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.

From Charity to Liberation: Decolonizing Solidarity with Palestine. By Mustafa Jayyousi, ZNetwork, March 15, 2025

The first process is colonisation and its opposite – decolonisation. Israeli actions both in the Gaza Strip and the occupied West Bank in the last year gave new credence to the use of these twin terms. They transited from the vocabulary of the activists and academics of the pro-Palestine movement to the work of international tribunals such as the International Court of Justice.

Mainstream academia and media still refuse to define the Zionist project as a colonial, or as it is referred to more accurately a settler-colonial project. However, as Israel intensifies the colonisation of Palestine in the next year, that might prod more individuals and institutions to frame the reality in Palestine as colonial and the Palestinian struggle as anticolonial and dispense with tropes about terrorism and peace negotiations.

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The next 12 months are going to be a worse replica of the past year in terms of the genocidal policies of Israel, the escalation of the violence in the region and the continued support of governments, backed by their media, for this destructive trajectory. But history tells us that this is how a horrific chapter in the chronology of a country ends; it is not how a new one begins.

Historians should not predict the future but they can at least articulate a reasonable scenario for it. In this sense, I think it is reasonable to say that the question of “whether” the oppression of the Palestinians will end can now be replaced with “when”. We do not know the “when”, but we can all strive to bring it about sooner rather than later.

Israel After October 7: Between Decolonisation And Disintegration by Ilan Pappé, ZNetwork, 10/10/2024

It is clear that if we are to survive the next four years, minorities and oppressed people of all stripes must build solidarity networks to stand together and resist. To do so effectively, we must address any outstanding issues that could undermine cross-community solidarity. One cannot say they care about women’s rights, public health, racial equality, education or any number of things that liberals claim to care about and then allow a genocide to go on.

Many Black Americans like me see the parallel between the historical ways in which our people have been harmed and what is happening in Palestine. The brutal apartheid and genocide of the Palestinian people directly relate to the mass killings and subjugation of Black people here in the US. There is a reason so many of the things we say in our community resonate with the people of Palestine and vice versa. Our mere existence is a threat to the status quo.

Black-Palestinian solidarity: We need to talk about what happened. Black and Palestinian unity is a threat to the status quo. That’s why the Democrats sought to undermine it. By Gerald Nesmith Jr, Aljazeera, March 10, 2025