Dear Friends and Colleagues,

The steering committee has endorsed #Palestine2Ferguson Statement on Justice Withheld: 

We are outraged by the recent Grand Jury decisions not to hold the police officers who killed Michael Brown and Eric Garner, both unarmed black men, accountable. This travesty of justice comes as no surprise. There are hundreds of Mike Browns and Eric Garners failed every year by a system that criminalizes and devalues black lives. As Garner said minutes before he was killed: "It stops today." 

We cannot remain silent while U.S. police are killing young people of color for walking or standing on the street. Black men are killed by police today at a greater frequency than that at which they were lynched less than a century ago. U.S. incarceration rates for black men exceed those of South Africa during Apartheid. As South African former U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay recently stated, "there are many parts of the United States where apartheid is flourishing." We know that challenging militarization and injustice abroad is incomplete without confronting and dismantling those systems at home. 

On November 10, beloved Palestinian community activist Rasmea Odeh -- survivor of rape and torture in Israeli jails -- was found guilty in federal court of immigration fraud and put in solitary confinement for 12 days. Hours before being taken to prison, she expressed to supporters: "We can find justice in some place, maybe not in this court, maybe in another place. There is justice in this world. We will find it..." 

Justice for Eric. Justice for Mike. Justice for Rasmea. Justice for all the victims of racism and state violence. To quote Ferguson youth: "United we stand, divided we fall." May our joint struggles help us find justice together. 

Signed, St. Louis Palestine Solidarity Committee US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation US Palestinian Community Network National Students for Justice in Palestine American Muslims for Palestine.

We offer three articles making connections between Ferguson and other US cities and Palestine:

• Palestinian-American Steve Tamari, a resident of St Louis, reflects on Ferguson to Palestine here. 
• African-American Bill Fletcher Jr offers 'Ferguson: The tears came anyway.'
• Micky Jones interviews Old Testament scholar and theologian Walter Brueggemann here.

New resources:

• Here's the last video and resource from the EPF 75th Anniversary Celebration in Los Angeles: a panel on Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions.:

Panel Discussion

• And a short video from the BDS National Committee complete with a history lesson:

Help the BDS movement reach new heights in 2015

Actions:

• The SodaStream Month of Action began 28 November and runs through 24 December.  Check for actions and resources here.
• Remember Kairos Palestine's Christmas Alert.  Check here for information and links. 

We're updating our blog roll.  Do you have a favorite blog? Send us the link by email  and include a couple of sentences on why you like and read the blog.

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