Open letter to the activists fighting the US Wall of Death on the Mexican border
From our Palestinian land we greet you and offer our support to all of you who are fighting against racism on both sides of the US wall on the Mexican border. We share the same aims and vision for our lands. We urge you to continue your struggle.
In Palestine, Occupation has meant the driving out of the original people of the land, to be replaced with the colonizers. For the last sixty years, we have fought against this racist project.
Since the 'Nakba', the catastrophe in which many of us were driven from our homes to become refugees, we have suffered the ongoing attacks of the occupation.
Generation after generation has resisted. The latest catastrophe visited on us by the Occupation is the Wall, which is driven by an ideology of racism and apartheid, like the Wall now being built by the United States.
The Wall affects every aspect of our lives. We must pass through many complex procedures and restrictions to reach our jobs, schools or even hospitals.
Our towns and villages are surrounded by gates and walls. To pass between them, we are forced to use roads and tunnels under the military control of the Occupation’s checkpoints, gates and roadblocks. Palestinian students are deliberately targeted in order to prevent them from accessing education. The Occupation authorities wish to create ignorance in the new Palestinian generation, in an attempt to make us forget the core issues: justice, liberation and return.
At the checkpoints and gates, Palestinians are often forced to remove all of their clothes: female students, old men, and children; all are targeted for what the Occupation calls ‘security reasons’. The Occupation uses police dogs to harass Palestinians.
In our everyday lives, there is humiliation and harassment. As the Palestinian activists we must continue to reject the occupation and to maintain our steadfastness.
As Palestinians, we extend our solidarity and urge you to continue your fight against the borders – created by and reinforcing racism and colonialism.
Palestinian grassroots Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign