Category Archives: Human Rights

Ta’anit Tzedek Sponsors Conference Call with Congressman Brian Baird

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The next Ta’anit Tzedek fast day will take place on Thursday, November 18. To mark the day, we will present a conference call, “After the Elections: US Policy, Israel and Gaza” – A Conversation with Congressman Brian Baird.

Congressman Baird is the outgoing Representative for Washington state’s 3rd District. Prior to being elected in 1998, Congressman Baird practiced as a licensed clinical psychologist in Washington state and Oregon. He also worked in state and Veterans Administration psychiatric hospitals, community mental health clinics, substance abuse treatment programs, and institutions for juvenile offenders.

Congressman Baird is also notable for being one of the few members of Congress who is willing to openly advocate for Palestinian human rights. He has visited Gaza on three separate occasions and had this to say after his visit in February 2009 (immediately following Israel’s Operation Cast Lead):

The amount of physical destruction and the depth of human suffering here is staggering… Entire neighborhoods have been destroyed, schools completely leveled, fundamental water, sewer, and electricity facilities hit and relief agencies heavily damaged. The personal stories of children being killed in their homes or schools, entire families wiped out, and relief workers prevented from evacuating the wounded are heart wrenching – what went on here, and what is continuing to go on, is shocking and troubling beyond words.

After his third visit to Gaza in February 2010, Baird called on the US to break Israel’s blockade of the strip to deliver humanitarian aid. He was also one of the few members of the House to vote against a bill that “unequivocally opposed any endorsement or further consideration” of the Goldstone Report. (Click the clip above to watch his passionate defense of report on the House floor.)

Our conference call will take place on Thursday, November 18 at 12:00pm (EST). During our conversation, we will ask Congressman Baird to discuss his experiences in Gaza, to comment on current efforts to lift the blockade and to share his views on the search for a just peace in Israel/Palestine in light of the recent midterm elections.

Congressman Baird will also address the wrongful death trial, brought by Craig and Cindy Corrie against the Israeli government, for the death of their daughter Rachel (who was crushed by an Israeli bulldozer in Gaza in 2003). As the Corrie’s congressman, Rep. Baird has long supported the Corrie family in their quest for justice and personally testified in the trial last May.

Here’s the call-in info:

Dial the Access Number: 1.800.920.7487
Participant Code: 92247763#

As always, we encourage you to join the call and spread the word.

Young, Jewish and Proud – Time to Make Room at the Table

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Here is some video of yesterday’s incident at the Jewish Federation GA.

After watching this clip this morning, my wife Hallie and I had a long conversation about it. Though I was eager to talk about its political/Jewish communal implications, she responded to it more as a parent of teenagers.

As she put it, “As parents, what kinds of values do we want to impart to our kids? Don’t we always say we want them to educated, to be critical thinkers, and to stand up for what they believe in? And even if we don’t approve of the places their critical thinking take them, what, are we going to disown them because we don’t agree with them?”

Take a close look at this clip and pay particular attention to the reaction of the audience in the hall. It would be quite an understatement to say the crowd disapproved of what these young people were saying. Frankly, it was something of a miracle that any of them made it out of that room in one piece.

But as Hallie pointed out to me, these young Jews were doing precisely what they were raised to do: they took a good, educated look around them, they thought critically about what they saw, and they took a stand for what they believed in. And for this they are being disowned by their Jewish family.

I’m sure many will be tempted to say, “Well, I don’t disapprove of what they said, just how they said it.”

Yes, we parents often say things like that, don’t we?  I’m pretty sure that many white parents said similar things when their children joined the Freedom Riders to protest oppression and to show solidarity with oppressed African Americans. I imagine many of their parents disapproved of their actions. But at the end of the day weren’t these young people ultimately just acting upon the values that had long been instilled in them?

I certainly have no illusions that there were also many young people in that room cheering on Netanyahu – young adults who have been given a place at the Jewish communal table. But believe me when I tell you that there are many, many young Jews who have been kept away from the table  – but who refuse to walk away. And frankly, given the extent of their alienation we should be grateful that they even seek a place at all any more.

