“If you do nothing, that amounts to supporting the status quo”: Activism for Palestine and how to sustain it
Published in The NB Media Co-op
(*artwork: ‘Peace dove’ by Incé Husain)
Solidarity movements for Palestine flare worldwide at an unprecedented level. Over eighty countries have seen rallies rich with Palestinian flags, protests that fill the air with chants of ceasefire, and candlelit vigils that mourn and honour the martyred Palestinian people.
Amidst this momentum and the increasing violence in Gaza, activists continue their efforts and strive to overcome the fatigue that accompanies constant resistance.
David Heap, a professor of linguistics at Western University and an advocate of universal human rights, offers his insights on effective activism. He believes that all forms of activism are important, that the risks lessen as more people advocate, and that sustaining activism relies on strong support networks that embrace and heal.
He shares his experiences advocating for Palestinian human rights, which range from signing petitions to sailing to Gaza in protest of the sea blockade - a life-threatening act that led to his kidnapping and imprisonment by Israeli forces in 2011.
He emphasizes that abstaining from activism does not equate to neutrality.
“All activism is impactful. The problem isn’t what you do, it's that you do something. The one thing you're sure of is that, if you do nothing, you will have no effect, and that amounts to supporting the status quo,” says Heap. “Folks who tell me “oh I’m not political” - I always think “no, actually, you're supporting the status quo. That's actually a conservative position because you're saying that you're okay with the status quo enough that you're not going to make an effort to change it”.”
For the last 15 years, Heap has been part of solidarity movements for Gaza. He is a member of activism groups such as the Council of Canadians London Chapter, the Labour Council, and People for Peace.
In 2009 and 2010, he participated in the Gaza Freedom Marches, demonstrations where activists across the world had planned to march to Gaza from Cairo in a burst of music, balloons, kites, and Palestinian flags. They were blocked by Egyptian authorities.
In 2011, Heap helped form The Canadian Boat to Gaza campaign. This movement sends boats full of activists and humanitarian aid to Gaza to protest the sea blockade. It is part of the international Freedom Flotillas Coalition, which currently spans 10 countries that send boats to Gaza.
In November 2011, Heap joined a Canadian boat to Gaza, the Tahrir, with a group of activists and journalists. Before they reached the Gaza port, they were intercepted and illegally kidnapped by the Israeli navy in international waters, taken to Israel for interrogation, imprisoned, and then deported back to Canada six days later. The Canadian government had not immediately demanded their release, prompting criticism that it provided “political cover” for Israel.
“When you're stopped at sea, they point guns at you. I was tasered, I sustained some bruises,” says Heap. “I wrote a will for the first time, and I wrote goodbye letters. There’s a real risk of not coming back. That’s not a joke because the Israeli state kills with impunity, and knowing that our government will not hold them to account. Also knowing that in any military unit, you’re at the mercy of the stupidest, most trigger-happy person.”
Heap’s strongest memory of the mission is of a Palestinian student from Haifa who sailed with them. Brandishing a Palestinian flag, he steered the boat to the homeland that he and generations before him had been denied by the Israeli occupation.
“He had said “‘I am going to remember that I, a Palestinian from Haifa, was steering a boat under a Palestinian flag towards a part of my country that I’m not allowed to travel to,”” Heap recalled. “Here he is, at the wheel of a boat, flying the Palestinian flag, headed towards Gaza.”
Heap learned about Palestine “relatively late in life”. His first awareness of Palestine came as a university student in the 80s, when he was studying Spanish and volunteering as a translator with the Canadian Centre for Victims of Torture.
He interpreted a refugee hearing following the Salvadoran Civil War, a war where the United States military had backed an oppressive Salvadoran government. A Salvadoran refugee said he was tortured and blindfolded by Salvadoran soldiers who were given orders by someone with accented Spanish. He realized this distinctive accent was Israeli.
This introduced Heap to the tie between Israel and the United States, and specifically how Israel is used by the United States to further American control in other countries. He shares that an organization called the International Anti-Zionist Jewish Network has a dossier on how the United States wields the Israeli military to repress other countries.
“That stuck with me. I gradually became aware that a lot of the international infrastructure of oppression in Latin America and other parts of the world relied on Israel as sort of the subcontractor to the US empire,” says Heap. “When the US couldn't get here, they would send the Israelis to do their dirty work, or work they didn't want to do in the States.”
