Tag: Israel

Marking One Full Year of Genocide and Escalating Violence Across the Region, New Haven Jews Call for the US to Stop Arming Israel

by Jewish Voice for Peace

During the Jewish High Holidays, 50 New Haven Jewish community members gathered for a public ritual action, mourning the dead, fighting for the living, and demanding that the U.S. stop arming Israel.
October 7, 2024 — …Today New Haven Jews and other community members gathered to perform a tashlich ritual action, casting off support for the Israeli military.

Dressed in traditional white, New Haven Jews and community members sang niggunim [Ashkenazi religious songs], read poetry by Mosab Abu Toha and Rabbi Brant Rosen, participated in a communal casting ritual, and called for the U.S. government to stop arming Israel. They carried a banner that said, “Mourn the dead, fight for the living. Stop Arming Israel.” The message was clear: we must turn our grief into action…

Every life taken in the past year — Palestinian, Lebanese, Israeli — every parent, child, grandchild that was killed in the past year was someone else’s entire world. At Jewish Voice for Peace our commitment to Palestinian liberation is grounded in our belief that every human must have the right to live in safety and freedom. The Jewish tradition teaches us that the preservation of life, pikuach nefesh, is the single most important commandment. For decades, the Israeli government has exploited and distorted our thousands-of-years-old Jewish tradition to justify the occupation, war crimes, and mass slaughter of a 76-year-old apartheid state…

The Israeli military has killed over 41,000 Palestinians, including more than 15,000 children. We know the numbers are likely much higher.

The U.S. government is actively enabling the Israeli government’s genocidal campaign… in direct violation of international laws…

The action concluded in a call to demand that Senator Chris Murphy vote yes on the Joint Resolutions of Disapproval introduced by his colleagues Senator Bernie Sanders, Senator Peter Welch, and Senator Jeff Merkley. The Joint Resolutions of Disapproval, which cite U.S. and international law, would block $20 billion in weapons to Israel approved by the Biden administration.

New Haven Alders Cop Out on Ceasefire Resolution

Five months after a proposed ceasefire resolution was presented to the Board of Alders, and five days after hearing testimony via Zoom that lasted five hours, the Board of Alders voted to “read and file,” and not act on the resolution. Would your alder have supported a ceasefire? We’ll never know, according to the meeting.

Only East Rock Alder Caroline Smith was opposed to dismissing the resolution in this way.

[The New Haven Independent coverage can be read here:
newhavenindependent.org/article/ceasefire_resolution_vote_results]

Rally in Hamden for Ceasefire Resolution

by Paula Panzarella, rally participant

photo: Paula Panzarella

On Feb. 20, from 6-7 p.m., over a hundred people were in front of Hamden Town Hall, rallying in favor of a draft resolution for a ceasefire in the Israel-Gaza fighting. “Permanent Ceasefire Now,” “Another Jew for a Free Palestine,” “Stop the Killing,” and “Let Gaza Live” were some of the banners held by the crowd.

Shortly after 7 p.m., many people attended the meeting to give testimony about the need for local municipalities to take a stand against the massacre of Palestinians in Gaza. The hearing lasted well past midnight, with more than four hours of public commentary. The Town Council did not vote that night and may take up the resolution at a following Town Council meeting.

Ceasefire Now

by Joan Cavanagh, NH Sunday Vigil for Peace and Justice

November 26, 2023: The actions of the terrorist organization HAMAS on Oct. 7, 2023, were an atrocity, a war crime against innocent civilians, with a death toll of 1,200 people, accompanied by rape and other forms of torture, as well as the taking of hostages. We condemn these actions with horror and without equivocation.

The actions of the Netanyahu government in response, murdering more than 14,000 people, reducing Gaza to rubble, destroying any means by which survivors can treat their wounded and sick, and cutting off their food, water, and access to the outside world, have only amplified that villainy.

Whatever you know, believe, or have been told about the current U.S. funded and supplied Israeli government war on Gaza, or indeed about the history of Israel and Palestine, please recognize that there is no moral, political, ethical, or legal justification for genocide—the deliberate elimination of an entire group of people.

