Need help in getting groups to sign on

First, big thanks to everyone who moved this process along so quickly!! The letter that will go to the members of the NY State Assembly is ready to be sent out much more broadly.

Below is a draft memo for you all to use. Our hope is that all of the groups already involved in our campaign to defeat this terrible legislation will sign on. And we need to go much further. Each of you and your groups can help us get this letter out far and wide. We would like to have a large list of groups signing on to this letter - and we will be in a much stronger position if that list is broad. We need groups from all around the states. We want groups from many constituencies and different communities. 

Please feel free to edit the memo, or to write your own. Either way, make sure to include the link and the date we would like to get the sign-ons.

We still do not know what the time line for this bill is in the Assembly. Things could start to move quickly, or it might drag out. But we need to move very quickly on this letter! Please do not delay getting this out to folks.

Thanks everyone.

Leslie

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Dear Friends,

We are writing to encourage your organization to join the growing list of organizations across NY state opposing legislation that creates unconstitutional blacklists. The bill is explained in the letter we will be sending to the members of the NY State Assembly. (The text of the letter is below and it is included in the link.)

Current signers of the letter include: Center for Constitutional Rights, Palestine Legal, National Lawyers Guild - NYC, United Church of Christ Palestine Israel Network, Israel Palestine Mission Network of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), Jewish Voice for Peace - New York City Chapter, Jewish Voice for Peace - Ithaca Chapter, Jewish Voice for Peace - Albany Chapter, Jewish Voice for Peace - Westchester Chapter, Jewish Voice for Peace - Rochester Chapter, JEWS SAY NO!, Jewish Voice for Peace - National, US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation, US Palestinian Community Network, American Studies Association, American Muslims for Palestine - New York, Muslim American Society - New York, American Association of University Professors - NYU Chapter, Queers Against Israeli Apartheid, Adalah-NY: the New York Campai gn for the Boycott of Israel, Brooklyn For Peace, CODEPINK New York, Concerned Families of Westchester, WESPAC Foundation, Committee for Open Discussion of Zionism, Syracuse Peace Council.

We are inviting a wide range of groups from around NY State to sign on, including yours! Please fill out the form to sign on at:                                                                                                  https://docs.google.com/forms/d/10nARPzULr_Ufhthf56M8Yw5FFkzyMP-58jrlgRjC_QY/viewform?c=0&w=1&usp=mail_form_link

Please respond as quickly as possible and feel free to share this with others. When we send the letter to the assembly members we want to have the fullest list possible. 

Thank you.

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LETTER TO NY STATE ASSEMBLY MEMBERS

We are writing to strongly oppose A9036, currently in the Governmental Operations Committee of the NY Assembly, as well as any similar legislation that creates unconstitutional blacklists. We share deep concerns about unconstitutional attacks on boycotts, a form of protected political speech.  We call on you to stop this legislation, and oppose any similar efforts.

This legislation mandates that New York State create a blacklist of individuals and entities that exercise their constitutional right to utilize boycott as a form of free speech. Under this bill, individuals and entities that boycott a country (or companies based in that country) from a selective list of “allied nations” will be ineligible to contract with the state. The legislation also calls for the state to divest its holdings from any corporation that boycotts an “allied nation.” *

The proposed legislation runs counter to the US Supreme Court decision in NAACP v. Claiborne Hardware Co., which concluded that boycotts constitute a political form of expression that “occupies the highest rung of the hierarchy of First Amendment values.”

If passed, this legislation would require that New York utilize the power of the state to:

• Punish those advocating for a boycott of Turkey because it uses U.S. weapons to commit human rights abuses against Kurds, or for advocating for a boycott of Colombia because it uses U.S. weapons to commit atrocities against its citizens.

• Bar United Methodist Churches from contracting with the state to run homeless shelters and soup kitchens because the church supports the boycott of Israeli settlement goods.

• Punish those advocating for a boycott of Israel because it uses U.S. weapons to inflict systemic human rights abuses against Palestinians. It would prevent New York from investing in corporations that have severed their complicity with Israel’s oppression of Palestinians in response to boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) campaigns.

Should it become law, the bill would put a chill on speech, and deter constitutionally protected speech by intimidating people from engaging in actions for fear of being blacklisted. This bill was passed in the NY State Senate the first week of the session with virtually no debate and it must be stopped now.