Still, Heap focused on Latin American Solidarity and protests against the Iraq war. Palestine re-emerged for him in 2006, when Israel invaded Lebanon, and again in 2008, when Israel’s “Operation Cast Lead” killed 1400 Palestinians. The scale of this violence - referred to as the “Gaza Massacre” - honed Heap’s efforts on Palestine.
“(The year) 2008, with Cast Lead, was really a turning point for us and a lot of people. It was after 2008 that we sort of said “the governments of the world are forgetting Gaza, we can't forget Gaza.” And from there I went to the Gaza Freedom March and met people involved in the Flotilla. We formed a Canadian Boat to Gaza campaign as part of the Freedom Flotilla.”
In 2012, Heap visited Gaza. Invited by the Islamic University of Gaza for a linguistics conference, he travelled with a small group of linguists, including world-renowned intellectual Noam Chomsky.
He says seeing Gaza was “intense”. The memory of his prior Freedom Flotilla attempts to reach Gaza were fresh, and the conference schedule coincided with the planned arrival of the Swedish Freedom Flotilla boat, Estelle. The boat had spent months touring Scandinavian and European ports on its way to Gaza, amassing media attention and new supporters.
In the middle of the conference, Estelle - a large, metal sailing boat - was accosted at sea by Israeli forces. The crew onboard went through the routine of imprisonment, interrogation, and deportation. Chomsky, a supporter of non-violent disobedience, gave a press conference at the Gazan port with local civil society organizations. Heap says he had been asking about Estelle every day since his arrival in Gaza, and wanted to write about all he’d seen.
“Over tea in the morning, we heard gunshots,” says Heap, “(Chomsky) wanted to confirm that they were gunshots because he wanted to write about it and make sure the facts were solid. I talked with the fishermen's associations, and they confirmed they were gunshots. People were shot at offshore, it happens all the time.”
Heap was most struck by the Palestinian university students, impressed by their passion, their vision, their thirst for life and knowledge, their stories and wisdom. A colleague of Heap’s wrote a blog post about how the students interpreted conversations between families of political prisoners and the conference visitors.
“My enduring memory was of the Palestinian university students,” says Heap. “First of all - amazing English. And their desire, just the thirst to know about the world. You've got this amazing population that's crammed in this small area and can't come out. We realize that they've got amazing stories to tell. I just found them very admirable, generally very admirable. And really tragic - some of them got scholarships and couldn't get out, or they would be delayed for years before they could take up their studies.”
Heap says that the recent surge of Palestinian voices from Gaza in English language blogs, videos, and news marks a “change in the landscape” in global understandings of Palestine. They bring forth faces, names, lives, and memories that nurture bonds across space and time. These stories become permanent online and in the hearts of those who hear them.
“We are Not Numbers”, a youth-led Palestinian project in Gaza founded in 2015, shares stories online of Palestinian struggles, triumphs, feelings, and aspirations. It directly challenges a “media blockade” that silences Palestinian voices, with mainstream media now regularly seeking Palestinian voices for news reports.
The founder of We Are Not Numbers, Dr. Refaat Alareer, was killed five days ago. On November 1st, he shared this poem:
If I must die,
you must live to tell my story
to sell my things
to buy a piece of cloth
and some strings,
(make it white with a long tail)
so that a child, somewhere in Gaza while looking heaven in the eye awaiting his dad who left in a blaze
— and bid no one farewell
not even to his flesh
not even to himself —
sees the kite, my kite you made, flying up above
and thinks for a moment an angel is there
bringing back love
If I must die
let it bring hope
let it be a tale.
In October, The Guardian published an article written by a member of We are Not Numbers, Nowar Diab from Gaza City, titled “Please keep marching for Palestine - your protests are giving hope to the people of Gaza”. Diab writes of displacement and bombings; scenes of smoke, charred trees, and the buzz of drones; and how the global marches for Palestine cleanse her. She writes: “The kindness of strangers, often thousands of miles away: this pulls us out of that feeling of hopelessness. Seeing this, I cannot help my eyes filling with tears. It shows people care and our suffering is felt.”
“A lot of what (activism) is about is telling them that they’re not forgotten,” says Heap. “They’re forgotten by the states of the world. They’re not forgotten by the people of the world.”
Heap considers all forms of activism to be meaningful, from initiatives as ambitious as the Freedom Flotillas to something as quiet as signing a petition. He sees activism as a continuum of indirect to direct action, and believes that movements should flare across it.
He says that petitions can deliver powerful messages in parliament, and explains the historic petition for ceasefire that has taken root in Montréal, addressed to NDP MP Alexandre Boulerice. With nearly 287,000 signatures that span all provinces and territories in Canada, the e-petition has the most signatures ever sent to the Canadian Parliament.