The Jewish community is reaching a serious reckoning point. Trust me, those five young people in that hall are only the tip of the iceberg. They are growing in number, they are rapidly finding their voice, and as their new moniker indicates, they are “young, Jewish and proud.” And regardless of whether we agree what they are saying, we should be proud of them. It’s time to act like grownups, stop marginalizing them, and make room for them at the table.

Click here and read the “Young, Jewish and Proud” manifesto. What beautiful, beautiful words. I couldn’t be prouder of these young people if they were my own children.

AJC Honors Hyatt CEO – Express Your Disapproval!

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Some news on the Hyatt boycott front:

Last Thursday, I joined over seventy clergy, hotel workers and solidarity activists to participate in an interfaith service in front of the Hyatt Regency in downtown Chicago (click on the clip above). We sang, we chanted, we exhorted – and Rabbi Peter Knobel of Beth Emet in Evanston declared Hyatt “lo kasher” (“not kosher”) for its unjust labor practices.

Given Hyatt’s dismal labor record you may be more than a little appalled to learn that the American Jewish Committee in Chicago will be honoring Mark Hoplamazian, CEO of Hyatt Corporation, with its “Civic Leadership Award” during  a dinner which will take place tonight at – you guessed it – the Hyatt Regency.

In a recent article in the Boston Jewish Advocate, Chicago AJC Director Daniel Elbaum, commented that Hoplamazian “had a better understanding of Jewish values than anyone I knew.”

Huh?

If you disagree with the way Daniel Elbaum understands Jewish values, please click here to send him a letter that tells him so. We need to let Hyatt management know that this award will not provide a moral fig leaf for their immoral behavior.

Click below to read the entire Boston Advocate article:

Continue reading →

Young Jews Raise the Roof at the Jewish Federation GA!

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At the 1969 General Assembly of Jewish Federations in Boston, a group of graduate students stormed the plenum with pickets and placards and demanded a  reorganization of Federation priorities, lest it risk alienating Jewish young people.

Might history be repeating itself?

Jewish Voice for Peace has just released the following press release:

[November 8, 2010, New Orleans]  A group of young Jews with the Young Leadership Institute of Jewish Voice for Peace has traveled to the largest gathering of Jewish leaders in the US, the Jewish Federation General Assembly, to confront leaders on an approach to saving Israel’s reputation and building young Jewish identity they say actually turns young Jews away.

Five of the young adults, including 3 Israelis and Israeli–Americans, disrupted a speech this morning by Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu with banners that said:

YoungJewishProud.org and and one of the below:

The Settlements Delegitimize Israel
The Occupation Delegitimizes Israel
The Siege of Gaza Delegitimizes Israel
The Loyalty Oath Delegitimizes Israel
Silencing Dissent Delegitimizes Israel

The young Jews’ website, www.YoungJewishProud.org,  presents the group’s Young Jewish Declaration, a compelling vision of collective identity, purpose and values written as an invitation and call to action for  peers who care about Israel and Palestine. It is also a strong challenge to elders.

These actions are in part a protest of the Jewish Federations of North America (JFNA) and Jewish Public Affairs Council (JCPA) newly announced $6 million dollar program to target campus, church, peace and human rights groups that are working to end Israel’s human rights violations through nonviolent Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions pressure campaigns. The Federations and JCPA are calling this initiative the “Israel Action Network.”  Critics say it is a “Shoot the Messenger” approach.

“We’re here to call out the elephant in the middle of the room. Israel continues to expropriate Palestinian land for Jewish-only communities, passes increasingly racist laws in the Knesset, the foreign minister wants to strip Palestinian citizens of their citizenship — these are the reasons Israel is becoming a pariah in the world, NOT the human rights groups that are using nonviolent economic pressure to hold Israel accountable. We would be dismissing the values we were raised on if we did not speak up.” (Eitan Issacson, Israeli-American, Seattle)

