Jews split Women's
March over Farrakhan; American Blacks defy Zionist Lobby over BDS
Newsletter published on January 28, 2019
(1) American Blacks
defy Zionist Lobby over BDS
(2) Women's March leader Tamika Mallory
refuses to renounce Louis Farrakhan
(3) Why does the left
(=Womens March) still associate with Louis Farrakhan? - Roger Cohen
(4) Jews split Womens
March over Farrakhan; he blames Jews for Hollywood filth, Trans
(5) Women’s March
fractured over anti-Semitism allegations - JTA
(6) Backlash: Angela
Davis reoffered Award by Birmingham Civil Rights Institute
(7) NYT publishes
piece by Michelle Alexander: Time to Break the Silence on Palestine
(8) Reaction from
Israel: Michelle Alexander’s NY Times column hits new low
(10) The Times of
Israel’s Flawed Attack on Michelle Alexander - Ian Berman
(1) American Blacks
defy Zionist Lobby over BDS
- by Peter Myers, January 28, 2019
The Bolshevik government was set up by Bolshevik Jews leading
other minoritites (eg Latvians) against the Great Russian majority.
Stalin overthrew the Jewish Bolsheviks, as part of his
power-struggle with Trotsky. But a Jewish-Bolshevik alliance remained until
afterWorld War 2.
Trotskyist Jews spawned the New Left, which during the 1960s
& 70s delevoped activist groups of 'minorities' such as Women, Blacks, Gays
etc.
Jews were leading those minorities against 'White Christian'
America.
Now some of the minority groups are refusing to comply with
Jewish wishes and demands.
Blacks such as Angela Davis and Michelle Alexander are
refusing to cease their support for Palestinians, and are defiant in the face of
attempts to suppress them.
Louis Farrakhan alleges that Jewish people are "responsible
for all of this filth and degenerate behavior that Hollywood is putting out
turning men into women and women into men."
Tamika Mallory, co-leader of the Womens March, admires
Farrakhan and has has refused to denounce him, despite Jewish pressure.
One part of the Jewish lobby, the Soros-funded Jewish Voices
for Peace, has stood firm with Angela Davis against most of the Lobby, which
tried to sideline her because of her support for Palestinians. But there does
not seem to be any group of Jews who back Farrakhan's statements about
Hollywood.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez also has maintained support for
Palestinians despite Jewish opposition.
It seems that, although Jews empowered minorities and
sponsored multiculturalism, minority and multicultural groups will gradually sap
the Lobby's dominance.
The Lobby's diversion of US Foreign Aid to Israel will no
longer be tolerable once those groups gain strength. Why should the bulk of US
Foreign Aid go to a nuclear power which has repeatedly invaded its neighbours,
and which has a strong hi-tech industry and a current account surplus?
(2) Women's March
leader Tamika Mallory refuses to renounce Louis Farrakhan
In MLK keynote, Women's March leader Mallory makes call to
'fight systems, not people'
Dillon Davis, Asheville Citizen Times Published 9:21 a.m. ET
Jan. 25, 2019
ASHEVILLE — Women's March leader Tamika Mallory called on a
UNC Asheville crowd Thursday to be driven to find unity and confront life's hard
truths while also knocking down accusations of anti-Semitism that have followed her
for much of the past year.
Mallory spent much of her roughly 45-minute address
reflecting on the work of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. as the keynote speaker for
the university's annual MLK Week. She reflected on King's life and his activism,
encouraging those in attendance to remember him not just as a "passive" leader,
but as a "radical" one killed for "trying to free the most marginalized in our
society."
But Mallory also made mention of the "elephant in the room,"
in this case her refusal to condemn
Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan. She began drawing heat last year
after attending the Nation of Islam’s Saviour’s Day as well as for referring to
Farrakhan — who regularly makes anti-Semitic, homophobic and other
offensive remarks — as "the GOAT," or "greatest of all time," in a social media
post from 2017.
While Mallory has said she does not agree with many of Farrakhan's views, some still have
questioned her for failing to distance
herself from his brand of anti-Semitism.
On Thursday, she met with Jewish community leaders, UNCA
students, staff and other community members, during which time she said they
shared "beautiful words of hope." Asked Thursday how she could represent both
King's values of "love and equality" while still praising Farrakhan, she noted she'd answered the
question before, but said King often met with those with whom he disagreed.
[...]
But it was clear as the doors opened Thursday, Mallory’s link
to Farrakhan and the way she’s
addressed her relationship with him in the past was not well received, at least
for some.
Criticisms of anti-Semitism loom Asheville resident
Harry Pierson stood among a group outside the auditorium with a sign on his
shoulders reading, "Mallory’s anti-Semitism dishonors MLK’s memory."
Pierson, a former university professor and the son of two Holocaust survivors,
said Mallory was undeserving of such a platform representing Dr. King, arguing
she does not reflect his values.
People protest outside Lipinsky Hall before Tamika Mallory's
speech at UNC Asheville Jan. 24, 2019. Mallory has been the subject of criticism
in the past year for refusing to condemn Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, who regularly makes anti-Semitic, homophobic and otherwise offensive
remarks.Buy Photo People protest outside Lipinsky Hall before Tamika Mallory's
speech at UNC Asheville Jan. 24, 2019. Mallory has been the subject of criticism
in the past year for refusing to condemn Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, who regularly makes anti-Semitic, homophobic and otherwise offensive
remarks. (Photo: Angela Wilhelm/awilhelm@citizentimes.com)
"Mallory saying Farrakhan's words do not speak for me,
I could say the same thing about (white supremacist) David Duke's words, and it doesn't mean
I agree with him or disagree with him," he said.
Pierson said he would not dignify Mallory's speech with his
own attendance, deciding instead to leave once the event had begun. If anything,
he said he wanted Mallory to repudiate Farrakhan's words, making clear she's
separating her personal respect for him from the way she feels about his
viewpoints — but he wasn't optimistic.
"If she was still digging her hole deeper last week, she's
not going to pick UNCA for her big reveal," he said.
Weaverville resident Michelle Dodd, who did attend the
speech, said was doing so because she was interested to hear how Mallory spoke
about the controversy.
"From what I've read so far, which is a limited amount, I
think it's been taken out of context based on people's personal views," said
Dodd, who's also a member of the Carolina Jews for Justice.
