STRUGGLE FOR PALESTINE

ARA Ends Divestment Campaign

2008-05-08T14:17:00.001-04:00

It is with some regret that ARA announces that we have officially decided to end our Palestine solidarity campaign at Wayne State University’s campus. We have militantly pursued divestment for almost two years now. We have had many successes, met many inspiring individuals and groups, made all the necessary enemies, and, hopefully, set an example for the future. This blog will continue as a way for us to comment on events pertaining to Palestine solidarity in the US and around the world.

This announcement comes on the heels of an approximately six-month period of relative inactivity at Wayne State. Our proudest moment was perhaps our confrontation of Daniel Pipes in October of last year, but since then, we have had little success meeting interested and committed Palestine solidarity activists.

Already in the activist community, our commitment and courage has been called into question, as word of this announcement has circulated. We would like to stress that ARA was always an expression of an important strand of militancy both in the Arab and Muslim community and in the anti-imperialist and anti-racist social justice community. If our campaign ends today, it is not because that strand has vanished from our own hearts, but because it has not met with a similar strand in the hearts and minds of others.

The reality is that too many people looked to us to lead the struggle, and saw in our activity a validation for their own inactivity. As long as ARA was around, “fighting the good fight,” it seemed others could simply go about their lives, not really worrying about Palestine. As a result, the ranks of ARA have depleted over time, and continuing our campaign has no longer become tenable. But we are not ending our campaign because we are tired or bored or afraid. We are ending it because we simply have not met enough people with the courage to confront Israeli apartheid, US imperialism, and popular opinion in the United States. In spite of this, we hold out hope and confidence that at a future time, we will meet courageous people willing to say, “enough is enough,” and who will join us in the struggle for Palestine.

In solidarity,

ARA

Where Walt and Mearsheimer Fear to Tread

2008-03-20T11:58:00.001-04:00

While the entire nation seems gripped in the euphoria of hope lately, Palestine solidarity and anti-war activists found little to be hopeful about in Walt and Mearsheimer's talk in Ann Arbor last Friday. Far from a principled stand against Israeli apartheid or US imperialism, Walt and Mearsheimer argued for a reformed occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, stripped of its excesses. While they admitted that a "Jewish state" was fundamentally at odds with democratic principles (such as those the US preaches but rarely practices), they argued that any solution to the conflict that does not leave the Jewish apartheid state intact was unacceptable. We ask how a "Jewish state" will be created without ethnically cleansing the Palestinians living within Israel? What kind of sovereignty will two open-air prisons connected by some kind of "monorail" and under Israeli lock and key have? What vision, what hope do Walt and Mearsheimer offer to Palestinians and Palestine solidarity activists? The answer is simple, they offer none.

Walt and Mearsheimer's fatal flaw is their inability to see support for Israel as part and parcel of white supremacy and imperialism in the United States. They argue that the Israel lobby has led US interests around by the nose for the last forty years, as if the Zionist project of colonizing Palestine is not in the interest of Western imperialism. Nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, Theodor Herzl, spiritual and ideological father of the modern-day Zionist movement, stated explicitly in his founding text of the Zionist movement, "The Jewish State," that his goal in creating a Jewish state in Palestine was to create "a wall of defense for Europe in Asia, an outpost of civilization against barbarism." Here, Herzl concisely summarizes the racist assumptions underlying the Zionist colonial project. Europeans, Herzl argues, have a right to the land that supersedes that of the indigenous people. Further, the colonial project is part and parcel of the historical “burden” that has fallen upon Europeans to bring “lower cultures” up to the level of civilization Europe has achieved.

In spite of such clear statements, Walt and Mearsheimer argue that US support for the Zionist project is an aberration. To do so is to ignore the entire colonial history of the United States from its very inception! And lest we forget, the US was founded on the basis of ethnic cleansing and genocide against the indigenous people of the Americas in ways that strikingly parallel the founding of the state of Israel and its practices against the indigenous people of Palestine, using much the same racist logic. Far from an aberration, support for Israel is part and parcel of the long white supremacist history of the United States, and lines up nicely with the interests of US imperialism. One important service Israel provides in the region is its attempts to disrupt and destroy grassroots movements throughout the region that threaten to overthrow client states of the US, or disturb business as usual in the region.

This is what is perhaps most disturbing about Walt and Mearsheimer and the argument they make. Far from a principled stand against US imperialism in the Middle East, their opposition to the "special relationship" Israel enjoys with the US represents their belief that supporting Israel is harming the ability of US imperialism to achieve its objectives in the region. For example, they imply that the occupation of Iraq could be better achieved with the help of Syria and Iran, and that the Israel lobby's opposition to both states makes it far more difficult than it otherwise would be to work with both states to crush the resistance in Iraq. Sincere anti-war activists must surely cringe at the suggestion that Iran and Syria be recruited to assist the US in continuing, and better managing, the occupation of Iraq.

In short, Walt and Mearsheimer are imperialists who do not fundamentally oppose the white supremacist basis of American foreign policy. They seek to lead sincere Palestine solidarity activists down a road of ruin that criticizes the excesses of Israeli apartheid, but does not fundamentally challenge its premises.

So where do we go from here? Walt and Mearsheimer, in spite of their best intentions, showed us the way forward when they quoted Ehud Olmert, speaking at the Annapolis "peace" talks a couple months ago. At that time, Olmert noted that "if the two-state solution collapses, and [Israel] faces a South African-style struggle for equal voting rights, then the state of Israel is finished." ARA agrees and welcomes the development of such a struggle whole-heartedly. We must do our part to develop such a movement in the United States. Wherever two or three of us are gathered, we have tremendous strength. We must exercise that strength by demanding divestment in our city councils, universities, and workplaces. We must oppose imperialism and white supremacy in their entirety, and not just their excesses. We should begin where Walt and Mearsheimer fear to tread, by challenging the right of Israel to exist, by objecting not only to current ethnic cleansing operations in the West Bank and Gaza, but also to the ethnic cleansing that led to the foundation of Israel, by demanding the return of all refugees to their historic homelands, by demanding democratic rights to all people living within historic Palestine. These are not utopian demands, but basic, simple rights that all people should enjoy, and many have fought and died to achieve.

Walt and Mearsheimer to Speak at U of M

2008-03-10T11:06:00.004-04:00

Students Allied for Freedom and Equality is hosting a discussion on the Israel lobby this Friday. Anyone who needs a ride should contact ARA at struggle@wsuara.org. Further information follows.

The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy

with Professor John J. Mearsheimer
Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago

and Professor Stephen Walt
former Academic Dean, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University

When: Friday, March 14th @ 7:30pm

Where: Natural Science Auditorium, Rm. 2140
830 N. University, Ann Arbor, MI

Professors John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt will discuss the impact of The Israel Lobby on US Foreign Policy. Their presentation will focus on their widely-renowned book "The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy", a New York Times bestseller. There will be a question and answer session and a book-signing immediately following the event.

This event is hosted by Students Allied for Freedom and Equality (SAFE).

Our Black Shining Prince

2008-02-21T07:37:00.003-05:00

43 years ago, Malcolm X, the "greatest Muslim of American birth" as some have referred to him, was struck down by an assassin's bullets. Today, in remembrance of his important contributions to our struggle, we recall the words Ossie Davis spoke at his funeral.

Here—at this final hour, in this quiet place—Harlem has come to bid farewell to one of its brightest hopes—extinguished now, and gone from us forever. For Harlem is where he worked and where he struggled and fought—his home of homes, where his heart was, and where his people are—and it is, therefore, most fitting that we meet once again—in Harlem—to share these last moments with him.

For Harlem has ever been gracious to those who have loved her, have fought for her and have defended her honor even to the death. It is not in the memory of man that this beleaguered, unfortunate, but nonetheless proud community has found a braver, more gallant young champion than this Afro-American who lies before us—unconquered still.

I say the word again, as he would want me to: Afro-American—Afro-American Malcolm, who was a master, was most meticulous in his use of words. Nobody knew better than he the power words have over minds of men.

Malcolm had stopped being a Negro years ago. It had become too small, too puny, too weak a word for him. Malcolm was bigger than that. Malcolm had become an Afro-American, and he wanted—so desperately—that we, that all his people, would become Afro-Americans, too.

There are those who will consider it their duty, as friends of the Negro people, to tell us to revile him, to flee, even from the presence of his memory, to save ourselves by writing him out of the history of our turbulent times.

Many will ask what Harlem finds to honor in this stormy, controversial and bold young captain—and we will smile. Many will say turn away—away from this man; for he is not a man but a demon, a monster, a subverter and an enemy of the black man—and we will smile. They will say that he is of hate—a fanatic, a racist—who can only bring evil to the cause for which you struggle! And we will answer and say to them:

Did you ever talk to Brother Malcolm? Did you ever touch him or have him smile at you? Did you ever really listen to him? Did he ever do a mean thing? Was he ever himself associated with violence or any public disturbance? For if you did, you would know him. And if you knew him, you would know why we must honor him: Malcolm was our manhood, our living, black manhood!

This was his meaning to his people. And, in honoring him, we honor the best in ourselves. Last year, from Africa, he wrote these words to a friend: My journey, he says, is almost ended, and I have a much broader scope than when I started out, which I believe will add new life and dimension to our struggle for freedom and honor and dignity in the States.

I am writing these things so that you will know for a fact the tremendous sympathy and support we have among the African States for our human rights struggle. The main thing is that we keep a united front wherein our most valuable time and energy will not be wasted fighting each other.

However we may have differed with him—or with each other about him and his value as a man—let his going from us serve only to bring us together, now.

Consigning these mortal remains to earth, the common mother of all, secure in the knowledge that what we place in the ground is no more now a man—but a seed—which, after the winter of our discontent, will come forth again to meet us.

And we will know him then for what he was and is—a prince—our own black shining prince!—who didn’t hesitate to die, because he loved us so.

A Sober Assessment of the Palestine Solidarity Movement

2008-02-15T11:10:00.003-05:00

Anti-Racist Action (ARA) called a rally for last Wednesday in the center of campus. We intended to commemorate and celebrate the recent breakout from Gaza, where Palestinians, in an instant, overturned and forever changed the status quo in the region. Make no mistake. The breakout from Gaza is an innovation in the struggle for Palestine the like of which we have not seen for quite some time. This innovation reflects a string of creative breakthroughs by the Palestinian people in the struggle for their freedom. Let us briefly review.

In November 2006, hundreds of women marched on a mosque where Israeli Defense Forces had trapped Palestinian militants[i]. They dressed the militants in women’s clothes and snuck them out hidden within their numbers. IDF forces fired on these women, and two paid the ultimate price for their resistance. And yet, these women defied all odds, and all consequences, in defense of their brothers and in defense of each other.

Weeks later, Gazans prevented air strikes against the homes of two Palestinian militants when, organized through local mosques[ii]. Within minutes, hundreds of people had gathered in the house and on the roof, Israel called off the attacks, and Israel’s promised “death from above” was averted.

And now, just over a week ago, Palestinians have defied, indeed destroyed, an international border, and resisted both the “slow death” promised by Israel and the hollow promises of the bankrupt leadership of the Arab world. This incident demonstrates the international vision of the struggle for Palestine and its ability to transcend all borders. Witness the sticky position it has put the corrupt US lapdog Mubarak in: he has been forced to choose between shutting down the border to appease the US and Israel (what he would like to do) and keeping it open in solidarity with the Palestinians (what the vast majority of Egyptians would like him to do). Throughout the Middle East, Arab leadership has made similar compromises with Israel and the US. Syria, while currently a member of the “axis of evil,” was intimately involved in expelling the PLO from Lebanon in the ‘70s. Jordan struck a deal with Israel as Israel launched its “War of Independence” (read: war of terror against Palestinians aimed at expelling enough to create a Jewish majority). This deal entailed Israel promising Jordan control over much of the West Bank if Jordan kept its army (at the time arguably the strongest in the Middle East) out of any incursions between Arab forces and Haganah forces. The list goes on. In case after case, the vast majority of everyday people side with Palestine, while their governments collude with the US and Israel against Palestinians and, in Egypt and elsewhere, even against pro-democracy movements within their own borders. The current incident creates a unique opening for struggle throughout the Arab world where solidarity with Palestine is a decisive issue.

In spite of these innovations on an international scale, in the US, ARA experienced more of the same. We were disappointed last Wednesday that no one showed up to celebrate and commemorate this proud moment in Palestine’s history. However, rather than dwell on this incident, we seek to draw the necessary conclusions, and in doing so move forward with renewed energy. What does this incident mean for solidarity work in the United States? What can we who seek to do our part in the struggle for Palestine do here? First, we must soberly assess the strength of the current movement. From there, we can assess both the prospects for success today, as well as in the future.

The Palestine solidarity movement currently stands at perhaps an all-time low. This may seem a peculiar sentiment at a time when events are even today taking place across the country for “Israeli Apartheid Week,” and are being coordinated with groups around the world. This is a fine beginning, and in many countries around the world, these events are part of a growing Palestine solidarity movement. However, in much of this country, there exists no movement at all. In the limited places where such a movement does exist, it is torn by factionalism. Various groups quibble about strategy, tactics, even procedural questions.

ARA’s approach to these questions has been quite controversial. ARA has never turned away from a fight. We have confronted the Wayne State University administration and exposed its moral bankruptcy on many occasions. We have confronted and defeated our Zionist enemies as well. One particularly proud moment was at our rally last October, when we led our march right through our Zionist opposition, forcing them to get out of our way as we marched on the office of the university’s president demanding divestment.

Both among Zionists and among so-called Palestine solidarity groups, these tactics and our militancy have been vilified. We have had heated arguments with Zionists on the campus of Wayne State, and we have had heated arguments with the social workers and pallbearers of the movement many times. We remain undeterred. We take inspiration from the example of Malcolm X, who was much reviled in his own time for his uncompromising militancy. Today, he is remembered and beloved because of that militancy, which redeemed black humanity in the face of attacks by white supremacy. His uncompromising militancy was a key element in that redemption. Our own militancy is a tribute to Malcolm, one of the true heroes of American history. We remain convinced that in the current climate of racist attacks on Arab and Muslim people, as well as all Palestine solidarity activists, uncompromising militancy is the only response that allows us to maintain our own humanity. Any other response accepts the dehumanization these racist assaults attempt. Finally, while our militancy may not resonate today, we believe we are building a legacy for the future. Time will tell.

In short, the Palestine solidarity movement is currently very weak. It is torn by factionalism and divisions based on strategy, tactics, and similar issues. In reality, it is hardly a movement at all. It is a story of small groups of five, ten, sometimes fifteen people holding aloft the banner of Palestine at a time when few are interested in its cause. In the absence of mass participation, these small groups quibble over petty differences and concentrate more on what divides than what unites them. However, when a renewed and vibrant Palestine solidarity movement emerges, it will sweep away and submerge these differences. It will draw on the legacies of those groups whose politics resonate with its own, and it will resign the rest to the dustbin. It is therefore necessary to briefly survey the reasons why people are not moving in great numbers on the issue of Palestine. Several factors contribute to the lack of a sustained movement.

First, it is impossible to overlook the racist climate of the United States with regard to Arab and Muslim people since 9/11. This climate has been produced by the active engagement of both the United States government and racist Zionists. The government has rounded up thousands of Arab and Muslim men on the flimsiest of pretexts, and in some cases even placed agents provocateur[iii] to entrap them, and sent them to prison and Guantanamo, all so it can trumpet victories in the so-called war on terror. The fact that many of these convictions have been overturned[iv] and thrown out due to shady dealings on the part of cops, prosecutors and federal agents illustrates the flimsiness of many of these charges. In addition, Zionist advocates for Israel such as Alan Dershowitz, the plagiarizing and disgraced Harvard lawyer, Daniel Pipes and his Campus Watch organization and Abe Foxman and the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), have ensured that support for Palestine is criminalized and Palestine’s advocates are run out of the academic community[v] and in some cases the country[vi]. All these actions have been met by the notable inaction of most of the left, which, plagued by its own conservatism and anti-Muslim racism[vii], has also failed to intervene on behalf of Palestine. The left has consistently refused to take up the cause of persecuted Palestine solidarity activists and everyday Arab and Muslim racism. In addition, where the left is perhaps most active, in anti-war activities, Palestine is either ignored, or debate about including it is stifled by Zionists within the anti-war movement.

