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http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=107&ItemID=12859
ZNet
May 19, 2007
Letter to Black America on Palestinian Rights &
June 10 March by US Campaign to End the Israeli
Occupation
On 15 May 2007, 22 Black American professors,
writers, religious figures, and other leaders
issued a call to Black America to join in the
June 10 March and rally, and break the silence
on the injustices faced by the Palestinian
people.
To Black America:
It is time for our people to once again demand
that the silence be broken on the injustices
faced by the Palestinian people resulting from
the Israeli occupation.
On June 10th, the national coalition known as
the US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation
(endtheoccupation.org) will be spearheading a
march and rally to commemorate the 40th
anniversary of the beginning of the illegal
Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories.
We, the signatories of this appeal, ask that
Black America again take a leading role in this
effort as well as the broader work to bring
attention to this 40 year travesty of justice.
United Nations resolutions have called for the
Israeli withdrawal, yet the Israeli government,
with the backing of the USA, has ignored them.
The Israeli government has appropriated
Palestinian land in open defiance of
international law and overwhelming
international condemnation.
Within the USA anyone who speaks in favor of
Palestinian rights and justice is immediately
condemned as being allegedly anti-Israel (and
frequently allegedly anti-Semitic), shutting
down legitimate discussion. A case in point can
be seen in the current furor surrounding former
President Jimmy Carter who was criticized for
his assertion in his best-selling book,
Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid, that Israeli
obstructionism lies at the root of the failure
to achieve a just Palestinian/ Israeli
settlement.
As Nobel prizewinner Archbishop Desmond Tutu
has written, "People are scared in the US, to
say 'wrong is wrong,' because the pro-Israeli
lobby is powerful--very powerful. Well, so
what? For goodness sake, this is God's world!
We live in a moral universe. The apartheid
government was very powerful, but today it no
longer exists."
Many of those who most outspokenly agree with
President Carter and Archbishop Tutu are
American Jews. And many American Jews,
including the national organization Jewish
Voice for Peace, will be among those rallying
for Palestinian rights on June 10th - as will
many other Americans, including member groups
of the leading anti-war coalition United for
Peace and Justice.
Leaders from Black America have repeatedly and
historically been among the most outspoken
proponents of justice for the Palestinian
people. Our leaders have defended the
Palestinian people's right to full self-
determination and an end to the Occupation as
central to peace in the region. Our leaders
have not criticized the Jewish people but they
have expressed outrage at the Israeli
government that collaborated with the apartheid
South African government (including in the
development of weapons of mass destruction) and
emulated South Africa's treatment of its Black
majority in its own treatment of the
Palestinian people.
As we struggle to build our country's support
for Palestinian human rights, we widen the door
for both Arab and Black Americans to deal with
the issues that join them together, as well as
those that separate them. We will help to
energize - and to heal - both communities.
June tenth and Juneteenth: will our struggles
lead the way to a new emancipation of others?
Our own integrity as a people, let alone our
own experience with massive injustice and
oppression, demand that we step forward, speak
out, and insist on a change in US policy
towards the Palestinian people. Since when have
an illegally occupied people been wrong in
demanding and fighting for their human rights
and land? Since when have such people and their
cause not been worthy of our support?
Please join us on June 10th!
Signed by (affiliation for identification
purposes only)
- Salih Booker, former Executive
Director of Africa Action
- Khephra Burns, author, editor,
playwright
- Horace G. Campbell, Professor of
African American Studies and Political Science
- Dr. Ron Daniels, President, Institute
of the Black World 21st Century
- Bill Fletcher, labor and international
activist, and writer
- George Friday, United for Peace and
Justice Co-Chair, National Coordinator,
Independent Progressive Politics Network
- Rev. Graylan Scott Hagler, Senior
Minister, Plymouth Congregational United Church
of Christ; National President, Ministers for
Racial, Social and Economic Justice of the
United Church of Christ
- Mahmood Mamdani, Herbert Lehman
Professor of Government in the Departments of
Anthropology, Political Science and Public and
International Affairs
- Manning Marable, Professor of Public
Affairs, Political Science, History and
African-American Studies
- George Paz Martin, National Co-Chair
of United for Peace and Justice and Green Party
U.S. Activist
- E. Ethelbert Miller, literary
activist; board chair, Institute for Policy
Studies
- Prexy Nesbitt, speaker and educator on
Africa, foreign policy, and racism
- Barbara Ransby, Associate Professor of
History and African-American Studies
- Cedric Robinson, Professor, Department
of Black Studies
- The Rev. Canon Edward W. Rodman
MDiv.LCH,DD. Professor of Pastoral Theology and
Urban Ministry at the Episcopal Divinity
School, Cambridge, Ma.
- Jamala Rogers, Black Radical Congress
- Don Rojas, former director of
communications for the National Association for
the Advancement of Colored People
- Zoharah Simmons, human rights activist
- Chuck Turner, Boston City Councilor
- Hollis Watkins, Former Freedom Singer
and staff member of Student Nonviolent
Coordinating Committee; human rights activist
(1961 - present)
- Dr. Cornel West
- Emira Woods, co-director, Foreign
Policy In Focus, Institute for Policy Studies
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