Anti-Zionist slogans were shouted from the floor at the Young Socialist Alliance convention here yesterday where delegates demanded that the organization accelerate its support of the “Arab revolution and Palestinian liberation.”
The four-day convention at the University of Minnesota drew about 600 delegates. The Young Socialist Alliance is a Trotskyite-Marxist group affiliated with the Socialist Workers Party. It claims 10,000 members, a majority of them students.
YSA national chairman Larry Seigle said the organization’s existing policy in favor of the Arabs would get new emphasis. Its proponents contend that as the Middle East conflict escalates, students would become more receptive to the YSA’s “defense of the Arab struggle against Zionism.” It was learned that three Arab students helped set the stage for the new emphasis. Heavy applause greeted their slogan, “Death to U.S. Imperialism. Death to Zionism. Long live the Palestinian revolution.” One of the Arab students brought greetings from the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a guerrilla organization. A YSA officer said later that the organization supported no particular Arab group and that while it opposed Zionism, it supported “Socialist revolution” in Israel.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
