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Displacement

BDS Campaigning In Solidarity With Masafer Yatta

Thousands of Palestinians in Masafer Yatta, in the area south of occupied Al-Khalil (Hebron), face the imminent threat of expulsion in what would be the largest expulsions carried out by the Israeli apartheid regime since the 1970s. We are witnessing through testimonies, images and videos shared from the ground Israel’s brutal violence and repression in Masafer Yatta since the Israeli High Court, a critical part of Israel’s apartheid system, ruled in favour of the ethnic cleansing of some 1,300 Palestinians living in eight villages there. Home demolitions and forced expulsion of Palestinian communities are the very method through which apartheid Israel entrenches its settler colonialism.

The Ethnic Cleansing Of Masafer Yatta

The Israeli Supreme Court has decided that the Palestinian region of Masafer Yatta, located in the southern hills of Hebron, is to be entirely appropriated by the Israeli military and that a population of over 1,000 Palestinians is to be expelled. The Israeli Court decision, on May 4, was hardly shocking. Israel’s military occupation does not only consist of soldiers with guns but elaborate political, military, economic and legal structures, dedicated to the expansion of the illegal Jewish settlements and the slow – and sometimes not-so-slow – the expulsion of the Palestinians. When Palestinians state that the Nakba, or Catastrophe – which led to the ethnic cleansing of Palestine in 1948 and the establishment of the state of Israel on its ruins – is a continuous, unfinished project, they mean exactly that.

The Right Of Return Is Once Again A Palestinian Priority

The Nakba is back on the Palestinian agenda. For nearly three decades, Palestinians were told that the Nakba – or Catastrophe – is a thing of the past. That real peace requires compromises and sacrifices, therefore, the original sin that has led to the destruction of their historic homeland should be entirely removed from any ‘pragmatic’ political discourse. They were urged to move on. The consequences of that shift in narrative were dire. Disowning the Nakba, the single most important event that shaped modern Palestinian history, has resulted in more than political division between the so-called radicals and the supposedly peace-loving pragmatists, the likes of Mahmoud Abbas and his Palestinian Authority.

Israeli High Court Greenlights Forcible Expulsion Of More Than 1,000 Palestinians In Masafer Yatta

The Israeli High Court on Wednesday greenlit the forcible expulsion of 1,200 Palestinians in the Masafer Yatta area of the southern occupied West Bank, ending a more than two-decade battle in the courts. The Israeli government claims the residents of eight herding communities in an area of the South Hebron Hills, known as Masafer Yatta, are residing “illegally” in a military firing zone, and has been attempting to expel them from the area for decades. The residents of Masafer Yatta, however, date their presence in the area several decades ago, before the area was occupied by Israel in 1967, and declared a firing zone by the military in the 1980s. Late Wednesday night, the High Court rejected an appeal by the residents against their expulsion, paving the way for the Israeli military to demolish their homes and forcibly expel them from their land, a crime under international law.

Portland Mobilizes To Defend Fallout Camp From Sweeps

On Thursday, February 17th, park rangers and Portland police showed up to the PDX Houseless Radicals Collective’s Fallout Camp on Park’s land in southeast Portland, Oregon. Their intended eviction of the camp was prevented by the presence of several comrades who were there in support. They promised to return in force the following Tuesday. Organizing for a sweep defense started ramping up that weekend. A community potluck was called for that Sunday at Fallout Camp, where a meeting was held discussing strategy. A public-facing campaign combined with a civil disobedience-style sweep defense was the chosen strategy. A phone zap flyer and a petition began to circulate online, and support was gathered through social media and word-of-mouth.

The Jewish National Fund Does Israel’s Dirty Work—Again

The JNF (Jewish National Fund) once again is in the news, this time for collaborating with the State of Israel in dispossessing Palestinian residents of the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah.  According to a 2010 UN report, this is not the first time Sheikh Jarrah’s residents have been dispossessed and, while illegal under international law, it is not illegal according to Israeli law.  It is one more act of brutality, brought to you on a regular basis by Israel and the JNF since 1948.   On the evening of January 18, 2022, in Sheikh Jarrah, Israeli police attacked the home of the Salahiya family—a family that was originally displaced by Israel in 1948. The destruction of homes and land in such attacks is executed by the JNF.  In the January attack, police arrested Mahmoud Salahiya and his sons and violently removed the rest of the family from their home.

Why Palestine Is Burning Like Never Before

Occupied Palestine – When no one is steering the ship, the wind, the currents and the waves lead it into the depths. This is what is happening in Palestine. The Naqab is burning, Sheikh Jarrah is burning, young and old Palestinians are being killed everywhere, Gaza is practically underwater with flooding, and Palestinian refugees are barely alive in camps throughout the region. Furthermore, in the U.S. capital there isn’t a single entity that represents Palestine; and, in those rare capitals where some representation does exist, it is quite useless. Zionist trolls on social media are disrupting the lives of Palestinians and those who support Palestine, while social media platforms allow Israeli Defense Force (IDF) pages to portray hate-filled, racist Zionist terrorist organizations as peace-loving, attractive – even sexy – groups of well-meaning people.