Despite some calls for her removal, the university defended its decision to
book Mallory this month, saying it stands for "free speech and open
dialogue." ...
(3) Why does the left
(=Womens March) still associate with Louis Farrakhan? - Roger Cohen
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/why-does-the-left-still-associate-with-louis-Farrakhan/2019/01/21/de47f966-1db7-11e9-9145-3f74070bbdb9_story.html
Why does the left still associate with Louis Farrakhan?
By Richard Cohen Columnist
January 21
When and how did it become acceptable to be an anti-Semite?
When did it become okay to socialize with and even praise a Jew hater? I am referring, of course,
to Louis Farrakhan, who spouts the
most vile things about Jews yet retains the admiration of many on the left,
including, notably, leaders of the
Women’s March. They have now separated themselves from Farrakhan’s bigotry but not the man
himself. He understands. They are doing what Jews want.
To an extent, they are. It has taken some pressure to get
Women’s March co-chairs Tamika Mallory and Linda Sarsour and others to distance
themselves from Farrakhan’s views.
Yet Mallory, for one, will not condemn the man who holds these views. In this,
she has plenty of company. On the stage with Farrakhan at Aretha Franklin’s funeral
in September were Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton and Bill Clinton. Franklin,
apparently untroubled by Farrakhan’s
Jew hatred, had a friendly relationship with him, and he was at the funeral for
that reason. Still, you could not imagine Jackson, Sharpton or Clinton sharing
the stage with David Duke.
The Anti-Defamation League reports a surge in anti-Semitic incidents — up nearly 60
percent in 2017. But the numbers are more shocking than they are troubling. More
troubling — if unmeasurable — are the casually anti-Semitic statements or associations
of figures such as Mallory and Sarsour. In 2012, Sarsour, who is Palestinian
American, tweeted: “Nothing is creepier than Zionism.” This might be
understandable from a Palestinian point of view, but not her following sentence:
“Challenge racism.” The slur that Zionism is racism must come as a surprise to
the 135,000 Ethiopian Jews in Israel, roughly 25,000 of whom were airlifted
between 1984 and 1991.
Farrakhan is
lauded for the good work his Nation of Islam does in certain black communities
and in jails. But his message is anti-white, anti-gay and anti-Semitic. The fact that he does
some good is no reason to ignore or overlook the bad that is attached. When it
comes to Jews, he has the lurid imagination of a 1930s-era Nazi. He blames the
Jews for most everything, including Hollywood movies that are “turning men into
women and women into men.” Mallory attended the rally where Farrakhan made that statement.
Eleven years ago, a writer for Harper’s wondered what would
happen to Farrakhan if I ceased
writing about him. I ceased, and Farrakhan seemed not to notice. In
fact, his brand of anti-Semitism
became, if not acceptable, then unremarkable. In her forthcoming book, “Antisemitism Here and Now,” the
Holocaust historian Deborah E. Lipstadt gathers some of the more idiotic
statements made by leftist Americans about Jews and, especially, about Israel.
The country is routinely denounced as racist, colonialist, fascist and, of
course, as segregated as South Africa in the apartheid era. None of this is
true.
It is true, alas, that Israel persists in occupying the West
Bank. But it is also true that many American Jews oppose this policy — as do
many Israelis. As do I. But at the same time, I recognize that Israel is not the
vilest among nations, that it is a democracy that accords full rights to its
Palestinian citizens, that the Muslim gays of Tel Aviv would not last a day in
the Arab world and that the proposal to have Israel absorb Palestinian refugees
is simply untenable. It would doom Israel as a Jewish state. It is an invitation
to obliteration.
I go back to Farrakhan. That Harper’s writer of
years ago had a point: Farrakhan is
not important. He leads a fringe sect that is as anathema to conventional
Muslims as it is to Jews. It is not his anti-Semitism that worries me. More
worrisome is the casual acceptance of his anti-Semitism by others that makes him
somehow unremarkable — the unstated agreement that Jews are all-powerful,
all-controlling and somehow blocking black progress. This stands history on its
head and mocks the 1964 deaths in Mississippi of Michael Schwerner and Andrew
Goodman, who were among the many Jews who volunteered during the civil rights
movement over the years.
In accepting Farrakhan, figures on the American left
manage to combine anti-Semitism with
racism — a belief that blacks are too weak to matter and Jews too powerful to
care. It robs African Americans of their own agency by making their plight the
work of evil Jews. As for Jews, it’s an echo of what they’ve heard before. The
leaders of the Women’s March ought to study history to see that theirs are old
ideas. They are marching in the wrong direction.
(4) Jews split Womens
March over Farrakhan; he blames Jews for Hollywood filth, Trans
https://www.aol.com/article/news/2019/01/13/competing-womens-march-efforts-in-new-york-city-undercut-by-infighting-anti-Semitism-scandal/23641541/
Competing women's march efforts in New York City undercut by
infighting, anti-Semitism scandal
New York Daily News
GINA SALAMONE Jan 13th 2019 8:48PM
There will be not one, but two women’s march events in
Manhattan next week.
Women’s March Inc. — the group behind the historic first
march in D.C. in 2017 — is holding a rally in Foley Square from 11 a.m. to 1:30
p.m. on Saturday, according to a city Parks Department permit granted
Friday.
Meanwhile, the Women’s March Alliance – an unaffiliated local
group that has spearheaded events in the city for the last two years — has also
secured a permit for Saturday. And their march, near Columbus Circle, will also
kick off 11 a.m.
The dueling events are a product of an ugly feud over what
and who should be represented in the women’s marches.
The Alliance claims the leaders of Women’s March Inc. have
tried to "bully" their way into the Columbus Circle march and trashed the group
for a lack of diversity.
Katherine Siemionko, founder and president of the Women’s
March Alliance, which developed into a nonprofit two years ago, says she had a
less than pleasant conversation with Linda Sarsour, a Women’s March Inc. board
member and Palestinian-American racial justice activist this October.
"Linda said ‘You put us on your leadership board or we’ll
hold a counter march,’" Siemionko explained. "And I said, ‘I don’t put up with
bullying.’"
Siemionko says that Sarsour also implied she wasn’t fit to
organize a march for all women because she is white.