Shamefully, most of our elected officials from the executive branch on down refuse to call this siege what it is and are doing nothing to end it. Indeed, they are voting to continue it by sending money and armaments to further fuel it, even while asking for brief “humanitarian pauses” out of the other sides of their mouths. And, as usual, the arms merchants are making a handsome profit each day the war continues. They are the only beneficiaries of this all-out assault on a population with nowhere to go to escape. This war must end, and it must end now.

The good news is that from all the corners of Earth, there comes a concerted human outcry against this inhumanity. Resistance actions, led by Jewish Voice for Peace and other organizations, are happening all over this country and throughout the world. There have been nonviolent shut-downs, blockades, and takeovers of congressional office buildings, headquarters of war-profiteering companies (including Colt, in Hartford), the Statue of Liberty, the United Nations, and many more, involving in total millions of people.

Please find a way to join that outcry. Speak out, write, march, demand accountability from our own government. Here in Connecticut, contact directly—and repeatedly—all of your federal representatives to demand that they act to stop this war. Ignore their perfunctory form letter replies. Keep up the demand, no matter what justifications or evasions that they give. RESIST THIS ENDLESS WAR

Veterans for Peace Joins International Delegation to Gaza Border

by Gerry Condon, Veterans for Peace

I have the honor of representing Veterans for Peace on an international delegation currently in Cairo, Egypt. We are seeking permission to travel to the Rafah border crossing with Gaza, where hundreds of trucks loaded with humanitarian aid are being held up. We are calling for an immediate end to the US-backed Israeli slaughter of innocents in Gaza. And we are calling for the border with Egypt to be opened up to allow the massive delivery of desperately needed food, water, medicine, and fuel.
We are among the first of many international humanitarian and human rights delegations that are heading for the Gaza border in order to provide practical and moral support to the Palestinian people.

We encourage people all over the world—and especially in the United States—to continue pressing for a Ceasefire, Humanitarian Aid, the Release of All Prisoners, and Negotiations that respect the Palestinians’ Right to Survival, Dignity, and Self-Determination.

Below are excerpts from the press release we released on Sunday, November 12.

“ …In response to the Palestinian and Arab calls for civil society to challenge Israel’s deadly occupation by heading immediately towards the Egyptian-Palestinian crossing to bring urgent humanitarian relief to 2.3 million people, we have just submitted a request to the Egyptian authorities for permission to travel to Rafah….

“We urge all peoples and governments to act urgently to end this horror. There are hundreds of aid trucks currently parked in the desert waiting to enter the Rafah crossing. We demand they be allowed to reach Palestinians whose needs are dire and desperate.”

“Stop Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza Now! Open the Rafah border Now!”
veteransforpeace.org, 206-499-1220

Israel-Gaza War’s Grief Spills onto Church St.

by Thomas Breen, New Haven Independent, Oct. 9, 2023

Half an hour into a tense and loud and flag-filled standoff between pro-Palestine and pro-Israel protesters on the front steps of City Hall, city police brought in barricades to physically separate the two sides….

That was the scene outside of City Hall at 165 Church St. Monday afternoon during an at-times combustible, but never violent, set of dueling rallies sparked by the horrific bloodshed of the ongoing war in Israel and Gaza.

photo: Thomas Breen

Several hundred people from across the city and the state turned out for the parallel protests … The two sides took turns, and shouted over one another, about the Israeli occupation, Hamas terrorism, open-air prisons and blockades, the kidnapping and murder of civilians, the righteous uprising of a dispossessed people, the righteous defense of democracy….

“Free, free Palestine!” one side cheered over and over again at Monday’s rally. “From Hamas!” cheered the other side in response.

The pro-Palestine protest was organized by a number of student and local lefty political groups, including the Connecticut Democratic Socialists of America, Yalies for Palestine, the Party for Socialism and Liberation-Connecticut, and Wesleyan Students for Justice in Palestine….

