Why the CBC should boycott Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu’s speech

(theGrio) the invitation of House Speaker John Boehner, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu is giving a speech before a joint session of Congress in March. And he’s doing it because he and Boehner want to undermine President Obama and make him look bad. So far, two members of the Congressional Black Caucus — veteran civil rights icon Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.) and CBC chairman G. K. Butterfield (D-N.C.) have announced they will not attend the speech.

Lewis told the AP “I think it’s an affront to the president and the State Department what the speaker did.” Calling Boehner’s actions “unprecedented” and the Netanyahu visit “politicized,” Butterfield said he was “very disappointed that the speaker would cause such a ruckus” among members of Congress.

Dr. King Can Help Build the Palestinian Nonviolent Resistance Movement

BBC journalist Jihad Masharawi carries body of 11-month old son Omar in Gaza. (Reuters)

BlackCommentator.com:

There is a straight line linking the human rights struggles around the globe, and the movements of the past with the movements of today. And those who have lived through theU.S. civil rights movement, the teachings of King and Gandhi, and the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa believe they have much to teach Palestinian civil society and their nonviolent resistance movement in the occupied territories.

Just weeks before the recent violent conflict in Gaza that left 166 Palestinians and six Israelis dead-and more than 1,230 Palestinians injured, mostly women and children - a group of civil rights veterans and a new generation of human rights leaders led a delegation to the West Bank. The delegation came from the Dorothy Cotton Institute in Ithaca, New York, named after the colleague of Dr. King and education director of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. The institute trains leaders for a global human rights movement, and is building a network of civil and human rights leaders. And it was the first group of civil rights leaders to meet with leaders of the Palestinian movement.

Their goals are to increase the visibility of a nonviolent Palestinian movement that is unknown to many in the U.S., share lessons between the Palestinian and American movements, connect Palestinian leaders with their Israeli allies, and educate the American public about this movement and the need for social justice and change in the region.

In the U.S., the human suffering experienced by the Palestinian people is rarely acknowledged and often ignored, with the victims often dehumanized and scapegoated.

Recently, I had the pleasure of speaking via Skype with Kirby Edmonds, one of the members of the delegation in Ramallah. Mr. Edmonds, program director of the Dorothy Cotton Institute, shared what he was witnessing and experiencing in theWest Bank.

“One of the things I’ve been impressed by is their analysis of the situation,” he told me of the sophistication of those he met, also noting the Palestinians have learned lessons from the struggle against Jim Crow and apartheid. “They have made adaptations,” he added.

“They’ve landed on BDS [Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions] as a most promising strategy. The mistake they’ve made is not shaping the narrative of who they are, and how important it is they have rights. The idea that they’re thugs and terrorists is just wrong,” Edmonds noted. “Humiliation provokes a violent response.”

Edmonds views the Israeli occupation as a global human rights issue. “The Dorothy Cotton Institute sees the need to put our shoulders to the wheel for a global human rights movement. Because the state involved in it defines itself as democratic, and so there is a great deal of moral ground on which to stand,” he said.

“The other issue is the place is important to two-thirds of the human population.” He concluded that resolving the conflict between the Palestinians and the Israelis will help resolve conflicts around the world, making the implications much larger than the people who live there.”

And Edmonds characterized the Israeli policy of occupation as a humiliating one, with laws promulgated to justify certain things. And Palestinians are sick and tired, echoing the days of the Jim Crow South or South African apartheid.

“Palestinians are barred from building in certain areas, their houses are demolished,”Edmonds told me from Ramallah. “All the Palestinians in a certain area get an order saying their houses will be demolished and they don’t know when. 2:00 in the morning, 3:00 in the morning, and they blow the house down. It is clearly a violation of international conventions. And clearly a violation of human rights,” he said.

“The situation in East Jerusalem and West Jerusalem, what exists is a caste system that is more discriminatory than what happened in South African apartheid,”Edmonds noted of the Israeli system of class distinctions. A Palestinian’s citizenship status can be lost when traveling abroad, perhaps if they are studying in the U.S. for 4 years. They have to be able to prove Jerusalem is the center of their lives.

