Principles of Unity

Writers Against the War on Gaza is guided by our six Principles of Unity, which we derive from the history of the enduring struggle for Palestinian liberation.

The Right to Return
We know that the Nakba never ended. We also know the Nakba will end. It will end with the dismantling of the Zionist project and the return of the Palestinian people to their homes and their historical lands. As the revolutionary fighter Leila Khaled reminds us, “The key for liberation is the land and the return of refugees.” 

The Right to Resist
We support the Palestinian right to armed resistance as part of the national liberation struggle. We believe it is important to popularize the history of this struggle by telling the stories of the martyrs who died in its service, from Izz al-Din al-Qassam to Yahya Sinwar, Abu Jildeh to Basil al-Araj. We decry the state repression of pro-Palestinian speech that is brought to bear most heavily on those who openly support the right of the oppressed to resist their oppressors.

The Anti-Normalization of Zionism
We understand that the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions movement has played a strategic role in materially and culturally isolating and delegitimizing “Israel” over the past two decades. We believe that the academic and cultural boycott of Israel must be advanced through several means, from political education to persuasion to confrontation, and must also be supported through the creation of alternative social and political spaces and by new modes of cultural production.

A Multiplicity of Tactics
We endorse a multiplicity of tactics, from picketing to civil disobedience to event disruption to higher-risk action. We reject ‘outside agitator’ narratives that seek to divide and undermine those struggling together for liberation. “No one way works,” the poet Diane DiPrima wrote. “It will take all of us shoving at the thing from all sides to bring it down.” 

Building a Mass Movement
Our efforts to build a revolutionary cultural front require the participation of workers and organizers spanning many sector formations, particularly — but not exclusively — in the sectors of media, academia, and the arts. We understand that the culture industry has long carried water for imperialism, and that cultural production must be appropriated and retooled to serve the broader objectives of the Palestinian national liberation struggle within both petit bourgeois and proletarian social formations. 

We work alongside and in service to several Palestinian-led organizations and Palestine solidarity groups. We believe in joint struggle, including with the Black liberation and Land Back movements, and we stand firmly as a popular cradle for the militancy of the dispossessed against the state and the empire.

Emptying the Prisons
Prisoner’s liberation is a central demand of the Palestinian revolutionary movement, shared by all factions of the regional resistance as well as the masses in exile and diaspora. Furthermore, opposition to the capitalist carceral order and its racist logic is at the heart of many vital solidarities, such as that between Black people in the U.S. and Palestinians under siege and occupation. We endeavor towards these Black and Palestinian traditions of refusal, resistance, and abolition. The world we are fighting for is a world without prisons. 

The work of our Organization is further governed by five Principles of Action.

Organize Culture Workers

Confront Zionism and Normalization in Cultural Spaces

Strengthen the Infrastructure of the Palestinian Liberation Movement

Support the Collective Resilience of the Palestinian People

Defend Against the Forces of Reaction