The International Action Center brings greetings of full solidarity and support to the Arab International Congregation for the Right of Return
Held in Damascus, Syria on November 23, 24, 2008
This First Arab International Congregation is taking place at a time when
defense and support of the heroic Palestinian Resistance is sorely needed. We
are confident that its decisions and the Damascus Declaration for the Right of
Return will resonate throughout Palestine, the Middle East and all over the
world, including Washington D.C.
In the 60th year of Al-Nakba, it is essential to reaffirm the historic
resolutions and documents, especially UN resolution 194 and the International
Declaration of Human Rights and to defend the inalienable right of the
Palestinian people.
Palestinians are the largest and longest-suffering group of refugees in the
world. There can be no comprehensive solution or possibility of peace without
honoring the fundamental and collective rights of all of the Palestinian
refugees to return to their homes. All Palestinians are entitled to the rights
to self-determination, to political, economic and civil equality.
As we meet, heroic Gaza is under the most severe siege. The whole world must
come to their defense and demand that this criminal siege be immediately
lifted. In occupied Jerusalem, Israel continues to expropriate and drive out
the Palestinian residents. Zionist attacks have escalated throughout the West Bank, along with the continued building of settlements and hundreds of miles of walls,
roads and checkpoints to divide the population into ever smaller ghettos.
Within the 1948 borders humiliation and deprivation of Palestinian rights
continues.
As we meet on the soil of the front line state of Syria, we
must also mention the suffering of the people of Golan under Zionist occupation
and demand thier freedom and that all of Golan must be returned to Syria.
U.S. Support of Zionist Crimes
Coming from the U.S. it is important for us to say that U.S. imperialism is the greatest roadblock to the Palestinian Right to Return and the
greatest impediment to any form of peace or justice in the entire region.
Without the constant infusion of billions of dollars in arms and aid, the
Zionist state of Israel could not exist one day. U.S. aid averages much more
than the officially admitted $15 million a day, every day for the last 60
years. Under both Republican and Democratic Party presidents, Israel is always the largest recipient of U.S. aid in the world every year.
I have had the honor to travel twice to Palestine with delegations from the International Action Center in solidarity with the heroic Intifada. On a rooftop in
Ramallah we watched Apache helicopters gunships – horrific weapons supplied to
the Israelis by the United States--fire rockets at civilian neighborhoods,
destroying homes and offices. In Gaza I saw U.S.-financed Israeli tanks fire
rounds of shells at youths armed only with stones and bottles. I watched
U.S.-supplied Caterpillar earthmovers bulldoze homes.
Washington provides not only massive military aid but full diplomatic,
political and financial support for these crimes. The U.S. government has organized coups, assassinations, wars and invasions on every continent
against any country that does not comply with its demands. But it has
never given even a reprimand to the Zionist state for all its crimes against
the Palestinian people and all the Arab people of the region.
Why? Because Israel is carrying out U.S. policy in the region. U.S. corporate power fully intends Israel to exist as a garrison
state and a continuing source of instability in the region.
The U.S. not only funds the Zionist occupation of Palestine. It has carried on a genocidal five-year war of aggression and occupation
against Iraq, it threatens war against Iran and just two weeks ago carried out
a completely unprovoked attack on the Syrian Arab Republic. It also works with
the Zionist state to aid anti-people forces in Lebanon in hopes of provoking
civil war there. We condemn all these crimes and demand that the U.S. withdraw all its forces and proxies from the Arab world.
Now the U.S. is in the midst of severe economic crisis. There is instability is
all of its powerful financial institutions. At the same time Washington finds
itself enmeshed in two unwinnable wars of occupation in Iraq and Afghanistan. People's resistance to occupation is a powerful historic force.
U.S. ruling circles are desperately trying to assert themselves and reverse
their fortunes, but every effort confirms their weakness and further deepens
their crisis. As a global system of domination it is growing ever weaker and
yet more vicious and erratic. The U,S. military budget is now so bloated and
all-consuming that it has overwhelmed every needed social program in the U.S. today.
Over the past six decades the struggle of the Palestinian people has inspired
hundreds of millions of people worldwide by of its dynamism and revolutionary
fervor.
Despite every effort to wipe out Palestine, the struggle has been reborn again
and again.
The whole world owes a debt of solidarity to the Palestinian people. Their
steadfast resistance to Zionist occupation has time and again given new heart,
new confidence, to the growing fight against the policies of corporate
globalization.
International support and full solidarity for Palestinian demands, including
the rights of all Palestinians to return to their expropriated homes, is more
important than ever.
Down with Zionism and all forms of racism and oppression!
U.S. imperialism out of the Middle East!
End all aid to Israel!
Freedom for Palestine!
International Action Center
55 West 17th St, #5C,
New York, NY 10011
www.IACenter.org
Cynthia McKinney - Message to Palestine Right to Return Conference in Damascus, Syria
THE ARAB INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS FOR THE RIGHT OF RETURN: International Declaration In Defence Of The Palestinian Right Of Return