The pro-Israel contingent, meanwhile, saw a mix of New Haveners and Connecticut residents, many of whom are members of the Chabad Lubavitch Hasidic community, and nearly all of whom have close ties to and family and friends currently living in Israel….

Joshua Pernick, the rabbi in residence and director of Jewish life and community relations at the Jewish Federation of Greater New Haven, told the Independent about his brother, who after a weeklong vacation in the United States returned to his home in Holon, Israel, this weekend just hours after Hamas began its attack. He and his wife and six-month-old child have been shuttling between shelters ever since, Pernick said. … ​“The problem of terrorism is it doesn’t discriminate….”

Faisal Saleh, the founder and director of Woodbridge’s Palestine Museum, showed up to the other side of City Hall’s steps Monday to support those rallying for Palestine.

Saleh was born and raised in the West Bank. He moved to the U.S. when he was 17, in 1969. He said he’s been communicating with Palestinian artists in Gaza who he knows through his museum work every few hours, just to make sure they are still alive amid the Israeli army’s strikes.
“Everybody is waiting to see what will happen,” he said….

[The article can be read in its entirety at newhavenindependent.org/article/israel_palestine]

Demos Call for a Sell-Off of Israel Bonds

by Stanley Heller and Shelly Altman, JVP (New Haven)

Protests against the trip to Washington, DC by Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich took place in twelve cities on March 12, including New Haven. Smotrich, who describes himself as a “fascist homophobe,” achieved special notoriety for calling for the Palestinian town of Huwara to be wiped out. He came to the U.S. to hustle for Israel Bonds.

Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) nationally called for demonstrations. New Haven held one, though it made sure it wasn’t in competition with the St. Patrick’s Day parade going on that afternoon. About 20 people gathered in front of the Giaimo Federal Building early that Sunday morning with signs denouncing Smotrich, but more importantly calling for BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) and the selling off of Israel Bonds and other Israeli investments. The largest banner said, “Sell Off Your Israel Bonds and Other Investments in Apartheid.”

A few days later a second demonstration was held, this one in Hartford in front of the state office building housing the Treasury. Connecticut owns $10 million in Israel Bonds and about $100 million more in other Israeli stocks and securities. Among the 150 companies, 22 are particularly offensive, being involved with spying on activists and working on military projects. One is Elbit, Israel’s biggest weapons company. People came from around the state, not only Jews, but people notified of the action by the other event sponsors: the Middle East Crisis Committee, the Tree of Life Education Fund and Workers’ Voice. The new State Treasurer Erick Russell has not responded to letters or this protest so far. He can be reached at [email protected].

Where is all this money the state uses for investments coming from? Overwhelmingly it’s from state employees and school teachers. A portion of their pay is deducted each pay period and put in the Treasury. It’s highly doubtful that these workers know that some of their money goes to prop up Israeli apartheid.

The tactic of BDS got a new wrinkle these past weeks. Israeli leaders have constantly screamed about BDS saying boycotts are “existential threats” to Israel, in fact, “economic terrorism.” In their fight against Netanyahu’s attack on the Israeli High Court, several hundred U.S. Jewish business leaders have threatened to take their money out of Israel! They’re afraid to invest in a country without a court system that could protect business interests. Billions are at stake. If the threat were to be carried out, that would be BDS on steroids. Zionists like the ADL (Anti-Defamation League) pretend this is absolutely and completely different than BDS for Palestinian human rights. Sheer hypocrisy.
For more info, email [email protected].

The Palestinian Exception to Free Speech

by Noor Kareem and Craig Birkhead-Morton, Yale Daily News
Feb. 7, 2023

Although Yale claims to be a bastion of free speech that provides a forum for addressing all political and cultural issues, the one exception to this is the issue of Palestinian liberation.

The discourse around Palestine at Yale is surrounded by fear and restraint. Discussion is often prefaced with the familiar acknowledgment of how complicated the topic is, immediately obscuring the power relations between a Western-backed occupying power and a population subjected to life under occupation…

Many incorrectly frame Zionism — the political project seeking to establish Israel as the homeland of the Jewish people — as synonymous with Jewish identity. This conflation of the Jewish people with the Zionist state makes any criticism of the occupation immediately deemed “antisemitic.”

