TAKE A STANCE!

Hello all! Here is the web-flier for the "Take A Stance: Resistance for Coexistance" event coming up in TWO WEEKS! Mark your Calendars! Tell your friends! Copy/ paste & hit the streets. The economy is tanking, everyone is tired and those of us who can are going on spring break. Remember: there's no such thing as spring break in Gaza and the West Bank.

(CLICK TO ENLARGE)


With much love,
Joshua

Resistance for Coexistance

Voices for Palestine, a student organization at the University of Kansas, will be cosponsoring a two day conference with the Hip Hop Indigenous People Project on the 25th and 26th of March at both Haskell Indian Nation University and the University of Kansas.

It will be a multi-faceted event, involving workshops by activists and artists from the Indigenous Youth Delegation to Palestine Team, and culminating in a special screening of the documentary "Slingshot Hip Hop," a film that "braids together the stories of young Palestinians living in the West Bank, Gaza and inside Israel as they discover Hip Hop and employ it as a tool to surmount divisions imposed by occupation and poverty. From internal checkpoints and Separation Walls to gender norms and generational differences, this is the story of young people crossing the borders that separate them."

On Wednesday, March 25th, there will be two workshops on the campus of the University of Kansas, on the sixth floor of the Union, in the Kansas room, from noon to 2:00 p.m. and again from 3:00 to 5:00 p.m. These will be interactive, multimedia workshops hip hop videos and lyrics, theater exercises, discussion, digital stories, and documentary footage to raise awareness about the struggle of the indigenous people of Palestine while empowering indigenous students in the U.S. to articulate and address their own connections to the issues of colonialism, racism, occupation, and resistance. More on the workshops can be found at www.thinkpalestineact.org.

The team is a veritable all-star roster of activists, and includes Jennifer Mogannam, from the Middle East Children's Alliance; Ross Cunningham, from SNAG Magazine; Aurora Castellanos, from Huaxtec Youth Organization; and Ora Wise, from the Palestine Education Project, who is also a co-producer of the film.

On the Evening of Thursday, March 26th, at the auditorium on Haskell Indian Nations University campus, there will be a screening of Slingshot Hip Hop, followed by Q&A with Ora Wise, co-producer. The doors will open at 6:30, there will be a DJ, concessions and tables with literature and information - the movie will start @ 7:30.

This is not an event to miss! So mark your calendars now, spread the word and plan on attending!!! Copy and paste this everywhere you think eyes will see it!

In peace & with justice,
Joshua

The Genius and Danger of Zionism

The genius of the Zionist program lies in the fact that it equates Judaism - the religion - with a political entity, the Nation of Israel.

Therefore, according to the Zionist, any negative critique of the Nation of Israel is an attack on all Jews everywhere.

This also supports the assertion that support for the Zionist State - the Nation of Israel - is an essential and inherent component of being a Jew, of being Jewish.

Of the many ramifications of this idea, I'd like to mention a few:

Politically speaking, this has created and continues to create, a large buffer zone for the policy makers in Israel. In the wake of the Jewish people's history of persecution, it fosters a massive reticence towards any negative critique of Israel's actions, both on the part of policy makers and normal people. To put it simply: people are afraid to criticize Israel because - in rendering the (political) concept of "Israel" synonymous with the (religious and ethnic) concept of "Jewishness" - they think that doing so is an act of "Anti-Semitism." The illusion is that it is a racist act to criticize the Nation of Israel.

Because of this, the amount of leeway the Nation of Israel receives - specifically in the hearts and minds of the American people and the policies of American government - to do what it wants is extremely large. Therefore the Nation of Israel, with the backing of the United States, has a veritable blank check to carry out what it will at the expense of the Palestinian people.

It is not unreasonable to posit that the existence of Israel was made and is made possible by the oppression of the Arabs who lived and continue to live in and around Israel - it is well understood by historians in and out of Israel and around the world. The question that must be posited is whether or not it is acceptable to cleanse, occupy and terrorize a population for the sake of a Jewish - or any - state.

The second major ramification I would like to mention here is a very real negative effect of the Zionist program: the very real anti-semitism that is fostered around the world because of the establishment of the Zionist state and the machinations of the Zionist movement.

BECAUSE Zionists claim that being Jewish is or should be the same thing as being "Israeli," BECAUSE they claim to speak and act for all Jews everywhere, and BECAUSE they continue to implement the program that has, since before 1948 and to the present day, terrorized and oppressed an entire people, many people around the world will, in fact, take them at their word and subsequently hate all Jewish people for the actions of the State of Israel. It is a heinous and unjust hijacking of Judaism and ethnically Jewish peoples around the world that fosters real anti-semitism, and endangers Jews worldwide. And, it is the Zionist program, ironically, that is ultimately to blame.

