In less than a month, people from across the United States and beyond will be gathering at the 2010 U.S. Assembly of Jews: Confronting Racism and Israeli Apartheid (the "Assembly"). The Assembly is an historic event intended to build relationships, political clarity and Jewish anti-Zionist organizing and activism. It takes place at a time when recognition of the brutal nature of the State of Israel is growing, and increasing numbers of people are compelled to challenge its impunity. To date, the Assembly has over forty endorsers, anticipates two hundred participants, and has gained the interest of Palestinian, Palestinian solidarity and anti-racist movements in the United States, as well as the attention of mainstream Jewish media.

Given the stated purposes of the Assembly, we are expecting challenges to be leveled against it. IJAN, the main organizer of the Assembly, is already receiving criticism based on inaccurate assumptions or apparently different political goals. With this momentous event upon us, we would like to take a moment to make clear the principles, positions and goals of the Assembly and help correct or prevent misconceptions.

The United States Palestinian Community Network (USPCN) and IJAN will go on a three-city tour of Oregon this weekend.  Speaking engagements will be held in Eugene, Portland and Corvallis.  The tour is sponsored by the Al-Nakba Awareness Project.

Click here to read an article by the IJAN speaker published in the Register Guard Newspaper, the second largest newspaper in Oregon. 

One year after Gaza. What happened? What's next?
What can we do now?

Monadel Herzallah from the U.S. Palestine Community Network and founder/president of the Arab American Union Members Council

Rebecca Tumposky, U.S. Coordinator for the International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network

The presentation will demonstrate how Palestinian and Jewish activists can appropriately work together for human rights without giving an appearance of normalcy or parity of suffering.

Eugene, Thursday, Feb. 25, 7-9 P.M.

The Knight Browsing Room in the University of Oregon's Knight Library,  1501 Kincaid Eugene, OR 97403-1299.

Portland, Friday, Feb. 26, 7-9 P.M.

Smith Memorial Student Union, Room 298
Portland State University
1825 SW Broadway
Portland OR 97201

Corvallis, Saturday Feb 27 7-9 P.M.

Unitarian-Universalist Fellowship,
 2945 NW Circle Blvd., Corvallis OR 97330

Free, donations gratefully accepted.

Sponsored by
Al-Nakba Awareness Project
Advocating Freedom, Justice & Equality in the Holy Land

Co-sponsors to date:
Arab Student Union, UO
Al-Awda Oregon
Peace Action Council Corvallis Unitarian
Corvallis Veterans For Peace
Friends of Middle East Peace Group, Corvallis/Albany
June Kenagy
Bob Stebbins
Milton Takei
Peter Chabarek
Dave Evans

As IJAN’s work in the United States has grown, so has interest in the network. In New York City, activists identifying with IJAN are working on events, demonstrations and in partnership with local Palestine solidarity and BDS organizations. NYC IJAN activists are also involved in national and international work.

On October 7, 2009, DC activists launched IJAN D.C. with an event, The Politics and Strategic Role of Jewish Anti-Zionist Organizing Within the Broader Struggle for Liberation, at the Emergence Community Arts Collective. The emerging DC chapter is interested in participation in BDS campaigns, in developing anti-Zionist Jewish discourse, labor organizing and forming a local study group. 

Then on October 25, 2009, there was a meeting of Jewish activists interested in IJAN in Atlanta, Georgia. Activists were interested in forming a loose network to do work in the name of IJAN and in lending IJAN’s name to local Palestine solidarity activities. Finally, there is interest in participation in IJAN from activists in New Orleans who are already involved in anti-Zionist Jewish activism.  

If you are interested in affiliating, collaborating or building with IJAN in the United States, please contact us at .

IJAN US is represented on the National Planning Committee of the US Social Forum. In this role IJAN is supporting the overall coordination, outreach for, and organizing toward the Social Forum, and to support the integration of anti-Zionist, anti-racist and internationalist politics and organizing across the Social Forum. IJAN is working most actively on the Program and Culture Committee, the People’s Movement Assembly Committee, and the International Committee.

The US Social Forum (USSF) which will be held in Detoit, MI June 22-26, 2010 “is more than a conference, more than a networking bonanza, more than a reaction to war and repression. The USSF will provide space to build relationships, learn from each other's experiences, share our analysis of the problems our communities and movements face, and bring increased strength, unity, and renewed insight and inspiration. It will help develop leadership and develop consciousness, vision, and strategy needed to realize another world.” 

IJAN’s role in the USSF process brings our Jewish anti-Zionist voice into the conversation and allows us to build our relationships outside of our explicit Jewish anti-Zionist network. In addition to the pre-USSF anti-Zionist Jewish Convening that IJAN is part of organizing, we will participate in the building of a Justice for Palestine, Confronting Islamophobia and BDS series at the Social Forum.

