New Pro-Palestine Group Outlines Agenda

A new pro-Palestine student group, the Harvard Palestine Solidarity Committee (PSC), held a preliminary meeting last night to discuss its organizing principles and plans to raise awareness of its position on campus.

“In the past, Palestinian activism has taken place under the auspices of the SAS,” said PSC co-chair and co-founder Rita Hamad ’03, referring to the Society of Arab Students. “But it just seems like this issue is trans-ethnic, trans-religious. It’s become a human rights issue that non-Arabs are also passionate about.”

Although co-chair and co-founder Erol N. Gulay ’05 initially said that the group would “encourage Harvard to divest its investments from Israel,” the meeting attendees were divided on the issue.

“The opinions of our membership are varied, so I don’t think we’re going to take a strong position on divestment at this point,” Gulay said after the meeting.

Hamad said that one of the group’s principles was to support “the creation of a Palestinian state, [and] the end of Israeli occupation in Palestinian lands.”

Gulay specified that the group was “protesting the violent military reoccupation in April and May of West Bank and Gaza.”

Attendees also stressed that PSC was primarily concerned with human rights and with promoting the end of Israeli occupation of the West Bank.

“The group is pro-Palestinian human rights, anti-occupation. The group is not anti-Israel. You can be pro-Palestinian and pro-Israel. In order to truly support peace you really have to be both,” said Deema B. Arafah ’03, who attended last night’s meeting.

Both sides of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict will be important to PSC’s discussions, according to students who attended the meeting.

“We’re as critical of the Palestinian authority as we are critical of the Sharon regime. It’s the innocent civilians that are caught in the middle that we seek to assist,” said Joseph A. Pace ’06, who said he has attended two meetings of Harvard Students for Israel (HSI).

PSC organizers said they were interested in reaching out to other student groups, including SAS, HSI, Hillel, and the Harvard Initiative for Peace and Justice, in addition to holding discussions with groups organized around the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

“We intend to have dialogue with them. This is definitely not a one-sided issue. We definitely respect diversity of viewpoints on this,” Gulay said.

The PSC plans to hold a charity drive on Nov. 13, which the group tentatively called the National Palestinian Day of Action, according to Gulay.

He also said PSC plans to invite Robert Fisk, a journalist for The Independent of London, to speak to the Harvard-MIT community.