A Sober Assessment of the Palestine Solidarity Movement

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.

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[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.

Free at Last, Free at Last

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 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.

Eid Mubarak

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.

The Case of the New England Committee to Defend Palestine

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.

Member of the WSU Board of Governors Defends Apartheid Israel!

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.

The Jewish Internationalist Tradition vs. Zionism

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

WSU Students Say No to racism!

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

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!

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!

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!