Shame on the United States Senate and the Hypocritical PEP's!!!!!

Yesterday the United States Senate passed S.1, the unconstitutional anti-BDS bill a vote of 77-23. Here are the Democratic senators (some are PEP’s – Progressive Except for Palestine) who believe that those who support BDS deserve to be punished for doing so:

Bennet (D-CO);  Blumenthal (D-CT); Cantwell (D-WA); Cardin (D-MD); Casey (D-PA); Coons (D-DE); Cortez Masto (D-NV); Duckworth (D-IL); Hassan (D-NH);Jones (D-AL); Klobuchar (D-MN); Manchin (D-WV); Menendez (D-NJ); Murray (D-WA); Peters (D-MI); Rosen (D-NV); Schumer (D-NY); Sinema (D-AZ); Smith (D-MN); Stabenow (D-MI); Tester (D-MT); Warner (D-VA);  Whitehouse (D-RI); Wyden (D-OR)

The 77 members the United States Senate are now on record as saying that my abbreviated list below of Israel’s violations of the international human rights of Palestinians (a few of the reasons I support BDS) do not reach a sufficient level of concern for United States citizens to be allowed to pressure Israel into ending them. This Senate continues to cement its place on the wrong side of history as its supports, encourages and blesses Israel’s cruelty and brutality:   

The illegal occupation of the West Bank which began in 1967.  On November 22, 1967, the United Nations Security Council passed Resolution 242 noting its charter commits states to renounce the acquisition of territories and then saying compliance requires “Withdrawal of Israel armed forces from territories occupied in the recent conflict.” Israel has been in violation of the United Nations Charter Article 2 and Resolution 242 for 50 years as of this past June 10. It is the longest violation in the world.;

The illegal settlements beginning in early September, 1967, when Prime Minister Levi Eshkol approved the first settlement in the West Bank by Jewish Israelis, Kfar Etzion , despite the opinion of Legal Counsel to the Foreign Ministry, Theodor Meron, who wrote unequivocally, "My conclusion is that civilian settlement in the administered territories contravenes the explicit provisions of the Fourth Geneva Convention"; i.e., “The Occupying Power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies”. As of 2017, there are now 123 settlements where approximately 350,000 Jewish Israeli squatters live in government subsidized or privately financed settlements built on confiscated Palestinian land plus 200,000 squatters in East Jerusalem under Israel’s unrecognized claim of annexation. West Bank’s squatters are citizens of Israel, live under its civil code, and have full Israeli voting rights while its 2.5 million West Bank Palestinians live in 100% segregated communities under military law;

The killing and injuring over 100,000 Palestinians; including the recent murder by Israeli settlers of a Palestinian father of four during a raid on the al-Mughayyir village in the central occupied West Bank district of Ramallah on Saturday night. Palestinian officials and local media outlets reported that a group of Israeli settlers raided the village under the protection of armed Israeli soldiers — a common occurrence in areas of the West Bank located close to settlements. There has been an increase of hate crimes by Jewish squatters by 69% in 2018 over 2017;

The torturing of over 10,000 Palestinians;

The unequal access to water, restricting the availability of water for the Palestinian population while providing ample water to squatters for irrigation and pools;

The theft of Palestinian land, - using extrajudicial process to now control 60% of the West Bank;

The destruction of homes (almost 50,000) since 1967 (2% for security reasons); 

The building a wall 85% in the West Bank, separating Palestinians from lands and schools;

The construction of apartheid roads in the West Bank where travel by Palestinians is prohibited;

The destruction of 800,000 olive trees (equal to destroying all the trees in Central Park 33 times), the source of income for many Palestinians;  

The establishment of two separate legal systems - one (military) law for Palestinians and another (Israeli) law for squatters as well as failing to enforce criminal laws against squatters for killing Palestinians while punishing Palestinians for minor infractions;  

The restriction of movement by creating numerous checkpoints, most not for security purpose but simply to harass and humiliate Palestinians by waiting in long lines to enter Israel for work or medical treatment or to get from one West Bank town to another for family or business reasons;

