ANTI-VIOLENCE IS ANTI-GENOCIDE
October 7, 2024 (ORIGINAL STATEMENT)
New York City Gay and Lesbian Anti-Violence Project Inc.
As an organization dedicated to supporting and advocating with LGBTQ+ survivors of violence, the New York City Anti-Violence Project(AVP) is deeply devastated by the ongoing genocide and human rights violations in Gaza and the Palestinian occupied territory.
To our Arab LGBTQ+ siblings and allies, we want you to know that we are here for you. Our doors remain open and accessible to all LGBTQ+ survivors and our staff and volunteers offer care and resources to ensure you have a safe space where your voices are heard and your needs are met. We at AVP stand in solidarity with all the Palestinian people in the United States and abroad, and with the people of Lebanon who are experiencing devastating escalating violence. Absolutely no one should face violence, persecution, or discrimination, based on their identity, nationality, or where they live.
AVP has, for 44 years and counting, held and channeled the grief and rage of LGBTQ+ survivors – especially QTBIPOC – of profound harm to push systemic change. Whether through counseling and advocacy services, through base building and community organizing, through comprehensive legal supports, or through coalition building, reporting and policy advocacy initiatives, AVP has sought to honor its role as mindful witness and champion of a just and kind world. We are here to hold and honor the anguish of our relatives grieving the impossible horrors of genocide in Palestine and beyond In the tradition of restorative, lasting, equitable care and healing, we acknowledge that the histories of systemic brutality have disproportionately harmed our Arab relatives, and this must be named and seen to be honestly and accountably addressed. As an organization dedicated to combating violence in all forms, we cannot move through the work without acknowledging the way war impacts the communities we at AVP serve.
October 7, 2024 marks one year since the escalation of this mass destruction and displacement of native Palestinians from their land. We acknowledge that the suffering of the Palestinian people has its roots in the Nakba of 1948, when displacement first began. For decades, Palestinians have endured ongoing apartheid, systemic oppression, forced displacement, and a denial of basic human rights, and as the largest LGBTQ+ anti-violence organization in the United States, we stand in solidarity with Palestine.
For our community members who are on the streets standing for Palestinian Liberation, we commend you for continuing to show up for a free Palestine and want to offer you these tips to stay safe during direct action.
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(ADDITIONAL STATEMENT FOLLOWED BY REVISION OF ORIGINAL)
[Updated Wednesday, October 16, 2024] – Last week, we shared a statement that intended to express solidarity to Palestinian people and underscore that our free hotline, counseling, and legal services are welcoming and accessible to Arab and Palestinian LGBTQ+ people who call New York home.
Our allies in the progressive Jewish community have helped us recognize where we lacked nuance in addressing the complexities of government actions during war and their effects on civilians. AVP stands firmly against all forms of violence and acknowledges the profound grief for both Israelis and Palestinians. We regret that our previous statement has caused harm to LGBTQ+ Jewish New Yorkers who expressed feeling unwelcome at AVP. We regret that our previous silence on this issue harmed LGBTQ+ Arab and Palestinian New Yorkers. We remain committed to providing all of our community members in crisis with the same high level of empathy and support from our staff and volunteers. AVP recognizes that the violence of October 7, 2023 caused immeasurable grief and sadness for Jewish community members, and by releasing a statement on this day AVP seemed to disregard and erase that pain.
Over the past year, we have gotten questions from LGBTQ+ Arabs who felt wary of accessing services at AVP because of our silence about the ongoing genocide. We had many internal conversations about what it means to be “anti-violence” in this moment, led by a majority QTBIPOC staff and supported by our Jewish and Arab colleagues with whom we collaborate closely on hate violence prevention work in New York City. Those conversations led to the creation of our statement, which the staff posted without the knowledge or approval of the AVP Board.
In AVP’s anti-violence practice, we are steadfastly anti-genocide alongside the work we do to support individual survivors of violence. We will continue to critique violence enacted by the state and institutions – whether they be police forces or armies – and work to reduce these harms on the LGBTQ+ New Yorkers who ask for our support. The futures of our communities are all intertwined and violence against any group makes others less safe. We can hold these complexities, and we invite our extended communities to do the same.
