that the sort of barbaric policies carried out by Israel are far from unique.

Yet what happens when the Turkish Prime minister makes a few critical comments about Israel, we find people waving Turkish flags on pro-Palestinian demonstrations and such esteemed leftists such as Noam Chomsky making favourable references towards Turkey adopting an independent policy.

So what happens is that one particularly barbaric state, Israel, become the demon, and another equally barbaric state, Turkey, becomes feted by people on the left.

In my opinion, this is a direct reflection of the working classes impotence and inability to have any effect on the problem. The left ceases to be a force for the working class and becomes an auxiliary of the struggles between rival regional powers.


We need to fight like hell to give the Palestinian masses and the working classes in the region the breathing room to survive, work out their differences in civil and democratic ways and develop new leaderships.

What does 'fighting like hell' mean here? Exactly how do you propose to give 'give the working classes in the region the breathing room to survive?


Going through historical works in the past while I was impressed by the vision the PLO articulated in the early 70s -- a secular, multiparty, non-racist democracy. For those of us in the global North some of this stuff may seem obvious, but given how it was quashed and punished when signs of it emerged in the region, it was a very brave vision.

I don't really see the point of lauding programmes, however brave in your opinion, which are absolutely impotent in the real world. It is as relevant as the various leftists arguing about whether they are in favour of one state or two in Palestine when neither is an realistic option.

I think if we can try and look realistically at the possible future in Israel and Palestine there are three possibilities in the order of what I see as their likelihood in the short to medium turn future:

1) The barbarity goes on as it is. To me this seems like the most likely scenario. It may include some sort of 'peace deal', which gives Fatah the task of running a 'bantustan' on behalf of Israel, but this is pretty much effectively the case now, anyway.

2) Israel manages to expel the Arabs to Jordan, and annexes, the West Bank and Gaza.

3) The state of Israel is defeated militarily and a new Palestinian state is set up. In my opinion this would involve regional war and a massive change in the international balance of power.

I don't think that any of the possibilities are desirable.


I'll just remind folks looking at this thread that, at present, the most effective Palestine solidarity work is the international boycott, divest and sanctions (BDS) movement. To learn more please see: http://bdsmovement.net/

Why not disinvest in Turkey? It has more blood on its hands than Israel. To be honest though, none of the states in the region have hands that are anything, but dripping in blood.

More to the point, why not disinvest in the USA, which probably has mort blood on its hands than the lot of them put together?

Of course their is another point about what the whole idea of this sort of campaign is saying to workers in the West, but that is a different question.

Devrim

[gorillafuck]

Devrim: But don't you think that rejection of Fatah and Hamas as well as not coming close to lightening up on zionists is at least indicative of progress?

[blake 3:17]

Thanks again Devrim for the thoughtful reply. I hadn't realized you were in Turkey and look forward to more of your posts.

The reason we support BDS is that the call came from Palestinian organizations and individuals on the Left and there is a possibility of helping to resolve the national conflict there as peacefully as possible through the BDS strategy. I'm in Canada and our government and big businesses have extremely close ties to Israel and its oppression of the Palestinians. The groups I work have supported the Kurdish national struggle and calling Turkey out on its oppression of the Kurds and the liberation movements. But as yet I haven't heard of any broad based calls for boycotts and the Turkish government and capitalists don't have particularly strong ties here, so there isn't a whole lot to boycott.

Here the boycott is a class struggle issue -- we have a rightwing national newspaper, The National Post, originally started as an effort to unite the Right into one party (which did happen) and continues to be published at huge losses as a voice for Zionism. There are drives to keep books out of schools, libraries and bookstores because they depict Palestinians as human beings. Elected officials use discretionary funds to support Zionism and to promote Israel. On my way to work or to the gym or to buy vegetables there are billboards asking to donate or invest in Israel.

Our government has also been complicit in keeping basic humanitarian aid from being delivered to Gaza and there are many people here who've been threatened with deportation or imprisonment because of their past involvement in the Palestinian national struggle.

