Big anti-Israeli-occupation demonstrations are being planned for the political conventions this summer. Here is a righteous post from an organizer, Shergald, describing the way that Israel has thumbed its nose at George Bush over the colonization of the West Bank.
The US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation is undaunted in its
efforts to educate the American people and our compliant leaders about
the brutal military occupation we are supporting with our taxes. This
human rights injustice would not be happening without our support.
In less than one month, tens of thousands of protesters, thousands of
convention delegates, and hundreds of media outlets will descend upon
Denver and St. Paul for the DNC and RNC conventions, respectively. The
US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation will be there as well,
talking to Members of Congress and conference delegates, distributing
thousands of fact sheets and postcards, and hiring huge mobile
billboards to circulate through downtown Denver and St. Paul with the
message: do
we really want our tax dollars to support a 41 year long military
occupation that goes on for the sole purpose of continuing the ethnic
cleansing of the Palestinian nation?
The US Campaign to End the Occupation urges you to meet with your congressman during the August recess. I see that Brit Tzedek is also urging its members to meet with their congressmen and tell them to end the brutal occupation. Brit Tzedek is telling them to do so as Jews. Is this effective? When I blogged about Meretz's noble but parochial efforts to end the settlements the other day by appealing as Jews to the Israeli Housing Minister, Teddy commented wisely:
to an Israeli Cabinet official that deals with a particular "paradigm"
that Israelis have been foisting on American Jews to stop them from
criticizing. What is wrong with that? Of course all Americans should be
weighing in. But are you so dead set against "identity politics" that
you want to ignore the particular constraints the Israeli governments
have tried to put on American Jews who criticize Israeli policies?
Seems a bit shortsighted…
Teddy's right. American Jews have been imprisoned by a bad paradigm. But now that paradigm is broken, why not break the next paradigm–and work with the non-Jewish groups that also regard the occupation as wrong? This is a hard struggle. You need all the allies you can get. We need to get past ideas of Jewish exceptionalism.
