Palestine

By staff - La Via Campesina, November 20, 2023

HALT THE GENOCIDE! CEASEFIRE NOW!

(Bagnolet, November 20, 2023) In response to the unprecedented and genocidal war being waged on the people of Palestine, the international peasant movement that is La Via Campesina joins the growing call to boycott COP28. In solidarity with the peasants, fisherfolk and working families of Occupied Palestine, we stand united in our global demand that all people and governments act now to end Israel’s genocidal war on Palestinians, both in Gaza and the West Bank. A ceasefire is urgent – now!

While the Israeli government continues its war crimes in Gaza – bombing homes, hospitals, mosques and churches, massacring innocent civilians (including over 4,000 children) and leaving tens of thousands maimed, injured and traumatized – armed settlers backed by Occupation forces are waging their own war across the West Bank. As a Movement that struggles for the full realization of all rights for all peoples, we of La Vía Campesina cannot in good conscience participate in the UNFCCC climate negotiations while a textbook case of genocide is being waged on members of our community, their rights and sovereignty completely denied. There is no climate justice without human rights!

As we bear witness to this violence, we are especially concerned about the greenwashing of colonization and apartheid at this year’s COP28 in Dubai. Israel’s participation obscures the ongoing genocide and redirects global attention from the crimes it commits. The hypocrisy and abuse of many imperialist and polluting governments at COP28 is further revealed by the host government for the climate talks, the UAE, a major oil producer and human rights violator, and the COP Presidency – a billionaire oil executive! The corruption of the UNFCCC must end!

Our decision to boycott COP28 is also our ratification of a deep commitment to and solidarity with a global climate justice movement rooted in popular struggles for human rights and restored relations with Mother Earth. Towards this year’s COP, we dedicate our collective voice to demand an inmediate cease fire now! Palestinian rights are human rights!

By staff - La Via Campesina, November 17, 2023

Israel is waging a genocidal war on Palestinians. In addition to its incessant bombings – targeting civilians, residential buildings, hospitals, schools, places of worship, and all basic infrastructure – Israel has imposed a complete blockade on Gaza, preventing the 2.3 million Palestinians in Gaza from accessing food, water, electricity, and fuel. The farmers have no access to their farmland, much of which has been bombed. The fisher folk too have no access to the sea. Israel’s ongoing brutal assault has created a human catastrophe of unimaginable scale. La Via Campesina’s member organization in Palestine, the Union of Agricultural Workers Committee (UAWC), warns that “Those who survive the bombings will die of starvation or thirst”.

It is urgent that third states take immediate action against this crime against humanity. The global mass mobilization of the past month has shown that the majority of the world stands with justice, and the majority of countries are deeply shocked by Israel’s blatant genocidal warfare imposed on the Palestinian people.

We call upon the governments who supported the United Nations General Assembly resolution for a humanitarian truce on the 26th of October to take immediate action to uphold their legal and humanitarian obligations and protect civilians. We urge these third states to organize an International Conference of Governments as soon as possible in order to stop this genocidal war and bring immediate relief to Palestinian people, in particular those in Gaza. This conference is a critical step towards the end of the illegal Israeli occupation of Palestine.

By Memet Uludag - Global Ecosocialist Network, November 17, 2023

As thousands of civilians continue to die and millions suffer under the ongoing Israeli bombardment of Gaza, there is another horror that threatens the future of the Palestinian people and the future of our planet: The deepening environmental crisis.

Wars create environmental disasters. We witnessed this in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, among others. The consequences of these wars for the environment are well documented. Toxic weapons and the destruction of civilian infrastructure have created long-lasting pollution of the air, land and water sources. Millions of people continue to suffer long after the bombs stop.

Today we are witnessing yet another bombing of Gaza as an escalation of the long-running siege by Israel. On October 26th the Municipality of Gaza City issued a warning that the city is witnessing an environmental disaster due to the accumulation of garbage. The bin crews cannot service the city because of the ongoing Israeli airstrikes. This can cause serious health and environmental problems. More than 2,500, including 1500 children, have been reported missing and may be trapped or dead under the rubble. Gaza Municipality officials warn about the serious health risks this is creating for the people.

