This open letter was posted at the website of the US Palestine Community Network. Please forward to any and all activist circles concerned with Pales­tin­ian lib­er­a­tion and freedom and justice in the Middle East.

For many years now, Gilad Atzmon, a musician born in Israel and currently living in the United Kingdom, has taken on the self-appointed task of defining for the Pales­tin­ian movement the nature of our struggle, and the phi­los­o­phy under­pin­ning it. He has done so through his various blogs and Internet outlets, in speeches, and in articles. He is currently on tour in the United States promoting his most recent book, entitled, ‘The Wandering Who.’

With this letter, we call for the disavowal of Atzmon by fellow Pales­tin­ian orga­niz­ers, as well as Palestine sol­i­dar­ity activists, and allies of the Pales­tin­ian people, and note the dangers of sup­port­ing Atzmon’s political work and writings and providing any platforms for their dis­sem­i­na­tion. We do so as Pales­tin­ian orga­niz­ers and activists, working across con­ti­nents, campaigns, and ide­o­log­i­cal positions.

Atzmon’s politics rest on one main over­rid­ing assertion that serves as spring­board for vicious attacks on anyone who disagrees with his obsession with “Jew­ish­ness”. He claims that all Jewish politics is “tribal,” and essen­tially, Zionist. Zionism, to Atzmon, is not a settler-colonial project, but a trans-historical “Jewish” one, part and parcel of defining one’s self as a Jew. Therefore, he claims, one cannot self-describe as a Jew and also do work in sol­i­dar­ity with Palestine, because to identify as a Jew is to be a Zionist. We could not disagree more. Indeed, we believe Atzmon’s argument is itself Zionist because it agrees with the ideology of Zionism and Israel that the only way to be a Jew is to be a Zionist.

Pales­tini­ans have faced two centuries of ori­en­tal­ist, colo­nial­ist and impe­ri­al­ist dom­i­na­tion of our native lands. And so as Pales­tini­ans, we see such language as immoral and com­pletely outside the core foun­da­tions of humanism, equality and justice, on which the struggle for Palestine and its national movement rests. As countless Pales­tin­ian activists and orga­niz­ers, their parties, asso­ci­a­tions and campaigns, have attested through­out the last century, our struggle was never, and will never be, with Jews, or Judaism, no matter how much Zionism insists that our enemies are the Jews. Rather, our struggle is with Zionism, a modern European settler colonial movement, similar to movements in many other parts of the world that aim to displace indige­nous people and build new European societies on their lands.

We reaffirm that there is no room in this historic and foun­da­tional analysis of our struggle for any attacks on our Jewish allies, Jews, or Judaism; nor denying the Holocaust; nor allying in any way shape or form with any con­spir­acy theories, far-right, ori­en­tal­ist, and racist arguments, asso­ci­a­tions and entities. Chal­leng­ing Zionism, including the ille­git­i­mate power of insti­tu­tions that support the oppres­sion of Pales­tini­ans, and the ille­git­i­mate use of Jewish iden­ti­ties to protect and legit­imize oppres­sion, must never become an attack on Jewish iden­ti­ties, nor the demeaning and denial of Jewish histories in all their diversity.

Indeed, we regard any attempt to link and adopt anti­se­mitic or racist language, even if it is within a self-described anti-imperialist and anti-Zionist politics, as reaf­firm­ing and legit­imiz­ing Zionism. In addition to its immoral­ity, this language obscures the fun­da­men­tal role of impe­ri­al­ism and colo­nial­ism in destroy­ing our homeland, expelling its people, and sus­tain­ing the systems and ide­olo­gies of oppres­sion, apartheid and occu­pa­tion. It leaves one squarely outside true sol­i­dar­ity with Palestine and its people.

The goal of the Pales­tin­ian people has always been clear: self deter­mi­na­tion. And we can only exercise that inalien­able right through lib­er­a­tion, the return of our refugees (the absolute majority of our people) and achieving equal rights to all through decol­o­niza­tion. As such, we stand with all and any movements that call for justice, human dignity, equality, and social, economic, cultural and political rights. We will never com­pro­mise the prin­ci­ples and spirit of our lib­er­a­tion struggle. We will not allow a false sense of expe­di­ency to drive us into alliance with those who attack, malign, or otherwise attempt to target our political fra­ter­nity with all lib­er­a­tion struggles and movements for justice.

As Pales­tini­ans, it is our col­lec­tive respon­si­bil­ity, whether we are in Palestine or in exile, to assert our guidance of our grass­roots lib­er­a­tion struggle. We must protect the integrity of our movement, and to do so we must continue to remain vigilant that those for whom we provide platforms actually speak to its principles.

When the Pales­tin­ian people call for self-determination and decol­o­niza­tion of our homeland, we do so in the promise and hope of a community founded on justice, where all are free, all are equal and all are welcome.

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