“The Jewish establishment thinks that all we want are free trips to Israel and feel-good service projects. That is in insult to our intelligence and to the Jewish values we were brought up on. What we want is for the American Jewish community to stand up and say that Israel’s ongoing violations of Palestinian human rights are wrong and that we will not continue to support it with our dollars, our political strength and our moral abilities. We are the next generation of American Jews, proud of our heritage, strongly committed to Jewish life. We live our Jewish values in opposing Israel’s human rights violations and we invite – no, implore –all Jews to join in this urgent struggle. (Hanna King, Swarthmore College, Philadelphia)

“We were surprised by how many other young Jews were enthusiastic about the perspective that we brought to the General Assembly. It was scary to ask questions of sometimes hostile panelists, but in fact many people our age were supportive and even asked their own critical questions. We realized this is a terrific opportunity to organize.” (Antonia House, graduate student, NYU)

“Right now, the choice for those of us who care about the future of Israel and Palestine is between the status quo— which includes continued settlement expansion, the siege of Gaza, and the racist Israeli foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman– or Boycotts, Divestment and Sanctions. Given that choice, Boycotts, Divestment and Sanctions will win every time.” (Matan Cohen, Israeli, Hampshire College)

The students also announced the creation of a spoof Birthright Trip called Taglit-Lekulanu, Birthright for All, open to Palestinian and Jewish-Americans which they followed up with a spoof denial. The goal of the spoof was to highlight the one-sided narrative that Birthright presents, the ways it renders Palestinians invisible. The rebuttal laid bare the problematic assumptions underlying Birthright such as the emphasis on marrying Jews and procreating.

Participants in the institute include students from schools as diverse as UCLA, NYU, UC Berkeley, Hampshire, and Swarthmore.

A new Jewish Voice for Peace campus chapter was recently started at Brandeis University.

Jews and Arabs in Israel: What Would You Call It?

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I’m fairly sure that if I used the word “apartheid,” to describe the socio-political reality in Israel/Palestine, I’d be tarred and feathered six ways to Sunday by the American Jewish establishment.

Meanwhile, some truth-tellers in the Israeli press are openly using the “a-word” because, well, because it’s just becoming impossible to ignore what’s really going on in their country.

From an October 29 article in Ha’aretz, “Segregation of Jews and Arabs in 2010 Israel is Almost Absolute:”

Under the guise of the deceptively mundane name “Amendment to the Cooperative Associations Bill,” the Knesset’s Constitution, Law and Justice Committee this week finalized a bill intended to bypass previous rulings of the High Court of Justice. If indeed this legislation is approved by the Knesset plenum, it will not be possible to describe it as anything other than an apartheid law.

And from today’s Ha’aretz, “South Africa is Already Here:”

Israel’s apartheid movement is coming out of the woodwork and is taking on a formal, legal shape. It is moving from voluntary apartheid, which hides its ugliness through justifications of “cultural differences” and “historic neglect” which only requires a little funding and a couple of more sewage pipes to make everything right – to a purposeful, open, obligatory apartheid, which no longer requires any justification.

OK, forget the a-word, forget the loyalty oath and the “Amendment to the Cooperative Associations Bill.” Just read this report by Adalah: Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel and come up with your own word for it.

The Sorrows of Jewish Ethnonationalism

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Israel is going down a very dark road.

From a recent article in The Economist:

Not long ago, Lod, an Israeli city near the commercial hub of Tel Aviv, was a sleepy backwater. Its 20,000 Arabs among 45,000 Jews peppered their Arabic with Hebraisms, voted for Jewish parties, and described themselves as Israeli. The Arab population, drastically reduced in the 1948 war that marked Israel’s birth, has revived, exceeding its previous total.

But the calm has been disturbed. This month Israel’s leaders have taken their demand that the world—and the Palestinians—should recognise their state as specifically Jewish in exchange for a renewed freeze on building Jewish settlements in the West Bank, to Lod. Cabinet members have proposed “strengthening” the city’s population by bringing in more Jews and have approved a wider bill requiring new citizens to swear a loyalty oath accepting Israel as Jewish and democratic—in that order. Other measures are aimed at Israel’s Arabs, including a ban on teaching the Palestinian narrative that Israel expelled most of its Arabs in the war of independence.

