Posts Tagged ‘jewish voice for peace’
 
November 16, 2012 10

Demonstrators at Anti-Israel Rallies: “Gaza is the Real Holocaust,” “Long live the Intifada!”

Vir­u­lent anti-Israel protests were held in at least two dozen cities across the United States yes­ter­day. The demon­stra­tions were orga­nized to protest Israeli air strikes against Hamas and ter­ror­ist infra­struc­ture in Gaza in an ongo­ing effort to defend Israel’s civil­ian pop­u­la­tion against the con­tin­u­ous bar­rage of indis­crim­i­nate deadly rocket fire from Gaza which now extends to Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.

Many of the demon­stra­tions were marked by extreme and anti-Semitic mes­sages. Signs that com­pared Israel to Nazi Ger­many and expressed sup­port for “armed resis­tance” in Gaza were wide­spread. Below is a sam­pling of the demonstrations:

New York: Approx­i­mately 1,000 indi­vid­u­als attended a rally to “Protest Israeli crimes in Gaza” out­side the Israeli Con­sulate. Signs held at the demon­stra­tion read, “Pales­tini­ans are free­dom fight­ers;”  “Stop Israeli geno­cide in Gaza;” “Resistance is jus­ti­fied when peo­ple are occu­pied;” “Long live the Intifada;” “With our soul and our blood we will redeem you, Pales­tine;” and “Gaza is Today’s War­saw Ghetto.”

One after the other, dif­fer­ent speak­ers took turns con­demn­ing Israel using Holo­caust analo­gies, prais­ing “armed resis­tance,” and call­ing for “Pales­tine to be free, from the [Jor­dan] River to the [Mediter­ranean] Sea.” One speaker said, “Speak­ing of resis­tance, do you guys think resis­tance equals ter­ror­ism?” The crowd shouted, “No!!!” Another speaker claimed that “Gaza is the War­saw Ghetto of today. Sixty years ago when the Jew­ish peo­ple in the War­saw Ghetto fought back against the Nazi war machine, today it is the peo­ple of Gaza and Pales­tine who are fight­ing for free­dom against a war machine that is no bet­ter than that of the Nazis.”

The speak­ers at the rally rep­re­sented a num­ber of groups, includ­ing Al-Awda, the Arab Mus­lim Amer­i­can Fed­er­a­tion, New York Uni­ver­sity and Hunter College’s chap­ters of Stu­dents for Jus­tice in Pales­tine, Mus­lim Amer­i­can Society, ANSWER, and more (see below for videos of the event).

Los Ange­les: Sev­eral dozen stu­dents protested on UCLA’s cam­pus hold­ing signs that read, “From the River to the sea Pales­tine will be free,” “This Israeli Jew­ish Grand­daugh­ter of a Holo­caust Sur­vivor is against the Mas­sacre of Gaza,” “Blow­ing up chil­dren ≠ self –defense” and “Respect Exis­tence or Expect Resis­tance.” Another sign, which read “93% effec­tive mis­sile defense Iron Dome paid for by $250 M in US tax $,” seemed to be upset with the Israeli defense sys­tem that pre­vents rock­ets from land­ing on Israeli civil­ians. Stu­dents also chanted, “Free, Free Pales­tine; Long live the intifada” and “Israel is a ter­ror­ist state.”

Chicago: Sev­eral hun­dred pro­test­ers held signs that read “Gaza is the Real Holo­caust,” “Con­demn Gaza Geno­cide,”  “Divest from Israel’s Crimes,” and “Stop Israel’s Slaugh­ter in Gaza.” One per­son held a sign that showed the Star of David = Swastika. The rally was held in Pru­den­tial Plaza out­side Pres­i­dent Obama’s cam­paign head­quar­ters. It was spon­sored by sev­eral Chicago-based orga­ni­za­tions, includ­ing the Chicago Move­ment for Pales­tin­ian Rights, the Pales­tine Sol­i­dar­ity Group and Amer­i­can Mus­lims for Pales­tine – Chicago. It was also endorsed by nearly 20 other orga­ni­za­tions, including 8 area chap­ters of Stu­dents for Jus­tice in Pales­tine and the Chicago chap­ter of Jew­ish Voice for Peace.

Boston: Pro­test­ers chanted “Resis­tance is Jus­ti­fied When Peo­ple are Occu­pied” and “Pales­tine will be free, from the river to the sea.” “Long live Intifada, Intifada, Intifada!” A large ban­ner that read “Jews for Intifada” was held by sev­eral activists at the front of the crowd as they marched towards the Israeli Con­sulate in down­town Boston. The rally was spon­sored by Jew­ish Voice for Peace, CODEPINK, the United National Anti­war Coali­tion, and Occupy-Boston. A sign that read, “Un-Occupy Pales­tine” was also on display.