In 2021, party members convinced the NDP leadership to debate a resolution that called for an arms embargo on Israel. Heap helped bring the resolution forth for discussion; 80% of the party voted in favor. As a result, Canada has a Parliamentarian in Ottawa pushing for an arms embargo.
Heap says this development is extremely meaningful: the arms embargo was instrumental for weakening the apartheid in South Africa.
“The arms embargo was the first embargo that actually bit in the case of South Africa,” says Heap. “They felt, culturally, the sports embargo and things like that because it was national pride, but the one that actually took hold was the arms embargo. It was expensive, it was cumbersome, they had to get around it, they found ways around it, but it was the end of the beginning of apartheid.”
In May 2023, Boulerice made a statement about The Nakba in the Canadian Parliament demanding that the Liberal government condemn the violence against Palestinians and enforce United Nations resolutions. Heap predicted that the Liberal party may follow in about 5 years. Instead, a Liberal began talking about it just the following week, marking a new awareness of Palestine in government. Heap attributes this progress to persistent grassroots organizations.
“It’s not because the politicians are better,” Heap says. “It’s because the grassroots are pushing it. It’s not political leaders who are leading it.”
He emphasized that people must demand better of their politicians and strike up “uncomfortable conversations” with those in their daily lives. This will build a collective awareness of Palestine that creates a rift at the governmental level.
He gives the examples of Italy and Corsica, where Palestine is not a divisive issue as in Canada. During a visit to Italy, Heap noticed that Palestine solidarity was an issue that unified political groups that ordinarily disagreed. It was similar in Corsica, an Island in France.
Motivated by their electors, Heap says some Freedom Flotillas outside Canada even had parliamentarians join boats to Gaza, such as members of the European parliament and the Spanish Congress.
Electors have also improved the quality of media coverage. Heap says his best media interviews were with local municipal outlets, with reporters asking well-informed questions driven by their readership.
“I don’t have to spell out “occupation” and explain to them what it is, which is sadly often the case with corporate media, if they’ll even talk to us in North America,” says Heap. “They’re better at their job because their listenership demands it. There’s an appetite for it, and that informs a more informed politics.”
Most notably, Heap shares that he spoke about the Gaza’s Ark campaign in the Basque Country and was invited by a parliamentarian to speak about it at a parliamentary commission on human rights.
The Gaza’s Ark campaign, part of the Freedom Flotilla Coalition, sought to rebuild a fishing boat that would sail out of Gaza with exports, such as shipments of dates, embroidery, and crafts. The movement stirred people to buy coupons to support Palestinian commerce. Heap described it as a “very moving project” that sought to build hope in Gaza. The boat was shelled by Israeli forces in 2014, the symbol of Palestinian trade from Gaza deemed “too threatening”.
“The politicians (in the Basque Country) - the way they should be - were at the service of a social movement, and trying to facilitate that. Which is amazing,” Heap says. “But that’s because their electoral base demands it, and they know it’s good politics for them to be onside with this issue.”
Heap believes there is “a lot of room” for non-violent direct action in Canada. During the Operation Cast Lead protests, he joined activists in occupying the office of a conservative MP in London, Ontario. These actions, ripe with activists willing to risk arrest, made the community internalize the local commitment to Palestinian human rights.
“That made the community notice “hey, here's some non-Arab, non-muslim, non-Palestinian people who are willing to put themselves on the line and risk arrest”. That’s necessary as well,” says Heap. “There have to be people who are ready to risk arrest to challenge the occupation of Palestine, to challenge Canadian complicity with the occupation of Palestine, to challenge Canada arming Israeli apartheid. It’s going to require people willing to put themselves on the line.”
Conversations about activism are necessary to clarify its aim and trajectory. Heap says that Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS), for example, tends to start at the individual level, with people boycotting certain brands on their personal shopping lists. But boycotting has little effect until businesses become aware of why it’s happening. This can compel businesses to cease partnerships with Israel.
He shares that Reimagine Co, a store in London, Ontario, is “apartheid-free”. None of their products come from Israel, and they educate customers and retailers about their commitment to this. After receiving a shipment of dates from Israel, they sent them back to the retailer and told them why they would not stock them. Slowly, Heap says, their commitment might climb through the ranks of the retailers they educate, and prompt them to become human rights allies. In this way, Heap considers BDS to primarily be an information-education campaign.
