Pledge of Solidarity

Showing up for those facing state & institutional repression

Taking a pledge

As organizers and activists in solidarity with Palestine liberation and the liberation of all oppressed peoples, we recognize that members of our movements are increasingly targeted by state and institutional repression. This has taken the form of designations and charges against organizations and individuals under terrorism and criminal activity frameworks, imprisonment of activists taking direct action against weapon manufacturers participating in genocide, and other forms of legal harassment aimed at repressing political speech and organizing.

The rise in solidarity with the Palestinian people and growing anti-Zionist, anti-imperialist consciousness has been met with escalating tactics of authoritarian repression across the West and beyond. Under the UK Labour government, the direct action organization Palestine Action was proscribed as a terrorist organization and dozens of activists held in pre-trial detention for years. The German government, delivering hundreds of millions of euros in weapons to the apartheid state of Israel, is running a show trial against five actionists, who have been held in solitary confinement for ten months on trumped-up charges of ‘criminal activity.’ The Trump regime, on a rampage against immigrants and trans people and holding thousands in concentration camps across the United States, has overwhelmingly and publicly accelerated fascist repression to include unilateral “terrorist” designations of organizations. These tactics are build on the repression of long histories of anti-capitalist, environmental defense and anti-imperialist movements, just as the escalation of these tactics against the Palestine solidarity movement will impact all movements for justice and liberation.

We have named as a priority preparing to defend and remain in solidarity with each other. These guidelines outline how organizations and individuals across the Palestine solidarity movement pledge to show up for each other with courage, accountability and principled solidarity.

Solidarity and collective strength

• An attack on one of us is an attack on all of us. We are stronger together, and we show up across diverse tactics and strategies. The more of us who stand together, the less vulnerable we all are.
• No individual should be “thrown under the bus” or pressured to bear the burden alone. We defend and refuse to criminalize those people and organizations who take risks towards our larger political commitments and goals, even when we disagree with tactics or content of political acts and speech. Our focus remains on resisting capitalist-imperialist state repression and systemic violence.
• We do not ask or expect those facing repression to compromise or dilute their political message or make their principled actions more "palatable" in order for us to express our solidarity with them and support their campaigns.

Safety and risk assessment

• We move in solidarity with each other even when such solidarity may create vulnerabilities.
• We address and reduce vulnerability while continuing to take strong and effective action. We assess risks carefully, especially for the most vulnerable members of our communities. Risk assessment during times of fascist repression should not come at the expense of continuing to struggle for justice and liberation, but rather inform and fortify our commitment to doing so.
• We encourage accountability to and from one another to avoid taking action that produces unnecessary vulnerabilities to our movements, particularly for those most likely to be targeted.

Movement accountability and respect

• We honor and uplift the risks people and organizations have taken in pursuit of justice and liberation, and defend them when they come under attack.
• We engage in principled political struggle through open communication, good-faith questioning, and direct discussion of how our actions affect those most often targeted. 
• We handle internal conflicts offline and, whenever possible, in-person, preserving public unity and solidarity while addressing legitimate critique, criticism and political difference to fortify and strengthen our work and relationships.

Defending each other against institutional repression

• We do not collaborate with law enforcement, federal agencies, or other bodies that criminalize Palestine solidarity under any circumstances.
• We do not participate in grand juries, interrogations, or subpoenas that target Palestine solidarity and other anti-colonial, anti-imperialist, anti-fascist work.
• We provide material, legal, and emotional support to organizers facing state attacks, including raids, arrests, terrorism charges, investigations, surveillance, threats and other legal repression.

Commitment to principle and justice

• We recognize the right to resist occupation, fascism, genocide, ethnic cleansing, land theft and systemic oppression under international law.
• Our work is guided by solidarity with the oppressed, not by fear of designations, proscriptions, terrorism or Material Support charges, or other legal repression.
• We prioritize solidarity over fear. Our activism is rooted in justice, collective liberation, and the understanding that systemic repression against one community is part of a broader campaign against all marginalized and oppressed peoples.
• We recognize that attacks on Palestine solidarity are connected to broader repression of Muslim, Arab, Black, Brown, Indigenous, immigrant, transgender and queer, and working-class communities, and we organize in recognition of these intersections.

By signing onto this pledge you/your organization commit(s) to take action in solidarity with individuals and organizations targeted by state repression and right-wing/fascist organizations, from letter writing to those incarcerated, to court support, to protest and direct action in defense of those being targeted, to fundraising for legal costs, to narratively, politically and legally challenging the laws and policies designed to target our movements.

Take action now:

1. Add your signature below!
2. Organize a session with your organization to discuss this pledge and concrete ways of understanding and implementing it in your context.
3. Write letters or organize a letter-writing evening for the Ulm5, CzechElbit11 and BrizeNorton6, political prisoners for Palestine in Europe.

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Background: This pledge emerged out of the work being done by the Right to Reject Zionism Coalition in the United States to combat Zionist and state repression against the Palestine solidarity movement. It reflects the expansion of this work across the UK and Europe that organized “Transforming Repression into Resistance,” a summit convened by a loose coalition of anti-Zionist, Palestine solidarity and Palestinian-led organizations and community members from Britain, the EU, and the US with the purpose of combatting Zionist repression as a tool of distraction, demobilisation and fragmentation.