From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [NYTr] End the Israeli Occupation: June 10 Organizers Reply to Tikkun
Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation http://www.endtheoccupation.org/article.php?id=1357 Letter of Response to Tikkun April 30, 2007 Rabbi Michael Lerner Tikkun Community 2342 Shattuck Avenue #1200 Berkeley, CA 94704 Dear Rabbi Lerner, On behalf of the US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation and United for Peace and Justice, we are writing to reassert our position and vision for the mobilization that our coalitions are organizing in Washington, DC on June 10-11 to commemorate the 40th anniversary of Israel's illegal military occupation of the Palestinian West Bank, Gaza Strip, and East Jerusalem. We also would like to express our profound disappointment with your mischaracterizations of the June 10th and 11th actions. In an introductory note that you wrote to an article by Uri Avnery, entitled "How the Anti-Israel Left Helps Perpetuate the Occupation", you state that "many" of the organizers of this mobilization are united around the "dissolution of the State of Israel". First of all, as you are likely aware, both of our coalitions are working to end those very US policies that support and sustain Israel's military occupation. Neither the US Campaign nor UFPJ prescribe any particular political resolution for the Israel/Palestine conflict. That is because we believe that as US-based coalitions, we need to focus our efforts not on dictating to Palestinians and Israelis how to end the occupation and create a just, lasting and comprehensive peace, but rather on building a movement to reorient our own country's foreign policy so that it supports a just peace based on human rights, international law, and equal rights for all. We take great offense at your implication that our coalitions are helping to perpetuate Israel's military occupation. Second, your claim that "many" of the organizers of the mobilization are united around the "dissolution of the State of Israel" is inaccurate. As you are likely aware, the only principles upon which the more than 200 endorsing organizations are united on are: * An end to US military, economic, diplomatic, and corporate support for Israel's illegal military occupation of the Palestinian West Bank, Gaza Strip, and East Jerusalem. * A change in US policy to one that supports a just peace between Palestinians and Israelis based on equality, human rights and international law, and the full implementation of all relevant UN resolutions. These are the exact same points of unity with which we approached Tikkun back in December 2006 to see if your organization would have liked then to have joined the US Campaign and UFPJ as an original endorsing organization of this mobilization. You were even given the opportunity to provide feedback before the call to action went public; however, Tikkun declined to participate. We are concerned that a leader of a progressive spiritual movement would choose to interpret these broadly supported political demands as a call for the "dissolution of the State of Israel." It is particularly ironic because powerful organizations on the pro-Israeli right-those organizations which actually are working to perpetuate Israel's military occupation-do not even go so far in their condemnations of this mobilization. For example, the "Anti-Defamation League" states only that they are concerned that we will not provide a "balanced view of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict" during the mobilization. Why you feel the need to outdo the ADL in your condemnation of our effort is beyond our understanding. It is a real shame that Tikkun continues to sit on its hands "discussing how to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the Occupation of the West Bank" rather than join with the US Campaign and UFPJ to make that commemoration a powerful and real protest against continuing US support for occupation. We believe that Tikkun should help build up this historic mobilization, rather than try to tear it down. We believe Tikkun should in fact put its own Core Vision to action when it states that the United States should use its "influence and economic power" to end Israel's military occupation and that "We will support efforts to convince the United States to condition aid to Israel on the end of the Occupation." Several Tikkun chapters have already endorsed this mobilization and several Tikkun supporters have copied one of us on email communications with you that urged you to retract your false statements about our mobilization and instead join with us to make it a success. We hope that you take this opportunity to do so and that we can all unite on June 10-11 in Washington, DC to end US support for Israel's illegal military occupation of the Palestinian West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Gaza Strip, and change US policy to support a just peace based on human rights and international law. Sincerely yours, Josh Ruebner Grassroots Advocacy Coordinator US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation Leslie Cagan National Coordinator United for Peace and Justice *** http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-bishara3may03,0,2351340.story?coll=la-opinion-center Why Israel is After Me LA Times Op-Ed: May 3, 2007 By Azmi Bishara, AZMI BISHARA was a member of the Knesset until his resignation in April. Amman, Jordan - I AM A PALESTINIAN from Nazareth, a citizen of Israel and was, until last month, a member of the Israeli parliament. But now, in an ironic twist reminiscent of France's Dreyfus affair - in which a French Jew was accused of disloyalty to the state - the government of Israel is accusing me of aiding the enemy during Israel's failed war against Lebanon in July. Israeli police apparently suspect me of passing information to a foreign agent