Liberal Israelis fear that these measures may import the Arab-Israeli conflict, which had been largely confined to the territories occupied by Israel beyond the 1948 partition line, into Israel proper. Adding to the psychological barriers, the Lod authorities have erected physical ones. This year they have finished building a wall three metres high to separate Lod’s Jewish districts from its Arab ones. And where the Arab suburbs are cordoned off to prevent their spread, Israel’s prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, encourages building for Jews to proceed with abandon.

His foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman, on the coalition’s far right, champions building quarters for soldiers’ families in the town. The equally chauvinistic interior minister, Eli Yishai, who heads an ultra-Orthodox party, Shas, grants building permits for religious Jews. A series of gated estates are sprouting across the city reserved for religious Zionists. “These blocks will ensure Lod stays Jewish,” says Haim Haddad, the town’s chief rabbi, one of the first to move into a new estate.

By contrast, old Arab houses are under threat of demolition. Now and again, bulldozers demolish a couple, stressing Arab vulnerability. A study by a liberal Israeli group called Shatil (“Seedling”) estimates that 70% of Arab homes in Lod lack legal status. Many municipal services, such as street lighting and rubbish collection, stop at the boundaries of Arab suburbs. Sixteen kilometres (ten miles) from Tel Aviv, Israel’s richest city, sewage flows through some of Lod’s Arab streets.

And this from a recent article in Ha’aretz:

The Knesset’s Constitution, Law and Justice Committee on Wednesday unanimously approved a bill which gives the right to absorption committees of small communities in Israel to reject candidates if they do not meet specific criteria.

The bill has sparked wide condemnation and many believe it to be discriminatory and racist, since it allows communities to reject residents if they do no meet the criteria of “suitability to the community’s fundamental outlook”, which in effect enables them to reject candidates based on sex, religion, and socioeconomic status.

The bill is due to be presented before the Knesset plenum in the coming weeks.

Israeli Arab MKs were outraged by the proposal and walked out on the committee’s discussion of it.

MK Talab al-Sana (United Arab List – Ta’al) called the bill racist and said it was meant to prevent Arabs from joining Israeli towns. MK Ahmed Tibi (United Arab List – Ta’al) compared the bill to racist laws in Europe during World War Two, and the two told the committee members before leaving the hall: “We will not cooperate with this criminal law – you have crossed the line.”

The committee’s chairman, David Rotem (Yisrael Beiteinu), responded to claims the bill was meant to reject Arabs from joining Israeli towns. “In my opinion, every Jewish town needs at least one Arab. What would happen if my refrigerator stopped working on a Saturday?”

Maguire and Shapira on Justice for Gaza

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Ta’anit Tzedek hosted a powerful and inspirational conference call today with Irish Nobel Laureate Mairead Maguire and Israeli human rights activist Yonatan Shapira. Both spoke movingly about their activism and their participation on the latest Freedom Flotilla to Gaza.

Click here to listen. Please send it on.

Addendum 10/21: The Velveteen Rabbi has just posted a long piece about the call , complete with extensive background and transcriptions. Thanks, Rachel!

Mavi Marmara Post Mortems

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I finally finished reading the full report commissioned by the UN Human Rights Council to investigate the IDF attacks on the Mavi Marmara last May. I can’t begin to describe how chilling these findings are.

The mission’s conclusion:

The circumstances of the killing of at least six of the passengers were in a manner consistent with an extra-legal, arbitrary and summary execution. Furkan Doğan and İbrahim Bilgen were shot at near range while the victims were lying injured on the top deck. Cevdet Kiliçlar, Cengiz Akyüz, Cengiz Songür and Çetin Topçuoğlu were shot on the bridge deck while not participating in activities that represented a threat to any Israeli soldier. In these instances and possibly other killings on the Mavi Marmara, Israeli forces carried out extralegal, arbitrary and summary executions prohibited by international human rights law, specifically article 6 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

Although the Israeli military described the event as a “lynching” of its soldiers by brutal provocateurs, the post-mortem description of the victims makes it pretty clear who the real victims were that night. Witness, for example, this post-mortem description of the body of teenage victim Furkan Dogan:

