AIPAC and me.

[Tom Joad]

http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/aipacandme

By Bruce Taub http://pdamerica.org/about/board.php
Bruce Taub is on the Board of Progressive Democrats of America (as is William Rivers Pitt, Cindy Sheehan, Barbara Lee & Maxine Waters)
Bruce Taub is a writer and personal injury lawyer in Boston, where he has been practicing for 20 years. He is actively involved in the pursuit of peace and justice activities around the globe, a member of Amnesty International and of Visions of Peace and Justice in Israel and Palestine. Bruce served as Massachusetts co-coordinator of the 2004 Kucinich for President campaign and as a legal advisor and observer of the 2004 presidential vote in Florida.

Friends - Last night I went to the AIPAC fundraising dinner here in Boston, specifically intending to speak out on behalf of the Palestinian people. This was not intended by me as an act of civil disobedience, but as an act of conscience. When I was in the Occupied Territories/Palestine about a month ago and asked the wonderful people I met there what I could do to help end their oppression by the Israeli state, to a person they said, "change US policy, expose AIPAC."

So when I heard AIPAC would be in Boston raising money I felt a virtually uncontrollable desire to act, to speak truth to power, to be as un-good a "good German" as I was capable of being.

The AIPAC affair itself was predictable. The room was immense, with amazing loudspeakers, twin jumbo screens, senators, congressmen and women, security, free flowing alcohol, and nearly 700 wildly applauding AIPAC toadies and sympathizers. Israel was wonderful. The United States was wonderful. The terrorists, the Muslims, the Arabs, the fundamentalists, the mullahs, the leaders of Arab nations, Hamas, the protesters outside the hotel, the sponsors of the divestment action in Somerville, were all detestable abominations. The words "terrorist," "9/11," "Islamic," "Arab," and "enemies of freedom" ran together repeatedly like the refrain of an advertising jingle.

During the incredibly jingoistic, intolerant, uncompromising, arrogant, ass-kicking keynote speaker's speech by U.S. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen , lead sponsor of HR4681, the so-called Palestinian Anti-terrorism Act of 2006," (the one that will cut off humanitarian aid to Palestine until the PA halts "all anti-Israel incitement in Palestinian Authority-controlled electronic and print media and in schools, mosques, and other institutions it controls, and replaces these materials, including textbooks, with materials that promote tolerance, peace, and coexistence with Israel,") it was clear to me what I needed to say. Because believe it or not, in over two hours of speeches and declarations, the Palestinian people, the invisible people, the suffering, oppressed, subjugated, ethnically segregated people had never been mentioned once!!

More at http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/aipacandme

See also http://www.justandpeaceful.org/

[katinmn]

1. Thanks. The justandpeaceful site is stunning

I agree it is unconscionable to have discussions on a bill that impacts the fate of the Palestinian people without having one Palestinian present. But that has been the way it is.

[Name removed]

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[Missy M]

3. I wonder which senators and congress people were there....

and why they won't recognize the Palestinian people and their suffering?

[mntleo2]

4. Very Touching And Very Brave!

I detest these wingnuts because they will never get it. But how can you tell an elitist snob anything, they already know it all, and they have the all the right solutions, doncha know. I detest them because wheh you take off the gaudiness, all you see is that they are just warmongering elitist thugs wearing the flag and the cross in order to use it as an excuse to dominate and murder people. All in the name of MONEY errrr I mean, GAWD.

Wait a minute, money IS their god...

Cat In Seattle <---sad and sickened by the greed and murder these people perpetuate while soiling God's name.

[peacetalksforall]

5. I believe U.S. Congress actions are increasingly human hating and

prejudicial to the extreme. We are despicable. Imposing and killing. Imposing and lying. Imposing and inacting hate for select humans.

[Tom Joad]

6. I agree. The u.s. supports Israeli policy that does not fully recognize

the full humanity of the Palestinian people.
Like "Manifest Destiny" all over again, Palestinians are just savages to be confined to small pockets to land, while the "civilized" take the rest.

See http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?ItemID=4696

[pelsar]

7. thats because were "ruthless"

Palestinians are just savages.........

so as i understand it, not only are our politicians ruthless, we now see the palestenians as "savages"...is that "all of us israelis? or just some?...and which ones?...those in the IDF or those who vote for meretz?

[Tom Joad]

8. Why do some respond to posts about Israeli policies as if it were

only about themselves.

Is my calling US war in Iraq illegal and immoral just a veiled accusation of the divorced woman across the street from me who works two jobs to support her kid, or the guy in the shop who is working overtime to so he doesn't lose his apartment, or the nice baker who runs the place down the street? On the other hand my statement regarding the war/occupation of Iraq could really about the ... US war in Iraq?

President Bush would like people to believe that i say that because i hate my neighbors, and hides behind them (and mostly behind people he has sent to die in Iraq) His supporters think the same way.

Don't like the war, they say, you must hate America.

Not working anymore.

[pelsar]

10. because i and my neighbors are israelis...

and when one calls our politicians "ruthless"...one is calling us ruthless, because they too are israelis. In fact they are first israelis and then politicians because our politicians "come and go". If one says the israelis believe that Palestinians are savages...then one is talking about us regular israelis, for we are the policemen, the soldiers.

Israeli policies are carried out by a govt that has been elected by us israelis, and its policies carried out by the IDF ...all of which are made up of regular israelis......your "hatred" of israeli policies ignores the simple fact that those polices have been put in to place by multiple israeli govts...time after time for the last 50+ years. Your pretending that there is a "divorce" from israeli policy and the student, the worker, the clerk, the businessman....there isn't. Those people have voted in and serve those very policies year after year after year, that vast majority of us israelis.

if our politicians are "ruthless"...then so are we...if the palestenains are seen as "savages"...then it safe to assume your talking about us israelis....all of us

[peacetalksforall]

11. Do we then have to say ANTI-PALESTINIAN ISRAELIS?

Saying Jews' is wrong - there are Jews in So and No America as well as Israel who are not anti-Palestinian.

What term do I use to refer to Israelis who are against Palestinians having a life, land, and free movement?

I usually say the Likud Party loyalists. But I have no idea whether all members of the Likud Party are Anti-Palestinian.

If I want to be angry at the xxxx in Israel about the U.S. placing Israel interests and common perpetual war before the interests of world peace as I heartily believe (for profit and control) - what word or words do I use to give a name to the people in Israel who are anti-Palestinian?

Personal note - I acknowledge the Palestinian crimes against Israel, but I feel stronger about the hateful eye-for-an-eye policy of Israel who does not have to act as they do and who appear to be anything but peacemakers in this era.

What is the name or label I can use for those in Israel who I am always angry at?

[Coastie for Truth]

12. "Wing Nuts"

This constant conflation of Neocons = PNACers =Likudniks = Zionists = Israelis = Jews, and the concomitant conflation of Anti-Defamation League (ADL)= Jewish Defense League (JDL) and Jewish Community Relations Council (JCRC) = White Citizens Council (I am using "=" in the mathematical sense of "identically equal") is racist and counterproductive.

[Name removed]

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[pelsar]

15. whats an anti Palestenian?

perhaps a better explanation of that is required...perhaps you mean all israelis as per your definition, or at least the policies of the israeli govt for the last 50+ years, which would in fact mean the general israeli population.

[ShalachEtAmi]

9. AIPAC has become a new flashpoint...

Everything they do is now `EVIL` its `AIPAC and Israel` dude...

[Coastie for Truth]

13. A couple of months ago it was the Jewish Community Relations Council

and the Anti-Defamation League.