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Tag: Palestine

Some Initial Thoughts On Unity Of Fields

Posted on by neversleep

[I am writing as an insurrectionary anarchist in the u$a and speaking to that context]

Unity Of Fields is a counter-info project that emerged in August of 2024. They describe their project as “a militant propaganda front against the US-NATO-zionist axis of imperialism.” It used to be Palestine Action US and has since changed its orientation. It has a website and some social media accounts, some of which have are banned at the time of this writing, they seem to be most popular on Telegram. Although it links to mostly anarchist sources for technical knowledge, Unity Of Fields does not seem to be an anarchist project and their political reading and media suggestions are all over the map. They suggest classic decolonial texts by Fanon and Cesaire, Black liberation writings from the BLA and BPP, texts from various Palestinian resistance factions, as well as authoritarian communists like Lenin and Mao among others.

Mostly their website is a clearing house for news, action analysis, and communiques. Many of the communiques posted are original submissions though they also repost from other counter-info projects and from social media. They also post some of their own original writings to their website. The fact that they post sketchy criminal stuff and link to technical advice on how to better carry out insurrectionary forms of struggle is probably a large part of why they are discussed in anarchist circles at all.

What does the emergence of a project like Unity Of Fields mean for us as anarchists? For one thing Unity Of Fields expands some spaces we occupy as anarchists — the combative struggle space and the digital counter-info space. We are clearly not the only ones re-coloring walls, opening windows, and carrying out our little sabotages and then writing about it, though at least for now others seem to look to our collective knowledge and experience for technical guidance. We are sharing a struggle space, one which is not limited to riotous moments and combative demonstrations, with other rebels who have made themselves visible to us. We are being included (at least some of the time) in a dialogue with other rebels through the sharing of our words and news of our actions, and anarchists have shared writings from Unity Of Fields on our own websites.

Local struggles against zionism, imperialism, and colonialism are visibly taking on more destructive, decentralized, anonymous, and autonomous approaches, a long-term dream of insurrectionary anarchists, yet new questions arise for us. How do we want to contend with other rebels with whom we have ideological differences and tactical similarities? How do we avoid getting lost in the vanguardist, unifying, nationalist tendencies that often accompany revolutionary leftist approaches to combative struggle? Are we interested in conspiring with these others outside the spontaneity of spicy demonstrations, occupations (and potentially riots), and if so how?

As anarchists we both seek to expand and connect anarchic forms of struggle yet also hold a healthy skepticism of unity with people who don’t hold anti-authoritarian views of freedom. Our history includes many betrayals by the left and progressives, from peace policing at demonstrations to executions and imprisonment from newly established revolutionary governments. The question of who to coalesce with and why is not an easy one, and one that is best addressed on a case by case basis. The appearance of Unity Of Fields potentially facilitates the dialogues and understanding that can help us better decide if and how we want to team up. As anarchists can often find ourselves isolated from others who we may have some political parallels with, the opening up of a “militant propaganda front” is a bridge to dialogue and learn across. This is not a call to join forces with anyone on the basis of being anti-zionist or anti-amerikkkan, it’s simply a reminder to always be analyzing the changing terrain around us and to think critically as we carry forward our struggles.

“Towards The Last Intifada” and “Towards Another Uprising” seem to be the beginnings of a dialogue among anarchists that address some of these questions. I look forward to more.

Relevant Readings:

Unity Of Fields: Opening Up A New Front
https://unityoffields.org/?p=370

Towards The Last Intifada
https://abolitionmedia.noblogs.org/post/2024/10/17/towards-the-last-intifada-a-statement-on-palestine-by-anarchists/

Towards Another Uprising
https://actforfree.noblogs.org/2024/10/21/towards-another-uprising/

Archipelago – affinity, informal organization, and insurrectional projects
https://resonanceaudiodistro.org/2017/06/08/archipelago-audiozine/

Voices from the Front Line Against the Occupation: Interview with Palestinian Anarchists
https://blackrosefed.org/interview-fauda-palestine/

