------------------------- Via Workers World News Service Reprinted from the Sept. 25, 2003 issue of Workers World newspaper -------------------------
STAND UP FOR PALESTINE! RUTGERS SAYS: NO CONFERENCE. STUDENTS SAY: NO WAY! By Leslie Feinberg On Sept. 12, Rutgers University officials imperiously announced that they had cancelled the Third National Student Conference on the Palestine Solidarity Movement, scheduled for Oct. 10-12 at that New Jersey campus. But Rutgers students vow they will not be daunted or deterred. The conference is going to happen. "These attacks on the organizers of the Palestine conference and the movement have mirrored the escalating assault on the Palestinian people, and have intersected with the attacks against our civil liberties and constitutional rights," charged a Sept. 12 statement from conference organizers. "But the university administration has gone much farther, and has taken a shameful overt political stand in favor of Israeli Apartheid. As the university cancels the Palestine conference, it is simultaneously supporting an overarching pro-Israel program called 'Israel Inspires,'" the media release continued. The pro-Israeli event is slated for the same weekend as the conference in solidarity with the Palestinian struggle. On Sept. 12, the very day the university announced to students that it was officially shutting down the Oct. 10-12 conference, Rutgers University President Robert McCormick was scheduled to keynote at a dinner sponsored by Rutgers Hillel, a campus-based Zionist group. And according to the official website of "Israel Inspires," McCormick "pledged his support for Israel Inspires, and asked to be personally involved in Hillel's positive pro-active initiative." Featured participants at the "Inspires" event include neo-conservative ideologue Richard Perle, chairperson of the Defense Policy Board--an advisory panel to the Pentagon; James Woolsey, former CIA director; Herbert London from the right-wing Hudson Institute; and Tome Rose, publisher and CEO of the Jerusalem Post. On Sept. 18, right-wing Israeli government minister without portfolio Natan Sharansky will be the opening speaker of a year-long anti- Palestinian program targeting campuses. 'WE REFUSE TO BE SILENCED!' "We refuse to be silenced," declared Charlotte Kates, a conference organizer and second year student at Rutgers School of Law. "We will hold our conference wherever we must--in a hotel, in a park, whatever. The Palestinian people have continued to resist despite incredible and overwhelming force displayed against them--and we owe them nothing less than to refuse to be silenced." Kates is one of the people working on organizing the national event. She is an activist with New Jersey Solidarity, the local host organization for the conference. This event, she told Workers World, is bringing together "activists and organizers across the continent and internationally in solidarity with the Palestinian people and calling for divestment from the apartheid state of Israel." She described the event as a weekend of plenaries, discussions, workshops, activist training, and a large demonstration on the Rutgers campus to demand freedom of expression and solidarity with the Palestinian struggle. In addition to prominent Palestinian and other Arab activists, Kates said, speakers will represent the spectrum of voices who ware involved in support for the Palestinian movement: "African American and other people of color, labor, women, queer, voices from other international struggles, and pro-Palestinian Jewish activists. "We'll have organizing sessions and decision-making sessions to really strategize about how we as a movement can go forward in building solidarity with Pales tine and in building the divestment movement and really creating continental coordination among activists to carry forward this work." This is the third conference of its kind. The first was held in Berkeley, Calif. It was postponed after Sept. 11, 2001, and resche duled for February 2002. Kates said it drew 450-500 people, "More than anyone expected." Kates noted that the Berkeley conference coincided with the brutal Israeli military re-occupation and assault on the Palestinian population of the West Bank. "Especially because of the situation developing in Palestine, it set the tone for growth of the divestment movement for campuses across the country and really signified that there was a strong movement in solidarity with Palestinians growing in the United States." The all-out siege by the Israelis against the uprising of Palestinians in the Intifada, the massacre of Palestinians in the Jenin refugee camp, plans by the Tel Aviv government to "transfer"--to literally force out the population--and most of all the resistance of the people of Palestine inspired the movement here in the U.S. Kates recalls, "I think also the renewed anti-war movement that came out of the whole period against the attacks on Afghan istan really were part of building the Palestine solidarity movement as well. More and more and more people recognized the urgent imperative need for people in the United State to stand in solidarity with the Palestinian people and their struggle for liberation, and against occupation and oppression." The second conference was held in October 2002 at the University of Mich igan at Ann Arbor. "It was also very widely attended," she said, "and representative of the growth of the divestment campaign. As in the case of apartheid South Africa in the 1980s, we're calling on universities and corporations to pull out all their investments and all their economic participation in the Israeli economy." She explained that the movement was initiated by a call from the Palestine Solidarity Committee of South Africa after the 2001 World Conference Against Racism held in Durban. Today the divestment campaign has spread to some 70 to 75 college and university campuses, Kates pointed out. Kates characterized the move by the Rutgers administration to cancel the current conference as "an official action on the part of Rutgers University in support of apartheid. "But it will take place!" she concluded. "It's going to be a major event. It's going to bring together hundreds of activists and it's going to be the site of a demonstration that makes it clear that 'Israel terrorizes, Pale stine inspires.' We will make sure that our voices are heard very loudly and very clearly on the campus of Rutgers University." 'RUTGERS IS A SHOWDOWN' Workers World spoke to Elias Rash mawi, a coordinator of the Free Palestine Alliance and part of the International ANSWER coalition's steering committee. Rashmawi, born in Gaza, Palestine, was issued a permanent deportation order by the Israeli High Court because of his involvement in Palestinian organizing while a student in the U.S. Rashmawi said, "I think Rutgers is a showdown on multiple fronts. First, it's a showdown between the Palestinian movement for liberation and all those who want to maintain it in servitude--partial or total. "Second, it's a showdown between all peoples thinking in terms of justice and those who would like to hijack people in the United States, and around the world, to a certain political point of view where they have hegemony of thought, a hegemony over the model of the society we want to live in and hegemony on our future. "It's a showdown with those who want to take the Arab, Palestinian, Muslim, South Asian and all communities of color-and all oppressed communities, including labor, women, the gay community--and place them on the margin of society and when need be criminalize them and not allow them to be part of the making of civil society where all have input." Rashmawi stressed: "Rutgers symbolizes the interests of the emerging empire, intersects with the interests of a client state, with the interests of policing thought. It symbolizes those who want to literally cater to a specific sector of the social struggle, the companies who are heavily invested in military economics, rejecting divestment--all these vile, anti-social forces. "On the other hand are the Rutgers students, driven by nothing but their sense of dignity, their sense of justice, paying from their own pocket, standing up to big, mighty forces just to say that we have to have some sense of justice--not only for Palestinians, but all those who struggle for justice in the world. "Because of that," he concluded, "no matter what happens we are going to Rutgers. 'Israel Inspires' or not, neo-cons or not, Rutgers president or not. We will continue to organize for Palestine and for justice for everyone." To support the conference please register, endorse and promote the event and encourage other individuals and organizations to do likewise. Financial help is appreciated now more than ever, since a change of venue adds additional expense. For more information, visit www.divestmentconference.com. - END - (Copyright Workers World Service: Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies of this document, but changing it is not allowed. For more information contact Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011; via e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe wwnews- [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe [EMAIL PROTECTED] Support the voice of resistance http://www.workers.org/orders/donate.php) ------------------ This message is sent to you by Workers World News Service. To subscribe, E-mail to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To unsubscribe, E-mail to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To switch to the DIGEST mode, E-mail to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Send administrative queries to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
