August/September 2005

http://alawda.newjerseysolidarity.org

Read the past issues of Al-Awda - Voices of Resistance and Liberation newspaper!

May 2005
June/July 2005

GAZA: OCCUPATION CONTINUES, RESISTANCE CONTINUES

New Jersey Solidarity - Activists for the Liberation of Palestine is appalled and disgusted to see the praise accorded to the Zionist occupation regime and Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, notorious butcher of Sabra and Shatila, for "pursuing peace" with the so-called "disengagement" from Gaza....

As I read the mainstream coverage of the Gaza "disengagement," I knew I was supposed to take pity on the "poor" settlers who were being cautiously cajoled from their illegally occupied homes....

"Israeli" Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, reviled internationally as a war criminal for his leading role in numerous massacres of Palestinians, from Qibya in 1956 to Sabra and Shatila in 1982 to Jenin in 2002, and continuing to this day, will, nevertheless, be speaking before the United Nations General Assembly in New York City on Thursday, September 15....

Abu Ali Mustafa was a Palestinian leader who lived and died defending the Palestinian cause and the rights of the Palestinian people. Four years ago today (August 27, 2001), a U.S-made Israeli army Apache helicopter fired two missiles into his office, blowing him to pieces. This was one of many targeted assassinations of Palestinian leaders....

Liberation movements must have steadfast allies to succeed. Most successful revolutionary and liberation struggles have cadres of allies who have facilitated the march to freedom and self-determination. The most noteworthy examples in the modern era have been South Africa, Cuba and Vietnam....

Recently the U.S. Labor Against War coalition sponsored a tour of the Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions, which generated some debate within the American antiwar movement. At the heart of the controversy was IFTU's not-so-veiled cooperation with the occupation....

he so-called disengagement from Gaza is unfolding like a carefully staged drama, accompanied by an orange-bedecked settler chorus. The military units slated to move the settlers are undergoing intensive preparatory psychological training lest they accidentally react with their usual brutality against recalcitrant Gaza settlers during the evacuation process....

Combining the spirit of June Jordan, Amiri Baraka, and the Last Poets with the heart and soul of Nat Turner, Sitting Bull and the Black Panthers, Atlanta-based Amir Sulaiman may be the most dangerous poet alive. His words offer an intense vision of liberation and sacrifice, struggle and freedom, anger and hope, passion and faith....

They kill our children. Military and police sharpshooters hunt our children like animals. Does this sound familiar? They buy our leaders, and if they can't buy them they assassinate them. They buy collaboration....

I recently had occasion to talk with a professor at a well-known human rights center on the subject of Palestine. Although the center claims to derive its mandate from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights - a declaration whose very title insists on universal application - I quickly found that the professor's commitment to universality grew less firm when the rights in question belong to Palestinians....

Beirut, Bourj el-Barajneh- September 16, 1982 - I was 16 year old when I first heard about the Sabrah and Shateelah Massacre. It was a sunny and muggy morning, a typical September day in Beirut, and I was on my way out of Uthman Pharmacy in Bourj el- Barajneh....

Being a Palestinian in the US, one is often rendered invisible within the mainstream landscape of the American society. Much of what is known about my people is often guided by misinformation and biased misconceptions orchestrated by the mainstream media....

"Palestinians killed" "IDF fires upon peaceful demonstration" "Army grabs hundreds more dunams of Palestinian land" "Palestinian children attacked by settlers on their way to school" "Palestinian village placed under curfew" You will seldom find these headlines in the mainstream U.S. media, but headlines such as these are available elsewhere on a daily basis....

MOn August 10, 2005, New Jersey Solidarity - Activists for the Liberation of Palestine hosted Shereen Al Araj, an activist from Wallajah, Palestine, at an informal dinner discussion. Shereen works is a volunteer at Ansar children center in Wallajah working with Palestinian youth....

As major American newspapers proclaim an end to the occupation of Gaza on the front pages of their papers, the reality on the ground is quite a different story. The occupation of Gaza remains and will continue to be as present as ever even after the Jewish colonies are vacated....

The sentencing hearing for Sheikh Mohammed al-Moayad on Thursday, July 28 illustrated clearly the political nature of the persecution of the sheikh and his assistant and co-defendant, Mohammed Zayad, and the lengths to which the U.S. government will go to justify their campaigns of intimidation and harassment....

The 16th World Youth Festival was held in Caracas, Venezuela earlier this month. Over twenty thousand delegates from 140 countries met for peace, solidarity, and against imperialism....

Updates on the Al-Arian Trial

The strange trial of Dr. Al-Arian continued on Monday, August 8, at 9:00 a.m. with the ongoing "Reader's Theatre," as role-playing prosecutors read the translations of wiretapped telephone conversations from 1994....

Throughout the trial of Dr. Sami al-Arian, many observers have noted that the goverment has been giving jurors a distorted, inaccurate and biased representation of the situation in Palestine....

On July 23, 2005, the Labor for Palestine (LFP) campaign held its first national convention in Chicago on the issues of Palestine, labor and the National AFL-CIO....

Israel's "Disengagement" Plan (even as revised on May 30, 2004) repeats the mistakes of the Oslo Accords: Israel redeploys from heavily populated Palestinian areas while still maintaining military and economic control over those areas....

Naji Al-Ali was born in 1936 in the Palestinian village of Ash Shajara. In 1948, Ash Shajara was one of the 480 villages destroyed in what is known as the "Nakba," or catastrophe....

Naji Al-Ali was born in 1936 in the Palestinian village of Ash Shajara. In 1948, Ash Shajara was one of the 480 villages destroyed in what is known as the "Nakba," or catastrophe....