African Americans Support Palestinians
[American politicians who nervously assert their support of Israel should take seriously that not all Americans hold an 'Israel-can-do-no-wrong' stance towards the Israeli/Palestinian conflict.
It is not just African Americans who identify with the sufferings of the Palestinians. I have been well aware of this fact as a member of African American lists, but also worried for at least the last decade that more and more Americans as well as others might turn against Israel's mistreatment of the Palestinians. The parallels with the occupations of WW2 strike those of us who experienced them as frightening. It is almost impossible for a deeply resented occupying nation to justify its actions as security measures. The tit-for-tat of Israel/Palestine does not reflect either equal standing or equal measures of harm done by each. No one can defend the stupid firing of rockets by Gazans at Israel. But even less so can Israel justify its massive attacks with rockets and bombs on Palestinians, the assassinations from on high that harm families and all in the vicinity.
This is not to say that the U.S. is not guilty of parallel wrongs being done where it, too, has chosen to attack and occupy. "Collateral damage" is no excuse for killing, wounding, and frightening innocents -- particular children. Enough already! It is time to move into the future and to end the wrongs of the past. Ed Kent]
...........................
http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=107&ItemID=12859
Letter to Black America on Palestinian Rights & June 10 March
by US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation
May 19, 2007
Printer Friendly Version
EMail Article to a Friend
On 15 May 2007, 22 Black American professors, writers, religious figures, and other leaders issued a call to Black America to join in the June 10 March and rally, and break the silence on the injustices faced by the Palestinian people.
To Black America:
It is time for our people to once again demand that the silence be broken on the injustices faced by the Palestinian people resulting from the Israeli occupation.
On June 10th, the national coalition known as the US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation (endtheoccupation.org) will be spearheading a march and rally to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the beginning of the illegal Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories.
We, the signatories of this appeal, ask that Black America again take a leading role in this effort as well as the broader work to bring attention to this 40 year travesty of justice.
United Nations resolutions have called for the Israeli withdrawal, yet the Israeli government, with the backing of the USA, has ignored them. The Israeli government has appropriated Palestinian land in open defiance of international law and overwhelming international condemnation.
Within the USA anyone who speaks in favor of Palestinian rights and justice is immediately condemned as being allegedly anti-Israel (and frequently allegedly anti-Semitic), shutting down legitimate discussion. A case in point can be seen in the current furor surrounding former President Jimmy Carter who was criticized for his assertion in his best-selling book, Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid, that Israeli obstructionism lies at the root of the failure to achieve a just Palestinian/ Israeli settlement.
As Nobel prizewinner Archbishop Desmond Tutu has written, "People are scared in the US, to say 'wrong is wrong,' because the pro-Israeli lobby is powerful--very powerful. Well, so what? For goodness sake, this is God's world! We live in a moral universe. The apartheid government was very powerful, but today it no longer exists."
Many of those who most outspokenly agree with President Carter and Archbishop Tutu are American Jews. And many American Jews, including the national organization Jewish Voice for Peace, will be among those rallying for Palestinian rights on June 10th - as will many other Americans, including member groups of the leading anti-war coalition United for Peace and Justice.
Leaders from Black America have repeatedly and historically been among the most outspoken proponents of justice for the Palestinian people. Our leaders have defended the Palestinian people's right to full self-determination and an end to the Occupation as central to peace in the region. Our leaders have not criticized the Jewish people but they have expressed outrage at the Israeli government that collaborated with the apartheid South African government (including in the development of weapons of mass destruction) and emulated South Africa's treatment of its Black majority in its own treatment of the Palestinian people.
As we struggle to build our country's support for Palestinian human rights, we widen the door for both Arab and Black Americans to deal with the issues that join them together, as well as those that separate them. We will help to energize - and to heal - both communities.
June tenth and Juneteenth: will our struggles lead the way to a new emancipation of others? Our own integrity as a people, let alone our own experience with massive injustice and oppression, demand that we step forward, speak out, and insist on a change in US policy towards the Palestinian people. Since when have an illegally occupied people been wrong in demanding and fighting for their human rights and land? Since when have such people and their cause not been worthy of our support?
Please join us on June 10th!