PS: Some Thoughts On Spectacle

Many if not most of the actions posted to Unity Of Fields are accompanied by some visual media, usually photos, sometimes videos. I want rebels to consider some pitfalls of spectacularizing our struggles. Every photo or video is another crumb for the state to eat up as part of their investigations. Digital media can offer up metadata about where and when and what kind of device it was recorded on if not properly removed. Footage that shows rebels gives the state valuable information, such as number of participants, approximate time of day, whether any passersby were present, as well as biometric data even when a person is masked. Height, skin tone, gait, approximate weight, and other information can be determined from even grainy footage.
Additionally there are the downsides of understanding our struggles in a quantitative way. This approach may blunt the qualitative changes that participating in struggle can bring us individually and collectively. Of course propaganda is useful, the seductive appeal of revolt is made easier with imagery, and these things must be weighted out, no struggle will be pure. I want to remind us that though this is the path that is being worn into the ground, it is not the only one, and should we choose it let us choose it intentionally.

Submitted anonymously over email.

NYC trio charged with hate crimes linked to pro-Palestinian vandalism of museum officials’ homes

Posted on by neversleep

November 4, 2024

Three people have been indicted on hate crimes charges in connection with red paint that was smeared on the homes of Brooklyn Museum officials during a wave of pro-Palestinian protests this summer, prosecutors announced Monday.

[They] face a range of charges including making a terroristic threat as a hate crime, criminal mischief as a hate crime, making graffiti, possession of graffiti instruments and conspiracy.

Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez said the three — along with others who have not yet been arrested — specifically targeted members of the museum’s board of directors with Jewish-sounding names in the early morning hours of June 12.

Among the homes vandalized were those of the museum’s director, Anne Pasternak, its president and chief operating officer, Kimberly Trueblood, and board chair Barbara Vogelstein.

Using red paint, the vandals scrawled phrases such as “Brooklyn Museum, blood on your hands” and hung banners with the names of the board members, along with phrases including “blood on your hands, war crimes, funds genocide” and “White Supremacist Zionist,” according to prosecutors.

The banners also included red handprints, anarchy symbols and inverted red triangles that prosecutors said are associated with Hamas, which carried out the Oct. 7, 2023, surprise attack on southern Israel that sparked the ongoing war in Gaza.

Prosecutors say the group spray-painted security cameras so they couldn’t be identified as they defaced the properties, but were captured in other surveillance video carrying supplies to and from [Person 1]’s vehicle.

They also said a stencil found at one of the locations had a fingerprint covered in red paint that was identified as [Person 2]’s.

The most serious charge the three face is making a terroristic threat as a hate crime.

[Person 3]’s attorney, Leena Widdi, has said her client is an independent videographer and was acting in his capacity as a credentialed member of the media. She described the hate crime charges as an “appalling” overreach by law enforcement officials.

[Person 1]’s attorney, Moira Meltzer-Cohen, has criticized the arrest as an example of the “increasing trend of characterizing Palestine solidarity actions as hate crimes.”

Hundreds of protesters marched on the Brooklyn Museum in May, briefly setting up tents in the lobby and unfurling a “Free Palestine” banner from the roof before police moved in to make dozens of arrests. Organizers of that demonstration said the museum was “deeply invested in and complicit” in Israel’s military actions in Gaza through its leadership, trustees, corporate sponsors and donors — a claim museum officials have denied.

Found on Mainstream News

no peace

Posted on by neversleep

Reflections on Columbia, the Student Intifada and the Culture of Counterinsurgency

28 October 2024 – by Anonymous

“The concentration of violent power in the hands of the few can occur unopposed if it is done quietly, if unnecessary provocation, which can set a process of solidarity in motion, is avoided—that is something that was learned as a result of the student movement and the Paris May.”

— The Urban Guerilla Concept, The Red Army Faction 1971

 

On 30 April 2024 — the 56th anniversary of the 1968 Columbia University mass arrests — the New York Pig Department besieged Harlem, locked down the entirety of Columbia’s campus, swept the Gaza solidarity encampment, and raided Hind’s Hall. This raid marked the end of the spring of the Student Intifada. Those of us who were at the barricades are still reeling from the experience. There are few moments in our lives where history opens its doors to us. Taking the leap through is disorienting, but the responsibility to make sense of this conjuncture falls squarely on those who take the leap.

