Human rights defender's story: Yasmeen EL-Hasan from Palestine

'The tragic irony here is that it should be very easy for duty bearers to take immediate and urgent action. States need only to abide by their legal obligations'.

Hello Yasmeen, thanks for accepting to tell us your story. Can you briefly introduce yourself and your work?

I am responsible for international advocacy at the Union of Agricultural Work Committees (UAWC) in Palestine. UAWC supports the steadfastness of Palestinian farmers, peasants, rural communities, and fisher people. We protect and defend Palestinian sovereignty in the face of the Israeli occupation and its dispossession of Palestinian land and natural resources. We were founded by a group of volunteer agronomists in 1986, and we work throughout both the West Bank and the Gaza Strip of Palestine. UAWC is also a member of La Via Campesina (LVC), the global peasant movement.

What inspired you to become involved in the defence of human rights?

I’m Palestinian. Palestinians are caretakers of this land, and our land is under settler colonial occupation. This is just being part of a community, belonging to the land, doing what’s right. We find the spaces where we can best serve the cause, and we do what we can. We have a responsibility to care for our land and each other, and we will continue to do so, until and long after liberation.

What would Palestine and your community look like in the future if you achieved your goals, if the future you are fighting for became a reality?

The future is a liberated Palestine, from the river to the sea. Decolonisation. Self-determination. Food sovereignty.

How is your work helping make that future come true?

Israel is a settler colony. Settler colonialism entails elimination and forcible displacement of the Indigenous population of a land and replacing them with a settler population. By definition, it is based on land theft. And a settler colony – as the world has witnessed and we have lived through and been killed by for over 76 years – will do whatever it takes to try to steal that land. Our work is to protect it.

Food sovereignty is a critical framework through which to understand Palestinian liberation and the dismantling of settler colonialism. At UAWC, we are very intentional in saying we work towards food sovereignty, not food security. Food insecurity of any manifestation, including and especially the starvation and famine that Palestinians in Gaza have been experiencing, does not happen because of resource scarcity. Rather, it is intentionally constructed by the occupation in an attempt to ethnically cleanse Palestinians from our land. If a people cannot sustain themselves on their land, then how will they remain? A core strategy of Israeli settler colonialism is making Palestinian livelihood unsustainable by targeting our food systems and our self-sustainability. If we had sovereignty over our land and natural resources, we would be food secure. So to be food secure, there must be food sovereignty. And for there to be food sovereignty, there must be liberation.

If we had sovereignty over our land and natural resources, we would be food secure. So to be food secure, there must be food sovereignty. And for there to be food sovereignty, there must be liberation.

Yasmeen EL-Hasan

Everyone has different roles in our collective struggle for liberation. The farmers, peasants, and herders in Area C of the West Bank, who remain on their land in the face of forced displacement, violent settler and Israeli occupation forces (IOF) attacks, and isolation from resources – they are making this liberated future come true. Our colleagues in Gaza, all of whom have been forcibly displaced multiple times, lost loved ones, and are working from camps to feed those around them – they are making this liberated future come true. My grandmother, who pours her heart into caring for her land and raising children and grandchildren who do the same – she is making this liberated future come true. All stewards of the land, in their steadfastness and resistance, are making this liberated future come true. Our role is to support our peoples’ steadfastness and protect our land, and it is an honour to be part of that.

Have you been the target of threats or attempts at reprisals because of your work?

In 2021, after around 15 years of targeting, the Israeli occupation designated UAWC as a ‘terrorist’ organisation, along with five other leading Palestinian civil society organisations. The IOF raided our office twice, boarded our doors with iron sheets, and forbade UAWC to continue work. Following the designation, there was a massive international solidarity campaign in support of the six designated organisations. This included countless statements by the UN, international bodies, organisations, political figures, and grassroots movements condemning the designation, in addition to multiple independent and conclusive financial audits and reviews.

This Israeli criminalisation of UAWC and other Palestinian civil society organisations illustrates the fragility of the occupation. It is a fear tactic, aimed at scaring Palestinian organisers into submission and international supporters into disengagement. But what they don’t understand is that this isn’t just a job to us. It’s more than that. The designation makes our work more difficult, yes, but we will forever remain committed to supporting our communities and protecting our land.

Regardless of one’s work, however, all Palestinians are targets of Israeli threats and attacks. There are thousands and thousands of Palestinians who continue to be held hostage, trapped in Israeli prisons and death camps, and hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who have been martyred during our 76+ year struggle. We will never forget them.

Do you have a message for the UN / the international community?

The international systems currently in place aren’t working. Either they have failed miserably in their purported mission of protecting human rights, or they are actually intended to protect imperialist and capitalist interests and therefore functioning exactly as intended. Whichever way you look at it, it’s killing us. Genocide and famine do not happen by accident. They are manufactured. This is a human-made, intentionally constructed catastrophe.

The tragic irony here is that it should be very easy for duty bearers to take immediate and urgent action. States need only to abide by their legal obligations. International law calls upon States to take all possible action to not aid and abet human rights abuses, occupation, genocide, etc. The International Court of Justice (ICJ) determined that the presence of the Israeli occupation in the West Bank of Palestine is unlawful, and the ongoing ICJ case has pointed to Israel’s committing genocide. States are obligated to immediately impose, at the very least, economic sanctions and an arms embargo. And yet, States choose to be complicit.

We emphasise that the ceasefire is not the end. There must be lifting of the siege on Gaza, dismantlement of settler colonial structures, and a total end to the Israeli occupation of Palestine.

The world is experiencing the largest mass mobilisation for Palestine that we have ever seen. To those standing with Palestine: we see this, and we feel this. It makes a difference. And as other marginalised communities across the globe struggle for their liberation as well, we also affirm that our struggles are linked, and our freedom is intertwined.

We are a people who love life, and we have on this land that which makes life worth living. Our goal is not merely survival. Our goal is life.

Liberation is inevitable. We will be free. The real question is: Will you be on the right side of history?

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