Palestine Program People’s Movement Assemblies at the US Social Forum

PMA results:

More PMA results can be found at the USSF’s PMA 2010 website!

What is a People’s Movement Assembly?

People’s Movement Assemblies represent a powerful method of community governance for our liberation movements. They provide an organizing strategy for movements to enter the Social Forum prepared and to leave stronger, with more defined directions and mandates for change.

A PMA calls on anchor organizations and groups that facilitated assembles to re-convene before the end of the year and coordinate plans for the large scale implementation of actions, agreements and next steps. The PMA also calls on organizers and groups to take the PMA back to our home communities and use the process as a way to set our priorities and advance our local struggles in the context of national and global movement building. The Palestine Program’s PMAs focus on three main strands of Palestine activism in the US: movement-building within Palestinian communities; seeding and intensifying Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions; and, building and strengthening relationships with social justice allies. Through these assemblies, we aim to seed possibility, expand and intensify collaboration, and achieve justice in Palestine.

The PMAs culminate in the National People’s Movement Assembly on Saturday from 12:30pm to 4pm at Wayne Hall. Representatives from each PMA will gather in a Synthesis Assembly beforehand to prepare a draft of the National Social Movements Agenda and synthesize national Calls to Action and Solidarity.

The People’s Movement Assembly Working Group will remain the point of connection to support assemblies and actions moving forward. Our fight for justice continues until we are free! We will not wait!

Below are also listed some of the major workshops sponsored by the US Palestinian Community Network.

Click here for a list of locations of PMAs and workshops.

Download a schedule of workshops and locations here.

People’s Movement Assemblies

Justice in Palestine

The Palestinian-Israeli conflict touches on all Americans as it has figured centrally in U.S. foreign policy at least since 1968 when the Johnson Administration provided Israel with its first supersonic aircraft in order to achieve a military edge over its Arab neighbors. The U.S.’s decision to involve itself in the conflict stems from its Cold War calculations and its desire to defeat the Soviet Union by respective proxies in the Middle East. Whereas the US supported Israel, the former Soviet Republic supported Arab regimes. While this history makes it incumbent upon all Americans to participate in finding a solution to the conflict today–the major stakeholders in the struggle for Palestinian self-determination are Palestinians themselves.

Since the establishment of Israel in 1948 and the consequent displacement and dispossession of Palestinians, the Palestinian national body has been fragmented several times over. Today Palestinian identity is bantustanized into those who citizens of Israel vs. those who are residents of East Jerusalem vs. those who are under occupation in the West Bank vs. those who are under occupation and siege in Gaza vs. those who live in refugee camps throughout the Arab world vs. those who exist in a global diaspora. Such fragmentation limits the potential for organizing among Palestinians to decide on a collective future and its concomitant strategy. Moreover, external involvement both imperial (i.e., the US) as well as regional (i.e., Iran, Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and Lebanon) has divided Palestinians into broad categories of “good” and “bad” in relation to the U.S. and European political establishment. In order to transcend these divisions and engage in a process of self-represented self-determination, Palestinians in the U.S. seek to coalesce themselves into a cohesive body that can join other parts the world over from South America, Canada, Europe, the Arab world, the Occupied Territories, and Israel. The PMA seeks to begin this conversation, agree in theory on its value, encourage its attendees to join the USPCN and participate in its Second Popular Conference, and to introduce a resolution to the general Forum body.

Sponsoring Organizations

  • American Muslims for Palestine
  • Palestine Office-Detroit
  • US Palestinian Community Network

Thu, 06/24/2010 – 1:00pm – 5:30pm, Cobo Hall, Riverfront Ballroom (W1-52)

LINK: http://organize.ussf2010.org/ws/justice-palestine

The Way Forward: Strategy, Tactics and Seeding Boycott Divestment and Sanctions in the US

The Boycott, Divesment and Sanctions (BDS) movement is the most effective form of solidarity in support of Palestinians. Palestinian civil society organizations from within Palestine and its diaspora, issued the BDS call in 2005 demanding that Israel comply with international law and human rights by 1) Ending its occupation and colonization of all Arab lands and dismantling the wall; 2) recognizing the fundamental rights of the Arab-Palestinian citizens of Israel to full equality; and 3) respecting, protecting and promoting the rights of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and properties as stipulated in UN Resolution 194. Since the Israeli war on Gaza, BDS has grown exponentionally in the United States. Countless campaigns across the country have called for churchs, campuses, municipalities, as well as corporations, to divest from Israel so long as it continues to violate Palestinian rights. This session seeks to bring together all these campaigns, as well as social justice organizations across all issues, to strategize on how best to expand the BDS movement across the US. One of the first of its kind, this plenary session will showcase the broad spectrum of BDS work in the US today including, but not limited to, academic and cultural boycott; university endowment divestment; faith-based divestment; pension fund divestment; and boycott and divestment campaigns aimed at corporations complicit in Israel’s oppression. In addition to laying out the basis for the BDS call and introducing allies to the strength of this global grassroots movement, this interactive session will explore lessons learned, share the most effective tactics of seeding BDS into different social movements, and serve as an anchor of BDS activities at the US Social Forum.

