PALESTINE & NATIONAL ASSEMBLY : Cleveland IMC (((i)))

LET'S SHARPEN THE CONTRADICTIONS!!! RAISING STRUGGLE TO A CRESCENDO!!!! DEATH TO ALL FACADES

This weekend, many Palestine activists will be in Cleveland, Ohio for the National Assembly (http://www.natassembly.org), a meeting of hundreds anti-war activists of every stripe who are hoping to re-energize and reform the anti-war movement. We need your help to network with people in Cleveland and anyone who can come to this conference to support a principled stance that Palestine and the anti-war movement are one and the same.

In our view many activists fear of exposing Israeli connections to the so-called “War on Terror” out of fear or lack of information (rarely because of allegiance to racist ideologies like political Zionism). While oppression of Palestinians and colonization/occupation may be mentioned occasionally, the influence of Israel and its US supporters pushing for wars on Arab and Muslim countries is minimized or ignored. This is done out of: 1) a crude analysis which sees a US elite capitalist class as the sole malevolent engine in world affairs, 2) vague notions of what constitutes "anti-Semitism" and fear of Zionists attacking those who criticize them as "anti-Semitic" or "self-hating Jews", 3) fear of alienating Democratic Party or trade union officialdom with close tied to political Zionism. The result is the national anti-war coalitions talk about oil and talk about arms makers, but they don’t connect Palestinian oppression and Israeli militarism to the wars against Iraq and likely war on Iran. Americans see the Presidential candidates and Congress pledging allegiance to AIPAC and its demands to smash Iran, but some anti-war activists pretends this is all inconsequential.

A resolution that was adopted at the New England United conference about these issues and was then submitted to the National Assembly by the Middle East Crisis Committee (http://thestruggle.org) is appended below. We could use your support to pass this resolution at the National assembly. But first a couple of other items worth reading/acting on.

Action: Tell your representative to OPPOSE H. Cong. Res. 362, calling for a US naval blockade of Iran (an act of war):
http://capwiz.com/justforeignpolicy/issues/alert/?alertid=11518951
CBS news acknowledges Israel Prodding U.S. To Attack Iran
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/06/24/eveningnews/main4206201.shtml
Background on Israel and the last and ongoing (Iraq) war
http://www.qumsiyeh.org/connectingthedotsiraqpalestine/

To understand what is happening in Palestine today, see this presentation by Dr. Mustafa Barghouti
http://www.adc.org/flash/palestine/files/eslides.swf

Tactics that ended apartheid in S. Africa can end it in Israel, by Bill Fletcher executive editor of http://www.blackcommentator.com and former president of the TransAfrica Forum, which led the U.S. movement to overthrow apartheid in South Africa during the 1980s. He wrote this article for the Mercury News.
http://www.mercurynews.com/opinion/ci_9681308?nclick_check=1

The above two items could help in you drafting letters to media, politicians, friends, colleagues, and others. In short No Justice = No Peace.

Palestine and the Anti-War Movement (resolutions submitted for the National Asembly)

The oppression of Palestinians is not just another cause to be occasionally mentioned by the anti-war movement. It is integral to what is causing the so-called “War Against Terror”, what is in reality a war to subdue and impoverish the Middle East and Islamic countries. It is intertwined because of Israeli designs on the Middle East, Al-Qaeda Islamist attempts to hijack the Palestinian cause, and the influence of the Zionist lobbies (Christian and Jewish) on US politics.

Because Israel is an apartheid state that oppresses Palestinians and because it has expelled most of the Palestinians of Palestine to neighboring countries and refuses to let them return, it finds itself necessarily in conflict with Middle Eastern countries whose populace sympathizes with Palestinians. If Israel can’t join with the US to bring collaborationist regimes to power in the Middle East it seeks to have independent minded countries invaded or rendered helpless or divided.

US Neo-cons politicians advocate a “War of Civilizations” against Arab and Muslim peoples as a way on enriching themselves and maintaining the military-industrial complex now that they can’t exploit Cold War fears and use sympathy for Israel to further their ends. While the lust for oil remains the bedrock of US interest in the Middle East the importance of Israel in US-European imperial motivations cannot be ignored.

In the run-up to the Iraq invasion AIPAC was a prime supporter of the murderous sanctions on Iraq. Israeli officials repeatedly urged a military attack on Iraq both to the Administration and in the U.S. media. Israel's paper of record, Haaretz, wrote on Nov. 14, 2002 that “Israel is the only country to absolutely support the American decision [to attack Iraq], and has urged it to act, and quickly.”

Considering that a peaceful and just resolution would advance security and economic interests of the US and people in Western Asia (The Middle East).

Resolved that the anti-war movement should

• Integrate the issue of Palestine in the broader anti-war struggle

• Build solidarity with Palestinian and Israeli human rights activists

• Actively support the call of the Palestine Civil Society Movement for boycotts, divestments and sanctions until Israel complies with international law and respects human rights.

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Mazin Qumsiyeh

Attend the August 8-10 Palestine Conference in Chicago http://palestineconference.org

http://qumsiyeh.org

Cleveland Indy Media Center