Sarsour declined to talk to the Daily News and a spokeswoman
for Women’s March Inc. refuted Siemionko’s account of the conversation.
Since the first march two years ago, accusations of anti-Semitism and criticism over
connections to Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan have soured people’s views of
Women’s March Inc.
Sarsour, along with her fellow board members Tamika Mallory
and Carmen Perez, attended a 2015 Washington, D.C., rally organized by Farrakhan, who has said "Hitler was a
very great man" and argued Israel is structured "on injustice, thievery, lying
and deceit and using the name of God to shield your dirty religion."
Mallory has referred to Farrakhan as "the GOAT," which stands
for "Greatest of All Time," in an Instagram post that included a photo of
herself alongside him. She also attended the Nation of Islam’s Saviours’ Day
event last February, along with Sarsour and Perez, where
Farrakhan said Jewish
people are "responsible for all of this filth and degenerate behavior that
Hollywood is putting out turning men into women and women into men."
Both Women’s March Inc. and Mallory, who did not respond to a
request for comment, have been criticized for being late to respond to the
growing backlash and in Mallory’s case, for not properly condemning Farrakhan’s remarks.
Jewish online magazine Tablet last month detailed several
other disturbing allegations, including that Mallory, in a November 2016 meeting
with founding members of the Women’s March, implied that Jewish people exploit
black and brown people. Mallory has denied it. Tablet also reported that Women’s
March Inc.used members of the Nation of Islam’s security team, the Fruit of
Islam, with Sarsour writing in a Facebook caption, "FOI Brothers, security for
the movement."
A spokeswoman for Women’s March Inc. refutes those
allegations.
"The organization and its leaders have dedicated themselves
to liberating women from all forms of oppression, including anti-Semitism, misogyny, homophobia, transphobia,
racism, white supremacy, xenophobia and Islamophobia," the group said in a
statement to the Daily News.
For this year’s rally, Women’s March Inc. is partnering with
the New York Immigration Coalition, where Sarsour was a longtime board
member.
Steven Choi, executive director of the NYIC, said his group,
"saw an opportunity to elevate immigrant women and ensure representation of our
community’s concerns. We’re at a moment right now where both women’s rights and
immigrant rights are under constant attack by the Trump administration."
Sarsour’s involvement was a seen as a positive for Choi.
"She’s long been an activist and advocate on immigrant rights
and so when she asked and said that there was this opportunity to really lift up
the voices of women of color...we thought that there was an opportunity to
partner with them," he explained.
Choi was not concerned about the allegations of anti-Semitism plaguing Women’s March
Inc.
"We condemn racism. We condemn anti-Semitism," Choi said. "We condemn
Louis Farrakan’s hate speech...Our Jewish partners are a key constituency of
ours. They’re an essential part of our shared struggle for justice."
The NYIC also met with Women’s March Alliance and asked about
joining forces, but Siemionko’s group declined.
The competing events are promoted on each group’s Facebook
page, but Women’s March Inc.’s late planning gave the Women’s March Alliance
more traction.
The Alliance page — "Women’s March on NYC (Official)" — had
12,000 people listed as going and 49,000 interested. The national organization’s
event — "Women’s March in New York City (Official Chapter)" — had 5,000 people
listed as "going" and 25,000 interested before they got their permit.
Several of the Facebook followers for the local Women’s March
Inc. effort remained confused even after the location and time were finally
announced Thursday.
"What is going on. We have a hotel room near Central Park,
where the march is suppose to be held," wrote Linda Craig Smagner, clearly
confusing the downtown rally with the uptown march.
Another user complained that she is already set to leave New
York the day before to head to the Washington, D.C., event. "Wish I had known
earlier," she wrote.
Others didn’t understand why there were two separate women’s
march events happening in New York City.
Adding to the confusion, Women’s March Inc. initially listed
a host for its Big Apple event on its website, then removed it. The group is now
promoting Agunda Okeyo — a writer, producer, activist, organizer and director of
Women’s March NYC — as the lead host at their rally.
Okeyo told The News that she was at the first women’s march
in D.C. and co-founded a New York chapter in fall of 2017.
The environment is her platform this year.
"I’m originally from Kenya, I grew up in the Bronx and I’ve
always had a hyper-awareness of nature," Okeyo says, citing a November climate
report released by the U.S. government. "We don’t have a very large amount of
time, about five to 10 years in order to make incredibly radical change. The
other many issues are political, or you could look at what’s happening in the
United States in terms of the excitement of so many women being elected to the
House of Representatives."
She added that "the accusations against the national
organization are unfortunate," and said it’s sad that many of the leaders in
local chapters are "interpreted as extensions of the national organization as
opposed to being chapters that are part of a network that also have their own
unique and individual identities and leadership and points of view.
(5) Women’s March
fractured over anti-Semitism allegations - JTA
https://www.jta.org/2018/12/21/united-states/anti-Semitism-allegations-are-splitting-the-womens-march
Women’s March fractured by internal conflicts, anti-Semitism allegations
Josefin Dolsten, JTAJosefin Dolsten, JTA
Dec 27, 2018
NEW YORK — When the Women’s March galvanized millions of
women in 2017 as a response to the inauguration of Donald Trump as president,
Jewish participants were loud and proud. Synagogues and Jewish activist
organizations sent large contingents to the main march in Washington and
satellites around the country. Groups ranging from the Reform movement’s
Religious Action Center to Chabad offered their support to marchers.
Two years later, the Women’s March is in disarray, with
leaders facing allegations of mismanagement and local chapters seeking to go
their own way out of either political or logistical self-interest.
And for Jewish women there is an added layer of anguish: Top
leaders of the main organization have been accused of engaging in or condoning
anti-Semitism, and failing to heed
the concerns of its thousands of Jewish backers.
"It’s bad for the movement," Emiliana Guereca, the executive
director of Women’s March Los Angeles, told JTA.
Guereca’s chapter has a disclaimer on its website stating
that it "has no affiliation and was never part of Women’s March Inc."
Still, most people don’t realize that the two are separate,
and total donations to her chapter are down by about 60%, as are the number of
organizations willing to partner with the group, Guereca said.
"I think we’ve spent the entire month of December responding
to all of this, and we’re going to continue to respond. That for us stops the
work from happening," she said.
The Los Angeles chapter isn’t the only one feeling the
heat.
