The straw that broke the camel’s back. There’s a reason why this idiom is so readily understood. Many social, as well as physical, systems change state in sudden, non-linear ways. That’s why revolution, as Mandela said, “seems impossible until it is done.”
And so it is with Palestinian liberation. The objective situation looks extremely bleak. The balance of forces appear to be on the side of empire and genocide. Each act of resistance or solidarity can appear Sisyphean, with the boulder never reaching the top of the incline.
But then, in a way that seems impossible before it happens, the straw breaks the camel’s back, the dynamics change and the going becomes downhill.
That’s why we throw so many tactics at one goal: Palestinian liberation.
This week, the Progressive International has combined four distinct tactics to pile up more straws on the camel’s spine, to incrementally shift the balance of power.
First, on Monday, we launched a call, reported on by Middle East Eye, from a coalition of Palestinian organisations for a "total energy embargo" on Israel until it halts its war on the Gaza Strip. The coalition calls for an immediate end to energy exports to Israel and its Western backers, imports of Israeli energy and divestment from Israeli energy projects. Explaining the logic of an energy embargo, the groups argue in their launch statement that “energy supplies are instrumental to Israel’s war machine: to operate its army tanks, armored personnel carriers, ships and military bulldozers, including specialist jet fuel that allows Israeli jets to rain death and destruction down on Gaza.”
Then on Monday and Tuesday, activists around the world took direct, coordinated action against Israel’s war machine. It was the second such global day of action against Elbit Systems, Israel’s biggest arms company, which supplying the Occupation Forces with 85% of their drones and land-based equipment, along with a wide range of other technologies, munitions, and arms. And in Canada, PI member the Palestinian Youth Movement took action against TTM Technologies and the Safran groups.
Today, over 200 legislators from thirteen countries that export weapons to Israel united to commit to an arms embargo. In an open letter coordinated by the Progressive International published today, 218 legislators from thirteen countries declared their “commitment to end our nations’ arms sales to the State of Israel.” The legislators, who serve in parliaments of countries that export weapons or parts to Israel, argue that they will “not be complicit in Israel’s grave violation of international law” and instead call for an arms embargo, pledging to “immediate and coordinated action in [their] respective legislatures to stop our countries from arming Israel.”
The signatories brought together by the Progressive International (PI) sit in the Parliaments of countries that export weapons or parts to Israel: the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, Canada, France, Spain, the Netherlands, Belgium, Brazil, Australia, Turkey, Portugal and Ireland.
They include eleven current or former leaders of political parties. Prominent politicians joining the call include US Representative Rashida Tlaib, former UK Labour Leader and PI Council member Jeremy Corbyn, Leader of the Australian Green Party Adam Bandt, Coordinator of La France Insoumise Manuel Bompard and all of LFI’s deputies, President of the Workers’ Party of Belgium Peter Mertens, Canadian MP and member of PI’s Council Niki Ashton, Brazilian Congressman and PI Council member Guilherme Boulos, former Leader of Die Linke Bernd Riexinger, Leader of Podemos Ione Belarra as well as Sumar’s entire plurinational grouping of deputies, Leader of the Dutch Socialist Party Jimmy Dijk, Irish TD Thomas Pringle, former co-chair of the Peoples’ Democratic Party Sezai Temelli and the National Coordinator of Portugal’s Left Bloc Mariana Mortágua.
The action by the parliamentarians is supported by the founder of La France Insoumise Jean-Luc Mélenchon, Spanish government MinisterPablo Bustinduy and prominent Indian politician Jignesh Mevani.
Read their letter in full here and read the coverage of their initiative in The Guardian, Agencia EFE, Le Monde, Folha, Lusa, Al Jazeera, Duvar and Bianet.
And finally tomorrow, the Progressive International, together with the International People's Assembly, ALBA Movimientos and Pan-Africanism Today, has issued a call for an International Day of Action on 2 March to demand an end to Israel's genocidal assault on Gaza.
The road to liberation is long and winding, but the Palestinian people, aided by the active solidarity of the peoples of the world, will reach its conclusion.
The European Parliament has decided to ban Amazon lobbyists. Amazon’s lack of respect for democratic institutions was firmly rebuked today when European Parliament authorities issued a ban on Amazon lobbyists holding access badges.
When Amazon lobbyists repeatedly refused to attend hearings, and cancelled a visit by Members of the European Parliament to investigate working conditions in Amazon warehouses, it was a coalition of EU lawmakers, a letter by Make Amazon Pay members and public pressure from a petition many of you signed that got our demand across the line.
The story received prominent media coverage, for example in the Financial Times.
PI member, Tanzanian political party ACT- Wazalendo will have new leadership next month. Leader since the party’s founding in 2015 and PI Council member Zitto Kabwe has decided to step down after almost a decade in charge.
PI member CORE has been organising nationwide protests in Nigeria as part of the Joint Action Front to protest the rapidly rising cost of living. The protests kicked off on Monday 26 February demanding a reversal of President Tinubu’s flagship policy to hike fuel prices, which has caused enormous increases in the prices of every day essentials, such as rice and cooking oil.
PI member Movement Together staged protests this week against a new government assault on nature and in support of miners and ex-miners pensions and benefits. The party argues that the government wishes to “treat nature as a construction site.”
At a rally of miners and ex-miners outside the Ministry of Infrastructure and Energy, the party called for “early full pensions and a series of health and social benefits for them and their families."
Art: Free Palestine is a freely distributed poster by Laura Anastasio present on the Free Palestine Project – a non-for-profit curated archive of free posters submitted by designers from all over the world.
Laura Anastasio is an Italian visual artist based in Milan. She has worked on several liberatory projects including posters for the Iranian Women Life Freedom movement and a call to open borders from Afghanistan to Europe, and designed a cover for Virginia Woolf’s famed feminist 1929 essay: A Room of One’s Own. Her Free Palestine posters, which have also been printed as stickers, can be downloaded for free distribution here.
The poster is a celebration of Palestinian culture featuring the embroidered patterns of the keffiyeh in the flag's colors and a sharp piercing gaze representing the resilience and resistance of its people. Laura is conscious of the political power of images and uses her poster art as a tool for activism towards progress and liberation.