Signed by (affiliation for identification purposes only)
· Salih Booker, former Executive Director of Africa Action
· Khephra Burns, author, editor, playwright
· Horace G. Campbell, Professor of African American Studies and Political Science
· Dr. Ron Daniels, President, Institute of the Black World 21st Century
· Bill Fletcher, labor and international activist, and writer
· George Friday, United for Peace and Justice Co-Chair, National Coordinator, Independent Progressive Politics Network
· Rev. Graylan Scott Hagler, Senior Minister, Plymouth Congregational United Church of Christ; National President, Ministers for Racial, Social and Economic Justice of the United Church of Christ
· Mahmood Mamdani, Herbert Lehman Professor of Government in the Departments of Anthropology, Political Science and Public and International Affairs
· Manning Marable, Professor of Public Affairs, Political Science, History and African-American Studies
· George Paz Martin, National Co-Chair of United for Peace and Justice and Green Party U.S. Activist
· E. Ethelbert Miller, literary activist; board chair, Institute for Policy Studies
· Prexy Nesbitt, speaker and educator on Africa, foreign policy, and racism
· Barbara Ransby, Associate Professor of History and African-American Studies
· Cedric Robinson, Professor, Department of Black Studies
· The Rev. Canon Edward W. Rodman MDiv.LCH,DD. Professor of Pastoral Theology and Urban Ministry at the Episcopal Divinity School, Cambridge, Ma.
· Jamala Rogers, Black Radical Congress
· Don Rojas, former director of communications for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People
· Zoharah Simmons, human rights activist
· Chuck Turner, Boston City Councilor
· Hollis Watkins, Former Freedom Singer and staff member of Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee; human rights activist (1961 - present)
· Dr. Cornel West
· Emira Woods, co-director, Foreign Policy In Focus, Institute for Policy Studies
--
"A war is just if there is no alternative, and the resort to arms is legitimate if they represent your last hope." (Livy cited by Machiavelli)
--
Ed Kent 718-951-5324 (voice mail only) [blind copies]
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CollegeConversation
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PeaceEfforts
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/EndingPoverty
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/440neighborhood
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/StudentConcerns
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AcademicFreedom
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PrivacyRights
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Israel_Palestine
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FindingHumaneJobs
http://BlogByEdKent.blogspot.com/
http://www.bloggernews.net
It is not just African Americans who identify with the sufferings of the Palestinians. I have been well aware of this fact as a member of African American lists, but also worried for at least the last decade that more and more Americans as well as others might turn against Israel's mistreatment of the Palestinians. The parallels with the occupations of WW2 strike those of us who experienced them as frightening. It is almost impossible for a deeply resented occupying nation to justify its actions as security measures. The tit-for-tat of Israel/Palestine does not reflect either equal standing or equal measures of harm done by each. No one can defend the stupid firing of rockets by Gazans at Israel. But even less so can Israel justify its massive attacks with rockets and bombs on Palestinians, the assassinations from on high that harm families and all in the vicinity.
This is not to say that the U.S. is not guilty of parallel wrongs being done where it, too, has chosen to attack and occupy. "Collateral damage" is no excuse for killing, wounding, and frightening innocents -- particular children. Enough already! It is time to move into the future and to end the wrongs of the past. Ed Kent]
...........................
http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=107&ItemID=12859
Letter to Black America on Palestinian Rights & June 10 March
by US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation
May 19, 2007
Printer Friendly Version
EMail Article to a Friend
On 15 May 2007, 22 Black American professors, writers, religious figures, and other leaders issued a call to Black America to join in the June 10 March and rally, and break the silence on the injustices faced by the Palestinian people.
To Black America:
It is time for our people to once again demand that the silence be broken on the injustices faced by the Palestinian people resulting from the Israeli occupation.
On June 10th, the national coalition known as the US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation (endtheoccupation.org) will be spearheading a march and rally to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the beginning of the illegal Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories.
We, the signatories of this appeal, ask that Black America again take a leading role in this effort as well as the broader work to bring attention to this 40 year travesty of justice.
United Nations resolutions have called for the Israeli withdrawal, yet the Israeli government, with the backing of the USA, has ignored them. The Israeli government has appropriated Palestinian land in open defiance of international law and overwhelming international condemnation.