The placement in administrative detention thousands of Palestinians for prolonged periods of time, without informing them of charges and/or without trial, 446 as of July 2014;

The four invasions of choice by Israel into Gaza since 2006, using excessive force (which some believe amounts to war crimes), including in 2014 in which over 2000 Palestinians, mostly women and children and two-thirds civilians, were killed and over 96,000 houses and structures were destroyed or damaged and, most recently the murders of 210 Palestinians and the wounding of 1800 in the Gaza Strip in the six month March of Return beginning with the Passover Massacre on March 30, 2018 as Palestinians  protested along the fence with Israel demanding their right to return to the homes and land their families were expelled from 70 years ago;

The 3 year old uber-malicious Canary Mission, an online blacklist that smears students & faculty critical of Israeli state policies, writes distorted descriptions about them & tells prospective employers not to hire them;

The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) officially ceasing all assistance to Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and Gaza. Since he took office, President Trump has slashed some $500 million in US aid to Palestinians, leaving many organizations and aid programs strapped for cash;

The announcement by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu last week that he would be expelling the Temporary International Presence in Hebron (TIPH), an international observatory task force that monitors Israeli human rights violations in the occupied West Bank city of Hebron; 

Identification with racists like Roseanne Barr who said “settlers are the pioneers at the forefront of the State of Israel” and compared BDS to a Nazi boycott of Jewish businesses: while in Jerusalem she was accompanied by Culture Minister Miri Regev whose admiration for Barr was on open display. The two also share the trait of being racist loudmouths: Regev has called African refugees a “cancer” and openly stated that she is “happy to be a fascist”.

Shame on the United States Senate and the hypocritical PEP's!!!!!

Unhinged Lunatics and Their Enablers

Were you watching Lawrence O’Donnell the night of September 9, 2016? Donald Trump had just said  “If Iranian boats ‘make gestures’ at us, they’ll be “shot out of the water”. On his show that evening, Lawrence O’Donnell responded “(A) reasonable person would listen to that and say, no reasonable human being could ever mean that. The trouble is an unhinged mad man just said it into a microphone during his presidential campaign in public within the last two months of a campaign where the trying to convince the American voters that he should be the commander in chief. It’s in the week of the commander in chief forum and this unhinged lunatic says if people in their little boats make gestures to anyone on our destroyers, they will be shot out of the water thereby initiating an act of war against Iran. How do we know that this lunatic doesn’t mean every word of this?

As you know, one goal of the BDS movement is to end Israel’s violations of the human rights of Palestinians. Mitchell Plitnick, former director of the US Office of B’Tselem: The Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories, and former co-director of Jewish Voice for Peace. has written a powerful thought article Connecting Palestinian Rights To U.S. Civil Rights. He concludes: A white supremacist murdered Jews in a synagogue in an unprecedented attack. The White House is run by a man who himself has repeatedly shown his disdain for Jews and his tolerance, if not agreement, with white supremacy. As the Jewish state of Israel drifts further and further into a nationalist and anti-democratic reality, and report after report confirms the danger white supremacy represents, the Senate is attacking the First Amendment in order to undermine a non-violent boycott movement. Men and women of color stand accused of anti-Semitism for defending a people who have had no rights under Israeli rule for over half a century. That isn’t sustainable. The times are changing for liberals and progressives in the United States. Support for the rights and protection of Jews will need to be reconciled with the inalienable rights of Palestinians. And if the Palestinian cause can be connected to the cause of civil rights in the United States, there might finally be enough pressure to change U.S. policy—and ultimately Israeli policy as well.”

