Scottish PSC residential weekend of political discussions

13-15 August, Glen Prosen youth hostel / camping in Scottish highlands
contact campaign@scottishpsc.org.uk for more information and to register

‘Ideas for a Successful Palestine Solidarity Campaign’

Provisional timetable:

Friday

7.00pm    Israel & Palestine - introductory discussion

• What is Israel? A settler colonial state? Apartheid? Something worse? Democratic?
• Is Israel guilty of ethnic cleansing and/or genocide?
• The US-Israeli relationship – Is Israel still a strategic asset to the USA?
• Israel/Palestine and the wider drive to war

Saturday 

9.00am     Palestine

• (How) Can Palestinians ever win their freedom?
• Palestinian resistance – civil society & the BNC
• Resistance – Hamas & Hezbollah
• Palestinian self determination, the ‘two-state solution’, and alternatives.
• What is the Palestinian Authority?

11.00am     Palestine solidarity in Britain

• What is our role now that Israel is widely seen as a pariah state
• How do British political formations line up on the issue of Palestine?
• Does the UK Israel lobby determine UK policy?
• British Government complicity abroad and repression of solidarity at home
• The JNF

1-2.30 Lunch

2.30pm     Campaigning issues

• Who are our audience?
• How do we relate to the Media?
• Lobbying elected representatives

4.30pm      Reflections on the event so far

Sunday   

10.00am   Zionism

• Zionism from Herzl to Netanyahu
• The JNF, Histadrut and other Zionist para-Statals
• Zionism – right & left
• Zionism & anti-Semitism

12-1 Reflections on the event

1.00pm    END

Suggested reading list for those in a hurry!


Israel:  a settler colonial state

• Racism in the State of Israel and the World Zionist Movement, Israel Shahak
• Moshe Machover, Is it apartheid?   
• A Zionist view   

Is Israel guilty of ethnic cleansing and/or genocide?

• Israel's Slow-Motion Genocide in Occupied Palestine by Stephen Lendman 
• The US promotes Israeli genocide against the Palestinians, Francis Boyle 
  

The US-Israeli relationship – Is Israel still a strategic asset to the USA?

• Yes - Chomsky on Oil and the Israel Lobby by M. Shahid Alam
• No – The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy 
• Synthesis?  The Lobby: It's Not Either / Or, Norman Finkelstein    

Palestine solidarity and the wider drive to war

• The Decline of the Anti-war Movement, the Issue of Palestine & Arab Resistance to Occupation, SPSC delegates to Cairo Conference, 2008

Palestinian resistance – civil society & the BNC

• The Palestinian Resistance; Its Legitimate Right and the Moral Duty, Samah Jabr 
• Let’s Talk about Resistance, Natalie Abu Shakra
• Mercaz HaRav - a training centre for illegal occupation, murder and "Arabs to the Gas Chambers" , Mick Napier

Hamas

• We will not sell our people or principles for foreign aid,Khalid Meshaal
   

Hezbollah

• Hezbollah becoming more visible in West Bank after assassination of its military chief, The Associated Press March 13, 2008 
• How Hezbollah Defeated Israel, Part 3, Alastair Crooke & Mark Perry on Winning the Political War
  
• In Search of Hezbollah, Adam Shatz  

Palestinian self determination, solutions

• Declaration of One Democratic State Group 
• Chomsky argues two-state solution is possible and desirable 
• Ilan Pape and Noam Chomsky debate the issue 
• The Fading of the Two-State Solution, Yacov Ben Efrat  
• Israelis and Palestinians:Conflict and Resolution, Mosh´e Machover

What is the Palestinian Authority?

• Up against the wall: challenging Israel's impunity, Jamal Juma', The Electronic Intifada, 24 February 2010
• PA undermined Turkey's push for UN flotilla probe, Asa Winstanley, The Electronic Intifada, 22 June 2010

Palestine solidarity in Britain: What is our role?

• Zionist think tank fears BDS campaign 'can constrain' Israeli military operations in the future
  
  

Are we a human rights campaign only?

• Human Rights Watch denying Palestinians the right to nonviolent resistance, Jonathan Cook

A peace campaign?

• No Middle East Peace Without Justice, Robert Fisk 

How do British political formations line up on the issue of Palestine?  

• Tories, David Cameron interviewed
• LibDems - ???
• Last Labour Government, John Pilger on How the Anglo-American elite shares its 'values'

• Pulse on Britain’s Israel Lobby 

The JNF

• Call for an international campaign against the Jewish National Fund  
                                                         

How do we relate to the Media?

• 20 no-go areas for the BBC on the issue of Israel & Palestine, Stuart Littlewood
• David Miller, Caught in the Matrix                                                                                                                       

Zionism – before the rise of Hitler

• Zionism and Anti-Semitism Prior to the Holocaust, Lenni Brenner   
  

Zionism – right & left

• 'Left'    Hapoel Tel Aviv - the 'left wing' of ethnic cleansing and genocide    
  
• 'Right'   Rabin's Murder Rooted in Zionism's Violent Legacy, Donald Neff 

Zionism & anti-Semitism

• Zionist 'leaders' of Scottish Jewish community under attack for fabricating anti-Semitism wave
•  
  Argentina – Proof that Israel is no Refuge from Anti-Semitism, Tony Greenstein