On May 14, 2023, the Palestinian Youth Movement held a rally in Vancouver, BC to commemorate the Nakba.
Palestinian Youth Movement’s statement (April 24, 2023):
🇵🇸 VANCOUVER 🇵🇸
We call on all friends of the Palestinian cause to join us on MAY 14 AT THE VANCOUVER ART GALLERY to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the Nakba.
May 15 of this year will mark 75 years of zionist occupation in Palestine, the ongoing catastrophe that has seen the expansion of colonial settlements and military occupation across our lands, and the consequent displacement, forced exile, and mass murder of our people at the hands of the illegitimate zionist state. Though the Nakba is ongoing, so is our people’s resistance, which is stronger and more unified today than it has ever been before.
Wear your keffiyehs and bring your flags to the Nakba 75 rally MAY 14 as we call for the full liberation of Palestine without compromise or capitulation, and as we reject attempts by the city of Vancouver to force us into silence.
From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free!
The organizers:
- Palestinian Youth Movement
- Samidoun
- Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights (SPHR)
- Canada Palestine Association
- Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP)
- ILPS Canada
Khaled Barakat is a Canadian national based in Vancouver, BC. In 2017, Arabic media described Barakat as a member of the political bureau of the Palestinian Front for the Liberalization of Palestine (PFLP). In 2003, Canada designated the PFLP as a terrorist organization.
Barakat co-founded Masar Badil, the Alternative Palestinian Revolutionary Path Movement. According to No One Is Illegal, “Khaled Barakat was a founder of the No One Is Illegal network and movement in Vancouver,” “a member of No One Is Illegal,” and “an active leader in social movements in Vancouver and across Canada.” He is also affiliated with Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network and joined arms in anti-Israeli protests with activists of Canada Palestine Association and Independent Jewish Voices. In 2019, Barakat was subjected to a political ban and excluded from Germany.
Here are excerpts of Khaled Barakat’s speech at the rally:
It is not enough to obtain your freedom just by being right. What we learned as Palestinians, is that along with our rights and the just cause, we must resist by all means necessary to keep our cause alive and to liberate Palestine, and for that Palestinians are carrying guns today and an armed struggle is in the forefront of our struggle as we will not abandon our just cause and our people, we will not abandon our resistance. I’m not sure how many of you are following the news in Palestine for the past week. Forty F-16s Israeli warplanes US-made warplanes, forty of them, launched a crime and an attack against three Palestinian families, killing three of our brave commanders, and their wives and children while they were sleeping. These assassinations policy that Israel is engaged in, has been engaged in this before the establishment of this racist state, the Zionist gangs had practiced assassinations since the 30s and the 40s before even the establishment of this racist colony. They didn’t just assassinate Palestinians, and Arabs and internationalists, they assassinated scientists, poets, novelists, Palestinian singers, and Palestinian writers. They assassinated tens of our intellectuals and revolutionary intellectuals in Europe, in the United States. They killed Ghassan Kanafani, a brave Palestinian writer and journalist. And Israel continues its assassinations policy. Last year, they killed the Palestinian renowned journalist Shireen Abu Akleh. A sniper killed her while she [was] covering the situation in [the] refugee camp of Jenin. Now, how Palestinians are going to liberate their land without resistance? We ask this question to the prime minister of Canada Mr, [Justin] Trudeau, and his fancy office condemning Palestinian resistance, and upholding Israel’s right to defend itself. Now, this prime minister doesn’t understand that when he does this, we know why Canada is adopting this policy. Because Canada itself is a settler-colonialist state. Because Canada is supporting their allies, Israel, because Canada doesn’t want Israel to lose, they don’t Israel to end. They know the Palestinian example is the dangerous example today to imperialism and capitalism because Palestinians are at the forefront of combatting imperialism and Zionism. So, for our comrades in the left we say: Support our resistance if you want to get rid of capitalism and imperialism. Support Palestinian armed resistance. For our comrades and friends in the solidarity movement, for those who still have the illusions of the so-called two-state solution, we tell them: Drop this illusion. There is no two-state solution. There is only one Palestine, one liberated Palestine. For our friends and comrades and friends in the unions, support the Palestinian workers fighting injustices and exploitation on a daily basis in Israeli factories. Palestinian workers are going through hell in Israeli factories because they have to face exploitation, racism and oppression on a daily basis. So, for unions who support workers’ rights, you need to support Palestinian workers’ rights I want to salute the students in Canadian campuses who have been mobilizing the Boycott Israel and bring apartheid down I want to salute the young generations of this country, and the young Palestinian and Jewish comrades, young generation who is fighting side by side to bring apartheid down. Because in our struggle, we can demonstrate that an alternative Palestine is possible, that Palestine with no racism is possible, that Palestine without Zionism is possible, and that the Palestinian people will tell them an alternative, political and social economic system, not the one that exists today in Palestine; a system that respects peoples’ rights and self-determination, that respects Muslims, Jews and Christians and others to be free, truly free, and the Palestinians are the only people who are capable of making Palestine that homeland. A settler from New York and Berlin and London comes to our land in Palestine and wear a military fatigues and carry an M-16 and shoots students as they are going to their schools, that settler, I don’t care where he from, Vancouver or New York, is a legitimate target of our resistance. And Palestinian resistance today are [sic] stronger than ever For those of you who have been following the news from the past week, listen to what the Israeli heads of military agencies are saying their intelligence, their military Intelligence, their Mossad, their Shabak agency, their military commanders, they were telling their boss that if they engaged in a military confrontation with Gaza today it is not going to be a walk in the park, because Palestinian resistance are united, and because we have manufactured 50,000 missiles that we can throw on Tel Aviv when they kill our people in Gaza. Don’t be afraid of supporting Palestinian resistance. Don’t be afraid. Don’t have shaky hands when you support Palestinian armed resistance, because that is the only way we could protect our people. You know what Israel did in 2008. They killed thousands of Palestinians. 2012. 2014. The only way we can deter Israelis and the Israel system is by obtaining power, resistance, missiles, rockets. That’s what works with imperialism and Zionism. Nothing else works. The United Nations have been issuing one resolution after another throughout the past 75 years saying that Palestinians have rights, but when we asked them to implement these rights they say: We can’t. And the reason they can’t is because of the United States of America, is because of the imperialist power likeGermany, like France, like Canada, like the Western colonialist powers. They are the ones who are backing Israel. And yet what Canada do[es]? They list our Palestinian resistance on the so-called terrorist list. So, today in Canada, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, the Popular Front for the Liberation f Palestine [PFLP], Hezbollah, all of our resistance groups are on the so-call terrorist list. We need to scrap this terrorist list. We need to tell the Canadian government, we need to tell the Canadian security agencies, the only reason that Palestinians don’t practice violence in this country is not because we are scared. Fuck them. We are not scared of them. But because our enemy is Israel, and we don’t want to have another enemy. We want to fight the occupiers. We want to confront the colonizers. We want to win that war against Israel’s occupation and bring that racist apartheid system down. So, you are justifying arming your allies, but when the oppressed resist they become terrorists. They list the Communist Party of the Philippines on their terrorist list. Shame on them. They list progressive and revolutionary organizations on the so-called terrorist list, and along with that they put some terrorist groups like ISIS and others in order to mislead people to say that the Communist Party of the Philippines is just like ISIS, and that the PFLP is just like the I don’t know what a terrorist group that they list. And that is to deceive people, to deceive people, and so we are proud to say that we are launching a campaign to erase that shame list, and to say to the Canadian government: You can issue any law you want, we are going to support our resistance no matter what Trudeau says. We don’t care about your laws. We don’t care about the laws you issue against our resistance. We are going to continue our support for not just the Palestinian resistance, but the Lebanese resistance as well. We know that Israel can defeat states, Arab regimes, but they cannot defeat popular armed resistance. And today the Palestinians, the Lebanese, Iraqis and Yemenis are rising with one resistance camp. Israel is crumbling. Israel will not last. Israel is about to be defeated. For those of you who want to be on the side of justice, support Palestine, don’t support racist colonies. Israel has no future in Palestine. Israel will be defeated. They have no chance. For the past 75 years, they know that Palestinians are not going to give up. And we know from last week experience how they ran, these settlers, they ran to Tel Aviv, to hide in Tel Aviv We don’t have anything in Gaza to send our children and families to. They do, the Israelis They have all kinds of protection systems that protect them, shields, and, you know, Iron Dome and rockets, developed very sophisticated machines that they obtain from the United States and from their allies. We know that in this battle it’s not just military might It is also, if you are fighting for a just cause or not, and those who fight for a just cause will eventually be victorious. This is the lesson of history this is the lesson that Palestinians have learned from our brothers and sisters in Algeria after 132 years of fighting French colonization, and they were victorious. So, another world is possible, and we want to march and continue to march along our brothers and sisters in Toronto, Montreal, Winnipeg, New York, every city in Europe and North America are marching this week for the right of return and for the liberation of Palestine. Our people are marching in the Arab world and the refugee camps in Lebanon, Jordan, Syria. We are one united Palestinian nation marching behind our resistance for victory. So, free, free Palestine. Long live Palestine. Palestine will be free from the river to the sea.
Chants:
Long live the Intifada. Long live the armed resistance.
Chants (led by Charlotte Kates):
Long live Palestine. Long live the Intifada. Intifada, Intifada.
Signs:
Right to resist. Right to return.
Generation after generation until total liberation. Free Palestine.
Justice for Walid Daqqa
Freedom for all Palestinian women prisoners!
Resistance is not terrorism
Khader Adnan