Dissident Veteran For Peace

When it comes to Palestine-Israel, Daniel Larison is better than most on the American Right. For instance, in 2019, he astutely observed, "Israel is not America's Ally". This may help explain why he is no longer a senior editor at The American Conservative, which, as of today, has said nothing about Israel's latest criminal "mowing the grass" in Gaza.

On May 12, 2021, Larison wrote:

Every time that the Israeli military carries out indiscriminate attacks on civilian areas in the occupied territories and kills Palestinian civilians, there is inevitably the rote response from American politicians and pundits that Israel has the “right to defend itself.” In almost all cases, this invocation of the right of self-defense is an all-purpose permission slip that gives any Israeli military action a stamp of approval ... What makes this all the more tedious is that no one actually disputes that Israel is permitted to defend itself. [emphasis added]

This is a little strange because in a different article Larison notes: "The Israeli government has gone out of its way in recent weeks to confirm that it is an apartheid state." Apartheid is a crime under international law. 

Objectively, in the case of Palestine, Israel is the aggressor, not the defender. Criminals have no right of self-defense in furtherance of their crimes or in securing the fruits of their crimes. Furthermore, occupying powers, such as Israel, have no legal right of self-defense against people resisting occupation. Moreover, even if Israel did have a right of self-defense that would not permit them, as they have repeatedly done, to violate the principles of distinction and proportionality.

Labels: apartheid, Carlos Latuff, Israel, law, Palestine, War

Last December, F. W. de Klerk, the last president of South Africa under the system of White supremacist rule known as apartheid, confirmed what every informed, thinking person already knew: The so-called two-state solution to the conflict in Palestine is about locking in a Jewish supremacist apartheid solution in Palestine. De Klerk told the BBC program Today: "What I supported as a younger politician [in South Africa] was exactly what the whole world now supports for Israel and Palestine; namely, separate nation-states ..." In South Africa, the Black "nation-states" were derisively called bantustans.De Klerk's statement can be heard at about 2:27 in the 13-minute interview.

Labels: apartheid, Israel, South Africa

Dear Erykah Badu,

I salute you for your courageous and well-intentioned remarks in Tel Aviv last January. But please know that the Palestinian people, with whom you identify, have a called for an international boycott of the Jewish apartheid state of Israel. I hope you will not only honor that call but do your part to promote it. In the 1980s, the artists listed below wouldn't "play Sun City" in White apartheid South Africa and I hope you won't play Tel Aviv again until Israeli apartheid is smashed and gone. For your information, at the bottom of this post is the text of the Call for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel.

• Steven Van Zandt
• Miles Davis
• Kool DJ Herc
• Grandmaster Melle Mel
• Ruben Blades
• Bob Dylan
• Herbie Hancock
• Ringo Starr
• Zak Starkey
• Lou Reed
• Run DMC
• Peter Gabriel
• David Ruffin
• Eddie Kendricks
• Darlene Love
• Bobby Womack
• Afrika Bambaataa
• Kurtis Blow
• Jackson Browne
• Darryl Hannah
• U2
• George Clinton
• Keith Richards
• Ron Wood
• Bonnie Raitt
• Hall & Oates
• Jimmy Cliff
• Big Youth
• Michael Monroe
• Peter Garrett
• Ron Carter
• Ray Barretto
• Gil-Scott Heron
• Nona Hendryx
• Pat Benatar
• Joey Ramone

Whereas Israel’s colonial oppression of the Palestinian people, which is based on Zionist ideology, comprises the following:

· Denial of its responsibility for the Nakba -- in particular the waves of ethnic cleansing and dispossession that created the Palestinian refugee problem -- and therefore refusal to accept the inalienable rights of the refugees and displaced stipulated in and protected by international law;

· Military occupation and colonization of the West Bank (including East Jerusalem) and Gaza since 1967, in violation of international law and UN resolutions;

· The entrenched system of racial discrimination and segregation against the Palestinian citizens of Israel, which resembles the defunct apartheid system in South Africa;