and of receiving money in return. Under Israeli law, anyone - a journalist or a personal friend - can be defined as a "foreign agent" by the Israeli security apparatus. Such charges can lead to life imprisonment or even the death penalty. The allegations are ridiculous. Needless to say, Hezbollah - Israel's enemy in Lebanon - has independently gathered more security information about Israel than any Arab Knesset member could possibly provide. What's more, unlike those in Israel's parliament who have been involved in acts of violence, I have never used violence or participated in wars. My instruments of persuasion, in contrast, are simply words in books, articles and speeches. These trumped-up charges, which I firmly reject and deny, are only the latest in a series of attempts to silence me and others involved in the struggle of the Palestinian Arab citizens of Israel to live in a state of all its citizens, not one that grants rights and privileges to Jews that it denies to non-Jews. When Israel was established in 1948, more than 700,000 Palestinians were expelled or fled in fear. My family was among the minority that escaped that fate, remaining instead on the land where we had long lived. The Israeli state, established exclusively for Jews, embarked immediately on transforming us into foreigners in our own country. For the first 18 years of Israeli statehood, we, as Israeli citizens, lived under military rule with pass laws that controlled our every movement. We watched Jewish Israeli towns spring up over destroyed Palestinian villages. Today we make up 20% of Israel's population. We do not drink at separate water fountains or sit at the back of the bus. We vote and can serve in the parliament. But we face legal, institutional and informal discrimination in all spheres of life. More than 20 Israeli laws explicitly privilege Jews over non-Jews. The Law of Return, for example, grants automatic citizenship to Jews from anywhere in the world. Yet Palestinian refugees are denied the right to return to the country they were forced to leave in 1948. The Basic Law of Human Dignity and Liberty - Israel's "Bill of Rights" - defines the state as "Jewish" rather than a state for all its citizens. Thus Israel is more for Jews living in Los Angeles or Paris than it is for native Palestinians. Israel acknowledges itself to be a state of one particular religious group. Anyone committed to democracy will readily admit that equal citizenship cannot exist under such conditions. Most of our children attend schools that are separate but unequal. According to recent polls, two-thirds of Israeli Jews would refuse to live next to an Arab and nearly half would not allow a Palestinian into their home. I have certainly ruffled feathers in Israel. In addition to speaking out on the subjects above, I have also asserted the right of the Lebanese people, and of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, to resist Israel's illegal military occupation. I do not see those who fight for freedom as my enemies. This may discomfort Jewish Israelis, but they cannot deny us our history and identity any more than we can negate the ties that bind them to world Jewry. After all, it is not we, but Israeli Jews who immigrated to this land. Immigrants might be asked to give up their former identity in exchange for equal citizenship, but we are not immigrants. During my years in the Knesset, the attorney general indicted me for voicing my political opinions (the charges were dropped), lobbied to have my parliamentary immunity revoked and sought unsuccessfully to disqualify my political party from participating in elections - all because I believe Israel should be a state for all its citizens and because I have spoken out against Israeli military occupation. Last year, Cabinet member Avigdor Lieberman - an immigrant from Moldova - declared that Palestinian citizens of Israel "have no place here," that we should "take our bundles and get lost." After I met with a leader of the Palestinian Authority from Hamas, Lieberman called for my execution. The Israeli authorities are trying to intimidate not just me but all Palestinian citizens of Israel. But we will not be intimidated. We will not bow to permanent servitude in the land of our ancestors or to being severed from our natural connections to the Arab world. Our community leaders joined together recently to issue a blueprint for a state free of ethnic and religious discrimination in all spheres. If we turn back from our path to freedom now, we will consign future generations to the discrimination we have faced for six decades. Americans know from their own history of institutional discrimination the tactics that have been used against civil rights leaders. These include telephone bugging, police surveillance, political delegitimization and criminalization of dissent through false accusations. Israel is continuing to use these tactics at a time when the world no longer tolerates such practices as compatible with democracy. Why then does the U.S. government continue to fully support a country whose very identity and institutions are based on ethnic and religious discrimination that victimize its own citizens? --------------------------------------------------------------------------- LAAMN: Los Angeles Alternative Media Network --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Unsubscribe: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subscribe: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Digest: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Help: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Post: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Archive1: <http://www.egroups.com/messages/laamn> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Archive2: <http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Yahoo! 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