“People in the West bank are barred from entering Israel and East Jerusalem unless they get permits to do so. They have to pass through checkpoints to show their papers,” Edmonds said. “It is an example of policies that seem designed to provoke violent responses. Depending on what checkpoint it might be another 2 or 3 hours to get back home. It is extremely humiliating.”

Even more serious and problematic are administrative detentions, in which Palestinians have no access to lawyers, and are not told why they were arrested - a practice which can be imposed for up to 14 times without charges ever being made.

Then there are the arrests of children, particularly in areas in the West Bank where nonviolent demonstrations take place every week to protest the occupation. “The Israeli army will show up, enter the house and say who they’re after, take the teen out of house, blindfolded, put them in a Humvee, take them to an interrogation facility, and keep them for 4 days,” described Edmonds. “They will do things, they may say they have a right to an attorney, and after the course of hours intimidate the child into a confession. As a result, adult leaders end up arrested. This is a violation of the International Convention of Rights of the Child.”

Moreover, the policies of the occupation are changing the demographics of the area, with the goal of substantially reducing the Palestinian population in certain places. “The goal is reducing the Palestinian population from 30 percent to 12 percent”Edmonds argued.

“The task becomes making life so uncomfortable for people that they just leave, not just in Jerusalem but also in the West Bank. Herd them into four areas so that if there is some closure on the issue, Palestinians are unable to manage their own state. That is the policy behind creating Bantustans. The goal is to make Palestinian life so unbearable they can only live in certain places,” he offered.

Meanwhile, the Palestinians have nearly a century of nonviolent resistance to oppression. “The people we’ve been meeting with are not saying Jews shouldn’t be there,” Edmonds told me. “What the Palestinians are calling for is for people of conscience to put pressure on Israel so that this does not continue. ...It is what gives people hope,” he said.

Ultimately, according to Edmonds, the Palestinian people lack the political strength to do it alone. The Israeli government, he said, is able to behave as it does because it is a client of the U.S. “It is unlikely we can persuade the U.S.government to shift its policy because of civil society. It was civil society in South Africa that made change happen, it was not U.S. policy.”

Through their journey to the occupied territories, Kirby Edmonds and his colleagues are acting in the proudest tradition of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. King, a Nobel Peace Prize winner, stayed true to the fight for civil rights at home and spoke out against the war in Vietnam. He railed against the triple, interrelated evils of militarism, racism and economic exploitation, and understood the linkages between violence and oppression in America and our promotion of war abroad.

And just as King condemned the billions spent on burgeoning defense budgets to mutilate and incinerate Vietnamese children - all at the expense of the war on poverty - then surely those who act in the spirit of King today can decry the billions spent on America’s militarization of Israel, the occupation, and the killing of innocent babies.

Of war and violence, King said “The past is prophetic in that it asserts loudly that wars are poor chisels for carving out peaceful tomorrows. One day we must come to see that peace is not merely a distant goal that we seek, but a means by which we arrive at that goal. We must pursue peaceful ends through peaceful means. How much longer must we play at deadly war games before we heed the plaintive pleas of the unnumbered dead and maimed of past wars?”

Meanwhile, in Israel and Palestine, a nonviolent resistance movement seeks peace-and justice. Part of that process includes tearing down the walls that separate people, and building bridges instead.

“Israeli society can no longer see what is happening on the other side of the wall,” Kirby Edmonds said of the current state of affairs. “The narrative that this is a land without people is easy to perpetuate.”

