Past Events: Fall 2002

December 4th
     Today, we held general elections for the officers of Free Palestine Now!  There are three officer positions.  Said Tomas, Ari Packer and Eeman Salem were elected as the officers.  Ibrahim Farhan is the official web master.

December 3rd
     Free Palestine Now! has a new website format, as you can probably already see.  I hope you all find this format easier to read than the old black text on red background.  Also please check out the Divestment section for recent updates.  Two new articles are posted in the editorials section.  The next meeting is Wednesday December 4th at 7pm in the Forum room of the VCU Student Commons.  

November 25th
     Tonight's divestment meeting went extremely well.  We dissected the MCV (Medical College of Virginia) fund's investments and located 3 million dollars plus of investments in the Israeli economy. That information is now posted on the divestment section of this website. In addition to that we again discussed tactics for the divestment campaign and have begun a Palestinian awareness pamphlet that we hope will educate people at our University and in the Richmond community.  More pictures have been uploaded to the pictures section as well.  Our next meeting will be the Wednesday after thanksgiving break.

November 20th
     Tonight we held our second divestment meeting.  It was extremely productive, as the VCU budget was dissected and VCU's investments in companies that do business with Israel were identified.  The exact budget breakdown is now posted in the Divestment section of this website.  After we broke down the budget, we discussed the direction of the Divestment campaign, and what activities we will be holding next semester.  The group decided upon two speaking events next semester.  The first will be late January/ early February, and the second will be a divestment event late march/early April.  In addition we talked about FPN's spring budget requests (for speakers) and about Free Palestine Now! T-shirts and buttons to be sold as a fundraiser next semester.  Elections for Executive council of Free Palestine Now! (3 seats) for the spring semester will be held 2 Wednesdays from today, any Free Palestine Now! member is eligible to run,  and all are welcome to attend, and vote.  In addition we will be holding an informal divestment meeting next Monday at 7pm in the Student Commons, in place of the meeting next Wednesday which is cancelled because if the start of the Thanksgiving break.  Finally look for an article on the Adam Shapiro, Mark Lance event in the Student Newspaper, the Commonwealth Times, from November 18th..

November 13th
     VCU DIVEST!!!!  Today Free Palestine Now! and Students for Divestment at VCU announced the launch of our divestment campaign against the state of Israel.  In coordination with the National Day of Divestment VCU added its name to the ever growing list of Universities who have announced divestment campaigns.  A press release was sent out to all related news organizations, campus divestment campaigns, and divestment websites this morning, and this evening we had our  informal inaugural Divestment meeting.  The meeting, although an informal one drew between 15 and 20 people including reps from the Richmond Greens and Richmonders Against War and Racism.  The meeting was incredibly informative as we discussed the direction of the Divestment campaign, future activities of FPN relating to Divestment, and a few procedural matters.  From now on there will be a Divestment meeting every Wednesday at 7pm in the VCU Student Commons, with next week being the big formal kick off meeting.  Also we will be holding democratic elections for FPN executive council two Wednesdays from today.  All who are interested in the VCU divestment campaign are urged to attend the meeting next Wednesday and to get involved in the campaign to make VCU stop investing in companies that do substantial business with Israel.  The Divestment section of our website is now up and running, please reference there for more information.

November 9th
     Today Free Palestine Now! members marched in the Virginia anti-war march in Richmond VA.  Between 600 and 700 people attended the rally. Two FPN members spoke at the pre march rally, one as event MC and the other as a member of FPN and MSA (Muslim Students Association)  After the rally we marched through the streets of Richmond to the Virginia State Capitol building.  Free Palestine Now! members marched behind a banner that read "Victory to the Intifada.  End the Occupation.  Free Palestine Now!" as well as wearing Palestinian solidarity Kafiyas, and waving Palestinian flags.  This was really a great event that allowed FPN to talk and coordinate with many other activists and activist groups in the Richmond area.  Many thanks to Food Not Bombs, Richmoners Against War and Racism, Pax Christi, Little Flower Catholic Worker, Better Days Collective, Richmond Mennenites, Muslim Students Association (VCU), Richmond National Organization of Women and all the other groups who helped make this event a success.  Also thank you to everyone who attended the event.  Free Palestine Now! looks foreword to working closely with all of those involved today in the future in an attempt to build a coalition against the war in Iraq and for justice for the Palestinian people.

November 6th
     The Adam Shapiro, Mark Lance speaking event put on tonight by Free Palestine Now! SPA and MSA was incredible.  Between 110-130 people showed up to hear amazing speeches from Adam Shapiro of the International Solidarity Movement and Mark Lance of SUSTAIN.  The turnout exceeded all of our wildest expectations as students, teachers and members of the Richmond community of all cultures listened attentively and asked intelligent questions of the two speakers.  Mark Lance's speech focused mainly on US aid to Israel and a general overview of Palestinian history.  Adam Shapiro was greeted with enthusiastic applause as he described his acting as a human shield for a Palestinian ambulance crew and recounted his numerous and unfathomable experiences as a member of the ISM movement on the ground in Palestine.  Thank you to all of the people who showed up and made this event such a wondrous success, and without a doubt thank you to Adam Shapiro and Mark Lance who took time out of their incredibly busy schedules to come and speak at VCU for no fee.  Reviews of the event from all involved will be posted as soon as possible in the editorials section, and if anyone who was in attendance would like to send us a review we would love to read them.  Also pictures from the event will be posted as soon as possible, and maybe a video of the event will be posted online.  Stay tuned to the website as many exciting activities are coming up.  Thank you again to all of those who were involved in tonight's event.  

