Dissident Veteran For Peace

HEY ELTON from John Greyson on Vimeo.

Palestinian civil society has called on Elton John to respect its boycott call and cancel his June 17th concert in Tel Aviv. If he does so, he'll be joining Santana and Gil-Scott Heron, who recently cancelled their spring concerts in Israel. This video suggests six reasons why Elton should join the BDS (boycott, divestment, sanctions) movement.

Labels: bds, boycott, Israel, music, Palestine, video

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

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

Blood Diamonds—another reason to boycott Israeli goods. From "Director Zwick excavates the bloody price of 'Diamonds' " (12/08/06) by Steven Rosen in the Jewish Journal of Los Angeles:

Sierra Leone is now at peace, achieved with the help of international intervention, and trying to recover from its strife. But its recent history makes for many harrowing scenes in "Blood Diamond." The fact that the rebels sold diamonds to support their monstrous acts, relying on a worldwide "lust for bling," might make some moviegoers wonder about their own unwitting complicity in all this. It is an issue directly tied to the Jewish community. The diamond industry has traditionally employed many Jews in all its manufacturing and sales aspects. Here in Los Angeles, Jews -- including many who are Orthodox -- are well-represented as merchants in the downtown Jewelry District. On its Web site, the Israeli Diamond Industry claims to manufacture two-thirds of all gem-quality diamonds in the world, and the World Diamond Congress held its annual meeting in Israel this year. The German-Jewish Oppenheimer family led De Beers to become the worldwide leader in the mining and sales of rough diamonds, although its patriarch reportedly converted to the Anglican Church in the 1930s. De Beers also has a worldwide retail operation, including a store on Rodeo Drive. According to author Edward Jay Epstein, who wrote "The Rise and Fall of Diamonds," Jews turned to diamonds as an asset during the Spanish Inquisition, because they could be easily concealed and instantly redeemed wherever they were forced to move. When they fled Lisbon and Antwerp, for instance, they moved to Amsterdam and established diamond-cutting factories. "One of the great historical ironies is the fact Jews needed a currency for the Diaspora -- something small, something that can be taken with them -- and that led to roles within this industry," Zwick said. But he also added that the "conflict diamond" problem "is more about an industry than a religion." Or is it? "Yes, it's a Jewish issue because [so many] of the diamond dealers in the world are Jewish," said a Jewish Los Angeles diamond merchant, who asked not to be named for security reasons. "Think of how many people are employed in the diamond industry in Israel and how vital it is to that economy."

Labels: Africa, bds, boycott, diamonds, Israel

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