Stand with Palestine & Black Lives Matter
Speech given by Khrys Wetzel, member of the Anti-War Committee, at the Minneapolis Federal Building on June 1
As we gather here today to demand better for our communities and connect our struggles to present a united front against to fight against racist and murderous police here in the united states, I want to also add that our opposition and resistance must make connections across borders, across oceans, across the globe, and must include the people of Palestine. Because the same violence that oppresses us here, the same state surveillance that collects and monitors data of black lives matter protestors and other dissenters is the same apparatus that operates in Palestine, in Gaza, and the West Bank.
These connections between the struggle for black and brown liberation against police violence here and the fight for a free Palestine is not just rhetoric or just theory- Police departments across the country including our own MPD have either traveled to Israel or attended conferences with the IOF in what JVP has called the deadly exchange to collaborate and train under the guise of “counter-terrorism”, which we know to be a front for racism and islamophobia, and terrorism in our own country to our marginalized communities. And it is an excuse for increased militarism and state violence.
The real-world impacts of these exchanges result naturally in death- the same chokehold that was used to murder George Floyd here in Minneapolis is a recognizable tactic used against Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank.
Let that sink in. Palestinians recognize the same move that was used to murder a man in our streets as something they see everyday used against their own families throughout occupied Palestine. SHAME. The tactics of empire of zionism are the same, and are dependent on state violence and incarceration and murder for legitimacy.
And these systems and militaries and IOF forces that repress and kill palestinians are directly supported and funded by US tax dollars and manufactured weapons.
There is a recognizable connection that we can see:
When Palestinians paint murals of George Floyd in a show of solidarity on walls within occupied lands, we are connected.
When the bombs dropped are made and paid for by the US, we are connected.
It’s important that we also remember that racism, police violence, state surveillance, and other atrocities against the people are not simply imported from a rogue state of Israel. We’re not disconnected from that history. The entire history of this country is built on oppression, racism and genocide, and employs police and incarceration to intimidate, so of course it would ally itself with other oppressive entities like the state of Israel occupying Palestine.
None of this is new under Trump, but none of this has been changed or improved.
In this vein it’s imperative that as we fight to free ourselves from oppression, we also fight to free ourselves from being the oppressor through complicity.
As we push to take control from murderous police and resist state violence, we push for freedom for all on every front, in every way we can make it happen. Be it through community control of police, or fighting for healthcare for all and legalization for all, or pressuring our state board of divestment to divest from genocide in Palestine, our fight is one fight. And we must all stand together and fight it together.
Our struggles and oppressors are one and the same and they use the same tactics, so this fight is ours as well as the Palestinians’. And we will stand here together until freedom has been won from racist police as well as the occupation in Palestine.
Photo taken by Sigal Photos
