What We Believe

We want to promote discussion of Israeli apartheid/hafrada and US imperialism in the Middle East. To further solidarity abroad we support efforts to isolate the Israeli apartheid state through boycott and divestment. To further solidarity with democratic aspirations in the Middle East, we struggle against the support and justification of US imperialism.

The support for Israeli apartheid and Middle East dictatorships by US imperialism is a direct attack on the democratic movements in the Middle East as well as in the United States. The institutions of official society, such as universities and colleges, ideologically and materially support these policies. In confronting these institutions we are anchored in exactly those principles official society is not: democracy and anti-racism.

In all necessities of life everyday people can and must be self-governing. We want our peoples, and peoples of all nations to govern political, social and economic affairs. These institutions are ours, the majority of people, not the elites of official society and the ruling class.

We reject the deep-seated racist myths that all anti-colonial and anti-racist movements have had to struggle against for many centuries and continue to do so today. These movements continue to be in the forefront of democratic struggles internationally and within the imperialist centers. All criticism of these movements, like all democratic and anti-racist movements, must be made with the paramount necessity of seeing them succeed.

Western elites and official society support for Israeli apartheid is domestically tied to the history of white supremacy and they do so in the name of a war on people of color both at home and abroad. Israel’s claim to be an example of the only "democracy" in the Middle East is a thinly veiled defense of white supremacy and colonialism.

Arab and Muslim political and cultural traditions and history are rich with democratic struggle against oppression. In America, Arabs and Muslims are under constant racist attack in the communities and campuses alike. In Europe, Arabs and Muslims, like all people of color, are confronted with a rising tide of white supremacy in the form of growing fascist movements in the streets and white populism in the state. Only growing Arab and Muslim pride can be in the vanguard of a democratic humanism to overcome this barbarism.

Zionism claims that Jewish identity is synonymous with defending apartheid in Israel-Palestine, white supremacy and Western imperialism. This is historically revisionist. There is a long tradition of Jewish culture, religious and political thought from Jewish traditions and by Jews, that has explicitly rejected and struggled against all of these. Zionism attempts to ally Jewish identity with historically anti-Semitic racist European and American elites in the name of a supposed anti-racism.

The Palestinian struggle is a single one. Attempts by the Israeli, American, European or Arab regimes to divide it and its constituencies only confirms their anti-democratic character. We support ALL oppressed people in the Palestinian struggle. No sector of people can be "sacrificed" or negotiated away in the name of accepting the Israeli strategy of creating permanent ghettos of “home rule”. Strategic strengths of the Palestinian struggle are to be found in the work of Palestinian-Israeli "citizens" and Palestinian refugees.

We support the following:

Full decolonization of all land in Palestine-Israel

End of military rule in the West Bank and Gaza

End to the system of apartheid and discrimination against the indigenous Palestinian population in all of Palestine-Israel

Freedom for all political prisoners

Return of all ethnically-cleansed refugees

End of land confiscation, home destruction and pass laws

End the bantustans and Palestinian-only ghettos

The democratic example from below of the intifadas in which working people have resisted both the Palestinian Authority and bureaucratic domination by the major political parties

Democratic struggles against all Arab states and elites, whether backed by Western rulers or not, from Lebanon and the Gulf, to Iran and Sudan

Immediate withdrawal of US troops from Iraq. We must end the war that US official society has brought against ordinary Iraqis and American working-class soldiers alike

We support a democratic, anti-racist, anti-imperialist vision which questions the validity of all regimes and their rulers, including those of the United States.

We do not confront a Jewish, Arab or Muslim problem but obstacles to democracy, international and multi-racial solidarity—a concern of all peoples of good will.

A people to people foreign policy is not only the best way to organize Palestine and Middle East solidarity in America. It is the only way to ensure people empower themselves to take control of their own lives. It is essential for the preservation of the principles of democracy and anti-racism in our own communities here.