Detroit is hosting the second US Social Forum this week, an event organized on the principles outlined at the World Social Forum in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in 2001.
The US Social Forum (USSF) is a movement building process...
We must declare what we want our world to look like and we
must start planning the path to get there. The USSF provides spaces to learn
from each other’s experiences and struggles, share our analysis of the problems
our communities face, build relationships, and align with our international
brothers and sisters to strategize how to reclaim our world.
This year's USSF bring together marginalized communities from across the United States to forge relationships in pursuit of building a progressive agenda. How exciting that Palestine is a major track at the events in Detroit.
Stand with Us, a pro-Israel organization, proposed a workshop at the USSF on persecution of the Lesbian, Gay, Bi-Sexual, Transgender and Queer-Inquiring (LGBTQI) community in the Arab countries and Iran while presenting Israel as a safe haven for members of that community.
Thankfully, the National Planning Committee of the USFF did not fall for the cheap "pinkwashing" that Stand With Us is engaging in. The National Planning Committee issued this statement:
[W]e are grateful for the letters and emails from our fellow social justice activists regarding a workshop being put on by the organization Stand With Us. The goals and practices of this organization violate our principles. Far from its claim to represent LGBTQI communities in the Middle East, its purpose is to defend and justify Israeli apartheid. Jewish, Palestine solidarity and queer organizations have witnessed and experienced Stand With Us disrupting events and discussion on Palestinian rights and then claiming censorship when stopped. Their presenter has claimed to speak for the “queer Middle East” when in reality he speaks only for Israel. When asked to include other voices of queers from the region, he has refused.
We agree this organization does not belong at the Forum, and should not have made it into our program. Also, the deliberate masking of the true nature of the workshop behind movement language goes against the transparency and accountability we expect from those participating in the Forum.
This victory over racism against Palestinians and Arabs at the USSF was not won by default. Many activists from the Palestinian and Jewish anti-Zionist community have been working diligently on the planning committee of the USFF to make the organizers aware of the issues affecting Palestinians. The first USFF in Atlanta in 2007 was not such a welcoming place for Palestinian solidarity activists:
At the first Forum held in Atlanta, Georgia in July 2007, no Arabs or Palestinians were invited to participate in the National Planning Committee which functions as the Forum organizing body and is comprised of US-based social justice organizations. Palestinians and their allies urged the Committee to invite Palestinian civil society leader Jamal Juma' as the plenary speaker to address US militarization in the Middle East. Juma' is a founding member of Stop the Wall and leading member of the Palestinian-led boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement. Instead, the Committee invited a liberal Zionist Jewish woman instead. In her speech to nearly 12,000 people, she called for a mutual approach among Palestinians and Israelis to embrace nonviolence and build peace. She thereby "balanced" Israeli and Palestinian narratives and portrayed the institutional discrimination, displacement, dispossession, and occupation endured by Palestinians as a product of civil war as opposed to US-backed foreign colonization. According to Sami Kitmitto, a Palestinian activist who attended the session, "the message to us was that Arabs and Palestinians were not a valued part of the Forum and there was no need for us to represent ourselves. On a panel about US imperialism, here was a speaker advocating against self-determination for Palestinians and speaking in support of imperialist efforts in Palestine."
News of the controversial speech quickly spread, especially at the Palestine Tent...the organizing hub of educational and cultural activities coordinated by Palestinian participants and their allies at the Forum. Kitmitto and the other activists decided to draft a statement to the National Planning Committee expressing their concerns regarding the ill-suited plenary speaker. The Committee responded honestly, saying that it did not know any better and in fact had confused the speaker's Hebrew name for an Arab one, thus thinking that she was Arab. As a reconciliatory gesture, the NPC invited the Palestinian activists and their supporters to read the statement before a captive audience the following night.
Since 2007, there has been consistent follow-up with the Forum organizers. Sara Kershnar, a founding member of the International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network who attended the 2007 Forum, said that the follow-up coupled with the speaker controversy strengthened NPC commitment to prioritize Palestinian participation in the organizing of the 2010 Forum. In June 2009, a Forum representative asked the US Palestinian Community Network (USPCN), a loose coalition of Palestinian individuals and institutions dedicated to building a participatory and inclusive network for the US-based Diaspora, to submit an application for membership in the National Planning Committee. The USPCN includes Palestinian individuals, organizations, and village/town-based clubs throughout the US, who share the aim of addressing and overcoming the fragmentation afflicting the Palestinian nation, affirming Palestinian national unity, and encouraging collaborative initiatives in furtherance of Palestinian self-determination. After an interview process, the USPCN's application was approved and it has been a leading organizing member of the Forum since October 2009.
Several Palestinian, Arab and Muslim organizations responded to the Planning Commmittee's decision to cancel the exploitative workshop being planned by Stand With Us saying:
We, Palestinian, Arab and Muslim activists, gathered at the US Social Forum, came together in a solid coalition with our allies from other marginalized communities of color, poor people's movements, and anti-Zionist activists, to respond to the urgent call issued by our sisters and brother in Palestine and Lebanon to cancel the Zionist workshop. The call was supported by Arab queer groups, such as SWANABAQ and by Palestinian and Arab community groups, such as the USPCN (US Palestinian Community Network), a group member of the National Planning Committee (NPC) of the US Social Forum...
This is a victory for our struggle and indeed the struggle for justice for all. This victory makes it clear that the struggle for justice in/for Palestine is an integral part of the worldwide movement for freedom, dignity, justice and peace.
Most important, several organization representing the Arab LGBT community supported the cancelling of the workshop. These organizations include Helem, ASWAT, Al-Qaws and Palestinian Queers for BDS. The groups made it clear that "racist, Zionist, colonialist and Islamophobic politics and actions are as abhorrent as the politics and practices of homophobia and therefore have no place within movements for justice."
Stand With Us issued a press release today making claims of bigotry against the USFF Planning Committtee.
This from the organization that promotes an editorial that has this to say about the blockade of food and medicine from Gaza:
The very idea of a “total and merciless” blockade “taking hostage the humanity [of Gaza]” also constitutes disinformation. We mustn’t tire of reminding others: the blockade concerns only arms and the material needed to manufacture them. It does not prevent the daily arrival, via Israel, of between 100 and 120 trucks laden with foodstuffs, medical supplies and humanitarian goods of every kind. Humanity is not “in danger” in Gaza, and it is a lie to state that people are “dying of hunger” in the streets of Gaza City.
The disinformation coming out of Stand With Us has been exposed. Kudos to the USFF organizers for recognizing it and taking a strong stand against racism and injustice.