Katherine Siemionko, founder of the Women’s March Alliance,
which organizes the Women’s March on NYC, has a similar disclaimer on the
website as the Los Angeles group.
Siemionko says her group lost thousands of social media
followers and newsletter subscribers, as articles have continued to come out
criticizing the national organizers. Donors have also dropped out and
celebrities turned down offers to speak at its 2019 rally, citing concerns about
anti-Semitism.
"It’s been a huge impact," she said. "It’s shifted everything
that we do."
Gloria Moore, who is organizing a Women’s March in Atlanta,
echoed the sentiments. After clashing with a local Women’s March affiliate,
Moore went on to found March on Georgia, which is affiliated with Siemionko’s
New York group.
"All the articles that are being written, all the discussions
that are taking place on social media, they are all negative about the national
organization," Moore said. "Because we’ve never been associated with them, we
have no reason to be affiliated with them now, and from a local standpoint they
have hurt us more than they have helped us."
Last week, the Women’s March in Washington State cited anti-Semitism in its decision to sever
its affiliation with the national Women’s March organization.
"Continuing to be a part of the Women’s March with the
blatant bigotry they display would be breaking a promise.
"We can’t betray our Jewish community by remaining a part of
this organization," board director Angie Beem wrote in a Facebook post
announcing the decision.
In November, Women’s March co-founder Teresa Shook called on
the national co-chairs to resign, saying they "allowed anti-Semitism" and other hateful
rhetoric. Actress and activist Alyssa Milano also said that she would not speak
at the march if asked.
The controversy surrounding the march arose from organizer
Tamika Mallory’s ties to anti-Semitic Nation of Islam leader
Louis Farrakhan.
Earlier this year, Mallory was criticized for not speaking
out after she attended an event during which Farrakhan said "the powerful Jews are
my enemy" and accused "Satanic Jews" of having a "grip on the media."
The organizers of the march later said the Nation of Islam
leader’s statements "are not aligned with the Women’s March Unity Principles,"
but also defended Mallory against criticism.
Mallory has defended her and her family’s association with Farrakhan.
Following Shook and Milano’s statements last month, organizer
Linda Sarsour apologized on behalf of the Women’s March for being too slow to
show its commitment to fighting anti-Semitism.
But an article published earlier this month in Tablet further
stoked the fire by claiming, citing unnamed sources, that Mallory and fellow
organizer Carmen Perez had made anti-Semitic statements at two Women’s
March planning meetings.
These issues have only intensified frustrations among some
local Women’s March chapters about the national organization’s behavior.
Another point of contention is the fact that the national
organization, Women’s March Inc., has attempted to trademark the name "Women’s
March." March On, The Women’s March Alliance — Siemionko’s organization — and
marches in Los Angeles and Chicago have filed lawsuits against the national
group, saying it should not have ownership over the name and logo.
The Jewish community is also grappling with the fallout — and
whether to attend the upcoming marches around the country on Jan. 19.
On Thursday, Dec. 19, the Jewish Democratic Council of
America called on the national Women’s March organizers to step down.
"Leaders of the Women’s March, Inc. continue to associate
with Louis Farrakhan, a known
anti-Semite, homophobe, and misogynist whom JDCA has denounced for hate speech,"
the group said in a statement.
"In addition, these same women continue to make statements
that call into question their commitment to fighting anti-Semitism."
The organization called on its members to join rallies around
the country without ties to the national organization.
Nancy Kaufman, the CEO of the National Council of Jewish
Women said that her organization has yet to sign up as a sponsor of the DC
march.
"In an ideal world we’d love to be able to endorse [the
national Women’s March], but in the real world there are concerns," Kaufman told
JTA.
NCJW is in touch with the national organizers "in order to
express our deep concerns about anti-Semitism and how collectively
we’re going to speak out against it," she said.
The Jewish Women’s Foundation of New York is listed as a
sponsor on the Women’s March Inc. website. Its executive director, Jamie Allen
Black, said the group is still considering how to proceed.
She worries that conversations around the Women’s March could
detract from the cause.
"My concern is that I don’t want to sideline the women’s
movement," Black said.
"We feel around here that that’s the most important thing —
that women stay connected, women stay engaged, women use their voices."
While the foundation isn’t taking a stance on the march at
this point, Black said that finding some of the organizers’ views offensive
should not necessarily mean that Jewish women can’t participate in the
rally.
"I can hold that the leaders of the Women’s March, the
organization, have views that I find appalling," she said. "At same time I can
hold that Women’s March has value. For me it’s not an either-or."
Holocaust historian Deborah Lipstadt begs to differ. At a
recent conference by the Anti-Defamation League, she said flatly that Jewish
women should not attend the Women’s March. A recent tweet by Farrakhan, in which he compared Jews to
termites, should seal the deal for those who may not have made up their minds,
she said.
"I can’t fathom how anyone who considers themselves a proud
identifying Jewish woman could let that go by," she told JTA.
Lipstadt criticized the national Women’s March leader’s
"repeated refusals to dissociate themselves" from Farrakhan and said that when they did
release statements on him "they were weak and tepid."
She likened his remarks to someone using the n-word, saying
that were someone to use a slur like that, she would in no way continue to
support them.
"If you talk about African Americans like that, I have
nothing to say to you," Lipstadt said. "I can’t say ‘Oh, but you do good work,’
[or] ‘Oh, but you helped my family.’ I may have once thought that you did good
work.
"But this is a conversation ender."
(6) Backlash: Angela
Davis reoffered Award by Birmingham Civil Rights Institute
26/01/2019 9:51 AM AEDT
Angela Davis Reoffered Award By Birmingham Civil Rights
Institute
The institute sparked outrage after it rescinded an award to
the longtime civil rights activist, with speculation it was due to her activism
for Palestinian rights. By Kimberley
Richards Angela Davis has been reoffered an award from an Alabama civil rights
museum after it sparked controversy for rescinding the honor this month.
The Birmingham Civil Rights Institute released a statement on
Friday announcing its decision to reaffirm Davis as the recipient of its 2018
Fred L. Shuttlesworth Human Rights Award.
Davis was personally invited to accept the award, the
institute said, adding that it “respects her privacy and timing in whatever her
response may ultimately be.”
