1/ Considerable political, financial & diplomatic support goes to “people to people” projects. The premise: get Palestinians and Jewish Israelis together around a table because apparently our reality is a product of misunderstanding. Why is it bullshit? I start with Baldwin:

2/ It completely ignores the context: a system of oppression, inequality, discrimination and displacement that promotes supremacy of one people over another. What these projects seek to do is ignore that reality by putting oppressor and oppressed on equal footing.

3/ Our entire experience and existence is defined by the way this system treats us as sub human. A system that affords you freedom and rights based on entho-national identity. To suggest that all we have to do is talk to the “other side” for “peace” normalizes that status quo.

4/ Imagine telling African Americans or Black South Africans that they just need to talk to the side that’s oppressing them in order to dismantle Jim Crow or Apartheid. That it is all built on disagreement or misunderstanding. It robs the oppressor of their agency.

5/ In that thinking is the morally bankrupt and racist assumption that as Palestinians, we need to prove that we are worthy of freedom - that we need to huamize ourselves to those that rob us of our humanity and dignity. As if that’s how we achieve peace.

6/ The majority of Israeli society is radicalised. 60-65% of Jewish Israelis vote for right wing parties that campaign on who can crush, bomb & oppress us better. They don’t see us as human. That’s who you want us to talk to and reason with so we can co-exist? No thank you.

7/ These projects have existed for a long time and supplemented Oslo and the two-state solution. They were meant to bring peace between peoples over the last 30 years. Empirically have they worked? No. We are closer to Greater Israel than we are a Palestinian state.

8/ Finally they ignore that there are Palestinians and Jewish Israelis that work together under a different framework. One built on shared values that recognises the asymmetry of power. This framework is built on coresisting for freedom, equality, and rights for all.

9/ By continuing to fund and support these projects, you are exasperating the injustice. You are not making our environment conducive for liberation but adding more barriers to it. Don’t support co-existence in a oppressive system but resistance for better future for all.