In reality, Zionism is an ideology and a political movement that, in the words of its founders, necessitates the erasure of Palestinians and the violent seizure of their land in the pursuit of creating a modern nation-state.

If we have learned one thing from the last couple of years, it is that silence kills. The lack of discussion on the systemic nature of Israeli war crimes has given total impunity to a state that murders civilians, massacres refugees and bombs a city already under siege. Since the assassination of American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh by Israeli forces in May 2022, the Biden administration has failed to hold Israel accountable. The number of murders is showing no signs of slowing down so far, as 2022 was the deadliest year for Palestinians since the Second Palestinian Intifada. And as of Feb. 6, 2023, 36 Palestinians have already been killed…

In December 2022, Yalies4Palestine launched the first-ever BDS (Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions) campaign at Yale. Prior to this, Yale was the only university in the Ivy League not involved in the BDS movement, largely due to this campus’s pro-Zionist climate. This is despite public institutional condemnations of human rights violations in Iran and the Russian invasion of Ukraine. We must overcome this culture of hypocrisy and call on Yale to take a stand against the Israeli occupation… As students at one of the most elite academic institutions in the world, we have an obligation to illuminate truth and honor light over darkness. Join us in fulfilling this obligation by signing and sharing our petition demanding that Yale cancel its contract with G4S — a security company involved in some of the world’s worst human rights abuses, including those in Israel — and by taking the initiative to learn more about the BDS movement.

[Article can be read in its entirety at yaledailynews.com/blog/2023/02/06/kareem-birckhead-morton-the-palestinian-exception-to-free-speech. To find out more about the BDS Committee for Yalies4Palestine, email [email protected] or [email protected]]

100 Rallied May 15 for Nakba and Justice for Shireen Abu Akleh on New Haven Green

by Stanley Heller, Middle East Crisis Committee

Around 100 people marched and rallied in New Haven on May 15 to mark the 74th anniversary of Nakba — the displacement of Palestinians from their homeland. The main sponsor was the Democratic Socialists of America. A new outrage protested on that day was the May 11 killing of Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh who was on assignment in the occupied West Bank. Marchers took the streets on College, Crown and Elm streets.

Witnesses to Abu Akleh’s killing said she was shot in the head by Israeli military. Israel denies this and declared there will be no investigation. On May 24 a CNN forensic-level audio and video analysis made it pretty certain that Abu Akleh was killed by Israeli soldiers. Fifty-seven members of the U.S. Congress have called for a US investigation of her killing and a determination of whether US laws were violated.

On May 21 in New Milford there was a memorial service for Abu Akleh. Signs were held in a solemn ceremony. The Middle East Crisis Committee has created the website JusticeforShireen.webador.com. Let your member of Congress know about it.

To see video of the New Haven and New Milford events go to thestrugglevideo.org. For more info on how to be involved, email [email protected] or call 203-444-3578.

Notes to PAR Readers

We urge you to check the internet for the many demonstrations protesting the bombing of Gaza. As of this printing, there were rallies and marches in Hartford, New London, New Haven, and Manchester, as well as in cities throughout the US and around the world. The New Haven rally and march on May 22 was in solidarity with the people of Palestine and Colombia, fighting for their right to life and self-determination. Video footage is available at thestruggle.org.

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Barghouti and Nader Accept Gandhi Peace Award

by Stanley Heller, Promoting Enduring Peace

Hundreds gathered at Yale’s SSS building on April 23 to celebrate the Gandhi Peace Award being jointly given to Omar Barghouti and Ralph Nader. The award has been presented since 1960 by Promoting Enduring Peace (PEP).

Omar Barghouti

Omar Barghouti was introduced by Rebecca Vilkomerson, the Executive Director of Jewish Voice for Peace. She decried his Israeli arrest on March 19 as “politically motivated.” She called him a “charismatic speaker, a brilliant writer, savvy campaign strategist, and a principled thinker.”