In keeping with its commitment to learning from its mistakes
and in order to stay true to the BCRI’s mission, the Board of Directors has
voted to reaffirm Dr. Angela Y. Davis as the recipient of the 2018 Shuttlesworth
Human Rights Award. ...
In an interview with Democracy Now this month, Davis, a
scholar and civil rights icon born in then-segregated Birmingham, said the
reasons behind the decision were not initially made clear to her.
“When I made requests to them to offer me more substantive
reasons for the rescission of the award, I was met with very abstract
responses,” she said.
While others are working to diminish Angela Davis’ lifelong
work for human rights because of her commitment to justice for Palestinians, we’re taking out an ad in
the Birmingham News to honor her and show JVP's support and solidarity.
pic.twitter.com/H85yFfXq9n
— JewishVoiceForPeace (@jvplive) January 25, 2019 Davis
released a statement this month indicating that she later learned her “long-term support of justice for
Palestine was at issue.”
The Birmingham Holocaust Education Center reportedly sent a
letter to the institute on Jan. 2 asking its board to reconsider honoring her,
because of her support for the boycott,
divestment and sanctions movement, according to AL.com.
BCRI’s statement noted that the board “began receiving
messages of concern from various segments in the Birmingham Community” strongly
opposing Davis’ “views on a variety of issues.”
The statement did not provide details on the nature or source
of the complaints.
The Birmingham Holocaust Education Center’s letter to the
institute, obtained by AL.com, expressed “concern and disappointment” over the
decision to honor Davis.
Neither organization immediately responded to requests for
comment.
The decision to rescind the award sparked outrage on social
media and condemnation from organizers and other groups, including the social
justice organization Jewish Voice for Peace, which launched a petition in
support of Davis this month.
“The decision seems
to stem from a misinformed view that to advocate for Palestinian human rights is
somehow offensive to the Jewish community,” the petition read.
Birmingham Mayor Randall Woodfin released a statement saying
he was “dismayed” by the institute’s decision to rescind the award.
The BCRI said its board voted 9-2 on Jan. 4 to rescind the
award “based on new input from the community.” The board issued an apology on
Jan. 14.
“Immediately after that public apology, in keeping with its
commitment to learning from its mistakes and in order to stay true to the BCRI’s
founding mission, the Board voted to reaffirm Dr. Davis as the recipient,” the
BCRI said in a statement.
The annual award pays tribute to the Rev. Fred L.
Shuttlesworth, a civil rights activist who died in 2011 at 89.
(7) NYT publishes
piece by Michelle Alexander: Time to Break the Silence on Palestine
Time to Break the Silence on Palestine
Martin Luther King Jr. courageously spoke out about the
Vietnam War. We must do the same when it comes to this grave injustice of our
time.
By Michelle Alexander
Jan. 19, 2019
“We must speak with all the humility that is appropriate to
our limited vision, but we must speak,” the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
declared at Riverside Church in Manhattan in 1967.CreditCreditJohn C. Goodwin On
April 4, 1967, exactly one year before his assassination, the Rev. Dr. Martin
Luther King Jr. stepped up to the lectern at the Riverside Church in Manhattan.
The United States had been in active combat in Vietnam for two years and tens of
thousands of people had been killed, including some 10,000 American troops. The
political establishment — from left to right — backed the war, and more than
400,000 American service members were in Vietnam, their lives on the line.
Many of King’s strongest allies urged him to remain silent
about the war or at least to soft-pedal any criticism. They knew that if he told
the whole truth about the unjust and disastrous war he would be falsely labeled
a Communist, suffer retaliation and severe backlash, alienate supporters and
threaten the fragile progress of the civil rights movement.
King rejected all the well-meaning advice and said, “I come
to this magnificent house of worship tonight because my conscience leaves me no
other choice.” Quoting a statement by the Clergy and Laymen Concerned About
Vietnam, he said, “A time comes when silence is betrayal” and added, “that time
has come for us in relation to Vietnam.”
It was a lonely, moral stance. And it cost him. But it set an
example of what is required of us if we are to honor our deepest values in times
of crisis, even when silence would better serve our personal interests or the
communities and causes we hold most dear. It’s what I think about when I go over
the excuses and rationalizations that have kept me largely silent on one of the
great moral challenges of our time: the crisis in Israel-Palestine.
I have not been alone. Until very recently, the entire
Congress has remained mostly silent on the human rights nightmare that has
unfolded in the occupied territories. Our elected representatives, who operate
in a political environment where Israel's political lobby holds well-documented
power, have consistently minimized and deflected criticism of the State of
Israel, even as it has grown more emboldened in its occupation of Palestinian territory and adopted some
practices reminiscent of apartheid in South Africa and Jim Crow segregation in
the United States.
Many civil rights activists and organizations have remained
silent as well, not because they lack concern or sympathy for the Palestinian people, but because they
fear loss of funding from foundations, and false charges of anti-Semitism. They
worry, as I once did, that their important social justice work will be
compromised or discredited by smear campaigns.
Similarly, many students are fearful of expressing support
for Palestinian rights because of
the McCarthyite tactics of secret organizations like Canary Mission, which blacklists those who publicly dare to
support boycotts against Israel, jeopardizing their employment prospects and
future careers. ...
And so, if we are to honor King’s message and not merely the
man, we must condemn Israel’s actions: unrelenting violations of international
law, continued occupation of the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Gaza, home
demolitions and land confiscations. We must cry out at the treatment of Palestinians at
checkpoints, the routine searches of their homes and restrictions on their
movements, and the severely limited access to decent housing, schools, food,
hospitals and water that many of them face.
We must not tolerate Israel’s refusal even to discuss the
right of Palestinian refugees to
return to their homes, as prescribed by United Nations resolutions, and we ought
to question the U.S. government funds that have supported multiple hostilities
and thousands of civilian casualties in Gaza, as well as the $38 billion the
U.S. government has pledged in military support to Israel.
And finally, we must, with as much courage and conviction as
we can muster, speak out against the system of legal discrimination that exists
inside Israel, a system complete with, according to Adalah, the Legal Center for
Arab Minority Rights in Israel, more
than 50 laws that discriminate against Palestinians — such as the new
nation-state law that says explicitly that only Jewish Israelis have the right
of self-determination in Israel, ignoring the rights of the Arab minority that
makes up 21 percent of the population. ...