Journalists and pundits have chimed in endlessly on the Student Intifada with a particular focus on Columbia University. Many of these pundits were nowhere near the action nor the partisans who made the action happen, thus they often get the basic facts of the action wrong. As one rebel once advised, “No investigation, no right to speak.” Additionally, the political orientation of the commentariat necessitated the silencing and erasure of the most radical flank of the movement. This flank played a vital role in not only the uprising at Columbia, but in the direction of the movement nationally. This essay is an attempt to both correct the record and offer up some political perspectives from a segment of this radical flank.

The next sequence of the Student Intifada remains elusive but it is important that interventions are made to push the movement in the correct direction. A minority with the correct revolutionary line is not a minority.

Continue reading “no peace”

Towards Another Uprising

Posted on by neversleep

At the end of 2010 an individual act of despair in the town of Sidi Bouzid ignited a daring, enraged, and joyful upheaval that travelled through North Africa into the Middle East and beyond. People defied the oppressive systems they had been immersed in for generations and came together in the streets to topple the political elites at their helm. The authorities, at first stunned by this courageous spirit that they couldn’t understand, then unleashed a cynical and brutal response.

This defeat is still being inflicted on the people in the region, and is also felt all over the world by those who stood in solidarity with the uprisings but were mostly unable to overcome their powerlessness as the uprisings were massacred.

The horrors in the region during the last decade are many. To name some that stick most in my mind: Sisi has turned back the clock in Egypt to military dictatorship with the material support of the US. The regimes in the other North-African countries are paving over any sign of freedom while being coaxed by European countries to shut down the immigration routes over the Mediterranean. Without the murderous military campaigns of Hezbollah and the IRGC in Syria, Assad wouldn’t have survived the uprising. The Iranian regime itself brutally oppressed three different uprisings in the country in the last decade. Most people in Lebanon are in a daily struggle for survival because of the greed of its political leaders while mobs at the orders of Hezbollah beat down street protests. Early on in the uprisings, Hamas, who has shot political opponents in broad daylight on the streets of Gaza, culled attempts at an uprising by rounding up protest organizers and threatening them with murder. Leaders in the region understood once again that they can use any means against the populations under their control without real push-back from outside. Indifference, cynicism and opportunism trump moral appeals, and strategic alliances are always in play. The world churns on. For those of us who have not looked away, how can we not see a connection between Assad bombing Syrian cities into obliteration and Netanyahu razing Gaza?

The authors of “Towards the Last Intifada” (Tinderbox #6) don’t acknowledge these experiences of the last decade. Instead, they propose to join the opposing side of an American geopolitical alliance (keeping true to American centralism in their own way). According to them, the Axis of Resistance shows the path forward for anarchists to struggle against empire. This article seems to confound resistance with ‘the Resistance’. That is to say, they collapse any form of resistance from people in Palestine, and more broadly in the region, into a particular representation, adopting an umbrella term used by states, militaries, para-state/para-military organizations to describe their own activities. The authors of the article warn anarchists against being too sensitive to hierarchy – as if that is the only aspect of ‘the Resistance’ anarchists might find difficult to accept.

It is now a year after the bloody incursion of Hamas into Israel. Apart from discourse, the accomplishments of the Resistance so far are: Hezbollah has launched ineffectual rockets that have only inflicted significant damage on a Druze village, Iranian leaders are busying themselves with making appeals to the West to reign in Israel, militias in Iraq attacked a couple of US military bases in the country early on and then fell silent, while only the Houthis seem to have taken Nasrallah’s “Unity of Fronts” seriously. They succeeded in disrupting global shipping routes and have carried out some unexpected aerial attacks on Israel. In the meantime, Israel has wiped out the leadership of Hezbollah, drops bombs on Lebanon on a daily basis, has regularly bombed sites in Syria without retaliation, and commits executions in Tehran. The Axis of Resistance and the Unity of Fronts are mere slogans that obscure the strategic dealings among political, authoritarian organisations and states with their own (often differing) interests. It’s delusional to see it as something else. And Israel is calling the bluff of ‘the Resistance’ with an exponential military escalation.