However, the environmental crisis in Gaza is not new and Israel is responsible for it. The New Arab Newspaper puts it plainly: “By limiting what is fished, what comes in and out of Gaza, and routinely bombing civilian and agricultural infrastructure, Israel has contributed to Gaza’s barely liveable conditions.”

By Radhika Jani, Ameen Kamlana, Nambi Kiyira, and Lauriem Mompelat - Platform London, November 17, 2023

“This is our memory. It is the history. It is the land. it is the sky.”

– Fadia’s Tree (2022)

“If the olive trees knew the hands that planted them, their oil would become tears.“

– Mahmoud Darwish

Uprooted

October and November are celebrated as olive harvesting season in Palestine. This is usually a joyous time when Palestinians return to the trees that have provided sustenance to their family for generations. But these months are now being marked with a calamitous and all-encompassing grief as bombs rain down. The land is not fruiting, it is bleeding.

No stranger to difficulty, the olive tree grows under harsh conditions: it is drought resistant and has become a symbol for Palestinian belonging, resilience and hope under Israeli occupation. Olive trees have an average lifespan of 500 years, and many on Palestinian land predate the Israeli occupation by centuries. These are trees that have been lovingly tended to and are the primary source of income for about 800,000 families.

Approximately one million olive trees have been illegally uprooted by the Israeli authorities since 1967. Over 9,000 were removed in August 2021, and in March 2022, 2,000 olive trees were uprooted in the village of Marda in the West Bank, where Israeli forces also ‘sprayed chemical pesticides over olive, grape and almond saplings’. 

Saad Dagher, a Palestinian agronomist from Mazari En-Nubani, says that Palestinian farming has always been “polycultural, meaning that different crops can and should grow side by side on one piece of land. Israeli agriculture has imposed monocultures, which go against the natural biodiversity and self-sustainability of Palestinian land”. Farmland and crops owned by Palestinians present a barrier to annexing more land for Israeli settlements, so the desecration of olive trees both facilitates the process of colonisation and helps destroy Palestinian history, morale and collective memory. 

By Patrick Nevada and Bev Tang - Rising Tide North America, November 15, 2023

Photos and videos for download here: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1CAZK8SHZ2Yi-Y1dMQMiaQZG_3SlJknpz?usp=sharing

San Francisco, CA – Members of the No to APEC Coalition engaged in a civil disobedience action by blocking access to the site of the APEC CEO Summit at the Moscone West Convention Center in defiance of the hyper-militarized structures erected by the local and federal government. This action is the latest effort by the No to APEC Coalition during its months-long campaign to highlight the global and local harms of free trade and global free market agendas while demanding an immediate ceasefire in Gaza.

By staff - La Via Campesina, October 25, 2023

This week (23-27 October) United Nations member states resume historical negotiations in the ninth session at the United Nations (UN) in Geneva with the mandate to elaborate an international legally binding instrument to regulate, in international human rights law, the activities of transnational corporations (TNCs).

The consistent participation of members of communities affected by activities of transnational corporations, civil-society organisations, trade unions and social movements makes it one of the most strongly supported processes in the history of UN human rights treaty negotiations. The Global Campaign to Reclaim Peoples Sovereignty, Dismantle Corporate Power and Stop Impunity (Global Campaign), representing more than 260 million people globally affected by Transnational Corporations has, once again, a strong presence in Geneva, where it is contributing decisively to the negotiations.

At the opening day, a broad group of states blocked the adoption of the program of work because of their concerns about the new text’s failure to incorporate their views and address the core mandate of the treaty to focus on transnationals. They also raised broader concerns regarding the non-democratic and non-transparent methodology of the Chair of the process, Ecuador.

