Editors note: The following article was prepared before Israel's all-out assault on West Bank Palestinians. Since the invasion began, the Palestinian resistance has waged a heroic struggle to beat back the army of occupation. Massive demonstrations have taken place in many Arab countries, in Europe, and the in the U.S. On April 4, nearly 10,000 rallied in New York City.

Minneapolis, MN - 14 demonstrators were arrested here, May 15, after committing civil disobedience in solidarity with the Palestinians of Jenin. The demonstration, called by the Anti-War Committee, slammed U.S. funding of the Israeli military and demanded justice for the Palestinians massacred by the Israeli army in the Jenin refugee camp.

President George Bush has made his long-awaited speech on the situation in Palestine. He said no more than a few sentences about the illegal Israeli occupation of Palestinian land, and the continued theft of more land to build more Jewish-only settlements. Nothing was said about Israel's war plans or the escalation of Israeli violence that has included a wave of assassinations, 24-hour curfews, checkpoints, massive arrests and the destruction of all equipment and buildings needed in the major cities of the West Bank, such as Nablus, Jenin and Ramallah.

The Internationals for Justice delegation visited Palestine from Aug. 7 to Aug. 21. Fight Back! conducted the following interview with Meredith Aby, Katie Bonn and Anh Pham, three members of the Minnesota-based Anti-War Committee who participated in the delegation. The delegation traveled throughout historic Palestine, particularly the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, as well as the 48 territories, which are also called Israel.

![Right of Return March in Chicago](https://i.snap.as/HkMUqLd0.jpg “Right of Return March in Chicago Activists take to the streets of Chicago to demand Palestinian right of return.

(Right of Return March Organizers)”)

Chicago, IL - The streets of downtown Chicago were filled with chants of “Free, free Palestine! Democratic Palestine!” on Sunday, Sept. 29. More than 1200 activists took over city streets and rallied at the Federal Plaza to demand the right of return to Palestine for all Palestinian refugees.

Israel’s Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has ordered the Israeli army to intensify its attacks. The result – a wave of assassinations, armed incursions into Palestinian towns and villages and more operations to arrest activists in the Palestinian resistance. Using any means at hand to achieve these goals, Bush’s ‘war on terrorism’ serves as a pretext and cover. More than 17 Palestinians have been killed since Christmas, including three children under the age of 11 who were shot in the head.

The Bush administration knows nothing about peace. The administration backed Israel's brutal, right-wing Sharon government from day one, and waged a cowardly military attack on Iraq. In the aftermath of militarily defeating the Iraqi government, the Bush administration is trying to reshape the Middle East, dominate the entire region and eliminate all opposition to the United States. While the attempt to put down the Iraqi resistance continues, Washington is now taking aim at the Palestinian liberation struggle. Central to the struggle for freedom in the Middle East, the battle of Palestinians for Palestine serves as an example and an inspiration to all the Arab peoples of the region.

Fight Back! interviewed the imprisoned General Secretary of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), Ahmad Saadat, on May 20. At a time when the eyes of the world are focused on the Middle East, we are grateful for the opportunity to bring you, our readers, the thoughts of one of the key leaders of the Palestinian resistance in his own words.

Fight Back! is publishing the following statement criticizing the Geneva Accord – which purports to be a framework for achieving peace in Palestine. Like Bush’s ‘road map for peace,’ the Geneva Accord does not square with the aspirations of the Palestinian people for justice and liberation. When the text of the Accord was released Dec. 1, thousands protested in Gaza and other Palestinian cities.

Palestinian Prisoners' Day, commemorated throughout Palestine and by solidarity activists the world over, April 17, is a day to bring attention to the plight of all Palestinian political prisoners held in Israeli jails and to demand their immediate release.

The ‘Wall’ which the Israeli government began constructing in June of 2002, and which lies well within the borders of the Palestinian territories of the West Bank, is devastating fertile Palestinian land, cutting off even more Palestinian water resources and destroying Palestinian villages – in some cases enclosing them on three sides. Israel is illegally, according to international law set out by the United Nations, snaking its apartheid Wall up to 3.8 miles inside the West Bank’s ‘Green Line,’ the internationally recognized borders for the West Bank.

New York, NY – Al-Awda, the Palestine Right to Return Coalition, held its second international convention here April 16, entitled “Sustainable Struggle: The Road to Palestine.” Several hundred Palestinians and supporters, hailing from Canada, the U.S., Europe and Palestine, held a series of informational and strategy workshops aimed, in general, at advancing Palestinian rights, and, in particular, at the right of Palestinian refugees’ to return to their homeland.

Statement of Freedom Road Socialist Organization

Fight Back! News Service is circulating the following statement demanding the release of Palestinian political prisoner Ahmad Saadat. Saadat is the General Secretary of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.

Before the death of Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat, Nov. 11, there had been an enormous amount of speculation raised, and analysis offered, concerning the issue of succession. And now that the speaker of the Palestinian Legislative Council, Rawhi Fattouh, has been named the interim president, the speculation will continue for at least 60 more days.

Freedom Road Socialist Organization mourns the death of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat (1929-2004). We regret the loss of a freedom fighter who worked tirelessly for the emancipation of Palestine.

An upsurge of armed resistance to the U.S. occupation has swept across Iraq over the past six weeks. Most of the fighting was initially concentrated in the southern port city of Basra, and then in the densely populated Sadr City, an impoverished suburb of the capitol Baghdad. The fighting in Basra and Sadr City is significant in that it represents a decisive rejection by the masses of Iraqi Shiites of the occupation government’s ‘political process.’

Fight Back News Service is circulating the following obituary on the passing of Ali Qased, a lifelong fighter for the complete liberation of Palestine who resided here in the U.S.

Minneapolis, MN - Over fifty protesters demonstrated on Monday, May 16, at the Hennepin County Government Center in Minneapolis, to commemorate the tragedy of Al-Nakba – Arabic for ‘the catastrophe.’ The demonstration was organized by the Anti-War Committee to mark the destruction of 415 Palestinian villages and the creation of almost 1 million Palestinian refugees between 1947 and 1950.