Banner year for USPCN

From the successful national tour of Wishah and spearheading Rasmea’s defense campaign to boycotting Coke and promoting Palestinian support for #BlackLivesMatter, 2015 was a banner year for the United States Palestinian Community Network (USPCN).

Please make your tax-deductible donation now, and help us move toward funding a national office in 2016!

USPCN ended the year by celebrating the great success of the Wishah Popular Palestinian Dance Troupe, which toured the U.S. for the second time ever, stopping in San Francisco, Anaheim, Milwaukee, and DC.  Performing for a combined 2,300 people, the incredibly talented young Palestinians—all from the Ramallah region of occupied Palestine—used the art of debkeh dance, a long-time cultural expression of resistance for the Palestinian people, to evoke times past and aspirations for a liberated future. The women in the troupe even organized a makeshift workshop at the Maryland Avenue Montessori School in Milwaukee (left).

The Milwaukee event’s proceeds specifically supported the medical treatment of Ahmad Dawabsheh, the 4-year-old brother of #BabyAli, who was burned alive and killed, along with his parents, by Israeli settlers this summer.

Other new chapters did some very inspiring work as well, as USPCN-Detroit hosted the Rasmea Defense Committee many times throughout a very trying year in which she was unjustly convicted and continued to fight for her freedom. Mass, national mobilizations—led by USPCN and the Committee to Stop FBI Repression—played a major role in keeping her out of prison as we continue to organize while waiting for the 6th Circuit Court’s decision on appeal.

Detroit’s USPCN chapter also played a leading role in helping to organize its local Ramallah Club’s Palestine Cultural Day, while our inimitable George Khoury (below) was later honored with a lifetime achievement award.

USPCN-Minnesota worked closely with the Twin Cities’ Anti-War Committee (AWC) to organize our first #CokeFreeZone event in April, announcing that a building in Minneapolis would join USPCN’s Boycott Coke campaign and no longer sell Coca-Cola products there (the building owner is flanked by USPCNers Jehad Adwan and Maher Alrai, left).  In the same month, activists in Atlanta, who would go on to form another new USPCN chapter, protested the Coca-Cola shareholders’ meeting on a cold, rainy morning (right).

In addition, USPCN provided political support to the Friends of Sabeel-North America (FOSNA) Midwest regional conference in the Twin Cities, as well as securing a great local debkeh troupe and musician.

Veteran USPCN members in DC joined with many others to protest the war criminal, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, when he visited the U.S. for a series of events.  And we are proud to give a shout out to a DC chapter co-founder, Noura Erakat, who was one of Harvard Law School’s featured honorees in the International Women’s Day Portrait Exhibit.

Finally, back in 2014, USPCN was one of the primary leaders of the Palestine Contingent at the “Weekend of Resistance” in support of the Black community in Ferguson, and that work led to the strengthening of relationships with #BlackLivesMatter organizations across the country in 2015. As the most important U.S. social movement in decades continues to expand, Palestinians everywhere are calling for police accountability and an end to police violence against Black people.  Our perspective on the Baltimore uprising is one of the seminal statements on Palestinian-Black unity in 2015, and the Chicago chapter of USPCN organizes tirelessly with the Chicago Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression to enact a Civilian Police Accountability Council (CPAC).

Our work is important, and so is your support. Most of this year’s successes were due to solid strategic planning at our April retreat. We expect to organize another one early in 2016, and want to make bigger and better plans, including the aforementioned opening of a national office. Please make a generous tax-deductible donation, and help support our organizing to end Israeli occupation and colonization of all Arab lands, and to win our Liberation and Return!

In Struggle,

USPCN
National Coordinating Committee
December 28, 2015