Redwood Peace and Justice Coalition responds to being boycotted by Humboldt For Palestine “leadership” without explanation

 

Members of the Redwood Peace and Justice Coalition (RPJC) Coordinating Committee were asked to leave a community potluck put on by Humboldt for Palestine (HFP) upon arrival and during cordial greetings this last weekend, Saturday July 26th. This came with no previous warning, and despite these RPJC’s members having been invited directly from an official HFP email account. 

 

This unfortunate decision by HFP leadership to publicly boycott RPJC attendance at HFP events publicly exposed a conflict which the RPJC Coordinating Committee has deliberately remained silent about for over a year. We’ve waited so long in order to avoid fracturing the local pro-Palestinian community, prevent unnecessary distraction, and guard against vulnerabilities from our collective adversaries. 

 

The RPJC now breaks the silence on the root cause of the original division between RPJC and HFP. We are doing this ***only in response*** to HFP attempts to publicly boycott RPJC—a sectarian act which seeks to create unnecessary divisions within the local pro-Palestinian movement. 

 

RPJC calls on HFP members and supporters to look closely at the facts set forth below, regardless of how painful of a reckoning with the truth this might be. We also urge them to take all necessary and appropriate steps to guard against further fracturings of the local pro-Palestinian movement. This is for the sake of our collective commitment to support Palestinians. 

 

The cause of the initial split from Humboldt for Palestine and the root of the ongoing challenges between groups

 

In the immediate aftermath of the Israeli escalations in October 2023, the local pro-Palestinian movement was largely decentralized, lacking any clear organizational structure. Large local protests began when a Palestinian woman and Sarah Wellington, an activist and Jewish woman, publicly called for the initial local protests on social media. That October, at a rally on the Cal Poly Humboldt university quad, Wellington called out at the front of a rally for volunteers to form sub committees of HFP including for a press team. 

 

Less than two months later, founding members of the HFP Press Team became founding members of RPJC. 

 

In the interim (see news articles linked below) Gihane “Gigi” Hyden:

 

1. Got arrested in an altercation with College of the Redwoods baseball team members as she was leaving a pro-Palestine rally on the Arcata Plaza. She was later charged by the police with vandalism for breaking the baseball player's windshield. According to Redheaded Blackbelt coverage linked below, Aileen Yoo, Director of News and Information at Cal Poly Humboldt, said “UPD has recommended charges of vandalism, false imprisonment, and making a false police report, and the case has been referred to the District Attorney.” Hyden was subsequently ordered to do 16 hours of community service, pay minor fees for her restitution and a one year diversion program related to the filed charges.

2. Deliberately lied to the HFP Press Team about her arrest.

3. Deliberately lied to the media about her arrest.

4. Deliberately lied to the community about her arrest.

5. Deliberately lied to police about her arrest.

6. Exploited her lies above to claim she was the victim, and to thereby assume the role as the primary (and often exclusive) advisor to the Palestinian figurehead of HFP, a position she has retained up to today. 

7. Used her favorable position to sideline and discourage the participation of contributing supporters, including founding members of the original HFP Press Team and founding members of RPJC, sometimes acting through intermediaries. 

 

Since then, HFP has routinely made decisions based on what the Palestinian figurehead declares, rarely with much consultation on key matters beyond consultation with Hyden—even though Hyden often doesn’t execute those decisions herself. 

 

Hyden knowingly and recklessly lied to many in the movement in the initial formative period of HFP. HFP is billed as the primary legitimate local organization supporting Palestine, and Hyden has been abusing this prestige that the organization enjoys; Hyden continues to use her favorable position to sideline the initiatives of many local, honorable advocates who are trying to contribute to HFP. 

 

When Hyden falsely claimed she was struck by a vehicle driven by a College of Redwoods baseball team, she told the HFP Press Team that the Cal Poly Humboldt Campus Store located on the Arcata Plaza had the surveillance camera footage that would prove her account. According to this account, the baseball player’s car hood had struck her body so hard that her protest sign flew across the street, and she had to go to the hospital for her injuries. 

 

The HFP Press Team distributed a press release of Hyden’s testimony after two witnesses provided testimony that appeared to verify key parts of Hyden’s account. 

