May 2005

http://alawda.newjerseysolidarity.org

Al-Awda: A New Voice of Resistance and Liberation

Al-Awda newspaper, the new publication of New Jersey Solidarity-Activists for the Liberation of Palestine which will be published monthly, aims to provide an activist printed voice for the Palestinian and Arab community, to address local, national and international issues of concern to the community, and to raise awareness about the Palestinian struggle for national liberation among the public at large. Al-Awda will provide information, facts and resources that enable the building of community resources and institutions, strengthen the Palestinian movement and communicate effectively and informatively about the past, present and future of that movement and struggle.

Our publication is entitled Al-Awda because this word, Awda, embraces and exemplifies the core of the Palestinian Arab struggle for national liberation - the right to return of all Palestinian refugees to their original homes and lands, and the liberation of all of Palestine. In its linkage of liberation and return, it expresses the unified demand of the Palestinian nation in all of its constituent parts - in exile, in the West Bank and Gaza, and in Palestine 48 - for liberation and return. Since 1948, the fundamental issue of liberation in Palestine has been centered in the return of the refugees - something which the Zionist state has attempted to prevent at all costs, because the return of the refugees, with full self-determination, is antithetical to the Zionist settler colonial project of occupation of Palestinian land and the dispossession of the indigenous Palestinian Arab people. The occupation of Palestine is based upon the expulsion and dispossession of its people; it is an attack on the very existence of the Palestinian people. In sharp contradiction and confrontation to that attack, the struggle for return has ensured that ongoing existence. Through generations, in exile and at home, the Palestinian nation has lived on and fought on, maintaining its dedication to return and to undo the catastrophe of 1948.

The right of return is inextricably tied to the liberation of Palestine; one cannot be achieved without the other. Therefore, in the ongoing assaults upon the Palestinian nation, it has been the refugees and their right to return that have been on the front lines, just as the Palestinian refugees - the displaced of Palestine 48, the residents of the camps of the West Bank, Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and the Arab homeland, the millions of Palestinians in exile around the world - have always been at the forefront, leading, guiding, and defining the Palestinian national movement. The right to return movement, within North America and internationally, has continued to play this role in recent years, having been rejuvenated in the past five years of this intifada.

We have witnessed numerous attacks on the right to return. The "peace process" has served as a continuous attempt to sideline the fundamental core of the Palestinian national movement and replace that movement with a struggle for isolated Bantustans with little to no actual power, and to take the institutions of the Palestinian national movement and alter them, instead, to become subservient institutions intended only for doing the will of the occupier rather than being instruments of struggle for the Palestinian nation. We witness today, in the so-called "Geneva Accords," in comments by George W. Bush and the U.S. government, and in the continued attempts to sideline the Palestinian narrative, this assault upon Palestinian refugees and upon the right to return, an assault which seeks to place a fundamental human and national, individual and collective right on the negotiating table and declare it an "extreme" demand, and an assault which seeks to finalize the Zionist and imperialist attack upon Palestinian existence.

In this environment, a political world in which the U.S. is engaged in the colonial occupation of Iraq and threatens to expand it further while continuing its multi-billion-dollar arming and funding of the Zionist occupation of Palestine, in which Arab and Muslim communities are under assault inside the United States, and in which imperialism and racism are on the march, it is urgent and essential that the voices of resistance and liberation be heard. It is imperative that community institutions for a stage of national liberation, dedicated to the struggle for justice, be born, resurrected and rebuilt. Therefore, into this political climate comes Al-Awda newspaper, a project that aims to fulfill several critical needs. We are dedicated to serving as a tool to educate the public and mobilize the community, building the Palestinian movement and the solidarity movement with Palestine.

We will serve as a voice and an outlet for the Palestinian and Arab community, addressing issues and events of concern and interest to the community, and providing a means for organizations, individuals and movements in the community to communicate with each other and with the public. We welcome the full participation of community members in shaping and guiding Al-Awda to ensure its representativeness and relevance. We aim to serve as both an institution serving the community and a means for building insitutions that serve the community.

We also will serve as a means of educating the public about Palestine and the struggle of the Palestinian people, providing much-needed facts and information to counteract the corporate media's disinformation, propaganda and racist demonization. We will tell the truth about Palestine - its history, its present and its future. We will aim to provide educational resources and much-needed information, from historical analyses to interviews that highlight unheard voices. We will work with solidarity groups to further public education about Palestine and to build support among the people at large for the Palestinian struggle for liberation and return.

This newspaper is born of struggle, and of commitment to struggle. It aims to strengthen movements and communities, to provide a means of communication and to share relevant and necessary information. We aim to include articles that reflect the needs of our readership and welcome submissions as well as new members of our editorial collective. We will include interviews, analysis, political commentary, news reporting and cultural work. We are committed to an uncompromising vision of justice and liberation, to engagement with and service to the Palestinian and Arab community and to building solidarity with Palestine, and we invite you to become a reader and a participant in this publication.