Statement on Palestine by SCI Italia
Solidarity towards the Palestinian people who exists and resist
Published on behalf of Servizio Civile Internazionale Italia
?? As Servizio Civile Internazionale Italia we join the collective appeal to the international community to stop the escalation of violence that the Palestinian territory is experiencing.
? We appeal to the international community to stop the violence and to remove all obstacles that are preventing free elections in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip.
❌ Two days before the anniversary of the Nakba, we join the collective voices denouncing Israel’s apartheid. We reject the definition of “conflict”, too often used by the media that speak of “violence on both sides” and “war against terrorism” because behind these definitions, behind the space given only to the rockets over Tel Aviv, lies the erasure of people, of biographies, and the justification of Zionist structural and systemic violence.
We denounce what is happening today in East Jerusalem’s neighbourhood, in Sheikh Jarrah, where 200 Palestinians have been expelled from their homes – clear example of 73 years of Israeli colonial policy, evictions, ethnic cleansing and daily abuses on Palestinian bodies, under the silence and complicity of the international community, the media and our institutions.
This violence, as Ilan Pappe teaches us in his 2006 text “The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine”, has nothing to do with Judaism, if not its exploitation as a justification for the systemic violence and use of power of a state.
Neither Palestinians nor Jews will be saved, from one another or from themselves, if the ideology that still drives the Israeli policy towards Palestinians is not correctly identified. The problem with Israel was never its Jewishness – Judaism has many faces and many of them provide a solid basis for peace and cohabitation; it is its ethnic Zionist character (p.260)
? We need to go beyond the “conflict” narrative, which, simplifying an extremely complex situation, does’t allow us to analyse what’s happening in the local context, as an expression of global dynamics, which requires us to take an immediate position.
✊? For pacifism, for internationalism and for nonviolence, for a profound and permanent cultural revolution to end all types of oppression and discrimination, we express our solidarity with the Palestinian people who exist and resist.
READ THE ORIGINAL VERSION IN ITALIAN
Explore more news
We are all Made out of Mud
In 2017, a couple of friends and activists from our organisation, GAIA, started a project in a small, remote village in the Eastern part of the country. This area of Kosovo is economically least developed, facing depopulation in particular due to migration of young people, but at the same time it lives in its own diversity without ethnic divisions. The initial idea and the driver was about...
New year = New season
It's January and with it a new season begins. At SCI France we are living it with a lot of cold, but if possible with more excitement than cold. We are going to give you a small taste of the exciting events that make us feel a little bit more protected from the freezing weather. This week our new volunteer Firas arrives from Tunisia. Firas is a volunteer of Volunteering without Borders, our...
No War Anywhere: Antimilitarism across Europe
In a world dealing with the widespread effects of war and militarisation, "No War Anywhere" project, coordinated by SCI’s International Secretariat, stands out as a source of hope and a demonstration of the positive impact of peaceful approaches. Through five significant activities, the project has effectively promoted the idea of opposing militarism, connecting with people throughout Europe and...