To learn more about the statement’s methodology, inspirations, and the educational resources used, please visit our FAQ & Resources Page.
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OCTOBER 16 REVISION TO ORIGINAL OCTOBER 7 TEXT
ANTI-VIOLENCE IS ANTI-GENOCIDE
As an organization dedicated to supporting and advocating with LGBTQ+ survivors of violence, the New York City Anti-Violence Project is deeply devastated by the ongoing genocide and human rights violations in Gaza and the Palestinian occupied territory.
To our Arab LGBTQ+ siblings and allies, we want you to know that we are here for you [updated 10-16-24] and we have heard your questions about whether you will be supported at AVP. Our doors remain open and accessible to ALL LGBTQ+ survivors and our staff and volunteers offer care and resources to ensure you have a safe space where your voices are heard and your needs are met. [updated 10-16-24] We affirm our support for and welcome to our LGBTQ+ Jewish siblings who seek support through AVP’s hotline, counseling, and legal services and will continue to provide identity-affirming support and empathy to all community members.
We at AVP stand in solidarity with all the Palestinian people in the United States and abroad, and with the people of Lebanon who are experiencing devastating escalating violence. Absolutely no one should face violence, persecution, or discrimination, based on their identity, nationality, or where they live. [updated 10-16-24] State and institutional violence impacts people trying to survive in their homes no matter what their religious, cultural, or political affiliations are, and we condemn the violence of all institutional forces.
AVP has, for 44 years and counting, held and channeled the grief and rage of LGBTQ+ survivors – especially QTBIPOC – of profound harm to push systemic change. Whether through counseling and advocacy services, through base building and community organizing, through comprehensive legal supports, or through coalition building, reporting and policy advocacy initiatives, AVP has sought to honor its role as mindful witness and champion of a just and kind world. We are here to hold and honor the anguish of our relatives grieving the impossible horrors of genocide in Palestine and beyond In the tradition of restorative, lasting, equitable care and healing, we acknowledge that the histories of systemic brutality have disproportionately harmed our Arab relatives, and this must be named and seen to be honestly and accountably addressed. As an organization dedicated to combating violence in all forms, we cannot move through the work without acknowledging the way war impacts the communities we at AVP serve.
[Deletion 10-16-24**] October 7, 2024, marks one year since the escalation of this mass destruction and displacement of native Palestinians from their land. We acknowledge that the suffering of the Palestinian people has its roots in the Nakba of 1948, when displacement first began, [updated 10-16-24] and that this is the first time that AVP is making this acknowledgment. For decades, Palestinians have endured ongoing apartheid, systemic oppression, forced displacement, and a denial of basic human rights, and as the largest LGBTQ+ anti-violence organization in the United States, we stand in solidarity with Palestine.
For our community members who are on the streets standing for Palestinian Liberation, we commend you for continuing to show up for a free Palestine and want to offer you these tips to stay safe during direct action.
**AVP recognizes that this statement is factually inaccurate.
To learn more about the statement’s methodology, inspirations, and the educational resources used, please visit our FAQ & Resources Page.
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“Anti-Violence is Anti-Genocide” Statement FAQs
October 7, 2024
Why is AVP posting about this?
AVP was born from the understanding that we can’t aim for healing and liberation if we stay silent. There’s no room for division in the fight against fascism and systemic oppression. When violence is done to one marginalized group, it’s done to all of us. And in the same way, when any community wins liberation, it plants the seeds of freedom for everyone.
Over the past year, AVP has faced a lot of challenges, but we’ve continued to show up—to protest, to grieve, and to rage against the genocides happening around the world. We’ve been wanting to speak these words for a while, and now, we can finally say them out loud, with full hearts.
As a community that stands alongside our queer and trans Arab clients, siblings, and colleagues—and all those who are committed to this fight—we must speak out about the pain and grief we share. This pain is woven into the resilience we uplift as we survive the generational, governmental, social, and systemic harms that keep trying to break us.
If we truly believe that “Our Existence Is Resistance,” then we can’t stay silent when colonizing forces continue to harm so many across the Global South and beyond. AVP stands in full solidarity with Palestine, and we will continue to amplify this call for justice.
