Yogis for Palestine

A Call to Action in Solidarity with Palestine

Yogis Call for an End to Genocide in Gaza

October 17, 2023

On International Day of Yoga in June 2021, we used this platform to call on yoga students, practitioners, and healers to reimagine what spiritual and political solidarity with the struggle for Palestinian self-determination can look like within the embodiment of their yoga practice.

In light of this week’s atrocities in the Middle East, we are once again being called to invite yogis to embody their practice toward political action for Palestinians in Gaza.

We, Yogis for Palestine, use these terrifying times to call yoga students, teachers, and practitioners into conversations around how the framework of “Decolonizing Yoga” can be applied to the context of Palestine and Israel. In light of this past week’s events, we grieve the lives that have been lost, for every life is precious. And we also understand that we cannot remain silent to the ongoing humanitarian catastrophe that is plaguing Gaza. Our yoga is political, so it invites us to have hard conversations and take necessary action.

We have seen yoga studios and practitioners use this moment to condemn the attacks by Hamas and make flattened calls for non-violence (ahimsa) and peace. However, calls for peace that merely address the surface level symptoms ignore the historical and structural context of last week’s violence, which further dehumanizes Palestinian struggles for humanity and freedom. 

For 75 years, Israel’s settler colonial government, apartheid regime, and brutal military occupation has subjugated and attempted to ethnically erase Palestinians. As atrocious as it has been to bear witness to the loss of Israeli life this week, how many of us are willing to critically sit with the 75+ year colonial reality that provoked these attacks? 

Can we interrogate these truths and embody the pain and suffering they evoke; and let these truths transform us toward action?

Rather than bypass these unsettling truths, our yoga practice -- and specifically one anchored in decolonial values -- gives us the tools to navigate them. Yoga helps us develop the capacity to sit with and receive uncomfortable truths (satya). It also helps us build the skill of inquiry. A foundational concept in yoga philosophy is vichara, or critical thinking and engagement with what is happening in the world around us. Vichara allows us to ask questions that hold uncomfortable truths, and be willing to hear those answers. We use these concepts of satya and vichara as a jumping-off point to invite yogis to embody their practice: by thinking critically about how Palestine’s struggle for decolonization is being portrayed in mainstream media; by being open to the discomfort that comes from this inquiry; and by having necessary conversations that can mobilize us toward justice and action for Palestinian self-determination.

For as long as Palestine has been colonized, Israeli propaganda, western media, and the international community have perpetuated the murder and ethnic cleansing of countless Palestinians. 

How many of us are willing to breathe in the unimaginable suffering and dehumanization that Palestinians have endured, even as they have consistently resisted the occupation and ethnic cleansing of their people?

For 16 years, Gaza’s 2 million people have been living under military siege, in an open-air prison that is controlled by Israel’s apartheid regime. This week, in response to the attacks, Israel shut off Gaza’s access to water, electricity, medical supplies and food; bombed entire neighborhoods, universities and buildings with air missiles; ordered a 24 hour evacuation of over 1 million refugees from North to South Gaza; & threatened to invade Gaza with ground troops. The collective punishment to which the Israeli government and the largely western (US and European) international community are subjecting Palestinian civilians in Gaza is cruel, dehumanizing, and a textbook case of genocide. 

In yoga, we are often invited to reflect on our interconnectedness as humanity, but what will it take for us to contemplate our complicity in the genocide of 2 million of our own human siblings in Gaza? 

Our yoga practice can foster collective liberation, and in this moment, propel us toward decisive action to fight for the lives and liberation of every single Palestinian being. 

As yogis, we may not believe in violence as a legitimate response to injustice, but the structural violence that Palestinians have been experiencing for decades calls for justice in order for peace to be realized. Justice will only come when international communities and western political leaders hold Israel accountable by withdrawing military funding & calling for Israel to dismantle its racist, apartheid system and colonial regime. As yogis who are committed to a better world, we cannot stay silent on the ethnic cleansing & bombardment of Gaza. 

We proudly assert our solidarity with the struggle for Palestinian freedom.

We call on yoga practitioners worldwide to use the unifying power of yoga to call for an immediate ceasefire, an end to Israel’s siege on Gaza, & a political and diplomatic solution, for we understand the occupation will not be resolved through militarism and war crimes. 

Call to Action

We urge everyone reading this - especially yoga practitioners, studios, businesses and organizations - to politicize their yoga in solidarity with the Palestinian movement for freedom by signing this statement AND taking the following URGENT actions:

  1. Use USCPR’s Stop Gaza Genocide Action toolkit to email and call your representatives and Members of Congress. Demand an immediate ceasefire and humanitarian aid entry for Gaza. 

    • US Campaign for Palestinian Rights has a link to call your members of Congress. It's extremely important to hold them accountable now.

      • Instructions: Fill in your information and click "Call me.” You'll receive a phone call on the number you provided and be patched through to your representatives' and senators' offices, one after the other.

    • You can also use this link, provided by Jewish Voices for Peace, to call your congressional representatives now. If your representative’s mailbox is full, email them here.

      • If both dialers are busy and unavailable, look up your representative and senators phone number and call directly.

      • You can call multiple times - the goal is to flood their inbox!

  2. Find a protest near you at www.uscpr.org/protests. 

    • Attend a local rally/protest demanding political leaders and media networks humanize Palestinians. Text and invite your friends. Ask everyone in attendance to complete one of the action tools on the spot. 🇵🇸 

  3. Stay up to date on news, critical analysis and on the ground coverage, and uplift Palestinian voices. 

    • With so much that goes unreported, it is critical to uplift and spread the voices of Palestinians on the ground and at home. Follow the accounts included on page 4 of this toolkit for critical updates. 

    • Share, post, tweet and re-tweet the toolkit and images from Gaza on your social media accounts. Sharing helps shift the public’s perspective toward humanizing Palestinian life & suffering. 

      • Use the following hashtags: 

        • #GazaGenocide

        • #DismantleApartheid

        • #MilitaryEmbargo

  4. Educate yourself. 

    • Learn more about settler colonialism, apartheid, & revolutionary struggle. We will share a few resources below.

  5. This is a long-haul action. Support the call for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions against the Israeli Apartheid state as called upon by Palestinian civil society. Support the call for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions against the Israeli Apartheid state as called upon by Palestinian civil society.

Yoga as a path to liberation requires being in solidarity with oppressed people around the world, particularly with the people of Palestine at this moment. We invoke the essence of our yogic values and call on yoga practitioners to refuse to breathe in the colonial propaganda that conceals a genocidal reality. Instead, may we breathe in and activate solidarity for all oppressed people’s struggles for freedom, dignity, and self-determination.

In solidarity and love,

Resources

Note: Our resources are not neutral. Our aim is to uplift Palestinian voices and share Palestinian history.

[1 ] https://electronicintifada.net/

[2] Gaza Fights For Freedom (2019) | Full Documentary | Directed by Abby Martin

[3] The ‘Sheer Evil’ of Israel’s War Crimes: Israeli General’s Son Speaks Out

[4] https://www.jadaliyya.com/

[5] Authors to read: Rashid Khalidi, Noura Erakat, Mohammed El Kurt

[6] Human Rights Watch Report “A Threshold Crossed: Israeli Authorities and the Crimes of Apartheid and Persecution”

[7] Palestine Youth Movement Reading List

[8] All the Walls Will Fall: 2023 Palestine Liberation Resource List