Furkan Dogan, a nineteen-year old with dual Turkish and United States citizenship, was on the central area of the top deck filming with a small video camera when he was first hit with live fire. It appears that he was lying on the deck in a conscious, or semi-conscious, state for some time. In total Furkan received five bullet wounds, to the face, head, back thorax, left leg and foot. All of the entry wounds were on the back of his body, except for the face wound which entered to the right of his nose. According to forensic analysis, tattooing around the wound in his face indicates that the shot was delivered at point blank range. Furthermore, the trajectory of the wound, from bottom to top, together with a vital abrasion to the left shoulder that could be consistent with the bullet exit point, is compatible with the shot being received while he was lying on the ground on his back. The other wounds were not the result of firing in contact, near contact or close range, but it is not otherwise possible to determine the exact firing range. The wounds to the leg and foot were most likely received in a standing position.

The fact-finding mission conducted interviews with more than 100 witnesses in Geneva, London, Istanbul and Amman – and consulted with numerous forensic and medical experts.  It is impressively thorough, especially considering Israel refused to cooperate with the investigation and still refuses to release the extensive video and documentary evidence it seized from passengers.

Not surprisingly, Israel has denounced the report as “biased and distorted” and is conducting its own investigation, the Turkel Commission. (The news from that investigation doesn’t look too promising – already we’re receiving reports that the commission is showing outright hostility to Israeli human rights groups that were called to testify.)

For a spot-on analysis of the UNHC report, I strongly recommend this piece by Salon’s Glenn Greenwald, who rightly takes the US government to task for its “appalling silence” in the face of Israel’s outrageous violation of human rights and international law:

Perhaps most illustrative of all is how inconceivable it is to imagine the U.S. Congress doing anything at all in the face of this report . . . except passing a Resolution condemning the investigators themselves while defending Israeli actions, including the actions that resulted in the death of an American teenager.  Is there any doubt that such a Resolution would pass with overwhelming bipartisan support, approaching unanimity — as happens each and every time there is a controversy involving Israel?   Thus far, the U.S. media and Government are largely silent about this U.N. Report, but if they are prodded into responding, the response will almost certainly be to condemn the report itself while defending and justifying Israeli actions even in the face of overwhelming evidence as to what really happened here, which managed to emerge despite the Israelis’ very telling efforts to keep it suppressed.

Greenwald is correct, of course. By all rights our government should be condemning this brutal assault and insist that Israel release all evidence of what occurred that night.

In the meantime, the only footage available to us is the video taken and smuggled out by Iara Lee, Executive Director of Cultures of Resistance – and one of the few Americans on the Mavi Marmara. (Part one above, part two below). While it is certainly not easy to watch, I suspect the videos Israel has locked away are infinitely more disturbing…

PS: If ploughing through a lengthy human rights commission report isn’t your cup of tea, I highly recommend the recently published anthology “Midnight on the Mavi Marmara.” Essential, essential reading.

“Why We Sailed to Gaza” – A Conversation with Mairead Maguire and Yonatan Shapira

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Please mark your calendar for the next Ta’anit Tzedek fast day, Thursday, October 21, 12:00 pm (EST), which we will mark with a conference call, “Why We Sailed to Gaza” featuring Nobel Peace Prize laureate Mairead Corrigan Maguire and Israeli peace activist Yonatan Shapira.

Earlier this month, both Maguire and Shapira recently set sail on flotilla of boats attempting to break the siege of Gaza by bringing symbolic amounts of humanitarian aid to its citizens.

Maguire is a well-known Irish peace activist who co-founded the “Community for Peace People” during the period known as “The Troubles” in Northern Ireland. She  subsequently helped found the Nobel Womens Initiative, a group of six women Nobel Peace Laureates devoted to strengthening women’s rights and and advocating for justice and peace around the world.

More recently, Maguire has become involved in activism for peace and justice in Israel/Palestine. She has sailed on three boats to Gaza, in October 2008 (when they reached Gaza), on June 2009 and then on the MV Rachel Corrie in June 2010. In 2009 and 2010, the boats were intercepted by the Israeli Navy and she was arrested along with all the passengers. On her most recent attempt, Maguire remained in prison as she fought Israel’s efforts to deport her. The Israeli Supreme Court upheld the decision to deny her entry and she was deported from Israel earlier this month.

