Palestinian Youth :: PALESTINIAN YOUTH MOVEMENT

Welcome to The Palestinian Youth Movement Web Page

The Palestinian Youth Movement (“PYM”) is a transnational, independent, grassroots movement of young Palestinians in Palestine and in exile worldwide as a ,result of the ongoing Zionist colonization and occupation of our homeland. Our belonging to Palestine and our aspirations for justice and liberation motivate us to assume an active role as a young generation in our national struggle for the liberation of our homeland and people. Irrespective of our different political, cultural and social backgrounds, we strive to revive a tradition of pluralistic commitment toward our cause to ensure a better future, characterized by freedom and justice on a social and political level, for ourselves and subsequent generations.

May 2012
Nakba Statement

Today marks 64 years since the Palestinian Nakba. For 64 years the Palestinians have endured occupation, imprisonment and exile. For 64 years our people have resisted, struggled and fought back the ongoing Nakba in Palestine. On this day we, the Palestinian Youth Movement, pay tribute to the countless martyrs, wounded, and political prisoners, whose sacrifices inspire us to continue the struggle for Return and Liberation.

The Palestinian Youth Movement (“PYM”) is a transnational, independent, grassroots movement of young Palestinians in Palestine and in exile worldwide as a result of the ongoing Zionist colonization and occupation of our homeland. Three generations separate us from 1948, however the struggle for Liberation and Return lives on within every refugee camp, in every prison cell, in every demolished home, and in the memory of every martyr.

May 15, 1948 marks the crystallization of the Zionist colonial project on our land. This project was an extension of the British mandate in Palestine and remains to be one of the few traditional foreign-settler colonial occupations in the world, where the colonial regime attempts to create a pure ethnic colony. This means that the Zionist entity wants to take over as much land and natural resources as possible, while ethnically cleansing as many Palestinians as possible. This formula is what guides house demolitions, land expropriations, continuing the exile of the refugees, controlling the ‘demographic threat,’ making life unbearable under the occupation, and wholesale destruction of villages.

PYM’s collective experience has convinced us of the need to revitalize a movement that is able to assume the responsibility of waging an anti-colonial liberation struggle. We find that the current Palestinian leadership has abandoned any national program for Liberation and Return. The post-Oslo project of compromise and so-called “peace” has failed to deliver on the most basic of our people’s national aspirations. The situation is worsened by the paralyzing divisions between the factions and the distracting debates on representation and legitimacy

In commemoration of the Nakba, and in recognition of its political and symbolic significance, we stress on the need for adopting a national program based on an anti-colonial framework that aims for the complete Liberation of Palestine. Our people have continuously resisted the Zionist colonial occupation, and have continuously fought the ongoing Nakba in Palestine. At this time thousands of Palestinian prisoners are fighting a war of will that has taught us a lesson in resilience, steadfastness and courage. Their struggle reaffirms that resistance to injustice will continue until the complete liberation of Palestine from the river to the sea.

Until Return and Liberation,
International Central Council
Palestinian Youth Movement

April 2012
Political Prisoners Day

Oppression shall vanish…And chains are certain to break

This year we commemorate Palestinian political prisoners’ day as Palestinian prisoners wage “the battle of empty stomachs.” We pay special tribute to those who are under administrative detention, to the martyrs of the prisoners’ national movement, to those serving life sentences, and to those who are in solitary confinement in the Zionists’ jails. On this day we recall the glorious and heroic struggles of the prisoners’ national movement since 1948, a date which is marked with bloodshed, suffering and steadfastness. No statement can do justice to the heroic sacrifices of the Palestinian prisoners, which include countless women, men and children.

The Palestinian Youth Movement (PYM) salutes all political prisoners of the national movement and all Arab prisoners in the jails of the occupiers.

