Hands Off Uhuru! Fightback Coalition stands in deep unity with the Palestinian people’s historic anti-colonial counteroffensive against the U.S.-backed, colonial-settler state of Israel.
The African, Indigenous, Mexican, Filipino, Cuban, Venezuelan and other oppressed peoples of the world stand together with Palestine in a united front against colonialism, our common enemy.
Our unity with Palestine goes beyond well-wishing. We recognize that their struggle and ours are interwoven in our shared global anti-colonial project to overturn the parasitic, bloodsucking colonial mode of production, built on the stolen labor and lives of enslaved Africans and on the stolen land and genocide committed against the Indigenous people.
From St. Louis, MO to Gaza, it is clear: A new day in history has arrived. The colonial world order built on our suffering and exploitation is coming to an end. Evidence of this new era of anti-colonial resistance is exploding throughout the world, in Niger, Mali, Burkina Faso, Haiti, Palestine, and in African, Mexican and Indigenous communities throughout the U.S.
The colonial powers know the oppressed peoples are breaking free of their stranglehold. On July 29, 2022 they deployed hundreds of militarized FBI forces on seven homes and offices of the African People’s Socialist Party and Uhuru Movement including its founder and leader Chairman Omali Yeshitela, sparking the formation of the Hands Off Uhuru! Fightback Coalition.
These raids and the subsequent indictment of Chairman Omali and the Uhuru 3 on bogus charges revealed not the strength of imperialist white power, but its weakness and decline in the face of a rapidly changing world, of which Gaza is another shining example.
We denounce all of the brutal, desperate acts by the global counterinsurgency to try to stop the forward motion of human progress. This includes Israel’s ongoing barbaric, genocidal slaughter of the Palestinians in Gaza. The Israeli military has launched over 1000 air strikes in the past three days killing over 900 Palestinians and obliterating mosques, hospitals and other health facilities, medical teams, and ambulances.
Palestinian bloodshed, extracted brutally by Zionist thugs, is what birthed the state of Israel. Israel was formally established in 1948 as the culmination of a genocidal process known as the “Nakba,” in which Zionist terrorists slaughtered Palestinians, burned their villages and expelled nearly a million of them from their homeland. In 1967 Israel expanded its occupation of Arab land to include Gaza, West Bank, East Jerusalem and Golan Heights.
The founding of Israel on Palestinian land was the initiation of a constant, unending state of warfare against the Palestinian people for the past 75 years. Over 200 Palestinians were killed by Israel in the past year alone. Thousands of Palestinians are locked down in Israeli prisons where they are starved and tortured.
Israel has announced a “complete siege” of Gaza, cutting off all access to electricity, food, water and fuel in the densely populated open air prison where 2.1 million Palestinians, more than half of them children, have been suffering under an enhanced vicious blockade for the past 16 years.
We reject the U.S. ruling class media’s slanderous designation of the Palestinian people’s resistance organizations as “terrorists.” The Palestinian people have the right to resist! While the U.S. media claims that Hamas waged an “unprovoked attack” on Israel, the truth is that the mere existence of Israel itself is a provocation against the Palestinians.
Throughout its more than 50 years of existence the African People’s Socialist Party has united firmly with the Palestinian people. Chairman Omali Yeshitela has consistently stood shoulder-to-shoulder with the Palestinians in their just and righteous struggle for national liberation.
This stand by the APSP represents the continuum of anti-colonial unity demonstrated by the Black Liberation Movement historically, as embodied by the great Malcolm X who visited the Gaza Strip in 1964, just one year before he was assassinated by the FBI and U.S. government.
As Chairman Omali has stated, what is known as “Israel” is in fact a white nationalist, illegitimate, colonial-settler state built on pillage, land theft, and genocide–no different from the colonial-settler states of the U.S., Canada, Australia, South Africa, and New Zealand.
Israel receives more U.S. funding for weapons than all other countries combined. Israel operates as a military outpost of U.S. imperialism in the Middle East, facilitating access to resources and serving as a tool for U.S. colonial policy in the Arab world and in Africa.
The courage of the Palestinian people to stand up and fight back is an inspiration to colonized peoples everywhere. As this statement is being written the U.S. is sending more ships, aircrafts and munitions to the Israeli military, but no amount of bombs will succeed in annihilating the will of the Palestinian and oppressed and colonized peoples of the world to fight and win our liberation and independence.
Hands Off Uhuru! Fightback Coalition calls for freedom-loving people in the U.S. and around the world to converge on Washington DC on November 4, 2023 for the 15th Annual Black People’s March on the White House, led by the Black is Back Coalition for Social Justice, Peace and Reparations.
The Black People’s March will represent a turning point in the emergence of the anti-colonial free speech movement and will uphold the leadership and demands by Africans, Indigenous people, Palestinians and all who fight and resist colonial oppression.
The Black People’s March on the White House will demand the U.S. government drop the charges against the Uhuru 3, Chairman Omali Yeshitela and Uhuru solidarity leaders Penny Hess and Jesse Nevel, who face bogus “foreign agents” charges for fighting against genocide of African people and for reparations.
The Black People’s March will demand the release of all political prisoners including Mumia Abu Jamal, Leonard Peltier, and the Holy Land Five, the Palestinian men imprisoned by the U.S. on false charges of “material support for terrorism.”
All out to the Black People’s March on the White House, Nov 4!
Hands Off Uhuru! Hands Off Africa! Free, Free Palestine! Colonialism Must Go!