Gaza-Based Student Group Linked To Popular Front For The Liberation Of Palestine (PFLP) Calls For 'Revolutionary Escalation Of Global Student Intifada For Palestine': 'Besiege The White House'

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On May 29, 2024, the Gaza-based Palestinian Alternative Revolutionary Path Movement (PARPM) issued a statement from the Secretariat of Palestinian Student Frameworks titled, "It Is Time for Revolutionary Escalation of the Global Student Intifada for Palestine: A Call from the Palestinian Student Movement in the Gaza Strip."[1] The statement, issued in English, Arabic, German, Spanish, Dutch, and French versions, expresses support for the campaign of student protests in the U.S. and other countries in support of the Palestinian cause and against Israel, urging them to begin "a new revolutionary phase of comprehensive escalation" by besieging the White House, and surrounding the headquarters of governments and corporations that support Israel.

The following are excerpts from the English version:

"We write this call from our student movement in the Gaza Strip, from the heart of occupied Palestine, from under the brutal Zionist bombing, explosions, and the clutches of the monstrous nightmare of death that lurks around us in every corner, house, and street … to send it to our fellow students, our comrades, brothers and sisters, in all the universities, schools and institutes of the world everywhere, and we address the global student movement that was launched in order to stop the genocidal war that is being engineered and financed by the governments of the United States, Britain, Germany, the Netherlands, Canada, Australia and others …

"We in the Gaza Strip look at you with pride and honour, as you are a revolutionary fighting vanguard, and a natural and integral part of our Palestinian liberation movement…

"Today, we call on you … to a new revolutionary phase of comprehensive escalation, and to raise the pace and ceiling of your struggle and your honorable stances, quantitatively and qualitatively, against the institutions, corporations, and governments that participate in the slaughter of our children, our students, and our people in Rafah, Jabalia, Khan Younis, and the entire Gaza Strip, and against the settler gangs, armies of Zionist killers, and so on that commit their crimes in camps, cities and villages in the occupied West Bank and Jerusalem.

"We call on you to besiege the White House in Washington, and to surround the palaces, headquarters and ministries of Western colonial governments and Zionist embassies, and the buildings and offices of the corporations that finance the Zionist entity and arm its criminal army with all kinds of bombs and means of death and destruction … we call on you to blockade them until the American Zionist aggression against our people in the Gaza Strip stops.

"… We renew our call to the teaching, academic, and union bodies in universities, as well as cultural, academic, and scientific figures, to advocate for and support student movements until they achieve their goals.

"Today we turn to high school students all over the world to participate widely in the struggles and activities of the university student movement, organizing demonstrations, sit-ins, and vigils, writing petitions and letters, and organizing educational days about the Palestinian struggle and the goals of the Palestinian people for liberation and return…

" … We send special greetings to our brothers and sisters, the students of Palestine in the diaspora, and to our comrades and colleagues in Students for Justice in Palestine, the Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network, Palestine Action, and the academic boycott and divestment campaigns, and we salute everyone who participated and participates in student encampments at every university, college and school.

"The duty and responsibility of Palestinian students in the Gaza Strip and all of occupied Palestine is steadfastness, commitment, resistance, unity, and alignment with the resistance and the people until the U.S.-Zionist aggression stops and the occupation is defeated and removed from our land – all our land, from the river to the sea.

"Long live the struggle of Palestine’s students for return and liberation

"Long live international solidarity

"And together we will be victorious."

The statement was posted verbatim on the website of the Popular Front for The Liberation of Palestine (PFLP)-linked Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network.[2] 

The PFLP, a U.S.-designated foreign terrorist organization, has issued several statements since the beginning of the ongoing Israel-Hamas war declaring the U.S. an enemy equal to Israel and calling to attack U.S. and European embassies and military bases.[3] The group has issued several statements expressing support for the student protests.[4]

Samidoun has been designated as a terrorist organization by both Germany and Israel, the latter desciring it as a "subsidiary" of the PFLP.[5] Canada-based activist Khaled Barakat, a former PFLP official, is a member of PARPM.[6]  In 2020 he was deemed "a security risk" and banned from entering Germany for four years, and in 2022, he was detained in and deported from the Netherlands, along with his wife and fellow activist, Charlotte Kates.[7]