Second, and perhaps most decisively, the Arab and Muslim community is a house divided against itself. Take for example an upcoming event in metro-Detroit. The event, entitled, “Weaving Our Community: Dispelling Myths and Stereotypes of the Muslim Community,” is hosted by none other than the ADL![viii] The same ADL is rumored to have encouraged the FBI to begin the investigation of the Los Angeles 8 that resulted in a twenty-year fight to remain in the United States for eight innocent Palestinians whose only crime was support for the cause of Palestinian liberation[ix]. The event features prominent members of the Arab-American community speaking about the affinities between Jewish and Muslim folks, but considering who is hosting the event, one can guess what affinities the event will highlight. Far from an alliance based on a firm opposition to Israeli colonialism and apartheid, the event will feature Muslim sell-outs trying to convince the rest of the community to accept Israeli apartheid and colonialism. They will even be trying to convince us that we should join the military, the FBI, and the CIA, alleging that our presence within such institutions will end the racism they practice against us. Fat chance. The same lie was preached during the ‘60s to black folks following the civil rights movement, and here we are, black folks occupying the highest positions of power in the country, and black folks still living in squalor in the inner cities, the victims of racism throughout the country. And to top it off, even with the addition of black folks, these institutions continue to practice the same racist policies from a generation ago against Arabs and Muslims today.

This event highlights the key tension within the Arab and Muslim communities, simmering just below the surface. This is a tension between the conservative middle-class leadership in our mosques and community centers, and the youth growing up increasingly disenfranchised, subject to more and more vicious attacks, and increasingly unwilling to compromise with racism. Much of this leadership stresses the compatibility of Arab and Muslim civilization with the imperialist project in the Middle East. This leadership posits itself as “good Muslims” as opposed to those barbarian hordes who oppose Israeli colonialism and apartheid. It seeks to teach their communities the benefits of an alliance with the white supremacist politics of the United States throughout the world. However, racist attacks on Arab and Muslim communities teach a different lesson, and young folks are beginning to realize that they must choose between an alliance with white supremacy or rejecting it in favor of multiracial solidarity with all people.

At Wayne State, this tension plays out with the dual aspirations of students. Many see what is going on in Palestine, in Iraq, and even in Guantanamo and sense that the American Dream they are promised is a fraud. And yet, there is a great deal of pressure within the community to aspire to become a doctor, a lawyer, a dentist, or anything else that ensures status under capitalism. We need only consider the story of any of our cousins, brothers, or sisters that have chosen not to follow this path to know the truth. While those that reject this dream wholesale may be considered outcasts and freaks within the family, they are often the most consistent anti-racists, and the most principled in rejecting the evils of imperialism throughout the world.

In short, what is required is a wholesale reckoning within these communities. This reckoning is happening on the lower frequencies. Aunties are beginning to speak out against patriarchy. Sisters are getting jobs and moving out on their own or with other sisters who reject these values and seek to form their own communities based on their own values. Both brothers and sisters, in ones and twos, are rejecting this lifestyle altogether. These folks are laying the basis for this future reckoning, and speeding it along its course.

Given the active attacks by the government and Zionists; given the tacit support through inaction of much of the left; given these unresolved tensions within decisive communities, it is clear that the prospects for victory are limited. What, then, are the prospects for the future? Where do we begin?

When examining the prospects for the future, we do well to consider the remarks of two people, Ehud Olmert and, once again, Malcolm X. Let us begin with Malcolm X’s speech, given over forty years ago in Detroit, “The Ballot or the Bullet.” Such a landmark speech deserves far more commentary than we can currently include, especially given its relationship to the current electoral charade, but that is fodder for another day. For now, we must simply consider the advice Malcolm gave to his audience regarding what each of them could do to further the black liberation struggle. “Join any organization,” he said, “that has a gospel that’s for the uplift of the black man.” “If the NAACP is preaching black nationalism,” Malcolm said, “join the NAACP. If a church is, join that church. If a civic group is, join that civic group.” We in ARA believe that the struggle for Palestine should begin with that first step: join any group committed to the full decolonization of all of historic Palestine. Join any group that demands an end to military rule in the West Bank and Gaza. Join any group that calls for an end to Israeli apartheid practiced against all Palestinians. Join any group that demands equal citizenship for all Palestinians and the return of all refugees. Join any group that actively and courageously pursues these ends.

If we were to end our lesson there, however, we would be poorly served, for Malcolm continued. He continued by saying that “when you get into that organization, and you see it pussyfooting or compromising, pull out of it because that’s not black nationalism. We’ll find another one.” The same goes for the struggle for Palestine solidarity. If you get into a Palestine solidarity group, and it is not doing all those things, pull out of it, because that is not Palestine solidarity. It might be bake sales, endless meetings, a bunch of people united in wearing keffiyehs but divided on everything else, but it is not Palestine solidarity. Again, if people are lighting candles and mourning like a funeral when one of the Palestinian people’s proudest moments has occurred, leave that organization. Join another.

In this way, we will begin to build toward a future where the Palestine solidarity movement is truly a force to be reckoned with. We will begin to build a powerful grassroots movement for our freedom. I say our freedom because if you are in solidarity with Palestine, if you are vocal about justice in Palestine, and if you actively pursue divestment from universities, companies, churches and other organizations, you will quickly find that you have as much freedom as you are willing to fight for. Or as little.

Malcolm X offers much for those of us involved in this struggle. But what might Olmert offer those of us seeking the liberation of Palestine? Hasn’t he committed himself in every action and word to the very opposite? Of course he has. But as we know, occasionally a nugget of truth slips past the mental censor of the Israeli mind, such as the occasional reference to Israeli nuclear weapons that aren’t supposed to exist. At the recent Annapolis “peace” conference, Olmert let slip one of those insightful nuggets, which explains both the recent histrionic attempts to settle the situation in Palestine in favor of a “two-state” solution as well as pointing our own way forward. “If the two-state solution collapses,” Olmert said, “and we face a South African-style struggle for equal voting rights, then the state of Israel is finished.” This comment reflects the knowledge that there is an entity called Greater Israel that governs 5 million Palestinians with some or no political rights. It reflects the anxiety within Israeli society caused by the continued failure of all initiatives to resolve the conflict within the strictures of an apartheid solution. Finally, it shows that a unified political movement of all Palestinians is a powerful vision for the future of the movement.

Olmert has given us our task: rather than wringing our hands about ’48 Palestinians vs ’67 Palestinians; rather than worrying about which parts of Palestine are occupied and which are not, or which are colonized and which are not; rather than splitting hairs about to what extent apartheid Israel resembles apartheid South Africa, we must state our case boldly and simply. All walls must be dismantled, all people must return, all of Palestine must be free.

We shall leave the details to the future reconciliation campaign following the demise of Israel.

[i] http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/6112386.stm

[ii] http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/6164666.stm

[iii] http://www.democracynow.org/2007/1/10/police_entrapment_in_terror_case_nyc

[iv] http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2004-09-01-terror-doj_x.htm

[v] Perhaps the most notorious of these cases was the recent denial of tenure to Norman Finkelstein at DePaul University in Chicago. Other academics targeted by the Zionist thought police include Nadia Abu El Haj at Barnard College, and Joseph Massad at the Columbia Univesity.

[vi] http://www.campus-watch.org/article/id/2980

[vii] http://www.leftturn.org/?q=node/124

[viii] http://regions.adl.org/michigan/events/

[ix] This allegation was reported in the article, “Constitution Trumps All for ‘House Bolshevik’ Einhorn,” appearing in the Los Angeles Jewish Journal in December 2007. In the wake of the dismissal of all charges against the L.A. 8 by judge Bruce Einhorn, the article has been pulled from the website at jewishjournal.com.

Greensboro, SNCC, and the Fight against Racism

2008-02-01T21:00:00.000-05:00

Today is February 1st. For many of us, this marks the beginning of Black History Month, a time when we remember and seek to renew the struggles of the past. While we certainly celebrate our past, ARA maintains that every month should be black history month. Attacks on our communities persist, whether through outrageous rent and utility bills, sub-par schools in our communities, racial profiling in Detroit and particularly in the suburbs, where "Driving While Black" is a serious offense, or the stares and looks that constantly remind us that we are far from a colorblind society. In spite of the current state of affairs, we remain proud and assured of our ability to change the world through our committed actions. Every day is a chance to reflect on the proud political tradition of our people. From the Deep South to the intersection of Cass and Warren to Africa, the Middle East and Asia, we are one people struggling for justice. There is much that remains to fight for.

One key moment in the history of our struggle happened on this day 48 years ago, in Greensboro, North Carolina. Four young black men walked into a Woolworth's store, sat down at the lunch counter, and demanded service. When the waitress told them they couldn't sit at the counter, they refused to move. When the manager, red-faced and full of arrogance, told them they had to leave, they refused to move. When the police came, and an officer slowly beat out a rhythm in the palm of his hand with his nightstick, they refused to move. One of the young men, Franklin McCain, remarked that he felt relieved when he sat down, as if a weight had been lifted, as if we was alive for the first time. An elderly white woman walked up to them and patted one of them on the arm. "I'm disappointed in you," she said, and continued, "I'm disappointed that it took you so long!"

Many others had been waiting on the spark that emerged in Greensboro. The next day, instead of four, there were almost thirty students. The next, students filled sixty-three of the sixty-six stools at the counter. By the fourth day, hundreds of black students were taking part in the demonstration. Soon, the sit-ins spread throughout North Carolina, first reaching Winston-Salem and Durham, then spreading to Charlotte and Raleigh. By February 10th, the movement had reached most of the state, and by the next week, the spark the Greensboro four lit had spread throughout the South. All around them, young black folks and some anti-racist whites joined the sit-in movement, inspired by their newly-discovered power: their ability to challenge and defeat racism through collective action.

On July 26th, 1960, Woolworth's lunch counter was desegregated, but at this point, the challenge to Jim Crow had expanded well beyond Greensboro, and had even institutionalized itself with the forming, in April, 1960, of one of the most important organizations in the history of the Civil Rights movement, the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC, pronounced "snick"). SNCC would dominate the Civil Rights movement for much of the next decade, and its uncompromising militancy and bravery in the face of racist attacks made the young people who formed SNCC (many were in their late teens and early twenties) the stuff of legend. We remember their names today: Stokely Carmichael, H. Rap Brown, Bob Moses, Jim Forman, Cleveland Sellers, and even John Lewis.

SNCC established a reputation as the most uncompromising of Civil Rights organizations, and this had much to do with the youth of its members, their idealism, and their total rejection of racist American society. One of the original Greensboro Four once remarked that at the time, their attitude was, "Don't trust anyone over eighteen." Their rejection of racism was an attack on every previous generation that had accommodated and accepted it. All who refused to oppose it stood condemned in these young people's eyes.

So today we honor the legacy of the Greensboro Four, the sit-in movement it sparked, the organization and leaders that arose from that movement, and the lessons their legacy teaches us. Tomorrow, we continue their struggle.

For more information about SNCC and its history, check out Clayborne Carson's, In Struggle, as well as Howard Zinn's SNCC: The New Abolitionists.

NAKBA CONTINUES AS HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS FLEE GAZA

2008-01-23T10:14:00.000-05:00

Back in October, Anti-Racist Action, together with almost 100 Wayne State students, confronted racist Israel supporter Daniel Pipes when he visited our university. We let Pipes know he wasn’t welcome on our campus, and it is a lesson he won’t soon forget.

One reason we opposed Pipes was his support for cutting off basic necessities to the Gaza Strip. He has expressed support for such proposals at least twice, once over six years ago and again in September 2007. In the past week, Israel has implemented just such a policy. Electronic Intifada summarized these measures and their implications in an article today: “That means no movement in or out of the Gaza Strip for people, or any kind of shipments in of vital food, fuel supplies and medicines. It is more than a miserable existence: it is a slow death.”

While Pipes and Israel assert that these measures have been taken as punishment for rocket attacks on Israel, their true purpose was revealed today, as 350,000 Gazans fled into Egypt following the bombing of the separation wall in southern Gaza. The purpose of this collective punishment is to make the Gaza Strip unlivable, to bring about the “slow death” of Gazans or force them off the land. WITH THE RECENT LOSS OF ALMOST 25% OF THE ENTIRE POPULATION OF THE GAZA STRIP, THE ZIONIST DREAM OF A JEWISH STATE IN ALL HISTORIC PALESTINE HAS COME CLOSER TO REALITY.

Today must be remembered as yet another Nakba in the series of Nakbas that constitute the story of the indigenous people of Palestine since the arrival at the turn of the 20^th century of Zionists bent on establishing their state.

These newest refugees of Israeli terrorism must be allowed to return to Gaza, as all Palestinian refugees of this conflict must be allowed to return to Palestine. The Jewish nature of Israel must be opposed, and apartheid must be destroyed so that peace may finally come to the region.

Free at Last, Free at Last

2008-01-18T08:52:00.000-05:00

The following article continues our series documenting the harassment and intimidation faced by Palestine solidarity activists in the U.S. Michel Shehadeh highlights many of the key lessons for those of us involved in similar struggles, including the importance of building grassroots support networks and the meaning that comes from shared experiences of struggle where we create our own values and reject those of our racist and capitalist society. While once again a documentation of the lengths to which Zionists will go to destroy the lives of our people, at the same time it is a story of courage. Shehadeh fought against enormous odds, and all the tricks and connivances of the most powerful government in the world, and emerged unbowed and free. An interview with Shehadeh about his 20 year struggle for freedom is available here.

Twenty years of government harassment comes to an end

For the last 20 years, the U.S. government has accused me of being a terrorist. Along with six other Palestinians and a Kenyan, we were dubbed the "Los Angeles Eight" by the media. Our case even made it to the U.S. Supreme Court.

On Oct. 30, 2007 — 20 grueling years after the early morning raid in which armed federal agents barged into my apartment, brutally arrested me before my 3-year-old son's eyes, incarcerated me in maximum security cells in San Pedro State Prison for 23 days without bond, and attempted to deport me — the government dropped all charges fabricated against me. The charges involved accusations of aiding a member group of the Palestine Liberation Organization that the government alleged aided terrorism.

But Los Angeles immigration Judge Bruce J. Einhorn had ordered an end to the deportation proceedings against us last January because the government failed to comply with his order to disclose evidence that supported our innocence. He called their behavior "an embarrassment to the rule of law."

Why did the U.S. government spend 20 years trying to ban us from this country? Because we tried to educate Americans about the situation facing millions of Palestinians living in apartheid-like conditions under Israeli military occupation. Because we organized fundraisers to provide Palestinians with humanitarian support. And because we attended demonstrations to urge a shift in U.S. policy away from unconditional financial and diplomatic support of Israel.

The government robbed us and our families of the best and most productive years of our lives. For more than 20 years, they vilified us in public without recourse. We'll never be able to entirely erase the negative words and images they manufactured about us. Our case is a stark example, and is different only in degree, from what routinely befalls those who call for equal rights for Palestinians and who press for a fair Middle East U.S. policy consistent with international law. In February of this year, two others who advocated equal rights for Palestinians — Mohammed Salah and Abdelhaleem Ashqar — were found not guilty of terrorism charges based in part on evidence provided by Israel and obtained through the use of torture.

President Carter, university professors John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt and Nobel laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu face charges of anti-Semitism and shoddy scholarship meant to intimidate, discredit and silence them.

And it may be surprising, but I don't hold a grudge. Throughout this 20-year plus ordeal, we never lost faith that we would win against this political and legal oppression. Not only because of our innocence, but because of the tremendous, unfaltering support that we enjoyed all these years across religious, ethnic and civic communities, and a legal team that did not waver once in its commitment to justice. This incredible support has taught us more about America than we could have learned in two lifetimes; the support of such people who are a living example and a role model for immigrants — to positively engage with the issues facing the country on a daily basis. Struggling to make the place a bit better than when we arrived is what made America home to us. We made that choice, and we're the better for it.

My two American-born sons learned though this experience the meaning of establishing a strong grassroots connection and of getting involved with their community. The words justice, freedom, equality and civil liberties are not words they learned in school that will become empty clichés as they grow older. They are concepts that have real meaning to them, that affect their family and community. They know these rights must be vigilantly protected, especially when the issues they advocate are not popular, or at times of war and conflict, when the first causalities are our basic freedoms — free speech, the right to dissent and to disagree with the government — the very basis of democracy.

From the beginning, we said that our case was a political one and that the government made us victims of a political witch-hunt. We persevered all these years and defeated the attempt to uproot us from our communities, break our families apart, and deport us, because we were innocent. Free at last, we are finally exonerated and it tastes sweet. We will savor the sweetness. And we will use it to fuel our determination to defend the same issues that our supporters defended through us: justice, civil liberties, freedom and immigrant rights. We believe that this is the America for which we continually aspire, the America that is just, here at home and in faraway places — with policies based on fairness, equality, and a shared humanity.