Since Israeli academic institutions (mostly state controlled) and the vast majority of Israeli intellectuals and academics have either contributed directly to maintaining, defending or otherwise justifying the above forms of oppression, or have been complicit in them through their silence,

Given that all forms of international intervention have until now failed to force Israel to comply with international law or to end its repression of the Palestinians, which has manifested itself in many forms, including siege, indiscriminate killing, wanton destruction and the racist colonial wall,

In view of the fact that people of conscience in the international community of scholars and intellectuals have historically shouldered the moral responsibility to fight injustice, as exemplified in their struggle to abolish apartheid in South Africa through diverse forms of boycott,

Recognizing that the growing international boycott movement against Israel has expressed the need for a Palestinian frame of reference outlining guiding principles,

In the spirit of international solidarity, moral consistency and resistance to injustice and oppression,

We, Palestinian academics and intellectuals, call upon our colleagues in the international community to comprehensively and consistently boycott all Israeli academic and cultural institutions as a contribution to the struggle to end Israel’s occupation, colonization and system of apartheid, by applying the following:

Refrain from participation in any form of academic and cultural cooperation, collaboration or joint projects with Israeli institutions;

Advocate a comprehensive boycott of Israeli institutions at the national and international levels, including suspension of all forms of funding and subsidies to these institutions;

Promote divestment and disinvestment from Israel by international academic institutions;

Work toward the condemnation of Israeli policies by pressing for resolutions to be adopted by academic, professional and cultural associations and organizations;

Support Palestinian academic and cultural institutions directly without requiring them to partner with Israeli counterparts as an explicit or implicit condition for such support.

Endorsed by:

Labels: apartheid, boycott, Erykah Badu, Israel, music, Palestine, resistance, South Africa, video, Zionism

Zionists have for years tried, and with a great deal of success, to bamboozle people about the true nature of their "shitty little country." The Zionist war on truth is known in Hebrew as hasbara. Apartheid was implemented in Israel at its inception and has never been confined to the Golan, East Jerusalem, Gaza, and the West Bank. Below are some links to resources that help lay bear the reality of the Jewish state.

• "Israeli Apartheid: Time for the South African Treatment" by Omar Barghouti
• "Discrimination Diaries" by the Arab Association for Human Rights (based in Israel)
• The Mossawa Center, the Advocacy Center for Arab Citizens in Israel
• An Equal Constitution For All?: On a Constitution and Collective Rights for Arab Citizens in Israel (PDF)
• Adalah, The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel
• Adalah's 2007 Report to the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (PDF)
• The Association of Forty - the association for the recognition of the Arab Unrecognized Villages in Israel
• Ittijah - Union of the Arab Community Based Organizations
• "Israel: an apartheid state?" by Leila Farsakh
• "Declaration on Apartheid Israel" by the Palestine Solidarity Committee of South Africa
• "Israeli Apartheid And Terrorism: Part 1, The Reality" by Edward S. Herman
• "Apartheid Israel: An interview with Uri Davis" by Jon Elmer
• "Our apartheid state" by Yossi Paritzky
• Israeli Apartheid Week
• "Worlds Apart" by Chris McGreal
  

Labels: apartheid, hasbara, Israel, race, Zionism

Erykah Badu got the attention of the Associated Press last week when she reportedly "said she identifies with Palestinian hip-hop and expressed support for Louis Farrakhan before a crowd of Israeli fans and journalists Thursday." The short piece goes on to say:

The singer, who couldn't name any Israeli hip-hop artists, said she identified best with the Palestinians and their hip-hop scene, saying they are part of her "tribe" of hip-hop.
"They use (hip-hop) as a form of liberation, as a form of pre-resistance, as a form of therapy," she said.

Ha'aretz and the Jerusalem Post both republished the AP story and their readers left lots of interesting comments here and here. One hopes that Badu got the permission of Palestinians to perform in Israel as the Jewish apartheid state is currently under a cultural and economic boycott.