Barghouti began his talk by noting Palestine “lingers on in colonial chains.” He dedicated his award to Palestinian prisoners on hunger strike in Israel. He asked that his $2,500 prize money be given in equal shares to Black Lives Matter, Students for Justice in Palestine, Jewish Voice for Peace, US Campaign for Palestinian Rights, and Friends of Sabeel North America. He talked about the “striking similarities” between Israeli treatment of Palestinians and that of blacks in the days of apartheid South Africa. He noted the recent decision of Barcelona, Spain, which ended its complicity with Israeli settlements and explicitly defended boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS). He also listed many other BDS victories.

Ralph Nader was introduced by activist and mediator Charles Pillsbury, who said he was inspired to be a lawyer by Nader and wanted to be one of the activists dubbed “Nader’s Raiders.”

Ralph Nader said he was a student of Gandhi’s thinking that “open non-violent disobedience be active and not passive.” He said, “Peace is desirable not just on philosophical, religious or argumentative grounds, but a survival mechanism which transcends cultures.”

He talked about terrorism, and said the worst terrorism was “state terrorism” which “is always legitimized as in the ser-vice of national defense.”

At the end of his talk, he mentioned Palestinians and Israelis.

He denounced settlements as “illegal colonies.” He talked about breaking the grip of the lobby AIPAC on Congress and categorized some of the resolutions it advances as “bloody beyond belief.” He asked “Who has killed more than 400 times the number of innocent men, women, and children than the other side? The answer is the Israeli government.”

The talks were warmly received with standing ovations.

For more on this year’s awards, visit http://www.pepeace.org/gpa-2017-video-and-photos.

No Child Behind Bars: Living Resistance from the US to Palestine

by Nina Stein, Jewish Voice for Peace

On Feb. 1, Jewish Voice for Peace New Haven will be partnering with Tree of Life to present a program “No Child Behind Bars: Living Resistance from the US to Palestine.”  The presentation will feature Ahed Tamimi*, a charismatic and articulate 15 year old from the West Bank Palestinian village of Nabi Saleh, who will discuss the brutal injustices to which she and others her age are subjected on a continuing daily basis.

Ahed will be joined by Amanda Weatherspoon, a Unitarian Universalist minister and Black liberation activist from the San Francisco Bay Area, whose ministry is centered on collective liberation and cross-movement solidarity between oppressed people. Nadya Tannous, a writer and organizer who has researched the detention of Palestinian minors since 2013, will join the two to provide additional insight into the realities Palestinian minors face within the Israeli detention system.

In addition to discussing the life of Palestinian children under Israeli occupation, the presentation will show how the struggle for human rights in Palestine is inextricably linked with the struggle for civil and human rights here in the US.

The event will take place on February 1 in New Haven at 7 p.m. at Sudler Hall, William L. Harkness Hall, Yale University on Cross Campus.

This presentation is part of a three week, 18 city U.S. tour organized by Friends of Sabeel (FOSNA). FOSNA is part of Sabeel, a movement initiated by Palestinian Christians, which promotes theological, moral and legal principles for peace in the Holy Land.

Email: [email protected]; Web: www.jvpnh.org; Facebook: jvpnewhaven; Twitter: @jvpnewhaven

* Ahed, who was originally to appear in person, has been denied a travel visa by the U.S. State Department, so arrangements are being made to have her speak about the situation on the ground and share her story by live-stream video.

Seeking Your Help to Protect Next Gandhi Peace Award Winner

by Stanley Heller, Administrator, PEP

Promoting Enduring Peace has set up a “Freedom to Travel” committee to pressure the Israeli government to allow one of its Gandhi Peace Award winners to travel to the United States. At a telephone press conference the 64-year-old peace and environmental group announced the Gandhi Peace Award will be given jointly to Ralph Nader (pictured on the left) and Omar Barghouti (right) at a ceremony in New Haven in April 2017.

nader-and-barghouti-620x330

Ralph Nader is known for over five decades for his consumer and civic activism and for being among the first nationally known figures to criticize Israeli abuses and to speak up in support of the Israeli peace movement. Omar Barghouti is one of the best-known leaders of the BDS (Boycotts, Divestment and Sanctions) movement which calls for economic pressure against Israel until it withdraws from the land it occupies, gives full civic equality to Palestinians citizens inside Israel and allows Palestinian refugee families their right to return to their homeland and homes.