Michel Shehadeh is a research associate in the Arab and Muslim Ethnicities and Diasporas Initiative in the College of Ethnic Studies at San Francisco State University. Reprinted from arabamericannews.com

Planning the Terror that Created Israel

2008-01-11T11:02:00.000-05:00

2008 is the 60^th anniversary (if such a sweet-sounding term can reasonably applied in the circumstances) of the explusion of 800,000 Palestinians from historic Palestine by Zionist militias. This massive effort followed the passage of UN resolution 181, and aimed at achieving a vast Jewish majority in the areas that would become Israel. With such a majority, the so-called democratic character of Israel was thought to be secured.

Thankfully, brave anti-Zionist Israelis exist, alongside all the courageous anti-Zionists of all stripes. One invaluable asset to our ranks is Ilan Pappe, and his book, The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, is a weapon in the struggle for Palestine.

As the anniversary of Nakba approaches, an important review of this book has recently been published by the International Socialist Review. You can find it below and at this link. Ilan Pappe’s book is available online or, of course, at your local, Palestine-friendly bookstore.

Planning the terror that created Israel

The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine
Ilan Pappé
OneWorld Publications, 2006 (paper 2007)
320 pages • $15 (paper)

Review by MOSTAFA OMAR

ISRAELI HISTORIAN Ilan Pappe, whose parents fled persecution in Nazi Germany in the 1930s, minces no words in telling the real story of Zionism’s crimes against the Palestinians:

It is the horrific story of the ethnic cleansing of Palestine, a crime against humanity that Israel has wanted to deny and cause the world to forget. Retrieving it from oblivion is incumbent upon us; it is the very first step we must take if we ever want reconciliation to take a chance, and peace to take root, in the torn land of Palestine and Israel.

In The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, Pappé explains and documents that the true goal of the founders of Zionism had always been to create a majority Jewish state, emptied as much as possible of the native Palestinian population. He meticulously (and painfully) reconstructs the story of how Zionist leaders, over many decades, carefully laid the groundwork for this expulsion and how they intiated their plan in 1948 when the British finally decided to leave.

The same Western governments that have been quick to denounce ethnic cleansing in Darfur or Bosnia and Kosovo, writes Pappé, have failed to recognize that the same awful crime also happened to the Palestinians sixty years ago and continues today.

Myth and reality

Israel’s official version of the story of 1948 claims that Jewish settlers in Palestine never intended to expel their Palestinian Arab neighbors; that Zionist leaders were willing to accept UN resolution 181 of November 1947, which called for the partition of Palestine into a Jewish state and an Arab state, but that it was the Palestinians who rejected that plan; and that the Palestinians became refugees when they “voluntarily” fled their homes to make room for the Arab armies that invaded Palestine in May 1948 to carry out what they called a “second Holocaust” against Jews.

Palestinian historians such as Walid Khalidi and Salim Tamari have repeatedly documented the crimes Israel committed in 1948 and afterwards, using historic records as well as the testimonies of Palestinian refugees. For his own research, Pappé decided to debunk the Israeli myths by relying almost exclusively on declassified Israeli military archives and the memoirs of Israel’s “founding fathers.”

These sources leave no doubt that, in the decades before 1948, the leaders of Zionism concocted a premeditated plan to expel the native Palestinian population. Pappé details how these Israeli “heroes” executed the plan in the period from December 1947 to March 1949 through the use of massacres, rapes, demolition of villages, and forced expulsion of the native population. In doing so, he manages to vindicate and corroborate the story that the Palestinians have been trying to get out to the Western world for the past sixty years.

Pappé has belonged to the school of historical revisionists pioneered by the Israeli historian Benny Morris in the late 1980s with The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem 1947–1949. In that book, Morris also researched declassified Israeli military archives and found that the Zionist leadership and militias committed certain crimes during the war of 1948 that led to Palestinian expulsion and flight. Morris maintained that these crimes were not the result of any advance plan of expulsion, but rather the result of the dynamics of the conflict—much the same as other bad things that happen in all wars.

The “transfer” plan

Looking at the same documents Morris used, however, Pappé concluded that Morris selectively used data and ignored many events that point starkly to a conscious plan of expulsion. He goes on to argue that the founders of Zionism—from Theodore Herzl to David Ben-Gurion—had always planned to expel the native Palestinian population as a prerequisite for creating an exclusive Jewish state in Palestine.

For example, in 1937 Ben-Gurion told the Jewish Agency Executive, the organization charged with procuring land for Jewish settlements in Palestine, “I am for compulsory transfer; I don’t see anything immoral in it.” Ten years later, Ben Gurion maintained his opposition to sharing Palestine with the Arabs by rejecting the UN partition plan because he believed it didn’t allocate at least the majority of Palestine to the Jewish state.

Pappé argues that the partition plan was, from the beginning, unfair to the Palestinians because they still made up two-thirds of the population in 1947, while the UN allocated only 42 percent of the land to them. Meanwhile, the UN allocated 56 percent of Palestine to foreign Jewish colonizers who only made up a third of the population. Despite this injustice to the native population, the founding father of Israel actually insisted on getting more and more land. In a speech delivered to his own Mapai Party on December 3, 1947, Ben-Gurion made his aims clear:

There are 40 percent non-Jews in the areas allocated to the Jewish state. This composition is not a solid basis for a Jewish state.… Only a state with 80 percent Jews is a viable state.

Zionist leaders believed that it was not possible to achieve a Jewish majority in the country simply through immigration, since most Jews fleeing Nazi Germany’s Holocaust wanted to head West, not to Palestine. Therefore, Pappé writes, they concluded that there was only one way to achieve this goal of a majority Jewish state on the majority of the land of historic Palestine—the ethnic cleansing of the natives.

Preparing for ethnic cleansing

Since the early 1930s, these founding fathers worked hard to prepare for a majority Jewish state with very few or no Arabs. First, they successfully strengthened Jewish economic, social, military, and political institutions that could become the basis of the new state. They also took advantage of British openness to Jewish immigration during the British colonial mandate period of 1917–48. In addition, they worked to weaken the Arab political leadership by fighting alongside British forces to crush most of the Palestinian political and military infrastructure during the Arab revolt of 1936–39. At the end of the Second World War, they launched a relentless campaign of terrorist attacks against British interests in Palestine to drive the British out.
They also authorized a committee of Jewish historians and Arabists (a term that refers to specialists in Arabic culture) to compile a detailed, secret map of every Arab town and village in Palestine. They recorded the location and topography of the villages, the degree of land fertility, and availability of water, the number of inhabitants and the names of all adult males, the number of guards and weapons, the names of individuals who took part in or sympathized with the 1936 revolt, and even recorded a description of the Mukhtar’s (mayor’s) living quarters.

Leaders such as Ben-Gurion, Golda Meir, and Moshe Allon met for years on a biweekly basis in the “Red House” in Tel Aviv as a group called The Consultancy. They drew and revised a sophisticated plan to carry out the “transfer” of the Palestinians at an opportune time in order to secure a Jewish majority in Palestine. In the third updated version of that plan (compiled at the end of the 1930s and referred to as Plan C or gimel in Hebrew), these leaders agreed on the necessity of carrying out the following steps:

• Killing the Palestinian political leadership;
• Killing Palestinian inciters and financial supporters;
• Damaging Palestinian transportation;
• Damaging Palestinian water wells, mills, etc.;
• Attacking Palestinian clubs, coffee houses, meeting places, etc.

Within a few months, the same “founding fathers” drew up the final version of the plan, now named Plan D, or dalet in Hebrew. These leaders ordered their militias and gangs to start implementing Plan D only hours after the UN issued resolution 181 in November 1947. The long nightmare for the Palestinians would only get worse. Zionist militias began to attack and expel villagers with or without provocation inside lands allocated to either the Jewish or Arab state.

Qisarya was the first village to be expelled in its entirety, on 15 February 1948. The expulsion took only a few hours and was carried out so systematically that the Jewish troops were able to evacuate and destroy another four villages on the same day, all under the watchful eyes of British troops stationed in police stations nearby.

The people of the village of Sa’sa were among the early victims. On the night of February 15, 1948, troops from Palmach (which had the largest Zionist militias) “took the main street of the village and systematically blew up one house after another while families were still sleeping inside.” Moshe Kalman, the Jewish officer in charge of the operation later recalled, rather poetically, “In the end, the sky prised open. We left behind 35 demolished houses (a third of the village) and 60–80 dead bodies (quite a few of them were children).”

Declassified Israeli military archives confirm that the Zionist militias carried out at least thirty-seven large-scale massacres in that period. Some of the worst massacres and rape cases took place in villages such as Deir Yassin on April 9, 1948, where one survivor, Fahim Zaydan, described what Jewish troops did:

They took us one after the other; shot an old man and when one of his daughters cried, she was shot too. Then they called my brother Muhammad, and shot him in front of us, and when my mother yelled, bending over him—carrying my little sister Hudra in her hands, still breastfeeding her, they shot her too.

The news about the fate of the villagers in Deir Yassin spread like wildfire across Palestine, with Jewish troops cruising through other villages promising the villagers the same fate if they didn’t leave. And though more recent accurate accounts of the number of those killed in Deir Yassin suggest a figure of 170 men, women, and children, Zionist propaganda broadcast over loudspeakers in the weeks that followed the massacre claimed that they actually killed over 300, in order to elevate the panic among Arabs.

On October 28, 1948, Palmach troops committed another massacre in the village of Dawaymah, described by Pappé as more brutal than the massacre in Deir Yassin. In just a few hours, all houses were blown up and 455 people were executed, including 170 women and children. The remaining 6,000 inhabitants—who included 4,000 refugees expelled earlier that year from other villages—were forcibly expelled. According to Israeli archives, “The Jewish troops who took part in the massacre also reported horrific scenes: babies whose skulls were cracked open, women raped or burned alive in houses, and men stabbed to death.”

In all those villages that were attacked, the map compiled earlier by the Arabists proved to be extremely useful. It gave the Jewish troops complete understanding of the best way to attack those villages. And with the help of paid informants, it allowed them to pick out and immediately execute all potential resisters.

By the end of the war, Zionist troops had destroyed more than 420 Palestinian villages and turned their inhabitants into refugees. The same ill fate that befell the Palestinian countryside also befell the Arab population in cities—both Arab or mixed. The campaign against the Palestinian cities was also as relentless and brutal as that against the villages.

On the first day of Passover, April 21, 1948, Jewish troops began Operation Scissors (later renamed Operation Cleansing the Leaven or Bi’ur Hametz in Hebrew) to cleanse the mixed sea-port city of Haifa in the north of its fifty thousand Arab inhabitants. The troops attacked by rolling barrel bombs from the hills onto Arab streets and using heavy artillery while loudspeakers threatened the Palestinians to leave or else. Thousands of Palestinians fled to the port, attempting to get on boats to leave, but even there, Jewish troops continued to shoot, leading to more panic with parents trampling their own children. Many drowned when overloaded fishing boats capsized. This all happened under the nose of the British forces who were still stationed in the city and didn’t fulfill an earlier promise to protect the city’s Palestinian inhabitants.

Another example of what Pappé calls the urbicide, (killing of cities) of Arab Palestine is the attacks on the two cities of Acre and Baysan. On May 6, 1948, Jewish troops laid siege with intensive bombardment. Loudspeakers shouted everywhere: “Surrender or commit suicide. We will destroy to the last man.”

According to British doctors in the city’s Lebanese Red Cross hospital, the troops also caused an outbreak of typhoid and dysentery among Arabs and even British soldiers by poisoning the water supply with germs. These germs were developed by the Biological Warfare Science Corps program, set up by Ben-Gurion himself in the 1940s and ironically known by its acronym HEMED, which means “sweetness” in Hebrew.
Exhausted, starved, and fearing more death and destruction, the Palestinian inhabitants of Acre and Baysan finally surrendered in a matter of days only to be loaded by Jewish soldiers at gunpoint onto trucks that drove them to their future refugee camps. By the end of the war most major Palestinian cities had become totally or almost totally empty of their Arab inhabitants.

By the spring of 1949, Israel had conquered up to 80 percent of historic Palestine. It expelled 800,000 Palestinians, or 75 percent of the native Arab population, from their homeland, turning them into refugees and preventing them from coming back at the end of the war. The founding fathers had finally succeeded in securing a Jewish state with a Jewish majority. Some 660,000 Jews imposed military rule on 150,000 Arabs who dug in and didn’t flee. The rest of the Palestinians were dispersed as refugees in the remaining 20 percent of their own country or in neighboring Arab states—made to live as refugees for the following sixty years. Today, they number over six million.

Setting the record straight

Pappé makes a couple of critical points. First, he explains that the Arab resistance to the Zionist efforts of ethnic cleansing was actually quite weak. While Ben-Gurion, in public speeches, delivered fiery public warnings against a “second Holocaust,” he expressed utter confidence in private meetings that the nascent state of Israel would crush all Arab armies and resisters.

This confidence was based on his knowledge that Jewish troops outnumbered and out-gunned all the Arab armies combined. In addition, the Soviet Union allowed Czechoslovakia to supply the Jewish side with new tanks and air power while Britain formed an embargo on arms sales to the Arabs.

Pappé shows that the majority of the Palestinians, especially villagers, never fully comprehended the gravity of the Zionist threat in 1948. They had no idea that the Zionist project meant not to exploit them but to expel them. Indeed, in the early months of 1948, many were going on with their lives, even planning future harvests.

Second, Pappé demonstrated that Benny Morris was wrong to claim that the expulsion started after the Arab armies entered Palestine on May 15, 1948. He uses the same archives that Morris looked at to show massacres and expulsions beginning and spreading as early as December 1947.

The price: The future

Like all Israelis who dare to tell the true story of what happened, Pappé was ostracized. He received death threats and was forced out of his job as a distinguished senior lecturer at the University of Haifa last summer. Citing an atmosphere of hate and bigotry, he decided to accept a job at Exeter University in England.

There, he continues to argue that Israel must admit its historic crime in order to begin the process of reconciliation. He also argues that the state of Israel is racist to the core and must be democratized and purged of hate. The first step towards democratization is eliminating the Jewish character of the state, allowing all Palestinian refugees to return, and establishing total equality between Arabs and Jews in Palestine.

He is full of hope that this future is possible through the Palestinian struggle for national liberation. Pappé likens the resistance to Palestine’s olive trees, a national symbol of pride. Israelis keep trying to destroy them by planting pine trees over them, but the olive trees keep growing back.

BOLE SO NIHAL! SAT SRI AKAL!

2008-01-05T18:58:00.000-05:00

Today, Sikhs around the world gather at their local Gurdwara to celebrate Guru Gobind Singh Ji's Janam Din. Guru Gobind Singh is perhaps the most well-known of the 10 Sikh Gurus, possibly because his life was filled with incredible struggles and trials and for ultimately institutionalising Sikhism through creation of the Khalsa.

Guru Gobind Singh became the 10^th Guru when he was nine years old upon receiving the head of his father, the 9^th Guru, in a box. His father, Guru Tegh Bahadur, had been beheaded by the Emperor in India at the time for refusing to convert from Sikhism. The period in which the Guru lived was one of conflict between local landowners endlessly trying to oppress the people in their undying quests for power and the Emperor at the time trying to suppress all those who politically and religiously differed from him in his own attempts to maintain power. The Guru followed his father's example as well as the example of the eight Gurus before them, refusing to capitulate to those in power and fighting to maintain freedom for not only Sikhs but other oppressed people as well. After all, Guru Tegh Bahadur had been beheaded not only for refusing to convert himself but for refusing to convince others to convert as well.

Guru Gobind Singh Ji is perhaps most well-known for creating the Khalsa within Sikhism. The Khalsa is the collective of baptised Sikhs. Ultimately the Khalsa is the brother/sisterhood of Saint-Soldiers of Sikhs. The idea behind it is simple; one must not only be involved in spiritual affairs but also in temporal affairs. The soldier has two swords as symbolised in the Khanda, the symbol of Sikhs- one to fight the oppressors of people and the second with which to defend the innocent. This is reiterated in the uniform of the Khalsa given to Sikhs by the 10 ^th Guru. The 5 K's, which make up the uniform, include the kesh (uncut hair), kept because all of God's creation is perfect so to cut it is a dishonour to God, the kanga (wooden comb), to maintain cleanliness of the kesh, kara (steel bracelet), a reminder that a Sikh is bound to God, kachhera (long undershorts), symbolising modesty and high moral character, and the kirpan (strapped sword), worn to not only remind one of her duty as a Khalsa but also worn as symbol to defend one's faith and to defend those who cannot defend themselves.

