Palestine Solidarity Conference 2024

Palestine Solidarity Conference 2024 delegates (photo credit: APAN)

Overview

The Palestine Solidarity Conference was held in Naarm (Melbourne) over three days from May 10-12, 2024. 250 delegates were chosen from around Australia to come together with the common goal: To build people power and a coalition for justice. The core principles of: Palestinian led; Expanding solidarity networks with a focus on intersectionality; and Translating grassroots support into political power meant the focus was on powering-up our organising and effectiveness.

One key message was that liberation for Palestine is near, with the question - at what cost? We see the cost in Rafah, across Gaza and throughout occupied Palestine right now with intensified assaults by the Zionist entity, forced starvation and evidence of war crimes including the uncovering of several mass graves within hospitals.

Ayman Qwaider, a specialist in education and advocacy whose sister’s and brother in law’s families were killed in October last year, spoke of the overwhelming feeling of “suffocation” which defines life in occupied Palestine. “Imprisonment, abuse, and violence are everyday. Borders are a big part of life… open, closed, ID cards, separation from siblings. We need to appeal to Israel just to meet other Palestinians”. Mr Qwaider pointed out that there have been 15 uprisings since the 1880’s and that the “Gaza ghetto uprising will be the last one.”

Another key message was that Palestine needs us to get organised, strategic and in for the long haul. Whilst clearly an unbearable cost is being paid by Palestinians, those in the West acting in solidarity must also be prepared to pay a cost. Jordy Silverstein from the Loud Jew Collective spoke of this cost including “risking employment, losing friendships and alienating families”. 

With a focus also on practical strategies and organising frameworks, delegates utilised The Commons Social Change Library resources including the Four Roles in Palestine Solidarity Activism (being the Citizen, Reformer, Rebel and Change Agent). State based groups spent some time developing high level strategy using The Tactic Star and looking at ways to influence Local Government, contribute to the global Boycott Divestment and Sanctions movement, and hosting and having conversations about Palestine (we are happy to share these toolkits – just let us know).

In reflecting on the themes and power of the conference, the call to build a strong civil society and mass mobilisation resonated clearly. In the words of Ayman Qwaider, “The Nakba [catastrophe] is ongoing, and the Intifada [shaking off] is also ongoing”.

Boycott Divestment and Sanctions

The Palestine Solidarity Conference held in Naarm (Melbourne) over three days from May 10-12, 2024 included expert panellists and deep dives into the Boycott Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement. The movement was endorsed in 2005 by 170 civil society groups across Palestine, after they worked together over twelve months to develop a shared position. The call is for us “to work in an organised and global way, with the same strategy”, said Dr Randa Abdel Fattah.

BDS is a non-violent campaign movement involving targeted boycotts, divestment and sanctions against Israel’s government, and businesses, organisations, and individuals involved in the apartheid, occupation, and oppression of Palestinians. It is based on the successful South African anti-apartheid boycott movement of the 1970s and 1980s.

Dr Fattah said that: “BDS is world making… It counters a feeling of having no power which is why there is such an attack on it. BDS creates an ethics of care and solidarity... It is revolutionary, and an act of solidarity that even our children can be part of in a way that connects them to what’s happening in the world”.

Professor Nazari Ismail, the Head of BDS Malaysia shared the incredible success of BDS in that country, where there is no economic trade with Israel, Malaysians cannot travel to so-called Israel, and they can only visit occupied Palestine if they are there to assist Palestinians. Last year, with 25,000 petition signatories and in just five days, the Malaysian government banned the Israeli shipping company Zim from Malaysia’s ports. Since then, Indonesia has done the same. This strong stance also draws some push back. The United States Congress has banned BDS, and successive governments have attempted to eliminate BDS leadership since 2016. Professor Ismail said that US representatives were recently sent to Malaysia to “warn” the government and threaten them with sanctions. Fifty Malaysian NGOs sent a memo urging that they stand firm against the US, and they did.

Rand Darwish, who is amongst other things one of the leaders of the University of Sydney student encampment, said that in the context of universities BDS is a two-fold campaign: “It is about divestment, and also about institutional change. For once, they are asking to meet us”.

Weapons manufacturers have insidiously entered tertiary education spaces through sponsorships, research partnerships and placements, including involving Primary School aged children. Ms Darwish said that in calling for divestment from weapons manufacturers the encampments “are relevant to East Timor, Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria. Divestment is the bare minimum required to uphold international law. It is simply based on the call to ‘stop bombing kids’”. [You may also like to read the Missiles and Minors Report produced by Teachers for Peace which identifies that children as young as four are exposed to weapons through marketing tactics such as the use of children’s characters and toys].

In a call to get bolder and more ambitious about BDS, speakers noted that campaigns that are considered controversial at the time, such as the boycott of the Sydney Festival due to Israeli government sponsorship, soon become normalised. Apartheid Free Zones, where businesses and institutions commit to BDS until Palestine is liberated, are also now becoming a reality and may be the future of BDS.

Blak-Palestinian solidarity, Jewish-Palestinian solidarity, and countering the weaponisation of antisemitism

“The particles we breathe and the water in our bodies is that of First Nations ancestors. All colonial projects are due to fail because they are not sustainable, but we live on”. These words from Professor Mazim Qumsiyeh, expert in land rights and climate justice, sang out like a gift at the commencement of the Palestinian Solidarity Conference held in Naarm (Melbourne) across May 10-12, 2024. Professor Qumsiyeh calls this time “an existential moment not just for Palestinians but for all humanity”.  

In talking about Blak-Palestinian solidarity, Larissa Baldwin-Roberts (Widjabul Wiabal/Bundjalung woman & Chief Executive Officer at GetUp) said, “Most people don’t know about the history of here or of Palestine, and they come at it as if it’s a debate. We need to be clear, it [the impact of colonisation] is not a debate”.

Delegates heard about the joint organising that is occurring for Palestine rallies and for this year’s Invasion Day rallies. First Nations speakers said, “We need to weave our stories together – the common factor is profit for the West, dispossession for mining and development, massacres. The common goal is land rights and land back”. Jordy Silverstein from the Loud Jew Collective echoed this idea in saying “Zionism wants to dominate and extract and make sure nothing else is possible. As non-Palestinians our responsibility is to live up to our obligations to Palestine and Palestinians”.

The shared experience of racism, violence and incarceration was also highlighted, with the example of the British security company 4GS being a “suffocating” presence at checkpoints in occupied Palestine and also responsible for the 2009 death in Western Australia of Mr Ward whilst in police custody.

Jewish representatives spoke of the need to fight back against Zionism which “also disavows Jewish life, another form of violence and a way to take over political imaginations about what being Jewish is”. They also spoke about the Jewish connection to Palestine, saying “it is like the Christian and Muslim connection to Palestine. This doesn’t give Indonesians the right to colonise Palestine. Palestine belongs to Palestinians”.

Countering weaponised antisemitism was addressed in the context of the Boycott Divestment and Sanctions global campaign. Zionists know that BDS is not antisemitic and only use this as a bad faith argument to shut down dissent. Professor Peter Slezak pointed out that none of the companies on the targeted BDS list are Jewish owned.

The message of solidarity was summed up powerfully by Tareen Onus Browne: “Settler colonies learn how to hoard together but oppressed people learn how to resist together” (Tarneen is a Gunditjmara, Bindal, Yorta Yorta person and Torres Strait Islander from Mer and Erub islands).