Support Samidoun

As the US-Israeli genocide continues to massacre families in Gaza, destroy hospitals, bombard schools and residential buildings, and destroy life-sustaining infrastructure, the same forces are using legal methods to suppress those standing in solidarity with Palestinians abroad. Most recently, on October 15, 2024, the United States and Canada, decided to sanction Samidoun - Palestinian Prisoner Support Network, which works to educate and organize around the very central issue of Palestinian prisoners. We reject this decision and urge others to reflect on the events that have led to it and the future it will usher in without our public and vocal resistance.

This decision to target Samidoun, founded in 2011 as a dedicated support network for the more than (now) 10,000 known Palestinian prisoners languishing in Israeli occupation prisons, follows years of efforts by imperial states to dismantle the structures of Palestinian solidarity. Only last year, in November 2023, Germany also banned Samidoun — along with the slogan “from the River to the Sea, Palestine will be free.” These moves illuminate a stark reality that reflects nothing about the work of Samidoun, and everything about the desires of the decision-makers behind them: any real solidarity with Palestinians, any vision of a just future, should not be allowed in the public sphere of states like Germany, Canada, and the United States.

These attacks on Samidoun’s work are not new. Only a few years prior, in 2021, Israel itself named Samidoun a “terrorist organization” — alongside Palestinian human rights NGOs Al Haq, Addameer, Bisan Center for Research and Development, Defense for Children International - Palestine, Union of Palestinian Women’s Work Committees, and the Union for Agricultural Work Committees. This move followed a targeted pressure campaign by settler organizations in Israel, including Regavim and NGO Monitor, which identified these seven groups as some of the most influential and effective organizations supporting Palestinians in remaining on their lands.

At the time and since, Samidoun has not received the support it deserves. While the US-European network of NGOs mobilized quickly to #Standwiththe6, building the support these organizations rightly deserve, they explicitly excluded this seventh organization. This action drew a very public line that reflected who these NGOs are willing to sacrifice and whom they deem worthy of protection in the public sphere.

This is wrong. When we accept the targeted attempts at silencing, policing, and finally outlawing the work of any organization operating in solidarity with Palestinians — particularly one that represents the interests of one of the most vulnerable groups within Palestinian society — we are not only moving out of a space of real solidarity and throwing these people to the wolves. We are not only accepting the “right” of imperialists, former colonial powers, and settler colonies to demarcate what is legitimate and illegitimate in terms of advocating with and for colonized people. We are ceding ideological ground. We are inviting more attacks on the colonized people themselves, and all those who stand in solidarity with them. We are giving up more power, giving each other up, and bowing our heads to the violence of these efforts to silence us, constrict our speech and actions, and prevent the formation of real visions of justice.

This lack of support — a decision which was made and upheld over years by organizations that claim to stand in solidarity with Palestinians — is directly connected to this attack on Samidoun today.

Luckily, the folks organizing at Samidoun are steadfast (the meaning of the organization’s name in Arabic). They are unfaltering in their determination to move forward with their work. As they do so, we can correct the mistakes of the past by rejecting these heinous attacks on their work and even targeted measures against some of the individuals behind Samidoun as individuals. We can be vocal and open about our decision to support all principled solidarity with the Palestinian people. We can call for the reversal of these decisions, based on the awareness that these attacks are empty attempts to intimidate and silence, and knowing that none of us win when we sell each other out to the violence of imperial and colonial states.

During genocide, resistance cannot only look like ending the genocide. While this must be first and foremost, we must keep our eyes open and look around to see the mechanisms that allowed the genocide to begin and facilitated its continuation — for example, the US and Germany have provided almost all of the weapons Israel has used to enact genocide in Gaza. However, we must also see and resist the tightening and entrenchment of these systems, which criminalize principled stances, target material campaigns (such as the many laws against BDS), and create new ways to harm those we care about in Palestine, and those in solidarity who also deserve to be safe and supported. We must resist these measures with all our might, for all of our sakes.

Consider going to the Samidoun website where you can sign up to their listserve and also join their social media channel for updates how you can show your support for their critical work.

Until liberation,

Lara Kilani

Action Items for Samidoun

 

Tell the Canadian Government to Stop Criminalizing Palestinian Advocacy

Canada: Abolish rights-violating terrorist entities list!

End the Attacks on Samidoun and all Palestinian Rights Supporters