The Green Party USA supports Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions of Israel.
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.
So why does an elected official in San Francisco, who ran on a platform that very explicitly opposed militarism, decide to accept funding for a trip sponsored by a extremist pro-war organization to visit Israel? We would very much like to know.
The following is an open letter to Jane Kim of the San Francisco Board of Education. Last year, she participated in a delegation put together by a group called "American-Israel Friendship League", a groups that right now is focusing on making sure that Israel is not held accountable for the war crimes it committed in Gaza.
We are hoping that this open letter gets a positive response, and that Ms. Kim will be open to meeting with Palestinian youth, so they can share firsthand the barriers Israel has constructed to prevent a decent education for them. So if you live in San Francisco, please also consider sharing your concerns in a respectful manner.
Jane Kim
San Francisco Board of Education
Ms. Kim,
I have just learned, more than a year after the fact, that you participated in a trip paid for by a political lobby supporting Israeli policies. It is disturbing that you have accepted funding for travel from an organization that has a platform that contradicts progressive values of support for human rights and peace.
This very same organization, "American Israel Friendship League" is leading the call to exempt Israel from being held accountable for violations of international law with its barbaric bombing and destruction of Gaza. Crimes that include the killing of hundreds of children (students) by US supplied weapons. Crimes that include the withholding of aid that will provide nourishment for children, who are instead suffering malnutrition and in the grip of a man-made humanitarian catastrophe with policies supported by the very same organization that paid for your trip to Israel.
I appreciate that you want to learn more of what is happening in the Middle East. I hope in the future you choose not to accept any funding from groups that oppose human rights, from groups that support the waging of war against civilians that destroys the basics of society. I hope you can very soon take the time to listen to Palestinian voices and their experiences of how the Israeli system of occupation and apartheid have denied so many Palestinian young people of their right to education. That can be done by listening to local voices here in the Bay Area or by another trip to the Middle East. May I suggest you consider joining a delegation to Palestine guided by the Middle East Children's Alliance? You may learn more of that delegation here: http://mecaforpeace.org/article.php?list=type&type=52
We need more than ever political leaders unafraid to speak up for human rights, justice and peace. I appreciate your courage to stand against the ROTC and military recruitment in our schools. Please stand firmly for the rights of Palestinians to education and a decent future.
For peace,
Jim Harris
people@stopaipac.org
www.StopAIPAC.org
Stop AIPAC
PO Box 11311
Berkeley, CA 94712
References:
"Local Progressives Step Beyond Normal Boundaries"
American Israel Friendship League
Tuesday, June 2, 2009
Monday, June 1, 2009
Inside an AIPAC Event- a report from Portland, OR
Want to call your attention to Peter Miller's article about the actual content of an aipac event, repeated in dozens of cities each year. This event took place at the end of March 2009.
Peter reports on how what was said:
In his talk, Peter Beinart, an editor at the New Republic, gave the framework for AIPAC’s work in the coming months: dealing with the threat of Iran. He portrayed Obama and Netanyahu as two characters in a movie who, though they dislike each other intensely, are thrown together on a quest to “get the bad guy,” meaning Iran. In perhaps the most frightening statement of the evening, Beinart remarked that Netanyahu’s main purpose will be to do everything he can “to prepare for the day when he goes to the oval office and tells Obama that Israel has to take military action against Iran.”
As for the Israel-Palestine issue, Beinart predicts a fake U.S. peace effort in order to garner support for tough sanctions against Iran. His statement is worth quoting at length:
“I think that the Administration’s view toward the Palestinian situation is mostly going to be to try and keep it quiet…[When Obama works with the Sunni Arab countries or Europe, he will hear] ‘What we need you [Obama] to do as the price for being able to get another round of sanctions is at least the perception of movement on the Israeli-Palestinian problem, we need there to be some Israeli-Palestinian process, even though we are realists [and] we don’t believe it will get anywhere.’…And so the Obama Administration thinks they need to be actively engaged in the Israel-Palestinian peace process--not necessarily because they believe they can pull off a final settlement--but because they need it in the coalition against Iran, and because they need to prevent things in the Palestinian Territories from actually getting worse.”
Peter reports on how what was said:
In his talk, Peter Beinart, an editor at the New Republic, gave the framework for AIPAC’s work in the coming months: dealing with the threat of Iran. He portrayed Obama and Netanyahu as two characters in a movie who, though they dislike each other intensely, are thrown together on a quest to “get the bad guy,” meaning Iran. In perhaps the most frightening statement of the evening, Beinart remarked that Netanyahu’s main purpose will be to do everything he can “to prepare for the day when he goes to the oval office and tells Obama that Israel has to take military action against Iran.”
As for the Israel-Palestine issue, Beinart predicts a fake U.S. peace effort in order to garner support for tough sanctions against Iran. His statement is worth quoting at length:
“I think that the Administration’s view toward the Palestinian situation is mostly going to be to try and keep it quiet…[When Obama works with the Sunni Arab countries or Europe, he will hear] ‘What we need you [Obama] to do as the price for being able to get another round of sanctions is at least the perception of movement on the Israeli-Palestinian problem, we need there to be some Israeli-Palestinian process, even though we are realists [and] we don’t believe it will get anywhere.’…And so the Obama Administration thinks they need to be actively engaged in the Israel-Palestinian peace process--not necessarily because they believe they can pull off a final settlement--but because they need it in the coalition against Iran, and because they need to prevent things in the Palestinian Territories from actually getting worse.”
Note that “preventing things from getting worse” does not mean improving the humanitarian or human rights situation in the Palestinian occupied territories; it does not mean stopping settlement construction or home demolition; it does not mean negotiating in good faith with Fatah and Abbas. It is all about taking actions against Hamas and creating the mere perception of a peace process. In downplaying the right wing turn of Israel’s government, AIPAC and others also ignore the real danger to peace posed by Israel’s new foreign minister, the racist Avigdor Lieberman who openly advocates ethnic cleansing. J Street, a new Jewish lobby organization created as an alternative to AIPAC, stated that Lieberman’s views were “contrary to both our democratic and our Jewish values.” - From AIPAC: The Anti-Peace Lobby
Great thanks to Peter and the Portland group for protesting this event, and for sharing the story of the aipac agenda. Be sure to read the whole thing.
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