Dissident Veteran For Peace

On Nov. 21, 2005, the Green Party of the United States passed Resolution 190 by a vote of 55-7. The resolution states, in part: "The Green Party of the United States (GPUS) publicly calls for divestment from and boycott of the State of Israel until such time as the full individual and collective rights of the Palestinian people are realized."

Below are several excerpts that reveal how Zionists view Resolution 190 and the struggle to rescind it—it is not merely a struggle over strategy—the integrity, principles, and values of the Green Party are at stake. As revealed below, the Zionist fifth column in the Green Party is led by Gary Acheatel, Audrey Clement, Lorna Salzman, and Marakay Rogers.

"Hate Goes Green" by Roz Rothstein.
FrontPageMagazine. January 9, 2006.

... Israel isn't green enough for the Green Party of the US.

On Nov 21, the group betrayed its own mission to support environment-friendly nations and joined the anti-Israel campaign.

... It is not surprising that the Greens are misinformed. Like other divestment resolutions, the Green Party vote was railroaded through by a small, but vocal and radical faction of the party's leadership, led by Palestinian-American activist Mohammed Abed from the party's Wisconsin chapter. Abed is a tireless activist and propagandist who is at the forefront of the vehemently anti-Israel Al-Awda Palestinian Right to Return Coalition at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and of the university's student-run Divest From Israel Campaign.

... Veteran Green Party member Laurna Salzman said the organization's new anti-Israel stance, "provides cover not only for anti-Semites but for radical Islamists and Palestine apologists and makes a mockery of the (Green Party's) own professed nonviolence position." In Salzman's view, the Greens should not be exploiting their activist network for a specific, narrow and partisan political agenda.

... Some groups have already mobilized, urging the Greens to rescind their misguided resolution. The international group that I work for, StandWithUs, has an online petition that already has thousands of signatures from people around the world.

Hopefully, the Greens will take heed, come to their senses and revoke this resolution which makes a mockery of every value they claim to represent.

Ashland Jew joins Green Party to defend Israel" by Hal Klopper.
Jewish Review. January 15, 2006.

The Green Party's recent call for divestment from and boycott of Israel prompted major Jewish organizations to issue statements condemning the party's resolution.

For Gary Acheatel of Ashland, however, that didn't go far enough. So, he joined the Green Party.

... Acheatel's new membership is a calculated move that seems unusual only on the surface. Dig just a bit deeper, and his unconventional reasoning sounds not only plausible but necessary.

... Employing a circle-within-a-circle strategy, Acheatel has now joined the Greens for one reason: to create a groundswell of member activism to reverse the party's anti-Israel resolution.

... Acheatel was born and raised in Beverly Hills. His parents were armchair Zionists. He studied at UCLA and UC-Santa Cruz. He made aliyah in 1980, served in the Israel Defense Forces, and lived on Kibbutz Eilot in the Negev.

Six years later he returned to the States and eventually settled in Ashland. Married, with a 10-year-old daughter, he's now, at 52, a senior vice president for Morgan Stanley.

... Though the Green Party bills itself as the third largest political faction in the United States, membership totals just over 300,000 people.

Armed with those statistics, many pro-Israel individuals and organizations use a strategy of ignoring the Greens in hopes that the issue will disappear.

Acheatel believes this is a strategy that cannot be risked. "It's my contention that America's political leadership is very favorable toward Israel," he said, "but that eventually it will cave in without the widespread support of the population. So, Israel's PR efforts need shoring up in order to maintain that support."

He cited Ashland's extremely liberal reputation as an example. "Flabbergasted" that nobody was reacting to the many anti-Israel letters to the editor in the Ashland Daily Tidings, he joined a local Media Watch Team--now with 18 members--to counter the anti-Israel diatribes and help create a pro-Israel advocacy group. This effort has contributed to reducing considerably the volume of anti-Israel rhetoric in Ashland's op-ed pages.

... Acheatel is encouraging others to join the cause. His new organization, Advocates For Israel, (www.advocatesforisrael.org), is being set in motion to: * Provide a centralized Web site to educate the public about the extent of both pro-Israel and anti-Israel activity. * Maintain a guide for establishing community-based chapters dedicated to Israel advocacy. * Coordinate local activism to engage in effective pro-Israel PR campaigns. * Provide templates for people to craft and publish letters-to-the-editor in local newspapers. * Establish a national speakers' bureau of experts to speak about Israel's history, politics, society and innovations. * Serve as a resource center to link the Jewish and general public to myriad Israeli accomplishments and initiatives in the arts, science, agriculture, business and technology.

Is the Green Party anti-Zionist? Not necessarily. True, its Israel boycott resolution was co-sponsored by "Palestinian refugee" and Wisconsin party member Mohammed Abed, who wrote, "Israel's treatment of Palestinians--those who are Israeli citizens as well as those in the territories--is comparable in many ways to South African apartheid." ...

[DVFP Notes: On the similarities between Israeli apartheid and South African apartheid see Desmond Tutu, the Palestine Solidarity Committee of South Africa, and Uri Davis]

Green Jews campaign against party's Israel divestment resolution" by Ron Kampeas.
JTA. February 23, 2006.

WASHINGTON, Feb. 23 (JTA) Audrey Clement biked across night-darkened bridges and through driving winter rain to make her point: Her party--the Green Party--made a fundamental mistake in a resolution calling for divestment from Israel.

She waited patiently for the DC-Statehood-Green Party to wade through its monthly agenda items of procedural items, reports on efforts to revive schools and libraries in afflicted areas of Washington and a lengthy discussion on making the Web site accessible to all members.

Then she rose and launched her critique of a resolution that calls for total divestment from Israel for its alleged abuses of Palestinians: "What I am addressing is what I believe is subliminal anti-Semitism," she said.