We are convinced that the freedom of all prisoners will not be won through the wishful thinking and diplomacy of our current leadership that was ushered in following the Oslo accords, as this so-called “peace process” has not been able to secure the release of even one prisoner—old or young. On this day we call for the unity of the prisoner’s movement in order to focus the efforts of the prisoners so that we may reach the goals we all aspire to; justice, dignity and liberation. The prisoners’ issue is of no less importance than the issue of refugees, the integrity of Jerusalem and self-determination.

On this occasion we also emphasize the need for adopting a national program based on the complete liberation of Palestine, a principle and goal that countless prisoners and martyrs struggled for, a national program that is not dictated by distractions such as representation, legitimacy and political differences, which led to divisions among our ranks. The division has taken a lot of the energy and weakened our efforts to face the Zionist military and political machinery.

We in the Palestinian Youth Movement (PYM) reject the forced exile of freed prisoners and call upon our great people to stand against this practice and to support the prisoners’ movement. We also call for the development of a resistance strategy based on the goals of freedom and liberation and against all forms of passiveness and normalization.

The prisoner’s national movement was and still is the flame that lights the path of our struggle against the Zionist colonizer. Let us revitalize the prisoners’ national movement through collaboration and unification of the efforts for the freedom of all prisoners. Let us refuse all options that detract from the fundamental right to resist and fight for decent living for our families and people.

Oppression shall vanish…And chains are certain to break

A phrase known to generations old and young. A slogan used by the prisoners’ national movement in its continuous struggle against the Zionist occupation.

Let us work together for return and liberation making this slogan visible in our actions, work and approach.

Freedom to all prisoners and strugglers for freedom and dignity!

Until Return and Liberation,
International Central Council
Palestinian Youth Movement

March 2012
Land Day Statement

The Olive Tree Knows the Hand That Planted It

Thirty six years since the Palestinian masses in 1948 occupied territories rose up by declaring full strike as a response to when the Zionist occupation confiscated even more (private) land which then was known as the triangle of Land day: Arabeh villages, Sekhneen, and Deir Hanna. They started by going out and confronting the occupation forces to reinforce that they are fully aware of the imminent danger to their parents’ and grandparents’ land, their attachment to their national identify and their emphasis on their rights to defend their existence despite the killing, terrorism and torture which was and still is practiced against our people. People in the 1967 occupied land also rose up in parallel and in support for their brothers and sisters. Land day became an Arab, Palestinian national day throughout the years and is a proven milestone to the unity and cohesion of the people who refuse to surrender to the oppression and divide.

Thirty-six years have passed and the occupation forces are still stealing more Palestinian land in many new geographical areas to build their apartheid wall and settlements in the West Bank. They also continue to confiscate land and assault the people in Jerusalem denying them their right to their land and property in order for them to move forward and continue eliminating any Islamic and Christian existence in the city and this is further evidence of the nature of the Zionist entity; a nature of racism and crime.

The Palestinian land, on this day, commemorates a lot of Zionist massacres against our people, the bloodshed that filled the land underneath the olive and orange trees in Deer Yaseen, Kuf Qasem, Beet Hanoun and Jenin. It commemorates the lives of those who struggled in Sabra and Shatila, Karama and many more.

The land and the people confirm the refusal to all Zionist plans aiming to divide Palestine and its people and eliminate their belonging to the land. Their plans were based on ethnic cleansing, terrorism and displacement and were confronted with the steadfastness of the people and the land and their unity (Palestine from the river to the sea). We all affirm the absolute belief of the Palestinian people to return and to the restoration of the land in its entirety.

Thirty six years later, we commemorate Land Day together through the difficult and changing realities, even though our people’s unity is not as it was back then. The continuous political division we have been enduring for more than six years has now resulted in a lot of risks for the struggle.

The internal contradictions existing now are moving further away from the main enemy (the occupation), and a lot of accords and agreements have been signed with a variety of sponsors, however with nothing translated into action on the ground. The narrow factional interests are dominating the scene at the expense of the conscientious national spirit and the continuous promises and renewed hopes are consistently followed by disappointments. Disappointments that move the struggle away from the national project aiming for full liberation of the people and the land, therefore moving away from the main direction of the Palestinian popular movement’s return and liberation ideology.