Ultimately, King canceled a pilgrimage to Israel in 1967
after Israel captured the West Bank. During a phone call about the visit with
his advisers, he said, “I just think that if I go, the Arab world, and of course
Africa and Asia for that matter, would interpret this as endorsing everything
that Israel has done, and I do have questions of doubt.”
He continued to support Israel’s right to exist but also said
on national television that it would be necessary for Israel to return parts of
its conquered territory to achieve true peace and security and to avoid
exacerbating the conflict. There was no way King could publicly reconcile his
commitment to nonviolence and justice for all people, everywhere, with what had
transpired after the 1967 war.
Today, we can only speculate about where King would stand.
Yet I find myself in agreement with the historian Robin D.G. Kelley, who
concluded that, if King had the opportunity to study the current situation in
the same way he had studied Vietnam, “his unequivocal opposition to violence,
colonialism, racism and militarism would have made him an incisive critic of
Israel’s current policies.”
Indeed, King’s views may have evolved alongside many other
spiritually grounded thinkers, like Rabbi Brian Walt, who has spoken publicly
about the reasons that he abandoned his faith in what he viewed as political
Zionism. To him, he recently explained to me, liberal Zionism meant that he
believed in the creation of a Jewish state that would be a desperately needed
safe haven and cultural center for Jewish people around the world, "a state that
would reflect as well as honor the highest ideals of the Jewish tradition.” He
said he grew up in South Africa in a family that shared those views and
identified as a liberal Zionist, until
his experiences in the occupied territories forever changed him.
During more than 20 visits to the West Bank and Gaza, he saw
horrific human rights abuses, including Palestinian homes being bulldozed while
people cried — children's toys strewn over one demolished site — and saw Palestinian lands being confiscated to
make way for new illegal settlements subsidized by the Israeli government. He
was forced to reckon with the reality that these demolitions, settlements and
acts of violent dispossession were not rogue moves, but fully supported and
enabled by the Israeli military. For him, the turning point was witnessing
legalized discrimination against Palestinians — including streets for
Jews only — which, he said, was worse in some ways than what he had witnessed as
a boy in South Africa.
Not so long ago, it was fairly rare to hear this perspective.
That is no longer the case.
Jewish Voice for Peace, for example, aims to educate the
American public about “the forced displacement of approximately 750,000 Palestinians that began with Israel’s
establishment and that continues to this day.” Growing numbers of people of all
faiths and backgrounds have spoken out with more boldness and courage. American
organizations such as If Not Now support young American Jews as they struggle to
break the deadly silence that still exists among too many people regarding the
occupation, and hundreds of secular and faith-based groups have joined the U.S.
Campaign for Palestinian Rights.
...
Fortunately, people like the Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II
are leading by example, pledging allegiance to the fight against anti-Semitism
while also demonstrating unwavering solidarity with the Palestinian people struggling to
survive under Israeli occupation.
He declared in a riveting speech last year that we cannot
talk about justice without addressing the displacement of native peoples, the
systemic racism of colonialism and the injustice of government repression. In
the same breath he said: “I want to say, as clearly as I know how, that the
humanity and the dignity of any person or people cannot in any way diminish the
humanity and dignity of another person or another people. To hold fast to the
image of God in every person is to insist that the Palestinian child is as precious as the
Jewish child.” [...]
Bahia Amawi, an American speech pathologist of Palestinian descent, was recently
terminated for refusing to sign a
contract that contains an anti-boycott pledge stating that she does not, and
will not, participate in boycotting the State of Israel. In November, Marc
Lamont Hill was fired from CNN for giving a speech in support of Palestinian rights that was grossly
misinterpreted as expressing support for violence. Canary Mission continues to
pose a serious threat to student activists.
And just over a week ago, the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute in
Alabama, apparently under pressure mainly from segments of the Jewish
community and others, rescinded an
honor it bestowed upon the civil rights icon Angela Davis, who has been a
vocal critic of Israel’s treatment of Palestinians and supports B.D.S.
But that attack backfired. Within 48 hours, academics and
activists had mobilized in response. The mayor of Birmingham, Randall Woodfin,
as well as the Birmingham School Board and the City Council, expressed outrage
at the institute’s decision. The council unanimously passed a resolution in
Davis’ honor, and an alternative event is being organized to celebrate her
decades-long commitment to liberation for all.
I cannot say for certain that King would applaud Birmingham
for its zealous defense of Angela Davis’s solidarity with Palestinian people. But I do. In this
new year, I aim to speak with greater courage and conviction about injustices
beyond our borders, particularly those that are funded by our government, and
stand in solidarity with struggles for democracy and freedom. My conscience
leaves me no other choice.
Michelle
Alexander became a New York Times columnist in 2018. She is a civil rights
lawyer and advocate, legal scholar and author of “The New Jim Crow: Mass
Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness.”
A version of this article appears in print on , on Page SR1
of the New York edition with the headline: Time to Break the Silence on
Palestine.
(8) Reaction from
Israel: Michelle Alexander’s NY Times column hits new low
Michelle
Alexander’s NY Times column hits new low
It's replete with errors, shows no understanding of -- or
sympathy for -- Israel, and dishonors Martin Luther King
JAN 21, 2019, 3:32 AM
Please note that the posts on The Blogs are contributed by
third parties. The opinions, facts and any media content in them are presented
solely by the authors, and neither The Times of Israel nor its partners assume
any responsibility for them. ...
Reading Michelle
Alexander’s column, “Time to Break the Silence on Palestine,” in The New
York Times (Jan. 20) isn’t for the faint of heart. So many questions swirl
around it that it’s hard to know where to begin.
First, I wish I could say I was surprised to see such a
flawed and polemical piece in the paper, but then again the Times isn’t exactly
new to such pieces, at least when it comes to Israel-related matters.
Second, outrageously, Ms. Alexander tried to link her column
to the memory of Martin Luther King, Jr., though she presents no convincing
evidence that he would have agreed with her premise. To the contrary, the Dr.
King that AJC leaders worked with on civil rights and other pressing issues, in
the 1960s, was a staunch friend of Israel (and the mainstream Jewish community).
And, of course, the paper played along by featuring the column prominently on
the eve of the national holiday honoring his legacy.
