For over forty years, Middle East Peace Now (MEPN) has been a resource for the upper Midwest region. We are a registered 501(c)(3) and are operated by a volunteer Board of Directors.
OUR PURPOSE
Educate Host monthly speakers (local, national, and international) and serve as a resource for exploring Middle East related issues.
Network Collaborate with individuals and organizations to advance mutual goals.
Advocate Take action to promote our guiding principles to elected officials, media, and other groups.
MEPN’S GUIDING PRINCIPLES
We believe that the United States plays a major role in the destabilization of the Middle East. We see that our role as U.S. citizens and taxpayers is to combat the use of our country’s name, our constitutional rights, and our tax money for suppression and oppression of people around the world. We believe that an essential key to peace in the Middle East is justice for the Palestinian people. Supporting justice for Palestinians and ending ongoing U.S. unconditional funding of Israel are vital steps toward the end of imperialism.
- We recognize Zionism as a political ideology separate from Judaism, and one that is rooted in colonialism and racist actions that have long aimed to divide and conquer the region.
- We acknowledge that the liberation of Palestine is one of many interconnected struggles for liberation and human rights, both locally and globally.
- In working toward justice and liberation, we confront the violent manifestations of colonialism and white supremacy in all its forms.
- We seek to work with other groups in our communities that hold similar values.
- Israel was created in part as a tool for the Western world to control the resources in the Middle East. We work to bring awareness to intersectional struggles around the Middle East and the Arab world.
- We assert that Palestinians have a right to self-determination. Successful resolution to the conflict hinges on the ability of the Palestinian people to fully exercise their fundamental rights to liberty and justice.
- We support the Geneva Conventions and United Nations Resolution 194. Palestinian Right of Return is a necessity for realizing a just and durable solution; we believe in holding the U.S. and Israel accountable to International Law.
- Palestinians have the right to resist the oppressor. We support Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS), a Palestinian-led, nonviolent strategy to achieve justice for Palestinians and hold Israel accountable for ongoing human rights violations and apartheid.
The liberation of Palestine is a cause, not a conflict. As articulated by Jeff Halper in his article The Decolonizing of Palestine Towards a One-State Solution. Jeff Halper. “The Decolonizing of Palestine Towards a One-State Solution,” Americans for Middle East Understanding 55, no. 1 (2021), https://ameu.org/2021/01/09/the-decolonizing-of-palestine-towards-a-one-state-solution/