In the last year we have witnessed a lot of local and regional transformations. The Palestinian march from the Golan Heights and Lebanon to the West Bank and Gaza toward the land of Palestine was started by youth affirming their mutual belonging.

This marked an important development in youth mobilizing and paving their role in the struggle. We have also witnessed the fall of many oppressive Arab regimes, those regimes that have given up on their duties and support for our people. We hope that these changes will reflect positively (popularly and officially) on our people and struggle.

The Palestinian Youth Movement (PYM) can only emphasize on this day the importance of adopting a strong national approach that moves away from ambiguity and compromise. We continue the struggle in order to lift the siege on Gaza and commit to mobilizing for BDS and anti-normalization with the occupation. We renew our request to those responsible for the division to refrain from tampering with the interests of the people and assume responsibility on such a glorious day. They should unite again, reconcile and stop shameful accusations in all its different forms. They should pay special attention to our courageous political prisoners and the steadfastness of Hana Shalabi in the Palestinian struggle.

We also affirm in the Palestinian Youth Movement the importance of coordinated work in order to defend our existence, land and return. We strongly believe in the need to build strong relationships between the different parts of our country and exile to defend our identity and belonging.

We call upon this day as a time to affirm the justices of our struggle, the inevitability of our people’s rights, and to assume their rights with full support of our brothers and sisters, allies and revolutionaries around the world.

Until Return and Liberation,
International Central Council
Palestinian Youth Movement

March 2012
On International Women’s Day

On International Women’s Day we, the Palestinian Youth Movement (PYM), honor the intrinsic role of Palestinian women in the ongoing history of the Palestinian national struggle. We celebrate the efforts, achievements, contributions, and sacrifices they have made to strengthen the determination of the Palestinian people and further the liberation of Palestine. The role Palestinian women play in our society is one that not only symbolizes the perseverance and steadfastness of our struggle and people through the generations, but is also one that the liberation of Palestine cannot succeed without.

We, in the PYM, believe that the role of women in the movement must be integrated into the larger movement as a whole and not just compartmentalized into women’s spaces within the struggle. Liberation to PYM extends beyond the liberation of the land that is occupied by the Zionist colonial project. Liberation also pertains to our people who have faced a specific colonial condition for the past 64 years and extends beyond the borders of the land. In order to build a collective Palestinian liberation movement, we see the equal and shared participation of all elements of society as needing to work together as one strong front, and to work toward the social liberation that will enable us to do so; to work toward the liberation of Palestine and to ensure a sustainable society beyond liberation.

We must attempt to understand the different social issues that all parts of our society face and produce in order to create a culture that better comprehends one another and enables us to collectively rebuild the practical goal of liberation while maintaining principles of justice within our culture and movement. The particular dissociation we are facing in this period on the global level is a reflection of where history has brought us. As a deliberate attempt to combat this disconnect and rebuild a popular culture and movement during this period, it is imperative that all the different aspects of Palestinian society, from women, men, young people, children, elderly, inside Palestine and in exile, collectively develop the exchange and support necessary to evaluate the current place that the Palestinian national movement is in and determine the best steps on how to move forward.

Women have often been the implicit backbone of the struggle and have served the cause within their own uniqueness as daughters, sisters, mothers, grandmothers, fighters, prisoners, and beyond. Their role in all aspects and forms of resistance will only strengthen the nature of our movement and move us closer to our goals. We stand in struggle with Hana’ Shalabi on this day, as she completes the third week of her hunger strike, and all the political prisoners who continue to steadfastly resist against the Zionist colonial project, which unjustly imprisons our brothers and sisters to demoralize Palestinian resistance and which exploits the imprisonment of our sisters to further destroy and fragment our society, and obliterate all means of resistance and liberation. Shalabi represents the millions of Palestinian women fighters and prisoners who in partnership with our brothers in the struggle have sacrificed their lives, figuratively and literally, as a service to their people and struggle. Today, and every day, we celebrate Palestinian women with all the power and integrity that they represent in the struggle for a liberated Palestine.