Speaking of unhinged lunatics, here is the latest report on the fanatic Jewish zealots  “As attacks by Jewish settlers surge, Israel stays silent - A gang of a dozen or so armed Jewish settlers descended from a hilltop outpost to the Palestinian village below and opened fire, witnesses said. Israeli soldiers arrived, and instead of stopping the settlers, the witnesses said, they stood by or clashed with the villagers. In the melee, Hamdy Naasan, 38, a Palestinian father of four, was shot and killed….While Palestinian and United Nations officials have condemned the violence — Nickolay Mladenov, the UN envoy to the Middle East, described the shooting in al-Mughayyir as “shocking and unacceptable” — Israel’s right-wing government has remained conspicuously silent, wary of alienating settlers and other potential supporters in an election year. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is seeking a fifth term, is vying with other right-wing rivals for the settlers’ support. He is facing bribery investigations and his strongest political challenge in years.”

And, in reaction to this murder by these unhinged lunatics and 50 years of Israel’s oppression of Palestinians, here is the reaction of the United States Senate. In a procedural vote on S.1, the unconstitutional anti-BDS bill  these senators, most of them “PEPs”  (Progressive Except on Palestine) voted against human and civil rights and justice for all to undermine this non-violent boycott movement: Blumenthal (D-CT) - Cardin (D-MD) - Casey (D-PA) - Coons (D-DE) - Duckworth (D-IL) - Hassan (D-NH) - Klobuchar (D-MN) - Markey (D-MA) - Menendez (D-NJ) - Schumer (D-NY) - Stabenow (D-MI) - Tester (D-MT) - Warner (D-VA) - Whitehouse (D-RI) - Wyden (D-OR). However, as a sign of optimism, these senators, some of them candidates for the Democratic nomination in 2020, had the spine and the courage the others lacked to vote against the bill   Baldwin (D-WI) - Booker (D-NJ) - Brown (D-OH) - Carper (D-DE) - Durbin (D-IL) - Feinstein (D-CA) - Gillibrand (D-NY) - Harris (D-CA) - Heinrich (D-NM) - Hirono (D-HI) - Kaine (D-VA) - Leahy (D-VT) - Merkley (D-OR) - Murphy (D-CT) - Peters (D-MI) - Reed (D-RI) - Sanders (I-VT) -Schatz (D-HI) - Shaheen (D-NH) - Udall (D-NM) - Van Hollen (D-MD) - Warren (D-MA)

What about other Democratic politicians, not senators? Here is a headline from yesterday’s Boston Globe. Prominent Democrats Form Pro-Israel Group to Counter Skepticism on the Left .  “Several prominent veteran Democrats, alarmed by the party’s drift from its long-standing alignment with Israel, are starting a new political group that will try to counter the rising skepticism on the left toward the Jewish state by supporting lawmakers and candidates in 2020 who stand unwaveringly with the country. With polls showing that liberals and younger voters are increasingly less sympathetic to Israel, and a handful of vocal supporters of Palestinian rights arriving in Congress, the new group — the Democratic Majority for Israel — is planning to wage a campaign to remind elected officials about what they call the party’s shared values and interests with one of the United States’ strongest allies. “Most Democrats are strongly pro-Israel, and we want to keep it that way,” said Mark Mellman, the group’s president and a longtime Democratic pollster. “There are a few discordant voices, but we want to make sure that what’s a very small problem doesn’t metastasize into a bigger problem.” The group, whose board includes former Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm and a former Clinton administration housing secretary, Henry Cisernos, will create a political action committee later this year and may engage in Democratic primaries, Mellman said.

“A few discordant voices”? Is he referring to the 22 Democratic United States Senators?

I have a great deal of respect for Jennifer Granholm. When I was the Public Interest Adviser at Harvard Law School, Jennifer was one of the students who would always make herself available to sit on panels I put together to encourage other students to pursue careers in public interest and public service. This week I emailed her material referring to my support for BDS and including the news article about the murder of a Palestinian by a Jewish Israeli “squatter” (illegal resident) and a link to the Michelle Alexander article with a request that she reconsider her decision to sit on that board.

Finally, in an interview he gave to Fox News (no relation)  Robert Kraft says Trump was “working very hard to serve the best interests of the country.”

With that in mind, if you care, good luck to your team, whether it’s the Los Angeles Rams or, as a close friend calls them, the New England Trumpettes.