No one embodied the idea of a Saint-Soldier more than Guru Gobind Singh Ji. He lost not only his father, but his mother and his four sons, the two elder were killed in battle, and the two younger were bricked alive (all of whom died for refusing to convert from Sikhism). Despite these tragedies which would have crushed the spirit of any man, the Guru continued to be a beacon of hope and light for all people. He himself fought in many battles mostly in defense of people increasingly subject to religious persecution from the rulers of India at the time as well as to defend his own religious freedom and that of his followers. The Guru found no reason to be tied to any Empire or local ruler; rather he believed that people should be allowed to live their own lives as they see fit. This obviously led to clashes between him and the Emperor at the time as well as with local landlords who cherished the feudal system, under which they lived and prospered. Ultimately he was assassinated for refusing to bow down to those in power, for recognizing no power but that of God. He was the last of the living Gurus for the Sikh people passing on his succession to the eternal Guru, the Guru Granth Sahib which is the holy scriptures of the Sikh people.

Gobind Singh Ji was an amazing man and his birthday is a time to not only celebrate and remember his legacy as something of the past but to honour it by embodying these ideals within our own lives in the present and future. BOLE SO NIHAL! SAT SRI AKAL!

Eid Mubarak

2007-12-30T10:26:00.000-05:00

During this time of reflection, ARA would like to express its solidarity with our Muslim brothers and sisters living in Palestine. Recently, Eid al-Adha marked the end of the annual pilgrimage to Mecca, and, as the following article notes, this year's Eid was one of the most difficult in recent memory for Palestinian Muslims. Israeli colonialism is making it harder and harder for folks of all faiths to practice their religions. Let us reflect on these sober realities today, and begin working toward destroying them tomorrow.

Gazans say this Eid is the worst ever
Rami Almeghari writing from occupied Gaza Strip, Live from Palestine, 20 December 2007

A 500-meter-long street in the heart of Gaza City is empty of cars and vehicles, but full of men, women and children. Omar al-Mokhtar Street is considered the largest commercial area in Gaza where people from all over the coastal region have always come to shop, especially during the holiday season.

In recent days, Gaza, like other Islamic communities around the world, prepared to celebrate Eid al-Adha, a major holiday marking the end of the annual pilgrimage to Mecca, the Hajj. Normally a time of joy, this year's Eid is different from past years because Gaza suffers from the tight Israeli closures on all travel and commercial crossings.

People across this large street spoke to EI, expressing how they view the occasion under the current conditions, mainly the economic siege Israel has imposed since mid-June.

Abu Muhammad al-Khudary, owner of a used clothing store, was sitting idle with a young boy who helps around the shop.

"This year's Eid is unprecedented, people just come, ask, examine clothes and when it comes to price, they leave things on the table and walk away," says Abu Muhammad.

Abu Muhammad tells us that in past years, he used to stay open extra hours on the eve of the Eid doing good business, but now he closes the shop much earlier because of the lack of customers.

"What has affected our business these days is the ongoing siege, in addition to people's inability to buy clothes, whose prices are higher than ever."

Rajab Mansour, another clothing vendor, stood in front of his stand with arms folded on Monday at midday.

"I have been standing here since 8:00 am, yet I have only sold four shirts, each for only 20 shekels (four dollars)."

Abu Ehab Nassar, owner of a women's clothing shop in the Shija'ya local market, reputed to be the cheapest shop around, says that people now only buy the basic things and in smaller quantities than ever.

"I have been here over the past 11 years, yet I have never experienced such a recession. It's because of the siege which has impacted people's purchasing power and prevented entry of goods. Nowadays, we close the shop by sunset, but in the past we used to stay working until midnight."

Om Hatem, a housewife from Gaza City, was picking out some shoes for her four children at the Shija'ya market when EI asked her about shopping for the Eid. "In this situation, I can only buy one pair of shoes for each child, yet I used to buy more than one," she said. "The cuts in our husbands' incomes over the past year have forced us to reduce our expenditures, and we can no longer guarantee a regular flow of salaries."

Traditionally on Eid al-Adha Muslims slaughter a sheep, a commemoration of the prophet Abraham's sacrifice. The meat is often distributed to the needy. But over the past six months of the Israeli closure, many goods including livestock have not been allowed in. As a result of economic hardships and an inadequate supply of livestock, many Gazans are unable to meet what they see as one of their basic religious obligations.

A Gaza taxi driver, who chose not to give his name, said he wouldn't be fulfilling the tradition this year. "Over the past 20 years, I have always slaughtered a sheep on the Eid, but this year I am not going to take part in the tradition. I cannot guarantee the near future and I have to save money under such crippling economic conditions."

Media reports suggest that hundreds of livestock have been allowed into the coastal region from Israel via otherwise closed commercial crossings. However, such a small number cannot meet the high demand of Gaza's 1.4 million population.

Israel claims its closure is intended to prevent Palestinian resistance factions from firing homemade rockets onto nearby Israeli towns. While Israelis are rarely injured by these rockets, Palestinians continue to be maimed and killed on a daily basis by Israeli attacks from land and air.

On the ground it's the people who are suffering most from the Israeli closure. This human-imposed poverty has left many Gazans saying that this Eid al-Adha is the worst ever.

Rami Almeghari is currently contributor to several media outlets including the Palestine Chronicle, aljazeerah.info, IMEMC, The Electronic Intifada and Free Speech Radio News. Rami is also a former senior English translator at and editor in chief of the international press center of the Gaza-based Palestinian Information Service. He can be contacted at rami_almeghari at hotmail.com.

Noted Detroit Activist Dies

2007-12-28T10:16:00.000-05:00

"A hero of Detroit's leftist movement in the 1960s and '70s, Ravitz teamed with attorney Ken Cockrel Sr. to shred some of the most insidious forms of abuse by local police, courts and jails."

ARA notes with sadness the passing of Justin Ravitz announced in today's edition of the Detroit Free Press. Ravitz was an important player in the Detroit radical scene of the 1960s and '70s. He participated in and was a product of the social movement Detroit experienced at the time. This social movement, documented in the excellent Detroit I Do Mind Dying by Dan Georgakas and Marvin Surkin, gave rise to the League of Revolutionary Black Workers, the Detroit chapter of the Black Panther Party, the Motor City Labor League, and the proud period in The South End student newspaper when it actually fought for social justice instead of against it, and its masthead boldly declared, "One Class-Conscious Worker Is Worth 100 Students." Some may recall that these movements, and the League in particular, consistently aligned themselves with the struggle for the liberation of Palestine, and an infamous editorial in the South End in solidarity with that movement created an uproar that eventually led to the dismissal of John Watson as editor of the South End.

Ravitz was a part of this movement along with John Watson, General Baker, Ken Cockrel, Mike Hamlin, Luke Tripp, John Williams and Chuck Wooten. Mentors of this movement included Grace Lee Boggs, CLR James, and Martin Glaberman, all long-time Detroit activists. With his passing, a legacy that activists today can and should learn much from passes further from our vision. We honor his legacy by learning from the movements he was a part of and applying their lessons to our own work for a better world today.

Christmas Homily 2007

2007-12-26T11:26:00.000-05:00

Brothers and Sisters,
I wish you all a Blessed Christmas.

Mr. President,
1. This holy night, we pray for you, for your difficult task, for the security and unity of the people, and for peace. May God give you light, wisdom and courage. For the leaders of this country, for all the leaders in the Middle East, we pray that God will grant all of them the grace of being able to bring about peace and stability here and throughout the entire region.

2. Brothers and Sisters,
The grace of God has appeared. The Eternal Word of God became man. Saint John tells us in clear terms, whose meaning nevertheless escapes the understanding of many: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (Jn 1, 1) and “the Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us” (Jn 1, 14). That, my Brothers and Sisters, is the meaning of Christmas, that is what we celebrate, and that is why we rejoice. The prophet Isaiah had predicted: “The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light…a child is born to us, a son is given us; upon his shoulder dominion rests. They name him Wonder-Counselor, God-Hero, Father-Forever, Prince of Peace” (Is 9, 1.5). Saint Leo the Great, commenting on this mystery, said: “Human nature and divine nature were united in one person so that the Creator of time might be born in time, and he through whom all things were made might be brought forth in their midst” (Leo the Great, 2nd reading, Dec. 17).

The one through whom all things were made was brought forth in their midst, here in Bethlehem, to fill us with his grace, and to save us from the evil against which we must fight every day. Saint John says: “From his fullness we have all received grace upon grace” (Jn 1, 16). He then says: “No one has ever seen God. The only Son, God, who is at the Father’s side, has revealed him.” These words tell us that on Christmas, the only begotten Son, who alone knows the Father, who was born here in Bethlehem, born to bring life to men and women, has also enabled us to know God and to enter already here on earth into eternal life. This life is meant to shed light on all our efforts as we try to build our human society and struggle for peace. We have the power to transform all our challenges, joys and suffering into life everlasting, i.e. into a life with God, with his light, his strength and his goodness.

Christmas renews us “by the Holy Spirit whom God richly poured out on us through Jesus Christ our savior” (Titus 3, 6), so that in hope we might inherit eternal life. With the strength that comes from this grace, with Christmas present in us every day, we commit ourselves to live in our society in order to bring it the peace of Christmas. Life in this world, with all of its poverty, all of its weaknesses, but also with the strength that comes from grace, must become in us the beginning of eternal life.

3. With this faith in God, with this grace of Christmas, we meditate on the mystery of our land which has not yet succeeded in seeing God within it, and naturally has not succeeded in making peace. With Christmas, with the goodness of God which He himself placed in every human person, it is essential, first of all, to believe that we are capable of making peace. But to do that, we must surpass ourselves and look at the other person through the eyes of God in order to receive justice for ourselves and for the others.

It is also important to understand the universal vocation of this land, and to see the will of God for the land both in the Scriptures and in the evolution of history of which the same God is Lord. He is the one who gathered all of us here throughout the centuries, Jews, Christians, Muslims and Druze, we who today constitute two peoples, Palestinians and Israelis. To understand and accept this universal vocation is to accept the plan of God for this land and to become capable of establishing peace within it. Any exclusivism that pushes the other party aside or imposes occupation or any other type of submission on it is not in keeping with the vocation of this land. This land of God cannot be for some a land of life and for others a land of death, exclusion, occupation, or political imprisonment. All those whom God, the Lord of history, has gathered here must be able to find in this land life, dignity and security.

Each one knows what it takes to make peace. Each one knows what is due to each of the two peoples who inhabit this land. It is not up to the weakest to submit themselves and continue to live a life of deprivation; it is up to the strongest, to those who have everything in hand, to detach themselves and to give to the weakest what is due to them. All of the difficult questions can be resolved if all those involved are truly determined to make peace.

4. With all of the religious leaders in this land, we have started to meet and to reflect together. We wanted to ask ourselves, each of us, the question, as believers before God: what is justice before God for each of us? We are on a long and difficult road, because it involves freeing ourselves from the political system, from its exclusive views, and from its fears, in order to enable ourselves to say and to bring something new and good to everyone.

Human history is full of wars, but it is also full of God. And God is love. There should not be any tyranny on the part of some believers, who call themselves believers, but who carry out not the will of God, but their own will, Muslims or Jews or Christians. Some also have recourse to violence in the name of God or of God’s promises. Violence cannot claim to be part of any religion. Extremism, in all religions, is the desire to appropriate to oneself, to exclude, and to subject others, not to a faith in God, but to human behaviors that are hostile to the others. Religious leaders have a role to play in the education of believers, by confirming them in the ways of justice, of what is right, and of forgiveness, all the while demanding their rights, and collaborating with all men and women of good will.

5. Brothers and Sisters, you might be asking yourselves what is your role as Christians in the peace process and in the future of this land. Pope Benedict XVI, in his recent encyclical on Hope, says that the characteristic of “Christians is that they have hope, and to have hope is to have a future.”

This applies to us, Christians in the Holy Land and in the entire Middle East. Everyone is worried about our Christian presence here: Israel as well as the Palestinian Authority. King Abdalla II of Jordan has called attention for several years to the seriousness of the exodus of the Christian Arabs. Numerous Muslim voices are being raised in many quarters, calling attention to the vacuum that the exodus of Christians would create in the Arab Muslim world. The Christian world, for its part, is equally worried about our survival and about our disappearance.

To you, Brothers and Sisters, to all of you Christians in this land, you who are tempted to emigrate, you who are the object of everyone’s preoccupation, I say to you what Jesus told us: do not be afraid. Christians should not be afraid and should not run away from difficulties. Being Christian means sharing the concerns of all, building peace with everyone else, and accepting the sacrifices this implies, prison, possibly life, or the difficulties of daily life, of occupation, of the wall of separation, and of the lack of freedom of movement. All of this is our common fate, and all of us together, by our sacrifices, we must build peace for everyone.

To those who are tempted or pressed by difficulties to leave the country, we say: you have a place here, and more than a place, you have a vocation: to be Christians here, in the land of Jesus, and not elsewhere in the world. Accept your vocation, despite the fact that it is difficult. Our presence here will remain a witness to the universal vocation of this land, the land of God, and the land of the three religions and of the two peoples that inhabit it. Listen to the voice of your vocation, and listen to the voice of all those who want you to be present here.

Indeed, we live not only in the midst of a conflict, but are part of a history of which God is the master, a history made by God who invites us to make this history with Him. He is Lord of the entire history of the human race, since its distant beginnings, since the time of biblical history until today. He is the one who was, who is, and who will be. No person or period in history can avoid Him. He is the inevitable one with whom and before whom we live, act, and exist (cf. Acts 17, 28). Full of hope, free from fear, we continue to move ahead.

6. Brothers and Sisters,
I wish you a Blessed Christmas. We pray here this night, here in Bethlehem, for all of you in Palestine, Israel, Jordan, and Cyprus. We pray for all who suffer, for the sick, and for the prisoners so that they can finally enjoy freedom and dignity. We pray for all our leaders so they can envisage justice, enter into the ways of peace, and have the courage to give it to their people. To the entire Christian world, from Bethlehem, we say: have a pleasant and blessed Christmas. Amen.

+ Michel Sabbah, Patriarch

Merry Christmas! Remember Beit Sahour!

2007-12-25T09:56:00.000-05:00

We, the people of Bayt Sahur, being an integral part of the Palestinian people and its Intifada, refuse to pay taxes to the occupiers of our land, considering such payment to be a symbol of slavery and oppression. We consider the occupation of one people by another to be a clear violation of all international laws and religions, and it is in violation of the most basic human rights and democratic principles. We strongly believe that every citizen has to pay taxes to his national government in order to enable it to perform its duties and obligations. No taxation without representation!

With this leaflet from November 5, 1989, the people of Bayt Sahur (Beit Sahour) announced the beginning of a campaign of civil disobedience centered around the nonpayment of taxes to the Israeli government. Israel, afraid that such resistance would become a model to other villages and towns throughout the Palestinian territories during the first Intifada, responded to their resistance with force.

Bayt Sahur is a largely Christian village in the West Bank with a population of approximately 12,000. Its Christian population dates back hundreds of years, and local legend asserts that it was Bayt Sahurian shepherds to whom the bright star above Bethlehem signaling the birth of Jesus Christ appeared. The reason for this, the legend goes, is that Bayt Sahurians have a legendary reputation for gossip, and God therefore figured the news of Christ's coming would travel quickest if Bayt Sahurians found out first.

Bayt Sahur was the site of perhaps the most organized and effective Palestinian resistance to Israeli colonialism during the first Intifada. Residents of Bayt Sahur quickly concluded that the Intifada was no passing phenomenon and began organizing their own resistance beginning in January, 1988. Initial attempts at a coordinated, regional network failed, but more localized efforts flourished and soon, much of the town was involved in active resistance to Israeli colonialism.

This resistance took the form of popular committees organized by the citizens of Bayt Sahur at the grassroots. These popular committees, lijan sha'biya in Arabic, were the driving force of the Intifada, and established a security force to fight Israeli settlers and the Israeli army. They also organized commerce, medical care, and even judicial affairs. The people of Bayt Sahur did all this at great personal risk, since many of these activities were illegal, and could even result in their death.

