Asian American & Native Hawaiian, Pacific Islander Statement on Solidarity with Palestine
Statement by Ad Hoc Committee of Asian American & Native Hawaiian, Pacific Islander World Citizens. May 27, 2024. Please sign.
As peoples in the Americas whose ancestors come from countries in Asia, Hawaii, and the Pacific Islands, and as members of indigenous communities in these regions, we issue this statement of solidarity with the people of Palestine living in Gaza, the West Bank, East Jerusalem, Israel, and in diaspora throughout the world. Our statement of solidarity is based upon our own historical experiences of imperialism, settler colonialism, racism, militarism, war, economic and land exploitation, displacement, internment, incarceration, and forced migration.
As a result of the Covid Pandemic in 2020, Asian American communities and individuals were verbally and physically attacked due to American politicians and media calling Covid19 the 'China virus'. The resulting Hate crimes against Asian Americans immediately increased as racism against Asian Americans spread across the USA once again, amplifying also the anti-Muslim and anti-Arab racism that has surged since September 11, 2001 and expanded since October 2023.
This anti-Asian racism and violence has always existed in the US dating back to decades of discrimination, exclusion, bans, war, surveillance, incarceration, and deportation. The Zionist settler colonization of Palestine since 1948 (the Nakba) and the apartheid system of racial segregation, confinement, and subjugation of Palestinians has been supported by unconditional military, financial, and political aid by the US to Israel.
In the besieged Gaza Strip, since October 7, 2023, at least 35,800 people, including more than 15,000 children have been killed (at this time), and universities and hospitals have been bombed in the current genocidal violence endorsed by the US. In the Occupied West Bank, at least 518 people, including more than: 129 children have been killed, as part of the ongoing Nakba that has devastated Palestinians. This genocidal violence has also enacted a form of scholasticide, destroying the entire educational system in Gaza.
There is currently across the US a massive, cross-racial anti-war movement opposing the genocide in Palestine that is unlike any other antiwar and internationalist uprising since the protests of the American war in Vietnam , which was reported in 1995 by Vietnam to have killed 2 million civilians. As in that earlier moment, it is students and youth who are leading this transnational solidarity movement and demanding that US universities boycott and divest from Israel. This is a grassroots response to the call for Boyott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) from Palestinian civil society till Israel ends its colonial violence, racial apartheid, and recognizes the right of return of Palestinian refugees. It is clear that the people no longer endorse and will remain silent about US support for Zionism, including Jewish people who are increasingly vocal in resisting the weaponization of antisemitism to silence critique of Israel.
This statement of solidarity emerges from our relationships with the Palestinian people and our solidarity with their freedom struggles which have been, and continue to be, censored and misrepresented in U.S. academia, mainstream media, and cultural and religious institutions. Our call for AA and NHPI solidarity is based upon principles of equality, freedom, and human rights for all people, around the world, and our opposition to Israel’s war on Gaza, genocide, ethnic cleansing, and colonization of Palestine. We call for:
Immediate Ceasefire and Permanent Peace in Gaza
Withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza and Israeli settlers from the West Bank
Immediately Open borders for International Aid to enter Gaza unrestricted
Cease shipments of all USA weapons of war to Israel and end US military aid to Israel
UN Full Recognition of the Palestinian State
Boycott, Divest, and Sanction Israel till it complies with international human rights law i.e. ends its colonization and occupation of Palestinian lands and dismantles the Apartheid Wall, grants full equality to Palestinian citizens of Israel, and recognizes the right of return of Palestinian refugees (UN Resolution 194)
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