Shapira was an officer in the Israeli Air Force and flew hundreds of missions over the territories in a Blackhawk helicopter squadron during the course of his eleven year career. Following a targeted bomb assassination of a Hamas leader that killed fourteen civilians in Gaza, he became a prominent Israeli “refusenik,” authoring the Pilot’s Letter – a 2003 statement signed by 27 Israeli pilots who publicly refused to fly missions over the Occupied Territories. Since that time, Yonatan has gone on to co-found “Combatants for Peace” a prominent organization in the growing Israeli Refusenik movement.

Shapira has also become a public supporter of the internal Israeli movement for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) known as “Boycott from Within,” and regularly participates in Palestinian nonviolence campaign in East Jerusalem and the West Bank. According to witnesses aboard the “Jewish boat” to Gaza earlier this month, Shapira nonviolently resisted when the IDF boarded the ship and was tazered repeatedly in the heart by the senior commanding officer.

Here’s the call-in info:

Access Number: 1.800.920.7487

Participant Code: 92247763#

There will be a question and answer period during the call –  please join the conversation! (Big thanks to our co-sponsors, Jewish Voice for Peace, the Shalom Center, and Shomer Shalom Institute for Jewish Nonviolence.)

Another Palestinian Gandhi Sent to Prison

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We’ve often heard asked “where are the Palestinian Gandhis?”  The answer?  Too many of them are sitting in Israeli prisons.

Exhibit A: Abdallah Abu Rahmah, a leader of the nonviolent campaign in the West Bank village of  Bil’in, who was arrested last year by soldiers who raided his home at the middle of the night. An Israeli military court exonerated him on charges of stone-throwing and arms possession (the “arms” turned out to be empty bullet casings and tear gas canisters that Abu Rahmah had collected to prove IDF violence against demonstrators) but he was eventually convicted of “organizing illegal demonstrations” and “incitement.”

Here’s how Israeli activist Jonathan Pollak characterized these events last year:

On a pitch black early December night, seven armored Israeli military jeeps pulled into the driveway of a home in the West Bank town of Ramallah. Dozens of soldiers, armed and possibly very scared, came to arrest someone they were probably told was a dangerous, wanted man – Abdallah Abu Rahmah, a high school teacher at the Latin Patriarchate School and a well-known grassroots organizer in the village of Bil’in.

Every Friday, for the past five years, Abdallah Abu Rahmah has led men, women and children from Bil’in, carrying signs and Palestinian flags, along with their Israeli and international supporters, in civil disobedience and protest marches against the seizure of sixty percent of the village’s land for Israel’s construction of its wall and settlements. Bil’in has become a symbol of civilian resistance to Israel’s occupation for Palestinians and international grassroots.

Abu Rahmah was taken from his bed, his hands bound with tight zip tie cuffs whose marks were still visible a week later, and his eyes blindfolded. A few hours later, as President Obama spoke of “the men and women around the world who have been jailed and beaten in the pursuit of justice” upon receiving the Nobel Peace Prize, Abu Rahmah’s blindfold was removed as he found himself in a military detention center. He was being interrogated about the crime of organizing demonstrations. In occupied Palestinian territories, Abu Rahmah’s case is not unusual – about 8,000 Palestinians currently inhabit Israeli jails on political grounds.

Abu Rahmah’s sentence came down today: one year in prison, a six months suspended sentence for three years, and a fine of 5,000 shekels. The military prosecution is expected to appeal, which means he is likely to remain in jail indefinitely.  Another Bil’in activist, Adeeb Abu Rahmah, was also sentenced for twelve months on similar charges but still remains in prison after fifteen months while prosecutors continue to appeal his conviction.

How can we in the Jewish community help promote peace and justice in Israel/Palestine? By standing in solidarity with courageous Palestinian leaders such as Abdallah Abu Rahmah. Click here to learn more about his case and how you can support his cause.