Reject Repression: Support the Mapping Project

We affirm our support for the Mapping Project out of Boston, and condemn attempts to censor this useful educational tool.

The mischaracterization of the project by the ADL and other Zionist organizations is meant to distract from what the project exposes: the connections between policing, imperialism, and Zionist colonialism.

The attempt by Zionist organizations to vilify and criminalize this project reflects their apprehensions over growing awareness of the links between domestic militarized policing, surveillance programs and support for Zionist colonization in Palestine. Indeed, the project identifies over 270 policing institutions, which reflect the vast majority of the project’s entries. It traces universities, weapons manufacturers, and Zionist organizations who collaborate with one another to further these very systems. It highlights the connection between gentrification, dispossession, and US imperialism. It critiques Zionist NGOs that fuel settlement expansion on Palestinian land.

For years, organizers have highlighted how Zionist organizations, such as the ADL, are self-admittedly invested in institutions of policing and militarism, including through facilitating exchange programs that bring together police, ICE, border patrol, and FBI from the US with Israeli soldiers, police, and border agents. The growing movement to dismantle racist policing in the US undermines these efforts. It should come as no surprise that those groups attempt to discredit this project–they are fighting relentlessly to prevent people from seeing how intertwined the struggles against racist policing and Zionist colonialism are.

We must not retreat in the face of smears and criminalization. Instead, we must continue to provide the public with the information necessary, as the Mapping Project does, to understand these connections so that we can dismantle these very systems.

Finally, we reject any attempts to isolate or ostracize segments of our movement that are doing this critical work, especially in the face of backlash and repression. We reject any attempts to prevent organizers from confronting the interconnectedness of systems of oppression. No one in our movement has a monopoly on movement tactics, including BDS. The work to uncover the relationships between policing, Zionism, and imperialism is critical movement work that should be uplifted.

Signed,

Palestinian Youth Movement

Within Our Lifetime - United for Palestine

Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network

Masar Badil - Palestinian Alternative Revolutionary Path Movement

Center for the Study and Preservation of Palestine

Al-Awda, the Palestine Right to Return Coalition

Just Peace Advocates/Mouvement Pour Une Paix Juste

Falastiniyat

U.S. Palestinian Community Network

Canadian BDS Coalition

Palestine House - Palestinian Canadian Community Centre

DSA BDS and Palestine Solidarity Working Group

National Students for Justice in Palestine

Collectif Palestine Vaincra

Africa for Palestine

Palestine Action

Canada Palestine Association

Palestinian American Women’s Association

Palestinian and Jewish Unity

DecolonizePalestine

Campaign to Boycott Supporters of "Israel" in Lebanon