Following Conference’s Success, Palestine Solidarity MovementHolds National Day of Divestment Action

Washington, DC – The Palestine Solidarity Movement (PSM) held a successful National Day of Divestment Action on March 30, 2006 – otherwise known to Palestinians as Yom al-Ard, or Land Day. On this date in 1976, six unarmed Palestinian citizens of Israel were killed in the villages of Arrabeh and Sakhnin while the Israeli government expropriated their lands.

 The PSM – North America’s largest coalition of students, professionals, as well as religious and community groups advocating for the implementation of boycott and divestment strategies in order to peacefully oppose Israeli human rights violations of the Palestinian people – announced the Day of Action at the conclusion of its Fifth Annual Divestment Conference at Georgetown University (GU) on February 19, 2006.

Attracting nearly 400 student and community activists representing 90 different university and regional organizations across the continent, the 2006 conference aimed to empower participants with tools required to successfully advocate for their institutions to divest from Israel. Among the many prominent speakers featured were Sue Blackwell, British academic who led the Association of University Teachers (AUT) boycott of Israeli academic institutions earlier this year; Ali Abunimah, esteemed writer, commentator on Middle East affairs, and co-founder of The Electronic Intifada news service; as well as Philip Farah, Senior Economist and former instructor at the Lutheran School of Ramallah and Birzeit University; and Mohammad Abed, lecturer in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and activist with UW Divest from Israel Campaign.

Featured speakers, as well as attendees, contributed to the planning of the Palestine Solidarity Movement’s National Day of Divestment Action.

According to PSM Spokesperson Nadeem Muaddi, “The purpose of our call to action was to reinvigorate the divestment movement in North America. We wanted university and community activists, both here and abroad, to show their solidarity with the Palestinian people’s struggle for equality”. All groups who participated were asked to “organize any event within their communities that calls public attention to the Israeli government’s institutionalized system of ethnic discrimination against non-Jews in both the West Bank and Gaza, as well as in Israel”, added Muaddi.

Heeding the PSM’s call to action, organizations representing over twenty-six major cities throughout North America observed Land Day by calling upon local institutions to divest from companies profitingfromIsrael’svictimizationofPalestiniansociety.Amongthemanynotable universities to participate were George Washington, Columbia, Duke, Emory, and McGill. Having chosen “equality” as the unifying theme of their coordinated activities, through lectures, panel discussions, filmscreeningsandrallies,organizationsfocusedoneducatingthepublic on Israel’s military occupation and apartheid rule of Palestine.

"The overwhelming success of our National Day of Divestment Action is a testament to the continued growth of the movement for Palestinian equality” said Muaddi. “As members of international civil society, it is our duty to pressure the state of Israel to comply with relevant international laws granting Palestinians, like all people, their basic human rights. We believe that through nonviolent economic tools – such as divestment – this can be achieved, and are therefore proud to be leading this struggle in North America.”

To contact PSM write [email protected].

PSM’s updated website is: PalestineSolidarityMovement.org