Resolution on Palestine at United Antiwar Conference

The following resolution on Palestine was passed at the United Antiwar Conference in Albany, New York, convened by the National Assembly against U.S. Wars and Occupations and co-sponsored by 31 national organizations.Al-Awda NY participated actively in the conference, and presented in two workshops; Al-Awda’s representatives joined many other organizations in the conference’s Palestine Solidarity Caucus.

Al-Awda NY member Andrew Pollack wrote an article analyzing and discussing the conference that may be read at the Palestine Chronicle: Palestine Takes Center Stage in the Antiwar Movement by Andrew Pollack.

Resolution on Palestine, Passed by the United Antiwar Conference (UNAC), July 23-25, 2010, Albany, New York

Whereas:

When antiwar movements in the U.S. have been at their best, they have been motivated not only by opposition to the blood shed and the money wasted in unjust wars, but also by opposition to the violation of the right of self-determination suffered by the peoples against whom such wars have been waged.

This principle requires the antiwar movement take further steps in putting the rights of Palestinians, and opposition to US support for Israeli violations of their rights and war waged against them, at the center of our discussions, our demands, and our activities.

This dire need has also been made both more necessary, and more possible, by the horrific and criminal attack by Israel on the people of Gaza in 2008-2009, which opened further the eyes of billions around the world to the crimes of the Zionist regime.

Our government’s support for the apartheid regime in Israel is part and parcel of its “war on terror,” and more broadly of its centuries-long string of wars and occupations designed to extend and maintain U.S. economic and strategic dominance. $3 billion in U.S. aid go every year to maintaining a regime founded on the ethnic cleansing of the vast majority of Palestinians from their land and homes, who are still denied their inherent right to return. This aid also goes to permit continued land theft and ethnic cleansing, discrimination and imprisonment, and violations of civil and political liberties. And it goes for such military aggressions as the attacks on Lebanon in 2006, on Gaza in 2008-9, for the murder of humanitarian aid activists on board the recent Free Gaza flotilla, and the threats of military attack, including the possibility of using nuclear weapons, against Iran.

Our government’s responsibility for these crimes does not end with the dollars in aid given. It extends also to the training carried out by US General Keith Dayton of security forces used to repress dissent by Palestinians, as well as to the technical and personnel aid given to Egypt to help build a wall to try to stop goods being carried through tunnels to Gaza to break the Israeli blockade.

US support extends further to diplomatic support for that blockade, to diplomatic support for Israel’s refusal to address any of the Palestinians’ just demands, to blocking any UN rulings against Israel, and to giving diplomatic cover to phony Israeli “peace initiatives.”

Washington’s support also includes labeling of forces resisting occupation – such as Hamas and Hezbollah – as “terrorists.” 87 Senators recently demanded that the Turkish charity IHH be added to the “terrorist list.” In all cases this is a clear violation of the rights of the peoples of the region to decide for themselves who to support in their fight against aggression and occupation. And the list is also used to suppress dissent within the US against Washington and Tel Aviv’s policies – a suppression taken a very dangerous step further by the Supreme Court’s recent ruling in the Holder case outlawing virtually every form of contact, even promoting nonviolence or support for charitable work, with any group on the list.

For all these reasons, this Conference Resolves:

** To end all US aid to Israel, which is key to achieving the following points on which we are resolved;

** To condemn the murders of humanitarian aid activists on board the Mavi Marmara ship, the beatings and detention of flotilla activists, and the illegal seizure of ships in the Free Gaza flotilla in international waters. We further resolve to publicize and support future aid flotillas and convoys, and to strongly protest any aggression against them that may occur;

** To endorse the call of Palestinian Civil Society, as expressed in its July, 2005 Call, signed by hundreds of Palestinian refugees, human rights and cultural organizations and unions, to support a world-wide campaign of “Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) against Israel Until it Complies with International Law and Universal Principles of Human Rights”.

** To support the annual international Israeli Apartheid Week in March calling for Solidarity in Action: Boycotts, Divestment and Sanctions.

** To urge all organizations and individuals to mobilize in protest against any military attacks launched by Israel, whether against Palestinians inside pre-1967 Israel, in the West Bank or Gaza; against Lebanon or Iran.

** To call for the release of all 11,000 Palestinian political prisoners held in Israeli jails. We further resolve to call for the release of all Muslim and Arab prisoners held on US soil or in US bases abroad (Guantanamo, Baghram etc.) who are victims of pre-emptive prosecutions as part of Washington’s anti-Muslim, anti-Arab war propaganda;

** To demand that Israel end its illegal occupation of the West Bank, Gaza, and E. Jerusalem, remove all settlements, and dismantle the Apartheid Wall, declared illegal by the International Court of Justice.

** To reject the apartheid-like practices of discrimination against Palestinians, including denial of their right to return to their homes, both in the territories seized in 1967 and in pre-1967 Israel. We call for full equality for the Palestinian citizens of Israel, which means the dismantling of all laws that discriminate against non-Jewish citizens, and which violate international law and UN resolutions seeking to enforce that law on behalf of the Palestinians;

** To demand the immediate end of the siege of Gaza. This means a total end of all Israeli attempts to interfere in any way with the free movement of goods and people, no matter what or who they may be, in and out of Gaza, whether by land, sea or air, and no matter their destination or point of origin.

** To encourage the antiwar and other social movements to continue education on the linkage between Washington’s anti-Palestinian policy and its other wars and support for occupation abroad and exploitation and oppression at home. In this regard we second the points made in the document approved by the 15,000 in attendance at the recent US Social Forum: “. . .for an end to U.S. interventions and occupations in Palestine, Haiti, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia, Colombia, etc . . .We call on all organization and social movements to boycott, divest and sanction the Israeli apartheid state and the institutions the support it.”

** To support the U.S. BOAT TO GAZA., THE AUDACITY OF HOPE, which will be part of the next Freedom Flotilla as part of the international effort to break the blockade of Gaza and to end the occupation of Palestine.

** To work with all forces anywhere who agreed on the points in this resolution.