 

The surveillance camera footage from the CPH Campus Store on the Arcata Plaza contradicted Hayden’s account on several crucial points:

 

The footage showed:

 

1. Hyden was not struck by the car.

2. Hyden was not struck so hard that she ended up on the hood of the car.

3. Hyden was not struck so hard that her protest sign flew across the street.

4. Hyden instigated the stand-off and approached the vehicle in a threatening manner blocking the vehicle in while the driver was slowly trying to leave the parking lot of the Cal Poly Humboldt Campus Store on the Arcata Plaza. 

5. Hyden deliberately struck the vehicle with her protest sign, which cracked the windshield.

6. Hyden lied to the HFP Press Team when she claimed the video would prove her narrative of being the victim of an anti-Palestinian rage from baseball team members who rammed her with their car.

 

Why would someone claiming to support Palestine lie to the movement, to the community, and to police *knowing she was recorded on video and her lies would be revealed*—knowing those lies would discredit the local movement in the broader community?

 

This is the question that HFP members need Hyden to account for. Otherwise HFP under her “leadership” loses legitimacy. 

 

Why would HFP members, supposedly among the better politically informed members of our community, not know or not care that Hyden lied to the organization, community, and police?

 

This is the question that every HFP supporter must be accountable to in order to maintain their own credibility as a supporter of Palestinians. 

 

To HFP members and supporters, which we have been among for as long as we could: 

 

We have avoided this day of judgment being placed on you until we could not in good conscience protect you from your ignorance any longer. 

 

Now that you have been warned of these lies from HFP’s “leadership,” you have a duty to Palestine to study the facts closely, and to take all necessary and appropriate actions based on those conclusions. 

 

Please study the facts of these two articles closely, and compare Hyden’s statements alleging she was attacked in the first article with the surveillance footage in the second article. This footage shows she was the instigator of the physical confrontation--the attacker--and not the victim, as she alleged to us. 

 

Now that RPJC has pushed back against the past lies of your “leadership,” these lies will likely intensify. Will you continue to accept their new lies, and become complicit in these destructive narratives?

 

To the larger community: 

 

Please do not take a “both sides” view of this unfortunate conflict within the local pro-Palestinian movement, and most of all, do not lose faith in our ability to achieve victories for Palestine locally. 

 

We have already achieved notable victories, and we will continue to do so despite these challenges of integrity and honesty within our ranks. 

 

This discord is the product of actions taken by at least one specific actor who was aware of the potential for their actions to alienate you, and they took those actions with that knowledge whether deliberately or out of recklessness. 

 

We are not revealing these facts to point fingers at human beings, or to avoid our own responsibility in the situation. Instead, we are pointing at the actions taken and the ideas that certain people are promoting which degrade legitimate efforts to support Palestine. We are revealing these facts to respond to an overt attempt to boycott RPJC, and to diminish our work that is right now having tangible victories on the ground in Gaza City.

 

We invite you to join us in standing for Palestine, and to help us provide material aid on the ground to women, children, and people in need in Gaza.  

 

Link to article presenting Hyden’s false testimony:

 

https://kymkemp.com/2023/10/31/middle-east-conflict-sparks-clash-in-arcata-saturday-pro-palestinian-protesters-and-members-of-crs-baseball-team-accuse-each-other-of-violence/ 

 

Link to article showing surveillance footage contradicting Hyden’s testimony:

 

https://kymkemp.com/2024/02/10/clash-between-protestor-and-baseball-player-caught-on-cctv/ 

 

Excerpt of invitation emailed to RPJC Coordinating Committee by an official HFP email account:

 

“Humboldt for Palestine is honored to invite you to our first Radical Community Cookout & book exchange at Redwood Park, Saturday, July 26th at 1pm. Inspired by the work of the Black Panthers and the Rainbow Coalition, we know that we must care for each other and join together beyond identity politics in the fight against fascism and imperialism. We understand the first step in building coalition is to get to know each other! This is an explicitly anti-colonial, anti-imperial, anti-zionist, anti-supremacist, anti-fascist space with the goal of building coalition among liberatory movements and oppressed people. If that sounds like your kind of space, you’re invited to the cookout.”