A Campaign To Divest From Mideast Apartheid

People around the world are mourning the loss of life that resulted from the Israeli Navy commando raid on a flotilla of ships bringing humanitarian aid to a blockaded Gaza. Nine activists were killed. Prosecutors have characterized the incident, which occurred in international waters, as an act of piracy and a violation of international law. And top-ranking Israeli Navy reserves officers denounced the attack and slammed the Israeli government for blaming the activists for what transpired. "We do not accept claims that this was a 'public relations failure' and we think that the plan was doomed to failure from the beginning," the officers wrote in a letter to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

In many ways, the handling of the flotilla tragedy mirrors Israel's policy of Occupation of the Palestinian territories: inhumane treatment and a disproportionate use of force against those who have been labeled as terrorists. This is a response born of arrogance and hubris, and a disregard for international public opinion. Add to that the confiscation of news cameras and media censorship, and a propaganda campaign perpetuating the notion of perpetual victimhood-- that the Israeli government can do no wrong.

Israel is a prominent nation in the region, but that does not justify apartheid. The nation's historical origins do not give it a pass in acting ethically or in compliance with human rights law. The Occupation must end if democracy is to flourish in Israel, and public pressure can bring about a just and equitable resolution to the conflict. Some Jews of conscience believe that economic divestment--taking the profit out of violations of human rights and of international law- is the way to make it happen.

The group Jewish Voice for Peace just kicked off a divestment campaign. Their focus is on TIAA-CREF, a Fortune 100 financial services company and insurance giant. The company serves 3.6 million people and manages more than 27,000 retirement plans and over $400 billion in combined assets. TIAA-CREF's motto is "Financial Services for the Greater Good," and it proudly calls itself "a global leader in socially responsible investing." And earlier this year, the company divested from four petrochemical companies that refused to stop doing business with Sudan.

JVP seeks to persuade TIAA-CREF to stop investing in companies that profit from the Occupation, such as Caterpillar and Motorola. The former manufactures bulldozing equipment for destroying Palestinian homes, while the latter supplies cell phones to the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) for use in the Occupied Territories.

Occupation means profits. A settlement industry of hundreds of companies has been built around the servicing of 562,000 Israelis living in 135 settlements and outposts in the West Bank, Arab Jerusalem and the Golan Heights. These companies enjoy special government support, including tax breaks, lower environmental and labor standards and low rents. And they exploit Palestinian workers, land and resources as they maintain an infrastructure of buildings, walls and checkpoints to keep Palestinians separated and out of the settlements. Many of the companies serve the Jewish settlers, while others exploit the captive nature of the Palestinian population and charge them exorbitant rates. Meanwhile, Palestinians who work in these industrial zones face labor violations and severe restrictions on their movement and right to organize.

Divestment is a time-tested tool to bring about nonviolent social change. The divestment movement against South African apartheid is perhaps the most poignant example of such a strategy. Similarly, a U.S.-led campaign hopes to bring an end to Israeli-Palestinian apartheid.

Israel considers itself a member of the "First World" and the only democracy in the Mideast, as it maintains a forty-three year military occupation. "To maintain the Occupation, Israel uses harsh and often brutal controls that are widely perceived around the world, if not in the U.S., as an apartheid system. The truth is that even within Israel, only Israeli Jews have enjoyed democratic government and equal rights," says Barbara Harvey of Jewish Voice for Peace. "Every person who values democratic freedoms and equality has a personal stake in ending Israeli apartheid, because its continuance threatens to redefine democracy in ways that none of us who live outside Israel accept for ourselves."

Harvey also suggests that Israeli policing practices are having a bad influence in the U.S.: "How many Americans realize that many of our local police forces and even private security forces receive training in Israel, where the Israel Defense Force is taught to dehumanize Palestinians? If the world pretends that Israel's free society for Jews only is a democracy, the unacceptable will inexorably become acceptable beyond Israel's borders, threatening every one of us."

The West Bank consists of a multitude of fragmented enclaves, many of which are connected to adjacent towns only through checkpoints. Settlements, outposts and Israeli military infrastructure place nearly 40 percent of the land out of the reach of Palestinians.