In any case, the AP report reminded me of the November 1, 1970, "Appeal by Black Americans Against United States Support of the Zionist Government of Israel", published in the New York Times (p. 172) by the Committee of Black Americans for Truth About the Middle East. The statement was signed by a number of Detroit activists, including Grace and James Boggs and the Reverend Albert B. Cleage Jr., founder of the Shrine of the Black Madonna. Among other things, the appeal expressed "complete solidarity with our Palestinian brothers and sisters", denounced "King Hussein's slaughter of Palestinian refugees and freedom-fighters", noted the alliance of apartheid South Africa and Israel, and quoted Yassir Arafat as follows: "Our political vision for a free Palestine is a democratic, secular, non-racial state where all Palestinians--Christians, Jews, and Muslims--will have equal rights."


Props to no snow here for alerting me to the Erykah Badu story, via criticalbloggers.org, and to Stop Raping Palestine for clueing me into the "Appeal by Black Americans ..."

I liked Badu's 1997 Baduizm but haven't really followed her music since then but I really like the video for "Honey" from the New Amerikah album. The two vids below are both from the Palestinian hip hop group, DAM.

See also:

• Black American Anti-Zionism II

Labels: apartheid, Black America, Erykah Badu, Israel, music, Palestine, resistance, video

Last March, Queers Undermining Israeli Terrorism! and the South West Asian, North African Bay Area Queers (SWANABAQ) initiated a campaign to pressure Frameline, the organizer of the San Francisco International LGBT Film Festival, to cut its ties with the Israeli government. In an open letter signed by more than 100 artists, musicians, and writers, including Sophie Fiennes, Elia Suleiman, Ken Loach, Haim Bresheeth, Jenny Morgan, John Berger, Arundhati Roy, Ahdaf Soueif, Eduardo Galeano, Brian Eno, and Leon Rosselson, Frameline was asked "to honor calls for an international boycott of Israeli political and cultural institutions, by discontinuing Israeli consulate sponsorship of the LGBT film festival and not cosponsoring events with the Israeli consulate." The festival starts June 14, so it's not too late to add your name to the letter (see info at bottom here) or ...

Please write, call or email Michael Lumpkin and Matt Westendorf and let them know you disagree with their decision. Michael Lumpkin & Matt Westendorf, Frameline, 145 Ninth Street, #300, San Francisco, CA 94103, 415-703-8650, email info@frameline.org .

See also: "San Francisco Queers Say No Pride in Apartheid" in Electronic Intifada (May 29, 2007)

Labels: apartheid, bds, boycott, Israel, LGBT, Zionism

Here are some excerpts from "Avocados, Diamonds at Core of Anti-Israel Trade Campaign" by Moyiga Nduru:

JOHANNESBURG, Jan 26 (IPS) - A call from a South African trade unionist for national supermarket chains to stop importing avocado from Israel could ultimately lead to the banning of all imports from the Jewish state, if unions and human rights activists have their way.

Katishi Masemola, secretary general of the Food and Allied Workers' Union (FAWU), told South Africa's supermarket chains earlier this week that Israel produces avocado under "slave-type conditions". He says the International Labour Organisation (ILO) forbids the use of child labour which, he claims, Israel is employing on avocado farms.

IPS contacted the Israeli embassy in Pretoria, the capital of South Africa, for comment. It did not return IPS's call.

Masemola told IPS in an interview: "Israel is occupying parts of Palestine and it's frustrating its moving towards statehood. In those occupied territories, avocados are produced under harsh slave-type conditions. Israeli farmers hire Palestinian children and pay them peanuts." ...

When IPS began making inquiries, it found that the fruit debate was only the tip of the iceberg. "It's not only avocado. The main item that concerns us is diamond. Israel imports diamond from South Africa; polishes it and cuts it before selling it back to South Africa at almost ten times its original value. It does the same with gold," Mohamed told IPS by phone from Cape Town.

"Israel imports diamond worth three billion rand (about 430 million dollars) from South Africa a year. Israel doesn't produce a single diamond. Yet 30 percent of its GDP (gross domestic product) comes from diamond. The diamond could be polished and cut in South Africa to provide jobs for the estimated 40 percent unemployed South Africans," he said. ...