The Jewish National Fund Is Ethnically Cleansing The Naqab

At dawn today, January 12, 2022, Israeli bulldozers and combat-ready soldiers raided the Palestinian village of Al-Atrash in the Naqab desert in southern 1948 Palestine [present-day Israel]. For the third day in a row, Israeli bulldozers have been bulldozing large swathes of land belonging to Palestinians from the village. The escalated ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in Al-Atrash is part of a scheme that is being implemented jointly by both the Jewish National Fund (JNF) and Israel’s Land Authority. As a response to this, Palestinians from Al-Atrash and the surrounding areas have been protesting for three days now in an attempt to stop the seizure of their land.

Forced Displacements In Colombia Increase By Over 169% During 2021

The Consultancy for Human Rights and Displacement (CODHES), on December 22, warned of an alarming increase in massive and multiple forced displacement events in Colombia during 2021. The CODHES reported that between January and November, 2021, 82,846 people were forcibly displaced from their homes and territories, a figure that represents an increase of 169.3% as compared to the same period in 2020. The CODHES further reported that a total number of 167 displacement events were recorded in these eleven months, which represents an increase of 65.3% in relation to the same period in 2020. CODHES also reported that this year’s increase in displacement incidents had been marked by an increase in displacement of Afro-descendant and Indigenous communities.

Afro-Indigenous People In Honduras Are Being Forcibly Displaced

On this Indigenous Peoples’ Day, I want to tell you about my people, the Garifuna. We’re an Afro-Indigenous people, descended from Arawaks and Africans. Our ancestral territory spans the Caribbean border of Central America. Latin American and Caribbean communities like ours are rarely noticed in U.S. media — except when we migrate. In summer 2021, U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris came to Central America and told would-be migrants: “Do not come .” More recently, photos of U.S. Border Patrol agents whipping Haitian refugees in the Texas desert  brutally drove that message home. This anti-migrant message is dehumanizing and wrong. But the truth is, many of us would love nothing more than to stay in our homes. It’s Washington that’s making it difficult.

A Global Anti-Olympics Movement Rises

Just three months into 2021, police officers wearing riot gear descended on an encampment of houseless people in the Echo Park neighborhood of Los Angeles, forcing residents out in a sweep that went viral on social media. For Los Angeles-based activist Gigi Droesch, the videos were reminiscent of a park sweep that took place in 2015 on the other side of the world — in Tokyo. “When I was looking at the footage from the Tokyo sweep, it looked really similar to our own footage,” Droesch said. “The way the police were hassling residents — it was the same sort of thing. There were people who were unhoused in this park, and the police came and violently swept them away.” While some might think it’s a big jump to go from Los Angeles to Tokyo, it was a natural conclusion for Droesch, who has spent the past several years involved in an international movement to end the Olympics and the displacement, policing and militarization that the games bring to hosting cities.

War And Climate Disasters Displaced A Record Of 55 Million People In 2020

Amid a raging global pandemic, a record 55 million people were displaced from their homes but still living in their countries by the end of 2020, according to the latest report from the Internal Displacement Monitoring Center. While the figures have been increasing steadily for over a decade, as per the Geneva-based center’s annual reports, ferocious storms, floods and conflicts displaced more people within their own country in 2020 – in spite of the global pandemic – than in any other year covered by the IDMC’s reporting. Shockingly, the report found that internally displaced people outnumbered refugees, those who flee to another country, by a ratio of two to one.  The research center, which is part of the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC), also cautioned that their figures were likely a “significant underestimate” as global pandemic travel restrictions frustrated efforts to more accurately collect data. 

Report: So-Called US War On Terror Has Displaced As Many As 59 Million People

The ongoing U.S. "war on terror" has forcibly displaced as many as 59 million people from just eight countries in the Middle East, Africa, and Asia since 2001, according to a new report published Tuesday by Brown University's Costs of War Project. "U.S. involvement in these countries has been horrifically catastrophic, horrifically damaging in ways that I don't think that most people in the United States have grappled with or reckoned with in even the slightest terms."  —David Vine, American University Titled "Creating Refugees: Displacement Caused by the United States' Post-9/11 Wars" (pdf), the new report conservatively estimates that at least 37 million people have "fled their homes in the eight most violent wars the U.S. military has launched or participated in since 2001."

Climate Migrants Still Face ‘Immense Disaster’

LONDON, 22 January, 2020 − If you are a climate migrant, how urgent is urgent? Slowing, or even stopping, the damage humans are doing to the physical world through profligate use of fossil fuels and casual extermination of other species is urgent. But what we are allowing fellow humans to tolerate is just as urgent, though often less remarked. Many millions more will be forced to flee their homes in a world experiencing intensifying climate breakdown.

De Blasio Rejects Community’s Plan For Bushwick Rezoning

Mayor Bill de Blasio has rejected a community-driven rezoning proposal for Bushwick, dealing a significant blow to local residents who spent years drafting a blueprint aimed at addressing gentrification and displacement in the rapidly changing neighborhood. The administration's decision was outlined in a letter delivered to local stakeholders this weekend by Deputy Mayor Vicki Breen, who said she was "deeply concerned" that aspects of the community plan amounted to a downzoning.

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Due to the attacks on our fiscal sponsor, we were unable to raise funds online for nearly two years.  As the bills pile up, your help is needed now to cover the monthly costs of operating Popular Resistance.

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