For the last year we have discussed how to address what has escalated in Palestine/Israel, and during this time we have faced criticism from our Arab and Jewish allies, staff, and community at large regarding a lack of a statement as an anti-violence organization.
It goes without saying that we support peace and safety for all civilians in any and every region facing conflict, however, pinkwashing and propaganda used to marginalize and silence innocent Palestinians is counter to the morals of an organization fighting for the freedom and safety of LGBTQ+ people in the U.S. and around the world. Inclusivity and empathy should not be conditional when innocent people are being harmed and killed, no matter their color, religion, ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender identity or where they are in the world.
Why now?
AVP has always stood for the belief that we can’t strive for healing and liberation in silence. However, we acknowledge that for too long, we have been silent about the ongoing genocide of Palestinians. This silence has caused harm to the communities we serve and represent, especially our queer and trans Arab siblings, colleagues, and clients who have been directly impacted by the violence. We failed to speak out sooner, and for that, we are truly sorry.
There is no excuse for our delay in addressing this critical issue. We didn’t need to wait until someone we know personally was attacked to take a stand. Genocide, colonization, and violence against marginalized people anywhere in the world should have always been enough for us to act.
The power struggles we witness every day—whether through police violence in New York City or the brutal military occupation in Palestine—are interconnected. The NYPD’s mirroring of tactics of surveillance, racial profiling, and violence against Black and brown communities from the Israeli Defense Forces is not a coincidence: the NYPD (and many other police departments) receives training from the IDF. Both systems are part of a global web of state-sponsored violence that aims to control, silence, and erase marginalized people.
We fully endorse a ceasefire and an arms embargo. AVP stands in support of an immediate ceasefire in Palestine and calls for an end to the military funding and support that fuel this ongoing violence. Just as we demand an end to state violence here in the U.S., we demand an end to the occupation and apartheid in Palestine. The oppressive systems of power that harm marginalized communities in Palestine are deeply connected to those that harm people here in the United States.
We commit to amplifying the voices of those impacted by these atrocities and holding ourselves accountable to the values of anti-oppression and liberation that AVP was founded on.
You’re not an anti-war organization, why are you writing about this?
To be anti-violence implies to be anti-war, and to be anti-genocide is not anti-semitic. To side with healing, health, love, freedom, liberation, interdependence, mutuality, fairness, color and vibrancy necessitates that we at AVP cannot stand by while intergenerational traumas continue to be inflicted by systems of power that mobilize their privileges to oppress those that they can.
We Serve & Stand Up For Peace
We do not withhold services from ANYONE in crisis. A statement of solidarity for an end to violence is just that. When we issued a statement about George Floyd and Black Lives Matter in 2020, that was not made in exclusion of any non-black life, it was the specific matter at hand, just as our statement about #StopAsianHate was. Calling for a stop to the killing of innocent Palestinians is not and should not be conflated with prejudice and wishing harm towards Jewish people as individuals and as a community at large, whether one identifies as Zionist or not. As the Anti-Violence Project, our foundational beliefs are in our name, and not doing the bare minimum of making a statement regarding a conflict that directly impacts the communities we serve, our Arab and Jewish staff who provide these services, and allies who believe in our mission of ending all violence, it would be irresponsible to continue to observe in silence.
Breaking Bread, Building Bonds
In 2023, AVP hosted ‘Breaking Bread, Building Bonds,’ a roundtable to hold an intentional and collaborative space to discuss how hate shows up in our different and intersecting communities, and to continue working towards addressing the root causes of violence, and building towards a future where all our communities are safe and thriving.
INSPIRATION, RESOURCES + EDUCATION
- United Nations Human Rights – 9/18/24 Statement
- Article: Palestine and Israel | Trans Liberation and Palestine
- Anti-Genocide ≠ Anti-Semitism : “It’s Not Antisemitic to be Anti-Genocide” – Article & The Take: The Jewish workers ousted for supporting Palestine
Link to AVP Tips on Protesting https://avp.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/ProtestSafetyTips.pdf