Third, as the title suggests, Ms. Alexander sees herself as
heroically “breaking the silence” and taking on those dark (Jewish?) forces
trying to stifle any discussion of Israeli-Palestinian issues.
Ms. Alexander, what silence are you breaking? The paper you
wrote your column for, and countless others, have been publishing such pieces
for decades. Fortunately, they’ve had little resonance with the American people,
who instinctively understand the Israel story and its importance to us as
Americans.
And fourth, there are countless outrages in the column
itself.
She unabashedly applauds boycotts of Israel; falsely accuses
the Jewish state of apartheid; approvingly cites extremist voices like the
misnamed Jewish Voice for Peace; endorses the Palestinian “right of return,” which
would mean the end of Israel; veers dangerously close to anti-Semitism with
references to Jewish money; and charges the country with endless acts of
oppression against both its Arab citizens (who, in reality, are fully active in
just about every aspect of Israeli life, including the Supreme Court) and Palestinians.
Nowhere does she show any understanding of Israel, much less
even an ounce of sympathy for its unenviable situation in a rough-and-tumble
region where the weak don’t last long and, tragically, peace has proved
elusive.
For her, Israel was settled by European Jews, suggesting
outsiders, but there is no reference to the nearly one million Jews expelled
from Arab countries, most of whom thankfully found refuge in Israel and today
comprise the majority of the Jewish population, much less to the historical
links of the Jewish people to the land.
Nowhere does she reference Israel’s multiple and
well-documented efforts to achieve peace with the Palestinians, beginning the year before
the state was reborn in 1948 and continuing into the 21st century. Israel is
blamed nonstop for the current situation, while the Palestinians are blameless. Does Ms.
Alexander have a clue about the actual history and its endless layers of
complexity, or does she live in a sanitized world of simplistic narratives that
perhaps feed a larger world view?
Nor is there any explanation of how Israel came into
possession of the West Bank in 1967 or how it sought a land-for-peace deal
immediately afterward, only to be rejected by the Arab League in September
1967.
Of course, there’s not even a hint that, absent a peace
partner to achieve a two-state accord, Israel tried at the very least to
minimize the impact of occupation, as evidenced by a growing Palestinian population, rising life
expectancy, improving standard of living, substantial self-government, and the
founding of several universities in the West Bank.
Gaza is described as occupied by Israel, even as it withdrew
lock, stock, and barrel in 2005. Hamas is mentioned in passing, but not as a
terrorist organization determined to destroy Israel and replace it with an
Islamist state. What exactly is Hamas in Ms. Alexander’s mind? Is it a liberal,
democratic, non-violent, and peace-seeking group? I can’t imagine that Dr. King
would have thought so.
A reader of Ms. Alexander’s column would have no hint at all
about terrorism from Gaza and the West Bank; the thousands of missiles fired
indiscriminately by Hamas and Hezbollah; the many Israeli families that have
buried their relatives because of such attacks; or, for that matter, Israel’s
full-throttled pluralism and its age-old yearning for enduring peace and
coexistence.
And, last but not least, I can’t help but wonder how Dr. King
would have reacted to such a piece that seeks to shamelessly exploit his memory
—and hijack his legacy — by turning an outspoken friend of Israel into a
would-be moral cudgel against the world’s only Jewish-majority country. My guess
is he would have been appalled.
(10) The Times of
Israel’s Flawed Attack on Michelle Alexander - Ian Berman
https://www.mintpressnews.com/the-times-of-israels-flawed-attack-on-the-new-york-times-mlk-and-Palestinian-rights/254120/
The Times of Israel’s Flawed Attack on the NY Times’ MLK and
Palestinian Rights
Calling Michelle
Alexander’s editorial in the New York Times a “new low” was a hyperbolic act
of click-bait to appeal to the Times of Israel’s readers. One that lacked
journalistic and editorial integrity.
by Ian Berman
NEW YORK — Michelle Alexander, a now-famous
scholar for her work on race relations and her book The New Jim Crow: Mass
Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, wrote a New York Times op-ed titled
“Time to Break the Silence on Palestine,” calling for public discourse on how
Israel oppresses Palestinians. A significant part of her column analyzed how
Martin Luther King would not have stayed silent on the current state of
affairs.
David Harris responded with what the Times of Israel called a
“Featured Post,” titled “Michelle
Alexander’s NY Times column hits new low.” Harris serves up an astonishingly
biased opinion piece that repeatedly challenges Alexander in ways that reveal
his belief in debunked Zionist narratives of the history and the present state
of Israel. Considering how the Times of Israel chose to feature and thereby
endorse the blog post, I felt compelled to respond and break through the myths
and false analysis of the commentary.
After all, Harris referred to Alexander’s article as a “flawed and
polemical piece” and I could not help but to think the same should be said about
Harris’ article.
Further, Harris suggested that the New York Times routinely
publishes anti-Israel articles when he wrote “[the Times] isn’t exactly new to
such pieces.” Yet Harris never supported
this assessment of alleged bias with other examples or analyses of the Times
past articles on “Israel-related matters.”
It is an especially odd allegation given the New York Times’
coverage of the 2014 Massacre of Gaza. The Times ran a seemingly daily
comparison of the number of dead Gazans to the number of rockets fired from
Gaza. This rocket count included a large number of “enhanced fireworks,” as
Norman Finkelstein calls them, that inflicted negligible damage.
So the New York Times’ comparison showed how many thousands
of dead Palestinians vs. how many
projectiles that lacked targeting capability and therefore lethality, except for
blind luck. When reporting on war and death, such a trivialization of the
carnage is anything but anti-Israel bias. Further, does the New York Times now
have a weekly count of the rockets fired from the Great March of Return (zero) –
compared to the number of Palestinians killed (180 through
12/28/18) and wounded (10,066) by Israeli snipers and other soldiers safely out
of harm’s way?
Harris continued on to state, “she present[ed] no convincing
evidence that [Martin Luther King] would have agreed with her premise.” Yet a
number of Alexander’s paragraphs provided a substantial analysis of why he
would, including King’s explicit change of heart on the issue after the 1967
Israeli invasion of neighboring lands. Alexander wrote:
“Ultimately, King canceled a pilgrimage to Israel in 1967
after Israel captured the West Bank. During a phone call about the visit with
his advisers, he said, ‘I just think that if I go, the Arab world, and of course
Africa and Asia for that matter, would interpret this as endorsing everything
that Israel has done, and I do have questions of doubt.’”