Perhaps the most memorable campaign of resistance that occurred in Bayt Sahur during the Intifada was city resident's refusal to pay taxes to the Israeli government. This followed a call by the Unified National Leadership of the Uprising (UNLU) from February 5, 1988, to conduct "complete civil disobedience" ('isyan muduni shamil) including the nonpayment of taxes. The Israeli response began in July of that year. On July 7th, a curfew was enacted and numerous people were arrested. A sit-down strike was soon organized to demand the release of all those arrested. This, too, was brutally repressed by Israeli authorities, who arrested hundreds of people who took part in this action, sending many to prison. On July 17th, Archbishop Michel Sabbah threatened to begin a hunger strike unless the curfew was lifted. The Israeli authorities so feared the leader of Palestinian Christians and his ability through his actions to motivate others to resistance, that they called off the curfew that day. These and similar skirmishes continued for over a year, until in September of 1989, Israel decided to put an end to Bayt Sahur's civil disobedience campaign once and for all.

On September 20th, 1989, Israeli troops surrounded Bayt Sahur, setting up military checkpoints, cutting telephone lines, and barring nonresidents entry. Tax officials entered Bayt Sahur with armed security personnel and began raiding businesses and private residences, taking cash when available, but settling for other valuables, such as couches, TV sets, chairs and tables when they had to. On October 4th, Israeli authorities eased their siege and allowed Palestinians to pay taxes. No one did. This enraged Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin, who declared that Israel was going to "teach a lesson" to Bayt Sahur, knowing that the resistance in Bayt Sahur had to be crushed so that it would not be seen as an effective model of resistance elsewhere in Palestine. Following this declaration, Israeli aggression intensified, finally ending on October 31st, 1989 with the withdrawal of Israeli troops, although not before collecting almost $1.5 million in goods from Palestinian businesses and homes.

Although costly, the withdrawal of Israeli troops was hailed as a victory by the people of Bayt Sahur, who quickly thereafter hosted a Day of Prayer celebration. This celebration was attended by the mufti of Jerusalem, Sheikh Sa'd al-Din al-'Alami, who was greeted enthusiastically when he visited the churches of Bayt Sahur. In solidarity with the struggle of the people of Bayt Sahur, 'Alami issued a fatwa against the purchase of any goods confiscated by israeli authorities during the month of siege, calling it "stolen property," and declaring that, "It is forbidden or a Muslim, Arab, or any man with a conscience to buy any of these unjustly plundered goods. Purchasing any such item is like participating in the theft of the plundered goods, and whoever does so deserves punishment for stealing his brothers' property." At auction, much of this confiscated property did not sell.

This Christmas, let people of all faiths and denominations remember and honor our Christian brothers and sisters in Palestine, past, present, and future, in their struggle against Israeli apartheid.

(This account owes much to factual information and analysis found in chapter 4 of Glenn Robinson's Building a Palestinian State, Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1997.)

United in the Struggle Against Israeli Apartheid

2007-12-24T17:41:00.000-05:00

Today, an article from Electronic Intifada refutes the notion that Christians in Palestine are oppressed by their Muslim brothers and sisters. Instead, it notes that Palestinian Christians and Muslims are united in the struggle against Israeli apartheid.

Coexistence in Gaza

Mohammed Omer

GAZA CITY, November 27 (IPS) - As Sunday dawns in Gaza City the traditional Islamic call to prayer mingles melodically with church bells.

Side by side, mosque and church doors swing open, welcoming the faithful. Greetings are eagerly exchanged.

The October kidnapping and murder of Rami Ayyad, the manager of Gaza's only Christian bookstore, sent shudders through the Christian community.

Was this a hate crime or simply a tragic occurrence?

Monsignor Manuel Musallam, head of Gaza's Roman Catholic community, doubts the attack was religiously motivated.

"Rami was not only Christian," the Musallam told IPS. "He was Palestinian. Violent acts against Christians are not a phenomenon unique to Gaza."

Immediately upon hearing of the murder, the elected Prime Minister Ismail Hanyieh of Hamas ordered the Palestinian ministry of interior to dispatch an investigative committee to "urgently look into the matter," labeling Ayyad's death a "murderous crime."

"We are all one people who suffer together for the sake of freedom, independence and restoration of our inalienable citizenship rights," Hanyieh stated publicly. "We are waging a single struggle and refuse to allow any party to tamper with or manipulate this historical relationship, [between Muslims and Christians]."

Currently, Palestine's Christian community hovers between two and 10 percent.

In Gaza, approximately 3,000 Christians still call this territory home -- with the majority of the community living within Gaza City near the three main churches: the Greek Orthodox, the Roman Catholic, and the Gaza Baptist.

Christians in Gaza have the same rights as their Muslim neighbors, rights guaranteed under the Palestinian Declaration of Independence. Within the Legislative Council, several seats have been reserved for Christian leaders.

Seventeen-year-old Christian student Ali al-Jeldah told IPS about attending a dual faith school: "My life is normal and I've never felt oppressed. Being Muslim or Christian is never an issue."

"I have many Muslim friends. We hang out and study together with no differences at all," Al Jeldah said.

Lelias Ali, a 16-year-old Muslim student at Holy Family School, concurs. "We have a unity of struggle, a unity of aim -- to live under the same circumstances. This land is for both of us and being a Christian or Muslim should not separate us," she said.

"I have lots of friends. Being Muslim or Christian is not an issue," Diana al-Sadi, a 17-year-old student told IPS.

"I go to my friends' homes for happy and sad occasions," al-Sadi said, "including Christmas and Easter. They visit mine during Eid [the Muslim holiday that marks the end of the holy month of Ramadan]."

When the students were asked if Christians are being harassed by Hamas or the Palestinian police, all agreed that this was not the case.

"Every society has extremists," Lelias Ali states. "Sometimes I'm criticized for not wearing my hijab [headscarf]. But that has nothing to do with being Muslim or Christian. Those people don't represent our Palestinian society."

Pausing for a moment, she considered the assertions in the international media regarding Muslims and Christians: "We should not let such ideas sneak into our minds. If we don't unite, then we lose."

Asked if Christians in Gaza feel singled out or oppressed, Musallam says, "Palestinian Christians are not a religious community set apart in some corner. They are part of the Palestinian people."

But what of Hamas, an Islamic political organization? Have Palestinian Christians experienced persecution or racism under their leadership, as Western papers insinuate?

"Our relationship with Hamas is as people of one nation," Musallam contends. "Hamas doesn't fight religious groups. Its fight is against the Israeli occupation.

And what of the Western media assertions that Gaza's Christians are considering emigrating because of Islamic oppression?

Sighing, Musallam corrects the misconception. "If Christians emigrate," he states resolutely, "It's not because of Muslims. It is because we suffer from Israeli siege. We seek a life of freedom. A life different from the life of the dogs we are currently forced to live."

All rights reserved, IPS - Inter Press Service (2007). Total or partial publication, retransmission or sale forbidden.

The Plight and Resistance of Christians in Palestine

2007-12-23T14:51:00.000-05:00

With Christmas approaching, ARA decided to post some stories of Christians in Palestine fighting against Israeli apartheid alongside their Muslim brothers and sisters. Their resistance takes the form of "steadfastness" or refusal to leave their homeland. These stories are important to popularize in the United States because many Christians are unaware that Palestinian Christians suffer from Israeli apartheid. Here, their stories will be given a chance to be heard. This particular story can be found on page 13 of the pdf pamphlet available here.

Faith in the Holy Land
Taking faith beyond the church

Costa Dabbagh, a Palestinian Christian in his 60s, has never met some of his grandchildren. He cannot see his daughter, who lives just 90km away. He cannot visit the rest of his family, who are scattered across the globe. He has faced bombings, the strafings of Israeli fighter jets, fighting between rival Palestinian factions and the fear of being a refugee. But he has chosen to remain in Gaza , his home. “Just after the Israeli occupation, my parents, my brother and sister moved away. I was offered a job in Australia and even got my visa. But I stayed,” he recalls. “My family kept asking me to join them, and I often thought of leaving. But I think it was God's wish for me”.

This grey-haired man remembers leaving Haifa in Israel with his family at the age of eight – “in darkness and under fire” – and fleeing to Gaza in 1948. He stays, not because he serves the tiny Christian community here as executive secretary of the Near East Council of Churches (NECC), but because of his courageous commitment to a wider humanity.

Trapped

The Gaza Strip is a land which has been crushed. Rubble, chunks of concrete and half-destroyed buildings line the dusty streets of Gaza City . Behind a sign reading ‘funded by USAID’ is a multistory building seemingly flattened with one blow. Even the small signs of modern life – washing hanging brave little beach umbrellas on the coastline vainly hoping for tourists – are dwarfed by bleakness. The departure of Israel 's settlers has not changed anything fundamental: the soldiers are gone, but the borders are still closed and poverty is increasing. Intermittent factional fighting between Fatah and Hamas is taking a terrible toll, as people trapped within the borders turn on each other.

At the time we were speaking to Costa, people were queuing for bread outside the bakeries because flour was not being allowed in through the borders. “It reminds me of a joke about Marie Antoinette we learned in school,” says Costa, “when she said, ‘let them eat cake.’”

Unemployment is skyrocketing to unprecedented levels and 80 per cent of Gazans depend on UNRWA food aid to put even the most basic meal on the table.

A moment of normality

There are few places here where life can feel normal, even fleetingly. The NECC office is one of them. It is tranquil and serene, in contrast to the tumult outside. In a nearby building, young women learn tailoring and accounting in the hope that they can some day have a job. Young men learn woodworking. There is a sense of hope and purpose. In the NECC family clinic, the cool tile floors and pristine white walls are startling after the grimy, broken down feeling of everything around it. More than half the children here are anaemic. Medicine stocks are running out and some people can no longer afford even the tiny clinic fee – seven shekels, or 85 pence. But the doctors continue to work.

Regardless of faith

“Christians are part and parcel of this land. We have never felt like outsiders,” says Costa. “Yes, we are Christians, but we are Palestinian Arab Christians. We all suffer the same problems – we are traveling in the same boat. The NECC has been an example here. People see that we have no agenda other than our Christian witness – to help people regardless of faith. The young people who come to our centres are so vulnerable. We train them and integrate them into society. We make them feel they have a future, which is now more important than ever.”

“We should stay”

“I was born a Christian and continue to be one. But I always judge people according to their actions. If I see an Israeli soldier without a uniform, I will see him as a son of God. But if he directs his guns at my children and my grandchildren, I will not give in, I am not defending myself from ‘Jews’ but from someone who wants to eradicate me and uproot me from my land. I will never leave Gaza . Our faith says we should stay - to try to create hope. But ultimately, hope can only be achieved with community and implementation of UN resolutions.”

Pray for all Christians faithful to our Lord in their difficult circumstances and thank God for their faithful witness. And pray that more Christians may be able to stay in the Holy Land and maintain the witness of faith for the world to share in. Remember too Ghassan Makhalfeh tour guide, and his family. Georges Rishmawi Greek Orthodox Christian and leader of Siraj - working for peaceful solutions Bob and Maurine Tobin of Sabeel.

Michael Dykes

The Case of the New England Committee to Defend Palestine

2007-12-17T23:56:00.000-05:00

Approximately two years ago, Noah Cohen wrote an important article detailing the systematic repression faced by Palestine solidarity activists in the US. The article is called, "Repression of Palestinian Activists in the US: Where are the Defenders of Justice?" and it can be found here. The article recounts the encounters of leading organizers of the New England Committee to Defend Palestine (NECDP) with police, local Zionists, and progressive organizations, and clearly demonstrates that the struggle for the freedom of Palestine is just as much a struggle for our own freedom from racist attacks and imperialism in the United States.

This article also draws attention to some important dynamics for Palestine solidarity activists as well as all those who would seek to fight against imperialism and racism generally.

First, in this instance, the police and other authorities systematically intimidated, harassed, conducted surveillance on, and even arrested and tortured Palestine solidarity activists. The overall effect of such measures is to dramatically decrease the willingness of others to actively involve themselves in these struggles.

Second, while these attacks occur under the larger attack on Arab and Muslim folks conducted in the name of the "war on terror," their political character is often overlooked or downplayed. This cannot be tolerated, as immigration authorities have systematically sought the deportation of politically active people.

Third, the relationship between Zionists and the police is critical in this regard. The article notes that Zionists organizing events in the area paid police to provide security, contacted police about the intentions of Palestine solidarity activists to protest their events and even contacted the FBI. On the advice of these racists, police conducted surveillance on Palestine activists, obtaining photos of principle organizers who would later face intimidation, arrest, and torture.

Finally, the role of traditional support networks is considered, and a critical eye is cast on such organizations as the National Lawyers Guild (NLG), the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) - along with its lackey the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) - and the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR). Throughout these ordeals, these organizations failed to consistently uphold and defend the basic rights of Palestine solidarity activists, let alone their own basic principles. The author attributes this failure to two reasons. First, many of these progressive organizations are dominated by liberal Zionism. While critical of the state of Israel, they do not fundamentally challenge its existence as a racist Jewish state. Second, many progressives continue to be dominated by racist attitudes toward the struggles of Arab and Muslim people against colonialism. In this instance, the result was that these organizations consistently refused to fight for the freedom of Palestine solidarity activists in the US.

We must absorb and consider these key lessons as we take up the struggle for Palestine ourselves.

Our Lion

2007-12-13T10:16:00.000-05:00

This is a poetry submission from an ARA supporter regarding the recent sale of a statue from ancient Mesopotamia. ARA would like to encourage other creative-minded folks to send over their own works on these and other topics for publication on the blog. Anonymity will be maintained for those who prefer it. Send submissions to struggle@wsuara.org.

Our Lion

this ancient lion of ours

has been auctioned off.

proceeds will go to a charitable trust formed by the martin family.

one of these days
an iraqi is going to steal the mona lisa
and sell it for 57 million dollars
for the proceeds to go to a charitable trust formed by abeer qassim hamza's family.
and it will be a popular news item
for many a web surfer to marvel at

and pat themselves on the back

for being informed.
perhaps they auction mesopotamia's artifacts

and protect mesopotamia's oil ministry

and write mesopotamia's constitution

and stand guard at mesopotamia's soil, rivers and skies
because the true owners

are too displaced
too tortured
too orphaned

too dead

to protect their own things themselves.

Another Review of Islamofascism Awareness Week

2007-12-11T20:41:00.000-05:00

Here is another important reflection on Islamofascism Awareness Week from a student at NYU. It is refreshing to hear that across the country, people are militantly opposing racist forces on their campuses. Our solidarity and respect go out to the activists there fighting the struggle for the liberation of Palestine.

Attacking Muslims under the veil of free speech is wrong

by Chris Shortsleeve

A few weeks ago, something called Islamofascism Awareness Week came to almost 100 college campuses across the United States. Organized by the David Horowitz Freedom Center, this speaker series was intended, in its own words, to "alert Americans to the threat from Islamo-Fascism and focus attention on the violent oppression of Muslim women in Iran, Saudi Arabia, the Sudan and other Islamic states."

A simple survey of modern Middle Eastern history will show that the number of Muslim women killed by American empire and its puppet regimes is more than the most egregious Muslim patriarchs could ever hope to accomplish with all the stones in Arabia. In Iraq alone - a country terrorized for decades by the American-backed dictator and former CIA agent Saddam Hussein - civilian casualties as a result of current U.S. occupation and U.S.-led sanctions that preceded it are now over one million.

Yet, white racists like Horowitz, who have no interest in the liberation of the Middle East, repeatedly whine about the veil and the lack of freedom in Muslim societies. This Horowitz-led diatribe against "Islamofascism" is not a good faith attempt at solidarity with Muslim women suffering under patriarchy, but a shallow, opportunistic demonization of an entire religion and culture, all for the ultimate purpose of justifying American imperialism in the Middle East. These people do not feel anything for the women of Islam. They preach from a pulpit of bones.

Horowitz's arguments about Islam are, of course, not new, but rooted in an ideological tradition of French and British colonialism. For centuries, this tradition has justified the violence and totalitarianism of colonialism in the Middle East through a civilizational hierarchy that equates Islam with patriarchy and backwardness, and the European (and now American) states with enlightenment and liberation. Today's American imperial project relies more than ever on an ideological polemic against the supposedly exceptional patriarchy of the Muslim faith. This is ultimately a cultural eugenicist argument, rooted in a philosophy of white supremacy.

Furthermore, Horowitz endorses the racist supposition that Middle Eastern peoples do not have the right to resist conquest and empire. He subscribes to a good Muslim-bad Muslim dichotomy whereby good Muslims endorse the so-called "war on terror," unconditionally renouncing the use of violence even in the face of terror, while bad Muslims are any who forge a political Islamic identity that dares to rear its head against U.S. supremacy in the Middle East.