Within the USA anyone who speaks in favor of Palestinian rights and justice is immediately condemned as being allegedly anti-Israel (and frequently allegedly anti-Semitic), shutting down legitimate discussion. A case in point can be seen in the current furor surrounding former President Jimmy Carter who was criticized for his assertion in his best-selling book, Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid, that Israeli obstructionism lies at the root of the failure to achieve a just Palestinian/ Israeli settlement.
As Nobel prizewinner Archbishop Desmond Tutu has written, "People are scared in the US, to say 'wrong is wrong,' because the pro-Israeli lobby is powerful--very powerful. Well, so what? For goodness sake, this is God's world! We live in a moral universe. The apartheid government was very powerful, but today it no longer exists."
Many of those who most outspokenly agree with President Carter and Archbishop Tutu are American Jews. And many American Jews, including the national organization Jewish Voice for Peace, will be among those rallying for Palestinian rights on June 10th - as will many other Americans, including member groups of the leading anti-war coalition United for Peace and Justice.
Leaders from Black America have repeatedly and historically been among the most outspoken proponents of justice for the Palestinian people. Our leaders have defended the Palestinian people's right to full self-determination and an end to the Occupation as central to peace in the region. Our leaders have not criticized the Jewish people but they have expressed outrage at the Israeli government that collaborated with the apartheid South African government (including in the development of weapons of mass destruction) and emulated South Africa's treatment of its Black majority in its own treatment of the Palestinian people.
As we struggle to build our country's support for Palestinian human rights, we widen the door for both Arab and Black Americans to deal with the issues that join them together, as well as those that separate them. We will help to energize - and to heal - both communities.
June tenth and Juneteenth: will our struggles lead the way to a new emancipation of others? Our own integrity as a people, let alone our own experience with massive injustice and oppression, demand that we step forward, speak out, and insist on a change in US policy towards the Palestinian people. Since when have an illegally occupied people been wrong in demanding and fighting for their human rights and land? Since when have such people and their cause not been worthy of our support?
Please join us on June 10th!
Signed by (affiliation for identification purposes only)
· Salih Booker, former Executive Director of Africa Action
· Khephra Burns, author, editor, playwright
· Horace G. Campbell, Professor of African American Studies and Political Science
· Dr. Ron Daniels, President, Institute of the Black World 21st Century
· Bill Fletcher, labor and international activist, and writer
· George Friday, United for Peace and Justice Co-Chair, National Coordinator, Independent Progressive Politics Network
· Rev. Graylan Scott Hagler, Senior Minister, Plymouth Congregational United Church of Christ; National President, Ministers for Racial, Social and Economic Justice of the United Church of Christ
· Mahmood Mamdani, Herbert Lehman Professor of Government in the Departments of Anthropology, Political Science and Public and International Affairs
· Manning Marable, Professor of Public Affairs, Political Science, History and African-American Studies
· George Paz Martin, National Co-Chair of United for Peace and Justice and Green Party U.S. Activist
· E. Ethelbert Miller, literary activist; board chair, Institute for Policy Studies
· Prexy Nesbitt, speaker and educator on Africa, foreign policy, and racism
· Barbara Ransby, Associate Professor of History and African-American Studies
· Cedric Robinson, Professor, Department of Black Studies
· The Rev. Canon Edward W. Rodman MDiv.LCH,DD. Professor of Pastoral Theology and Urban Ministry at the Episcopal Divinity School, Cambridge, Ma.
· Jamala Rogers, Black Radical Congress
· Don Rojas, former director of communications for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People
· Zoharah Simmons, human rights activist
· Chuck Turner, Boston City Councilor
· Hollis Watkins, Former Freedom Singer and staff member of Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee; human rights activist (1961 - present)
· Dr. Cornel West
· Emira Woods, co-director, Foreign Policy In Focus, Institute for Policy Studies
--
"A war is just if there is no alternative, and the resort to arms is legitimate if they represent your last hope." (Livy cited by Machiavelli)
--
Ed Kent 718-951-5324 (voice mail only) [blind copies]
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CollegeConversation
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PeaceEfforts
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/EndingPoverty
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/440neighborhood
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/StudentConcerns
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AcademicFreedom
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PrivacyRights
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Israel_Palestine
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FindingHumaneJobs
http://BlogByEdKent.blogspot.com/
http://www.bloggernews.net
posted by Ed Kent at 10:54 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home