Join the Palestine contingent to #StopPoliceCrimes in Chicago
On Saturday, August 29th, 2015, thousands of Chicagoans and others from across the country will rally and march against police violence, and in support of a Civilian Police Accountability Council (CPAC). USPCN is joining the Arab American Action Network (AAAN) and others in mobilizing heavy for this historic effort organized and led by our good friends and allies at the Chicago Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression (CAARPR). We are calling on all Arabs, Palestinians, and supporters to join this contingent on the 29th. We'll have posters, banners, and flags, but you can also bring your own, understanding that the theme is Arab solidarity with #BlackLivesMatter in the movement to #StopPoliceCrimes and #EnactCPAC.
Please email info@aaan.org if you would like to join this contingent in the march! 
WHEN: Saturday, August 29th, 2015, at 12 Noon
WHERE: Federal Plaza at 219 S. Dearborn, downtown Chicago
************************************
BDS in the USA: Why the answer to the growing backlash needs to be more Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions against Israel
WHEN: Wednesday, August 26, 6:30 pm
WHERE: Grace Place, First Floor, 637 S. Dearborn, Chicago, IL
WHO:
Nashiha Alam, Loyola Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP)
Rahul Saksena, Staff Attorney, Palestine Legal
Rebecca Vilkomerson, Executive Director, Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP)
Hatem Abudayyeh, National Coordinating Committee, United States Palestinian Community Network (USPCN)
MC: Leila Abdelrazaq, SJP National and author of Baddawi
WHAT:
Over the past 10 years, the Palestinian-led movement to use Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) has grown in leaps and bounds around the world and here in the United States.
BDS is a strategy to pressure Israel to end its occupation and colonization of all Palestinian and Arab lands and dismantle the Wall, recognize the fundamental rights of the Palestinian-Arab citizens of Israel to full equality, and respect, protect and promote the rights of Palestinian refugees and their descendants to return to their homes and properties as stipulated in UN resolution 194.
The growing popularity of BDS has resulted in an aggressive backlash as Israel and its defenders seek to suppress this human rights movement through legislation, intimidation and misinformation.
Come hear from program panelists the various attempts to stop BDS in the USA, including Illinois’ recent anti-BDS legislation, and learn why they’re only making the movement for Palestinian rights stronger.
****************************************
 - In Hebron, a fence imposed by the Israeli military separates two Palestinian children from a member of the Dream Defenders delegation to Palestine. (Photo by Christopher Hazou)
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
August 18, 2015
Click here for the final list of signatories. Arabic translation available.
Press contacts:
Kristian Davis Bailey (650) 427-0275 | kristian.bailey@gmail.com
Khury Petersen-Smith (857) 615-8284 | khury.ps@gmail.com
Statement calls for Boycotts, Divestment & Sanctions (BDS) against G4S and other companies profiting from Israeli occupation and apartheid
Over 1,000 Black activists, artists, scholars, students, and organizations have released a statement reaffirming their “solidarity with the Palestinian struggle and commitment to the liberation of Palestine’s land and people.” The list of signatories includes scholar-activists Angela Davis and Cornel West, political prisoners Mumia Abu-Jamal and Sundiata Acoli, rappers Talib Kweli, Boots Riley and Jasiri X, and Black Lives Matter co-founder Patrisse Cullors. 40 organizations signed, including the Florida-based Dream Defenders and St. Louis-based Hands Up United and Tribe X, which were founded after the killings of Trayvon Martin and Mike Brown, respectively, as well as the 35-year-old Organization for Black Struggle in St. Louis.
The statement debuted Tuesday afternoon [August 18th] on the website of Ebony, the largest Black publication in the US.
“We urge people of conscience to recognize the struggle for Palestinian liberation as a key matter of our time,” the statement asserts. It also calls on the US government to end diplomatic and economic aid to Israel, for Black and US institutions to support the Palestinian call for Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) against Israel until it complies with its obligations under international law, and for supporters of Black and Palestinian liberation to target private security company G4S for boycotts and divestment.
Over the past 15 months, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, United Methodist Church, United Church of Christ, and Columbia University have all divested from G4S following pressure from Black and Palestinian human rights activists.
“G4S harms thousands of Palestinian political prisoners illegally held in Israel and hundreds of Black and brown youth held in its privatized juvenile prisons in the US,” the statement reads.“The corporation profits from incarceration and deportation from the US and Palestine, to the UK, South Africa, and Australia. We reject notions of ‘security’ that make any of our groups unsafe and insist no one is free until all of us are.”
The statement represents a bridge between the current generation of Black activists and those who participated in the movements of the 1960s and 70s. Other signatories include the Black Panther Party’s Minister of Culture Emory Douglas, former SNCC chairman Phil Hutchings, as well as Kwame Somburu and Emeritus Professor Charles E. Simmons. Hutchings, Somburu and Simmons were all signatories of a 1970 ad in The New York Times of Black activists and scholars in support of the Palestinian struggle against Zionism and the occupation.
