
Free Learning for a Free Palestine
A Palestine Liberation Education Starter Kit
Image source: Unknown artist, from Palestinian Affairs vol. 35 (July 1974)
The goal of education is to correct the march of history. For this reason we need to study history and to apprehend its dialectics in order to build a new historical era, in which the oppressed will live, after their liberation by revolutionary violence, from the contradiction that captivated them.
— Ghassan Kanafani
Introduction to this project
To work collectively toward the liberation of Palestine, we must organize transnationally. A first step to building transnational organization is collective education—education that teaches us who has power, how power is maintained and used, and how we can challenge it. Israeli propaganda would have us think that what is happening in Palestine is hopelessly complicated, too historically and politically complex to take a side. It is not. We offer this list of resources, freely available to all, as a starting point. We are not the first or only group to compile educational resources on the genocide in Palestine, but this starter kit represents what we’ve found most helpful and what pertains to our specific areas of expertise.
Palestine has been colonized since the early 20th century. Israel and its imperial allies, like the United States and the United Kingdom, are continuously and actively profiting from the exploitation and dispossession of Palestinians. We can trace the development and creation of the Israeli colonial project in Palestine through history, looking at moments where power was institutionalized at the expense of Palestinians. In the Sykes-Picot Agreement, for example, European powers shaped a Middle East subservient to the imperial accumulation of wealth. The Balfour Declaration committed the British Empire to Israeli colonization of Palestine. The Israeli state’s institutions, leaders, and practices emerged from militias and terror groups like the Irgun and Haganah over the years leading up to 1948. Methodical programs, like Plan Dalet, were planned and carried out to displace Palestinians, take their land, and build a supremacist state predicated on religious (Jewish) superiority. Since 1948, the Israeli state has continued its assault on Palestinians in Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza, as it seeks to permanently replace them with its own ideal citizens through illegal land seizures and settlements. As the examples above indicate, such structures of extreme violence and exploitation are evident historically. Yet, crucially, those structures still exist and are, in fact, constantly expanding, as current (Dec. 2024) Israeli plans for the annexation of northern Gaza and southern Lebanon demonstrate.
Hasbara, which literally translates to “explaining” in Hebrew and is colloquially understood to mean Israeli state propaganda, remains at the forefront of Israel’s tactics of obfuscation and genocide justification. Hasbara and the normalization of Israel’s colonial project in Palestine have been historically very successful in the United States. Billions of dollars in foreign aid, and billions more in military and economic trade, flow from the United States to Israel each year. Both the Democratic and Republican parties, save for a small group of dissenting politicians, have been uncritical, staunch “supporters of Israel” since its establishment. Police departments in the United States send officers to Israel to learn violent suppression techniques and test the latest developments in weaponry. American universities work with Israeli weapons manufacturers and send students on study-abroad trips to bolster the American-Israeli military-industrial complex.
The question of why the United States and other imperial powers have always sided with Israel is not one of mere ideological commitment. The United States does not send Israel billions of dollars simply because U.S. politicians just happen to like the idea of Israel. Capitalism has made the colonization of Palestine profitable. Forcibly taking Palestinian land, bombing Gaza and Lebanon, and building Israeli settlements in the West Bank—these are all highly profitable endeavors. Indeed, the colonization of Palestine has always been profitable for some. It is not in the interest of imperial powers, like the U.S. and Great Britain, who are actively accumulating wealth, to stop accumulating wealth. The liberation of Palestine is a deeply unprofitable prospect for those at the top of the global political and economic hierarchy. U.S. companies involved in the manufacture of weapons sent to Israel profit. Politicians who receive money from pro-Israel lobbying groups accumulate power and wealth from their support for the destruction of Palestine.
How, then, do those of us situated in the imperial core unite in solidarity with Palestinian liberation in the face of nuclear weapons, gargantuan militaries, and extreme state violence? There is an active movement in Palestine and Lebanon which, through armed resistance, is working towards the liberation of Palestine. We, alongside millions, support decolonization by any means necessary—including armed struggle. Palestinians on the ground and in the diaspora are also engaged in unarmed resistance through extensive and targeted economic campaigns to make Israel less profitable, as exemplified in the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement (BDS). All support and solidarity from the belly of the beast stem from a shared understanding of what must be resisted and overthrown. This is why radical education—the building of critical consciousness paired with collective action and reflection—is so important.
