Support Palestinian Struggle for Freedom

According to Theodore Herzl, founder of the Zionist project, an important goal of the Zionist movement is: "To go further than any colonialist has gone in Africa…where involuntary expropriation of land will temporarily alienate civilized opinion. By the time the reshaping of world opinion in our favor has been completed, we shall be firmly established in our country, no longer fearing the influx of foreigners, and receiving our visitors with aristocratic benevolence."


The Palestinian people have endured 54 years of racism and genocide and their land decimated at the hands of the Zionist entity (known as "Israel"). The Bay Area Iranians for Peace and Social Justice stand in solidarity with the Palestinian people and their struggle for a democratic Palestine.

Since its inception, the Zionist movement has ominously paralleled the history of the United States and its treatment of Native American peoples. The Zionists are guilty of genocide, theft of land, and displacement of Palestine’s indigenous inhabitants. Recognizing this fact, the United Nations has equated Zionism with racism and has reiterated that position in the Conference on Racism held in Durban, South Africa.

Like the westward expansion of the British settlers and their descendents in North America (Manifest Destiny), the Zionist vision includes expansion beyond the borders of Palestine. This is evident through their attempts to occupy and colonize neighboring countries such as Egypt and Syria’s Golan Heights since 1967, and Lebanon in 1982. It is not very difficult to understand the parallels between the Israeli project and that of the US government when one realizes that they are the number one recipient of US foreign aid totaling 5.5 billion dollars per year.


The Israeli regime has developed an elaborate system of racial discrimination through its legal system. Laws such as Law of Citizenship, Law of Entry, or Law of Return create conditions to segregate Palestinians from the Jewish population and force them into a life of poverty and misery. The exclusionary nature of the Zionist movement is illustrated through its guarantee of land to Jews regardless of where they were born and raised while the 4-6 million Palestinian refugees who were forced to flee from their homeland are not allowed to return - this despite United Nations resolution 194 which guarantees the right of all refugees to return to their original homeland.

Israel’s support of Apartheid South Africa is yet another illustration of Zionist racism and their ongoing contribution to the subjugation of indigenous peoples for political and economic gains.

Presently, Palestinian civilians are being slaughtered on a daily basis, their homes demolished as settlements increase in direct violation of UN resolution 465, and their leaders assassinated. Simultaneously, the Israelis are using US-supplied tanks, Apache helicopters, and fighter jets against Palestinian youth who are resisting their oppressor for their right to exist.

As the United Nations has declared that people have a right to resist any occupying force, a fourth generation of Palestinians are resisting Zionist aggression to defend their homeland, dignity, and ultimately right to exist. We, Iranians, declare that all peoples who believe in justice and value human life must organize and publicly condemn the Israeli aggression and its dehumanization of Palestinians. We must work in solidarity with the Palestinian people for their rights, sovereignty, and self-determination and to celebrate the return of the nearly six million refugees to their homeland. conflict.

Bay Area Iranians for Peace and Social Justice - December, 2001 http://www.oocities.org/iforpeace/