Slowly, the anti-Israeli coalition is growing in South Africa. "We haven't made the call to impose sanctions against Israel yet. We know Israel commits atrocities against Palestinians. But we are moving there. It's just a matter of months," Masemola said.

"We are making a call to mobilise South African workers. We want to all diamonds from Israel to be treated as conflict diamonds. We urge people not to buy diamonds from Israel," said Mohamed.

An international campaign targeting Israeli crafted diamonds is planned for February in South Africa, Britain, Canada, Australia and Ireland. ...

The South African government, which has not imposed sanctions, nor introduced boycott regulations, on Israeli goods, is perceived to be pro-Palestine, given the history between the ruling African National Congress (ANC) and the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO). The former apartheid regime worked closely with the Jewish state.

See also: "Blood Diamonds"--the Israeli Connection

Labels: apartheid, bds, boycott, diamonds, Israel, South Africa

Political and cultural analyst Omar Barghouti has an interesting analysis of the most recent Israeli Knesset elections in the current issue of Synthesis/Regeneration. An excerpt from the article, entitled "Israeli Elections: A Vote for Apartheid," appears below.

"Israel votes for disengagement and final borders" and "Israelis abandon the dream of Greater Israel" were the main themes in the spin that characterized mainstream (and even some progressive) media coverage of the Israeli parliamentary elections which took place on March 28, 2006. In reality, the election results revealed that a consensus has emerged among Israeli Jews, not only against the basic requirements of justice and genuine peace, as that was always the case, but also in support of a more aggressive form of ethnic cleansing of Palestinians and cementing Zionist apartheid.

In the 2006 Knesset elections, Israelis overwhelmingly voted for "disengagement"—not from the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT), but only from the Palestinians, whether in Israel, in the OPT or in exile. Palestinian lands are clearly precluded from this disengagement. An objective examination of the election results and the political platforms of the parties represented in the new Israeli parliament will show that the celebration of the "shift to peace and realism" is not only unwarranted but quite deceptive. If anything, an avid adoption of the right's agenda has taken place.

With the exception of the Palestinian-dominated political parties, all Israeli parties represented in the seventeenth Knesset converge on the three fundamental No's of Zionism:

* No to the return of Palestinian refugees who were uprooted by Israel during the Nakba (catastrophe of dispossession and expulsion around 1948);
* No to a complete end of the occupation and colonization of the Palestinian territory occupied by Israel in 1967;
* No to full equality, in the law as well as in government policies, between Israel's Jewish citizens and its Palestinian citizens, the remaining indigenous population of the land.

Some may argue that the "ultra-dovish" Jewish-Israeli party, Meretz, has dissented from the consensus on the second clause, when it supported “ending the occupation.” In fact, Meretz has never accepted a complete return to the internationally recognized borders of 1967, which put East Jerusalem with its Old City on the Palestinian side. It has always argued for keeping parts of the OPT under Israeli control, not to mention that its consistent position against Palestinian refugee rights and full equality in Israel makes the xenophobic right parties in Europe sound quite liberal in comparison.

Just recently, Meretz's leader, Yossi Beilin, wrote to Avigdor Lieberman (seen by some analysts as the new leader of the "fascist" right in Israel) admiring him for being "very intelligent, a successful politician, an excellent man of action, and a smart Jew," and further praising him for "guiding us to a situation in which the Jewish people, too, will indeed finally have a Jewish state of its own."

Lieberman has called for ethnically cleansing Israel of half a million of its Palestinian citizens by "adjusting its borders" to leave them out, denying them citizenship and any pertinent rights. It is worth noting that most of the land belonging to this target group has already been confiscated by the state over decades. ...

Barghouti's commentary on the Meretz (also known as Meretz-Yachad) Party is especially helpful as Meretz is linked to the US-based "peace" organization, Brit Tzedek v'Shalom (BTvS), which is in reality a Zionist Trojan horse. Yossi Beilin was one of the architects of ill-conceived and unjust Geneva Initiative, which is backed by his party and not coincidentally, Meretz USA and BTvS.