... Her appearance--and a debate now raging throughout the party's rank and file--was the result of a hard-driven campaign by Gary Acheatel, a banker in Portland, Ore., launched not long after the Green Party passed the resolution in November.

Acheatel said the resolution was the final straw in what he said was Israel's diminishing profile on the left. He joined the Greens and started contacting the delegates who voted against Resolution 190 losing a lopsided 55-7 vote.

Acheatel said one national Jewish group rebuffed him because the Greens are on the fringe of American political life. The party has diminished substantially in status since Ralph Nader's run for the presidency in 2000. They were not a factor in the last elections, and the party currently has slightly more than 300,000 registered voters.

"I don't believe the Greens to be so inconsequential," Acheatel countered. "Its candidates are invited to debates and merit coverage in the mainstream press. This enables the party to exercise an influence beyond its numbers."

Acheatel contacted Lorna Salzman, a veteran Green Party activist from New York City and they launched the "Let 190 Go" campaign, headquartered on the Web at www.advocatesforisrael.org. It has made some inroads.

In addition to Clement's appearance in Washington, a number of Jewish veterans of the party are appealing for the resolution to be rescinded, including former candidates such as Stanley Aronowitz of New York, and Marakay Rogers, a candidate for governor of Pennsylvania.

... National Jewish groups are playing a role too. The Jewish Council for Public Affairs organized a conference call on the issue for about 15 Jewish community relations councils, and the Anti-Defamation League distributed material to Green Party delegates.

... "I am concerned by the anti-Semitic undertones of the proposal, Nikolas Schiller, an officer of the Washington branch, said after listening to Clement's presentation. "I agree with the more global aspects of an alternative that would take a range of nations to task.

"Story fans flames of Green Party dissent over Israel divestment resolution" by Deborah Moon Seldner.
Jewish Review. March 1, 2006.

A Jan. 15 article in the Jewish Review by special writer Hal Klopper apparently has ignited "a raging fire" within the U.S. Green Party over its recent Israel divestment and boycott resolution, according to both a Green Party founder and the party newcomer who was the subject of the Review article.

... "You (the Jewish Review) stirred things up to where it's a raging fire within the party where it was dormant before you ran that article," said Gary Acheatel, the subject of the Jan. 15 article, which is available on the World Wide Web (www.jewishreview.org). "That news story was a catalyst."

Lorna Salzman, who founded the New York Green Party in 1984 and was a candidate to be the Green Party's presidential nominee in 2004, has taken an active role in combating the resolution. She said she is fanning the flames within the party while Acheatel is finding allies in the Jewish community to help rescind the resolution.

She agreed with Acheatel that debate within the party has heated up. "It's been very noticeable in the past two weeks," she said in a telephone interview with the Jewish Review on Feb. 14.

... Acheatel said his primary focus now is finding Zionists within the Green Party who are willing to bring the issue to their state parties.

... But Acheatel said he sees the Greens' divestment resolution as a cancer on the tip of your finger. "You're thankful it's there and not on your lungs, but it's still cancer," he said.

... [Lorna Salzman] said she is further appalled by the Green Party's acquiescence to an outside special interest and the lack of grassroots democracy in passing the resolution.

"The pressure for this clearly came from outside Muslim groups," said Salzman.

... [Acheatel] said the [Anti-Defamation League] recently mailed fact packets on the Israeli-Palestinian peace process to the entire Green Party national committee. The committee also has been taken to task by two of the party's prominent members. In a joint letter to the Green Party national committee, a past and a present Green Party gubernatorial candidate took the committee for task for passing a resolution that "violates our (Green Party) Ten Key Values by failing to condemn violence on both sides, and by failing to observe the principle of grassroots democracy when it approved the resolution without a broad discussion within the state parties and without soliciting dissenting views."

... Acheatel said he is optimistic the resolution will be rescinded. He said he hopes that one state will sponsor a resolution to rescind 190 within the next couple months. If not, both Acheatel and Salzman said they are gearing up to address the issue at the Green Party's next national meeting in Tucson in July.

Green Party revisits policy."
Jewish Review. July 1, 2006.

The June 17 meeting of the Pacific Green Party of Oregon revisited the national party's Resolution 190, which calls for a boycott of Israel and divestment from corporations conducting business there.

The revisit came with two local resolutions, one reaffirming and one consensus resolution that attempted to find common ground of those opposed to 190. Both failed.

Coordinating committee member Arthur Cvar and four other party members co-sponsored the failed reaffirmation attempt while Jewish Green members Allen Drescher and Gary Acheatel from Ashland joined another coordinating committee member, George Huthcinson in co-sponsoring the 'consensus' resolution.

In addition to the Pacific Green Party's failure to affirm 190 it also decided to establish a new committee to develop a comprehensive and universally acceptable policy for peace in the Middle East, demonstrating the party's understanding of the need for a peaceful solution. Perhaps the climax of the meeting occurred when Green Party gubernatorial candidate, Joe Keeting voiced his strong opposition to the controversial 190 debate.

Since the coordinating committee was asked in May to address Resolution 190, there has been significant anger and dissent at both the state and national level. Much of the reaction is due to concern that the outcome of the resolution will have an adverse effect on Green Party candidates in the November elections. Lorna Salzman, however, a past Green Party presidential candidate from NY, commended the committee's effort to broaden the debate to the membership at large, which according to Salzman failed to occur in most states prior to 190's passage last Novemeber. Also noteworthy, Hamas won the Palestinian election subsequent to 190's passing. Further conversation about the resolution likely will take place at the Green Party national convention July 17-25 in Tucson, Ariz.

Labels: apartheid, boycott, hasbara, politics, Zionism