[statecom-discuss] Fwd: Natlcomaffairs Digest, Vol 42, Issue 65

[Yarden]

The following just came onto the GNC website.
Elie Yarden,
Cambridge

Begin forwarded message:
Message: 2
> Date: Wed, 23 May 2007 06:15:27 -0700 (PDT)
> From: Scott McLarty <scottmclarty at yahoo.com>
> Subject: [usgp-dx] Black leaders urge end to Israeli occupation,
> 	endorse June 10 rally (ZNet)
> To: usgp-media at gp-us.org, natlcomaffairs at green.gpus.org,
> 	dcsgp at yahoogroups.com
> Message-ID: <549751.68195.qm at web51108.mail.re2.yahoo.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1
>
> (At least two Greens among the signers: George
> Martin & Chuck Turner)
>
> Letter to Black America on Palestinian Rights &
> June 10 March
>
> By US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation
> ZNet, May 19, 2007
> http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=107&ItemID=12859
>
>
> On 15 May 2007, 22 Black American professors,
> writers, religious figures, and other leaders
> issued a call to Black America to join in the
> June 10 March and rally, and break the silence on
> the injustices faced by the Palestinian people.
>
> To Black America:
>
> It is time for our people to once again demand
> that the silence be broken on the injustices
> faced by the Palestinian people resulting from
> the Israeli occupation.
>
> On June 10th, the national coalition known as the
> US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation
> (http://www.endtheoccupation.org) will be
> spearheading a march and rally to commemorate the
> 40th anniversary of the beginning of the illegal
> Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories.
>
> We, the signatories of this appeal, ask that
> Black America again take a leading role in this
> effort as well as the broader work to bring
> attention to this 40 year travesty of justice.
>
> United Nations resolutions have called for the
> Israeli withdrawal, yet the Israeli government,
> with the backing of the USA, has ignored them.
> The Israeli government has appropriated
> Palestinian land in open defiance of
> international law and overwhelming international
> condemnation.
>
> Within the USA anyone who speaks in favor of
> Palestinian rights and justice is immediately
> condemned as being allegedly anti-Israel (and
> frequently allegedly anti-Semitic), shutting down
> legitimate discussion. A case in point can be
> seen in the current furor surrounding former
> President Jimmy Carter who was criticized for his
> assertion in his best-selling book, Palestine:
> Peace Not Apartheid, that Israeli obstructionism
> lies at the root of the failure to achieve a just
> Palestinian/ Israeli settlement.
>
> As Nobel prizewinner Archbishop Desmond Tutu has
> written, "People are scared in the US, to say
> 'wrong is wrong,' because the pro-Israeli lobby
> is powerful--very powerful. Well, so what? For
> goodness sake, this is God's world! We live in a
> moral universe. The apartheid government was very
> powerful, but today it no longer exists."
>
> Many of those who most outspokenly agree with
> President Carter and Archbishop Tutu are American
> Jews. And many American Jews, including the
> national organization Jewish Voice for Peace,
> will be among those rallying for Palestinian
> rights on June 10th - as will many other
> Americans, including member groups of the leading
> anti-war coalition United for Peace and Justice.
>
> Leaders from Black America have repeatedly and
> historically been among the most outspoken
> proponents of justice for the Palestinian people.
> Our leaders have defended the Palestinian
> people's right to full self-determination and an
> end to the Occupation as central to peace in the
> region. Our leaders have not criticized the
> Jewish people but they have expressed outrage at
> the Israeli government that collaborated with the
> apartheid South African government (including in
> the development of weapons of mass destruction)
> and emulated South Africa's treatment of its
> Black majority in its own treatment of the
> Palestinian people.
>
> As we struggle to build our country's support for
> Palestinian human rights, we widen the door for
> both Arab and Black Americans to deal with the
> issues that join them together, as well as those
> that separate them. We will help to energize -
> and to heal - both communities.
>
> June tenth and Juneteenth: will our struggles
> lead the way to a new emancipation of others? Our
> own integrity as a people, let alone our own
> experience with massive injustice and oppression,
> demand that we step forward, speak out, and
> insist on a change in US policy towards the
> Palestinian people. Since when have an illegally
> occupied people been wrong in demanding and
> fighting for their human rights and land? Since
> when have such people and their cause not been
> worthy of our support?
>
> Please join us on June 10th!
>
> Signed by (affiliation for identification
> purposes only)
>
> ? Salih Booker, former Executive Director of
> Africa Action
>
> ? Khephra Burns, author, editor, playwright
>
> ? Horace G. Campbell, Professor of African
> American Studies and Political Science
>
> ? Dr. Ron Daniels, President, Institute of the
> Black World 21st Century
>
> ? Bill Fletcher, labor and international
> activist, and writer
>
> ? George Friday, United for Peace and Justice
> Co-Chair, National Coordinator, Independent
> Progressive Politics Network
>
> ? Rev. Graylan Scott Hagler, Senior Minister,
> Plymouth Congregational United Church of Christ;
> National President, Ministers for Racial, Social
> and Economic Justice of the United Church of
> Christ
>
> ? Mahmood Mamdani, Herbert Lehman Professor of
> Government in the Departments of Anthropology,
> Political Science and Public and International
> Affairs
>
> ? Manning Marable, Professor of Public Affairs,
> Political Science, History and African-American
> Studies
>
> ? George Paz Martin, National Co-Chair of United
> for Peace and Justice and Green Party U.S.
> Activist
>
> ? E. Ethelbert Miller, literary activist; board
> chair, Institute for Policy Studies
>
> ? Prexy Nesbitt, speaker and educator on Africa,
> foreign policy, and racism
>
> ? Barbara Ransby, Associate Professor of History
> and African-American Studies
>
> ? Cedric Robinson, Professor, Department of Black
> Studies
>
> ? The Rev. Canon Edward W. Rodman MDiv.LCH,DD.
> Professor of Pastoral Theology and Urban Ministry
> at the Episcopal Divinity School, Cambridge, Ma.
>
> ? Jamala Rogers, Black Radical Congress
>
> ? Don Rojas, former director of communications
> for the National Association for the Advancement
> of Colored People
>
> ? Zoharah Simmons, human rights activist
>
> ? Chuck Turner, Boston City Councilor
>
> ? Hollis Watkins, Former Freedom Singer and staff
> member of Student Nonviolent Coordinating
> Committee; human rights activist (1961 - present)
>
>
> ? Dr. Cornel West
>
> ? Emira Woods, co-director, Foreign Policy In
> Focus, Institute for Policy Studies
>
>
>
>
>