Videos from the anti-Israel demon­stra­tion in New York City:

 

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November 14, 2012 0

Non-Binding Student Divestment Resolution Passes at UC Irvine

The stu­dent sen­ate at the Uni­ver­sity of Cal­i­for­nia, Irvine, passed a non-binding res­o­lu­tion last night call­ing for divest­ment from sev­eral com­pa­nies that do busi­ness with Israel. The res­o­lu­tion, titled “Divest­ment from Com­pa­nies that Profit from Apartheid,” requires the approval of the stu­dent government’s exec­u­tive board before it may be sent to the admin­is­tra­tion for their consideration.

The res­o­lu­tion includes com­pa­nies that have long been tar­geted by the anti-Israel divest­ment cam­paign, includ­ing Gen­eral Elec­tric, Hewlett-Packard and Cater­pil­lar. It also includes lesser known com­pa­nies, how­ever, like Cement Road­stones Hold­ing which sells cement to Israel, as well as Raytheon, a defense tech­nol­ogy com­pany. Raytheon recently part­nered with an Israeli com­pany to build the highly suc­cess­ful Iron Dome sys­tem that inter­cepts incom­ing rock­ets from Gaza.

Despite the pas­sage of the res­o­lu­tion, the Uni­ver­sity of Cal­i­for­nia sys­tem already has a clear pol­icy against divest­ment.  In 2010, when the Stu­dents for Jus­tice in Pales­tine chap­ter at UC Berke­ley put forth a divest­ment res­o­lu­tion, the UC board and Pres­i­dent Mark Yudof issued a state­ment say­ing that the board would only sup­port a divest­ment res­o­lu­tion “when the United States gov­ern­ment declares that a for­eign regime is com­mit­ting acts of geno­cide.” The state­ment added, “The U.S. has not made any dec­la­ra­tion regard­ing the State of Israel and, there­fore, we will not bring a rec­om­men­da­tion before the Board to divest from com­pa­nies doing busi­ness with the State of Israel.” The state­ment also noted that the resolution’s sole focus on Israel “greatly dis­turbs us.”

Last night’s vote took place with what appears to have been delib­er­ate secrecy and lit­tle fan­fare. A Web site and fan pages on Face­book and Twit­ter with the han­dle “Irvine Divest” were all set up less than 72 hours before the vote. It seems not many were aware that the vote was tak­ing place until after it had occurred.

Jew­ish Voice for Peace, the largest Jew­ish anti-Zionist orga­ni­za­tion in the U.S., attended the meet­ing, accord­ing to reports on social media. Sup­port­ing boy­cott and divest­ment ini­tia­tives across the coun­try has become one of JVP’s pri­mary mis­sions. The group has sent rep­re­sen­ta­tives to advo­cate for divest­ment on sev­eral col­lege cam­puses in the past few years. JVP also deliv­ered speeches at two church con­fer­ences over the sum­mer where the orga­ni­za­tions had been con­sid­er­ing divest­ment. A Los Ange­les orga­nizer for JVP, Estee Chan­dler, even blogged about her expe­ri­ence watch­ing the events of last night unfold and described the vote as “historic.”

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October 26, 2012 1

Member Of Islamic Jihad To Address Students At American University

Khader Adnan, a mem­ber of Pales­tin­ian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), is sched­uled to speak at Amer­i­can Uni­ver­sity via Skype next Tues­day, Octo­ber 30. Adnan was invited by sev­eral stu­dent groups at Amer­i­can, includ­ing Stu­dents for Jus­tice in Pales­tine, Jew­ish Voice for Peace, Amnesty Inter­na­tional, Jus­tice not Jails, and the Com­mu­nity Action & Social Jus­tice Coalition.

Adnan, who has been arrested by the Israeli author­i­ties on sev­eral occa­sions, was most recently arrested in the West Bank in Decem­ber 2011 and imme­di­ately began a hunger strike dur­ing his deten­tion. After 66 days, Israel granted his early release. He is plan­ning to speak about his expe­ri­ence as a hunger striker at next week’s event.

Adnan is widely described in the media as a “spokesper­son,” “leader” or “mem­ber” of PIJ. A Decem­ber 17, 2011 news arti­cle on Al-Arabiya, a pan-Arab tele­vi­sion chan­nel, about Adnan’s then recent arrest described him as “one of the main lead­ers of the Pales­tin­ian mil­i­tant move­ment Islamic Jihad” and as “a for­mer spokesman” for PIJ.  The New York Times, Al Jazeera and CNN fur­ther char­ac­ter­ize him as a “mem­ber” or “spokesper­son” of PIJ in the West Bank, where Adnan resides.

Andan has also pre­vi­ously expressed sup­port for ter­ror­ism. In a video that has been widely cir­cu­lated on YouTube and other video-sharing web­sites, Adnan can be seen shout­ing, “O Quds Brigades, Strike a blow! O Quds Brigades, Shake the earth! Who among you is Hasan Abu Zeid? Who among you is the next sui­cide bomber? Who among you will carry the next explo­sive belt? Who among you will fire the next bul­lets? Who among you will have his body parts blown all over?” The raw footage of Adnan was report­edly taken at a 2007 funeral of a fel­low PIJ member.

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