Showing posts with label Jewish Voice for Peace in the Middle East. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Jewish Voice for Peace in the Middle East. Show all posts

Sunday, April 22, 2012

Say "No to war on Iran, No to funding Israeli apartheid, and No to AIPAC and the lobbies of the 1%."

Time:               4 p.m.  to 8 p.m,
Date:                 Sunday, April 29, 2012
Location:            Mittleman Jewish Community Center, 6651 SW Capitol Highway, Portland, Oregon

See our facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/events/207196606050041/


For more information:  info@auphr.org
Talking points: 10 Reasons Why the Israel Lobby AIPAC is So Dangerous http://mondoweiss.net/2012/02/ten-reasons-why-the-israel-lobby-aipac-is-so-dangerous.html

Event Flyer: http://www.pjw.info/occupyaipac.pdf

#44 buses stop right in front of Mittleman: 44-Capital Hwy/Mocks Crest.  Contact Trimet: http://trimet.org   503-244-0111

Signs will be available at the protest!

Call your politicians! Before the event, we ask that people call their state and federal representatives and ask them to "Say no to AIPAC" and not attend this event.  The AIPAC event regularly attracts State Legislators, our members of congress, Oregon mayors, members of Portland's city council, and even the student body presidents of Oregon's universities! See our sample letter and contact information below!  Please let us know of any responses by emailing info@auphr.org

Join a coalition of peace, human rights, and Palestine solidarity organizations for a demonstration outside the annual Oregon fund-raising dinner of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) on Sunday, April 29. The demonstration will protest AIPAC’s role in promoting a military attack on Iran’s nuclear energy facilities. The protest is also calling for an end to U.S. military aid to the Israeli apartheid government which refuses to halt the construction of illegal settlements and routinely violates the human rights of Palestinians living under Occupation. Israel controls the lives of more than 4 million Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip but denies them the right to vote or to exercise their right to self-determination.  We will be demonstrating at the start of the event and at the end when the politicians leave stuffed full of food and AIPAC talking points.

Some Oregon political leaders have regularly attended AIPAC’s annual fundraiser in past years. This year the protesters are asking Oregon's leaders to represent their constituencies' opposition to another unjust war in the Middle East by boycotting AIPAC's gala. Among the groups protesting are Americans United for Palestinian Human Rights (AUPHR), Friends of Sabeel - North America (FOSNA), Jewish Voice for Peace - Portland (JVP), Lutherans for Justice in the Holy Land (LJHL), Occupy Portland, Palestine Action Group--Corvallis Oregon, Peace and Justice Works - Iraq Affinity Group,  and Students United for Palestinian Equal Rights (SUPER).

Saturday, July 30, 2011

BEST TO THINK TWICE BEFORE CRITICISING ISRAEL

Desert Peace
Kristin Szremski

New moves to curb criticism of Israel in US and Canada

New legislation in the US threatens to conflate campus
criticism of Israel with anti-Semitism

A number of new initiatives to curtail freedom of speech by conflating opposition to Israeli crimes with anti-Semitism are underway in the United States and Canada.

The Canadian Parliamentary Coalition to Combat Anti-Semitism (CPCCA) issued a report in early July recommending the adoption of strict new standards defining anti-Semitism and the types of speech and campus activities that would violate them. Its report urged the Canadian government to adopt the European Union Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia’s definition of anti-Semitism (“Report on the Inquiry Panel,” 7 July 2011 [PDF]). That definition suggests that any questioning of whether Israel has the right to exist as a state that privileges Jews over people of other religions or ethnic backgrounds amounts to anti-Semitism.

Though the Canadian group is not linked to the Ottawa government, it has 22 parliamentarians as members. Activities it deems as anti-Semitic and, therefore, calls to be banned, include events such as the Israeli Apartheid Week that was founded in Toronto and now takes place on college campuses internationally every March.

The Canadian report is just the latest attempt at stifling public discourse about Israel. Free speech and the unimpeded exchange of ideas are also under attack on America’s college campuses. Pro-Israel supporters have targeted federal funding for academic institutions, including support for research and academic conferences, under the pretext that criticism of Israel is “hate speech.”

Federal authorities from the Office of Civil Rights with the US Department of Education are investigating charges of anti-Semitism against the University of California Santa Cruz, as well as at other institutions within the California university system, according to published reports. These are the first investigations taking place since Title VI of the Civil Rights Act was re-interpreted in October 2010, allowing Jewish students, as members of a religious group, to claim discrimination under a provision that previously applied only to racial and ethnic bigotry.

A “dear colleague” letter issued by the Office of Civil Rights in October 2010 said that discrimination against a student who is a member of a religious group violates Title VI when the discrimination is based on the group’s “actual or perceived shared ancestry or ethnic characteristics … or when it is based upon the student’s actual or perceived citizenship or residency in a country whose residents share a dominant religion or a distinct religious identity,” David Thomas, a US Department of Education spokesman, explained by email.

