Skip to content or view screen version

Break the siege! No Borders national day of action for Gaza

No Borders UK | 30.03.2009 12:35 | Anti-militarism | Migration | Palestine | World

On the 5th February, Israel and Egypt shut all borders with Gaza. Egypt has said it will close the Rafah border indefinitely as Gaza is an 'occupied territory'. No Borders UK calls for an immediate opening of Israeli and Egyptian borders with Gaza.

No Borders calls for a day of action on 27th April. Target those profiting from the siege (BAE, G4S, Caterpillar, EDO, Raytheon etc.).

No Borders is a network of groups struggling for the freedom of movement for all and an end to all migration controls. We demand the end of the border regime for everyone to enable us to live another way, without fear, racism and nationalism. We support groups in resistance on both sides of the border, from Anarchists Against the Wall in Israel, to the Free Gaza movement.

Solidarity with the victims of war does not mean solidarity with capitalist factions in a war from which they seek to benefit, nor does it mean supporting a cross-class, abstract national collective and its ethnic “rights” to lands. No Borders calls for a day of collective action against those responsible for the ongoing atrocities in Gaza. However, No Borders also rejects abandoning coherence to support a victory for a dangerous interpretation of “anti-imperialism”.

No Borders is reiterating the existing call from Palestinian community based organisations and the over 130 grassroots NGOs in the Palestinian NGO Network for an immediate opening of all border crossings currently controlled by Israel and Egypt. Refugees have been held at the border and denied medical care. The war is apparently over, yet hundreds are dying everyday because of this most brutal of border controls. Egypt blames Hamas, whilst Hamas claims that the injured refugees restrained themselves out of contempt for Egypt.

No Borders acts in solidarity with all those who are fighting to break the siege and stop the border control in Gaza. We call for collective action and practical solidarity with the people of Gaza. No Borders rejects all forms of nationalism and state based 'solutions'. Ethnicity does not grant “rights” to lands, which require the state to enforce them. People, however, have a right to having their human needs met, and should be able to live where they choose, freely.

In solidarity with Anarchists Against the Wall, the "Sarvanim" Refuseniks of Israel, the Sderot residents, Free Gaza, and the International Solidarity Movement, we call for a day of action targeting the profiteers and implementers of this siege. We call for groups to take action calling for an end to the brutal siege through civil resistance and direct action. No Borders calls for action in solidarity with those who reject all forms of nationalism, including the 'anti-Imperialist' nationalism endorsed during the war by some left-wing groups. We call for freedom of movement for all and an acknowledgment of those who are fighting on both sides of the borders to bring an end to the siege.

No Borders UK
- Homepage: http://www.noborders.org.uk

Comments

Hide the following 2 comments

Solidarity with Palestinian refugees

30.03.2009 20:17

Should also note that the majority of Palestinians are refugees constituting one of the biggest and most consistent refugee populations in the world. Israel was founded upon the ethnic cleansing of 80% of its indigenous population in 1948, despite even international law affirming as a human right the rights of refugees expelled during war to return, Israel has consistently been backed by the international community in denying Palestinians and their descendants the right to return to Israel because this would undermine the racial purity of the state.

We have the strange situation where somebody who is Jewish from Europe, whose ancestors for generations have lived in Europe has automatic 'the right of return' to Israel, but the borders are closed to a Palestinian who was born in Israel and expelled in 1948, whose ancestors may have lived for generations in the land now called Israel, who may still have the front door key to their house, yet cannot return to Israel to live there.

Many Palestinians have been driven from their homes and moved to a refugee camp, only to be driven out and become a refugee again, and again.

1 million Palestinians live in Israel as third class citizens, many as 'internal refugees' their land & property having been seized by the state during the 1948 war.

Adam Johannes


Situation in Sderot

21.04.2009 14:29

The people of sderot are legally colonizers of occupied Palestinian land. People view Sderot with horror and as a
potent symbol of injustice and ethnic cleansing, here in Gaza, it is
visible behind the prison walls here, it mocks us, its a perfect looking little red
rooved suburb full of people who believe in bombing the people of Gaza into submission. Settlers
from sderot tried to break into Beit Hanoun a few weeks ago. Even though there is morality in the principle of
solidarity with all under fire, and i accept that the residents of sderot are afraid and feel terror - but they get warning and they have top notch
bomb shelter it falls into the trap of 'equalisation' of suffering and experience between the people of Gaza and Sderot.
Sderot has been made into the posterchild for israeli suffering in the western media, but its a false and unequal juxtoposition and should be avoided.

Sderot ammendment