As revealed in an article by Nacha Cattan, which appeared in The Forward (5/31/2002), BTvS is tied to Meretz by its President and founder Marcia Freedman, who served in the Knesset as a "member of what is now called Meretz" and who "said Brit Tzedek will strive to work cooperatively with Meretz USA ... " Also on hand at the major fundraising event covered in the article was Lilly Rivlin, "a vice president of Meretz USA, which supports the leftist Israeli Meretz Party of the same name." Here's a telling excerpt from the article:

[BTvS] is debating whether to affiliate with other Jewish peace groups, which Freedman said is a "problematic" issue because it would entail turning down organizations that don't follow its principles.

Among these principles are an implicit rejection of a Palestinian "right of return" to property in Israel proper. Instead, the organization supports a "just" resolution to the Palestinian refugee problem that respects "the special relationship between the state of Israel and the Jewish people."

"A full 'right of return' [for Palestinian refugees] is an implication of a one-state solution," said Freedman.

In 2004, Brit Tzedek v'Shalom and Meretz USA joined forces to co-sponsor a national tour by Naomi Chazan, a former Meretz Member of Knesset.

The links between BTvS and Meretz were also stressed in a 2005 article by Ralph Seliger, editor of Israel Horizons, a publication of Meretz USA:

Although Meretz USA and Brit Tzedek are different in organizational structure and to a degree in their sense of mission, we have a history of working together. As a constituent organization of the American Zionist Movement, Meretz USA is a natural place for members of Brit Tzedek to express their Zionist convictions by affiliating with us and voting for our slate in next year's election for delegates to the World Zionist Congress.

Elsewhere in the same article Seliger notes, "Brit Tzedek ... does not emphasize the 'Z' word" but Zionists they are. As Jonathan Tilove writes, "Hadar Susskind, Washington director for the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, which represents many of the nation's largest Jewish organizations, ... counts Brit Tzedek members as good Zionists" ("Some Liberal Jews Break Ranks on Israel." Newhouse News Service. Aug. 3, 2006).

Labels: apartheid, Israel, politics, Zionism

I've gotten several reports from convention attendees now. As if to mock the convention theme of "Sow Justice--Reap Peace," the "Resolution on Justice and Peace in Palestine" was soundly defeated at the Veterans for Peace convention in Seattle on Saturday. The Board of Directors rejected the resolution on Wednesday or Thursday (although I was not informed of this until Friday night) necessitating a two-thirds vote of support at the convention business meeting in order for the resolution to pass.

Resolutions Committee Chair Lincoln Grahlfs presented the resolution at the business meeting. According to two eyewitness reports he was openly hostile to the resolution and repeatedly made negative comments during his reading of it. Then, an abbreviated debate on the resolution was permitted where one speaker spoke in favor of the resolution but was not permitted to finish his remarks. A member of my own VFP chapter used his time to smear me personally and was cut off by the VFP president Dave Cline after he started attacking the other VFP co-sponsors of the resolution. Apparently, I was identified as a "troublemaker." He's right about that--I'm trouble for peacethugs, liars, and racists no matter where I find them but especially when I find them posing as peace advocates.

Reportedly, one of the main objections was that the resolution reversed VFP's previous support for a "two-state solution" to the conflict. Thoughtful readers will recall that a "two-state solution" is what the United States killed hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese people to preserve. Rather than let Vietnam be united under the leadership of Ho Chi Minh the Americans blocked elections and propped up a brutal puppet regime in South Vietnam--58,000 Americans died in that fiasco. The U.S. also supported the racist leaders of apartheid South Africa when they set about creating a White supremacist state and several smaller Black colonies better known as bantustans. Fortunately, people of good conscience around the world worked against apartheid and today South Africa is one country with equal rights for all of its citizens.

But racists within the ranks of the peace movement don't support that for Arabs; they support Jewish ethno-religious supremacy in the 78% of Palestine violently seized in 1948--the same year Whites imposed apartheid in South Africa. Well, millions of Palestinian refugees--most of whom live in Palestine or surrounding countries--aren't going away. Only justice will bring peace to the region and in the meantime the conflict will continue to destabilize the entire planet.