Until Return and Liberation,
International Central Council
Palestinian Youth Movement

Statement on the September 2011
Declaration of Statehood

We, in the Palestinian Youth Movement (PYM), stand steadfastly against the proposal for Palestinian statehood recognition based on 1967 borders that is to be presented to the United Nations this September by the Palestinian official leadership. We believe and affirm that the statehood declaration only seeks the completion of the normalization process, which began with faulty peace agreements. The initiative does not recognize nor address that our people continue to live within a settler colonial regime premised on the ethnic cleansing of our land and subordination and exploitation of our people.

This declaration serves as a mechanism for rescuing the faulty peace framework and depoliticizing the struggle for Palestine by removing the struggle from its historical colonial context. The attempts to impose a false peace with the normalizing of the colonial regime has only led us to surrender increasing amounts of our land, the rights of our people, and our aspirations by delegitimizing and marginalizing our people’s struggle and deepening the fragmentation and division of our people. This declaration jeopardizes the rights and aspirations of over two-thirds of the Palestinian people who live as refugees in countries of refuge and in exile, to return to their original homes from which they were displaced in the 1948 Nakba (Catastrophe) and subsequently since then. It also jeopardizes the position of the Palestinians residing in the 1948 occupied territories who continue to resist daily against the ethnic cleansing and racial practices from inside the colonial regime. Furthermore, it corroborates and empowers its Palestinian and Arab partners to act as the gatekeepers to the occupation and the colonization of the region within a neo-colonial framework.

The foundation of this process serves as nothing more than to ensure the continuity of negotiations, economic and social normalization, and security cooperation. The state declaration will solidify falsified borders on only a sliver of historic Palestine and still does not address the most fundamental issues: Jerusalem, settlements, refugees, political prisoners, occupation, borders and resource control. We believe such a state declaration will not ensure nor promote justice and freedom for Palestinians, which inherently means there will be no sustainable peace in the region.

Additionally, this state declaration initiative is being presented to the United Nations by a Palestinian leadership that is illegitimate and has not been elected to be in a position of representation of the Palestinian people in its totality through any democratic means by its people. This proposal is a political production designed by them to hide behind their failure to represent the needs and desires of their people. By claiming to fulfill the Palestinian will for self-determination, this leadership is misusing and exploiting the resistance and sacrifices of the Palestinian people, particularly our brothers and sisters in Gaza, and even hijacking the grassroots international solidarity work, such as Boycott Divestment and Sanctions efforts and the flotilla initiatives. This proposal only serves to squander all efforts made to isolate the colonial regime and hold it accountable.

Whether the proposal for statehood recognition is accepted or not, we call on Palestinians inside our occupied homeland and in countries of refuge and exile to remain committed and convicted to the worthiness of our struggle and inspired by their rights and responsibilities to defend it. We call on the free people of the world and the Palestinian people’s allies, to truly practice solidarity with the Palestinian anti-colonial struggle by not taking a position on the state declaration but rather continuing to hold Israel accountable by means of Boycott in all forms economically, academically, and culturally, Divestment and Sanctions.

Until Return and Liberation,
International Central Council
Palestinian Youth Movement

Palestinian Youth Movement 2^nd International General Assembly Final Statement

April 29^th, 2011
Istanbul, Turkey

What began as a conversation between Palestinian youth and youth organizations both inside our homeland and in exile five years ago has developed organically into a body of youth who are steadfast in their conviction for true liberation and have determined that their role must be revitalized and re-affirmed through a grassroots transnational youth movement. It is in this spirit that we take great pride in announcing today that the Palestinian Youth Network (PYN) has officially become the Palestinian Youth Movement (PYM) by full consensus of the 2^ndInternational General Assembly on April 29^th, 2011 in Istanbul, Turkey. More