As you say there are some on the Left who see Turkey or other primarily Muslim or Arab countries as a lesser evil. I don't know enough about Turkey to say whether I would support a boycott of it or the cutting of diplomatic relations with it. I'd be more than happy to see the cutting of ties to Saudi Arabia and the UAE but that's a whole other issue.

Most Kurdish solidarity work here has been around trying to prevent deportations. The treatment of the Palestinians very closely resembles the conquest in North America and given Canadian and American support for Israel it does it make a special case. If I were living elsewhere, I might very likely have different priorities. In the time and place I'm in, this is the fight. There are many other places with worse human rights records but we have no leverage other than calling for imperial intervention.

Again thanks for the reply.

[freepalestine]

Authors of Gaza youth manifesto speak to EI
Rami Almeghari, The Electronic Intifada, 18 January 2011




http://electronicintifada.net/artman2/uploads/3/110113-gaza-youth.jpg

Gaza Youth Break Out: "Youth are the means for change in every society and we do hope to forge that change." (Wissam Nassar/MaanImages (http://www.maanimages.com))



On Saturday, I missed a call on my mobile and when I called the number back, someone calling himself Abu Yazan answered and introduced himself as a member of the group Gaza Youth Breaks Out (GYBO).

The next day five members of the eight-member group -- Abu Yazan, Abu George, Abu Awn, Edward and Jamila -- gathered in Gaza City for an interview with The Electronic Intifada. The group, which includes three women, are all university graduates. Their "Manifesto for Change" published on Facebook circulated widely on the Internet and was covered by international publications such as The Guardian and The New York Times.


Members of GYBO, who come mostly from different refugee camps around Gaza, use pseudonyms to keep their identities confidential from fear they could get in trouble with the authorities. The group also refused to be photographed for The Electronic Intifada.

"We, the youth in Gaza, are so fed up with Israel, Hamas, the occupation, the violations of human rights and the indifference of the international community!" the manifesto states after opening with some strong, attention-grabbing expletives. "We want to scream and break this wall of silence, injustice and indifference like the Israeli F16s breaking the wall of sound."


The document expresses their rejection of the Israeli occupation, holding Israel responsible for the Palestinian people's plight and calling for an end to the occupation, a change to the internal situation and an end to the political split between the two opposing sides in the Palestinian political spectrum -- Fatah and Hamas -- and calling for the youth of Gaza take the lead.

The manifesto criticizes the ruling Hamas party for shutting down the Sharek Youth Forum, a youth organization, in Gaza last November.


The young members of the group were eager to discuss their motivation, background and vision.

"We have one message," a member of the group told The Electronic Intifada. "We, the youth of Gaza, who make up sixty percent of Gaza's 1.6 million residents, have increasingly felt repressed in many aspects, starting from the long-standing Israeli occupation of our lands -- particularly the four-year-old Israeli blockade of Gaza -- through the injustice inflicted everywhere by the rulers of Gaza, who we elected four years ago."

Abu Yazan clarified "If you are a follower of Hamas, Fatah watches over you, if you are a follower of Fatah, Hamas's security personnel watch over you. If you are granted a fellowship abroad, Israel denies you exit out of the besieged Gaza Strip. In Internet cafes, we sometimes feel watched by Hamas's secret agents who are spread everywhere; we increasingly feel we are silenced and never allowed to speak up."


The Hamas government in Gaza and the Western-supported Fatah party in the occupied West Bank have been at loggerheads for the past four years. Since then, both parties have accused each other of cracking down on each other's members, and both parties have alleged that their members have been arrested, harassed and even tortured.


When asked by The Electronic Intifada why they chose to issue their manifesto in English, a GYBO member explained, "Our target is the international audience and we believe that Israel must be blamed for the ongoing hard circumstances in Gaza, particularly the siege, which continues to prevent our basic right to travel abroad and resume study, for example."

The eight-member group also believe that fighting the Israeli occupation can be waged through the media and other peaceful means like in the occupied West Bank village of Bilin where Palestinians, internationals and Israelis are engaged in nonviolent resistance against Israel's wall and occupation.


