Posts Tagged ‘Palestinian people’
Amnesty USA volunteers help stop anti-Palestinian amendment
Bad news to good news!
Last Friday, Sen. John Kyl (R-AZ) proposed an amendment to the budget bill prohibiting use of any of its funds for assistance to refugees who resettle in the USA—if they happen to be from Gaza. When I heard of it, I thought, “What on earth? Why would he …?” And then, “Ohhh, no.”
Yesterday, it became clear that the amendment was heading for a vote. Amnesty USA emailed its network, of which I am proud to be a part. Here’s what we learned:
|
Now the good stuff. Today, I (along with many others) received this email message:
Hi,
We wanted to send you a quick update on last night’s Gaza refugee vote. Thanks to your quick mobilization in which over 16,000 of you faxed letters in a span of just two hours, Senator Kyl withdrew his discriminatory amendment.
A bipartisan group of several Senators including Leahy (VT), Kerry (MA) and Gregg (NH) stood on the floor of the Senate and spoke out against the amendment. Your faxes together with our champions on this issue applied enough political pressure for Senator Kyl to just withdraw the amendment completely.
Again, this was one of those moments when together we really made the difference. Thanks again.
— Sarnata, Steve, Zahir, Edie and the rest of the team here at AIUSA
Ya – hoo!
Yes! We can make a difference!
Check out AmnestyUSA if you’d like to add your voice. Let’s make a nation that treats its neighbors the way we’d want them to treat us, were we in their shoes.
Tags: Palestinians, Omnibus+Appropriations+Bill, John+Kyl, refugees, discrimination, nativism, xenophobia, Amnesty+USA, Patrick+Leahy, Judd+Gregg, John+Kerry, US+Senate, activism, Monte Asbury
Clinton speaks out as Israel hardens
Good news and bad news from the Middle East.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has criticized Israel for planning to demolish 88 Palestinian homes in occupied East Jerusalem, saying,
- Image by connect2canada via Flickr
“Clearly this kind of activity is unhelpful and not in keeping with the obligations entered into under the ‘road-map’… It is an issue that we intend to raise with the government of Israel and the government at the municipal level in Jerusalem.”
What a relief it is to hear an American diplomat admit, for once, that Israel is out of line. Perhaps this is a signal of some movement toward fair play in U.S. foreign policy. That could help the region a great deal.
Prof. Juan Cole points out that she’ll be besieged by Zionist critics in the USA for daring to say it, and urges “Please consider sending her a supportive message for daring [to] speak out on the issue. In fact, urge her to use a stronger word than “unhelpful” the next time.”
Now the bad news: Israel’s new hard-line government will probably press ahead on a plan to build 73,000 new settler homes in the Occupied West Bank, doubling the number of Zionists living on Palestinian land to 600,000. One can only imagine the despair and outrage this theft of the homes of Palestinians will cause throughout the region.
If they do so, Cole believes the two-state solution will be utterly dead: Read the rest of this entry »
Alfred Lilienthal, 1949: Israel’s Flag is Not Mine
How very intriguing it is to read the early Jewish anti-Zionists! Lilienthal, an American, articulately decried the way his lifelong faith became a tool of Israeli nationalism, and used as a competitor intended to weaken his American identity. [H/T Servant Savant!]
ISRAEL’S FLAG IS NOT MINE
By Alfred M. Lilienthal
Dear Mother:
I brought you my hurts and troubles when both they and I were little: in that same spirit I bring them to you today.
- Image by templar1307 via Flickr
Only last year, a new white flag with single blue six-pointed star was hoisted to a mast many thousands of miles away on the east coast of the Mediterranean Sea. This flag of Israel is the symbol of a new nationalist state, with its own government, army, foreign policy, language, national anthem and oath of allegiance.
And this new flag has brought every one of us five million American citizens of the ancient faith of Judah to a parting in the road.
Judaism, I have felt, was a religious faith which knew no national boundaries, to which a loyal citizen of any country could adhere.
By contrast, Zionism was and is a nationalist movement organized to reconstitute Jews as a nation with a separate homeland. Now that such a state exists, what am I? Am I still only an American who believes in Judaism? Or am I-as extreme Zionists and anti-Semites alike argue-a backsliding member of an Oriental tribe whose loyalty belongs to that group? Read the rest of this entry »
Why I’m more vocal about Israel’s actions than Hamas’s
Simply put, Israel has given much more suffering than it’s received.
Robert Fisk writes it in TruthDig (originally published in The Independent) like so:
|
The death toll today since this conflict began? Israelis, 13. Gazans, 1,000.
“Murder is murder,” some will say. Yet the two are not the same.
The slaughter of hundreds of defenseless, malnourished people is a crime of a different order.
Tags: Palestinians,, Hamas,, Gaza,, war,, middle-east,, genocide,, civilian+casualities,, Palestinians, Monte Asbury
Related articles by Zemanta
“They are bombing 1.5 million people in a cage”
|
FAR FROM IT: Rather than working on a plan for intervention, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer is planning a resolution of support for Israel.
Tags: Gaza, Palestinians, atrocity, war+crimes, bombing, Zionism, Israel+USA, Monte Asbury