[van-announce] August 28: The Palestinian Struggle Today: Political Developments and New Challenges

[Charlotte Kates]

*The Palestinian Struggle Today: Political Developments and New Challenges*
*A presentation and open discussion with Khaled Barakat*
*Tuesday, August 28, 2012*
*7:00 pm*
*Room 1315, SFU Harbour Centre*
*515 W. Hastings St, Vancouver*

*Facebook event: https://www.facebook.com/events/453033221394898/*

Among Palestinians and their allies, there is much discussion of division
and disunity in the Palestinian liberation struggle, and even questions of
how to understand that struggle: toward liberation, toward statehood? At
this critical time for the Palestinian movement, join Samidoun Palestinian
Prisoner Solidarity Network for a discussion of the Palestinian political
situation today, the challenges facing the Palestinian movement, and the
path forward toward the liberation of Palestine, the end of apartheid and
occupation, and the return of Palestinian refugees displaced from their
land.

The Palestinian prisoners' movement has always been at the centre of the
Palestinian peoples' resistance: a clear voice for justice and liberation,
rejecting compromise of Palestinian national rights, holding fast to
resistance, defying occupation and apartheid. The recent prisoners' hunger
strikes - and the ongoing hunger strikes of Palestinian political prisoners
such as Hassan Safadi, Samer al-Barq, Ayman Sharawna and Samer al-Issawi -
have provided new hope and inspiration for Palestinians inside and outside
Palestine, from longtime activists to new youth voices in the community.

Imprisoned Palestinian national leader Ahmad
Sa'adat<http://freeahmadsaadat.org/saadat8412.html>recently called for
Palestinians to mobilize to end internal division,
"expose the crimes of the occupation and build resistance through all and
varied forms of struggle" and to reject the "absurd" path of negotiations
and a "peace process" that has done so much to undermine Palestinian rights
to self-determination, return, and liberation. This conversation is a step
toward such a much-needed mobilization of the Palestinian and Arab
community and their allies and supporters here.

Presentation by Palestinian writer and community activist KHALED BARAKAT,
followed by an open and participatory discussion.

Khaled Barakat is a Palestinian writer and journalist. He is a longtime
community organizer in the Palestinian and Arab communities in Vancouver
and across North America. His writings have been widely published in a
variety of Arabic-language media outlets, including Al-Quds al-Arabi,
el-Badeel daily newspaper of Egypt, as-Safir of Lebanon, and Arabs48. He is
active with Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network and has
co-founded various Palestinian and solidarity organizations in Canada and
the US. He recently coordinated Resistance, Refugees, Rights and Return, a
Vancouver to Gaza solidarity delegation.

*Contact: Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network*
*www.samidoun.ca*
*samidoun at samidoun.ca*

-- 
Charlotte L. Kates     charlotte.kates at gmail.com