Educating ourselves about the Israeli colonization of Palestine is simultaneously a de-education of what we have been taught. We must not only be aware of the specific ways in which power operates in Palestine, but we must also think about our place in those power structures. The U.S., after all, is a settler colony just like Israel, itself a system of ongoing genocide and displacement of the Indigenous communities of Turtle Island and the extraction of the land’s natural resources for exploitation and profit. Only by engaging in deep, critical thought about the conditions of our lives with others can we begin to make material impacts. The resources in this starter kit will help you understand what is happening in Palestine.
We have organized the freely accessible resources here thematically and by media type so you can begin wherever you’d like. For example, if you are interested in why many Black and Indigenous activists also support Palestinian liberation, begin with our Solidarity & BDS section. If you need a primer on historical events like the Nakba of 1948, or just want to better understand settler colonialism and how it applies to Palestine, visit Zionism & Settler Colonialism. The beauty of these resources is that they are highly interrelated. You will learn about the history of Palestine when you read about solidarity. You will understand solidarity when you read about feminism and queer liberation. While we’ve tried to keep things simple by organizing each source under just one thematic heading, all of the pieces are in conversation with the others.
We hope to support a collective education on Palestinian liberation. Education that is critical of mystification is itself liberatory. It teaches us that we, as social actors, are agents capable of generating radical change. Education on Palestinian liberation can be liberatory itself, but in the process of interacting with and learning from the resources here, we begin to ask the question, What can we do? There are many ways to get involved, but here is a place to start: Take what you learn and share it with your communities. Studying a resource and discussing it with others is a longstanding, highly effective method of building political consciousness and organization. Think of each resource in this kit as one piece of a larger puzzle. As more pieces are gathered and arranged next to each other, a picture emerges. We learn not only who profits from the colonization of Palestine but also how to overthrow them. And we must learn these truths together.
How to use this starter kit
The starter kit can be navigated by topic (e.g., anti-Zionism) or media type (e.g., books). Below, under the question, What types of media are you looking for?, you will see buttons for each type of media. Similarly, under the question, What topics are you interested in?, you will see buttons for each topic. When you click one of these buttons, you will be directed to a webpage listing related resources from our starter kit. These webpages are organized by media type (for topic pages) or topic (for media type pages) with buttons to jump to the corresponding section of the webpage. Each listed resource has a hyperlink that, when clicked, will take you to the resource on a new webpage.
Let’s say you are interested in listening to podcasts. You start by clicking on the Podcasts button under What media are you looking for? Now on the Podcasts page, you see buttons for each topic available and a list of podcast episodes organized by these topics. You’re interested in Resistance podcast episodes and click on that labeled button. Now you’re further down the webpage and see one podcast episode listed under Resistance. Now you click on the episode hyperlink and are taken to a webpage wherein you can listen to that episode.
Content warning: Please be aware that due to the nature of colonization in Palestine, much of the linked content contains descriptions and discussions of violence, including sexual violence.
What types of media are you looking for?
What topics are you interested in?
Glossary of key terms
anti-Zionism
Anti-Zionism is an anti-imperial political ideology that opposes Jewish nationalism and/or the racist, settler colonial project of Zionism as it has unfolded in the Israeli occupation of Palestinian land and the genocide, disablement, and displacement of Palestinians. As a history of Jewish opposition to Zionism indicates, anti-Zionism must not be conflated with antisemitism.
Source: IJAN
BDS (Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions)
Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) is a Palestinian-led, non-violent movement for freedom, justice and equality that calls for international governments, businesses, organizations, and individuals to use these economic and political tactics to pressure Israel to comply with international law. Boycotts withdraw support from Israeli and international companies engaged or implicated in violations of Palestinian human rights. Divestment is focused on financial investments, particularly those of large entities such as banks, churches, pension funds, and universities. Sanctions call for governments to withdraw monetary, political, and military support from Israel as well as suspending Israel’s membership in international forums such as UN bodies and FIFA.
Sources: BDS Movement (What is BDS?; PACBI; What to Boycott)
hasbara
Hasbara, translated from Hebrew as “explaining,” is a communication strategy used by the Israeli state to use information to reinforce state narratives and control discourse, specifically around conflict. Critics of hasbara associate it with “state-sponsored propaganda, agitprop, and information warfare.” Hasbara is a coordinated and deliberate distribution of biased information intended to influence public perceptions through media. Since Oct. 2023, hasbara has been a critical strategy taken up by Israel and its enablers to influence public perception and manufacture consent for the ongoing genocide.
