Posts Categorized: Uncategorized

We, representatives of Palestinian civil society, call upon internationalcivil society organizations and people of conscience all over the world toimpose broad boycotts and implement divestment initiatives against Israel similar to those applied to South Africa inthe apartheid era. We appeal to you to pressure your respective states toimpose embargoes and sanctions against Israel. We also… Read more »

As people working to improve dire conditions in our varied communities here in the United States, it is vital that we build alternatives that meet the needs of our communities and reflect the other world that we think is possible. To that end, we believe that struggles outside of the United States are as relevant to our lives as our own everyday issues, even though the former may seem a world away. We believe that the oppression of communities here in the U.S. is causedby the same corporations, the same geopolitical interests and the same political forces that are driving apartheid in Palestine, war throughoutparts of Asia and Africa, and the suppression of social movements throughout the world.

While our immediate needs and interests may differ, we are part of the same struggle. From the shared history and continuing colonization of indigenous lands and ethnic cleansing of indigenous people in North America and in Palestine to the shared interests of Israel and the US inpromoting US imperialism and wars in the region (in this moment focusedon Iran), our realities are inextricably tied together. It is with this in mind, that we feel it is imperative to send a strong, diverse U.S. delegation to World Social Forum-Free Palestine.

While we understand how their struggles mirror our own, we often have a hard time seeing how struggles elsewhere have an impact on our daily lives, work and movements. Even when we do see the connections, we oftendo not have the time, capacity or resources to identify concrete ways to address the relationship between our struggles at home and those elsewhere in the world. In reality, we often don’t have enough time to connect with other social movements in the United States, much less thousands of miles away.

This is the goal of the diverse array of organizations that are part of the USSF-initiated cross-movement delegation to the World Social Forum (WSF)-Free Palestine in Porto Alegre, Brazil. We are committed to developing a program that the diverse social movements involved in the delegation can: 1) Participate in the delegation as part of joint struggle with Palestinians and others most directly impacted by Zionism, in an effort to build long-lasting relationships with movements throughout the world and develop joint activities that link our movements after we leave Porto Alegre; and2) Advance the goals and strength of our own movements and communities.

This work is essential not only because the issue of Palestine is a critical struggle for global justice in its own right, but also because the collaboration between the US, Israel, and other Zionist institutions in relation to the global arms trade, perpetual war, ecological destruction and exploitation of resources, population control, mass incarceration and suppression of popular grassroots movements has profound implications for all of us. These implications are not mere analogies; rather, it is often the very same corporations, governments, and strategies that we here in the United States are struggling against.

On October 7th, 2011, 10 days into hunger strikes across California State and Israeli occupation prisons, Palestinian, formerly incarcerated, Jewish Anti-Zionist and other activists demonstrated in Chicago, San Francisco and New York City.  Below is a video from the action in San Francisco.

From Palestine to Pelican Bay from Intl Jewish Anti-Zionist Network on Vimeo.

Organizers with IJAN’s Bay Area Chapter leafleted at amovie theater in Chinatown about the Center for Asian American Media (CAAM)’s partnership with the Israeli consulate in theIsrael-China film festival.  We talked briefly with movie goers and gaveout quite a number of flyers. Besides one person who threw the flyer down andanother who tore it up, all who came to the movie took flyers. A young womancame out to speak to us and turned out to be a reporter from the New AmericaMedia; she was interested that we were Jewish and did an interview not onlyabout the event, but about Frameline and pinkwashing.

People from CAAM had a table inside that included their written response.We asked if we could put our flyers on their table but they declined. It was asmall movie theater so we had a visible presence outside till the moviestarted. We asked people to talk to CAAM and help put pressure on them to pull out, and many seemedto be concerned and interested.

PulitzerPrize winning author and human rights activist Alice Walker has madea profound statement consistent with her life-long anti-racistcommitment: she finds human rights abuses against Palestinians andviolations of international law by the State of Israel intolerable. Thus Ms. Walker has refused to allow her book The Color Purpleto be translated into Hebrew by the Israeli publisher, Yediot Books. 

Ms.Walker has worked for several years in support of Palestinian humanrights. She participated in the Gaza Freedom Flotilla – attempting tobreak the illegal siege of Gaza, she has written and spoken upagainst the human rights abuses that Palestinians experience daily,and recently was a jurist on the Russell Tribunal for Palestine inSouth Africa. TheTribunal found Israel guilty of the crime of apartheid.

