[mgj-discuss] Palestine & ME Solidarity Track at the US Social Forum

[Rami Elamine]

Dear Palestine Solidarity Activists and Groups,
 
We are writing to encourage your participation in and submission 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 US Social 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, it is a step forward at this incredibly important juncture in history.
 
Most importantly, this forum is an opportunity for grassroots movement makers to highlight and create anew places where our struggles, issues, and movements intersect. This thoughtful interaction will help us to move beyond our own networks, shift our perceptions of the work we do in relation to other struggles, and ultimately transform ourselves from a myriad of movements to one movement for social justice and liberation.
 
For Palestine Solidarity organizers and activists this is an opportunity to move beyond our isolation and build mutual solidarity with like domestic and international solidarity movements for justice.
 
Cindy Wiesner from the National Planning Committee for the USSF has urged us to develop this track so as to place Palestinian solidarity specifically, and more generally solidarity with Arab and Muslim people, central to the US Social Forum’s focus on anti-militarization, anti-war and anti-imperialist organizing in the U.S.
 
She reached out to the Palestinian Popular Conference Network, Arab Movement of Women Arising for Justice, the International Jewish Solidarity Network-USA, and Left Turn Magazine to support the coordination of this track and a Palestinian tent. We will be joined at the Forum by several resistance leaders from the West Bank and ’48 (Israel), including Jamal Juma’ and Mohammad Ethman from the Palestinian Grassroots Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign, Ziad Abbas from Ibdaa Cultural Center in Dheisheh refugee camp, Dr. Mona El-Farra, a community activist in Gaza and Director of Gaza Projects for the Middle East Children’s Alliance, Manawel Issa Abdelall, a labor activist within ’48 and Siham Rashid from the Palestinian Counseling Center.
 
We hope that you will join us in using the opportunity of the US Social Forum to broaden and deepen Palestine and Middle East Solidarity activism in the US. Please complete the on-line survey to give input into the track and activities for the Palestine tent, to indicate your interest in supporting the coordination of the track, and to submit workshops as part of the track.
 
We will submit the workshops to the US Social Forum as a bundle.  We must have all proposals by Monday, April 16th in order to organize the workshops and submit them to the US Social Forum National Planning Committee by the deadline. We apologize of the short time frame but are working within the constraints of the overall Forum planning process.
 
You may submit workshops, give feedback, and get involved in organizing by completing the on-line: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.asp?u=454553533109 or by sending them to a coordinating team member at ussfpalestinesolidarity at gmail.com. Please feel free to email us with questions.
 
We look forward to seeing you in Atlanta!
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