“You have to be explicit about what you're doing, whether you are boycotting products, encouraging others to boycott products, encouraging businesses to stop shelving products, encouraging businesses to become apartheid free zones, encouraging institutions to divest. You have to be very explicit at every stage about the reason for it and educate,” says Heap. “Ultimately, it’s those conversations that will change people's minds and give everyone a chance to get on the right side of history sooner rather than later.”
Heap says that universities are fertile ground for activism. Students are independent, keen to make decisions for themselves, and regularly discuss ideas with like-minded people that can give rise to powerful activism. But sometimes this insulation can create an “invisible barrier” between the campus and the city that can limit the scope of activism.
“I see waves of interest among students at UWO around issues like this,” says Heap. “But it’s important to not just reach that bubble (of universities), or it won't affect the community. It’s important to break down those barriers.”
At Western University, student protests have been lush with keffiyehs, Palestinian flags, signs, chants, and speeches. On November 19th, a protest began with a student listing incidents of Islamophobic attacks on students at Western University.
This list included muslim students being called “terrorists”; being told they should be "raped and killed"; being told “all muslims must die”; and muslim students being spat on, assaulted, or doxxed. Most of these instances have not been addressed by university administration. The protest expressed disappointment for this, and students placed their signs of solidarity at the door of the administration building.
Less public forms of activism, like standing up to loved ones or having conversations with acquaintances, is also something Heap considers very important. He says conversations are rarely one-on-one, but involve quiet audiences who may be hearing about Palestine for the first time. In this way, casual dialogue can reach open-minded people who are simply uninformed, thereby building a general education about Palestine. Heap says that reaching these people, especially with stories of Palestine they can relate to, is more important than persuading those who already harbour strong, opposing stances.
“You don't need to have the biggest fight. Talk to the people who aren't convinced, who are genuinely open-minded. Most people are, frankly, ignorant,” says Heap. “We should think about who’s uninformed and who’s open to hearing about people like them: students in Palestine, teachers in Palestine, workers in Palestine, mothers and daughters in Palestine. What's it like to raise your kids when you can't get running water, or can't turn on the lights. There are very human stories here that make the blockade and the occupation very real in another way. It does not have to be the big dramatic arguments. Those are important, but the banal day-to-day reality is also very important.”
Heap says that advocating for Palestinian human rights yields pushback that does not follow activism for other causes.
At King’s College, a colleague of Heap’s ran a center for “social concern” that included speakers on a range of activism topics. Heap says the most backlash was directed at speakers on Palestine, with the administration “coming down on him” for hosting them.
A Masters student from the University of Toronto was condemned by the Ontario Legislature for her thesis on how Holocaust memory is instrumentalized to promote Zionism. Her work was strictly within the domain of higher education, but it was attacked as antisemitic. Heap’s colleague invited the student to speak, fighting the pushback by invoking academic freedom.
In 2010, after the Gaza Freedom Marches, Western University hosted its first “apartheid week”, which aimed to raise awareness of Palestinian life under Israel’s apartheid regime (see heading Unique week gets mixed reviews).
Writer Yves Engler was invited to apartheid week to discuss his newly-released book, “Canada and Israel Building Apartheid” (see heading Canada most pro-Israel in the world: author). Heap calls the book an “amazing primer” that details how Canada contributed to building and sustaining the Israeli occupation. Heap says that the human rights crisis in Palestine is not only something that “our Canadian fingerprints are all over”, but is particularly rooted in the history of Western University. The first Dean of Western University's Law School, Justice Ivan Rand, was on the 1947 commission that drafted a “blueprint for the future of Palestine” ; this document drove the establishment of Israel.
Western University’s administration, however, attempted to bar Engler from speaking at apartheid week on claims that he would incite violence (see heading Conspiracy to silence or juvenile pranks?).
“Yves had this reputation that (the administration) tried to say he was going to be dangerous or incite a riot or something by coming into Western,” says Heap. “So they put some administrative barriers in the way of that happening. But it happened. And it was an impressive talk, but there was nothing violent or inciting about it. It wasn’t inciting any kind of hate or violence, though it tends to be repped that way.”
A recent meeting Heap attended with the No IHRA committee of Independent Jewish Voices documented all cases of doxxing, harm, or lost employment because of activism for Palestinian human rights.
The saddest case, in Heap’s view, happened at a Moxies restaurant in Toronto. Servers had merely stopped outside and applauded as a march for Palestine went by; someone took their photos, sent them to their boss, and they were fired.
