social justice

March has been wild so far, to say the least.

+ANSWER Coalition has a large Hands Off Venezuela Rally this week. Over 40 organizations are endorsing. Washington March will be even bigger than ours here in LA.

+The women’s conference is next weekend, the 23rd. Me, Danny and Oscar are in charge of the food. We are going to be making Mediterranean food. I’m in charge of the hummus.

+The Great March of Return has been ongoing for almost a year now. Since the start, 183 people have been killed by live ammunition by Israeli security forces and 6,000+ injured. These are conservative figures, not including those injured by rubber bullets and direct hits from tear gas canisters.

+Netanyahu openly declared Israel not a state of all its citizens but a state for Jews only, alienating its Arabic citizens that make up 21% of the population.

…..

+Ralph Nader calls for a Boycott of the Boeing 737 Max 8 plane after the Ethiopian airliner crash killed 157 including his grandniece. https://www.democracynow.org/2019/3/13/ralph_naders_grandniece_died_in_ethiopian

+Chelsea Manning has been sent back to jail after refusing to testify in front of a secret grand jury concerning WikiLeaks and its founder Julian Assange.

+MSNBC Is in fact very far to the right.

+This list of Latin phrases is very interesting and useful.

Thats all for now.

In light of the recent attacks on Minnesota house member Ilhan Omar, and the recent report from the UN Human Rights Council finding Israel likely committed war crimes and crimes against humanity during the Great March of Return protests, it is more important than ever to separate antisemitism from criticism of Israeli government policy in regard to Palestinians.

Israel has occupied Palestinian land since 1967. This includes the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza. The Israeli government has since left Gaza but has imposed a deadly air, land and sea blockade since Hamas won elections in 2006.

This occupation imposes a cruel system of apartheid upon Palestinians, constricting every activity of day-to-day life, from going to school or the market, to traveling abroad or seeking medical treatment unavailable in the occupied territories. Palestinians must travel through heavily guarded checkpoints and deal with all forms of discrimination by settlers and Israeli military personnel.

These forms of oppression has for some time created great animosity among Palestinians against the state of Israel. This follows a long history of expulsion and violence by Zionist settlers. That is why peaceful demonstrations were planned for March 30, 2018, also known as Land Day, by Palestinian civil society.

The demonstrations were to take place a long different points of the boundary with Israel for 6 weeks, leading up to the commemoration of the Nakba, or the “catastrophe,” where over 750,000 Palestinians were violently driven from their homes during and proceeding the creation of the state of Israel.

A recent UN report has found that Israel has likely committed war crimes in its response to the protests. Over 180 Palestinians were killed by live ammunition between March 30 and December 2018. In total, 23,313 more were injured. 6,103 were injured by live ammunition, many requiring amputation and lifelong medical rehabilitation.

No Israeli soldiers were killed and four were injured.

This is just one instance of the many forms of disproportionate oppression faced by Palestinians by Israeli government policy.

Opposing these policies of apartheid, the likes of which are worse than those of apartheid South Africa, is in no way an attack on Jews or Israeli citizens. It is a condemnation of a system of apartheid which benefits one group of people at the subjugation and expense of another.

Link to UN report: https://www.ohchr.org/Documents/HRBodies/HRCouncil/CoIOPT/A_HRC_40_74.pdf

Link to Sputnik news article on the UN report: https://sputniknews.com/analysis/201903011072853877-UN-Report-Slams-Israel-War-Crimes-Gaza/