In particular, the African group –representing all 54 African states took the lead and was backed by numerous state delegates from Global South countries, such as Cuba, Bolivia, Venezuela, Pakistan, Iran and Saudi Arabia. The backlash was so strong that the Chair had to suspend the morning session to seek consensus, and was only able to proceed after conceding to use a track-changes version of the text, which reflected prior proposals of states they felt had been unfairly removed. The Chair was also forced to defend the shift in focus from transnational corporations to all businesses – a shift that accommodates the positions of the EU, US, other developed countries, as well as industry trade groups involved in the process. He insisted he was not trying to impose a new focus for the treaty, and agreed that it was not within his power to make such a shift and that issues of scope would decided through negotiations.

By Howie Hawkins and Federico Fuentes - Links, January 28, 2023

Howie Hawkins is a retired Teamsters union warehouse worker, the US Green Party 2020 presidential candidate and an ecosocialist. Together with a range of other leftists, socialists, unionists and academics, he recently helped set up the Ukraine Solidarity Network (US). Hawkins spoke to Federico Fuentes about the initiative and the challenges of building solidarity with Ukraine while opposing US imperialism.

Could you tell us a bit about how and why the Ukraine Solidarity Network came about, and what the fundamental aim of the network is? What practical solidarity does the network plan to carry out?

The Ukraine Solidarity Network was initiated at a meeting at the Socialism 2022 conference in Chicago in early September. We convened following a talk on “Ukraine, Self-Determination, and Imperialist War” by Yuliya Yurchenko of Sotsialnyi Rukh (Social Movement), a democratic socialist organisation in Ukraine. Though initiated by socialists, we agreed to build a broader network of people to support the Ukrainian people’s national liberation struggle. Our fundamental aim is to build moral, political and material support in labour and social movements for the people of Ukraine in their resistance to Russia’s invasion and their struggle for independence, democracy and social justice. We want to nurture links between progressive labor and social organizations in Ukraine and the United States.

Public education is an immediate priority. We want to counter the narratives of significant parts of the old left and the peace movement in the United States who have decided that if the US is sending arms to Ukraine, they must automatically oppose that support. Given the vicious history of US imperialism, that stance may be understandable. But a one-size-fits-all conclusion is not justified without a critical examination of each conflict. Would these people have opposed US military aid to the anti-fascist forces in the Spanish Civil War because it came from the US imperialist state? Or the military aid the US gave to the Soviet Union in World War II? Or the US arms and special forces the US sent to the Viet Minh resisting the Japanese invasion during that war? In the case of Ukraine, the knee-jerk conclusion of no US aid to the Ukrainian national liberation struggle reveals a US-centric colonial mindset. It sees US imperialism as the cause of what they call “the US proxy war on Russia.” It renders the Ukrainians invisible. Ukrainian perspectives on the causes of the war and why they want arms for self-defence are ignored, including the views of progressive trade union, socialist, anarchist, feminist, LGBT and environmental movements in Ukraine.

The Ukraine Solidarity Network wants to be a voice on the US left that opposes all imperialisms — Russian as well as US — and supports the right of historically colonised and oppressed nations like Ukraine to self-determination and to self-defence against aggression. We are concerned that those on the US left who oppose aid to Ukraine and, in some quarters, openly support a Russian victory, are alienating progressive- and peace-minded people in the US and internationally from the left.

While US military and economic support for Ukraine currently has wide support in the political centre and left, it is fast eroding in the Republican Party. The US right admires Putin’s authoritarian strongman rule and his conservative Christian, ethnonationalist, patriarchal, anti-gay, anti-trans and climate change-denying policies and pronouncements. US aid to Ukraine will be challenged by the Republican majority in the House of Representatives when the next round of funding is considered later this year. By next fall, far-right “peace” candidates, who will campaign on cutting aid to Ukraine and redirecting those military resources to Pacific deployments against China and Mexican border deployments against migrants, are likely to gain traction in the Republican presidential primaries. I hope the Ukraine Solidarity Network will have a significant influence on the Ukraine debate in US politics with a progressive perspective that support’s Ukraine’s self-determination and opposes both Russian and US imperialism.