Israel’s massacres in Gaza, with the material support of the Western countries, are relentless. The apartheid regime in the West Bank and Israel has been built up for decades, leaving almost no oxygen to breathe for those living under its control. Faced with this bleak reality and an overwhelming powerlessness to put a stop to it, anarchists may be looking for an effective resistance (or rather, as it appears, an image of one). But if we want to fight against oppression, we can’t be content with any opposition. Choosing to join one authoritarian, militaristic system against another will not put an end to the horrors of this world – neither in this conflict nor in any other. It is neither inherently defeatist or a sign of privileged indifference to refuse to take sides between warring groups and states. That conclusion can only be reached if we would reduce reality to simplistic representations. Instead, by being open to complexity and specificity, anarchist action can be a liberating endeavor. It is here that we can find affinities, build relationships on a different basis, and muster the strength and courage – or perhaps, humility and passion – to attack. Anarchists find their effectiveness when they can undermine and destroy oppressive systems. We will not find it in a military prowess which, at the end of the day, produces more oppression and misery. And so those that have a spirit of their own and a memory of past rebellions will fight for another uprising.

From the northern coast of the Mediterranean, with a heavy heart and a soul on fire
Early October, 2024

Source: Act for Free | Submitted anonymously.

‘Zionists don’t deserve to live,’ suspended Columbia activist said. Now his group rescinds its apology and calls for violence

Posted on by neversleep

Nearly six months after Columbia University banned Khymani James, a Pro-Palestinian student activist, who said “Zionists don’t deserve to live,” the coalition that had apologized on his behalf rescinded its statement of regret – and advocated for armed resistance against Israel.

“Last spring, in the midst of the encampments, Columbia University Apartheid Divest (CUAD) posted a statement framed as an apology on behalf of Khymani James,” CUAD posted Tuesday night on Instagram. “We deliberately misrepresented your experiences and your words, and we let you down.”

In a since-deleted post on X, James acknowledged in April that he had said several months earlier in an Instagram Live video: “Zionists don’t deserve to live,” and “Be grateful that I’m not just going out and murdering Zionists.” In the now-deleted April post, he said, “I misspoke in the heat of the moment, for which I apologize.”

Columbia suspended James in April, and he since sued the university to get his ban overturned.

“I never wrote the neo-liberal apology posted in late April, and I’m glad we’ve set the record straight once and for all,” James wrote Tuesday in an X post. “I will not allow anyone to shame me for my politics. Anything I said, I meant it.”

CUAD helped ignite the protest encampments at Columbia in April that sparked a pro-Palestine and anti-Israel movement on campuses across America. In the months since that movement started, the group has taken an increasingly hard-line stance against Israel, advocating for violent uprisings against the country.

“We support liberation by any means necessary, including armed resistance,” the group said in its statement. “Where you’ve exhausted all peaceful means of resolution, violence is the only path forward.”

Found on Mainstream Media

Targeting New York Pig Department Vehicles – “Bring the War Home!”

Posted on by neversleep

15 October 2024 – Anonymous submission:

“PUBLIC SAFETY PIGS OFF CAMPUS”
“FREE PALESTINE”
“BRING THE WAR HOME”

FROM BROOKLYN TO BEIRUT, FROM HARLEM TO GAZA –
LONG LIVE THE STUDENT INTIFADA!

Early on the morning of October 15th, we, people of conscience and revolutionary mind, targeted a car of the New York Pig Department-trained CUNY Public Occupiers on CUNY Brooklyn College’s campus. We condemn the CUNY administration, the Brooklyn College administration, and the kkkillers of the NYPD, for their complacency in the genocide of the people of the nation of Palestine and the destruction of Lebanon and Yemen, and for their oppression and destruction of the New York City community.

We demand the end of the BC Study in Occupied Palestine Program that sends ripe new settlers and hopeful IOF reservists to learn in Haifa, Al Naqab (“Negev”), Yaffa (“Tel Aviv”), and Al Quds (“East Jerusalem”) while the zionist entity has destroyed every last university in Gaza.

