Dear Palestine Activist
We are writing to encourage your participation in the exciting line up of workshops, strategy sessions, cultural events, and trainings for the Palestine & Middle East Solidarity track at the US Social Forum. The US Social Forum will be taking place this June 27 - July 1 in Atlanta, Georgia (http://www.ussf2007.org) and will provide an opportunity for building relationships between Palestine solidarity work and other movements for social justice.
With the massive US war on the people of the Middle East, the significant shift to the Left in Latin America, the rise of the immigrant rights movement in the US and the social, political, economic and environmental impact of US neglect and racism post Katrina, it is important for all our movements to come together. The Forum is an organizing space that we can use to bring renewed insight and inspiration and help develop leadership, consciousness, vision, and strategy across movements—a step forward at this incredibly important juncture in history.
It is also an opportunity for Palestine Solidarity organizers and activists from across the country to come together for important discussions that will help us move beyond our isolation and build a stronger movement for justice. We reached out to many of you in March and April to solicit your help in drafting proposals for the Palestine and Middle East Solidarity Track. Thanks to the enthusiastic responses from many groups and individuals across the US, we have an incredible set of 21 sessions for the track! The listing and schedule for the workshops are listed below.
But we still need broader involvement to make this track a success.
In addition to the official track, we have reserved a Palestine Solidarity Tent where we can hold cultural events, book releases, and film screenings in the evening; have meetings, vendors, exhibits, workshops during the day; and important cross-movement building and Palestine/Middle East solidarity movement meetings and social events.
Some of the activities already include a screening of the feature documentary Occupation 101 and other films; diverse movement building meetings including a networking event for progressive Arab leadership and organizing meeting for an emerging network of anti-Zionist Jewish activists; and Picture Baladna and other art exhibits.
Please join us in creating an organizing, cultural and community space at the Palestine and Middle East Solidarity Tent by emailing suggestions for activities to us at: ussfpalestinesolidarity@gmail.com
We hope that you will read through the list of sessions and then join us in using the opportunity of the US Social Forum to broaden and deepen Palestine and Middle East Solidarity activism in the US.
We look forward to seeing you in Atlanta!
In solidarity,
The Coordination Team from Arab Movement of Women Arising for Justice (AMWAJ), the International Jewish Solidarity Network-USA, Left Turn, the Palestinian Popular Conference Network
Palestine & Middle East Solidarity Track at the 2007 US Social Forum
Wednesday, June 27: Opening
Join us for a Palestine contingent at the forum’s opening march and then come hear speakers and artists from different movements at the opening celebration
Thursday, June 28: Consciousness + Awareness Raising / Current Struggles
• A State for All Its Citizens: The Case Against Israeli Apartheid
• Facts on the Ground in Palestine: Approaching Apartheid
• History of US Imperialism and Resistance in the Middle East/West Asia
• The Role of Anti-Zionist Jewish Organizing in Palestine Solidarity
• Women, War and Water
• Your Border Crossed our Land: From Mexico to Palestine
9pm: Opening Event at Palestine Tent!
Friday, June 29: Visioning / Envisioning Another World
• BDS 101: From South Africa to Palestine
• Blind Leading the Blinded: Militarization and Sexual Violence
• Forced Displacement and the Right to Return: Palestine, New Orleans, and Urban America
• Political Prisoners: from Guantanamo to Abu Ghraib to Palestine
• Reproductive Justice in Israel/Palestine: Palestinians as the Demographic Threat
• Unlearning Zionism: Transforming Histories of Collective Trauma towards Justice
Saturday, June 30: Strategizing the Achieving of Another World
• Anti-Arab Racism and Islamophobia: Confronting Stereotypes and Dehumanization
• BDS for PSM activists: building a movement against Israeli apartheid
• Building A Stronger Movement: Multi-racial organizing for Justice in the Middle East and at Home
• Digital Resistance: Palestinian Youth Media
• Internal Coordination Workshop: Planning for Al-Nakba 60th Anniversary
• Slingshot Hip Hop: Colonization and Resistance from Brooklyn to Palestine
• United Labor: US and Palestinian Movement for Worker’s Rights
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