For over 75 years, the Palestinian people have been subject to a violent and racist occupation by Israel. Every day, millions of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip face brutal and humiliating conditions including the demolition of their homes, endless military checkpoints that prevent their freedom of movement, bombardment of residential buildings, the desecration of holy sites, subjection to different laws based on race, and the indiscriminate murdering of Palestinian women, children, and men alike. These reprehensible conditions have rightfully earned Israel the designation as an apartheid state by human rights organizations across the globe.
In 2018-19, Palestinians in Gaza engaged in non-violent protests known as the Great March of Return in front of the walls erected by Israel around them. These peaceful protestors were gunned down with over 250 killed and several hundreds wounded. Their non-violent actions were then demonized for demanding the right to return to their homes that had been seized by the illegal Israeli occupation. When a government makes non-violent resistance impossible, when it brutalizes and murders those engaged in peaceful protest, it makes armed resistance inevitable.
The armed attacks on October 7 by Palestinian people cannot be de-contextualized from apartheid, extreme oppression, vicious brutality against protests and the open embrace by the Netanyahu government of open and extreme policies that aim to finally liquidate the Palestinian people’s just struggle to reclaim their homes and villages. Despite these facts, the armed resistance which is a direct and natural response to nearly a century of occupation, is characterized by the corporate media and Biden as “sheer evil.” This false propaganda continues to paint the Palestinian people’s resistance as unprovoked - and this is by design. This position demonizes the resistance of the oppressed while obfuscating the violence of the oppressor in order to justify the many war crimes and atrocities of Israel.
Israel's unrelenting blockade and bombardments reveal a chilling objective—to erase Gaza from the face of the earth. It is a genocide, plain and stark. The call now, for all people guided by truth and conscience, is to respond with unclouded moral clarity and unwavering principle. Justice can only be served by targeting the true source of violence: the zionist occupation of Palestine.
As artists and cultural producers, we join hands with the people of the world and with the heroic people of Palestine, to stop this genocidal war and put an end to 75 years of occupation. We understand the power that our work has in shaping public opnion in our time. As artists we have a unique responsibility to use our voice and artistic practices to protest apartheid and amplify the just cause of the Palestinian people and their resistance against occupation and oppression.
We, the undersigned artists, stand in firm solidarity with those resisting occupation and fighting for their right to self-determination. We commit to using our platforms to challenge at every turn the massive misinformation campaigns waged by those who have a vested interest in the destruction of the Palestinian land and people without fear of repercussions. We dedicate ourselves to standing in solidarity with the Palestinian people and to use our artistic and cultural practices as tools of liberation in the struggle for sovereignty, dignity, and self-determination.
Free Palestine!