We demand cops OFF of Brooklyn College’s campus.

We demand that tuition be made FREE once again.

Racism is embedded into the history of BC. Before it was forcibly racially integrated, tuition was free. Campus was open to the public. Ever since they were forced to allow non-white people to attend, they charged thousands, built walls and gates, and positioned a pig at every entryway. Today, those same pigs are trained by the criminal zionist occupation forces in how to surveil, oppress, intimidate, maim, and kill the members of the communities they have infiltrated. Those same pigs let a zionist “lawmaker” of New York, Inna Vernikov, flaunt a pistol in her waistband at a student protest for Palestinian liberation at Brooklyn College and let her walk free. When she turned herself in willingly, the crimimal DA let her off without any charges.

This is the reality of the militarization and the violent enforcement of white supremacist hegemony in amerikkka — the violent hegemony that lynched Derrell Mickles, maimed and permanently disabled two others at Sutter Ave — which we aim to dismantle, brick by brick, pig car by pig car. We have answered NYC Rev Youth’s call to take action on the pigs of all NYC campuses between the dates of 10/14-10/22 and encourage everyone reading this to go out and do the same. We ALL have a duty to rout the standing pig military from our cities, our nation, and our campuses.

To the pigs, BC admin and CUNY admin: we will be back again and again until you take your grimy, genocidal talons out of the hearts of the people of the Middle East.

STOP COP NATION!
HANDS OFF THE MIDDLE EAST!
FREE PALESTINE!​​​​​​​

Source (with video): Unity of Fields

Bring the War Home – 17 October Protest @ Washington Square Park

Posted on by neversleep

17 October 2024 – Anonymous call to action:

FREE PALESTINE! STOP COP NATION! FREE THE PEOPLE! FREE THE LAND! BRING THE WAR HOME! 

After a year of the Zionist entity’s newest assault on Gaza, the struggling and free people within the belly of the beast specifically in amerika have been able to achieve no real material gains for the people of Palestine. We have protested, we have occupied space in our universities, and we have removed our occupations In hopes that our universities will divest without us forcing them to. It’s time we cast away all illusions.

We must recognize that the struggle for Palestinian liberation is intertwined with the struggle for the liberation of the occupied Black Nation within the heart of the beast known as amerika, we must act and move along this basis. The same occupation army that is responsible for the genocide of Palestinians is also responsible for the centuries-long genocide of Black people in amerika. We are sick and tired of getting beat by pigs, Mass arrested, and having nothing come from it. We are sick and tired of performative actions, which do nothing for the people of Palestine and the occupied Black Nation.

As the students of Birzeit Universit, Ghent and Amsterdam University, Université Libre de Bruxelles, Cal Poly Humbolt, and so many more bases of fighting and struggling students have shown us, real change can be made from within the belly of the beast. As the Black Panther Party, the Black Liberation Army, The Revolutionary Action Movement, and other organizations who took up the gun to free themselves, their people, and their land from amerikan occupation and racism have shown us, real change can be made from the belly of the beast.

But this change is only possible when we leap from a false sense of peace to the realization of the combative nature of our struggle. Show up at Washington Square Park on October 17th at 5 pm. Let your voice be heard, let your actions speak for themselves, and develop a genuine combative spirit capable of resisting empire from within.

Source: Unity of Fields

Call for Autonomous Acts of Rage Against Colonization Everywhere on monday october 14th 2024

Posted on by neversleep

“We will need each other to make sure that the flames, if they were to come, clear the area that we will live in together. We will need to clear it of the fuel that would end up repeating the problems we are currently having. We will need to make sure that the seeds, nutrients and soil are scattered beyond our ability to control.” Aragorn

We don’t just want a cease fire, we want the Right of Return for all Palestinian people, for water to flow, and the traditions to stay alive. We can’t get back the countless lives lost, but we can honor and avenge them. And we will.

For the end of the struggle that is settler colonialism everywhere. Where the land is stolen, consent violated, the old ways forgotten – let it burn.

We hope that every colonizer who robs the lives and dignity of the land and the people on it understands that their great-grandchildren, and their great-grandchildren’s children are not going to be here because of their violence and indeterminate destruction.

