The US Palestinian Community Network calls on Palestinian students in the U.S. to take a leadership role in the efforts to convene the Second Popular Palestinian Conference, Palestine: One Land, One People, One Destiny: Together, Restoring our National Institutions, Reclaiming our Rights, Empowering our Community, which will be held is on October 29-31, 2010 in Chicago. The Conference’s primary goal is to empower our community in the U.S. to become effective participants in the Palestinian people’s struggle for freedom, self-determination and the return of the refugees to their original towns and villages. This is only possible by developing a democratic, inclusive, and nonpartisan association of Palestinian Arab students in the U.S.
The Second Popular Conference, like its predecessor, represents a response to the fragmentation that befell the Palestinian people and cause as a result of a host of objective and subjective factors. It is an attempt to bolster the Palestinian national struggle by reconstructing the shattered Palestinian body politic in the Diaspora, including the U.S. There is a strong correlation between the effectiveness of Palestine-related political activism in the U.S., on the one hand, and the existence of sector-based national Palestinian American institutions or networks, e.g. students, youth, women, artists, professional, etc…, on the other.
Historically, grassroots and popular institutions played a major role in mobilizing, organizing, and raising the national consciousness of major segments of the Palestinian population both prior to and after the establishment of the PLO. In fact, the establishment of the PLO should be viewed, not as the beginning of the first chapter in the reemergence of the Palestinian national movement during the post-Nakba period, but as the culmination of grassroots efforts, particularly by Palestinian students, during the 1950s and 1960s.
In the upsurge in organizing in response to the massacre against the Freedom Flotilla to Gaza, as in the response to the Israeli criminal siege and war on Gaza, Palestinian students in the U.S. have been in the forefront, organizing protests, fundraisers and activities. It is more crucial than ever that our work be coordinated and strong.
Students continue to constitute the backbone of the Palestinian struggle. Therefore, it is crucial that Palestinian students participate in shaping all aspects of the Popular Conference, restore their unifying national institutions, and bring together the Palestinian community in the U.S. Students who are interested in participating in organizing the conference’s students and youth tracks of the conference, please write to [email protected].
Together we will restore our national institutions, reclaim our rights, and empower our community.
Organizing Committee
U.S. Popular Palestinian Conference