Another related complaint was that the resolution was "too controversial" because it committed VFP to supporting a one-state solution and to--God forbid--actually making anti-Zionist peace activities, such as boycotts and divestment from Israel, a real part of VFP's work. VFP leaders have done nothing to implement the boycott and divestment resolution adopted last year and that's, apparently, the way they intend to keep it. Presumably, the cowards who shun this "controversy" don't have the backbone to stand up against the false charges of 'anti-Semitism' that would have come their way if they'd had the temerity to express a "strong preference for the peaceful creation of one democratic state between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea with equality for all of its citizens" as the resolution called for.

Another specious complaint was that VFP did not have sufficient means to adopt the resolution because it would have directed the Board of Directors "to allocate adequate financial and staff resources to ensure meaningful implementation of this resolution." As far as I know, no one ever explored how much that would cost but financial geniuses on the Board of Directors fortuitously knew that any cost would be too much.

Some VFP leaders, apparently, abused their positions in order to help defeat the resolution. The resolution was submitted to the Resolutions Committee Chair Lincoln Grahlfs four weeks in advance of the VFP convention but Grahlfs never even acknowledged receiving it, although VFP Executive Director Michael T. McPhearson eventually did.

The VFP "Resolutions Notice" says:

V. Resolutions received by the committee at least three weeks before
the convention will be either

1. Accepted as written and promptly acknowledged.
   
2. returned to sender with suggestions for rewriting.
   
3. returned to sender with an explanation of why they are inappropriate.

Yet, there wasn't any communication whatsoever from the Grahlfs or anyone else on the Committee. This deprived the ten VFP members supporting the resolution of time and information to address concerns, come up with alternative language, and to strategize on how to build support for the resolution. Despite repeated inquiries this lapse has never been explained. So much for maintaining "an organization that is both democratic and open" (VFP Bylaws Art. II).

In closing, here are a couple of quotes from one of the convention attendees:

...To me this is a no-brainer. ... I never have had that much to do with VFP. Now, I won't ever have anything to do with them again. Like many peace and justice organizations in this country, they are basically useless.

...

I guess we should not be surprised that Congress votes overwhelmingly for resolutions totally biased towards Israel when the so-called progressive group, VFP, basically votes the same way.

I'm going to stay in VFP and fight for justice and peace and I hope others who were discouraged by the vote on the resolution will stay and fight along with me. The Zionists, peacethugs, and the cowards in the movement want us to give up in frustration--let's not give them what they want.

See also: VFP Palestine Resolution Defeated--Take 2

Last revised: 11/28/2006

Labels: anti-war movement, apartheid, fraud, Veterans for Peace

Virginia Tilley was mentioned in this blog in June; she has a new article on CounterPunch: "The Case for Boycotting Israel: Boycott Now!" Here are some excerpts:

... A coordinated movement of divestment, sanctions, and boycotts against Israel must convene to contain not only Israel's aggressive acts and crimes against humanitarian law but also, as in South Africa, its founding racist logics that inspired and still drive the entire Palestinian problem.

That second goal of the boycott campaign is indeed the primary one. Calls for a boycott have long cited specific crimes ... But the boycott cannot target these practices alone. It must target their ideological source.

The true offence to the international community is the racist motivation for these practices, which violates fundamental values and norms of the post-World War II order. That racial ideology isn't subtle or obscure. Mr. Olmert himself has repeatedly thumped the public podium about the "demographic threat" facing Israel: the "threat" that too many non-Jews will - the horror - someday become citizens of Israel. It is the "demographic threat" that, in Israeli doctrine, justifies sealing off the West Bank and Gaza Strip as open-air prisons for millions of people whose only real crime is that they are not Jewish.

...

