“Can Palestinian Lives Matter?”: on the Parallels Between Black and Palestinian Liberation Movements
The Black Lives Matter uprising against police violence and racism has resonated with marginalized people around the world, including Palestinians. From sharing tips on social media on how to protect yourself against pepper spray, to painting murals of George Floyd in Gaza, to organizing solidarity marches in the West Bank, Palestinians have demonstrated a clear and sustained solidarity with those fighting for racial justice in the United States.
Sarah Aziza's powerful essay “Can Palestinian Lives Matter?” highlights this shared struggle for liberation. In our panel discussion, we will dive deeper into its core questions. What does the struggle against occupation look like today, compared to the past? How are Palestinian lives demonized or erased in mainstream news and media? How does the Israel Apartheid system work to dehumanize Palestinians? And what connects Black Lives Matter—in the United States and abroad—to the Palestinian Liberation Movement? Whether you are new to this topic, or have been thinking about it for years — join us!
This event will be livestreamed on the BPL YouTube channel and on this page. There will be a Q&A session at the end of the discussion with questions submitted through YouTube chat.
Panelists:
Sarah Aziza is a Palestinian American writer who splits her time between New York City and the Middle East. She has lived and worked in Jordan, Algeria, Saudi Arabia, South Africa and the West Bank, where she has focused on issues related to refugees, human rights, gender, and the arts. Her writing has appeared in the New York Times, The New Yorker, the Washington Post, Harper’s, The Nation, and The Intercept, among others. She is currently working on a book.
Amin Husain has a B.A. in Political Philosophy, a J.D. from Indiana University School of Law, an LL.M. from Columbia Law School and teaches at New York University. Together, Nitasha and Amin are MTL, a collaboration that joins research, aesthetics, and action in its practice. MTL is a founding member of Tidal: Occupy Theory, Occupy Strategy and Anemones, two in-print movement-generated theory magazines; Strike Debt and Rolling Jubilee, Direct Action Front for Palestine; Global Ultra Luxury Faction (G.U.L.F.); and most recently MTL+, the collective facilitating Decolonize This Place, an action-oriented movement that blurs the lines between art, organizing and action around six strands of struggle: Indigenous struggle, Black liberation, free Palestine, global wage worker, de-gentrification, and dismantling patriarchy. At present, in addition to being involved in Strike MoMA working group of the International Imagination of Anti-national and Anti-imperialist Feelings (IIAAF), MTL is in post-production on a feature-length experimental documentary about land, life, and liberation in occupied Palestine.
Nerdeen Kiswani is a Palestinian organizer from New York City. She is the founder and chair of Within Our Lifetime - United for Palestine, a community based Palestinian led organization whose goal is to revitalize the revolutionary spirit of the Palestinian community abroad in pursuit of a free homeland. She is also a rising 3L law student at the CUNY school of Law, where she is the president of Students for Justice in Palestine. Nerdeen has been centrally involved in several coalitions for Palestine, speaking for the Palestinian cause at international conferences, and has organized successful campaigns on and off campus ranging from boycotting israeli dates, to demanding accountability from politicians regarding their stance on palestine and organizing rallies in the thousands for Palestine in NYC. Most recently Nerdeen has led efforts along with student organizers to protect Palestinian speech CUNY-wide and has received the support of CUNY Law school for doing so.
Zellie Thomas is a community organizer and educator living in NJ. Zellie has served in diverse K-8 settings as a teacher and curriculum developer. Most recently, Zellie has been organizing against anti-black state violence with Black Lives Matter Paterson. He is also a co-founder of the Black Liberation Collective, a collective consisting of Black students who are dedicated to transforming institutions of higher education through unity, coalition building, direct action and political education that has initiated the #StudentBlackOut movement across campuses in the United States and Canada.
