"What Israel is doing to the Palestinian people is unjust and has to be stopped," said Bilal Iddin, a junior at Howard University, who was one of about 30 students who attended the conference from several campuses in the Washington area. He and others at Howard have been active in organizing a range of activities, from a conference on Palestine, to protests against police brutality, and against the U.S. war on Iraq.

One of the first motions passed by the conference condemned the U.S. war against Iraq. Another resolution called for an April 9, 2003, National Day of Action to commemorate the massacre of Deir Yassin, demanding university divestment from companies that fund Israel. The resolution states: "Divestment and the end to U.S. aid to Israel are unequivocally a means rather than an end in our solidarity movement, and the ultimate struggle for self-determination lies with the Palestinian people themselves."

Several of the workshops and plenary sessions discussed the question of how to achieve peace in the Middle East. The solution posed by the majority of speakers is to fight for the formation of two states in the region, Israel and Palestine. In a workshop on the right of Palestinians to return to their homeland, participants discussed a proposal for a single country, containing a state of Israel, a state of Palestine, and the District of Jerusalem. Many of the panelists and participants in the conference equated Israel with the apartheid state of South Africa, overthrown in a decades-long revolutionary struggle led by the African National Congress.

Sami Al-Arian, a professor at the University of South Florida (USF) in Tampa, spoke on a panel on academic freedom. He said the struggle of 6 million Palestinian refugees must be heard as part of the divestment campaign. "Their cause should be championed as the United States prepares for a second Gulf War," he added. Al-Arian, whose parents were driven from Palestine in 1948, was suspended by the USF administration in September 2001 because of his support for the Palestinian struggle. He has led a national campaign to protest the university’s trumped-up charges that he is "linked to terrorism."

Several participants expressed interest in attending the 13th congress of the Continental Organization of Latin American and Caribbean Students (OCLAE), which is taking place in Guadalajara, Mexico, from November 29 to December 2.

The Michigan Student Zionists, a campus group, attacked the Ann Arbor gathering, claiming it was anti-Semitic and would promote terrorism and violence. They held a counter-rally on campus during the week leading up to the conference.

Two of these students filed a suit against the university demanding the conference be canceled. Washtenaw County Circuit Court judge Melinda Morris denied their request for a temporary restraining order to stop the conference. The lawsuit alleged that speakers such as Al-Arian spread hate and may provoke violent acts on campus. The Zionists organized a protest outside the Michigan League while the conference proceeded as planned. Spokespeople for Students Allied for Freedom and Equality announced to a news conference on the first day that the three-day event would stand up for justice and not be silenced, and that they had no intention of promoting anti-Semitic, terrorist, or violent actions.

Socialist Workers candidates Michael Fitzsimmons, who is running for lieutenant governor in Ohio, and Don Mackle, the SWP candidate for governor of Michigan, participated in the conference. Their supporters set up a table in the literature display area of the gathering.

"Zionism justifies the chauvinist concept that Israel is a homeland for Jews from all over the world. It justifies the expansionist policies of Israel, which was created in 1948 at the expense of more than a million Palestinians who were killed, thrown into camps, or exiled in other countries," stated Fitzsimmons to several students clustered around the socialist campaign literature table.

Fitzsimmons described Zionism as a death trap for all Jews, not just those in Israel. "The road to peace for Jews living in Israel and around the world," he said, "is to link with those forces, including the Palestinians, who are fighting to overthrow imperialism and establish a new society based on the majority, where neither racism, nor Zionism, nor anti-Semitic prejudice will serve any purpose. Overturning the Israeli government will open the door for the working people to forge a democratic, secular Palestine in which Muslims, Jews, Christians, and other people can live together."  
 
 
Front page (for this issue) | Home | Text-version home