The raw logic of Israel's distorted self-image and racist doctrines is expressed beyond confusion by the now-stark reality: the moonscape rubble of once-lovely Lebanese villages; a million desperate people trying to survive Israeli aerial attacks as they carry children and wheel disabled grandparents down cratered roads; the limp bodies of children pulled from the dusty basements of crushed buildings. This is the reality of Israel's national doctrine, the direct outcome of its racist worldview. It is endangering everyone, and it must stop.

...

... don't be confused by liberal Zionist alternatives that argue against a boycott in favor of "dialogue". If we can draw any conclusion from the last half-century, it is that, without the boycott, dialogue will go nowhere. And don't be confused by liberal-Zionist arguments that Israel will allow Palestinians a state if they only do this or that. Israel is already the only sovereign power in Palestine: what fragments are left to Palestinians cannot make a state. The question now is not whether there is one state, but what kind of state it comprises. The present version is apartheid, and it must change. However difficult to achieve, and however frightening to Jewish Israelis, the only just and stable solution is full democracy.

...

Boycott the Hegemon

This is the moment to turn international pressure on the complicit US, too. It's impossible, today, to exert an effective boycott on the United States, as its products are far too ubiquitous in our lives. But it's quick and easy to launch a boycott of emblematic US products, upsetting its major corporations. It's especially easy to boycott the great global consumables, like Coca-Cola, MacDonald's, Burger King, and KFC, whose leverage has brought anti-democratic pressures on governments the world over. (Through ugly monopoly practices, Coke is a nasty player in developing countries anyway: see, for example, http://www.killercoke.org.)

Labels: apartheid, boycott, Israel, Palestine, Zionism

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

Forwarded to Dissident Veteran for Peace by Hedy Epstein (edited for spelling and format):

Mainstream media has been circulating articles falsely stating that the 217th Presbyterian Assembly has reversed or rescinded its decision for phased selective divestment. See [the] Boston Globe, Chicago Tribune, and NYTimes.

As someone who has witnessed firsthand the ongoings and intrigues of the 217th Presbyterian Assembly (ends this morning 6.22.06), I must state that it is a big lie to state that divestment has been reversed or rescinded! Not in any sense of the word. the work of the Presbyterians' MRTI (Mission Responsibility through Investment) continues as prescribed in the 2004 Assembly. In fact, the current resolution AFFIRMS that. This was also stated in no uncertain terms in the adopted report, in the press conferences given by the Church Moderator, the Committee Moderator and the Stated Clerk after the vote.

Please help in stemming the tide of lies that pro-Israeli groups have been desperately trying to circulate even before the resolution was voted on. It is true that the Presbyterians were bullied into offering an apology to the so-called mainstream Jewish organizations; it is true that what they passed yesterday casts insults onto their own efforts and process in 2004; it is true that it carries serious contradictions for them (they passed a resolution for an unambiguous, fast-track divestment from Sudan), as well asfor their own church constitution (article 4 in the adopted report contradicts their belief that the Chuch has every right to critique sovereign states). BUT IT IS NOT TRUE THAT DIVESTMENT WAS EITHER REVERSED, REPLACED, RESCINDED, DILUTED, OR DELAYED.

What is on the books now is essentially and exactly what was there in 2004. The pro-Israeli pressure before and during the Presbyterian General Assembly was directed at obtaining a change in perception in order to prevent similar actions from other churches and establishments. They realize, as we do, that the moral/ethical edge of divestment as a term is what really brought down South Africa's Apartheid and not the economic sanctions. So please do not fall into the trap of repeating what the mainstream media propagates; this would only discourage other churches and organizations from attempting divestment. Reporters attending the press conference after the GA vote were unambiguously and repeatedly informed about the true nature of the resolution. Yet we overheard some of them communicate false statements (outright lies) about the whole process over their cellphones as we stood there. Please refer people to the text of the document on the Church's website and to their published article. This is what's binding.

I have seen so many lies propagated over the last week. Please do not allow them to go any further. Although "divestment" has become the new four-letter-word, the Presbyterians are still committed.

Hazem Ziada,
Atlanta Palestine Solidarity

Labels: apartheid, boycott, Christianity, Israel, resistance, Zionism