On April 4, Palestinian author Sumaya Awad delivered a lecture at the University of Washington titled “Colonizing Palestine: Excavating the Political Economic Roots of Genocidal Warfare.” The talk provided historical insights into the labor conditions and political economy of Palestine, offering a critical perspective on the struggles and hardships faced by the Palestinian people. Attendees gained a deeper understanding of the complexities of the ongoing crisis in Gaza and the importance of historical interpretation and political engagement.
During her talk, Awad stressed that “nothing happens in a vacuum.” Although she did not speak at length on Zionism, she began by noting Zionism’s foundational role in the Israel settler colonial project. In her book, she writes: “Zionism is not a historic yearning to return to Zion, but a modern movement that was born in the last quarter of the 19th century. The development of Zionism as a political movement was entirely a product of European society in an age of imperialism, and it is impossible to understand outside of that context.”
History, Awad argued, has shown that there is no working-class solidarity in an apartheid economy. Under Israeli law, Palestinians are prohibited from organizing labor unions or joining Israeli labor unions. The exploitation of Palestinian workers and the integration of the Middle East economy, she continued, have proceeded hand in hand, entrenching a system of racial segregation and land dispossession. Although Palestinian workers are indispensable to the political economy of Israel and the occupied West Bank, they are under the constant threat of losing their work permits.
Those trends, Awad explained, became legitimized and exacerbated through the Oslo Peace Accords (1993) and the Palestinian Reform and Development Plan (2008-10). Israeli settlement and Palestinian displacement, alongside the privatization of public sector jobs, increased sharply, leading to the proliferation of military checkpoints, settler raids, wholesale blockades, and family separations. With very limited access to water and other essential resources, Palestinians have struggled to survive for years, long before October 7, 2023. “247 villages in southern Palestine were ethnically cleansed by Zionist forces in 1948, and the refugees from those villages were then forced into a concentration camp that came to be known as the Gaza Strip.” Awad explained.
“There is no divorcing politics,” Awad said, “parts cannot be solved; it’s the system that needs to be fully dismantled for everyone to be free… an end to Zionism.” Awad concluded her talk with a call for collective action to end U.S. aid to Israel, to pass divestment resolutions, and to mobilize and stand together against the genocide in Gaza.
Sumaya Awad is a Palestinian writer and organizer based in New York City who focuses on Palestine, Islamophobia, immigration, and labor. She is the Director of Strategy at the Adalah Justice Project and co-editor of Palestine: A Socialist Introduction (Haymarket Books, 2020).
The Harry Bridges Center for Labor Studies was proud to co-sponsor this event with the Departments of American Ethnic Studies, Comparative History of Ideas, American Indian Studies, and Gender, Women and Sexuality Studies.