Meanwhile, Gaza is a prison. As Amnesty International has reported, the blockade of Gaza has left nearly 1.5 million men, women and children trapped in a strip of land only 40 km (25 mi) long and 9.5 km (6 mi) wide. The situation in Gaza is one of collective punishment, where poverty, unemployment and food shortages have left four in five people dependent on humanitarian assistance. "Ghetto" is a word associated with pain and deep historical symbolism for both black and Jewish folks. The ghetto is a place where people are packed in and stacked up, by design, and where dreams die and people suffer. Well, Gaza is the ghetto, and one shouldn't have to live in Gaza or be a Gazan to appreciate that suffering. As one Israeli official stated plainly, "The idea is to put the Palestinians on a diet, but not to make them die of hunger."

Further, Arab Israelis are racially profiled, treated as second or third class citizens, and regarded as a fifth column that cannot be trusted. The efforts to strip an Arab Israeli Knesset member of her citizenship because she participated in the humanitarian flotilla (along with Holocaust survivors, European lawmakers and Nobel laureates) is a prime example of the discrimination Arabs face.

So, this is what the divestment campaign wants to change, so that democracy can come to Israel. Business practices must change, but old mindsets must change as well. Jews who are unhappy with the current state of affairs in Israel should be able to, as a courageous progressive rabbi once said, set limits with the ones they love. They should be able to speak up for Palestinian rights without being branded as self-hating Jews, terrorists or enablers of terrorists. Likewise, non-Jews who come to the table with a love for human rights and a sincere desire to help the situation should not fear accusations of anti-semitism. Displeasure with specific policies of the Israeli government does not equate with hatred towards Judaism or Jewish people. And the rights of Palestinians and Israelis are not mutually exclusive, nor should they be.

Let Us Expand the Definition of Terrorism

I begin this commentary by looking up the word terrorism.

One dictionary defines terrorism as follows:

The unlawful use or threatened use of force or violence by a person or an organized group against people or property with the intention of intimidating or coercing societies or governments, often for ideological or political reasons.

Similarly, the U.S. military says terrorism is:

The calculated use of unlawful violence or threat of unlawful violence to inculcate fear; intended to coerce or to intimidate governments or societies in the pursuit of goals that are generally political, religious, or ideological.

Practically speaking, however, terrorism is defined differently in everyday American life. Terrorism is synonymous with Muslim and Arab extremism, and affiliated persons, organizations and nations. The threats they pose are either real, perceived, or purely conjured up. The terrorist-as-enemy-of-America is like the bogeyman of Red Scare fame, ubiquitous yet elusive, and you can't quite put your finger on them because they're tricky. The definition of terrorism itself can serve as a political weapon--a form of terrorism itself, dare I say. Call someone a terrorist, or a communist or socialist or supporter thereof, and you delegitimize everything that person has to say. You marginalize everything that person represents.

In these days of extremism at home, we cling to a narrow, selective definition of terrorism, while ignoring blatant forms of terrorism in our own midst. In doing so, we can't see the forest for the trees.

A progressive voice for peace, Rabbi Michael Lerner, was almost certainly a victim of terrorism on the night of May 2 and early morning of May 3. Right-wing Zionists attacked his home and threatened his life. The attackers attached posters to his door and property with a strong glue. And the posters attacked Lerner personally, as well as liberals and progressives as being supporters of terrorism and "Islamo-fascism." They posted a bumper sticker which read "fight terror--support Israel" next to a caricature of Judge Goldstone, the South African jurist who issued a UN report on Israeli human rights violations during the military campaign in Gaza. The Goldstone report called on Israel to do an independent investigation into Operation Cast Lead, and punish those elements of the IDF who were responsible. The report was denounced by rightists in the U.S. and Israel as "anti-Semitic" and "pro-terror."

The crime against Rabbi Lerner came after a week of Lerner and his staff at Tikkun magazine receiving hate mail. These acts stemmed from Tikkun's announcement that if South African Zionists made good on their threat to prevent Judge Goldstone from attending his grandson's bar mitzvah, Lerner would hold the bar mitzvah in the Bay Area instead. Tikkun is presenting an award to Goldstone next year for his commitment to human rights in Israel, and apparently some people don't like that.

