Writes Nancy Kricorian of Code Pink's Stolen Beauty campaign:
I went to the Students for Justice in Palestine's mock checkpoint on the Columbia campus this afternoon and handed out fliers for an hour and a half. Columbia's LionPAC, HIllel, Just Peace, Grain Lavi and Tarbootnikim were counter-demonstrating, handing out fliers, some of them wrapped in Israeli flags, others of them attempting to get into provocative arguments, which for the most part SJP'ers were able to avoid. Maya Wind, one of the JVP/CODEPINK Shministim [Wind refused to serve in the Israeli Defense Forces] from last year who is now a freshman at Barnard, was carrying a cardboard rifle and helping to run the checkpoint. She was completely in character as a gruff and unpleasant checkpoint guard, so I didn't even say hello, but the photo above shows her in the role that she refused to play in real life.
The campus environment on this issue has shifted a great deal over the last 10 or so years. I have been handing out information and talking to students on seven different campuses over the last six years. Five here in Ohio and 2 in Colorado. A shift is definitely taking place.
Campus Watch and a few other organizations as well as some Professors on campuses blocking the conversation, debate, speakers about the issue for years are definitely loosing ground.
Israel needs millions more like her.
And it seems to me that the number of refuseniks and like-minded Israelis is growing. Is this just wishful thinking on my part?
Refuseniks
link to seruv.org.il
link to globalresearch.ca
breaking the silence
link to shovrimshtika.org
link to youtube.com
link to youtube.com
Indeed
Just went and looked at the girls pictures. Met Maya and Netta at the Green Festival in D.C. last year. Code Pink (Medea Benjaman) brought them to the gathering. They were both bright and you could also tell they were tired from their speaking engagements. It was interesting to hear both of them say that they were really bothered by the lack of involvement and debate about this critical issue in this country.
The Green Fest was at the D.C. convention center right down the street from NPR’s main broadcasting building. I asked whether NPR or any other MSM outlet had wanted to interview them…and they said absolutely not. Telling
You know, Kathleen, if Jon Stewart would only have Medea on his show without attempts at making skits of her that are extremely ridiculing, it would be a huge boost to Code Pink.
It’s incomprehensible how JS would host Barghouti and Baltzer, but not Madea Benjamin. Is she too controversial a figure? THAT would definitely not stop him. Is he attempting to avoid accusations of bias by overcompensating and making false equivalences?
Medea Benjamin on RT re: Rally to Restore Sanity
link to youtube.com
Knew he finally had her on. And she went on in good spirit. My emails to Medea and on Glenn Greenwald’s thread about Stewart’s comparisons was to welcome Stewart and let him know that activist have been waiting for him (Stewart was payed) and his crowd for a long time.
Stewart did start his rally rap by saying he was not putting down activism. But he had done just that on his show. I think this was his way of apologizing. One thing that was very telling is that Stewart did not even mention the Union organized rally “One Nation” that took place several weeks before his. Trumka, Al sharpton, Harry Bellafonte and other great speakers, union members and very very diverse. So telling about Stewart and his ratings.
And I wondered how many of the people who attended his rally had not worked in the elections and in fact maybe even missed voting because his rally was so close to the election and people had travelled to attend.
I threw that idea out to Medea right after Stewart portrayed her actions as so radical. Code Pink put up a challenge at their website for Stewart. I hammered away over at Glenn Greenwald’s post asking folks to challenge Stewarts portrayal of Medea and Code Pink.
I was at the very first Code Pink rally in D.C. with a dear friend of mine Denise Hamler one of the co-founders of Green America (formerly Co-op America). At the first rally (before the invasion of Iraq) I asked Medea why all the get up the colors? She said how else do you get the cameras? She had a strong point.
I have thought about all of the health care rallies in D.C. last summer (2009) great speakers, health care professionals of all sorts and barely got any coverage. But the tea baggers, costumes, guns etc. Lots of coverage. In fact I suggested to some of the organizers of the health care gatherings in D.C. that maybe we should all pack guns and holsters (fake ones of course) to bring in the MSM’s cameras. Folks laughed but I was very serious. More cameras would have come
Now the anti invasion marches in D.C. and New York and across the nation barely received any national coverage. Millions marched nation wide. Little to no coverage. 30 million marched against that f—ing invasion world wide. If we would have all been dressed in pink, carrying guns the cameras would come. Sad but true
Glenn wrote up a great piece about how Stewart equating the left with the right was weak at best
The perils of false equivalencies and self-proclaimed centrism
link to salon.com
Were folks aware that Clinton promised Netanyahu the following in their many hour long meeting
“To prevent the discussion of the UN report on Israeli war crimes in Gaza as set out by a distinguished Jewish judge, or the attacks on the aid flotilla (that says a lot for the US respect for the United Nations and the rule of law)”
link to juancole.com
Indirectly related: Just found this amazing tidbit buried in Haaretz:
___________________________________
A lieutenant colonel who served as a battalion commander with the Givati infantry brigade during Operation Cast Lead is being investigated by the Military Police for allegedly “burying” a probe into the killing of a Palestinian civilian in Gaza City.
Military Police are trying to determine if and why the battalion commander and other officers in Givati did not pass the findings of the probe onto their superiors and the Military Advocate General.
A Central Command military tribunal in Jaffa held a hearing yesterday in the trial of Staff Sergeant (res. ) S.H., who served in combat as a soldier in Givati’s Rotem battalion during Operation Cast Lead. S.H. is accused of killing a Palestinian noncombatant.
According to information given to the tribunal – which was confirmed by representatives of the Military Advocate General’s office – the battalion conducted a probe toward the end of Operation Cast Lead with the approval of Lt. Col. Yehuda Hacohen. However, the findings were not passed along to more senior officers in the Southern Command and the Military Advocate General.
The oversight was discovered in March 2009 by a reserve officer who found a document stored in the memory of an IDF computer titled “Routine Event – Killing of an Innocent Woman During Operation Cast Lead.”
The reserve officer did not report the existence of the file, which contained the probe, for eight months…. __________________________________
The banality of evil…. Hannah Arendt must be flipping cartwheels in her grave. Doesn’t the very name of this document this speak volumes??? How can a society become so utterly depraved?
Listen to Maya Wind on Grit TV. (scroll down) She is one smart young lady. Heard both of these young women as I said at the Green Fest
Too bad NPR’s Scott Simon, Terri Gross or Spiegel never interviewed these young refuseniks when they were traveling across the US speaking. Terri Gross would not do it.
link to whywerefuse.org
Maya and Netta were both interviewed by Laura Flanders of Grit TV
Heard this interview when Laura Flanders first did this interview but listening again. Let’s hope Maya and Netta go into politics and one of them or both become leaders in Israel. They are brave, honorable, intelligent young women.
What was on the leaflets that you handed out?
Did you speak with any that you met?
What characterized those conversations?
“What characterized those conversations?”
They never said a word, they just lit a candle and watched the moths fly into it.