News

May 9th
    The semester has ended in a sort of anti-climax.  The Daniel Pipes event which galvanized the VCU community against racial and religious hatred, passed without a hitch.  True to our word FPN, the Muslim Students Association, and the many other groups who opposed Pipes message did not in any way attempt to stifle Pipes' freedom of speech, and in fact most FPN members chose to boycott the hate event, preferring not to listen to calls for ethnic cleansing, comprehensive military "victory", racial profiling, and the other undemocratic policies Pipes promotes.  We have heard reports that approximately 130-150 people, mainly from the Richmond Zionist community attended the event, which comes out to 35.71$ per person if you break down Pipes 5,000$ honorarium.  We wonder how may people would have attended if the price of a ticket was 35.71$, probably very few.  In other news, Free Palestine Now! will be changing its name in the upcoming semester to Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) at VCU.  SJP is a network of Pro-Palestinian student groups at Universities all over the country, and we look foreword to the increased co-operation with national groups that this change will achieve.  Slowly FPN will be fazed out, a new website, list serve, and email addresses will be instituted.  We will be sure to keep everyone informed during ever step of this long and interesting process.  Lastly, as most of you know, FPN works and has worked very closely with anti-occupation Jews and Jews of conscious,  in fact FPN was co-founded by one such individual.  FPN has recently been made aware that the president of Hillel (the Jewish Student Union) at the University of Richmond Jilian Redford has been removed from her position of president by Lisa Looney the staff advisor for Hillel at U of R and VCU due to her anti-occupation orientation.  It seems that this move was mandated by the Israeli embassy in Washington DC who were concerned with an email that Redford sent to them claiming, correctly, that Hillel was a Jewish Student Union (supposed to be representative of all Jews, not just Zionists) and not a zionist anti-Palestinian mouthpiece.  Another factor that contributed to her removal was that Redford called a professor at UR who had called the Palestinians inherently evil, "a racist".  FPN would like to congratulate Jilian for her courageous and moral stand, and offer all support to her as she attempts to convey her message of peace and justice in the face of mountainous zionist opposition.  The fact that the Israeli embassy and Lisa Looney decided that they wanted to remove this student due to her belief that Hilel is not an organization designed to promote right-wing zionism, shows that they are very afraid that the messages of justice, peace, and co-operation will permeate through the right-wing zionisist propaganda that has been the hallmark of teaching within the United States for many years.  For a full account of Jilian's story please go: (http://www.forward.com/main/article.php?ref=popper200405051143) and for more information on the tens of thousands of Jews who opposed the racist policies of occupation and ethnic cleansing please go: (www.Jewsagainsttheoccupation.com)

April 26th
    This afternoon a resolution opposing the hate speech of Daniel Pipes (who will be speaking at VCU tomorrow) passed the Student Government Association of VCU Student Senate unanimously 24-0-1.  The resolution asserts that Daniel Pipes has a record of making racist and prejudice comments about Muslims, Arabs, Asians, and African-Americans, and that he is a threat to the academic values of a University as diverse and tolerant as Virginia Commonwealth University. The resolution affairs Daniel Pipe's right to free speech, while resolving that the SGA at VCU feels that Daniel Pipes' presence creates an open hostility and division among the VCU community, and further resolves that the SGA condemns Daniel Pipes' hate speech while taking no stance for or against his political ideology. Free Palestine Now! fully supports the passage of this resolution and feels that, while we recognize Daniel Pipes' right to free speech, we can in no way allow him to spew such racist hatred and filth at our diverse and tolerant community without measures of opposition such as this resolution.  Other forms of opposition which have sprung up from many different facets of the VCU community in the past few days include a letter of opposition to Pipes' rhetoric and in solidarity with our Muslim brothers and sisters Daniel Pipes loves to attack which is being signed by numerous diverse student organizations (Free Palestine Now! has signed the letter) and articles in the Commonwealth Times opposing Pipes' hate filled message.  Free Palestine Now! is very disappointed that the Pro-Israeli  lobby at VCU has decided to bring such an inflammatory and hate mongering speaker who cares nothing about peace and dialogue between Palestinians and Israelis, instead promoting complete Israeli military destruction of the Palestinian people, and the continued occupation of the Palestinian territories by the Israeli army.  Unfortunately this is just another hate filled speaker the Pro-Israeli lobby has brought to VCU following in the footsteps of Neil November (who called Islam a violent religion, and justified Israel's wars against the Arab "hordes") and Zelig Krymko (who advocated the killing of 30,000 Palestinians to "achieve peace" and the forcible deportation of all Palestinians not accepting complete Israeli control over the occupied territories). The Pro-Israeli lobby tries to tell the VCU community that it is about achieving peace in the Middle East, but that lie is exposed by the horrid, bigoted, and often outright racist speakers they bring to campus on a regular basis.  Peace is not made by racial profiling, limiting immigration, crushing the Palestinians, putting Muslims under surveillance, killing thousands, deporting whole populations, and ethnic cleansing.  Peace is made through tolerance, understanding, correcting injustice, and most of all peace in the Middle East depends on the END OF THE ILLEGAL 36 YEAR ISRAELI MILITARY OCCUPATION OF PALESTINE! For a copy of the SGA resolution opposing Pipe's rhetoric please contact the SGA.  For a copy of the Student Organization Letter opposing Pipes's hate speech please contact the MSA at VCU.  Additionally there is a new editorial about Pipes, including many of his racist quotes and opinions in the editorials section of our website (click here), please check it out.  We urge everyone to research for themselves what Daniel Pipes stands for, and armed with that knowledge attend the Daniel Pipes event tomorrow to show your opposition to racism and hate.

