Palestine Refugee Return March

Zahi Damuni

(Please post and mark your calendar)

Dear friends,

On September 16, 2000 at 11 AM, thousands of Palestinian refugees and their supporters will take part in the Palestine Refugee Return March in Washington DC. This important, historical and timely march to the White House will demand that ongoing Israeli ethnic cleansing of Palestinians be stopped, and that Palestinian refugees expelled from their towns and villages in 1948 and afterwards be allowed to go home.

The march from the Capitol along Pennsylvania Avenue will be followed by a rally in Lafayette Park in front of the White House. Invited speakers include Nelson Mandela, Heider Abdel Shafi, a speaker from Shatila refugee camp in Lebanon, Imam Siraj Wahaj, human rights activist Dr. Eyad Sarraj*, Dr. Edward Said and Ali Abunimah*. Invited also are poets June Jordan and Suheir Hammad* and musician Marcel Khalife.

The Palestine Refugee Return March, on September 16, 2000, will coincide with the anniversary of the 1982 massacre of over two thousand innocent Palestinians and Lebanese in the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps during Israel's occupation of Beirut as well as the September deadline for the end of negotiation between Israel and the Palestinian Authority where the fate of the refugees is supposedly to be determined. The rally in front of the White House will include a commemoration led by survivors of the camp massacres and will send a strong message to American, Palestinian, and Israeli negotiators that no return equals no peace.

Zahi Damuni