Troops Out Now Coalition On Palestine and the September 24 antiwar protest

As TONC works to revive, and re-energize the struggle to not only end, but defeat, the colonial occupation of Iraq, we will walk every extra mile, and spare no effort in our efforts along with others to forge greater unity in the antiwar movement. The central question is, how can this best be done?

We don’t think that you can make the movement “broader” by narrowing its appeal and relevance. We believe that the idea that the movement should strive to look more white, colorless, and vapid, and that it should be fearful of looking too Arab, Black, Latin, and Asian, is a false notion. There is no power or future in a movement based on this notion. Either the composition, politics and outlook of the antiwar movement in this country is going to reflect the world, or it’s going to be little more than a irrelevant reflection of a distant past.

Clearly the focus of the movement is Iraq. But we must resist any effort to either exclude or minimize the occupation of Palestine as a focus of the movement. We must do this because the struggle for the Right to Return and against the occupation of Palestine is central to the struggle of Arab people and it is impossible to separate the Palestinian Question From Iraq. Trying to separate the occupation of Iraq from the occupation of Palestine is, to us, the same as trying to separate the struggle against the war from the struggle against racism at home.

Moreover, instead of abetting anti-Arab and Muslim racism and repression, the movement must spare no effort in facilitating the widest participation of the Arab and Muslim community in the Sept. 24 antiwar protest in Washington, and in all of our activities. The movement reached such a high water mark at the antiwar march on Washington in April 2002, when after years of struggle within the movement, the antiwar movement embraced the struggle of Palestine, and for the first time in history, the streets of the capital were filled with tens of thousands of Arabs and Muslims marching arm and arm with antiwar protesters.

The movement has moved forwards on Palestine and the Troops Out Now Coalition is determined to fight any backsliding. Our friends in the National Council of Arab Americans, as well as others in the Arab and Muslim community have engaged TONC on this important issue. We have told our friends and we want to make it clear to all that the Troops Out Now Coalition supports the call for unity in the anti-war movement for the September 24, 2005 mobilization on the basis of the political program achieved on March 20, 2004, the first anniversary of the war on Iraq. We support, as a basis of the September 24 mobilization, the Arab American and Muslim community in the political slogan: End Colonial Occupation from Iraq to Palestine to Haiti, Support the Palestinian People's Right to Return. Meaningful solidarity with the Arab and Muslim community will truly make September 24 broader and stronger. TONC believes that this is what the world wants to see, and what the Imperialists don’t want.

TONC hopes to build unity on this basis for September 24 and beyond to unleash the full mass potential of the struggle to shut the war down.