On September 24 in Washington, DC the Arab American and the Muslim community will stand united with all targeted communities against the onslaught of the National Security State at home and abroad, as we declare a clear opposition to the war on Iraq. We will assemble from far and wide in a unified mobilization at the White House under the banner of the “September 24 National Coalition for the March on Washington” with thousands of people from every community, region, sector and background to send a message to the Bush administration that its illegal war and occupation must come to an end. In addition to Washington, DC, we will also simultaneously mobilize in Los Angeles and San Francisco to send a powerful national message on a massive scale.

Emphasizing the consensus of the movement worldwide that war is neither singular in nature nor narrow in goals, we will inextricably support the struggle of the Palestinian people for freedom and return. As people in Palestine march the streets in support of their Iraqi brothers and sisters and as the Palestinian flag is waved in Iraq, we fully understand that those struggles cannot be disconnected from each other.

We are honored to insist on standing with our brothers and sisters in Haiti as they face off ongoing assaults, for their struggle is also ours. It should not be any other way. As such, we will stand in solidarity with all those targeted by Empire as we collectively share the wrath of its violence. We will defend civil rights and liberties, and reject any attempt to falsely position Muslims and Arab Americans as outsiders in this society.

Indeed, forty-two years ago, the 1963 March on Washington carried the bitter struggle of generations as it announced that the violence and hatred of racism and segregation have no place in our midst. That march continues to this very day, as we in turn announce that war and occupation also have no place in our midst.

As we march in the footsteps of those who have preceded us in the streets of Washington, DC, and despite repeated attempts by the leadership of United for Peace and Justice (UFPJ) to create political segregation under various false pretexts, we will not be shunned nor will we start from separate rallies or segregated points of departure. We are angered that UFPJ leadership would attempt to divert activists headed for Washington, DC on that day away from where our community will be standing. Those days of separation, we believed, are over. We are saddened that the leadership of the very organization to which we extended a sincere invitation of partnership, UFPJ, would instead respond 11 days later by calling for a rival and segregated protest on the same day and in the same place, simply to spite our community, oust Haiti and Palestine from the slogans of the anti-war movement, and remove Arabs and Muslims from positions of leadership.

Under the pretext of reaching out to a wider population, it is we, the targeted communities, who are being squeezed out and shunned aside by those calling for a separate march. And under the guise of minimalist slogans, it is the political demands of those at the receiving end of war that are being muted and silenced.

In its behavior, the leadership of UFPJ is fanning the flames of separation and is unnecessarily pitting trusting movement activists against our community and people. Last year, hundreds of organizations and thousands upon thousands of activists took a clear stand against the marginalization of the Arab and Muslim community, and in favor of a principled political position. Yet, here we are again, facing the same attempts of separation by the same leadership of UFPJ.

It has become too common for some sectors in the US anti-war movement to be selective about opposition to Empire for their own political gains and demand that various targeted communities must “wait”. But today’s war on and occupation of Iraq, against which we all stand from the first day of sanctions until now, is a manifestation of an ongoing larger quest for dominance targeting all. Consider the Palestinian people’s perspective - what more can they wait for? Their land has been colonized through a racist Zionist political program; the vast majority of the Palestinian people has been expelled and remains in exile for nearly six decades; more than 550 villages and towns have been erased and the destruction continues; at least 650,000 have been jailed so far; massacres upon massacres have been committed; and the killing of Palestinian Arabs has been normalized. All with full US backing and total cover, as an integral component of that same overall strategy of Empire. And all while the same sectors of the movement still say, “wait.” What else must we “wait” for?

Because we are at the primary receiving end of war, and in spite of its systematic violence and persecution here and abroad, we will neither wait, be sidelined, tokenized or be spoken for. We will not re-live the past. As we in the US join a galvanized world against the occupation of Iraq, our inextricable demands for justice must be put forward.

And as we march on to realize a dream long deferred, we are reminded of what Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote in his Letter from Birmingham Jail: “For years now I have heard the word ‘Wait!’…This ‘Wait’ has almost always meant ‘Never.’ We must come to see…that ‘justice too long delayed is justice denied’…Perhaps it is easy for those who have never felt the stinging dark of segregation to say, ‘Wait.’”

The streets of Washington, DC for decades have witnessed the struggles for ending hegemony over our communities and against separation and isolation. To us, purposely assembling apart and marching away from our young and old can only have one meaning!!

What does the leadership of UFPJ gain by continuing to pit activists and communities against each other? Unity with those facing Empire should not just be an option; it should be a must!

We call on every community center and place of worship, on every student group and grassroots organization to join the thousands who will assemble at the White House on September 24.

We call on all to leave behind the era of separation and to join in unity.

All Out on September 24!

Muslim American Society (MAS) Freedom Foundation
National Council of Arab Americans
Imam Johari Abdul-Malik, Chairman, Coordinating Council of Muslim Organizations
Al-Awda: The Palestine Right to Return Coalition
Arab Muslim American Federation
The Palestine Right of Return Congress
Free Palestine Alliance
Palestinian American Women Association
Middle East Cultural and Information Center

======================================================================
The National Council of Arab Americans (NCA)
1260 Lake Blvd., Suite 208
Davis, California 95616
Ph. 530/756.5548; Fx. 530/756.5748

info-AT-arab-american.net; www.arab-american.net