Bowing to the Zionist lobby

Major pro-Israel organizations such as the Zionist Organization of America and the Anti-Defamation League have lobbied for this re-interpretation for years. Title VI now can be applied to Jewish students who claim universities create hostile campus environments if they allow pro-Palestinian events or even class lectures critical of Israeli policies.

In other words, since Israel bills itself as a Jewish state, of which all Jews everywhere are automatic citizens, Jewish students can file complaints of anti-Semitism and discrimination based upon their perceived ethnicity and citizenship or residency in a country that has a “dominant religion.”

Wednesday, June 8, 2011

Jewish Voice for Peace? Really??

Intifada Palestine
Nahida Izzat




It appears that, yet again, Anti-zionist Jewish organizations are trying to silence Palestine’s supporters, to frame the debate, to secure the future of their brethren in occupied Palestine and to steer the course of Liberation of our Homeland

I would invite people to hear a Palestinian voice, here:

A strategy of liberation requires emancipation

* No decent human-being would demand to live on STOLEN land and still claims to have a fiber of morality.

* No decent human-being could claim that the perpetrator should have the same rights as the victim while claiming to be a humanist.

* Palestinians are under no obligation to hold back their march for freedom, to curtail their aims or to smother their rights for the sake of accommodating and not offending their Jewish supporters.

* Palestinians are always grateful and appreciative of the hard work and dedication of all their supporters whomever they are, however, Palestinians have NO obligation to adopt the aims and objectives of the anti-zionist Jewish supporters instead of their own.

* Dismissing the Palestinian voice as radical, reactionary, intolerant, or unreasonable, and requiring instead the Jewish-anti-zionist stamp of approval to have legitimacy to speak for Palestine, is preposterous and contradicts basic concepts of human rights and does not do justice to Palestinians.

* Palestinians have the ultimate right to choose their vision for their future, of a FREE and sovereign Palestine including the type of government, the writing of constitution, the construction and implementation of their legal and juristic system, which stems from and corresponds to their ethics and reflects and protects their culture.

* Palestinians have the ultimate right to make the final decision on who is allowed to stay in liberated Palestine and who is not, using the legal procedure of their own choice.

* The future of the Palestinian struggle and the aim of liberation of Palestine should not be designed to shield the occupier from paying the full price of his crimes; including the punishment of all those who participated in transgression, and the deportation of the illegitimate Ashkenazi Jewish immigrants who colonized Palestine forcefully and were engaged in acts of aggression against Palestinians including serving in the IOF.

* All refugee and their descendents have the unconditional right to come back home, they as the rightful indigenous owners are also entitled to the reinstatement of ALL confiscated (stolen) land and property, compensation for all their losses over the many years of exile and they are also entitled to Palestinian citizenship wherever they are.

* The aims and aspirations of most Palestinians are not confined to the change of zionist regime or the vacuous declaration of abandonment of zionism by the Jewish-zionist occupiers, but rather to the FULL Liberation of Palestine and the restoration of all their rights.

* It is the privilege of Palestinians to decide who should stay in their homeland and who not.

* After a century of terror, theft and crimes; had the Zionist shown any signs of remorse, respect or willingness to be decent guests, had they embraced with open arms the hospitable people of Palestine rather than destroying them with fire-arms; they might have had a chance to be accepted and forgiven. Not any more, as far as I am concerned. They have lost that opportunity.

As a Palestinian, I see the role of any “Jewish voice for peace” who sincerely desire to contribute to the Liberation of Palestine and justice for Palestinians, and who desire to be identified through their contributions “as Jews”, then their role ought to be focused on cleaning their own house before sorting other people’s houses; i.e. that is to exclude any major role in influencing, leading or directing the Solidarity and/or Liberation Movement of Palestine.

Through taking a leading role in campaigning to blacklist organizations and publications, label intellectuals and limit the spectrum of debate by censoring topics which they deem “controversial”; by framing the debate they act against intellectual integrity, box Palestinians and their supporters mentally and knowingly or not act as gatekeepers. They force people to self-censorship to avoid been accused of antisemitism; hence preventing them from acquiring, sharing or discussing information freely that would allow them to make their own informed decisions.

Palestinians’ grievances against the zionist theft of their land do by no means justify antisemitism accusations, Palestinians and their supporters are no lesser human beings, they are well capable to sieve through information and make their own evaluation, henceforth it is completely unacceptable that some of our anti-zionist Jewish supporters try to dictate to Palestinians:
who they should accept as a supporter and who should they boycott;
what speaker to invite and whose lecture to avoid;

who they should consider progressive and who can be labeled reactionary;
what religion and religious group are above all criticism and what faith is deemed to
be “backward looking and inherently unable to deliver progress”;

what books should be read, and which articles should be thrown away;

what narrative of events should be adopted as “reasonable” and which should be considered a “conspiracy theory”;

what chapter of history should be seen as a “dogmatic unquestionable religion”; and which one should be seen as “hoax” or as a “useless hateful rumors”;

what course of action should be taken and which one should be dismissed a “distraction”;
Furthermore, when censorship is practiced, when some books become forbidden and certain speakers are silenced, it appears to any self-respecting free-thinker that their brain, their ability to analyze and evaluate are being demeaned and patronized.

