Learning & Unlearning Palestine Part 4:
Allyship & the Fight for Palestinian Liberation
featuring Saleh Hijazi (BDS Movement) and Nadya Tannous (Palestinian Youth Movement) in conversation with Tariq Kenney-Shawa (Al Shabaka)
Listen to this conversation as a podcast
In this fourth webinar episode in FMEP and Al Shabaka’s four-part series, Learning and Unlearning Palestine, the panelists explore what allyship and solidarity with the Palestinian liberation struggle has looked like, and what it can and should look like moving forward.
Bios
Nadya Tannous is a passionate community organizer, born and raised in the Bay Area (Ohlone Territory), with a focus on political education, movement relationship building, and returning land to the people and people returning to the land. Nadya is a member of the Palestinian Youth Movement. She currently serves as Director of Operations for Honor The Earth, an Indigenous led multi-racial organization working towards just transition. Nadya holds an MSc in Forced Migration and Refugee Studies from the University of Oxford and a BA in Anthropology and Sociology from UC Santa Cruz.
Saleh Hijazi is the Africa Campaigner at the National Committee of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement (BDS) the Palestinian led global nonviolent movement working to end Israel’s settler-colonialism, military occupation, and apartheid against the Palestinian people. As Africa Campaigner, Saleh sits at the Steering Committee of the Pan-African Palestine Solidarity Network. Prior to joining the BDS Saleh held the position of Deputy Regional Director for MENA at Amnesty International leading the team in producing the organization’s report “Israel’s Apartheid Against Palestinians: Cruel System of Domination and Crime Against Humanity”. Previously, Saleh worked with Human Rights Watch and at the Al-Quds University Human Rights Clinic in Palestine. Saleh is a Palestinian, born and raised in Jerusalem and holds a BA in liberal arts from Lawrence University in the US, MA in human rights from the University of Essex in the UK, and a graduate diploma in social studies from the University of Bahia in Brazil.
Tariq Kenney-Shawa is Al-Shabaka’s US Policy Fellow. He holds a Masters degree in International Affairs from Columbia University and a Bachelors degree in Political Science and Middle East Studies from Rutgers University. Tariq’s research has focused on a range of topics, from the role of narrative in both perpetuating and resisting occupation to analysis of Palestinian liberation strategies. His work has appeared in +972 Magazine, Newlines Magazine, the Carnegie Council, and the New Politics Journal, among others. Follow Tariq on Twitter @tksshawa and visit his website at https://www.tkshawa.com/ for more of his writing and photography.
Follow our panelists & their organizations to stay up to date:
- Nadya Tannous at the Palestinian Youth Movement — https://twitter.com/palyouthmvmt
- Saleh Hijazi — https://twitter.com/S_jazi
- BDS Movement — https://www.bdsmovement.net/
- Tariq Kenney-Shawa — https://twitter.com/tksshawa
- Al-Shabaka — https://twitter.com/AlShabaka
Resources shared in the webinar:
- G4S campaign: https://bdsmovement.net/stop-g4s
- Visit Palestine Legal for information on campus solidarity and attacks on free speech:
- Saleh spoke on the Al-Shabaka podcast about Amnesty’s Apartheid report → https://al-shabaka.org/podcasts/amnesty-report-on-israeli-apartheid-with-saleh-hijazi/
- “How to Reclaim the Palestinian Narrative” – https://al-shabaka.org/roundtables/how-reclaim-palestinian-narrative/
- For more on Palestinians’ vision for liberation, see: “Beyond Failed Frameworks: A Re-Imagined Collective Future”
- For the BDS movements 3 demands, see: https://bdsmovement.net/what-is-bds
- Nadya has written a lot about intersectional organizing – particularly around Standing Rock – for Mondoweiss. You can find her writing here: https://mondoweiss.net/author/nadya-raja-tannous/
- Tariq’s latest piece in Foreign Policy → “Unconditional U.S. Support of Israel Fuels Jewish Extremist Violence” https://foreignpolicy.com/2023/03/02/biden-israel-smotrich-hawara-extremist-violence/
- Tariq in Al Jazeera English, “Israel boycott bans are threatening our First Amendment rights” https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2023/3/7/pro-israel-boycott-bans-are-a-threat-to-first-amendment-rights?sf175687014=1
- In 2021, Tariq wrote: “Palestinian-Americans are turning the tide of US policy” https://www.972mag.com/palestinian-americans-diaspora-narrative/