On Monday, August 25, 2003, 21 community members gathered for the first meeting of what would become NOLAPS ( New Orleans, Louisiana Palestine Solidarity).

For the next two years, NOLAPS presented a breathtaking array of events, from films, demonstrations and speakers to art shows, a Palestinian hip-hop show, presentations in high school and college classrooms, and a regional conference with US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation. We met with local newspaper editorial boards, appeared on radio shows, set up literature tables at busy public locations, spoke at churches and more. We organized two Human Rights Delegations To Palestine, including sending nine delegates to the occupied Palestinian West Bank in the summer of 2004. We printed a book and a newsletter, released a film, and co-founded and helped coordinate two years of the New Orleans International Human Rights Film Festival....

On Monday, August 25, 2003, 21 community members gathered for the first meeting of what would become NOLAPS ( New Orleans, Louisiana Palestine Solidarity).

For the next two years, NOLAPS presented a breathtaking array of events, from films, demonstrations and speakers to art shows, a Palestinian hip-hop show, presentations in high school and college classrooms, and a regional conference with US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation. We met with local newspaper editorial boards, appeared on radio shows, set up literature tables at busy public locations, spoke at churches and more. We organized two Human Rights Delegations To Palestine, including sending nine delegates to the occupied Palestinian West Bank in the summer of 2004. We printed a book and a newsletter, released a film, and co-founded and helped coordinate two years of the New Orleans International Human Rights Film Festival.

In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, our city was devastated. Members of our group, and our friends and neighbors throughout the city, suffered horrible losses. Many lost everything they owned.

One of our most active members, the president of the local chapter of the American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, lost her home, her business, her job, and all her possessions.

One of our neighbors, a New Orleans businessman originally from Syria, was targeted by police and arrested because he was an Arab. His story is here.

Our community has been dispersed throughout the US. Hundreds of thousands of New Orleanians – mostly Black and poor – have not been able to return.

Post-Katrina, NOLAPS members have been actively involved in the fight for the future of New Orleans, volunteering with local grassroots social justice organizations groups as the Peoples Hurricane Relief Fund, Common Ground Collective, and other organizations, fighting for justice in New Orleans.

The first official post-Katrina meeting of NOLAPS took place on January 2, 2006. In the coming months and years, we are dedicated to continuing the fight for justice, equality, human rights, and the right of return, not just for the people of Palestine and around the world, but also for our brothers and sisters, friends, neighbors and family, here in New Orleans.

We hope you will join us. If you are from New Orleans, we invite you to contact us here.

If you are from elsewhere in the US, we need your help – financial, legal, logistical support is all needed right now. You can make financial contributions online through our website, or email us here.