No One Is Illegal Vancouver - On Palestine

BLOG POST posted on May 15, 2011 by Harsha W.

Originally posted here: http://noii-van.resist.ca/?p=640

No One is Illegal-Vancouver, Coast Salish Territories is a grassroots immigrant and refugee rights collective with leadership from members of migrant and/or racialized backgrounds. We struggle for a world in which no one is forced to migrate against their will, and where people can move freely in order to live and flourish in justice and dignity. As an anti-colonial collective, we recognize the Palestinian struggle for justice and the liberation of historic Palestine as being central to our work and principles.

We oppose the settler policies of Israel, which have and continue to be supported by the Canadian state, and stand against the continued displacement of Palestinians and the confiscation of their land and homes since 1948. We call for an immediate end to the Israeli occupation of all Palestinian territories and the system of apartheid that characterizes life in Palestine; the recognition of the right of return for all Palestinian refugees; and full political, social and economic equality for all people in historic Palestine.

Specifically, we uphold the following:

As individuals and communities on occupied indigenous territory, we affirm our solidarity with the struggles of indigenous people for self-determination and sovereignty across Turtle Island. In opposing the racist and colonial ideology of the State of Israel, we similarly oppose the violent colonization upon which Canada was founded and the continued dispossession of the indigenous peoples of Turtle Island. We recognize that a diversity of people, including racialized migrants and other oppressed people, reside on occupied lands. As such, we acknowledge the different ways in which we benefit from- while many of us are being marginalized by- the processes of racist colonization.

We affirm the fundamental and inalienable right of all Palestinian refugees to return to the original towns, villages, and lands of 1948 and 1967 occupied Palestine from which they were expelled. We believe that the right of return of Palestinian refugees is central to the global movement against dispossession and displacement, of which No One is Illegal is a part. We further affirm the right of Palestinian refugees to migrate beyond the Occupied Territories/ surrounding refugee camps in order to live with dignity and respect. The right to remain, the right to migrate, and the right to return are all essential elements to the human assertion of self-determination.

We oppose the Zionist-Eurocentric foundation of the State of Israel that claims a racist, exclusionary, and privileged Jewish identity and discriminates citizenship and land title rights on the basis of race. Instead, we support the creation of a free, independent, anti-oppressive, and democratic society within historic Palestine. This includes the right to return of Palestinian refugees and global freedom of movement into Palestine for those who desire it. We believe that the right to mobility, which is primarily the reality for millions of poor and racialized migrants who are indigenous to the global South, is distinct from capitalist settler-colonialism that destroys or assimilates existing societies and justifies theft of land and resources for the benefit of a privileged group.

Given the Israeli government and its imperialist allies’ monopoly over state violence, we believe it is necessary to support the right to Palestinian armed resistance, which has even been affirmed by the imperialist international legal regime. We reject the false dichotomy of violent and non-violent resistance, a Eurocentric construct that serves to divide, simplify, and decontextualize diverse movements. While we believe that all social movements have the right to debate tactics, we take leadership from those engaged in their own struggle.

Within Vancouver, we will continue to actively work in solidarity with others to oppose and expose all forms of political and diplomatic support provided by the Canadian government to the State of Israel; continue to fight the deportation of Palestinian refugees by the Canadian government despite its direct complicity in the continued displacement of the Palestinian people; and support local initiatives for a Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign in response to an appeal issued by over 170 grassroots organizations in Palestine calling for international solidarity.

Free Palestine!