"Our message is simply a message of peace and we believe that there needs to be a real change that would keep our image as defenseless people under a ruthless Israeli occupation. Youth are the means for change in every society and we do hope to forge that change," Edward said.

The eight youth are all friends of a similar age, and the idea for their initiative first emerged in casual discussions.


"Our move came voluntarily and abruptly while me and some other friends were sitting in a coffee shop," Abu Yazan recalled. "I asked my friend, 'What do you want?' He answered, 'I want to get a job and get married.' I replied, 'This seems to be a dream under such a situation.'"

Abu Yazan added, "We are not affiliated with the government here, we don't have the money to get married and for how long can this situation continue? We should not keep silent, we should speak up!"


Twenty-six-year-old Jamila is married and a mother of three. A graduate in engineering from a local university, she talked about about her frustration trying to get a job.

Asked by The Electronic Intifada whether she had attempted to find a job, even a temporary one, through youth community service initiatives launched by the Hamas government last year (http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article11456.shtml), Jamila replied with a sarcastic laugh.


"What job might I find here?" she asked. "I got in touch with the engineering syndicate, which had some openings for graduates like myself. But a colleague of mine was denied a job after an official asked her, 'What [political] affiliation do you have?' When she answered that she was nonpartisan she was told, 'Sorry, that won't work.'"

Jamila, who covers her hair and dresses in the conservative style that is prevalent in Gaza, is eloquent in both English and Arabic like her peers Abu George and Abu Awn.


As Jamila spoke, Abu Awn interjected, "We want peace, only peace and freedom." He explained that he had been barred from traveling outside of Gaza to Europe three times, preventing him from taking up post-graduate studies. "Why are we not allowed to live normally like other young people around the world?" Abu Awn asked.

The Gaza Youth Break Out group seemed concerned about dispelling any notion that they are out of step with Gaza society or that their attitudes reflect what some might view as inappropriate external influences.


"Maybe some people would consider us to be Westernized, but I can tell you we are not," Abu Awn said. "I pray five times a day and I am aware of many things about my Islamic religion, especially things about how important youth are in a given society. Yet what we notice here is total injustice against youth."

Despite the image some may have of the group because of the repeated expletives in thee group's statement, Abu Yazan said "We had received membership requests from many girls who are said to be non-conservative, but we turned down their requests for they do not fit. We are in a conservative society and born to conservative families and bear some religious orientation and all we want is to live in peace and freedom" said Abu Yazan.


"Almost all of us voted for Hamas and now we want those who we voted for to pay attention to us, let us take the lead and allow us to speak up ... we are confident we have lots of energy to give," said Abu George who wears the trim beard commonly associated with religiously-observant people.

Responding to the announcement by Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh that 2011 will be the "year of youth," Abu George said "What is being said in the media is different from the reality on the ground. Who are the youth they are talking about? Do they mean the youth who belong to a certain party and not another? Everything here is politicized."


According to the group of youth, local reactions to their manifesto to have been confined to thousands of expressions of support on Facebook. They have only received few opposing comments to the manifesto, they say. The group has issued a follow up statement on their blog that they call Gaza Manifesto 2.0 and which responds to some of the reactions they received ("GYBO - Manifesto 2.0 (http://gazaybo.wordpress.com/about)").

Members of the group were keen to stress that they consider it their right to decry the entire situation in the Gaza Strip, but they do not compare what they consider as a corruption within some political parties including the ruling Hamas movement, with the Israeli occupation's actions against the Palestinian people. For them the root-cause of Palestinian problems is the Israeli occupation and this occupation must come to an end once and for all.


The group also said it had contacted some rights groups and academics regarding their manifesto and that they will later start contacting some officials within the government in order to legalize their upcoming steps, which are yet to be revealed, according to Abu Yazan.

The group has been encouraged by the messages of support they received from people inside and outside Gaza and plan to issue more statements soon. Their next step may be to present themselves to the public in larger numbers by holding a press conference. What is clear is that they refuse to be silenced and have proven that they can and will be heard.




