Stop the Wall Campaign

By Alisa Pimentel

Among the almost 20,000 activists gathered in Detroit for the US Social Forum this week are several Grassroots International partners and allies. Grassroots International regularly provides funding to our partners and allies to participate in movement-building and leadership development gatherings.

Former Grassroots International Board member and current Board member of the U.S. Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation, Bill Fletcher Jr. recently blogged on CNN.com about the "frequent tendency to misrepresent the lessons of [the U.S. black freedom] movement and apply them to other social movements overseas in a way that misses the mark.

After suffering more than a month in detention without charges, Jamal Juma’, the coordinator of the Stop the Wall Campaign has been released by Israeli authorities.  A Grassroots International partner, Stop the Wall is a coalition of Palestinian non-governmental organizations and neighborhood committees that work to halt the construction of, and dismantle Israel's Wall in the West Bank.

Many international organizations, including Grassroots International, have called for his release, as well as that of other Palestinian human rights activists.

The Middle East International Media Center interviewed Jamal shortly after his release yesterday.

Gaza:  War on civilians in the world's largest open-air prison[1]

Grassroots International Board Member Marie Kennedy and staff member Salena Tramel visited partners and allies in the West Bank and Israel prior to joining a delegation to Gaza, co-sponsored by Code Pink. This entry is from Marie's notes from her meetings in the West Bank.

Feb 27th – Stop the Wall Campaign Members Tell Their Stories

The BBC reports that, "Israel's supreme court has ordered the government to redraw the route of the West Bank barrier near Bilin village, a key focus of anti-barrier protest."

The Separation Wall is often used as a tool to destroy Palestinian villages, separating farmers from the fields that surround their communities, shutting producers off from local markets and depriving communities of access to traditional sources of water.

“Our Youth is not the Future, Our Youth is the Present” – Julian Moya, Southwest Organizing Project (SWOP), Albuquerque, New Mexico

“We cannot choose the historical conditions we find ourselves in, but we can choose how we respond to them” – Ajamu Baraka, Director, U.S. Human Rights Network, Atlanta, Georgia

These two quotes, among many other hopeful messages I heard at the U.S. Social Forum (USSF) from June 27 to July 1, 2007 in Atlanta epitomized for me the USSF – what it stands for and envisions in terms of a different kind of United States. Both represent the truth embedded in the official slogan of the USSF – Another World is Possible; Another US is Necessary.

Please join Grassroots International at the United States Social Forum, Atlanta, June 27-30, 2007. The US Social Forum is more than a conference, more than a networking bonanza, more than a reaction to war and repression, more than a collection of local solutions. It's an important moment to further build the global movement for social justice.

The Stop the Wall Campaign is a coalition of Palestinian non-governmental organizations and neighborhood committees that work to stop the construction of the Separation Wall inside the 1967 borders of the West Bank.

The Wall’s route currently snakes through the West Bank cutting off many communities from one another and from their agricultural land. The World Court in the Hague ruled in 2004 that the Wall violates international law.

The campaign educates and organizes affected communities and their allies at the local, national and international levels. The campaign’s efforts are focused on stopping and dismantling the Separation Wall, and opposing Israel’s policy of land and resource confiscation from Palestinians living under occupation.