Temple Israel's Robert Sosnick Family Life Center, in Conjunction with The Caring Community, Presents an Afternoon of Music Metro Sweet Adelines/Great Lakes Chorus at the Senior Adult Program Opposing Israel U.S. Campaign pushes its "anti-occupation" goals. Thursday, September 14, 2006 1:30 PM Don Cohen Special to the Jewish News Open to the public Free of charge Bring your friends for all the fun! T Partially funded by the David Arthur Stulberg Memorial Fund & the Harry & Phyllis Kellman Memorial Fund. Co-sponsored by The Temple Israel Treasures. For additional information, please contact Kari K. Provizer, ACSW, in the Robert Sosnick Family Life Center at Temple Israel at 248-661-5700. Temple Israel 5725 Walnut Lake Road • West Bloomfield, ,MI 48323 1155740 BBYO/JCC Teen Connection (7th & 8th Grade) Invite You To... coG\A@T Ig - 1010 8:30 hd OnturiJa, $eiztei ► i3er 16Th for 2006-2001 "leer, Corthetviloh Ati ► emberS $1,0 for Norrmernien ixtte ntion Jewish Yout h , Michigan Region BIM wants you to get involved! FRIENDS - SUMMER PROGRAMS LEADERSHIP - ISRAEL EXPERIENCES DISCOVER YOUR JEWISH IDENTITY - PUN!! DON'T U JOIN NOW! Questions!? Cali Stacey at the 11311Y0 office 248-788-0700 Cheek out our website at: www.mibbyo.org; 1747940 16 September 7 • 2006 he fifth annual National Organizers' Conference and Grassroots Training Institute of the U.S. Campaign To End the Israeli Occupation held last weekend at the University of Michigan-Dearborn drew about 200 representatives from organizational members of the U.S. Campaign coalition. The opening reception and awards program Sept. 1 at the Arab American National Museum in Dearborn was open to the media, while the rest of the conference was not. U.S. Reps. Criticizing U.S. John Conyers and. Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick, both D r-Detroit, were sched- Hasan Newash, the Dearborn-based organizer of the Palestine Office- uled to be given the second annual Edward Said Human Rights Awards, Michigan, spoke as the local host of the conference. He was introduced as com- but neither attended the event. In opening remarks, U.S. Campaign ing from Ein Kerem in "Israeli-con- co-chairs Nadia Hijab and Mark Lance fiscated west Jerusalem." Newash said briefly outlined the goals of the U.S. the conference was being held "on the heels of the destruction of the entire Campaign. Hijab, a senior fellow and co-director country of Lebanon and the continued of the Washington office of, the Institute war" against Palestinians. "Saluting the [American] flag for Palestine Studies, said the group becomes more and more difficult," was formed in 2001 because there was Newash said, insisting the struggle "not enough focus on the Israeli occu- pation of east Jerusalem, the West Bank against Israel was in keeping with American values. Condemning Bush and Gaza." But Hijab acknowledged administration support for Israel that opposition to Israel goes deeper than the land won by Israel in 1967, saving those territories "obviously are not the core of -Hasan Newash, the Dearborn-based organizer the problem." of the Palestine Office-Michigan (Also running counter to the and the war in Iraq, particularly U.S. oft-stated position that opposition to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's Israel is simply about "the occupa.- role, he said the U.S. flag appears to tion:' the U.S. Campaign supports a be the "starve and strangle banner." Palestinian "right of return" to pre- Calling for ending the occupation 1967 Israel.) of "Lebanon, Iraq and Palestine': he Hijab also noted that the group urged the activists to "jump in the ring started with volunteer support, but and carve history according to our val- now has three staff members and a ues and principles we hold dean" new office in Washington, D.C. Osama Siblani, publisher of the Lance, a philosophy professor at Arab-American News, chairman Georgetown University, is also general of the Congress of Arab American director of the Institute for Anarchist Organizations and a leader of the Arab Studies and a leader of Stop U.S. Tax- American Political Action Committee, funded Aid to Israel Now (SUSTAIN). "Saluting the [American] flag becomes more and more difficult." Don't Forget to Bring, Your Jewish Friends!! F&E He gave a positive assessment of the impact of the U.S. Campaign, say- ing that Zionist organizations had to spend millions of dollars to defeat its initiatives such as the Caterpillar [bulldozer] campaign, divestment and an academic and economic boycott of Israel. He said this was a success because critics of Israel were "setting an agenda for the first time in the his- tory of the movement." Citing historic American issues of labor rights, desegregation and opposi- tion to apartheid South Africa, Lance assured the audience that "we will win this one, too, however long it takes."