In 2022, Palestinian popular resistance and global solidarity manifested like never before, despite the escalating violence and oppression of the Israeli government. 🧵
In a year where Palestinian cities were placed under siege and over 200 Palestinians were killed, we saw how Palestinians faced each new assault and global support flourished. As Zionism is articulated with more clarity, so does the enduring call for a liberated Palestine.
Palestinian flags were seen more than any other at the world cup in a huge blow to those who pushed for normalization with the Israeli government and deeply moving to witness.
Thousands of Palestinians held multiple general strikes in 2022. These displays of mass organized solidarity exemplified Palestinian steadfastness and dedication to defending their land and people.
2022 saw a wave of BDS wins. Ben & Jerry’s won their lawsuit against their parent company after refusing to sell their products in occupied Palestine. General Mills divested from a deal in an Israeli settlement.
Over 900 musicians including artists like Noname, Brian Eno, Patti Smith, and FKA Twigs signed the #MusiciansForPalestine pledge, promising not to play in Israel and always stand with Palestinians.
Hundreds of Amazon and Google workers took to the streets in 4 cities across the U.S. to demand No Tech for Apartheid — that their labor not be used to further harm and commit violence against Palestinians.
JVP disrupted ADL facilitated training exchanges between US police and Israeli military with our Deadly Exchange campaign. A leaked memo revealed the ADL paused these police exchanges after we made the programs too controversial to continue.
2022 welcomed the US’ first anti-Zionist synagogue, Tzedek Chicago. To step into “deeper solidarity,” with Palestinians the synagogue voted to become anti-Zionist.
Shatzi Weisberger, anti-Zionist Jewish lesbian and organizer died this November surrounded by community. A lifelong activist, she was a guiding light in our movement. The support Shatzi received before her death showed what’s possible when we build political family.
Amidst the terror we feel the collective hope for Palestinian freedom with each BDS win, each Palestinian flag waved, each voice against Zionism. As we enter 2023 we bring our collective power with us.
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The Israeli government has abandoned all pretenses for its goal of ethnically cleansing of all Palestinians from their land, accelerating its genocide in Gaza and engineering the largest land theft in the occupied West Bank in over thirty years.
Last week, war criminal and Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu promised the Israeli military would expand its genocidal assault to achieve the Israeli military’s “permanent maintenance of the territory [of Gaza],” a pledge of mass death, expulsion and total land theft.
Netanyahu also made the terrifying promise that the “final stage” of the Israeli government’s genocide will be the implementation of Trump’s plan for “voluntary migration” and “selling Gaza.”
Yesterday, Palestinians located the bodies of 15 aid workers in a mass grave in Gaza. One week after two ambulances were directly shot at by the Israeli military, the bodies of these Red Crescent workers were finally found handcuffed and crushed under their ambulances, concealed in a mass grave.🧵
The @PalestineRCS recovered the bodies of eight medics, six civil defense workers, and one UN employee, all killed when the Israeli military opened fire on them in Rafah while they were en route to provide first aid. A spokesperson for the Palestinian Civil Defence in Gaza said that each retrieved body was riddled with around 20 gunshots from the Israeli military. A ninth PCRS medic is still missing.
This is the deadliest attack on Red Cross or Red Crescent workers worldwide in nearly a decade. The medics killed by the Israeli military are Mustafa Khafaja, Ezz El-Din Shaat, Saleh Muammar, Refaat Radwan, Muhammad Bahloul, Ashraf Abu Libda, Muhammad Al-Hila, and Raed Al-Sharif.
Project Esther is here. Students and faculty at universities across the country are being targeted by ICE for deportation due to their support for Palestine under the guise of fighting antisemitism. The Trump regime is pulling funding to blackmail universities into complying with authoritarian restrictions on free speech and curriculum.
The JVP Academic Advisory Council’s report on Project Esther argues that, “The architects of Project Esther aren't interested in fighting antisemitism, even in this moment of rising white nationalism – instead, they're building a machine to crush dissent by any means necessary.”
And this is only the beginning. As Project Esther, a policy proposal designed by the far-Right think tank the Heritage Foundation, reveals, the attacks on the Palestine movement are only a blueprint. The Trump regime, under the false pretext of combatting antisemitism, will then proceed to dismantle the entire progressive left.
Yesterday, we watched in horror and disgust as newly released footage showed masked ICE agents surrounding a terrified Rumeysa, a PhD student at Tufts University, handcuffing her on the street and taking her away.
Like previous abductions of people without US citizenship who expressed support for Palestine, Rumeysa’s lawyer was unable to locate her for several hours.
The Israeli military is committing genocide against Palestinians at the fastest rate since October 2023. Since the Israeli government violated the ceasefire nearly a week ago, the Israeli military has killed nearly 700 Palestinians, including at least 400 women and children.🧵
Last week, the Israeli military invaded Rafah and retook the Netzarim Corridor, dividing Gaza and further displacing Palestinians, massacring fleeing families, and targeting the injured. Evacuation notices and so-called humanitarian zones mask further Israeli bombardment. Yesterday, Israeli warplanes bombed Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Yunis, killing at least five Palestinians and injuring many more.
The Israeli military has blocked all humanitarian aid to Gaza for 22 days, longer than the October 2023 siege. With no food, medicine, water, or fuel allowed in, @UNWRA reports Palestinians have enough flour for only four more days.
“They ordered all of us, men and women, to take off our clothes and to continue walking, ordering us to only look forward. I was walking naked between the tanks, not even wearing underwear. An Israeli soldier spit in my face. I forced myself not to react as I knew they would break every bone in my body if I did” — A Palestinian man recounting his evacuation through Salah al-Din Street, Gaza
Sexual, reproductive, and gender-based violence occurs in almost all wars and genocides, and Gaza is no exception. Torture and humiliation is a tool of repressive regimes to punish and try to destroy the spirit of anyone who challenges their oppression. A new report from the UN titled “More Than a Human Can Bear” shares harrowing accounts of sexual, reproductive, and other forms of gender-based violence committed by Israeli forces and settlers against Palestinians in Gaza and the occupied West Bank since October 2023.
The report details a variety of abhorrent practices by the Israeli military and settlers against Palestinians in Gaza and the occupied West Bank: the military targeting of Palestinian women and girls, military attacks on sexual and reproductive healthcare facilities, starvation as a form of reproductive violence, sexual harassment and shaming of Palestinian women, filming and photographing of sexual acts against Palestinian men and boys, sexual violence during checkpoints and evacuations and more.