Ethical Travel Means Free Palestine
This is an excerpt from our statement released on Instagram shortly after the 100th day of genocide in Gaza.
A huge part of ethical travel is being honest about the damage that Western imperialism has wrought on the rest of the world.
At no other time in history has proof of the violence of colonization been so widely and globally disseminated and therefore irrefutable as it is right now in
Gaza and the West Bank.
Since October 7th we have paused all new tour development as our focus shifted to our activism here at home. All of our employees are activists and artists, deeply affected by the violence of the last 100+ days.
Our founder was at the first march in DC last November. She has been a critical observer of Zionism for all 28 years of her adult life.
None of us are new to this fight.
While we have been publishing daily from our sister company, Avalon North, which covers several social justice issues near our home and abroad, this is our first official post from AWT.
And we’re making it because A.) It’s the right thing to do but also sadly B.) We have seen virtually no solidarity from the travel sector. An industry that wholly benefits from a history of colonization and exploitative globalization. An industry, that of late, loves to use the word “ethical travel”.
Ethical travel is 100% rooted in the care and concern for all of humanity. Anthony Bourdain understood this. Dame Traveler understands this.
Ethical travel means you can identify global exploitation and state violence, today and historically.
You can discern or are willing to learn to discern, when power is abusing the powerless at home and globally.
And the devastating truth is,
it is happening all around us, all the time.
And that can either crush you emotionally, drive you deep into nihilism, or inspire you to act. Often all three at different times.
Today we choose action.
Being an ethical traveler means that
you make a public stand against state violence wherever you see it and you certainly make a stand against genocide.
As a US-based company whose taxes are used to fund this genocide, we are acutely aware of our responsibility to uphold our own values in the face of war crimes and ethnic cleansing.
Ethical travel means you leverage your global privilege to uplift the voices of those whom the powerful of the world would rather ignore and suppress.
We stand firmly with Palestine,
because no one is free until all those suffering under apartheid and state oppression anywhere, are free.
And as always, Anti-Zionism is not Anti-Semitism, some of the loudest voices for an end to genocide and illegal occupation are Jewish.
Jewish Voice for Peace
If you want to learn more, and I hope you do
Please watch
directed by Abby Martin
on youtube
And any of the lectures by Jewish American
Scholar and activist
Especially his iconic retort to the false accusation of anti-zionism equating to anti-semitism
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We’re not here to fight. And We’re not here to make people feel bad for what they haven’t been taught.
We’re here to present the side of the oppressed, as is our duty to our ethical world travel philosophy
We know we will loose followers and that’s ok.
We all learn at different paces.
We want to be clear about where we stand so that you can make the best choice for you. And us.
I encourage all world travelers to be curious, research more, and stay empathetic
