For Immediate Release
4 June 2004

Al-Awda San Diego Event Notice:  Protest against 37 years of Israeli occupation of the Gaza Strip and West Bank at 3:00 p.m. on Sunday, June 6 at Balboa Park (6th & Laurel).

Up until 1947, Palestine consisted of all of present day Israel, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.  The 1948 UN partition plan (decided without Palestinian involvement) divided the territory of Palestine between the Palestinians (45%) and Zionists (55%) to establish the Jewish State of Israel in the Palestinian homeland.  After declaring independence, Israel's military then seized another 23% of Palestine, leaving Israel with 78% of historical Palestine and the Palestinians with only 22% of their historical homeland. 

On June 5, 1967, Israeli forces launched an unprovoked attack against Egypt sparking a war that ended with Israel seizing and occupying the remainder of Palestine:  the Gaza Strip and West Bank.  Initially, Israel claimed Egypt attacked first and then later admitted striking first, but claimed the attack was in response to an existential threat from Egypt.  Years later, Israel admitted that this second claim was also false:  "The thesis that the danger of genocide was hanging over us in June 1967 and that Israel was fighting for its physical existence is only bluff, which was born and developed after the war." Israeli General Matityahu Peled, Haaretz, 19 March 1972.

Despite the unanimous passage of United Nations Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338, calling upon Israel to withdraw to the pre-1967 war borders, Israel's brutal and illegal occupation continues thirty-seven years later.

On Sunday, June 6, 2004, Al-Awda San Diego will join the San Diego Coalition for Peace and Justice, the International Socialist Organization, San Diego International Action Center, the A.N.S.W.E.R. coalition and concerned citizens to commemorate the anniversary of the Six Day War and protest 37 years of unrelenting Israeli military occupation. 

The protest will be held in Balboa Park, the corner of Sixth and Laurel, at 3:00 p.m. and will include a mock display of the segregation wall Israel is illegally building to encircle Palestinians towns and villages throughout the West Bank.

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