US police brutality protests hit home with Palestinian prisoners

ElectronicIntifada

In a letter written from an Israeli jail cell, Palestinian political prisoner Ameer Makhoul sends his salutations to African Americans protesting the police killing of unarmed Black men, women and youths.

“Even within Israeli jail, very much far away from you, we are mourning your beloved,” writes Makhoul in his 9 December letter.

Makhoul’s letter, which can be read in full at the bottom of this page, emphasizes the universality of the protests in the United States.

“Such racist official violence exasperates the conscience of all, and of course all 7,000 [Palestinian political prisoners] in Israel jail who seek freedom, liberty and justice for themselves as well as for their people of Palestine,” Makhoul states.

“Your cause is touching hearts everywhere,” he adds. “Your protest is on behalf of all humanity. Your voice is our voice … the voice of all free people.”

Makhoul underlines that like in Palestine, white settler-colonial racism is at the root of state violence in the US.

“The real sniper is the rooted racism which targets African-Americans because they are African-American,” Makhoul writes.

“Be sure that you are not alone, neither in the USA nor worldwide,” he adds. “Palestine backs your struggle.”

“I wish you a Merry Christmas and happy New Year, [in which] liberation from colonial racism and occupation become closer,” Makhoul concludes.

Ferguson and Palestine

Connections to repression in Palestine were expressed in the protests following the killing of unarmed Black teenager Michael Brown by a white police officer in Ferguson, Missouri, last August.

Gaza in particular became a metaphor for state violence in Ferguson. Israel’s mass slaughter was still wiping out entire Palestinian families there when the protests erupted after Brown’s slaying.

“Will we as a people rise up like the people of Gaza? Will our community be bombed like last night with tear gas?” one Ferguson protester is quoted saying in an article titled “Michael Brown’s Hometown is Under Occupation,” published by The Daily Beast.

The “military-style crackdown by a squadron of local police departments dressed like combat soldiers … prompted residents to liken the conditions on the ground in Ferguson to the Israeli military occupation of Palestine,” The Electronic Intifada’s Rania Khalek wrote at the time.

Meanwhile, Palestinians and Palestine solidarity groups put out their own message of support and solidarity following the slaying of Michael Brown. [MORE]