Sponsoring Organizations

  • Boycott, Divestment & Sanctions Campaign National Committee (BNC)
  • US Palestinian Community Network
  • International Campaign Against the Jewish National Fund
  • United Against Racism

Fri, 06/25/2010 – 1:00pm – 5:30pm, Cobo Hall: O3-46

LINK: http://organize.ussf2010.org/ws/way-forward-strategy-tactics-and-seeding-bds-us

United Against Racism & War: From Arizona to New Orleans to Palestine

The panel will look at anti-racism as a framework for the building of a movement for racial justice from Oakland to Gaza, from Juarez to Bi’lin. The workshop will then discuss implications for building joint struggles against racism experienced by communities in the US and those impacted by US policies abroad, with a specific focus on US support for Israel.

Panelists will share ideas on the meaning of joint struggle, examples of successful joint struggles, and challenges and barriers to working together across communities. The workshop hopes to advance principles for solidarity, identify shared demands across our struggles, and discuss opportunities for working together in the year ahead.

Sponsoring Organizations

  • International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network
  • United Against Racism
  • Left Turn
  • Malcolm X Grassroots Movement
  • US Palestinian Community Network

Thu, 06/24/2010 – 1:00pm – 5:30pm,  Cobo Hall: O2-44

LINK: http://organize.ussf2010.org/ws/united-against-racism-war-arizona-new-orleans-palestine

USPCN sponsored workshops

International law and Gaza: War crimes, Accountability, and Solidarity

The debilitating blockade endured by Palestinians in Gaza since June 2007 compounds existing conditions that date back several decades. Consider that the Gaza Strip is home to 750,000 Palestinian refugees, exiled from their lands since Israel’s establishment in 1948 and since 1967, the tiny Strip has been military occupied by Israel. More recently in 2005, Israel unilaterally withdrew its 12,000 colonial settlers from, and dismantled 21 settlements in the territory but maintained its control of the air space, the sea ports, ingress and egress of goods and people, and retained the right to reoccupy the Strip in the case of military necessity. In effect, Israel’s occupation remained in tact. In January 2006 Hamas achieved an electoral majority in legislative elections to the chagrin of Western powers and Israel disdainful of a political Islamic party. In June 2007, Hamas ousted Fatah, the dominant Palestinian political party, from the Gaza Strip and in retaliation, the US and Israel imposed a complete siege and blockade on Gaza denying its 1.5 million inhabitants the most basic goods. By June 2008, the unemployment level had reached 80 percent and the World Health Organization described the conditions as a “humanitarian catastrophe.” In this context, Israel launched its 22-day offensive against Gaza in December 2008, which killed 1,400 Palestinians and destroyed its basic infrastructure. Despite international financial commitments to rebuild Gaza in the onslaught’s aftermath, Gaza remains in ruins and its Palestinian inhabitants continue to endure the severe blockade.

In response to these devastating conditions, several national and international organizations have taken the initiative to challenge the siege and Israel’s impunity for war crimes using numerous tactics. From lobbying, launching BDS campaigns, physically attempting to break the siege, suing Israeli officials in US and international courts, investigative war crimes committees and tribunals, and organizing delegations to Gaza, the siege mobilizes thousands and has ushered forth a groundswell of solidarity activism. This workshop seeks to put these organizations and activists in conversation with one another to discuss how to leverage their multiple efforts into a more cohesive campaign aimed at lifting the siege and holding Israel to account.

Sponsoring Organizations

  • US Palestinian Community Network
  • Code Pink
  • US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation
  • Free Gaza Movement
  • National Lawyers Guild

Thu, 06/24/2010 – 10:00am – 12:00pm, WSU Old Main: 1137

LINK: http://organize.ussf2010.org/ws/international-law-and-gaza-war-crimes-accountability-and-solidarity

Labor for Palestine: Organizing Labor in Support of BDS

The BDS campaign was initiated by Palestinian civil society, including its entire labor movement. It calls for an end to Israeli military occupation and colonization of historic Palestine, the right of Palestinian refugees to return to the land from which they have been ethnically cleansed since the Nakba of 1947-1948, and equal rights for all throughout historic Palestine. This campaign has been endorsed by numerous labor bodies, including the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU), UNISON (UK), Transport and General Workers’ Union (UK), Canadian Union of Postal Workers, Canadian Union of Public Employees-Ontario, six Norwegian trade unions, Irish Congress of Trade Unions, Scottish Trades Union Congress, and Intersindical Alternativa de Catallunya (Spain). This workshop will bring together labor organizers in solidarity with Palestine to discuss the role of labor organizing as part of the broader movement in support of BDS. Specifically, it will discuss three demands for labor organizing in the United States: 1) divestment of labor from State of Israel bonds; 2) boycott Israeli goods, and support workers’ refusal to handle Israeli cargo; and 3) breaking of ties with the Histadrut (Israeli Federation of Labor, a founding party of the State of Israel and part of the current Israeli government).

Sponsoring Organizations:

  • International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network – Labor
  • Labor for Palestine
  • New York Labor Against the War
  • US Palestinian Community Network

Thu, 06/24/2010 – 10:00am – 12:00pm WSU Old Main: 1107

LINK: http://organize.ussf2010.org/ws/labor-palestine-organizing-labor-support-bds