About us

Vision

 The SOMA Collective for Palestine envisions a future where Palestinians are fully liberated from Israeli military occupation, apartheid, and the siege on Gaza. We expect Palestinians to be given the right of return to their homeland. We are committed to creating a world where Palestinians have the right to self determination and sovereignty over a Palestinian state where Palestinians and Jews can co-exist safely on their own terms free of systemic oppression and violence. In this new world, Palestinians will be liberated and Jews and Palestinians can co-exist safely on the lands between the Jordan river and the Mediterranean sea. This future state also serves the wellbeing of Americans as the US would no longer fund Israeli apartheid and oppression and can instead invest in community needs like education, health care, racial justice, and environmental justice domestically. 

Mission

We are a coalition of individuals and groups including Palestinians, Arabs, Muslims, Jews, and allies who live in South Orange and Maplewood, New Jersey. 

Our mission is to: 

  • Sustain and strengthen our Collective; 
  • Create awareness and educate our community members on the history of Palestine; and  
  • Advocate politically in our towns to garner support for Palestinian liberation and the end to U.S. military support of Israel. 

Strategy

We work toward our mission by: 

  • Strengthening and sustaining our Collective through commitment and community:
    • Organize “Ceasefire Sunday” rallies and marches to bring SOMA communities and beyond along to the call for a permanent ceasefire, arms embargo, and to the Palestinian liberation movement. Through these gatherings we are committed to showing our solidarity to the Palestinian, Muslim, and Arab people. 
    • Humanize the global Palestinian, Muslim, and Arab population by acknowledging and celebrating their culture, history, and heritage through various events.
    • Hold social events for our internal Collective members to lean on and learn from each other, so that we can be stronger advocates for Palestinians. 
    • Outreach and engage with community members who have demonstrated support for Palestine. 
  • Creating awareness and educating our community members on the history of Palestine. 
    • Hold teach-ins, documentary screenings, and curate trusted resources.
      • Educate and catalyze discussions across SOMA on accurate historical context and current atrocities in Gaza. We aim to equip SOMA residents with the knowledge and confidence to refute Israeli and US propaganda in non-judgemental, safe, and brave spaces. 
    • Host a Palestine-focused book club to deepen our understanding of Palestinian history and its connections to global and domestic systems of oppression.
  • Advocating politically in our towns to garner support for Palestinian liberation. 
    • Seek to pass a ceasefire resolution (rejected by Town Councils on March 2024 in South Orange and Maplewood)
    • Support and campaign for pro-Palestinian candidates. 
    • Build our base so that we identify more supporters of Palestinian rights in our towns to build power for the above work.

Our Values

SOMA Collective for Palestine is unapologetically for Palestinian liberation. We look toward Palestinian organizers and movement leaders to steer the work we do in our two towns.  We are guided by the crucial context of Israeli occupation and apartheid against the Palestinian people. We recognize that the root cause of violence before and after October 7, 2023 is Israel’s intent to ethnically cleanse and exterminate Palestinians which has been ongoing and supported financially and diplomatically by Western nations since the early 20th century, long before the formation of Hamas in 1987. 

  1. We demand an immediate and permanent ceasefire in Gaza, an arms embargo, with a halt to ethnic cleansing in the West Bank and all Palestinian territories. 
  2. We demand a release of Palestinian and Israeli hostages that have been abducted and imprisoned before and after October 7.
  3. We demand unimpeded entry of humanitarian aid through all corridors into Gaza so that Palestinians can begin to heal physically and mentally. 
  4. We demand that the U.S. stop funding and sending arms to Israel to continue this genocide and sustain the military occupation, apartheid, and seige on Gaza. 
  5. We do not dilute our language to appease those who refuse to condemn the ongoing genocide or acknowledge Israeli violence of settler colonialism, occupation and apartheid. 
  6. The fact that Palestinians’ occupiers are Jews is merely incidental. We are adamantly opposed to antisemitism in all its forms and would never tolerate hate speech at our events. Antisemitism has no place in the movement for justice for Palestine, nor our society in general. We remain committed to challenging Islamophobia, anti-Palestinian racism, and antisemitism in our communities and around the world. 
  7. We do not seek to silence free speech or threaten people exercising their right to peaceful public protest. We ask the same consideration from our neighbors. 
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