Rami Almeghari is a journalist and university lecturer based in the Gaza Strip.

http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article11734.shtml

[Devrim]

Devrim: But don't you think that rejection of Fatah and Hamas as well as not coming close to lightening up on zionists is at least indicative of progress?

In what sense? If it reflects a more general questioning of the nature of those organisation in Palestine then yes, but I don't think that this statement has anything new to offer in itself.

Devrim

[Devrim]

More source material:


GYBO – Manifesto 2.0
Gaza Youth to Planet Earth! Anyone out there? “Gaza what?”

The previous manifesto seems to have grown bigger than expected; many supported us, many others stood firmly against us, and very few stayed indifferent. Everyone had an opinion, yet rarely did they listen to others’ and in the middle of that mess, our own voice remained unheard.

Secular, Islamophobic, Dividing, Conspiratorial, Imaginary (?); we’ve been called by so many names, stopped counting and started crying. Both our supporters and those who swore to tear us down seem to have stopped at ONE thing in our manifesto: “Fuck Israel. Fuck Hamas. Fuck Fatah. Fuck UN. Fuck UNRWA. Fuck USA!”. And no matter how hard we tried to explain on our Facebook page, in vain.

What about the rest? Let’s make things clear, starting with the Palestinian movements point. We were harsh, true. We were angry, and still are. The order in which the “parties” have been cited was not intended, and we are conscious that it brought much confusion in people’s minds. However, to those reproaching us – because we denounced the corruption of our political leaders – of insulting the thousands who voted for Hamas in 2006 (among which us), of insulting the memories of the martyrs of the Resistance groups affiliated to the different Palestinian factions who shed their blood for us in many occasions, starting with Operation Cast Lead, we want to reply don’t insult the Palestinian people’s right to criticize its politicians.

Cast Lead wasn’t a war; Cast Lead was a massacre, a slaughter, anything but a war. And during that massacre, we, people of Gaza, paid from our blood too. Every single Palestinian sacrificed something, someone, it affected us all, from the youngest to the oldest, not only the Resistance. Bombs didn’t make much difference. We never intended to reject the Resistance, and we’re going to repeat it again; we will NEVER reject those who fight for us, for our Palestine, and it was NOT the case in our previous manifesto.

Yes we voted for Hamas government. We all did. We were tired of Fatah government’s corruption, wanted a change and hoped Hamas would be that change. That PRECISELY gives us the right to shout our anger at them, because they are responsible of us, responsible of our well-being, our security. Fatah in the West Bank arrests Hamas affiliates, Hamas in Gaza arrests Fatah affiliates, while everywhere in Palestine you can find family members from different factions living united. Yes we denounce our politicians – note that words; POLITICIANS – because their mutual hatred divided them even during the commemoration of the first anniversary of Cast Lead massacre, while a crowd of Palestinians from all factions stood united by martyrdom, grief, and love for Palestine.

Whether you want to admit it or not, believe it or not, corruption exists, and it’s our right as Palestinians to denounce it, because we are tired of it. Internal change has not only internal parameters. Change will come only if people outside realize that they need to take into consideration the fact that corruption does exist, and that it needs to be stopped if we want unity back. So if it takes us to shout it to the world for our political leaders to hear us and care to unite for us, we’ll do it a hundred times.

No one helps us by asking from us to keep our mouths shut about our political issues. We’re accused of encouraging division because we dare point out the weakness of our political leaders. No one knows, apart from those who are INSIDE, how life is in Palestine because of these divisions. Trying to shut us up by saying “don’t criticize, keep your divisions “secret” and discrete” is most harmful! It just confirms our politicians that they can keep on doing it the way they do it, they will be supported by people who don’t know the theory lying in political programs. In other terms, criticizing Hamas political leaders – but the other factions’ political leaders AS WELL – is a way for us to say “if you keep it this way, all you will get is division, which is what Israel seeks”. We ought to remind them of our martyrs and imprisoned, our ancients, those who gave birth and made those movements live. We ought to remind them that Cheikh Yaseen, Marwan Barghouti, and all the others deserve more than that. Who’s in the best position for such an honest shout out, if not their own children?