Although Lerner has received death threats and hate mail over the years, this recent attack is troubling because they targeted his home. "By linking Lerner to alleged terrorism, they provide for themselves and other extremists a 'right-wing justification' to use violence against Lerner, even though Lerner has been a prominent advocate of non-violence", Tikkun said in an official statement. Lerner speaks out against violence everywhere around the world, including Palestinian acts against Israelis. But when he and groups such as J Street advocate a pro-peace solution, they are branded as anti-Israel. This comes as a group of over 3,000 European Jews signed a petition criticizing Israeli settlement policies, and warning of the dangers of systematic support for the Israeli government.

Turning the page a bit, we are witnessing state-sponsored terrorism within our borders, most prominently coming from the state of Arizona. Arizona's legislature passed--and the governor signed into law--a bill which makes it a crime under state law to be in the U.S. illegally. The law allows police to stop anyone with a "reasonable suspicion" of being undocumented, and demand proof of citizenship. Those who cannot produce the documentation face arrest, a $2,500 fine, and 6 months in jail.

I submit that Arizona's anti-immigrant law is nothing more than Juan Crow racism, a codification of xenophobia, specifically designed to intimidate Latinos regardless of their citizenship status. Although its proponents will tell us it does not racially profile, the law is part of the mix that makes people with Spanish surnames feel unwelcome and unsafe, in an environment of heightened anti-Latino violence and discrimination. After all, the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), a hate group with ties to the eugenics movement and white supremacists, assisted in drafting the bill. An honest, vigorous debate on immigration and border security is one thing. Bad people passing a law with cruel intentions is another.

But Arizona did not stop there. They are banning ethnic studies in the schools, characterizing such programs as "ethnic chauvinism" and "high treason." Under the policy, schools will lose state funding if they offer courses that "promote the overthrow of the U.S. government, promote resentment of a particular race or class of people, are designed primarily for students of a particular ethnic group or advocate ethnic solidarity instead of the treatment of pupils as individuals." And the Arizona Department of Education is removing teachers with heavy accents.

Ethnic Studies were part of the civil rights movement--born in the late 1960s and early 1970s at a time of increased cultural awareness among people of color--to counter a Eurocentric perspective of history. State governments in Arizona and Texas feed into white extremist antipathy towards diversity by denigrating and eliminating people of color in their school curricula, "taking the country back" so to speak, via the textbooks.

A vibrant democracy should allow for differences of opinion, free from demonization and threats of violence against those who disagree. We may have differences of opinion with people, even those within our own family, but we don't resort to terrorist attacks against them.

A Fast For Human Rights In Gaza

There are many opinions on the Mideast conflict, but one thing is certain: the situation in Gaza is a humanitarian and human rights disaster, and it cannot continue.

Under the Israeli blockade, the following items are not allowed into Gaza: cars, refrigerators, computers, cement, concrete, wood, glass, light bulbs, candles, matches, books, musical instruments, crayons, clothing, shoes, mattresses, sheets, blankets, pasta, tea, coffee, fruit juice, chocolate, nuts, shampoo, conditioner, and toilet paper. And it takes 85 days to deliver shelter kits into Gaza, and 68 days to send health and pediatric hygiene kits.

Rabbi Linda Holtzman of congregation Mishkan Shalom in Philadelphia has taken a stand on Israel’s policies in Gaza. In a recent Rosh Hashanah sermon, she discussed the need for people to set limits, and to challenge ourselves to set limits with those we love. “The men and women who have formed the settlements on the West Bank love Israel. All of those who have built barriers, set up roadblocks, and stopped humanitarian aid from entering Gaza, love Israel,” Rabbi Linda said. “I too love Israel, but under no circumstances can I condone these actions, and my understanding of love and the limits love demands will not let me sit quietly by while this is taking place.”