Horowitz himself needs to be understood in the context of the rising white populist movement in this country. Since the 1980s, David Horowitz has had a documented political record of routinely supporting fascist and white supremacist forces abroad and in the United States. He supported the Pinochet dictatorship in Chile, the Contra fascists in Nicaragua, the apartheid regimes in South Africa and Israel, as well as the State Department's favorite dictatorship, Saudi Arabia. At home, Horowitz has published articles on his website by Jared Taylor and James Lublinskus, key leaders of the white supremacist group American Renaissance, and has offered critical support for David Duke, a former member of the Ku Klux Klan.

Furthermore, unlike many of his ideological allies, Horowitz is not just a talking head - he is a leading street-level organizer of a growing, insurgent right-wing movement in the United States. Islamofascism Awareness Week was not just an academic discussion, but was designed to recruit and consolidate this movement's campus youth forces. Over the last two decades, Horowitz has shown a determination to build a street force of young, conservative, ideologically sharp college students. The threat he poses to communities of color in this country, as well as to all Americans' basic democratic rights, should not be underestimated or misunderstood.

Islamofascism Awareness Week met with much popular student opposition, and many liberals have suggested that this opposition was somehow a violation of time-honored university principles of civil dialogue and academic discourse. This is a grave misunderstanding of what Horowitz actually represents, and frankly emblematic of a growing authoritarian political culture in this country that values assembly hall etiquette over principled opposition to organized racist forces. History has shown that organizations sympathetic to white supremacist ideas ultimately dialogue with no one.

Moreover, a question of double standards arises. If universities across America were to host a "Blackofascism Awareness Week" or a "Jewofascism Awareness Week," would this be acceptable university speech? Would we engage it "objectively" in the spirit of civil, academic dialogue? Why, then, was Islamofascism Awareness Week hosted by universities across the country and enthusiastically attended by their "objective" student bodies? As Arab and Muslim people increasingly come under attack in this country, those who truly believe in free discourse and the principles of the university need to stand up to these attacks and defend the Arab and Muslim-American community. It is a mockery of university principles that this conference was even hosted, and one more example of university bureaucracies using their institutional power to promote racist and imperial politics. Students who truly believe in democracy and open discourse need to start fighting for a democratic and open campus.

When Fear is Not an Option

2007-12-10T13:06:00.000-05:00

Today, ARA is reposting an editorial written by our good friend and compatriot in the struggle for justice, Shemon Salam. He was recently visited by the FBI due to his opposition to "Islamofascism Awareness Week" on the University of Washington's campus. It can also be found on Counterpunch's website.

***UPDATE: Shemon was recently interviewed by Dan Tsang on Subversity, a radio show that appears on KUCI out of Irvine, CA. Audio is available on their website.

I was visited by the FBI at my residence on Thursday, November 29th. I am an Asian-American Muslim Man. I am an anti-war activist who believes that United States military has no business in the Middle East or anywhere else in the world. I do not hide my political perspectives from anyone. Despite this, I refuse to be intimidated into silence.

The two FBI agents claimed to be investigating a "complaint" from the University of Washington's campus students that I might have said "things" which could suggest that I advocate violence against the U.S. This was in reference to my opposition to the Islamo-Fascist Awareness week that the College Republicans hosted in mid-October. During this week the CR showed a video which described all Palestinians as terrorists and posited a theory that Palestinian men are prone to violence because they are sexually repressed. (Ironic coming from the CR) Michael Medved also spoke during this week. I was part of a demonstration with a body of Muslims students and people of color who were barred from entering the event. The event organizers cited full capacity as the main reason. Why is my opposition to this event being criminalized?

The FBI agents wanted to see a flyer that I was passing out. I told them NO. I asked them, "Is this Stalin's Russia or McCarthy's America?" They have no business collecting literature from me or anyone else in the Untied States. Anyway, the flyers can be found all over campus because I have nothing to hide from my neighbors.

This is not one isolated incident. Muslims and Arabs are being attacked, harassed, and intimidated by the FBI across the country. The FBI claims that anyone who opposes US imperialism is a terrorist. Some Muslims leaders have come out in public and said "good Muslims" should cooperate with the FBI to help them control the "bad Muslims". Meanwhile, the FBI has sent spies to our mosques and broken into our houses in the middle of the night to kidnap our brothers and sisters and send them to Guantanamo without evidence of any crime. Who is causing the terror here? Most of the time it goes unnoticed and in the shadows Arab and Muslim families are destroyed. Let me make it clear--the FBI is a racist and anti-democratic organization. Granted, the two FBI agents who visited my house were very nice to me and even shook my hand. That should not cover up the crimes of the institution they work for.

Meanwhile the College Republicans, who claim to be defenders of democracy and free speech are inviting racists like Medved onto campus. The CR advocates perspectives that lead to the deaths of Arabs and Muslims and people of color and you don't see the FBI visiting them. I am not advocating state repression against the College Republicans; I simply wish to point out the racist double standard here.

I can ask how did the FBI get my house address? My address is not listed anywhere. Did the University administration give it to them? This would not be far-fetched considering that University administrations across the country have made it clear that they will stand with the FBI before they stand in solidarity with Arabs, Muslims, and students of color. Just look at their endorsement of the Patriot Act and the SEVIS registrations of international students. Given this climate, the burden should be on the UW administration to prove that they are not collaborating with such McCarthyist surveillance of campus activists like myself. How can they claim to be the patrons of free speech and dialogue if they facilitate such intimidation?

Only democratic and anti-racist students can curb the power of racist University bureaucracies and the FBI. Student organizing is part of a rich tradition of American history that has made the U.S. a more democratic and anti-racist country than it would be otherwise. However, across the country, University administrators and the FBI are working hand-in-hand to shut down and intimidate all who oppose U.S. Empire and domestic racism.

UW and the city of Seattle claim to be liberal and progressive places where racism cannot be found. This is a myth. Home grown white-supremacy stalks this campus. Every time we see the College Republicans, the FBI, and the Administration it is a reminder that people of color and Muslims and Arabs are not safe yet. However we are not silent victims. We do not know our own strength and no one dares to tell us. It is up to us to rediscover our democratic and anti-racist traditions. It is up to us to take back our university. Fear is not an option.

Member of the WSU Board of Governors Defends Apartheid Israel!

2007-12-07T22:52:00.000-05:00

ARA was in attendance today as public radio station WDET 101.9 fm hosted a public forum on the future president of Wayne State University. The audio is available here. 58 minutes into the program, ARA got a chance to make its demands for a new president of WSU known. We posted those demands on our blog earlier today.

Board of Governors member Eugene Driker responded to our demands that the university recommit itself to the its urban mission by crying poverty. Driker complained that the university just didn't have the money to maintain programs that provide access to Wayne State to community members that need it most. Ironically, Driker had only minutes prior to these assertions praised recent fundraising efforts that netted $800 million for the university. In addition, the entire panel of current and aspiring representatives of official society, including Driker, Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, journalist Cindy Goodaker and student council president Cindi Chidi, had just finished discussing how Wayne State was an oasis of sustained economic growth in the impoverished wasteland of Detroit. So which is it? Does WSU have $800 million as a result of fundraising drives and does it stand at the epicenter of burgeoning economic growth in Detroit, or does it not even have the couple hundred thousand dollar pittance required to maintain the Interdisciplinary Studies department and other programs that have recently fallen victim to Reid and the Board's ruthless attacks on Detroiters?

In addition, Driker once again affirmed the university's support for white supremacy and imperialism, noting that he was actually proud of Reid's decision to maintain investments in apartheid Israel. In fact, Driker had the nerve to flippantly ask us if we had any suggestions on where to come up with money to fund these programs. It just so happens that the solution we advocate for Israel would do wonders for underfunded programs at WSU. When ARA last filed a Freedom of Information Act regarding the university's investments in companies doing business with Israel, we found that the university has millions of dollars invested in such companies. Given a financial crisis in one area, and millions of dollars invested in morally reprehensible stocks elsewhere, the answer should be clear: divest from Israel, invest in the Wayne State community! Reinstate all the programs the university has cut. Fund them with the blood money of occupation and apartheid in Israel.

However, we in ARA didn't disagree with everything Driker said. We wholeheartedly agreed with his call to publicly debate ARA. We also enthusiastically greet WDET's proposal to arrange and host such a debate using their facilities. In fact, we encourage all our supporters to call and write Eugene Driker and the Board of Governors, as well as WDET and Detroit Today, encouraging them to engage in this important debate.

Driker's email address is as1223@wayne.edu. The board of governor's Executive Secretary is Teresa Boczar, who can be reached at 313-577-2034 or teresa.m.boczar@wayne.edu

WDET can be reached at detroittoday@wdetfm.org or by phone at 313-577-4146.

It is our strength that is decisive

2007-12-07T08:13:00.000-05:00

Back in September, ARA posted our thoughts on President Reid's decision to resign as president of Wayne State University. We opposed him both for his domestic policies - gutting and destroying Wayne State's urban mission, disenfranchising working people in Detroit, and attacking black folks in general – as well as for his decisions on an international scale, specifically twice rejecting demands by students at Wayne State to divest from apartheid Israel.

What we would like in a new president of the university is someone committed to anti-racism and fighting imperialism. Whoever it is should not be afraid to proudly declare their support for such positions. Doing so would place them in the company of people like Malcolm X, Robert F. Williams, Stokely Carmichael, Selma James, Rosa Luxemburg, and many others.

However, let us be clear from the outset: a president who refuses to uphold these basic principles will reap the whirlwind of public sentiment. The Wayne State University community has a long and proud history of opposing racists, apologists of imperialism, and all others who would deny our right to self-determination along these lines. We in the Wayne State community are not unreasonable people. We are willing to give any new president time to prove which side of the barricades they prefer. But we refuse to remain idle forever. Our demands are the following:

Immediately freeze all tuition hikes and fees for studying, including library fees, lab fees, and fees to use workout facilities.
Re-commit the university to upholding its once-proud urban mission.
Reinstate the College of Urban, Labor, and Metropolitan Affairs at Wayne State University.
Reinstate the Interdisciplinary Studies Program and the College of Lifelong Learning.
Reinstate open enrollment for all people with a high school diploma or its equivalent.
Institute apprenticeship programs that provide job-training to lower-income and unemployed folks.
Commit the university to intervene on behalf of movements against imperialism throughout the world, beginning with divestment from apartheid Israel.

We will give any new president a full semester to institute these demands. If our demands are refused, we will ruthlessly organize our power to ensure that the new president's tenure is as brief as possible. Our organization will reflect our strength, and our strength will be decisive.

The Jewish Internationalist Tradition vs. Zionism

2007-11-30T09:22:00.000-05:00

On November 17^th, Selma James came to Detroit to speak about the Jewish Internationalist Tradition versus Zionism in an event hosted by ARA. Selma James is an amazing woman with a 40 plus year history of being involved in activism. Most particularly Selma started the International Wages for Housework Campaign and is a leader of the Global Women's Strike movement; her work involving race, sex, and class was the topic of her discussion at the November 15 ^th event held at the University of Michigan-Dearborn. For the event on the 17^th though, Selma talked about how Zionism can’t be equated with Judaism, a myth that Zionists have long attempted to perpetuate in the discussion of Zionism and its state, Israel. The truth is Zionism is a political ideology that began in the late 1800s, more than 2000 years after the founding of Judaism. Zionism's crimes are many but Selma touched particularly on perhaps one of the most egregious and that is Zionism's destruction of the long-standing tradition of Jewish people's struggle for justice and equality for all. Great Jewish figures such as Rosa Luxembourg and Emma Goldman have disappeared from the vast majority of Jewish consciousness in today's world and in its stead Zionism has taken hold. Zionism and those who stand by it have worked hard to erase the struggles for justice that people like Luxembourg and Goldman fought so hard for. Zionists mock the work of people like Selma James, callously dismissing it as the work of a "self-hating Jew". This could not be further from the truth, as was seen in Selma's talk on Saturday. She is proud of the tradition of struggle for a better world that for so long has been a part of the Jewish people. She also pointedly drew a distinction between Zionism and Judaism, understanding well that Zionists opportunistically use Jewish tradition to establish their own state power based on white supremacy and racist oppression of the Palestinian peoples. It was an honor for ARA to host such a wonderful woman who has dedicated her life to making the world a better place for all peoples. The experience and insight that Selma has to offer all of us who are today struggling is remarkable. We can only hope that other people recognize the great Jewish traditions of struggle and emulate the footsteps of people like Goldman, Luxembourg, and James. Only when this is done will there truly be justice in Israel/Palestine for all people.

The Jewish Internationalist Tradition, part 1

The Jewish Internationalist Tradition, part 2

Khaled Abu Toameh: A Voice for Palestine Solidarity?

2007-11-15T01:50:00.000-05:00

Khaled Abu Toameh spoke yesterday on Wayne State's campus at the behest of community and campus Zionists. (Zionists apparently don't mind community members on campus when they support Israeli colonialism and apartheid.) Although Toameh's presentation played nicely into Zionist hands, blaming Palestinians for all that violence they use to oppose Israeli colonialism, ARA wondered at several points whether this was actually a pro-Palestinian event.

Toameh, for example, readily admitted that Palestinians in Israel have second-class citizenship status, something Zionists on campus have consistently denied. He went on to list the inability of these Palestinians to get jobs working for the state and the marked differences between Palestinian and Israeli neighborhoods. He also stated quite plainly that it was these inequalities that were responsible for radicalizing Palestinians inside Israel. However, rather than praising this radicalization as a step toward Israel's ultimate dismantling as a Jewish state, he lamented Israeli behavior, and formulated policy advice for Israel so that it might avoid the wrath of the social forces it is responsible for creating. Naturally, doing so destroyed any credibility he might otherwise have had as a Palestine solidarity activist.

In addition, Toameh paid ARA the remarkable compliment of calling us optimists when we called for a single, democratic polity in all of historic Palestine where Jews, Muslims, Christians and all others can live side by side as equals. We have been called a lot of things during our struggle for the liberation of Palestine, but "optimists" has never come up. Unfortunately, Toameh tried to dismiss our optimism by saying it was impractical because Jews and Palestinians don't want to live next to each other. At that point, we reminded him that Judea Pearl, another Zionist speaker, had only Monday afternoon specifically said the opposite, that the VAST MAJORITY of Palestinians DO want to live as equals, "one person, one vote" with Jews in the region. That being the case, the conclusion was clear to everyone in the audience: it is actually the Jewish folks in Israel that refuse, and enforce with all the power of their state, to live with Palestinians as equals. In light of such cold, hard logic, all talk of Palestinian barbarism faded away like so many Zionist dreams past, present, and future.

As much as ARA agreed with Toameh on the second-class citizenship of Palestinians, and as much as we appreciated being called optimists when the alternative is racist pessimism clinging for dear life to military might, we disagreed on the way forward. Toameh still labors under the illusion that Palestinians within Israel can gain equal rights without challenging the Jewish character of Israel. The case of Azmi Bishara proves otherwise. While Toameh tried to dismiss Bishara's case by accusing him of corruption, the truth is that Bishara has pioneered the movement among Palestinians in Israel for full citizenship. Unlike Toameh, however, Bishara realizes that full citizenship will only be achieved when Israel as a Jewish state is dismantled. Toameh refuses to make that stand, and as a result operates freely in Israel, unharassed, writing for one of the most rightwing papers in the country.

Similarly, Toameh naively clings to the hope of a two-state solution to the conflict. ARA, on the other hand, clarified to him that the solution in the region has ALREADY been decided in favor of a single state. Israel controls the whole region. As Toameh pointed out on numerous occasions, all claims of Palestinian autonomy and self-government are a sham! Palestinians can elect their own prison wardens, but they remain in prison, under Israel's lock and key. Further, if they elect prison wardens Israel doesn't like, Israel will cut off their rations. That is not a two-state solution, that is a single state solution, it is apartheid, and it is what we have today.

The question before people of conscience everywhere is simple. Will that single state be an apartheid regime, as is currently the case, or will the Jewish character of Israel be done away with and a single democracy for all people be established?

This is the question we as activists must ask ourselves. But we must not end with questions, because the answer depends on us. Resolving the struggle for Palestine is our generation's mission. Will we fulfill it, or betray it?

In ARA, we derive hope from the words of one of the twentieth century's greatest political minds, CLR James, who once said, "Political power never rests entirely on naked force. By the time it has reached that stage, it is already doomed."

ZIONISM IS RACISM! ANTI-ZIONISM IS ANTI-RACISM!