Yousef Munayyer, Executive Director of the U.S. Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation, talked about Omar Barghouti. He said the Palestinian was a “central player in the Palestinian campaign for the academic and cultural boycott of Israel.” And “Omar’s voice has been a crucial one in the past several years and one that should be increasingly amplified to all those asking about Palestinian non-violence.”
Rebecca Vilkomerson, Executive Director of Jewish Voice for Peace, said she first met Barghouti in 2009 and that’s when Jewish Voices for Peace (JVP) starting working on BDS issues. She hailed Barghouti’s leadership and “impeccable ethical framework” and his continued work “at great cost and risk to himself.”

The Israeli government has refused to renew Barghouti’s travel document and he is effectively banned from leaving Palestine/Israel. Vilkomerson said JVP would be working with PEP and other groups to restore Barghouti’s ability to travel and to come to the U.S. to accept the award.

Those interested in working on the “Freedom to Travel” committee should write to [email protected]. A recent TSVN You Tube interview with Barghouti can be heard by going to http://www.pepeace.org.

Dr. Alice Rothchild discusses ‘historical and ethical challenges in Israel and Palestine’ in Storrs

by Julia Berger, Middle East Crisis Committee

On July 30, about 35 people convened at the Storrs Meeting House to enjoy a Middle Eastern potluck and a talk by Dr. Alice Rothchild: “A Personal Journey: Facing Historical and Ethical Challenges in Israel/Palestine.”

Alice Rothchild

Alice Rothchild

Dr. Rothchild has practiced ob/gyn for almost 40 years and served as Assistant Professor of Obstretics and Gynecology at Harvard Medical School. She is a first-generation American who grew up in a middle-class Jewish family in the Boston area. She grew up with the narrative of Israel as a haven for Jewish “victims,” as a democratic state in the Middle East surrounded by hostile Arabs and Palestinians. Only when she was in college did a friend cast doubts on this view. Dr. Rothchild was inspired by this friend to do some serious research—on colonialism, imperialism, and U.S. and Israeli history—especially about the 1948 Palestinian “Nakba” in which many Palestinians were killed by Israelis and many more became dispossessed refugees.

Eventually Dr. Rothchild joined Physicians for Human Rights on a journey to Israel and Palestine to see for herself the conditions there and to work in clinics, especially in Palestine. Since then she has gone annually to travel around, to work in clinics, and to speak with Palestinians and Israelis about the deteriorating physical situation in Palestine (the Wall, the increased Israeli settlements on Palestinian lands, the checkpoints, the housing demolitions, etc.). She emphasized she is not criticizing Jews as Jews but rather the policies of the Israeli government.

When she has attempted to speak about her experiences here in the U.S., she has frequently been harassed or her talks have been cancelled. But she remains optimistic because more and more Americans and Israelis are finally speaking out against Israeli government policies.

Dr. Rothchild also pointed out the affinity between Black Lives Matter and the Palestinian situation. Both are met with increasingly militarized/weaponized responses. The final irony: many of the U.S.’s police departments are even trained in Israel or here by the IDF.

She was also troubled that none of the current presidential candidates, except Dr. Jill Stein of the Green Party, were even talking about Israel/Palestine.

Asked about BDS, she responded that the U.S. provides $3 billion a year to Israel—a population of 8.2 million—the largest recipient of U.S. foreign aid. The American taxpayer has some responsibility for Israel’s oppression of the Palestinians. Moreover the non-violent BDS is supported by the Palestinians and seems to be having an impact on the Israeli government.

Dr. Rothchild has directed a documentary film “Voices Across the Divide,” and has written several books and articles on her experiences.

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