April 21st
    Tonight's Free Palestine Day event went very well with two extraordinary speakers giving excellent presentations about facets of the Palestinian struggle.  Between 40-50 people listened to Greta Berlin and Adam Shapiro give presentations about the media bias against Palestinians and the International Solidarity Movement respectively.  Thank you to both Adam and Greta, and thanks to everyone who came out to listen to the presentations.  FPN has surplus CD's of Greta Berlins presentation if anyone wants a copy.  Additionally the website has been slightly modified due to legal concerns (wording) over the language on the divestment section.  Check out the new language, and if anyone has any problems, let us know.  Our next meeting will be Monday April 26th 2004 in the VCU Student Commons at 7pm.

April 6th
    Planning for the April 21st event is coming along nicely.  If anyone needs flyers to put up, please email us and we will send you one.  Our next meeting is Monday April 12th at 7pm in the VCU Student Commons.  Again the next event is April 21st at 6pm at the PACE center. (700 W.Franklin) If anyone needs directions, just let us know.

March 25th
    We had a productive meeting this Monday, planning for our next event April 21st.  That event, Free Palestine Day, is now at 6pm and will feature Adam Shapiro, (Co-Founder of the International Solidarity Movement) Rami Elamine, (Editor of Left Turn) and Greta Berlin. (Palestine media expert) free food, culture, and multimedia.  The event will be held at the PACE center (700 W. Franklin, next to Rhodes Hall) and is co-sponsored by: Richmond Jews Against the Occupation, Food Not Bombs, and Richmond ANSWER. Flyers will soon be emailed out on the list.  Our next meeting is this current Monday March 29th in the Student Commons. Also there will now be a bi-weekly (roughly) column from Free Palestine Now! on the Richmond Indymedia website. (http://richmond.indymedia.org)  It is also in the editorials section of our website.

March 12
    The meeting last Monday (8th) has been postponed due to a conflict with the Patriot Act Forum at VCU that many of our members wanted to attend.  The next meeting will be the Monday following Spring break (March 22nd at 7pm) in the VCU Student Commons.  Yesterday two members of FPN gave a presentation about Palestinian issues to a group of Home School children in the Richmond area.  The event went very well with the children seeming  interested in the subject.  This was a great opportunity for FPN to share knowledge about the Palestinian cause with members of our community, and we are grateful for that opportunity.  There are a couple of new links on the links page, so check them out.

February 26th
    Last nights video showing of the award winning Palestinian film "Divine Intervention" was a huge success with 60-70 people packing into the 30 person capacity Capital Ballroom D.  We apologize for the many people who had to sit on the floors and stand.  For all the people who did not get to view the film due to the overcrowding of the room, we will try and organize a second screening in the near future.  We also apologize for the adult language in the film, and we hope no one was offended by it. We would like to thank everyone for coming out and making the event such as success, as well as all the members of FPN who flyered, emailed, and generally made the event possible.  Our next meeting will be March 8th at 7pm in the Student Commons, and our next big event is a "Palestine Day" Workshop April 21st with Mark Lance, Rami Elamine, and Greta Berlin.