Therefore, those of us who deny the assertion that the (political) concept of "Israel" is synonymous with the (religious and ethnic) concept of "Jewishness" actually work against anti-semitism. We, in fact, understand that it is not "Jews" who oppress the Palestinian people, but Zionists. And this is a very important distinction, for the sake of everyone: Israelis, Palestinians, Jews, Arabs, Muslims, Christians, Americans - everybody.

Until the Wall Comes Down,
Joshua

The Conversation

Having spent the semester planning for and throwing events for our student group, "Voices for Palestine," and therefore neglecting this blog, I have had both the opportunity to engage in and reflect on many of the elements of what I've come to call "The Conversation" concerning the Israel/ Palestine conflict.

From graffiti on school desks, to tabling events and showing films, to columns, blogs and passing conversation with friends, to the mainstream media and talking heads in Washington, the narrative of the conflict is all around us. If only more Americans would shake off complacency and the fear of stigma and engage in it, then perhaps a "just peace" wouldn't seem like such a ghost on the horizon.

In future posts I hope to share some of my experiences speaking with folks about the issue, addressing it in the press, and ruminating on some of the reasons people think the way they do about it. My goal is to smash the radio silence concerning Palestine, and usher in open dialog where voices are all-to-often mute.

I frame this effort, and the efforts of the student group "Voices for Palestine," in the tradition of The White Rose, an element of non-violent resistance to the Nazi regime in Germany who believed so wholeheartedly in speaking out against injustice that they paid the highest price. And while my keyboard-clicking will probably solicit little more than nasty emails, the resemblance comes from an inability to divorce the occupation of Palestine from my own sense of reality.

In other words:

Even if the conflict is "far away,"

or is merely one of many in the world,

or is so corrupted by politics and the media that we don't know where to start,

it is still a very real and blatant injustice, and the lives of those affected are worth speaking out for.

We like to think of ourselves as an enlightened society. When we speak of history we talk down to it, as though it were an ignorant child and not our own legacy. We'd like to think that had the reservations, the gulag, the cantons, and the concentration camps been built in our time, that we'd have stood up - we'd have said something. And yet the super-reservation still stands; its walls are still being built.

This blog exists to the end of that wall being torn down.

-aVFP

No Biden, NOBama.

Last April I wrote a column for the University of Kansas' newspaper, the University Daily Kansan, on the oddity of a blurb on Israel nestled neatly within Barack Obama's now-famous speech in Philadelphia on race. I pondered at the time to what extent Mr. Obama was willing to capitulate to the status quo concerning the occupation of Palestine. I had hoped beyond hope (and against reason) that perhaps Obama's continual gestures to the Israel Lobby would be a tactic that downplays the issue long enough to get him into office, and once there, perhaps make some real headway.

Having read Ali Abuminah's article at The Electronic Intifada.com on March 4th, I had hoped that perhaps the man with "historically close relations to Palestinian-Americans" would not lose sight of his roots.

Now, with the absence of a speech by Jimmy Carter at the DNC in Denver last week and the very real presence of a staunch Zionist as a running mate, I see that Mr. Obama has done what I knew he would all along: cave.

The proof, as they say, is in the pudding. Obama has sealed the deal by selecting the pro-war Senator Joseph Biden. For anyone serious about a just peace in the Israel/ Palestine conflict in the next four years, it is now officially time to start looking somewhere other than Barack Obama.

-aVFP

The Law of Return vs. The Right of Return

Last December, Hannah Mermelstein of Birthright Unplugged, sat down with me to talk about her work, and expound on the concept of "Birthright" over coffee and the incredibly unnerving sound of our refrigerator-fan freaking out, while the snow blanketed the town. What follows is an excerpt of our conversation.

aVFP - Give me a general overview of Birthright Unplugged.

Hannah - Birthright Unplugged is the name of the organization, we have two programs: Unplugged and Replugged. We started partially as a response to this idea of a Jewish birthright in the place where Palestinian people were kicked out of.

We have the two programs and consider them to be ‘movement building’ programs - that’s our goal for both of them. With Unplugged it’s a six day grip mostly through the West Bank meeting mostly with Palestinian people and most of the people who come are Jewish North Americans and they are... we basically put people in direct communication with Palestinian people, folks that they would otherwise not have connections with and would not have access to. We stay in refugee camps, we expose people to a lot of different issues and then we help to equip them to return to their own communities and work for justice back at home, usually in the U.S. and Canada.

That’s Unplugged.

