The Tayyar International Conference has been organized as part of the founding process of the Progressive National Democratic Movement (PNDM - Tayyar). The Tayyar was initiated as a positive response to the need to reform the Palestinian political system to continue the battle of national liberation and independence, and to effectively defend their legitimate rights and human dignities. Its members are from diverse backgrounds and are working within their parties or as independent activists on community and national levels. The Tayyar sides with the issues of the workers, the peasants and the poor, it struggles with the sons and daughters of our people’s middle class, and it joins forces with all those who fight corruption, which affects the interests of the overwhelming majority of our people. The Tayyar is part of the Arab and international anti-imperialist and anti-Zionist movement for a new global order. More information can be found at http://tayyar-internationalconference.blogspot.com/2009/06/declaration-of-establishment-of.html .

IJAN has submitted to the conference the following statement of support:

The International Jewish anti-Zionist Network (IJAN) is a growing network of Jews whose identities are not based on Zionism but on long histories of Jewish participation in liberation struggles from Eastern Europe and Iraq to Brooklyn. IJAN's solidarity with this conference reflects our commitment to these legacies and to our participation in current struggles against racism, colonization, and imperialism. Central to this commitment is solidarity with Arab liberation struggles against US imperialism and Zionism.

More specifically, we stand in solidarity with Tayyar's commitment to resistance and liberation through "a national progressive democratic project based on pluralism, tolerance, and openness in a society which believes in social justice, equality between men and women as well as respect for human rights and personal and collective democratic freedoms." We support this historic effort to overcome the externally orchestrated divisions of Palestinian society between people living in the West Bank, Gaza, East Jerusalem, inside of Israel and in Diaspora.

This crucial step toward building a progressive and unified Palestinian society occurs despite all efforts to prevent it.  We understand that US investment in Israel's dominance places Palestine at the center of liberation struggles in the region, and places liberation struggles within the region at the center of global struggles against Western imperialism. Israel's regional designs have historically been possible, and remain so today, only through a mutually beneficial economic and military subservience to a larger imperial interest - initially the United Kingdom and currently the United States. US military aggression in Afghanistan, the military occupation of Iraq, the escalating confrontation with Iran and the destabilization of Somalia are elements of the continuing global quest for corporate capital accumulation. We also call out the farce of democracy in the US and in Israel, where differential rights are afforded to people based on race and economic access, and we condemn their role in undermining democracies in the region and in other parts of the world. 

Our struggle is against Zionism and its manifestation in the State of Israel's historic and ongoing ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people and the confiscation of their land. We challenge and refuse to be complicit with this colonial project.  It hijacks Jewish histories of resistance. It dishonors the persecution, displacement and genocide of European Jews by using their memory to justify and perpetuate European racism and colonialism. It is responsible for the extensive displacement and alienation of Jews of Arab, Persian and African descent from indigenous identities, languages, histories, cultures and homelands. As such, Zionism and Israeli state building implicate us in the oppression of the Palestinian people and in the debasement of our own heritages, struggles for justice and alliances with our fellow human beings. 

We are committed to the liberation of Palestine. We reject the Israeli apartheid state as well as the Zionist ideology upon which it is built. We support the Right of Return and the call from Palestine for boycott, divestment and sanctions against Israel.  We condemn the atrocities Israel and its Western allies are committing in Gaza. We hold our governments accountable for their roles in the crimes against the Palestinian people, the people in the broader region, and the cost of imperialism, colonization and racism on the people living in our own countries.

IJAN is part of a growing movement of anti-Zionist Jews who are part of a growing Palestine solidarity movement that is part of an increasingly transnational anti-imperialist struggle for a new global order rising from the global south - from Palestine to Chiapas, and from Venezuela to the US/Mexico border.

IJAN is committed to participating in the on-going struggle to dismantle Zionism, Israeli apartheid and imperialism and to contributing to the building of anti-imperialist, anti-racist, internationalist, progressive movements through the following:

• Creating an independent international Jewish voice, political perspective and organizing of concerted action against Zionism in solidarity with the Palestinian struggle for liberation
• Setting an ideological pole anchored in a liberatory politic from which to counter Zionist hegemony
• Developing and increasing the participation of anti-Zionist Jews in campaign work, direct action and programs that contribute to boycott, divestment and sanctions and the dismantling of Israeli apartheid and colonization through holding our own governments responsible for their collusion with this agenda
• Extricating Jewish histories, cultures, political participation and future investments from Zionism and Israel which counters the movement of Jewish people towards conservatism in our own countries and the enlistment of Jews across the globe in imperialist projects

Though we are not there with you this weekend, we stand in solidarity with you and the vibrant popular resistance movements of our time on which you will be reflecting together-the movements of those most impacted by imperialism, globalization and environmental destruction, the struggles for indigenous land rights, immigrant and refugee rights, economic and racial justice, the rights of women and children, and labor rights. It is the enduring will of the Palestinian people for liberation and self-determination that continues to inspire these movements across the globe.

May this landmark event achieve its goal of providing a foundation for a unifying progressive vision and program for the liberation of Palestine. By doing so, you will bring increased clarity and strength to progressive movements around the world in their own quests for unification and in their solidarity with Palestine.