Inher statementto the publisher Ms. Walker compared Israeli apartheid with that ofboth South Africa and the United States in the 1950s and 1960s.“Indeed,” she writes, “manySouth Africans who attended [the Russell Tribunal], including DesmondTutu, felt the Israeli version of these crimes is worse even thanwhat they suffered under the white supremacist regimes that dominatedSouth Africa for so long.”

Usingthe same tools of international solidarity that contributed to thestruggle that ended Apartheid in south Africa, Alice Walker advocatesBDS against Israel as a method of international pressure to compelIsrael to comply with international law. She therefore refuses toallow her book to be translated into Hebrew by an Israeli publisher.

Ofthe several recent successes of the BDS movement, Ms Walker’s actionis particularly worrisome to Israel as it frantically tries to branditself as a beacon of democracy and upholder of human rights. Inparticular, Israel and organizations in the United States thatsupport it have poured vast resources into courting African Americansto support its false projection of itself as an equal and democraticsociety. Recent deportation of and race riots against Africans in TelAviv dispel that myth. Refugees from Africa were violently attackedby mobs incited by the Israeli government, including comments fromthe InteriorMinister Eli Yishai that Israel “belongs to the White Man.”Israel is proceeding with deportation and detention of thousands ofrefugees from Sub Saharan Africa because they “threaten the Jewishidentity of the Israeli state.”

Israel’sapologists can’t allow such a prominent figure in American cultureto speak the truth about Israel without challenge. Alan Dershowitzimmediately wrotea piece in the JerusalemPostaccusing Ms. Walker of being a “bigot” who enforces “censorship”against Hebrew speakers, comparing her to the neo-Nazi David Duke.The venomous absurdity of his piece only serves to give greaterprominence and credibility to Alice Walker’s ethical and moralstance. His attack is a tribute to the successes of the BDS movement.

Ms.Walker ended her letter of refusal to Yediot Books with thestatement, “In faith that a just future can be fashioned from smallacts.” We, who believe in justice, in human rights, and in equalrights, applaud her for her courageous and moral actions. We willcontinue to make small acts of solidarity with the knowledge thattogether we will create a better and more just world.

In February, IJAN worked with the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement, the Center for Constitutional Rights, and the Global Women’s Strike to present a workshop exposing the role of Israel and Zionism in promoting militarism and state-repression around the globe. On every continent and for decades, Israel has worked to arm some of the most repressive governments and militias. Meanwhile, Israel’s multi-billion dollar Homeland Security industry, developed through its repression of Palestinians, is exported all over the globe. In the US Zionist organizations have been working with the government in targeting Arabs and Muslims and undermining civil liberties in order to promote Israel’s interests.

On March 25th IJAN’s Chicago chapter delivered a workshop entitled Occupy Anti-Semitism: Distinguishing Anti-Semitism from Opposition to Zionismat Occupy Chicago. Over the course of two hours, four of our members gave a presentation covering the history of Anti-semitism, its present manifestations, its manipulation and exploitation by groups across the political spectrum, the function of Israel/Zionism within global systems of oppression and exploitation and specifically the use of charges of Anti-Semitism to undermine the Durban World Conference Against Racism initiatives and more recently Occupy Chicago. We examined how Zionist institutions have attempted to marginalize, not only Palestinian and solidarity organizations, but also the broader movement while simultaneously attempting to drive a wedge into the movement.

Following the presentation there was a lively discussion amongst thethirty participants exploring the nature and material consequences of oppression and discrimination as it exists in this historical moment and where Anti-Semitism falls in relation to this. Participants also discussed the similarities and differences between how oppression manifests for those groups targeted and how to confront it.

Overall the presentation was well received and we look forward to futurecollaborations with Occupy Chicago. The full presentation is available to listen to on www.radio4all.net

It is a Palestinian Call: A response to Finkelstein and Beinart on BDS by Noah Lepawsky Emily Katz Kishawi and Mich Levy on March 26, 2012 In response to the recent debate regarding the Palestinian civil society call for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions, we offer a view from a Jewish anti-Zionist perspective. We welcome debate as a part of the growth and success of… Read more »

IJAN organizer Ilana Rossoff was interview by Gabriel M. Schivone for his column Other Voices on newvoices.org.