Rather than wasting their energy campaigning to ostracize or silence some of the most outspoken allies and honest supporters of Palestine, they should rather direct their efforts towards their OWN communities where the rot is anchored and festering: where supremacist ideologies reign supreme, chauvinistic anti-humanist beliefs flourish, delusional concepts entrenched and fostered, and criminal Mossadic activities thrive, and where mossers are ostracized and sayanim are promoted.
This ought to be our Jewish allies’ battlefield.

It is only in this specifically Jewish frame of activity, that separate organizations identified as exclusively Jewish can affect significant change and eventually their claim to speak in the name of their Jewishness be vindicated.

On the contrary, when specifically Jewish organizations or activists ubiquitously claim to be the true representative of Jewish people, or the voice of Judaism, whereas they are but a tiny, minute, insignificant and ineffective minority, and what is more an ostracized and despised minority amidst their larger Jewish communities, then these Jewish organizations by making their false claim of representing Jews or Judaism as they bravely expose Israeli crimes, are projecting nothing less than a smoke screen deflecting from the sinister racist ideology which has produced Zionism in the first place.

Since it is quite obvious that the Jewish members of organizations who claim to be Anti-Zionist, rarely are -if ever, active members of their local Jewish communities and when they try to reach out, they are generally rejected;

since they pretend that exposing the ideologies and activities of their community is a “distraction”;
since they accuse of being “anti-semite” whomever questions the thriving racism and the powerful lobby within the Jewish communities and since they fail to infiltrate the nefarious Judeo-Zionist network in order to affect real change from within:

therefore the claim that they speak for the Jewish people or Judaism is invalid, and the only reasonable consequence is to dissolve their separate “Jewish only” Anti-Zionist or Pro-Palestinian organizations, in order to become an integral part of the Solidarity Movement.
______________________________
 
Nahida Izzat is a Jerusalem-born Palestinian refugee who has lived in exile for over forty two years, after being forced to leave her homeland at the tender age of seven in 1967, during the six-day war. She has a degree in mathematics, but art is one of her favorite pastimes. She loves hand-made things and so makes dolls, cards, and most of her own clothing. She also writes poetry, participates in written dialogues and believes in building bridges, not walls.

Sunday, June 6, 2010

Jewish flotilla to break Gaza siege

ynet

The German-Jewish organization Jewish Voice for Peace in the Middle East is preparing a Jewish flotilla to the Gaza Strip. "We intend to leave around July," a member of the organization, Kate Leitrer, said to Ynet. "We have one small craft so far, in which there will be between 12 and 16 people, mostly Jews.

"German Jewish group prepares flotilla to protest Israel's blockade on Gaza. 'Activists frightened, but not by Hamas,' member of organization says.

Leitrer, herself Jewish, said there was great interest in joining. "Getting another boat means more expenses, and we're discussing this possibility," she said. "Because of limited space, there will be school equipment, candy, and mainly musical equipment, and there'll be musicians aboard who'll teach the children of Gaza. They need to see that Jews are not what how they are drawn in their eyes."

Leitrer also claimed that Israel acted criminally in its lethal raid on the Gaza flotilla last Monday.

"The head of UNRRA (United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration) appealed to the world to send ships due to the shortage of important supplies in Gaza," she said. "By stopping the flotilla, Israel acted criminally. Israel must not act like pirates."

The activists are frightened, she said, but not by Hamas.

"Jews have been to Gaza in the past, and they were treated in a friendly manner," Leitrer continued. "We have also talked with them recently, and they are very keen for us to come. We are frightened by what happened on the Marmara, but if you are committed to do good things, you have to act. People were also killed in the fight against fascism."

She rejected Israel's fears that weapons would be smuggled into Gaza on the aid boats.

"We haven't heard there were weapons on the last flotilla, and people were shot and killed there," she said. "We have contacted Israel figures and told them they are welcome to carry out searches on the boats, but we ask to be allowed to continue to Gaza. These are Gazan waters, and Israel must not control them."
'Open a window to Gaza'

Edith Lutz, a German Jewish member of the organization, said to Ynet the vessel is already anchored in Mediterranean waters, and that the organization had received many requests from Jews and non-Jews to take part in the flotilla.

"We began in Germany," she said, "but many have called us from England, Sweden and the US. There may also be another boat accompanying us, mainly carrying reporters."

Lutz explained that the Jewish flotilla aims to convey a message: Lift the siege.

"Our vessel can open a window between Israel and Gaza residents," she said. "Two years ago I took part in the Free Gaza flotilla and wore a Magen David (Star of David), and the kids said, 'Look, she's Jewish,' and they all accepted me very well. When we met (Hamas leader) Ismail Haniyeh and they told him about me, he turned to me and said they have nothing against Jews or Israel, only against the occupation."