March 15, 2025
Source: Originally published by Z. Feel free to share widely.
As Israel’s war on Gaza escalates and the occupation of Palestine deepens, international solidarity has surged. Mass protests, boycott campaigns, and public statements of support have multiplied. However, as the global movement grows, a critical question emerges: Is our solidarity truly advancing Palestinian liberation, or does it sometimes reinforce the very power structures we seek to dismantle?
True solidarity must be more than symbolic gestures or humanitarian aid. It must be rooted in a decolonial framework—one that recognizes Palestine as part of a broader struggle against colonialism, imperialism, and racial capitalism. This entails moving beyond charity, resisting efforts to depoliticize Palestinian resistance, and directly challenging the systems that uphold Israeli apartheid.
When Solidarity Reinforces Colonialism
Despite good intentions, many international solidarity efforts reflect paternalistic and colonial dynamics. Instead of amplifying Palestinian agency, they often reproduce power imbalances that center Western voices and institutions.
1. Saviorism
Activists often approach Palestine as a humanitarian crisis rather than a liberation struggle, leading to Western figures dominating the conversation. Palestinians are treated as passive victims rather than political agents leading their own resistance. While humanitarian aid efforts are necessary in emergencies, they only provide temporary relief without addressing the root causes of oppression.
2. NGOization of Solidarity
Many Western-funded organizations working in or for Palestine prioritize neutrality, dialogue, and institutional reforms over direct action. These efforts often depoliticize Palestinian resistance and society and avoid confronting the reality that Zionism is a settler-colonial project. By focusing on coexistence rather than decolonization, these initiatives can reinforce the status quo rather than dismantling it.
3. Selective Solidarity
Support for Palestine is often conditional. Some activists and organizations hesitate to use terms like “apartheid” or “settler colonialism” for fear of political repercussions. Others distance themselves from Palestinian resistance movements to maintain mainstream acceptability. However, solidarity that only supports Palestinians when it is politically convenient is not solidarity—it is self-preservation.
What Does Decolonized Solidarity Look Like?
To be truly effective, international solidarity must reject colonial frameworks and embrace a politics of shared struggle. This means challenging power, centering Palestinian leadership, and understanding Palestine within the larger fight against global oppression.
1. Center Palestinian Voices
Solidarity is not about speaking for Palestinians but amplifying their demands. Listen to Palestinian organizers, support movements like the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) campaign, and ensure that advocacy efforts reflect Palestinian leadership, not Western gatekeeping.
2. Move Beyond Charity and Crisis Narratives
While emergency aid is crucial, a decolonial approach focuses on structural change rather than short-term relief. Instead of framing Palestinians as victims in need of Western assistance, emergency aid needs to follow the needs of Palestinians on the ground and not serve for more Western conditioning or furthering the restrictions of Palestinian agency. Solidarity efforts should primarily target the systems that enable Israeli apartheid—military funding, diplomatic cover and economic complicity.
3. Name Zionism as Settler Colonialism
Many solidarity campaigns frame Palestine as a territorial conflict rather than a colonial occupation. Recognizing Zionism as a settler-colonial project rooted in ethnic cleansing and land theft is crucial. Decolonized solidarity names the system for what it is and demands its dismantling.
4. Link Palestine to Global Struggles
Palestine is deeply connected to Indigenous land struggles, Black liberation movements, and anti-imperialist resistance worldwide. From U.S. police forces training with Israeli security to shared surveillance technologies, systems of oppression are globally interconnected. True solidarity builds alliances across these struggles and works to dismantle the structures that sustain them.
—
How to Practice Decolonized Solidarity
– Amplify Palestinian Voices: Follow Palestinian journalists, scholars, and organizers. Avoid Western-centered narratives that erase Palestinian agency. Western individuals can continue to support decolonial solidarity by amplifying Palestinian voices, prioritizing their leadership, and advocating for justice without speaking on their behalf or overshadowing their lived experiences.
– Challenge Zionism and Western Complicity: Confront pro-Israel narratives in your community, media, and political spaces.
– Support Economic Resistance: Join the BDS movement and campaign against companies that profit from Israeli apartheid. Remove israeli products from the european markets.
– Reject Co-optation by Governments and NGOs: Be wary of efforts to sanitize or depoliticize Palestinian resistance in the name of neutrality.
– Push for Policy Change: Advocate for an end to U.S. and European military aid to Israel and demand accountability from political leaders. Stop economical, political and cultural cooperation with israel, whcich normalixe the occupation.
—
The Urgency of True Solidarity
Decolonizing solidarity with Palestine means more than performative gestures. It requires a fundamental shift in how international activists engage with the struggle—centering Palestinian leadership, challenging settler colonialism, and linking movements for collective liberation.
Palestinians are not asking for charity. They are demanding justice, dignity, and freedom. The question is not whether we stand in solidarity, but whether our solidarity is truly radical, decolonial, and committed to dismantling the systems that sustain oppression. Anything less is not solidarity— it is complicity.
ZNetwork is funded solely through the generosity of its readers.Donate
Mustafa Jayyousi was born and raised in Palestine, in Jayyous in the northern West Bank. He currently resides in Copenhagen. He is a trained psychologist from Palestine and currently works as a psychotherapist. He address trauma on both individual and collective levels and is deeply invested in the need for mental health support to process trauma caused by decades of occupation. He works extensively with both Palestinians and Palestinian friends/activists who are affected by the ongoing genocide in Palestine. As an activist he focuses on decolonizing solidarity.
