Richard Baldwin Cook This user account status is Approved Comments Comments Posts Posts Unless and until there is a muscular Boycott movement in the US, with weekend picketing , visits to retailers, house meetings, signs at hundreds of intersections - talk of a USA BDS movement is just that, talk. Politicians are indifferent and hostile to BDS because they see no downside. Right now, nationwide, there isn't a political upside for supporting Palestine. BDS could and should be that engine. Can anyone name a single national organization that is doing regular, daily Face to Face organizing, putting pickets in front of stores? On 2 progressive Dem pols step away from BDS even as ‘NPR’ and ‘NYT’ run positive reports on movement Senator Van Hollen, Two years ago, Kim Jensen met Dareen Tatour, then under house arrest in Tel Aviv. Ms. Jensen, like myself. is a constituent of yours. She has written about the abuse which the State of Israel has subjected Ms.Tatour to for the past two years. Prior to confinement by the police in her home, Ms.Tatour had been (1) arrested (2) interrogated and (3) tried. But not sentenced. Not sentenced for two years. Instead of giving her a sentence, the Israeli authorities have kept Dareen Tatour under house arrest - for the past two years. And counting. Ms.Tatour is a poet. The crime of which Ms. Tatour was accused in 2016: incitement. The evidence against her: A video poem Two posts on facebook My question to you, Senator Van Hollen: Will you ask the Israeli government, what's up with two years of house arrest for reciting a poem in a video and posting on Facebook? On ‘Hallucination of a poet convicted of terrorism’ — an interview with Dareen Tatour Thanks for the excellent exposition / talking points: Permit me to add an item to the list: Israel's multiple murders and injuries of unarmed civilians last weekend amounts to a breach of the so-called “Leahy amendments” to our human rights statutes, which require withholding US aid to foreign military units who are shown to have committed grave human rights violations. Here are excerpts from the US Code: “No assistance shall be furnished under this Act or the Arms Export Control Act to any unit of the security forces of a foreign country if the Secretary of State has credible information that such unit has committed a gross violation of human rights.” See 28 USC 2378d “Of the amounts made available to the Department of Defense, none may be used for any training, equipment, or other assistance for a unit of a foreign security force if the Secretary of Defense has credible information that the unit has committed a gross violation of human rights.” See 10 USC 2249e On Seven things you need to know about Israel’s latest attack on Gaza Thanks to the “Leahy amendments,” to US human rights laws, both the Department of State and Department of Defense are to discontinue military assistance to units of foreign security forces that have engaged in “a gross violation” of human rights. The Leahy language is clear about what is required of both the state department and the defense department regarding the cutting off of military assistance: “No assistance shall be furnished under this Act or the Arms Export Control Act to any unit of the security forces of a foreign country if the Secretary of State has credible information that such unit has committed a gross violation of human rights.” See 28 USC 2378d “Of the amounts made available to the Department of Defense, none may be used for any training, equipment, or other assistance for a unit of a foreign security force if the Secretary of Defense has credible information that the unit has committed a gross violation of human rights.” See 10 USC 2249e To implement this law, U.S. embassies, the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, and the appropriate regional bureau of the U.S. Department of State vet potential recipients of security assistance. Under the Leahy amendments, the US has reportedly cut off military assistance from security and military units in Bangladesh, Bolivia, Colombia, Guatemala, Mexico, Nigeria, Turkey, Indonesia, Lebanon, and Saint Lucia. Every United States Senator and member of Congress should be asked to comment publicly on recent events in Gaza and also inquire of the State Department and the Defense Department if their vetting procedures have cleared or implicated Israeli military unit in the deaths and wounding of hundreds of Palestinians in Gaza in the last few days. On In Response to Israel’s Latest Massacre in Gaza: Arms Embargo Now! One State? Two States? An election by residents and refugees is the only just course: Neither the Zionist invaders and refugees from Europe, not the British nor the League of Nations nor the UN nor the US has ever agreed to representation elections, which Palestinians formally requested as early as 1919 and which the UN Charter required. We are at the same place we were a century ago with the same presumptuous empire builders perpetually dancing away from the same issue - whether the indigenous population will be accorded political representation throughout Palestine. On ‘NYT’ runs Israeli’s op-ed recommending that Palestinians ’emigrate voluntarily’ Bibi has said, the 2-state solution is dead. This bill will in practice, acknowledge Israeli control over the Occupied Territories. Lets now focus on Palestinian participation in civil society, i e. Voting for the government that "controls" Palestine. On Obama to sign AIPAC-promoted trade bill that legitimizes Israeli occupation and fights BDS These valuable documents are depressing to read, demonstrating as they do, the successful, single-minded subterfuge of the Zionist project to neutralize by force the resistance of the indigenous population of Palestine. Was a two-state solution ever anything but more subterfuge? A one-state solution? Is this even plausible today? Requiring as it must, the will to enforce an end to the brutal IDF occupation of Palestine, followed by a mechanism of self determination leading to the enjoyment of full and equal political rights by every resident? Who is going it see to this? Who is going to take nukes away from Bibi? Israel is a discredit to Judaism. The American Jewish community is cowed into silence, Its current formal representatives are a pale, embarrassing measure of what used to be admired stewards of an ancient communal expression of a courageous, ethical mode of life. This quality of leadership is now virtually disappeared. Nothing matters more to American Judaism than showing support for an apartheid regime. Judaism, in a single generation had become a caricature of itself. This, and the continuing torture of the people of Palestine are the two undisputed tragedies of the ascendance of Zionism. A third is the abject surrender to Zionism by the American political establishment. On Understanding the Jewish National Home Where's the balance? Good question. I have an Israeli citizen as one US Senator and neither he, Ben Cardin nor Barbara Mikulski nor Congressman Elijah Cummings will even answer inquiries from me about the legality of home demolitions in occupied Palestine, nor about the mistreatment of African immigrants in Israel. Clearly these elected officials put the interests of a foreign state above the concerns of a constituent in Maryland. Where's the balance? On Chair of Democratic National Committee opposes Jewish intermarriage and MSNBC showing Gaza carnage
