The Apartheid-Free Communities Coalition Comes to Western Mass
Photo: Apartheid Free Communities Network
A local chapter of the global Apartheid-Free Communities Network was recently launched in Western Massachusetts by a group of Palestine solidarity and social justice activists. The movement, with 661 affiliates across six continents is a coalition of communities and organizations that pledge to work together to end Israeli apartheid. This coalition formed in 2022, following the emerging consensus among the international human rights community that Israel’s treatment of the Palestinian people amounts to the crime of apartheid. Originally created by faith groups in North America, the network currently includes faith communities, solidarity organizations, non-profits, campus groups, and businesses (look here for a complete listing of affiliated organizations). The Apartheid-Free Network asks us and our communities to take a renewed public pledge against all forms of racism, bigotry, and oppression, including against racist discrimination, islamophobia, antisemitism, and xenophobia in our own communities. Members seek to educate themselves and their communities about the devastation of Palestinian lives under military occupation, settler colonialism, and apartheid, and about the connections between settler colonialism and racist oppression in Palestine/Israel, in North America, and throughout the world.
Inspired by the anti-apartheid movement that toppled the apartheid regime in South Africa, Apartheid Free Communities is building a new anti-apartheid movement, encouraging all communities of conscience to step away from any support to Israeli apartheid, occupation, and settler colonialism.
Apartheid is defined in international law as a crime against humanity that involves “inhumane acts committed for the purpose of establishing and maintaining domination by one racial group of persons over any other racial group of persons and systematically oppressing them.” This definition is enshrined in the International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid and the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC). These inhumane acts include murder, torture, arbitrary arrest, legislative discriminatory measures, the persecution of people resisting apartheid, and more. To recognize apartheid under international law, requires three primary conditions: 1. Existence of an Institutionalized Regime: whether through laws or practices, where one racial group systematically oppresses and dominates another. 2. Inhumane Acts: within the framework of that established oppressive system. These acts can include a range of offenses such as murder, extermination, forced transfer of populations, imprisonment, torture, sexual violence, persecution, enforced disappearances, and other acts causing significant suffering or injury. 3. Intention to Maintain the Regime: The inhumane acts must be committed with the specific goal of upholding the institutionalized system of oppression and domination.
Israel’s ongoing violation of the Indigenous Palestinian people constitutes the crime of apartheid. Network affiliates work to dismantle apartheid through public education and organizing that includes boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) against the Israeli apartheid regime, direct action, legislative activities, and Palestine solidarity work. The Apartheid Free Communities coalition is convened by the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) and has a steering committee that consists of organizations that includes:
American Friends Service Committee (AFSC)
Alliance of Baptists Black Christians for Palestine (BC4P)
Christian Church (Disciples of Christ)
Community Peacemaker Teams (CPT)
Episcopal Peace Fellowship – Palestine Israel Network (EPF PIN)
Friends of Sabeel North America (FOSNA)
Mennonite Palestine Israel Network (MennoPIN)
Quaker Palestine Israel Network (QPIN)
Palestine Justice Network of the Presbyterian Churches, USA (PMN)
United Methodists for Kairos Response (UMKR)
Unitarian Universalists for Justice in the Middle East (UUJME)
Apartheid-Free Western Massachusetts (AFWM)
The new local chapter, Apartheid-Free Western Massachusetts (AFWM) was formed in 2024; and emerged from a yearlong campaign of Palestine Liberation and Indigenous Rights education through weekly film screenings and open public community discussions, with the aim of educating local communities about apartheid, its impacts on human dignity and freedom, and encouraging conversations about building a world founded on freedom, where all people are equal and treated with dignity and respect. AFWM is collaborating among area communities and organizations committed to dismantling systems of inequality, oppression, violence, racism, hatred in order to build a network of compassionate safe communities of active mutual support and safety.
AFWM hosted a “Get to Know Your Community” potluck picnic at Amherst’s Groff Park on July 4 to promote solidarity and explain its ongoing campaigns. The event was attended by about 50 people. A regional Apartheid-Free Community gathering in Great (Turners) Falls and “Apartheid-Free The Way It Should Be” presentation in Northampton also increased signatories of the AFC Pledge. Apartheid-Free Western Massachusetts welcomes all new members to register at wmc4p.org/pledge, and encourages all organizations to join the network of Apartheid-Free Communities around the world. By taking the Apartheid-Free Pledge, you are demonstrating that your organization is committed to resisting racism and apartheid everywhere and withdrawing all support to Israeli apartheid.
AFWM is currently sponsoring a Town of Montague citizen petition declaring the Town of Montague to be an Apartheid-Free Community, and collaborates with Apartheid Divest Northampton on a resolution calling for the City of Northampton to “Divest From Entities Complicit In Human Rights Violations In Israel and Palestine”.
People can join the movement and take the Pledge here:
WE AFFIRM our commitment to freedom, justice, and equality for the Palestinian people and all people;
WE OPPOSE all forms of racism, bigotry, discrimination, and oppression; and
WE DECLARE ourselves an Apartheid-free community and to that end,
WE PLEDGE to join others in working to end all support to Israel’s Apartheid regime, settler colonialism, and military occupation.
“At its core, AFWM is one-on-one conversations about our common moral value of respecting all human rights. Its universal appeal of community and relationship building, stabilizes our moral compass and directly embraces our heart of compassion for our human family” said AFWM founder and member of Jewish Voice for Peace Rich Karsten of Leverett MA
“Working in collaboration with others to dismantle systems of oppression, and those that cause harm to people and the planet, is the only way to sustain the gritty, long-term engagement needed to bring down these systems and build new ones in their place. The system of apartheid is a house of cards, and many people focusing their efforts similarly will bring it down. We start by taking down the apartheid walls of our minds through conversations with people unlike ourselves.” said AFWM founder and member of Jewish Voice for Peace Heather Hutchinson of Leverett MA
Get involved with AFWM here, take the Pledge here, join Northampton Divestment Petition here and email AFWM at infoapartheidfreewesternma@gmail.com with any questions and to learn more.