2007-11-12T11:55:00.000-05:00

Judea Pearl gained notoriety in Zionist circles several years ago when he wrote a brief and poorly argued article entitled, “Anti-Zionism is Racism.” In it, he argued that it was racist to attack what he called the “national liberation movement” of the Jewish people, and noted that many of the same people that attack this so-called national liberation movement support the national liberation of other people. This specious argument overlooks the difference between the Zionist drive to establish the state of Israel and all other national liberation movements. That is, those movements attempted to liberate themselves from colonialism and white supremacy! Zionism, on the other hand, relied on colonialism and white supremacy for legitimacy as it stole land from the indigenous people of Palestine. His claim is ludicrous, and yet many people take it at face value.

But the argument itself is totally ridiculous, even apart from its dubious equivalence of Zionism with national liberation movements. ARA asks, how can anti-Zionism be racism given two basic facts. First, not all Zionists are Jewish! Irvin Reid, outgoing president of WSU, is an African American Christian who supports Israel. Second, not all Jewish people are Zionists! There is a long and proud tradition of anti-Zionist Jews stretching from the Bundists in Poland at the turn of the nineteenth century all the way to the current day, with people like Anna Baltzer and Selma James, both of whom will be speaking in the Detroit area this week. Given these basic facts, ARA would like to know who anti-Zionism is racist against? Certainly not Jews, because anti-Zionism attacks all people who support the state of Israel, whether they are Christian or Muslim, white, black or anything in between, and anyone else who supports Israel. It is a political perspective and has nothing to do with race or ethnicity.

Finally, ARA must ask why Zionists devote so much energy to attempting to silence Palestine solidarity activists while doing nothing when white supremacists who seek to begin a second Holocaust come to town? Why does the state of Israel honor vicious anti-Semites like Jerry Falwell with Lear jets and state awards like the Jabotinsky Award (named after a former terrorist/national hero of Israel)? The answer is simple: attacks on Jews are less a priority for Zionists than attacks on the state of Israel. As long as the sacred right of Israel to colonize Palestine, murder Palestinians, and crush the Palestinian “will to resist” is honored, Zionists are willing to overlook even the most egregious anti-Semitism.

Join ARA to hear the side of the debate Zionists don’t want you to hear. Anna Baltzer will speak Tuesday, November 13^th in this same room, Purdy-Kresge auditorium, at noon. Selma James will discuss the Jewish Internationalist Tradition vs. Zionism on Saturday, November 17^th at 5:30 p.m. in the Ford Community and Performing Arts Center, 15801 Michigan Ave, Dearborn, MI.

Selma James to Speak in Dearborn, 11/17/07, 5:30 p.m.

2007-11-08T19:35:00.000-05:00

Selma James is being sponsored by Anti-Racism Action to speak at the Ford Community and Performing Arts Center in Dearborn. She will speak about the Jewish Internationalist Tradition vs. Zionism.

Details follow in the press release.

*******

For Immediate Release:

Pathbreaking Movement Theorist and Activist Selma James to Tour in November. Available for Interviews

The tour marks the 35th anniversary of the International Wages for Housework Campaign, which Selma James founded. It has been organized in response to requests from anti-sexist, anti-racist and anti-war women as well as men in North America who want to hear her and meet with her. Beginning November 14, Ms. James will be joined on the tour by Andaiye, from Red Thread in Guyana. Please see information about Andaiye below.

Contact:

Phoebe Jones, Global Women's Strike, 215-848-1120 or 610-505-4944 phoebejs@crossroadswomen.net

Local info add here

Ms James will be speaking on the Jewish Internationalist Tradition vs. Zionism on Saturday, November 17th at 5:30 p.m. in the Ford Community and Performing Arts Center, Wet Club room 1.

For information locally please contact Mike at struggle@wsuara.org

October 24 — Selma James, movement strategist and lifelong campaigner for women’s rights and anti-racism, will embark on a North American speaking tour in November to mark the 35th anniversary of the International Wages for Housework Campaign which she founded in 1972. James – who was for many years the colleague and wife of influential Marxist organizer, historian and critic CLR James – currently coordinates the Global Women's Strike (GWS – website www.globalwomenstrike.net), and works closely with grassroots women in the Venezuelan Revolution. She will be speaking on a range of topics to universities, community groups and churches in Arcata CA, Atlanta, Detroit, Flagstaff, Los Angeles, Miami, New York City, Philadelphia, Phoenix, Pittsburgh, Portland OR, San Francisco, Western MA and Toronto, Canada, and will be available for advance interviews starting on Nov 7.

James is known as a dynamic speaker who impresses audiences with the depth of her understanding and the scope of her interests. Since she wrote the classic A Woman’s Place in 1952 as part of CLR James’s Johnson-Forest Tendency, to the early 1970s with the publication of The Power of Women and Subversion of the Community when she spelled out how the function of domestic or "caring" work is basic to creation of the world’s labor force and the perpetuation of the market economy, to 2006 when she introduced Creating a Caring Economy: Nora Castañeda and the Women's Development Bank of Venezuela, James has broken new ground for the movement for change — from the bottom up, beginning with women.

Since 2000, the Global Women's Strike has called for an annual general strike of women on March 8, International Women's Day, under the banner "Invest in Caring Not Killing" with participation in 60 countries. “It is not enough to demand the end of the war,” explained James. “We must demand the end of military budgets, which ensure death and destruction, including by depriving us of our most basic needs – clean water for a start. We want that money invested in caring. Then we will be sure the killing will stop. Investing in caring begins with investing in women. It is mainly our work that keeps the human race alive, and human!”

When James launched the Campaign in 1972 to demand wages for housework from governments, a raging debate followed about whether caring full-time was "work" or a "role" — and whether it should be compensated with a wage. Now, after decades of women demanding payment and pensions for work at home and taking their case to the UN where governments agreed to measure and value unwaged work, the movement of caregivers is busting out all over. Women in Venezuela won Articles 87 & 88 in their Constitution*, there is legislation in Trinidad & Tobago, and time use surveys and other research are underway in many countries. James says today: ‘We must work to reduce women’s horrendous workload. But we don’t want those we care for to be neglected and dissed as a result. Too many of us are forced to dump our kids in any affordable childcare in order to go out to (low paid) work so we can feed them. What a choice: care or food! Well we all, at every age, need both. We, women and men, must have time to care. Pay us for caring and we’ll be able to manage our time and our relationships.’

About ANDAIYE: Co-founder and international coordinator of Red Thread in Guyana. RT began as a self-help income-generating group bringing low-income women together across violent racial divides. It has always given a voice to all grassroots women: Indo- and Afro-Guyanese as well as Indigenous. Andaiye is the author of The Valuing of Unwaged Work, an analysis of the cost to women in the Caribbean of structural adjustment policies. She represented CARICOM at the United Nations World Conference on Women in Beijing, 1995, leading the negotiations which resulted in the agreement among governments, including the US government, to measure and value unwaged work. In 1979, she was also a founding members and leader of the Working People’s Alliance of Guyana along with historian Walter Rodney, author of How Europe Underdeveloped Africa.

Ms. James and Andaiye are open to scheduling debates on payment for caregivers, and would be pleased to set up advance press interviews to adequately draw out this complex conversation. To arrange an interview, contact Phoebe Jones, tour coordinator, at 215-848-1120 or 610-505-4944.

* Article 88 “recognizes work in the home as an economic activity that creates added value and produces social welfare and wealth. Housewives are entitled to social security.” Article 87 creates a social stability fund for independent contractors, including housewives, domestic workers and others.

Tour schedule

Pittsburgh PA Nov 8,9
Philadelphia PA Nov 11-13
New York City, NY Nov 14
Detroit, MI Nov 15-17
Benton Harbor Nov 18
Amherst MA Nov 19
Toronto ON Nov 23, 24

Atlanta Nov 25, 26
Miami FL Nov 26 (Andaiye only)
Phoenix, Flagstaff AZ Nov 27, 28
Portland OR Nov 29, 30
Los Angeles CA Dec 1, 2
Arcata CA Dec 3
San Francisco CA Dec 4-5

Andaiye, above

Selma James, left

"NO PASARAN!" ANTI-RACIST STUDENTS AND COMMUNITY MEMBERS CHALLENGE WHITE SUPREMACY

2007-10-30T17:15:00.000-04:00

ARA attended a march and rally in opposition to white nationalist Nick Griffin at Michigan State University over the weekend. Although the event wasn't part of the official "Islamofascism Awareness Week" organized by David Horowitz and his "Freedom Center," it was clearly linked. Both relied on racist caricatures of Arab and Muslim folks, both represent organized rightwing forces gaining legitimacy in the US, and both were vigorously opposed.

About 75 of us gathered at the Rock on MSU's campus before marching to the Vet Med Center to confront Griffin and his racist handlers in Young Americans for Freedom (YAF). There, students and community members exposed Griffin and the British National Party for the hate group they are. After the rally, almost everyone went into the auditorium to confront Griffin. Once inside, audience members again and again challenged Griffin on his racist views. He quickly abandoned his prepared notes and opted to receive questions from the audience. After continued interruptions, those opposed to Griffin called for an "Anti-Racist Walkout" and left the auditorium. Outside, they continued their opposition by chanting anti-racist slogans.

Nick Griffin's main purpose at the event was to whip up anti-Muslim frenzy by claiming that Muslim people in the US seek to impose sharia law on the country. He cited uprisings throughout Europe not as the militant responses to white supremacy that they were, but as examples of Muslim barbarism and the need for an organized "defense of white interests." He explained his opposition to capitalism not as an affront to basic values of democracy and anti-racism, but as a reaction to the forces of globalization which are "reducing human diversity" and reducing humanity to an eventual "mud race" of all ethnicities.

Again and again, he tried to warn of the "threat" Islam posed to "Western values" such as democracy. The irony of the statement was clearly lost on one zealous Nazi, who at one point burst out, "What about self-determination for the West?" Apparently determining itself as well as the affairs of most of the world wasn't enough for this young man. He would prefer if self-described white people in the US and Great Britain also had the right to lynch black folks, Jewish folks, queer folks, and anyone else who tries to pursue such paltry "rights of self-determination" as living where we choose, or loving how we choose.

One glaring absence at the event was Zionists who claim opposition to anti-Semitism. Earlier in the week, they had shown their method of opposition by encouraging people to write letters to the Board of Governors at Michigan State. How ridiculous that the same people that call ARA anti-Semites and protest our events refuse to protest (or do much of anything) when proven anti-Semites speak in the United States, even when their events are organized and MC'ed by known neo-Nazis! These folks then condemn the protest tactics used by people they should be in solidarity with on the basis of a shared opposition to anti-Semitism and all forms of racism. And finally, they have the nerve to label as "fascistic" those anti-racist activists who shout down Nick Griffin and refuse to let him speak! One wonders if it is anti-Semitism they oppose or anti-Zionism. (See third comment)

Don't they know that these are the popular democratic tactics that have been used to defeat fascism in the streets throughout the anti-fascist struggle? Don't they know that Nick Griffin is opportunistically appealing to free speech so that he can speak around the country and advise other white supremacist groups about tactics they should pursue in order to gain power? Don't they feel the need, like other democratic-minded people of good conscience, to oppose fascism in the streets? Don't they know that if they don't oppose it in the streets, they will have a much harder time opposing it when it has state power? Don't they know anything about the genocide whose history they use and abuse over and over again?

They don't. And yet they embarrass themselves by criticizing those at the forefront of the anti-racist struggle. ARA is not surprised. Time and again, we have had to fight against weak-kneed liberals who prefer to avoid confronting fascism directly. These liberal Zionists are no different. Rather than confronting and defeating fascism in the streets, they propose the hypocritical writing cure. Write letters decrying the board of governors for allowing racists to speak at MSU, but have tea parties with the Wayne State board of governors. Write blogs about the threat of Nick Griffin, but let him speak and organize. Make up and publish nonsense about anti-racist activists, but condemn them when they confront fascists who wish to murder Jewish folks, people of color, queer folks, and anyone who disagrees with them. They have no principles.

The next time the Nazis come to town, we know where we will be, and we know where Zionist cowards will be. They will be at home writing strongly worded letters to members of congress and other elected officials who consistently side with white supremacy. ARA will be in the streets, making damn sure the slogan "Never Again!" will never again be necessary.

SMASH FASCISM! SMASH THE BNP!

2007-10-21T21:28:00.000-04:00

***CORRECTION: ARA is leaving for Lansing at 3 p.m. from the Undergraduate Library. Anyone that needs a ride should meet us at 3 p.m.***

Nick Griffin, a hardline Neo-Nazi, Islamophobe, Homophobe, Holocaust denier, anti-Semite and White Supremacist is speaking at Michigan State University on Friday. Griffin is the chairman of the British National Party (BNP), a white nationalist, fascist organization in Great Britain. They are an all white organization that deems non-whites in Britain "non-British" and seeks their deportation. They oppose mixed-race relationships, and have referred to the Holocaust as the "Holohoax." Recently, the BNP has been contesting elections and winning local offices throughout the country. They are not a fringe group; they aspire to gain political power and begin implementing their program.

The BNP is part of a wave of xenophobic and ultra-nationalist groups spreading across both the United States and Europe. In the US, this movement finds expression in "Islamofascism Awareness Week." Islamofascism Awareness Week is an outright racist attack on Muslims taking place on over 100 campuses across the country. It represents a serious threat to Muslim folks in this country. Nick Griffin is here to advise similar groups in the United States about how they can popularize white supremacist ideas and organize to seize power.

In response to this speaker, Anti-Racist Action is calling on all anti-racist and democratic-minded people to join in a carpool Friday, October 26th. We will meet in the Undergraduate Library and depart for Lansing at 3 p.m. In Lansing, we will meet up with other anti-fascist forces for a short rally before proceeding to Griffin's lecture.

RSVP by Friday at 12 noon to STRUGGLE@WSUARA.ORG

WSU Students Say No to racism!

2007-10-12T19:08:00.000-04:00

On Monday, October 8th, Wayne State students sent a message to all those who seek to govern in the name of white supremacy and imperialism: We will not stand for it, and we will fight back. In the face of police with real guns and not taser guns, in the face of an administration that would prefer to remain neutral but is forced to take sides, in the face of no less than an advisor to presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani, WSU students fought racism, and refused to back down. All students of conscience, all anti-racists, all those who oppose imperialism from Palestine to Afghanistan and back again, can be proud of themselves on this day.

We began our resistance with a brief rally in front of Wayne State's undergraduate library. There, students and faculty made clear that they would not stand for racist speakers at Wayne State. The purpose of the rally was to draw attention to an event that supporters of Israel had organized, and it was a tremendous success. The event was a lecture entitled, "The Threat to Israel's Existence: Why It's Back, What It Means" given by Zionist ideologue, Daniel Pipes. Many students who didn't know the event was happening decided to go when they found out who Pipes was and what he was going to say. After finding out, many decided to ditch class, so important was it to them to confront a racist and show that hate speech is not welcome on our campus.

ARA and others fired up the crowd with speeches describing the event, denouncing one onlooker for wearing an Israeli Defense Forces t-shirt, and explaining ARA's goal of one democratic Palestine where Jews, Arabs, Muslims, and Christians are equal citizens. The crowd was captivated. As the speakers spoke, ARA passed out fliers informing people of the event beginning shortly. In these personal conversations, people were stunned that the university would allow a racist on campus. Many were thankful that ARA had helped organize against it, and excited to fight back.

Around 12:45, we made our way into the Bernath auditorium to ensure that we got good seats and be ready to ask questions when the time came. The march of students heading toward the Bernath auditorium was truly an inspiration. At one point, almost 30 students marched determinedly toward the doors together. Some saw friends and relatives and encouraged and cajoled them to attend the event in order to show support for Palestine and make sure Pipes didn't get a free pass. Electricity was in the air, and the crowd was very excited.

At the door, we were forced to endure the humiliation of having our bags subjected to lengthy and extensive searches by uniformed police officers. Fitting, since Pipes himself advocates racial profiling of this sort. It was at this point that we found out that Pipes was actually scheduled to speak at 1:30. On the Stand with Us website, the time is listed as 1 p.m. In order to ensure that Pipes was successfully confronted, ARA took it upon itself to announce to the crowd that the event had been pushed back. We speculated that perhaps Pipes and company were intimidated by the vocal resistance we had already showed, and therefore had decided to start the event at 1:30 after all. ARA encouraged all those in attendance to have a little patience and practice sumud, or "steadfastness." In Palestine, holding onto one's home is itself a form of resistance. We encouraged those in attendance to hold onto their seats just as Palestinians hold onto their homes. Soon, our time would come.

