The Mapping Project shows connections between oppressive institutions where we live – including NGOs, weapons companies, computer/logistics companies, universities, biomedical research institutions, and others. The intersections between agents of oppression offer possibilities for connecting our struggles. They study us and are networked; we need to study them and form our own networks of resistance.
An interview with the activists behind the Mapping Project, a project created to “investigate local links between entities responsible for the colonization of Palestine, for colonialism and dispossession here where we live, and for the economy of imperialism and war.”
We are U.S. Jews who are deeply troubled by a recent speech given by the Anti-Defamation League’s CEO, Jonathan Greenblatt, in which he defames grassroots and civil rights organizations committed to Palestinian justice and falsely conflates anti-Zionism with far right and violent extremism. Jewish communities must embrace anti-Zionist and non-Zionist voices, along with all other voices for justice.
The latest escalation by the ADL against CAIR, Students for Justice in Palestine and Jewish Voice for Peace, labeling them as antisemitic because they are anti-Zionist, is further proof of the ADL’s desperation. The ADL has long worked to secure total impunity for the Israeli government. For the Palestinian community, Zionism is the political ideology that has enabled their violent subjugation and systematic dispossession. People must be able to discuss and debate these issues without being falsely smeared as anti-Semites.
Last weekend, the ADL’s Jonathan Greenblatt said the quiet part out loud: in a national speech, he declared that the ADL is making war on antiracist organizers in the United States. It’s not just rhetoric. Blaming young organizers of color and disloyal Jews for antisemitism — declaring us an existential threat — Greenblatt was signaling to the right that it’s okay to target us.
After spending millions to defeat Nina Turner, pro-Israel groups now worry the Congressional Progressive Caucus will reject Super PAC funding for candidates.
It is a cultural tragedy that Yair Rosenberg is the Atlantic’s antisemitism expert. He is an agitator. His job is to stir up the antiZionism=antisemitism and the BDS=antisemitism claims by baiting anti-Zionists, but when these discussions become real issues, he slinks away, because he is not prepared to defend the claims in a real world discussion. His baiting of the Institute for Middle East Understanding demonstrates that intellectual irresponsibility.
The ADL’s main targets these days include a liberal ice cream company, mainstream human rights organizations, and the Harvard University student newspaper.
In a prerecorded speech, shown at the Anti-Defamation League’s annual National Leadership Summit on May 1, ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt said that anti-Zionism is antisemitism, tagged Palestine advocacy groups as “extremists”, and equated left critics of Israel with white supremacists.
Acknowledging that support for Palestinian liberation means “you will be shunned from the newsroom, past accomplishments or legitimate arguments be damned,” Harvard Crimson editors “proudly” endorse the BDS campaign saying it is the best tool to liberate Palestinians from their “violent reality.” Harvard is a marker of establishment opinion; as recent Israeli apartheid reports have become a fad among human rights organizations, so too will BDS endorsements; and the Israel lobby is concerned.