A statement to U.S based social justice movements from Palestinian liberation and Palestine solidarity activists

Background
MADRE, an international women's human rights organization based in the United States, recently released commentary about what solidarity should look like for U.S. progressives committed to the Palestinian struggle (http://www.commondreams.org/news2007/0711-02.htm). “Palestine in the Age of Hamas: The Challenge of Progressive Solidarity,” is not a proactive call for solidarity. On the contrary, this call for progressives to engage in ‘strategic solidarity’ was issued in defense of the position taken by the organization’s Communications Director, Yifat Susskind, a white Israeli woman, at a plenary on imperialism held at the United States Social Forum less than two weeks prior. At the plenary, Susskind explicitly equated the armed resistance of some people in occupied Palestine with the forces of imperialism led by George Bush. Susskind and MADRE’s subsequent statement further call for particular opposition to Hamas based on the Islamaphobic assumption that all movements that incorporate Islam into their politics are reactionary and repressive.