The question has been raised about our anonymity. We can understand that. What we don’t understand is that instead of listening to our call for patience and time, we’ve seen ourselves caught in a witch-hunt, as ridiculous as fetching for the slightest element to make us fall. Example?

“The founding base of this group [Sharek Youth Forum] was funded by the U.S.’s National Endowment for Democracy (which have done much to overturn democracy in many countries) is suspect. Allen Weinstein (one of the founders of NED) said “a lot of what we [NED] do today was done covertly 25 years ago by the CIA”. Does that sound good anyone?”

Seriously?! Because we mentioned that the closure of the forum – which was one of the only centers for youths remaining in Gaza, one of the only places where young people could meet, learn foreign languages, use the internet, and enjoy things they don’t have at home to escape from the deadly routine in Gaza – was the straw that broke the camel’s back for youths who had nowhere else to go, people assumed that our “base” was that center and that we were funded by the CIA? Other people claim that it’s most suspicious that our manifesto created that much buzz, made its way to Western journals. Where is the “innocent until proven guilty” principle? We seem to be the first victims of our success.

We do exist, and if we don’t want to reveal our identity for the moment – for safety reasons – it’s our right. However, more proofs of our existence are to come in the next days, one brought by contributors of the Electronic Intifada:

Asa Winstanley : both Max Ajl and Jarid Malsin (non-mainstream western journalists and bloggers based in Gaza, both of whom I personally trust) reckon they are for real:
http://twitter.com/jmalsin/status/21724694201769984
http://twitter.com/maxajl/status/21730678391439360

What is our leitmotiv? Freedom. And for that, we know that we need the Palestinians and their leaders to unite against the Zionist Occupier. And that’s precisely why we call for action. Now. Not in 6 months, not in a year, not wait until another massacre strikes us. Now. We call on the Palestinians to unite and organize in an efficient movement of non violent protests, boycott. We call for divestment and sanctions against “Israel”. We want our land back, we want our freedom of movement back, we want to be able to go abroad to have a chance, like other people of our age, to get education. We want to be able to exchange freely with the world, to have a future and be motivated to work for it. Enough fear, enough terror, enough misery, enough broken dreams, enough airstrikes, enough blockade, enough mourning, enough violation of every single human right we are supposed to have.

We want three things. We want to be free. We want to be able to live a normal life. We want peace. Is that too much to ask? We are a peace movement consistent of young people in Gaza and supporters elsewhere that will not rest until the truth about Gaza and Palestine is known by everybody in this whole world and in such a degree that no more silent consent or loud indifference will be accepted. And if we fail, other groups will take our place, until our voice can’t be ignored anymore.

Devrim

[freepalestine]

@devrim that is their 2nd articleposted week or 2 ago.
the ei- is kind of proving that they exist.





did anyone see their facebook posts?
are they still on there?
n.b. i dont think they are under the name of their organisation.

[Devrim]

The reason we support BDS is that the call came from Palestinian organizations and individuals on the Left and there is a possibility of helping to resolve the national conflict there as peacefully as possible through the BDS strategy. I'm in Canada and our government and big businesses have extremely close ties to Israel and its oppression of the Palestinians. The groups I work have supported the Kurdish national struggle and calling Turkey out on its oppression of the Kurds and the liberation movements. But as yet I haven't heard of any broad based calls for boycotts and the Turkish government and capitalists don't have particularly strong ties here, so there isn't a whole lot to boycott.

My point about boycotts is not that I think that there should be a boycott of Turkey. My first point is that all capitalist states are butchers, so why is Israel in particular boycotted. Surely if leftists are organisaing a boycott campaign against any state then it should be the US. My point about Turkey is that it is up their with Israel in the barbarism stakes.