As Israel’s war on Gaza escalates and the occupation of Palestine deepens, international solidarity has surged. Mass protests, boycott campaigns, and public statements of support have multiplied. However, as the global movement grows, a critical question emerges: Is our solidarity truly advancing Palestinian liberation, or does it sometimes reinforce the very power structures we seek to dismantle?
True solidarity must be more than symbolic gestures or humanitarian aid. It must be rooted in a decolonial framework—one that recognizes Palestine as part of a broader struggle against colonialism, imperialism, and racial capitalism. This entails moving beyond charity, resisting efforts to depoliticize Palestinian resistance, and directly challenging the systems that uphold Israeli apartheid.
When Solidarity Reinforces Colonialism
Despite good intentions, many international solidarity efforts reflect paternalistic and colonial dynamics. Instead of amplifying Palestinian agency, they often reproduce power imbalances that center Western voices and institutions.
1. Saviorism
Activists often approach Palestine as a humanitarian crisis rather than a liberation struggle, leading to Western figures dominating the conversation. Palestinians are treated as passive victims rather than political agents leading their own resistance. While humanitarian aid efforts are necessary in emergencies, they only provide temporary relief without addressing the root causes of oppression.
2. NGOization of Solidarity
Many Western-funded organizations working in or for Palestine prioritize neutrality, dialogue, and institutional reforms over direct action. These efforts often depoliticize Palestinian resistance and society and avoid confronting the reality that Zionism is a settler-colonial project. By focusing on coexistence rather than decolonization, these initiatives can reinforce the status quo rather than dismantling it.
3. Selective Solidarity
Support for Palestine is often conditional. Some activists and organizations hesitate to use terms like “apartheid” or “settler colonialism” for fear of political repercussions. Others distance themselves from Palestinian resistance movements to maintain mainstream acceptability. However, solidarity that only supports Palestinians when it is politically convenient is not solidarity—it is self-preservation.
What Does Decolonized Solidarity Look Like?
To be truly effective, international solidarity must reject colonial frameworks and embrace a politics of shared struggle. This means challenging power, centering Palestinian leadership, and understanding Palestine within the larger fight against global oppression.
1. Center Palestinian Voices
Solidarity is not about speaking for Palestinians but amplifying their demands. Listen to Palestinian organizers, support movements like the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) campaign, and ensure that advocacy efforts reflect Palestinian leadership, not Western gatekeeping.
2. Move Beyond Charity and Crisis Narratives
While emergency aid is crucial, a decolonial approach focuses on structural change rather than short-term relief. Instead of framing Palestinians as victims in need of Western assistance, emergency aid needs to follow the needs of Palestinians on the ground and not serve for more Western conditioning or furthering the restrictions of Palestinian agency. Solidarity efforts should primarily target the systems that enable Israeli apartheid—military funding, diplomatic cover and economic complicity.
3. Name Zionism as Settler Colonialism
Many solidarity campaigns frame Palestine as a territorial conflict rather than a colonial occupation. Recognizing Zionism as a settler-colonial project rooted in ethnic cleansing and land theft is crucial. Decolonized solidarity names the system for what it is and demands its dismantling.
4. Link Palestine to Global Struggles
Palestine is deeply connected to Indigenous land struggles, Black liberation movements, and anti-imperialist resistance worldwide. From U.S. police forces training with Israeli security to shared surveillance technologies, systems of oppression are globally interconnected. True solidarity builds alliances across these struggles and works to dismantle the structures that sustain them.
—
How to Practice Decolonized Solidarity
– Amplify Palestinian Voices: Follow Palestinian journalists, scholars, and organizers. Avoid Western-centered narratives that erase Palestinian agency. Western individuals can continue to support decolonial solidarity by amplifying Palestinian voices, prioritizing their leadership, and advocating for justice without speaking on their behalf or overshadowing their lived experiences.
– Challenge Zionism and Western Complicity: Confront pro-Israel narratives in your community, media, and political spaces.
– Support Economic Resistance: Join the BDS movement and campaign against companies that profit from Israeli apartheid. Remove israeli products from the european markets.
– Reject Co-optation by Governments and NGOs: Be wary of efforts to sanitize or depoliticize Palestinian resistance in the name of neutrality.
– Push for Policy Change: Advocate for an end to U.S. and European military aid to Israel and demand accountability from political leaders. Stop economical, political and cultural cooperation with israel, whcich normalixe the occupation.
—
The Urgency of True Solidarity
Decolonizing solidarity with Palestine means more than performative gestures. It requires a fundamental shift in how international activists engage with the struggle—centering Palestinian leadership, challenging settler colonialism, and linking movements for collective liberation.
Palestinians are not asking for charity. They are demanding justice, dignity, and freedom. The question is not whether we stand in solidarity, but whether our solidarity is truly radical, decolonial, and committed to dismantling the systems that sustain oppression. Anything less is not solidarity— it is complicity.
ZNetwork is funded solely through the generosity of its readers.Donate
Mustafa Jayyousi was born and raised in Palestine, in Jayyous in the northern West Bank. He currently resides in Copenhagen. He is a trained psychologist from Palestine and currently works as a psychotherapist. He address trauma on both individual and collective levels and is deeply invested in the need for mental health support to process trauma caused by decades of occupation. He works extensively with both Palestinians and Palestinian friends/activists who are affected by the ongoing genocide in Palestine. As an activist he focuses on decolonizing solidarity.
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