Somehow Harris fails to mention this after noting King was a
“staunch friend of Israel,” which was the case at an earlier point in time.
Harris then misinterprets Alexander’s “breaking the silence.”
Alexander was not suggesting she was the first to do so as Harris indicates.
Indeed Alexander notes others’ work that obviously came before her. What
Alexander said is that there remains a challenge to speaking out against Israel
and she admits she has refrained from doing so in the past. Essentially she is
breaking a silence that she and many other have failed to break in the past. In
this way, she is leading others to do the same.
Then Harris
enumerates “countless outrages” without substantiating any of them. Since
all are standard Israeli talking points, each is worth addressing:
“She unabashedly applauds boycotts of Israel.” Alexander
chose to highlight that some large Christian religious organizations have
shifted their investments away from companies profiting from the occupation. She
also noted that newly elected U.S. Representatives support a boycott and one
teacher lost her job for refusing to sign a pledge against a boycott as a
condition of employment. Should Alexander be ashamed of supporting such
activities, as Harris implies?
Further, this type of protest is how one presses for change
in a foreign country, as was the case with South Africa. According to the 1982
Supreme Court decision NAACP v. Claiborne Hardware Co., boycotts are protected
free speech. So how is this an outrage?
Harris does not say.
“Falsely accuses the Jewish state of apartheid.” What does
one call Israel’s sovereignty through military law over Palestinians in East Jerusalem and the
West Bank for over 50 years with no end in sight? Democracy? Only if one
considers such Palestinians as
non-humans. “Approvingly cites extremist voices like the misnamed Jewish Voice
for Peace.” Once again, Harris makes a subjective comment without establishing
how JVP is extremist or misnamed. JVP does not call for violence, but rather
demands the rights due Palestinians
as human beings and under international law. How is that extremist?
“Endorses the Palestinian ‘right of return.’” This is
an odd outrage on two fronts. First, the Palestinian right of return is based
upon international law. Israel agreed that membership in the UN according to UN
Resolution 273 was conditional upon “Israel’s stated agreement to comply with
Resolution 194.” UN Resolution 194
provided for “refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace
with their neighbours should be permitted to do so at the earliest practicable
date, and that compensation should be paid for the property of those choosing
not to return and for loss of or damage to property which, under principles of
international law or in equity, should be made good by the governments or
authorities responsible.”
Israel has never implemented this Palestinian right of return and, in
fact, blocked such a return with laws enforced at gunpoint. Further, the current
weekly massacre of Gazans is a direct Israeli response to the Palestinian unarmed protest demanding
their right of return.
Second, Israel has
enshrined into law the right of Jews to obtain citizenship in Israel based upon
a “right of return” that goes back to a supposed connection to the land from
well over a millennia ago. Yet Palestinians who were ethnically
cleansed in 1947-8, just 0.07 millennia ago, do not enjoy a similar right. It
would seem the outrage is in the obviously hypocritical position of supporting
the Jewish Right to Return upon an ancient connection to the land, but denying
the Palestinian Right to Return
supported by international law, with living members of the expelled still
holding keys to their homes and deeds to their lands.
“Which would mean the end of Israel.” The Palestinian right of return would mean
that if incentives were not sufficiently provided for the refugees to not
return, then there would no longer be a Jewish majority. Merely because the
ruling class of the state loses it majority status, gained by virtue of Ethnic
Cleansing, it does not mean the end of the state. No, it means the nature of the
state ends, but not the state itself. Should the Palestinian right of return finally
happen, attendant with the application of the so-called democracy of Israel to
all people equally, then Jewish citizens of Israel could no longer rule with the
tyranny of the majority oppressing the minority. This is no more an end to
Israel then there was an end to South Africa. What the return of Palestinians implies though is that
Israel would be compelled to become a just state for all who have a right to
live there.
“Veers dangerously close to anti-Semitism with references to
Jewish money.” My guess is that Harris
is implicitly acknowledging the flow of large amounts of money from Jewish
donors to Israel since in this incidence he writes “dangerously close,” rather
than use one of his affirmative summary judgements.
“Charges the country with endless acts of oppression against
both its Arab citizens (who, in reality, are fully active in just about every
aspect of Israeli life, including the Supreme Court) and Palestinians.” First one should note
the propaganda, the outright lie actually, of this terminology. When Harris
refers to “Arab citizens,” he is referring to Palestinians with Israeli citizenship.
Then he refers to those who do not have citizenship living under Israeli
sovereignty as Palestinians. Harris
is seemingly implying these two different groups of people have a different
heritage.
What they actually have is different historical
circumstances. The so-called Arab-Israelis are Palestinians who remained within the
internationally recognized Green Line after the 1947-8 war. The so-called Palestinians live without citizenship
under Israeli domination in East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza. Yet both
groups are Palestinian. In essence,
the terminology is an attempt to wipe out the idea that there were Palestinians that lived in the
territory prior to formation of Israel and deem those whose who are not citizens
as somehow outsiders or infiltrators to the land.
Secondly, when it comes to “endless acts of oppression,” I
direct readers to two Facebook Pages I co-founded and manage to show the daily
“outrages” Palestinians suffer under
Israeli oppression. The first, Palestine 365, provided one article for each day
in 2016 to show that when the mainstream media is not covering the region, there
are constant Israeli provocations through its military rule and apartheid laws.
We felt compelled to show that Israel’s massive periodic attacks against Palestinians were not simply due to a
breakdown in ceasefires after Palestinians allegedly instigated a new
“cycle of violence.” Rather these
breakdowns are the result of a constant series of provocations committed by a
brutally oppressive Israeli regime that left the defenseless little choice but
to finally resist.
In fact, this was the plan that Israeli demographer Arnon
Sofer created for Gaza: Make conditions for a sealed-off Gaza so miserable that
Palestinians would be compelled to
rebel and the Israelis would have to “kill and kill and kill.”
We created a follow-up page, Palestine 365, the Ongoing
Oppression, to show additional acts of oppression since 2016. A recurring theme in both pages is that the
events covered rarely receive American mainstream media coverage. [...]
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