“These are poor, minimum wage, low-age workers, women of colour, who are doxxed by some large Zionist organization and lose their jobs for applauding. This is the equivalent of liking something online. But people are losing their jobs for liking things online. This is literally the powerful going after the least powerful.”
Heap says that this frightening amount of doxxing and employment harassment is “extremely discriminatory”. It targets the most precarious, youngest, and least white in society, with those who are additionally muslim or of other marginalized identities facing even greater risks. He believes that his secure status in society obliges him to advocate for human rights in Palestine.
“I have a lot of privilege. I’m a white, male, cis, het settler tenured at an institution. So I can’t just sit quiet. People like me, I think, have a positive obligation to speak out because everybody else is more vulnerable. I have colleagues who are more vulnerable for a variety of reasons, we’ve got lots of other people in society who are vulnerable. Everybody should have the freedom to speak out,” says Heap. “And on top of that, like most faculty in Canada, I’m unionized. So even if they don’t entirely agree with my position, the union is going to back my right to hold these positions.”
But Heap believes the Zionist agenda’s method of silencing activists indicates “massive desperation”. Aware that they cannot win arguments, they regress to threatening those who initiate them in hopes of extinguishing the circulation of ideas. While Heap acknowledges that this trend will harm many people, he sees a “shift in the tide” where far more people will gather to protect the targeted. He references the case of the law students at Toronto Metropolitan University who had penned an open letter supporting Palestinian resistance. Though they were denied placements at law firms for this activism, they were also met with lawyers who welcomed them into their firms.
“A huge number of lawyers wrote another letter and said “we welcome you as colleagues, we’ll be your mentors, we’ll employ you”,” says Heap. “Yes, people will get slapped down, but more people will give you a hand up. And that’s what you have to look for. Even on the Western Campus, there are more faculty on side now than there were fifteen years ago - onside and willing to speak up.”
The level of risk also plummets as more people become involved in activism. A small number of people may convincingly be called “terrorist supporters”, but thousands of people can’t. Large groups increase the chances of people recognizing their own loved ones within them, which makes them realize the labels can’t be true. Heap says that seeing regular examples of solidarity in daily life, from postal workers to professors to friends, will also “de-dramatize” activism by lending it a broader social context that does not fit into these labels.
“(With larger groups), more and more people will say they know those people and that they’re not like that. They’re someone just doing a job, taking a principled position from different walks of life and backgrounds,” says Heap. “The more we share the risks, the less potent the venom becomes.”
Heap says that everyone should gauge how much risk they want to take based on their status in society. Aside from life-threatening activism like the boat to Gaza campaigns, he says the bulk of the risk he faces is “name-calling”. He considers that inherent to activism.
“I’ve been called names my whole life for political reasons. If that's going to stop me from doing something, maybe I shouldn't think about taking a public political stance,” says Heap. “Other people will be called names and that's going to stop them. And that's not a criticism of them - being called a terrorist supporter has potentially very grave consequences depending on who you are, what your immigration status or employment status is. Everybody should think about (risk) and consider where they can get a little bit beyond, or somewhat beyond, or a lot beyond their comfort area.”
Heap considers activism to be more about movements than individuals. He says that the stamina for constant activism comes from having a group of people who strengthen, nourish, and heal one another so that no one is left to cope alone. Heap cooks, sings, and drums with others to sustain himself, and encourages everyone to find their own peace-giving rituals.
“Everybody needs to find a way to continue with their life,” Heap says. “It’s (idealistic) to think “oh, we’re going to liberate Palestine while I’m an undergraduate, while I’m in school.” It's a long struggle. It's a marathon not a sprint, it's probably several marathons. It's important to find ways to sustain yourself and stay engaged.”
He emphasizes that it is crucial to find ways to make activism a regular part of one’s life without derailing work or personal routines. This could include regularly donating to charities for Palestine, writing a letter to a government official once a week, educating people, or going to a book club for Palestine.
“Palestine needs us all the time,” says Heap. “Whatever you’re doing, make it part of your life. And make that balance such that you can sustain it.” ♦
For reliable information on Israel and Palestine, see the following Canadian independent news outlets recommended by David Heap: The Breach; Rabble; Ricochet; The Media Coop
A shortened version of this article appeared in The NB Media Co-op on December 27th, 2023:
*NOTE: on December 18th, 2023, the following sentence was changed:
“Even on the Western Campus, there are more faculty on side now than there were fifty years ago - onside and willing to speak up.”
The sentence was changed to:
“Even on the Western Campus, there are more faculty on side now than there were fifteen years ago - onside and willing to speak up.”