We are also concerned about A8220/S6806; a bill just as unconstitutional. This legislation blacklists and bars state funds to individuals and entities that have taken any action to boycott Israeli policies. We believe A8220 is just as dangerous as A9036. No legislation should restrict the rights of New Yorkers to engage in efforts to bring sanctions against a nation engaged in human rights violations.

We ask you to act in accordance with this state’s history of defending free speech and the rights of New Yorkers to engage in peaceful efforts to change policies.

We urge you to make sure A9036 does not pass in the Assembly. We are counting on you to defend free speech and reject this new version of McCarthyism.

signed by organizations

*The definition of “allied nation” in this bill is: any country that is a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, any country that is a signatory of the Southeast Asia Treaty of 1954, any country, other than Venezuela, that is a signatory of the Rio Treaty of 1947, Ireland, Israel, Japan, and The Republic of Korea.

Worth a little more senior poverty

On the surface, it seems unfair that American seniors must have their Social Security and Medicare benefits cut in order to send billions more to Israel.

But consider what Israel has achieved. During its recent invasion of Gaza, Israel was able to destroy 10,000 family homes, almost all the water treatment and sewage facilities and much of the power grid, leaving 1.8 million Palestinians destitute. Not only that, Israel successfully killed 550 children and left 1,000 permanently disabled using white phosphorus and precision guided bombs on UN schools. The West Bank has seen similar gains, with Israeli snipers expertly targeting young stone throwers. Tens of thousands of new Israeli settlers have been given generous payments by Israel to move to the West Bank, insuring that the Palestinians never get their own state. 

In addition, Israel almost singlehandedly blocked US efforts to reach a peace deal with Iran, spending money like water when it came to Congressional stooges. Most recently, Israel has donated tens of millions to stir up racism against Muslim citizens. Even our presidential candidates fall to their knees for the financial blessing of the Israel Lobby. 

America has learned an important lesson from the Holocaust: don't stay neutral while millions are suffering. This time, our country is right in there funding, arming and protecting the killers. Our political class makes all expenses paid trips to Israel while America becomes increasingly responsible for the genocide of the Palestinian people. That's certainly worth a little more senior poverty.

Fred Nagel

FACTS ARE FACTS, MR. FRIEDMAN

FACTS ARE FACTS, MR. FRIEDMAN

Sadly, and contrary to Mr. Friedman’s contentions, Fred Nagel’s list of Israeli atrocities that are supported by US tax dollars, are facts [“LETTER: U.S. seniors should be happy to sacrifice their benefits for Israel,” by Fred Nagel, Dec. 18, 2015]. And they are readily verifiable by Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, B’Tselem (The Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories) and other organizations. 

Mr. Nagel, however, left out the day to day nightmare of life under the Israeli occupation – roads on which Palestinians are not allowed to travel; confiscation of their land; demolition of their homes; checkpoints that make movement difficult or impossible; harassment by settlers; middle of the night Israeli Occupying Forces break-ins to terrorize families and arrest children; constant humiliation, etc.. The clear intention is to make Palestinian lives miserable AS A POLICY OF THE ISRAELI GOVERNMENT. 

Were it any other country than Israel, Mr. Friedman would call it like it is – an illegal and brutal occupation but, since Israel is the perpetrator it is, for him, justifiable. You can agree with Israel’s policy or disagree, call it genocide or not, but facts are facts, and to pretend otherwise is simply ignorance or lies. In either case, it is inexcusable.

Judith Simon

Nic Abramson to display his work

OR DO THEY? (mixed media)

Local Woodstock artist, Nic Abramson, will display his work at the

Phoenix Gallery on West 28th St, NY. The opening is scheduled for

Thursday, January 7th, and the show is entitled "What's Right,

What's Left: Democracy in America."

Senseless Slaughter of Innocents

I am saddened, sickened,  and stunned by the senseless slaughter of innocents in Paris.  We as progressive members of civil society must condemn any and all barbarous attacks on innocents.

These types of acts whether in Paris,  Palestine,  Pakistan, or Ferguson are the result of oppression,  militarism,  racism.  and exceptionalism .  The US,  Israel and Saudi Arabia are all guilty on all counts.