Finally, the time came for Pipes to speak. He was introduced by Tova Schreiber, a vocal member of Students for Israel prone to falsely accusing ARA of everything from the mundane (that ARA tore down fliers for an event we were actively encouraging as many people as possible to attend) to the surreal (that ARA is an anti-American terrorist group, when in fact our resistance to racism and our insistence on self-government for all people is as American as apple pie and Chevrolets). Schreiber made a point to note that Pipes has a Ph.D. and is "an expert in his field." Pipes' standing as a "scholar" and "expert" would come up again and again during his talk, especially when students challenged his interpretations and assertions. At the end of the event, it was clear that his Ph.D. wasn't worth the paper it was printed on, as he supported US imperialism around the world and Israeli apartheid.

Pipes talk was short and to the point. He made two related arguments. First, he argued that since the Oslo peace talks, Israel had abandoned deterrence and begun pursuing appeasement with regard to Palestine. This had caused the threat to Israel's existence to re-emerge. Second, in order to once again ensure Israel's existence, Israel had to "crush the Palestinian will to resist." That is, in its pursuit of deterrence, it had to enact the harshest measures possible in order to make the cost of resistance unbearable to Palestinians. Such openly vicious recommendations are rare from policy makers, so, in a certain sense, Pipes candor was refreshing. However, no amount of forthrightness can excuse the fact that Pipes mercilessly sides with and advises for the barbarism of American empire.

The moment everyone had waited for arrived when Pipes finished up his talk and opened the floor to questions from the audience. The first two came from active members of ARA. The following 20 came from outraged anti-racist students at Wayne State, with the exception of 2 questions from poorly informed supporters of the apartheid state.

The first question provided a short and to the point answer to the topic Pipes had come to address. Why is the threat to Israel re-emerging? Because Israel is an apartheid state, and apartheid is doomed. Further, the ARA member asked why Pipes was siding with colonialism and white supremacy. Since the battle in Palestine/Israel is being fought over whether or not Israel has the right to colonize and occupy Palestine, why is Pipes siding with an idea that has been discredited for over 40 years? Pipes had no answer. When he was challenged, he appealed to his handlers (SFI), "I thought we agreed - no interruptions." When he was again and again challenged, he again and again appealed to the police and the university administration. Finally, Pipes refused to continue speaking until the adamant pro-Palestine advocate was removed. So much for debate! With all those fancy degrees and books to his name, Pipes can't handle one-on-one debate with a humble bookstore clerk! What a joke!

The second question related to a blog entry on Pipes' website where he proudly recommends razing entire villages in response to rocket attacks. This is what deterrence means to Pipes: collective punishment, including mass arrests, evictions, and demolishing entire neighborhoods, sometime with only a moment's notice. When questioned about that in the Q&A session, he cleverly evaded his own words, too ashamed and too cowardly to admit to such a hostile crowd what he proudly boasts of on his website and, indeed, recommends to top policy makers in Washington every day.

As the Q&A session continued, Pipes was attacked again and again with hostile questions. Soon, his cool demeanor and detached academic facade gave way to condescending disdain and outright contempt for WSU students. He called one sister ignorant for referring to the historical details of the Palestine/Israel conflict as "mumbo-jumbo" and yet denied that such copiously-documented "historical details" as the massacre of Deir Yassin ever happened! Clearly Pipes only has time to master the details that support his bigoted agenda, while callously dismissing those that prove the barbarism of the Zionist project.

In addition, he insulted the audience's intelligence by asserting that Muslim folks are less morally repulsed by slavery than Christians or Jews. Pipes acted like slavery was a uniquely Muslim phenomenon, as if the 300-year history of slavery in the United States was not carried out by Christians! And yet Pipes doesn't try to say that all Christians are predisposed to sympathize with slavery. Thus his white supremacy and anti-Muslim fanaticism reveals itself!

Finally, Pipes controversially denied the slaughter of 12-year-old Mohammed al-Dura, shot down by IDF soldiers at the outbreak of the Second Intifada. While the controversy continues to rage over what truly happened, Pipes only further proves how little he cares for Palestinian life by insulting al-Dura's memory. The irrefutable fact remains that Israel is murdering thousands of civilians in the Occupied Territories, and that many of them are children. Whatever the fate of al-Dura, the fact that there have been thousands of al-Dura's since his death is irrefutable. Pipes only highlights his own cruelty by dwelling on and even denying the death of al-Dura.

In short, Daniel Pipes came to Wayne State University on October 8th, 2007, to speak about Israel and Wayne State University brought it to Pipes. At every turn, he was challenged, embarrassed, flustered, made a fool of, and exposed as a shameless defender of American imperialism in the Middle East and Israeli apartheid at any brutal cost. The greatest compliment we could have been paid comes from Pipes himself, who recently posted a "Spotlight" on his website called, "Wayne State Univ. v. Daniel Pipes." Truer words were never spoken: the vast majority of Wayne State students opposed Pipes and were not afraid to show it. Wayne State students can be proud of themselves on this day, because they stood up to white supremacy and empire. They showed that racism is doomed, apartheid is doomed, and freedom, liberty, and justice will one day reign in Palestine/Israel.

FREE PALESTINE!

Divestment or Unemployment: Irvin Reid Resigns

2007-09-28T00:01:00.000-04:00

President Irvin Reid has announced his resignation from Wayne State University. Much has been made of his record at the university in the last ten years. He has dramatically increased undergraduate enrollment. He has broken ground on several new buildings. But whatever dubious benefit such changes have brought, the fact remains that Wayne State University under Reid's tenure has unleashed a vicious assault on working people and people of color, especially black folks in the city of Detroit.

To begin, Reid and his partners in crime on the board of governors shut the doors on the College of Lifelong Learning in 2002. CLL was committed to providing educational opportunities to non-traditional students, especially working people with families. More recently, that same board dismantled the College of Urban, Labor and Metropolitan Affairs (CULMA) in 2005. According to Stuart Henry, former head of the Interdisciplinary Studies department at WSU, CULMA was the "only other college explicitly serving adult urban students." By shutting these programs down, WSU has effectively abandoned the urban mission that had been a proud legacy of the rebellious movement for community control of schools during the 1960s.

Just recently, Reid and the Board of Governors voted to dismantle the Interdisciplinary Studies program at the University. This program served non-traditional students from the community, including working people and single parents. Eliminating this program cuts the university off even further from the community it is supposed to serve, as it gets rid of the program's unique open enrollment policy. This policy allowed anyone with a high school diploma access to the university. Although the board of governors hoped to spin this and similar moves as the necessities of budget cuts, others astutely recognized that it was an attack on working people. Ron Aronson, for example, recently noted in the Metrotimes that, "Those who envision a more selective Wayne State University demand the elimination of [Interdisciplinary Studies]."

President Reid's vision for WSU has been demonstrated by his actions. He seeks to transform a largely working class institution into yet another bastion of middle-class professionalism.

As with all career bureaucrats, Reid has no imagination. Thus when it comes to Palestine, he is every bit as reactionary. Last October, in an infamous editorial to the Detroit Free Press, Reid refused to divest from the racist state of Israel. ARA had proposed divestment from apartheid Israel as a unique opportunity for the university to be the first in the nation to take such a step. Doing so would have affirmed the university's commitment to basic human dignity. Reid's refusal to divest, his insistence on supporting apartheid, ethnic cleansing, and the colonial history of Israel, infuriated the surrounding community. The Arab American Forum and Link of October 19 th, 2006, for example, asked the question, "Divestment: It worked in South Africa. Why not in Israel?"

And this was not the first time Reid had made this decision. In 2002, he overturned and ignored the historic resolution by the Student Council to divest from Israel. The students at Wayne State University had the courage to stand against apartheid and white supremacy when they passed their resolution, the first of its kind in the United States. Irvin Reid and the board of governors ignored their decision, demonstrating that all claims to "student representation" or "student power" are rhetorical nonsense. Real power, Reid showed, lies with himself and his board of governors, and they have no interest in commitment of any kind to working people, people of color, or simple principles such as democracy and anti-racism.

To summarize, Irvin Reid has bolstered middle class access to Wayne State University while attacking working people and people of color in the city of Detroit and in the surrounding suburbs. He has also supported white supremacy and imperialism at two different times in his career! ARA says good riddance, and we can only affirm our previous slogan: divestment or unemployment. ARA welcomes the next president of the university with the very same challenge: divest from apartheid, divest from white supremacy and refuse to support imperialism. Otherwise, save yourself time and effort by preparing your goodbyes at the same time that you are preparing your introductory speeches.

Read a Banned Book with ARA!

2007-09-10T08:00:00.000-04:00

Recently, the book Overcoming Zionism by Joel Kovel was added to the illustrious list of banned books alongside George Orwell's 1984, Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five and Joseph Heller's Catch-22. Why has Kovel's book been challenged? It calls for “a single democratic state in Israel/Palestine,” where Jews and Arabs live side by side together. By doing so, Kovel’s book is a threat to all Zionists who equate Judaism with support for the state of Israel, and justify the colonialism of Palestine on racist grounds. Local Zionists have therefore attempted to pressure the University of Michigan Press to cease distribution of Kovel's book. All those that consider themselves anti-racists simply cannot let this happen!

THIS INCIDENT IS AN ATTACK ON ARAB AND MUSLIM PEOPLE AS WELL AS ON BASIC DEMOCRATIC FREEDOMS! It is an extension of Guantanamo Bay, Abu Ghraib and wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine and elsewhere. It is aimed at denying the self-governing capacities of people of color everywhere.

Similar incidents abound: Norman Finkelstein was recently denied tenure at DePaul University after a lengthy campaign by Zionists; at Barnard College, Zionists seek to reverse the recent decision to grant Nadia Abu El Haj tenure; finally, at Wayne State University just last year, Wadie Said, son of the late Palestinian academic Edward Said, was denied a position at the law school after Zionists once again raised questions about his academic credentials. These cases represent a concerted attack on Arabs, Muslims, anti-Zionist Jews and other Palestine solidarity activists by racist Zionists. Anti-Racist Action stands in solidarity with these academics as well as with people around the world seeking to live free from colonial domination.

As usual, Zionists of all stripes consider an attack on their racist ideology an attack on Jewish people, although Judaism and Zionism have nothing in common! The reason Zionists have such a problem with Kovel's book is because it refuses to equate Jewish identity with support for Israel. Doing so calls into question and in fact completely undermines the Zionist project. To challenge Zionism as the only Jewish identity is to strike at the very foundations of Zionism.

But not only is the book a challenge to Zionism. Because Zionists seek to ban it, it is a challenge to those of us fighting for Palestine in the United States. Are we going to continue to let Zionists ban our books, discredit our scholars, disrupt our events, spy on us at work, at school, and at home, and intimidate us into silence? We cannot, for our fight for freedom for Palestine is just as much a fight for our own freedom. Our freedom to worship, our freedom to live, our freedom to challenge colonialism, imperialism, and apartheid!

Why do Zionists have a problem with that? The answer is obvious. They are racists. They are against democracy. They want to maintain Israel's colonial domination over the Palestinian people. They want Palestinian land, Palestinian resources, Palestinian villages. They want Palestinian people under their control, without control over their lives, their fates, or even when they can cook, eat, turn on a light or flush the toilet. It is this vision Zionists defend and Joel Kovel attacks. For this reason, Anti-Racist Action stands in solidarity with Joel Kovel and the fight for the distribution of his book.

Overcoming Zionism is an important book with an explosive message. Anti-Racist Action proposes an equally explosive plan of action: Let us read this important book. Let us then discuss how we can begin to achieve freedom for ourselves and freedom for Palestine.

JOIN ARA EVERY THURSDAY THROUGHOUT THE SEMESTER AT 3 P.M. IN THE STUDENT CENTER BUILDING IN FRONT OF McDONALDS TO BEGIN THIS IMPORTANT PROJECT!

(Thanks to an anonymous Palestine solidarity advocate who saw an earlier draft of this post for pointing out that Starbucks is owned by a major Zionist businessperson who donates tons of money to Israel, otherwise we'd be meeting there!)

Free Palestine! Contribute to the hottest topic on campus!

2007-09-04T00:44:00.000-04:00

Last year, a vigorous debate arose on campus over the struggle for Palestine and what we can do in the US to support it. This year will be no different. Anti-Racist Action invites you to join the debate about this, the most pressing issue of our time.

Last year, ARA demanded that the university divest all holdings from companies doing business with the state of Israel. We provided the university a unique and powerful opportunity to become the first institution of its kind in the United States to take such a stand. The university unfortunately refused.

In order to promote dialogue regarding this crucial current event, ARA is once again raising the issue of divestment from Israel. Palestine must be free! Our case is simple and includes the following points.

1) What is Zionism? Who are Zionists?

Zionism is support for the creation and continued existence of the state of Israel. Its basic premises were spelled out by Theodor Herzl in his 1896 pamphlet, "The Jewish State." Zionism was both a reaction to anti-Semitism throughout Europe (though by no means the only reaction) as well as a justification for the colonization of Palestine and the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people from the land. In this it is no different from the white supremacist argument about the "superiority" of European culture that justified the colonization and destruction of indigenous populations in North, Central and South America, or the colonization, enslavement and genocide of Africans since the discovery of the "dark continent." Make no mistake about it: Zionism is White Supremacy.

A Zionist is anyone who supports the state of Israel. Anyone can be a Zionist. Not all Jews are Zionists, just as not all Zionists are Jews. There are many instances of anti-Zionist Jews, and there are likewise many instances of non-Jewish Zionists. Jerry Falwell is a Christian Zionist. So is Glenn Plummer, a Detroit-area preacher who pimps the state of Israel's agenda around town. In the past, perhaps the most notable anti-Zionist Jews were members of the Bund, an all-Jewish labor union, in Russia and Poland around the turn of the twentieth century. Recently the Israeli Socialist Organization, better known as Matzpen, carried on the anti-Zionist Jewish tradition from within Israel itself! Today, anti-Zionist Jews include those that call themselves the True Torah Jews, as well as many others.

2) Why oppose Israel?

Far from an "outpost of civilization against barbarism" as Zionist ideologue Theodor Herzl once called it, Israel is an outpost of colonialism, an outmoded form of European barbarism, at a time when all other colonial regimes have been overthrown. In 1947, Israel was founded by UN decree, and historic Palestine was partitioned into an Arab territory and Israeli state. The next year, Zionists began to, "abolish partition and expand to the whole of Palestine," as first Prime Minister of Israel David Ben-Gurion once declared. When this expansion, popularly known as “the catastrophe” among Palestinians,was over, around 700,000 Palestinians had been driven from historic Palestine. The origins of Israel show: Israel is a colonial-settler state.

3) Israel's Relationship with Imperialism

Israel has throughout its existence sought alliances with any imperialist it could persuade to support it. Around the turn of the century and following World War I, Great Britain was Israel's chief imperialist supporter. Great Britain supported Israel in order to check rising nationalist sentiments in Egypt. These sentiments threatened Britain's hold on the Suez Canal, an important trade route to India, which was itself firmly in the grips of the British Empire. At the end of World War II, British power waned, and the US replaced Britain as supporter of Israel in the Middle East. This relationship proved crucial during the Cold War, as Israel and the US developed an important mutual relationship, both assisting each other in opposing nationalist movements, Communist-inspired and otherwise. Last summer's war on Lebanon was an extension of this policy: its aim was to destroy the militant anti-colonial Hezbollah movement, which threatened both Israeli and US interests in the Middle East.

In addition, Zionism claims that it is a national liberation movement of the Jewish people. However, unlike nationalist movements throughout the world, which have fought colonialism and imperialism to achieve self-government, Israel has allied itself with imperialism at every turn in order to suppress and destroy nationalist movements throughout the Middle East. Zionist claims about "national liberation" would be laughable if the consequences were not so dire.

4) Israel is an apartheid state

From its inception, Israel has ruled by military checkpoints, racial segregation (Jewish-only neighborhoods), environmental racism (denying Palestinians access to water resources and proper sewage facilities), expropriation of land, and ethnic cleansing. These practices are not simply responses to suicide bombings in recent years, but have been a consistent set of tactics used to manage the lives of everyday Palestinians.

Although Palestinians can vote and even hold office within Israel, they are considered second-class citizens in the “Jewish state.” They are barred from jobs, they are kept out of Jewish-only neighborhoods, and if they demand that Israel be a nation of all its people, they are exiled.

If we do not act now to free Palestine, the Palestinian people will be entirely ethnically cleansed from their land or reduced to the same fate as Native Americans in the United States in our lifetimes! We cannot allow this to happen. Palestine must be free!