IJAN organizers officially launched the Campus and Student Network this past September, which will be a space for connecting Jewish anti-Zionist activism across campuses, as well as sharing news, resources, and discussion.

We hope to expand the student network as a place to connect and unite Jewish anti-Zionist, anti-racist, anti-imperialist student activists doing Palestine solidarity organizing. The network will be a place for building the leadership of campus organizers working on Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions campaigns, standing in defense of academics critical of Zionism/Israel, and expanding anti-Zionist political analysis and activism for ourselves and within our organizations.

Similarly, the network will be a forum for Jewish anti-Zionist student activists to share news, create and distribute resources, strategize and discuss the implications of doing anti-Zionist work as Jewish students. At this point, IJAN student organizers are focused on making the US anti-Zionist Convening in Detroit a space to bring anti-Zionist Jewish student activists together to discuss and build the network into its potential, so we're intent on publicizing the Convening to as many student activists as possible. If you would like to get involved in Campus and Student Network organizing for the US anti-Zionist Jewish Convening, please contact us at !

Demonstrators at the first World Conference Against Racism held in Durban, South Africa in 2001.

The United Against Racism Coalition, an allied call to end the US boycott of the World Conference Against Racism and for genuine justice for Palestine, issued an open letter to the Obama Administration urging United States participation in the upcoming United Nations Durban Review of the World Conference against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance (WCAR), to be held in Geneva, Switzerland April 20 - 24.

The United Against Racism coalition consists of a broad range of individuals and organizations concerned with the application of civil and human rights protections for immigrants and the communities of Arab, Indigenous, Jewish, African, and Latin descent within the US. The open letter calls on President Obama to apply his campaign themes of hope, change and renewed international diplomacy to this global forum to address issues of racial injustice domestically and internationally.

This letter reflects a growing coalition of grassroots Palestinian, immigrant and indigenous rights, and racial and economic justice organizations who are committed to building a united struggle against racism at home and abroad.

Please add your individual signatures and organizational endorsements to this letter by clicking here: http://www.unitedagainstracism.net/

We can then also include you and your organization as this effort continues to build.

Yours,

United Against Racism Coalition, adhoc coordinating committee:

Cindy Wiesner, national organizer, Grassroots Global Justice
Darryl Johnson, staff, American Friends Service Committee
Gabriel Camacho, staff, American Friends Service Committee
Jaime Veve, organizer, NYC Transit Workers Union
Kali Akuno, national organizer, Malcolm X Grassroots Movement
Mariana Viturro, co-director, St. Peter's Housing Committee
Merrie Najimy, staff American-Arab anti-Discrimination Committee
Monadel Herzallah, national organizer, USPCN
Monamie Maulik, staff, Desis Rising Up & Moving
Nadeen Elshorafa, member, Arab Resource and Organizing Center
Noura Erakat, national coordinating committee member, USPCN
Rabab Ibrahim Abdulhadi-AMED, professor, San Francisco State University
Sara Kershnar, international organizer, IJAN
Tammy Luu Bang, organizer, Labor Community Strategy Center

In response to the call for escalating actions against Israel's attacks on Gaza, the US Palestinian Community Network (USPCN) and the International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network are collaborating in the United States.

If you are in the United States and would like to participate, contact information is below.

Internationally, IJAN encourages the creation of similar calls to action.

The U.S. Palestinian Community Network (USPCN) and the International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network (IJAN) are calling for joint action.

Israel's horrifying attacks on Gaza come at the close of the Bush regime and at the onset of the Obama administration. Congress has declared the attacks an act of self-defense by Israel. Nothing can be more untrue as the death toll of Palestinians creeps to 800 and the injured to more than 3,000.

The need for escalating coordinated action against racist US policies here and abroad coincides with the potential for change that Obama's presidency represents.

Palestinians and anti-Zionist Jews are calling for joint action. We are raising our united voices of outrage and grief against 60 years of occupation and ethnic cleansing. We are taking collective action in solidarity with and as part of more than 60 years of Palestinian struggle.

We are also co-organizing forums to assert Palestinian and anti-Zionist Jewish narratives and visions of liberation united with grassroots movements for racial justice and immigrant and indigenous rights.

Join us in taking another step toward a united front against racism!

1. Organize and participate in Palestinian/Jewish anti-Zionist joint actions with immigrant, indigenous and people of color communities
2. Organize and participate in forums, teach-ins and workshops to assert Palestinian and anti-Zionist Jewish narratives in joint struggle
3. Organize joint flyering at and messaging for protests
4. Organize delegations to local representatives and pass local resolutions
5. Tell us about it: email us at the contact information below

For more information or to participate, please contact us:

USPCN email:

IJAN email: