Coming off the heels of a 300,000-strong national march for Palestine, various organizations are collaborating to organize a nationwide and global collective action on November 9 to “Shut it down for Palestine.” Convened by the Palestinian Youth Movement, the National Students for Justice in Palestine, the ANSWER Coalition, the People’s Forum, and the International Peoples’ Assembly, the action calls on people who support Palestine to “keep building momentum and increase the pressure with more marches, walk-outs, sit-ins, and other forms of direct action directed at the political offices, businesses, and workplaces that fund, invest, and collaborate with Israeli genocide and occupation.”
In response, several actions have been called across the United States for November 9. In Manhattan, New York City, the People’s Forum is calling on people to walk out of workplaces, schools, and other activities to rally in Bryant Park for Palestine. In Philadelphia, healthcare workers will “Shut it Down for Palestine” with a rally and die-in at City Hall.
The Students for Justice in Palestine chapter at California State University, Los Angeles is organizing a student walkout, as well is the SJP chapter at the University of West Florida, at Whitman College in Washington state, the University of Houston, and students at Mission College. SJP chapters across the country have been holding student walkouts for Palestine since the beginning of Israel’s genocide in Gaza—including a nationwide one on October 25.
These actions are building off of the whirlwind of Palestine solidarity organizing that has been taking place across the globe. From Barcelona to Belgium, dockworkers’ and transport unions have refused to load or unload war materials to Israel. In Tacoma, Florida, Indigenous activists blocked weapons shipments to Israel from leaving the Tacoma Port. Last week, a nonviolent protest temporarily stalled a weapons shipment to Israel leaving from the Port of Oakland.
Layan Fuleihan of the People’s Forum spoke to the importance of November 9 at this past weekend’s national march in Washington, DC for Palestine. “The criminals in the White House will not be able to go about their business as usual while they pay for a genocide,” she said. “We will walk out, we will strike, we speak out, we will demonstrate, and we will do this every day and every week until the occupation falls and Palestine is free.”
