The e-mail notice from the group in Boston began, “the photo-op which was the Annapolis peace conference is over.”  Pro-Palestine activists did not forget the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People.  Held on November 29th of every year, the day commemorates the 1947 partition of Palestine by the United Nations.

On the 60th anniversary of the U.N. partition plan, a key event in Palestinian history, groups around the country mobilized to protest the peace conference in Annapolis.  The conference was pitched as “a launching point for negotiations leading to the establishment of a Palestinian state and the realization of Israeli-Palestinian peace.”  

Many doubt the conference will produce anything other than firmer Israeli control over the Palestinian people.  As Sonja Karkar wrote for the Institute for Middle East Understanding, this conference could lay the path for “the fulfillment of [the first Israeli Prime Minister] Ben Gurion’s plan for Israel: ‘we shall abolish partition and expand into the whole of Palestine.'”

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert announced a joint statement saying they intended “to immediately launch good-faith bilateral negotiations in order to conclude a peace treaty, resolving all outstanding issues, including all core issues without exception.”

President Bush made it clear that Israel “must show the world that they are ready to begin — to bring an end to the occupation that began in 1967 through a negotiated settlement.”  However, the final resolution was an agreement to work towards Palestinian statehood by the end of 2008. The gap between words and actions is well known to Palestinians and Israelis alike. Counter protests against the Annapolis meeting took place in Annapolis, Boston, Los Angeles, and Charlotte, North Carolina, according to the International Middle East Media Center.  Demonstrators argued the summit is cynically designed in order to strengthen President Bush’s war efforts in Iraq. They believe it is not truly intended to bring about a peace. The U.S. Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation pushed its local members to recognize International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People.  It sent out messages calling for  the public to remember the primary issues: “Palestinians — whether living under Israeli military occupation, living as refugees who aren’t allowed to return home, or as second-class citizens of Israel — are denied their right to self-determination.”

The sixtieth anniversary of the U.N. partition plan will give way to activism around the anniversary of Al-Nakba.  Member groups of the U.S. Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation voted at the last annual organizers’ conference to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the birth of the Palestinian “catastrophe” with educational resources and days of action.  

The Day of Solidarity is recognized by the United Nations.  In 1977, the United Nations General Assembly called for the annual observance of the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People. 

In another resolution passed in December 2005, the Assembly requested the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People and the Division for Palestinian Rights, to continue to organize an annual exhibit or event on Palestinian rights in cooperation with the Permanent Observer Mission of Palestine to the U.N. It also formally encouraged Member States to support the observance of the Day of Solidarity.  This year, special meetings in observance of the Solidarity Day were held at the United Nations Headquarters in New York, as well as at the United Nations Offices in Geneva and Vienna. Grassroots events and actions took place around the world.  Boston-area activists from the Boston Committee for Palestinian Rights and Jewish Voice for Peace-Boston Chapter held a vigil to commemorate the day.  The Canada Palestine Association held an event with speakers, including a member of the Canadian Parliament.  An event in Sheffield, England focused on the suffering in Gaza.