We will still be here fighting for the next seven generations, but we will never forget the slaughter, and we will remember to make sure those grandchildren stay afraid of all that is wild.

The united states government now “recognizes” indigenous people’s day alongside columbus day. we must make this impossible to reconcile. We will remain illegible to them, and unknowable to all but each other and the stars above, the water below, and all that of the earth fighting back. We call out to the brave and the humble – all that is striving towards life, while defying management, capture, and domestication with a strength they could never know.

find the connections, funders, manufacturers, advisors, politicians, gentrifiers, and all enemies of the people and the earth. you know who they are.

find some friends and haunt those motherfuckers ghosts

Submitted anonymously over email.

comment from anarchist from serbia

Posted on by neversleep

I must comment on your news.

I thought you were an anarchist website. your news should be anarchist news, but your news is full of palestinians fight and they fight to create the state, the same as kurds. palestinians are fighting only against israel, german communist guerrilla RAF was much better. palestinian action news you publish on your website are comic guerrilla, unity of fields, they dont kill capitalists and imperlialists as german RAF did it, your palestinians are just damaging property, painting and hanging banners, they should BUY BULLETS AND GET GUNS and shoot capitalists, politicians, cops, soldiers, spies, and others who are part of the system. they can visit the following website if they want to see private addresses of the ruling class in the USA:

77iatreald75hyi6rdz4b3uxgckdugu52kx4dlnciiukjxwik7cgarad.onion/usa.html

[Admin note: we can’t verify the security of any external links, please exercise caution.]

palestinians have been connected for many years with communists in europe and german guerrillas RAF got training from the PLO of Arafat, but communists are always fighting for the creation of a communist state, usually a dictatorship as it was in east germany, yugoslavia and soviet union. therefore, anarchists should not support communist guerrillas like the red army faction, RAF, from germany. and palestinians are not even close to german guerrillas, palestinians are fighting only against israel, RAF was much better. but palestinians are fighting for the creation of a nation-state, PLO and Hamas and all other palestinians are fighting for the creation of a state. therefore, anarchists should not support their fight although we can protest against israel and imperailism, militarism, capitalism. but we should not support the creation of states, by palestinians or kurds. Hezbollah also dont have anything to do with anarchists.

contrary to many anarchists in west europe who dont attack capitalism, I support greek anarchists and others who attack capitalism, greek anarchists also do bank robberies to finance themselves, I am sorry that I live in a country where there are not so many anarchists and we dont have some activities, there was only one attack against a greek embassy many years ago and anarchists had 6 years court process but in the end, they were free. I was also for 13 years like an illegal immigrant in west europe and anarchists didnt help anything. I just say I like guerrilla anarchists but there are no such anarchists in my country and also in the 4 countries in europe where I was illegal 13 years.

I hope you will stop publishing news of fighters who are fighting to create states: Hezbollah and Hamas and Palestinians and Kurds PKK have nothing to do with anarchism.

by the way I may relocate to new york, therefore I wanted to find anarchists in new york, and I found your website, but I see you are interested only in israel and palestinians, the USA is a much bigger brutal capitalist power than israel. you should fight against the american ruling class instead of fighting against israel.

regards,
rebel anarchist

Received anonymously over email. Edited for grammar and removing personal info.

Constituents Vandalize zionist Congressman Espaillat’s Office

Posted on by neversleep

7 October 2024

Message from pro-Palestine actionists on the one year anniversary of Israel’s brutal genocide in Gaza. Over the last 365 days, Congressman Adriano Espaillat has been loud and proud about his support for Israel’s slaughter of an estimated 200,000 Palestinians.

Last night, a group of uptown Jewish constituents painted his office red to symbolize the blood of those murdered by Israel in its ongoing genocide against Palestine, and now Lebanon. While Espaillat is bought and paid for by the Zionist lobby, our action speaks louder than their blood money.

The paint will wash off your office, Congressman, but the blood of thousands of martyrs will forever stain your legacy. Anti-Zionist Jews say free Palestine, end the occupation, and stop arming Israel!

Source: Unity of Fields