Relentless,  daily brutality and terror are inflicted by the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) upon women, children and men in the militarily occupied West Bank and Gaza. Children are shot, gassed and imprisoned every day.  Israels' most recent attack on Gaza in 2014 resulted in 550 children killed,  10,000 homes demolished,  and thousands of adults killed or wounded.

The US drone attacks in Pakistan have killed scores of innocent men, women, and children.  Dozens of Black men killed by police and thousands more imprisoned on bogus charges and convictions.

It is profoundly disturbing that US policies and US tax dollars finance activities which result in so much unnecessary suffering and loss.

Let us stop sending Israel $3 billion a year to enable the collective punishment of the Palestinian people.  Let us say no to more funding for US drones which kill innocents in Pakistan.  Let us end the injustice in the justice system.

My heart breaks for the Parisians, the Palestinians,  the Pakistanis, the poor Blacks and all the other innocents, of which there are many.

Unfortunately, until we address and remedy the issues of oppression, militarism, racism, and exceptionalism these gruesome,  ghastly, and terrifying events will continue to occur.

Eli Kassirer

Empire or Democracy?

Jean-Paul Sartre had a warning for the French people regarding their country's long occupation of Algeria. Whatever a country does to an occupied people, it in turn does to itself.

With 800 foreign bases in 150 countries, the US is no doubt the world's largest empire in history. Since 1945, our country has overthrown dozens of democratic governments unfriendly to US business interests, and put in their place compliant military dictatorships. 

Now we see the destruction of our own democracy. Obama has established the president's right to kill anyone in the world, including US citizens, based on secret evidence presented at closed White House meetings. The National Defense Authorization Act overturns over 150 years of domestic law to allow the US military to enter our homes, remove us to some unknown detention center here or abroad and keep us incommunicado until "the end of hostilities." Section 1021 would strip US citizens of any due process whatsoever. The Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act making its way through Congress would legalize mass surveillance of all Americans by the national security state, enabling it to build a case against anyone.

Finally, two massive trade deals pushed by Obama, the TPP and the TTIP, would create secret courts of corporate appointed judges to dictate policy on pollution control, worker safety laws, consumer protection, food safety, etc. The rules of America's economy would be completely decided by the multinational corporations rather than by its citizens.

Empire or democracy. Nations have never managed to have both.

Fred Nagel

I hate: the Occupation. I hate racism. I hate hypocrisy.

Last night, October 19,  in Greenburgh Town Hall, at a Jewish Voice for Peace/ WESPAC event when Suhail Khalilieh, Palestinian policy analyst, and a young Palestinian girl from Bethlehem who teaches violin in Aida Refugee Camp, and Gideon Levy, Haaretz  journalist spoke, they were continually and furiously harassed and assaulted with violent ugly words shouted and spit out at them from a group of people mainly at the back of the room and in particular one woman who held up a sign “Gideon Levy = Hate.”  

Gideon Levy began in his steadfast strong measured voice: “Yes, the sign does represent me. I hate: the Occupation. I hate racism. I hate hypocrisy. I hate ignorance. I hate brainwashing…” The audience applauded his words. 

The audience was filled with a diversity of people, many of whom I recognized as Jewish friends, people who cared deeply about what has been happening to the Palestinians -  Christians and Muslims – as well as the Jewish people - since 1948 at the founding of Zionist Israel. I have been wondering why there is always such a brutal attempt to silence people who speak out against “Settler Israel,” regime after regime that has promoted an apartheid system in Israel and a brutal military occupation in the West Bank and Gaza; people who have erased the memory of Palestine as a country that once harbored Jews, Christians and Muslims.  

This Saturday night, October 24, 7 p.m. at the Inquiring Mind, Saugerties, Noga Kadman - whose Jewish forefathers on her mother’s side arrived in Palestine from Eastern Europe in 1860’s and on her father’s side, in the 1930’s -  born in  Jerusalem, now residing in Tel Aviv, will be presenting her book Erased from Space and Consciousness: Israel and the Depopulated Palestinian Villages of 1948. I hope people of all faiths and beliefs attend, and are able to take in and listen to -- without trying to snuff out -- what Noga has to say.  

Jane Toby