November 3rd
     Today was the exceptionally successful Palestine fundraiser set up by the Muslim Students Association on behalf of Islamic Relief at the Ramada Inn on Parham Rd.  Several Free Palestine Now! members volunteered at the event which drew a crowd of over 190.  The atmosphere was electric as the fully catered event raised more than $30,000 for Islamic relief to buy food, medicine, and school books for the oppressed Palestinian peoples.  Many thanks to the MSA for setting up such a successful event, and we would like to say that we are awed by the generosity of the attendees at the event.

October 31st
     Today we had an informal meeting and we created a banner for placement in the VCU Student Commons starting on Friday November 1st 2002.  The banner reads "Free Palestine Now, MSA, SPA present The Palestinian Struggle with Adam Shapiro, Mark Lance, and Rafeef Ziadah November 6th at 7pm in the VCU Commons Forum Room. www.studentorg.vcu.edu/fpn"

October 30th
      We had our weekly meeting today, our last meeting before the speaking event on November 6th.  We had a last minute brainstorming event on how to publicize for our event.  One of our members was dispatched to email the various pro-Palestinian groups on other Virginia campuses, and more fliers were made available for fliering around VCU.  

October 21st
     Tonight was the Palestinian-Israeli debate sponsored by SPA, Free Palestine Now!, MSA and Hillel.  About 130-150 people from both sides packed the Capital Ballroom for an often times heated debate.  VCU Palestinian supporters outnumbered Israeli supporters, most of whom were not from the University.  Thomas, one of the co-founders of Free Palestine Now! and Dr. Smith of the International Relations department of VCU represented the Palestinian side, while a former student of VCU and Dr. Levin of the medical college represented the Israeli side. For a full report from the Free Palestine Now! speaker, please go to the editorials page. Also refer there for the text of his opening statements. 

October 16th
     Today we held a planning meeting for the upcomming November 6th event.  We decided how we would go about publicizing the event.  If anyone would like to help with publicity please send us an email at fpn@mail1.vcu.edu.  We also recieved a generous donation for copies from a VCU student, and we are very greatful to him.  After the meeting Free Palestine Now! members met and discussed Palestinian activism with a Palestinian student from SJP (Students for Justice in Palestine) based out of Berkley, California. 

October 15th
     Free Palestine Now! completly condems the desecration of the pro-Israeli information board on campus, but we affirm that it is the Israeli occupation and brutalization of the Palestinian people that causes students to feel so angry towards pro-zionist literature.  We are also waiting for the pro-zionists supporters to condem the desecration of our information board and apologize for the sposoring of two openly racist, anti-Muslim speakers on campus.

October 14th
     Today Free Palestine Now! showed the groundbreaking documentary "Palestine:the People and the Land" in the VCU Student Commons.  About 27 people attended the event which is the second time that FPN has shown this movie since its inception last year.  The documentary vividly portrays the brutalization of the Palestinian people by the Israeli occupation, and after the showing the crowd participated in a discussion in which the impact of the heatrenching film was evident.  

October 3rd
     Today a speech by a bigoted right-wing Zionist sympathizer put on by the campus Hillel organization was met with vocal resistance and probing questions by a large contingent of Free Palestine Now! members.  The speech by extremist Neil November was probably one of the most biased accounts of Middle Eastern History ever vocalized on VCU's campus and was picked apart by probing questions after the speech.  In addition to his one sided pro-Zionist speech on history, November made many diaparaging comments on Islam at one point calling Islam a violent religion, and at another point implied that the Pro-Palestinian members of the audience were members of a terrorist cell. November often dodged questions from the Pro-Palestinian members of the audience who made up the largest contingent of the sparsley populated event (asides from Hillel members who were the event sponsors)..  When asked by a Free Palestine Now! member what he, as an American, would do if a foreign power owned 2% of the United States through settlements, checkpoint, and roads (relating to Baraks offer at Camp David 2000) he replied, "I would fight like hell to get it back" thus proving the point of the Palestinian resistance. When informed that Israel was violating international law, he stated that of cource they were violating international law, and even the United States violated international law, again proving the point of the Palestinian peoples and supporters. (for a full account please see the editorials page) 

September 30th
     Today we held our weekly meeting at the VCU student commons.  We decided concretly on the date for our big event for this semester.  Updates on that event will be posted on the upcomming events page.  In addition to this we decided that we will be showing the video "Palestine: People and the Land" on Monday October 14th.  We will post the room and time on the upcomming events page shortly.  Free Palestine Now! will be tabling at the VCU student commons  Tuesday October 8th and Thursday October 10th 12:00pm-2:00pm to promote the video showing. Please come out and visit us for more information.  Our Next meeting will be wednesday October 9th 7:00 pm, the room will be posted as soon as confirmation arrives.  The meetings are, as always, free and open to all who are interested.

September 24th
     We had our second meeting today, where we discussed the events we plan on doing.  This weekend, many of the members plan to attend the IMF protests in DC.  We are also in the process of gathering a list of signatures to be delivered to the two men running for Congress: Eric Cantor and Ben Jones.  This website is still under construction.

Last years recap:  Free Palestine Now! was created in March 2002.  We held two meetings, co-sponsored the video showing of Palestine: People and the land, co-sponsored a Palestine-Israel debate and conducted to banner drops in Washington DC to protest the visit of Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon (the butcher of Sabra and Shatila)

This year:  We are holding weekly meetings, and the recap of those meetings can be found on the news, or front page.  As the information becomes outdated the minutes of those meetings will be posted on this page.