Rabbi Linda is a part of Jewish Fast For Gaza (Ta’anit Tzedek), an ad hoc group of Jewish, Muslim and Christian clergy, as well as other concerned individuals, who have undertaken a monthly daytime fast for Gaza. Founded by activist Rabbis Brant Rosen and Brian Walt, this association grew out of the Jewish tradition of communal fasting in times of crisis, as a form of mourning and repentance. “As Jews and people of conscience,” the group declares, “we can no longer stand idly by Israel’s collective punishment of the Palestinian people in Gaza.” Their efforts have been endorsed by the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI).

Jewish Fast For Gaza seeks several goals, including: lifting the blockade that prevents civilian goods and services from entering Gaza; calling for the delivery of humanitarian and developmental aid to the people of Gaza; calling on Israel, the U.S. and the world community to negotiate without pre-conditions with all relevant Palestinian parties, including Hamas, to end the blockade, and calling on the U.S. government to engage Israelis and Palestinians toward a just and peaceful settlement of the conflict. Participants are asked to donate the money they save on food to the American Near Eastern Refugee Aid (ANERA), a relief agency combating Gazan preschool malnutrition.

Israeli and international human rights groups alike were shocked by the most recent Israeli military operation in Gaza— the disproportionate and indiscriminate use of force against a civilian population, the massive civilian deaths, and the level of destruction of property and infrastructure it created. As a result of Operation Cast Lead—which was conducted between December 27, 2008 and January 3, 2009—over 1,400 Palestinians were killed. Of these, 773 were non-combatants (over 60%), including 320 children. These statistics fly in the face of the official narrative that the operation was part of the war on terror, and that those who were killed were the terrorists.

Civilians could not flee the combat, and there was no safe place to hide, as Fred Abrahams, senior researcher for Human Rights Watch, noted. In a recent report on Operation Cast Lead, Human Rights Watch documented the Israeli Defense Force’s (IDF’s) illegal use of white phosphorous artillery shells in densely populated areas, and the shooting of unarmed Palestinian civilians—including women and children— waving white flags. Warnings the IDF sent to Gaza residents in the form of fliers and phone calls fell short of international humanitarian law standards. Further, according to a UN report recently issued by South African Justice Richard Goldstone, “houses, factories, wells, schools, hospitals, police stations and other public buildings were destroyed.” Around 240 of the Gazan deaths were police officers. And the Palestinian Legislative Council and a prison were bombed as well.

Further, the Gaza population suffers significant trauma, including insomnia, depression, childhood bed-wetting, and other medium- and long-term mental health problems.

As Jessica Montell, Executive Director of the Jerusalem-based human rights group B'Tselem recently said, “when there is wrongdoing, there must be a remedy." For Montell, justice is to be done at home. This includes not only the individual behavior of Israeli soldiers, but people throughout the chain of command, both military and government, who dictated policy and decided what to target. B’Tselem and all 11 Israeli human rights organizations are calling for a nonpartisan body to examine Israel’s conduct in Operation Cast Lead.

After Hamas’ electoral win in January 2006, Israel imposed the crippling blockade on Gaza, turning the territory into the functional equivalent of a prison. The blockade severely limits Gaza's ability to import essentials such as food and fuel, and to export finished products. The result has been a complete devastation of Gaza’s economy, and the closing of most of its industrial plants. Increased unemployment, poverty and childhood malnutrition now plague an already economically crippled and depressed region.

Wherever human rights abuses are committed throughout the world, someone must be held to account. And no longer can we turn our backs and close our eyes when injustices occur. Depriving human beings of basic necessities, food, water, employment, and freedom of movement in their own land cannot and will not make Israelis more secure. Maintaining a culture of impunity in the region, and denying people their basic rights and sense of dignity will not bring peace to anyone. It will only result in what Justice Goldstone calls “a situation where young people grow up in a culture of hatred and violence, with little hope for change in the future. Finally, the teaching of hate and dehumanization by each side against the other contributes to the destabilization of the whole region.”

Indeed, Gaza is a walled prison, seemingly out of sight and out of mind for some. But the Jewish Fast For Gaza is committed to tearing down the walls that separate us, and allowing justice to flow.

Cross-posted from Huffington Post and Black Commentator.