Incidentally Kurdish organisations have called for a boycott and Canadian business actually has more trade with Turkey than Israel, 1.9 billion as opposed to 1.8 billion:


Canada-Turkey bilateral merchandise trade has almost doubled in the last five years, reaching $1.9 billion in 2008. Canadian exports to Turkey reached $1.2 billion in 2008, with a product mix ranging from commodities to advanced technology goods. These included approximately $330 million worth of agricultural goods. Turkey is Canada's 22nd largest merchandise export market and the 45th largest source of merchandise imports.


Canada's diversified bilateral trade with Israel reflects the sophistication of both economies. Israel is Canada’s fourth largest merchandise export market in the Middle East and North Africa. 2009 marks the 12th Anniversary of the Canada-Israel Free Trade Agreement (CIFTA), a goods-only agreement. Bilateral merchandise trade has more than tripled since the CIFTA’s implementation in 1997 from $507.3 million in 1996, to a record high of $1.8 billion in 2008.

We don't support the Kurdish national struggle. For us it is a bourgeois movement, which plays its role in dividing the working class. I don't really see how young Kurdish boys, and young Kurdish boys killing each other up in the mountains does anything towards building class unity and consciousness.

All national liberation movements have a tendency to becomes tools of rival powers. The Kurdish movement in particular has been a victim of this with Kurdish nationalist movements having been supported by all of the regional powers (Turkey, Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Israel) as well as of course the major powers, the US and former USSR.


Here the boycott is a class struggle issue -- we have a rightwing national newspaper, The National Post, originally started as an effort to unite the Right into one party (which did happen) and continues to be published at huge losses as a voice for Zionism. There are drives to keep books out of schools, libraries and bookstores because they depict Palestinians as human beings. Elected officials use discretionary funds to support Zionism and to promote Israel. On my way to work or to the gym or to buy vegetables there are billboards asking to donate or invest in Israel.

To be honest, I don't see how any of this relates to it being a 'class struggle issue', or at least class struggle as I understand it.


There are many other places with worse human rights records but we have no leverage other than calling for imperial intervention.

I think that this is a very important point. Ultimately though I think that for the Palestinian cause to win, you will have no other choice to end up calling for imperil intervention. It won't be US intervention, but I don't really see how there can be any emergence of a palestinian national state without a real change in the balance of terror.

Devrim

[blake 3:17]

Surely if leftists are organisaing a boycott campaign against any state then it should be the US.

I wish it were possible. The boycott tactic is a limited one and needs very clear targets. I've confessed this to other folks, and don't mind sharing, that I frequently buy Chinese products when it's a choice between China or the US. I'm not sure that this accomplishes much, but que sera sera.


To be honest, I don't see how any of this relates to it being a 'class struggle issue', or at least class struggle as I understand it.


I didn't make the point very clearly, did I? I'd have to get into details I've neither the energy or will to make on a board like this, but in Canada, this is a class struggle issue -- in conflict with the state, within the labour movement, within the other major institutions of the working class. The state in many of its different arms has tried to shut down all discussion on the issue, and both elected governments and bureaucratic wings, have tried very hard to make opposition to Zionism equivalent to anti-Semitism. Here it has become a kind of neo-McCarthyism.

I've been impressed by the fairly small number of Zionists who have been willing to argue and push for democratic rights of free speech. The main Zionist groups have been trying to get books banned, keep people from speaking publicly (eg. George Galloway) and slander people on the Left. People have lost their jobs because they were seen to be too pro-Palestinian. Several of the most progressive NGOs here have lost funding because they allowed debate on BDS.

Instead of a class struggle issue, we could call it a struggle for democratic rights. I think the fight for free speech is part of the class struggle and the struggle for a socialist workers democracy.


I think that this is a very important point. Ultimately though I think that for the Palestinian cause to win, you will have no other choice to end up calling for imperil intervention. It won't be US intervention, but I don't really see how there can be any emergence of a palestinian national state without a real change in the balance of terror

Some of the European Communist parties have called for imperial intervention. I wouldn't support that at present. I wish the Allies in World War 2 had bombed the train lines to the concentration camps. I could go into a series of What Ifs? about the region. I'd get into that over a beer and a game of cards, but not here.