Legal and Political Strategies to Support the Liberation of Palestine

This year marks the 60th anniversary of the Nakba in Palestine. The Nakba is the term used to describe the establishment of the State of Israel on Palestinian land based on occupation and genocide. Palestinians resisted then and now, and continue to fight for their rights of self-determination, mirroring struggles for self-determination by indigenous brothers and sisters around the world.

On this 60th anniversary year of the Nakba, Palestine solidarity activists around the world have organized activities reaffirming their commitment to moving forward in a concrete way towards the ultimate liberation of Palestine. This major panel proposal seeks to have the NLG be part of this commemoration, by framing the solidarity discussion for the Guild – an organization of legal activists – in terms of solid and concrete legal and political activities to support Palestinian liberation, based on real work done by sisters and brothers in the movement.

This panel will bring together legal and political activists who have used the arena of the law in conjunction with organizing work to effectively challenge the occupation of Palestine. The aim of the panel is both to educate NLG members about the work being done in the movement, as well as to provide practical legal and political steps that can be taken to dismantle the Zionist occupation of Palestine.

The NLG has, as its core mission, the objective of being a legal movement in the service of the people. As a radical, legal organization based in the United States, the NLG has a particular obligation to commit its support and solidarity to indigenous self-determination movements that the U.S. government works so diligently to squash, using weapons funded by our tax money. The occupation of Palestine touches on so many of the NLG’s core struggles, including addressing racism, classism, sexism, U.S. imperialism, and militarization.

In 2006, one of the major panels at the NLG convention was entitled “Occupation and Resistance in Iraq, Lebanon, and Palestine.” Since then, the nature of support for Palestine, and the movement to condemn Zionism as a form of racism, has been at the center of many NLG discussions. This panel seeks to build on that work, particularly in light of the 60 year anniversary of the Nakba, to propose concrete legal strategies for dismantling the Zionist occupation and ending the genocide.

In addition, because of the central focus of the anti-Zionism and pro-Palestine discussions in the NLG, many NLG members look for concrete ways to support Palestine solidarity work. This panel helps provide such strategies.

The subjects that may be discussed include (but are not limited to) the following: Legal support for a comprehensive boycott of Israel, Expelling Israel from the United Nations and other measures in the international arena, Litigating against Israel and Israeli officials for genocide, Use of Israel’s human rights violations to aid asylum seekers in the U.S., Addressing movement building in the U.S., including dealing with internalized Zionism and prioritizing the voices of Palestinians, Litigation in Israel’s courts by Palestinian organizations.

PROPOSED SPEAKERS: Proposed speakers include, but are not limited to, the following:

Toufic Haddad. Toufic Haddad is a Palestinian American activist who was formerly co-editor with Tikva Honig-Parnass of the Jerusalem-based magazine Between the Lines. He co-wrote the book, Between the Lines, with Dr. Parnass. It was published by Haymarket Books. Toufic can speak, in particular, about apartheid conditions in Palestine today, and the need for a strong and cohesive boycott of Israel.

Nimer Sultany. Nimer Sultany has worked as a human rights lawyer in the Association for Civil Rights in Israel and as the head of the political monitoring project at Mada al-Carmel (the Arab centre for applied social research).

Nadine Naber. Nadine Naber is an Assistant Professor in the Program in American Culture and the Department of Women’s Studies and an Adjunct Professor in the Department of Anthropology. She is also a co-founder of INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence. She is currently writing a book entitled, De-Orientalizing Diaspora: Race, Gender, and Cultural Identity among Arab American Youth in San Francisco, California. Nadine is co-editor, with Amaney Jamal, of the book, From Invisible Citizen to Visible Subject: Arab American Engagements with Race before and after September 11th (Syracuse University Press, Fall 2007). She is co-editor, with Rabab Abdulhadi and Evelyn Alsultany, of Gender, Nation, and Belonging, a special issue of the MIT On Line Journal of Middle East Studies on Arab American Feminisms. She is co-founder of the Arab Women's Solidarity Association, North America (cyber AWSA); Arab Movement of Women arising for Justice (AMWAJ) and Arab Women’s Activist Network (AWAN) and a former board member of Incite! Women of Color against Violence; Racial Justice 9-11; and the Women of Color Resource Center.

Lana Habash. Palestinian activist and member of the New England Committee to Defend Palestine.

Lamis Deek. Practicing attorney, active with Al-Awda-NY Arab community organizing. In August of 2007, Al Awda-NY and the Palestine Solidarity Group of Chicago organized a Delegation of Attorneys and Activists from New York, Chicago, and Ireland. Lamis led this delegation. The delegates are currently preparing to produce film, documentation and legal analysis of the Zionist Occupation and its impact on Palestine. The legal documents will be used to support Palestinian Asylum Applicants and Palestinian Political Prisoner Cases in the US.

Jamil Dakwar. Jamil Dakwar is the Advocacy Director and head of the ACLU's Human Rights Program. Dakwar was a senior attorney with Adalah, one of the most prominent human rights groups in Israel focusing on Arab Palestinian citizens. At Adalah, Dakwar filed and argued dozens of human rights cases before the Israeli Supreme Court, and advocated before international bodies

Charlotte Kates. Attorney with the Center for Constitutional Rights (used for reference only), active with NJ Solidarity for the Liberation of Palestine & Al Awda. Also attended August 2007 Attorney-Activist delegation to Palestine.