Over 330 current students signed, including Black or Afrikan Student Unions at Columbia, UC Berkeley, UCLA, Yale, and the Stanford NAACP Executive Committee. 150 scholars and 220 artists signed the statement as well. People have signed onto the statement from 25 different countries, 37 U.S. states, and the District of Columbia. Ten current political prisoners signed the statement, including Mumia Abu-Jamal, Sundiata Acoli, Kevin “Rashid” Johnson, Ayyub Abdul-Alim, and Shaylanna Luvme.
The statement comes in the wake of a year of high-profile expressions of solidarity between Black and Palestinian people that began last summer with the simultaneous unfolding of Israel’s killing of 2,200 people in Gaza and the uprising in Ferguson, Missouri following the police killing of Mike Brown.
Since last August, a delegation of Palestinian students has visited Black organizers in St. Louis, Detroit, and Florida among other locations. The Florida-based group Dream Defenders voted to unanimously endorse the BDS movement at its December congress, just weeks before bringing a delegation of activists from Florida, Ferguson, and Black Lives Matter to Palestine.
“We’re at a crucial moment in the global struggle against racism, in which the Black and Palestinian struggles play a crucial role,” said statement co-organizer Kristian Davis Bailey. “We wish to send a loud and clear message to Palestinians, as well as the governments of the US and Israel that now is the time for Palestinian liberation, just as now is the time for our own in the United States.”
Statement co-organizer Khury Petersen-Smith said that justice for Palestinians is not simply limited to ending the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
“The foundation of the Israeli state came through the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, and every day since has involved oppression and violence toward the Palestinian population, both within and outside of Israel’s recognized borders,” Petersen-Smith said. “While there are differences between Israel and the US, we see parallels with a country that was founded on the enslavement of Black people and where anti-Black racism remains at the heart of US society centuries later.”
Bailey said he hopes the statement reaches widely within Palestinian society and encourages more constant interaction between the two movements: “Now is the time for us to re-educate our communities about the struggles the other group faces. Now is the time for us to unite across borders. Together we will achieve our liberation.”
Visit www.blackforpalestine.com for the full list of signatories and more information. You can also follow the statement on Facebook and Twitter.
####
USPCN note: also see this article and this statement as examples of Palestinian solidarity with Black people in the U.S.
*****************************************
Rasmea Odeh to be honored in Atlanta at U.S. Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation's conference September 25-27! Join USPCN there!
 If you are still waiting for a reason to register for the 14th Annual National Conference: Advancing a Mass Movement for Palestine happening September 25-27 in Atlanta, GA, here are 5!
Honor Palestinian American community leader Rasmea Odeh, who will be receiving the Damu Smith Memorial Activist Award during our Saturday night program. Rasmea has dedicated 50 years of her life to the liberation of Palestine, first as a teenager working with internally displaced refugees in Jerusalem and the West Bank; next as one of the most prominent political prisoners the movement has ever had; and now heading the Arab Women's Committee in Chicago. She has spent the past two years fighting U.S. government persecution, the latest example of efforts to stifle Palestine organizing.
Hear from speakers and presenters including USPCN's old friend Ziad Abbas of the Middle East Children's Alliance; Phyllis Bennis, Institute for Policy Studies; Patrisse Cullors, co-founder of #BlackLivesMatter; Loubna Qutami, our sister from the Palestinian Youth Movement; and many more.
At tend workshops facilitated by USPCN and other member groups Palestine Legal, Palestine Advocacy Project, International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network, American Muslims for Palestine, Israeli Committee Against Home Demolitions-USA, and others.
 Bui ld on the increasing success of BDS (boycott, divestment, and sanctions) campaigns 10 years after Palestinian civil society issued the call.
Con nect with US Campaign staff and Steering Committee members. This will be the first conference for Executive Director Yousef Munayyer.
The conference program will begin at 5pm on Friday, September 25 and end at 7pm on Sunday, September 27. Registration is at a sliding scale of $60-$200 and includes entrance to all conference events, breakfast and lunch Saturday, and lunch Sunday. Prices will increase after August 21 (TOMORROW), so register today!
*****************************************************************************
Sign petition demanding full disclosure for Israel bonds!
More than 75 U.S. states and municipalities are invested in Israel bonds, which are used to fund illegal settlement construction in violation of U.S. and international law! More than $1 billion in Israel bonds were sold in the U.S. last year alone!
The Development Corporation of Israel (DCI), the American corporation which sells these bonds to states, municipalities, individuals, and organizations, is required by U.S. federal law to report all "material facts" about such securities to buyers -- i.e. all facts that could enable an average investor to make an informed investment decision. But rather than disclosing that Israel bonds are used to fund illegal settlement expansion and apartheid policies, DCI misleads investors by benignly characterizing securities' sales as used for "general purposes of the state."
SIGN THIS PETITION urging the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to enforce U.S. law by demanding that DCI fully disclose how Israel bonds are used to violate Palestinian rights!
Minnesota Break the Bonds (of which USPCN-MN is a member) has led a ground-breaking campaign calling on their state to divest from Israel bonds. They know that many states and other entities might not invest in these bonds if the full implications and risks of such investments were public. It's the SEC's job to ensure such disclosure, and we need your help to make sure they do it!
Please sign this petition to the SEC today!
#####
|