Re-plugged is a two day trip for Palestinian children who live in the West Bank, they’[re refugees, they live in West Bank refugee camps. We take them to three places that they otherwise would not be able to go, and that they’re grandparent’s have been prevented from returning to, their parents can’t go. We take them because they’re under the age of 16 and don’t yet have I.D. cards-those ID cards are what Israel uses to control peoples’ movement, so under the age of 16 people have a little bit more freedom of movement. It’s sort of a loophole. So we’re able to work with these kids and get them through checkpoints and get them to Jerusalem, the sea, and the villages that their own grandparents are from that they have never been to. They document their experiences and create photo exhibits to share with their own communities and also we bring them back to the U.S. to share with communities here, to share their voices and their stories. It’s a two day trip so they actually stay with Palestinian families inside ’48 or inside Israel.

VFP - How big is your staff?

H - Just the two of us. We founded it - her name is Dunya - we met working with the IWPS. She and I are the directors, we lead the trip with Re-plugged and we get volunteers to help us. It’s a pretty high staff to kid ratio on that trip.

VFP - I imagine.

H - Its necessary. (laughs)

VFP - Have you had any negative reaction from birthright-type organizations or people who have been involved - I know you were involved with it as a young person.

H - Well, not with Birthright Israel itself, with other similar kinds of movements. Birthright Israel threatened to sue us before we even started, they sent us a cease and desist letter. We’re not even sure exactly how they found out about it because we were being pretty low-key about the name. We already knew we were going to use that name but we weren’t really publicising it much yet because we wanted to get one trip off the ground before getting sued.

But they sent us a cease and desist letter and we ended up getting some lawyers to help, to say that they would write back. You know write letters back and forth if they needed to, to help us, help defend us, and they did. So we went back and forth a couple of times with letters and the last time we heard from Birthright international they said “It’s not enough, we’re about to sue you.” And that was more than two years ago.

And more recently they’ve actually said in the media - we have some articles on our website that you can look up http://birthrightunplugged.org/press - but one of them, I think we have it up there, someone from Birthright International was quoted as saying that the reason they didn’t actually go through with the lawsuit was that they didn’t want to give us any more publicity.

VFP - Wow, that worked for you then...

H - At the very beginning when we thought “Okay, we might get sued” we thought, “Well, at least we’ll be getting the message out in someway. So, it can go either way, but ultimately we’re glad that we’re able to do these programs.

VFP - I think a lot of my readers are unfamiliar with the conflict in general, so in you’re own words could you explain the concept - as a Jewish American - of birthright: the right of Jewish people to return to Israel, and how that plays itself out in organizations like Birthright International.

H - This concept of birthright - it’s hard to dissect - to figure out, you know, who has a right to a place and why.

Often times Jewish groups or Jewish people wil say that they have a right to Palestine/Israel/Canaan you know, whatever it’s been called over the years, because there’s this biblical connection. In the Torah, Zion means something to Jewish people - so there is this religious connection.

The majority of Jewish people in the world are not particularly religious and the majority of Zionists are not particularly religious either.

Most of the way that Israel is justified is actually - we hear a lot about the land being promised to the Jews but most of the people who are very committed to Israel, it’s not for that reason, it’s more people’s fear and people really wanting to have a Jewish state. It’s a kind of political ideology rather than something religious.

The question, then, is having a Jewish state at the expense of whom or what?

Palestinian people are indigenous to the land and Palestinian people consist of Muslims and Christians, so these people are the descendants of folks who’ve been there for thousands of years. They’re Palestinian. They are people who actually have a right to the land as an indigenous population does.

I think that a lot of what is happening there occurs within the context of two laws: The RIGHT OF RETURN and the LAW OF RETURN.

The Right of Return in an international law that applies to all refugees in the world and it says that any refugee has the right to return to the place that they’re from and to get full compensation for any loss of damages. Two thirds of the Palestinian population are refugees. They were kicked out in 1948, not because Zionists are inherently mean people, but because they had a political ideology and wanted a Jewish state. In order to have that they needed a Jewish majority. In order to have a Jewish majority they needed to kick out the Palestinian people - the non-Jewish people. So two thirds - more than 7 million Palestinian people - are prevented from returning to their land in violation of the Right of Return.

Israel has created something called the LAW of RETURN that says that any Jewish person in the entire world can move to Israel, get full citizenship rights, learn Hebrew at the expense of the government, get housing subsidies, all of these things because they’re Jewish, even if they don’t have any connection to the place.

So Israel defines itself as a state of the Jewish people, not as a state of its citizens. A lot of people who are its citizens are actually not Jewish and they don’t have equal rights. A lot of people who are not its citizens - like myself - could have full rights there. If I wanted to, because I’m Jewish. So that is how these laws interact with each other, and that is the political process that’s going on.


You can read more about Birthright Unplugged by surfing to their website listed on the right.

-aVFP