Cat Brooks' Statement on Palestine

APTP Policy Director James Burch reads Cat Brooks’ statement at solidarity rally with Palestinian General Strike, 5/18/21 in San Francisco, surrounded by a crowd of people waving Palestinian flags. (Brooke Anderson)

Cat Brooks Statement on Palestine
Read at 4/18/21 Palestenian Solidarity Rally
San Francisco, California

Comrades:

I am recovering from surgery otherwise I would be with you today.  My heart shatters for Palestine - for the women, the children, the elders. The Anti Police-Terror Project doesn’t just stand in solidarity with Palestine. We stand in solidarity with Palestinian resistance!   Our struggles are connected and our liberation is tied.  It is the same forces that rape, maim, incarcerate and murder Palestinians that train US law enforcement agencies to rape, maim, incarcerate and murder Black people here.  The white supremacist agendas of the United States and Israel are one in the same and so must our resistance be to their terror. We demand an end to the genocide in Palestine and an end to the genocide in urban cities across the United States. We demand an end to the collaboration between US and Israeli white supremacist forces and we demand the right to return home for Palestinians pushed out by settler terrorism and greed and the right to return home for Black Oaklanders pushed out by gentrification, police terror and greed. These demands are not just things we scream into the ether.  They are tangible and extractable wins possible in this political moment where the people across the globe are not just saying no more, they are screaming THIS is how we ensure no more, THIS is how we get from here to there, THIS is what liberatory practice looks like.  We can, are in the process of, and WILL win. White supremacy is gasping for breath.  He is dying.  He knows it.  So he fights hard, gets more viscous, like a rabid animal backed into a corner.  Our job - as Tur-Ha Ak says - is to use our movements to put our knee on his chest, cover his mouth and nose and ensure the death is swift and final.  There have been and will continue to be losses as we get from here to there.  I ask those now ancestors to guide us as we continue to struggle, fight and win in their names. We can smell freedom on the winds and we know that unity, intersectionality and solidarity is the path. 

All of our love and fire,
Cat & APTP