Don’t delay. Register today if you haven’t already for this important online forum The Palestinian Struggle for Self-Determination: Our Solidarity Today and Tomorrow” this Sunday, December 3 from 10:00 am to noon Pacific.

The discussion is a critical one at this moment. Forum speakers will address the reasoning behind and the trajectory of the path for a democratic and secular Palestine.

The event features Palestinian activists: Naji El Khatib, one of the initiators of the “Open Letter to Our Jewish Allies,” Monadel Herzalleh, a plaintiff in the Center for Constitutional Rights lawsuit against the President Biden and other members of the Biden administration, Mya Shone, long active in the Palestinian struggle for self-determination and co-author with Ralph Schoenman of several books on the history of Zionism and the Palestinian struggle, and Coral Wheeler, California Faculty Association, department representative, Cal Poly Pomona will discuss solidarity efforts within the labor movement.

There will be ample time for discussion at this forum.

What do you think?

Please register in advance for this meeting by clicking https://tinyurl.com/2k3zdmwf

Invite others as well. Consider making copies of the attached forum leaflet for wide distribution to friends and co-workers.

The 1947 Partition: Necessary Background

Note that today, November 29, is International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian people designated so by the United Nations General Assembly in 1977. November 29, however, marks the betrayal of the Palestinian people. On November 29, 1947, the United Nations General Assembly, pushed by the United States and the Soviet Union, passed Resolution 181 which partitioned Palestine despite the will of the Palestinian people — allocating the majority of the land, approximately 56% of historic Palestine, for the formation of a Jewish state and 43% for the formation of an Arab state, with international administration of Jerusalem.

Even the 43% was not turned over to the Palestinian people; it was administered by the Jordanian monarchy.In 1947, the United Nations had 57 member states. Passing the resolution required a two-thirds (66.6%) majority of “valid votes” that is not counting abstentions and absent members. The final vote was only 33 in favor (57.9%) including the Soviet Union, Poland, Ukrainian SSR, Byelorussian SSR, and Czechoslovakia. (The Ukrainian SSR and the Byelorussian SSR republics had independent status within the UN even though they were part of the Soviet Union).

Thirteen countries voted against partition (Afghanistan, India, Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Yemen, Greece, Turkey, Egypt, and Cuba). Ten countries abstained which lowered the two-thirds-majority bar required to pass the resolution. Among them were Mexico, China, United Kingdom (The UK ruled over Palestine with the British Mandate after the imperialist allocation of the defeated Ottoman Empire’s Middle Eastern territory at the end of World War I).

The land provided by partition still was not enough for the Zionists who had messianic visions of Greater Israel. They soon launched a sweeping operation of terror and massacre that led to the expulsion of 800,000 Palestinians (80% of the Palestinian population) from their towns and villages, driving them into Lebanon, Trans-Jordan, Syria, and the Gaza Strip which was then under Egyptian rule.

In 1967, the Zionists expanded their reach even further with the occupation of East Jerusalem, the West Bank from Trans-Jordan, Gaza from Egypt, and the Golan Heights from Syria. In 1982, the Zionists attempted to take over southern Lebanon from which they eventually had to withdraw most of the way.
Nor can we discount the continual settlement activity promoted by every Israeli administration (Labor and Likud alike) such that today there are 400,000 Jewish settlers in the West Bank and 220,000 in East Jerusalem, while an additional 30% of the West Bank, the fertile Jordan Valley is controlled by Israel off limits to Palestinian presence as negotiated in the Oslo Accords.

Every Palestinian militant knows first hand that the “Zionists will not leave even one centimeter for a two-state solution” and every Palestinian refugee does not want to be denied the right to return. 

The Palestinian struggle for self-determination has a long history. Hence the importance of the “Open Letter to Our Jewish Allies,” which affirms: “We aim, not to ‘evict Jews from Palestine,’ but to dismantle the so-called ‘Jewish state’ and its oppressive colonial relations of power, and to replace it with its fundamental antithesis: one democratic, secular, Palestinian state, from the river to the sea.”

This is the only viable solution to the plight of both the Jews and Arabs of Palestine. This is the program that had been enshrined in the Palestine Liberation Organization’s charter. This is the discussion that will take place at the Socialist Organizer Forum on December 3.

Today, November 29, take a step against partition and the dispossession of the Palestinian people. Please register today!at https://tinyurl.com/2k3zdmwf