Sources: Jewish Voice for Labour; Electronic Intifada
indigeneity
Indigeneity is most basically defined as being descended from the earliest inhabitants of a place. However, it cannot be understood apart from settler colonialism and indigenous sovereignty. Indigeneity focuses on the relationship between indigenous people and places and the political movement toward decolonization. On the other hand, settler claims to indigeneity serve as a crucial tool in many settler colonial projects globally as they attempt the erasure of indigenous communities with ancestral and ongoing relationship to the land and the knowledges, cultures, and traditions that result from that relationship. Indigeneity has become a transnationalist analytical tool in identifying and dismantling settler colonialism.
Sources: Al-Shabaka; Yellowhead Institute; 28 Mag; Mahmoud Darwish; J. Kēhaulani Kauanui
disablement
Disablement refers to the practices of deliberate attacks by Israel in Palestine designed to cause mass bodily harm and injuries, as well as the destruction of health infrastructures such as hospitals, denial of adequate medical relief, and intentional disruption of health care supplies.
Source: L. Obermaier
genocide
The legal definition of genocide, according to the United Nations, means any of the following acts “committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group” including killing members of the group; causing serious bodily or mental harm; deliberately inflicting conditions of life calculated to bring about the group’s physical destruction in whole or in part; imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; and/or forcibly transferring children of the group to another group. Note, however, the colonial limitations of this UN definition, as evidenced by the inability of international law to stop the genocide that has been unfolding in Gaza since Oct. 2023. As Noura Erakat points out, “The final draft of the Genocide Convention removed colonial violence from its scope and represented a Eurocentric humanity. The inability to stem genocide today illuminates that there is no international law but law for Europe and a law for all others.”
Sources: UN; Mondoweiss; Hanin Ibrahim
normalization
Normalization is the presentation of Israel’s behavior and actions against the Palestinian people as normal and acceptable. This term emerged from the 1979 Egypt-Israel peace treaty, which stated that the “signatories shall establish among themselves relationships normal to states at peace with one another.” Palestinians and Arabs began using “anti-normalization” to describe the refusal to deal with the Israeli regime as a normal entity. Normalization also situates the oppressor and the oppressed on level ground, allowing for “both sides” of the conflict to be presented without context of power differentials. The Palestinian BDS National Committee (BNC) defines normalization as “dealing with or presenting something that is inherently abnormal, such as oppression and injustice, as if it were normal. Normalization with/of Israel is, then, the idea of making occupation, apartheid, and settler colonialism seem normal and establishing normal relations with the Israeli regime instead of supporting the struggle led by the Indigenous Palestinian people to end the abnormal conditions and structures of oppression. … Countering normalization is a means to resist oppression, its mechanisms and structures.” +972 Magazine describes normalization as “as a ‘colonization of the mind,’ whereby the oppressed subject comes to believe that the oppressor’s reality is the only ‘normal’ reality … and that the oppression is a fact of life that must be coped with.”
Sources: Al-Shabaka; +972 Mag; BDS Movement
right of return
The “right of return” is a human right and internationally acknowledged (if not always applied) legal right for people to return to their country of origin, particularly with regard to refugees and their descendants’ displacement from their homelands. In 1948, the United Nations General Assembly adopted Resolution 194 calling for the right of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes from which they were forced out by Israel. Israel continues to dispute this right as it seeks to maintain its genocidal and expansionist settler colonial project. The UN resolution guarantees this right to individuals only; however, for Palestinians, the right of return is collective. The basic fundamentals of Palestinian collective rights are known as Thawabit, “constants,” and include the rights of return, resistance and self-determination.
Sources: UNRWA; IMEU; Electronic Intifada
settler colonialism
Settler colonialism is the ongoing occupation of indigenous lands, the appropriation of natural resources for the economic benefit of the colonizers, and the displacement, subjugation, and/or elimination of indigenous people from that land. In settler colonialism, the invading forces attempt to become the majority population alongside their decimation of the original residents of the area through warfare, spread of infectious diseases, and other genocidal tactics. This type of colonization applies to nations including (but not limited to) North and South America, the Caribbean islands, New Zealand, Australia, and Israel. Settler colonialism is an ongoing structure, not a past historical event.
Sources: Global Social Theory (Settler Colonialism; ICCG – Ramallah 2015); J. Kēhaulani Kauanui
Zionism
Zionism is a political ideology and a form of Jewish nationalism that operates as settler colonialism. “It is the set of beliefs that drove the founding of the State of Israel in Palestine and continues to drive its expansion today. Zionism serves to justify the colonization of Palestine and the dispossession of Palestinian people through land confiscation, forced exile, and massacres.”
Source: IJAN