What ‘Free Palestine’ Can Mean
As Zionism’s genocidal settler colonial project unleashes yet more and more violence against Palestinians, I thought it would be good to reflect upon what the phrase ‘Free Palestine’, so often chanted at protests in the Global North, might actually mean. I think it is likely without a doubt that protesters chanting Free Palestine mean something very different from each other when chanting it. For instance, some chanting Free Palestine mean simply a ceasefire and for all intents and purposes a return to the pre-October 7th status quo with vague promises of ‘peace’ and a ‘two-state solution’. Certainly many of the speakers at the Palestine demonstrations mean this and talk outright about a two-state solution and a ‘peace’ that can be achieved with this. These interpretations of Free Palestine completely fail to account for how Zionism is a settler-colonial project and that dismantling apartheid and the occupation is not enough. While of course Palestinians themselves must define what a Free Palestine means, what I think is that Free Palestine must mean an end to the Zionist project and a complete right of return for all Palestinians. As the Zionist state is predicated upon ethnic cleansing and genocide since 1948 and before, the dismantling of it is required to truly achieve a Free Palestine. As the resistance to the settler-colonial project on October 7 showed, decolonization is not a metaphor.
This necessity of defining what Free Palestine means is particularly important in terms of the movement for Palestinian liberation being watered down to simply a ceasefire. Obviously, an immediate ceasefire is needed to stop the genocide, but ultimately the settler-colonial violence will continue unabated unless the Zionist state is dismantled, and a new secular Palestinian state is created. The unceasing violence of the settler-colonial project can be seen in calls to establish settlements in Gaza, which have been supported by Israeli government ministers. What Free Palestine must also acknowledge is that the violence being perpetrated in Gaza and the West Bank is not new. It must also reckon how another settler-colonial state, the United States, has systematically backed the genocide and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians since at least 1948.
The student encampments springing up across US colleges and universities show how activists in the Global North are challenging the imperial institutions that enable the Zionist project, not least of which are the universities themselves. Further, the requirements of masks at these encampments (at least at Columbia University), represent how liberation for all people cannot be achieved without protecting people from the ongoing Covid pandemic (and to protect from police surveillance). As I mentioned in my Palestine and the Pandemic post, Palestinians are dying of covid and other communicable diseases, which serve as another death-making tool for the Zionist project. Free Palestine must also entail a commitment to protecting us all including and especially disabled people. The vast majority of people in Gaza have been disabled by the genocide (either mentally or physically or both) and masking is so important to maintaining solidarity with them as well as preventing the spread of communicable disease (especially covid) so that protesters can keep challenging imperial institutions.
I think Free Palestine can and must be a call for dismantling settler-colonialism and white supremacy everywhere. Other genocides ongoing such as in Sudan and the Congo receive far less attention than Palestine due to pervasive anti-Blackness (and arguably as well due to less content on social media about them). Liberal institutions seem to only want to discuss genocide and ongoing colonial violence when it is in the past and can be ‘safely relegated’ to history. This anti-Blackness can also be seen in the exceptionalization of the Holocaust and the minimization of the immense genocidal violence perpetrated against African salves transported to the Americas as well as the genocide perpetrated against indigenous peoples. Indeed, these acts of genocidal violence are glorified such as with Columbia university named after Christopher Columbus. What Free Palestine acknowledges is that settler-colonial violence, genocide and colonialism itself cannot be discussed simply in terms of the past. The relegation of colonial violence to only the past serves to minimize it, and Free Palestine serves as a constant reminder to imperial institutions that one day they will fall.
What Free Palestine means to me then is about solidarity with all marginalized and oppressed people all over the world. Indeed, I feel that this is the ethos by which struggles for liberation should focus (and not simply on workers for instance) as centering disability justice and solidarity with the most marginalized in these struggles means acknowledging the eugenics of the ongoing covid pandemic and resisting it (something which many leftists seem incapable or unwilling to do). The struggle to Free Palestine is intimately connected with struggles for Black liberation, for disability justice, and against capitalism and colonialism. As many activists have said over the past six months and since 1948, Palestine (and the struggle for its liberation) will set us all free.
