WRAPPED IN THE FLAG OF ISRAEL

Mizrahi Single Mothers and Bureaucratic Torture

Wednesday, April 23 at 12:00 noon

235 Blegen Hall, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis

AND

Thursday, April 24, 2014 at 7:00 pm

May Day Books, 301 Cedar Ave., Minneapolis, MN

UPDATE April 21: There are two opportunities to see Smadar Lavie: a brownbag lunch at Blegen Hall on the University and May Day Books on 301 Cedar Ave. Hope to see you there!

Smadar Lavie Visiting Fellow, Center for Middle Eastern Studies, UC Berkeley; Visiting Professor, Institute for Social Sciences in the 21st, Century, University College Cork

What is the relationship between social protest movements in the State of Israel, violence in Gaza, and the possibility of an Israeli attack on Iran? Why did the mass social protests in the State of Israel of summer 2011 ultimately fail? Wrapped in the Flag of Israel discusses social protest movements from the 2003 Single Mothers’ March led by Mizrahi Vicky Knafo, to the “Tahrir is Here” Israeli mass protests of summer 2011. Equating bureaucratic entanglements with pain—what, arguably, can be seen as torture, Smadar Lavie explores the conundrum of loving and staying loyal to a state that repeatedly inflicts pain on its non-European Jewish women citizens through its bureaucratic system. The book presents a model of bureaucracy as divine cosmology and posits that Israeli State bureaucracy is based on a theological essence that fuses the categories of religion, gender, and race into the foundation of citizenship.

Smadar Lavie is a visiting fellow at the Center for Middle Eastern Studies, UC Berkeley, and a visiting professor at the Institute for Social Science in the 21st Century, University College Cork. Lavie spent nine years as Assistant and Associate Professor of Anthropology at the University of California, Davis. She specializes in the Anthropology of Egypt, the State of Israel, and Palestine, with emphasis on issues of race, gender, and religion. Her publications include The Poetics of Military Occupation (University of California Press) that received an Honorable Mention for the Victor Turner Award for Ethnographic Writing in 1990. She is also the co-editor of Creativity/Anthropology (Cornell UP, 1993), and Displacement, Diaspora, and Geographies of Identity (Duke UP 1996). She is a winner of the American Studies Association¹s 2009 Gloria Anzaldúa Prize, and of the 2013 “Heart at East” Honor Plaque for lifetime service to Mizrahi communities in the State of Israel.

Join the Students for Justice in Palestine

for Israeli Apartheid Week

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MONDAY, APRIL 7

10:30 am – 2:30 pm

Visual Display – COFFMAN FRONT PLAZA

4:00 pm – 5:30 pm

What is Apartheid? – COFFMAN MEMORIAL UNION 325

TUESDAY, APRIL 8

5:30 pm – 8:00 pm

“Al Helm: Martin Luther King in Palestine” Film & Discussion – MOOS 2-520

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 9

10:30 am – 2:30 pm

Visual Display – COFFMAN FRONT PLAZA

4:00 pm – 5:15 pm

Life in Palestine: Student Panel – MCB 2-122

THURSDAY, APRIL 10

12:00 pm – 1:30 pm

Trigger-Happy: Israel’s use of excessive force in the West Bank – CMU 325

FRIDAY, APRIL 11

11:30 am

Die-in – 2nd Floor CMU

Minneapolis, MN, March 30, 2014, 5:00 pm at Mayday Books, 301 Cedar Avenue

In 1976, in response to a non-violent demonstration against announced Israeli appropriation of Palestinian land, Israel’s army shot dead six Palestinians, wounded hundreds and arrested hundreds more. The commemoration of this massacre has been called Land Day. This year the Stop the JNF Campaign and other organizations (see below) mark the anniversary with the showing of a documentary film by Alex Safron, called Enduring Roots: Over a Century of Resistance to the Jewish National Fund.

From the opening scenes showing a Jewish National Fund bulldozer destroying a Bedouin’s tent in the Naqab to interviews with the victims of on-going ethnic cleansing, the 39-minute film Enduring Roots gives a clear and honest picture of the devastating impact that the Jewish National Fund (JNF or JNF-KKL) has on the lives of Palestinians. For over a century the JNF has been instrumental in expelling Palestinians from their homes and land and creating towns, villages and parks for Israeli Jews out of the ruins. This film shows the expulsion, how Palestinian civilians are affected and the ways that Palestinians are resisting that expulsion.

The event is sponsored by Stop the JNF Campaign, Minnesota Break the Bonds Campaign (MN BBC), and the International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network (IJAN). The film showing will be followed by a discussion. Join us on Sunday, March 30, 2014 at 5:00 pm at Mayday Books, 301 Cedar Ave., Minneapolis. $5.00 suggested donation (no one turned away).

This year African American History Month overlaps with Israeli Apartheid Week.

Join us at 7:00 pm on Friday, February 28 at 4200 Cedar Ave. S., Minneapolis for a film showing of Al Helm [The Dream]: Martin Luther King in Palestine. (Suggested donation $5.00; no one turned away).

“What would happen if African-American Christians – the same group who served as exemplars of the Civil Rights Movement – could witness first-hand the plight of Palestinians today?” asks the Vancouver International film festival.  The film is about an African-American gospel choir visiting Palestine to produce Clayborne Carson’s play about Martin Luther King Jr., called Passages of Martin Luther King. They witness life under occupation and the non-violent movement for social justice. You can watch the trailer here: http://www.clarityfilms.org/mlk/.

Jim Haber, in his review of the film on Mondoweiss writes, “Beyond its excellent production quality, Al Helm—Arabic for “the dream”— has great crossover potential because it shows several (largely) apolitical, Black Americans meeting a people still locked in the nightmare of oppression. Their experiences at first seem just confusing to them, then political, and ultimately political and very personal.”

This film showing is sponsored by Minnesota Break the Bonds Campaign (MN BBC) and the University of Minnesota Students for Justice in Palestine (MN SJP).

The 2014 Precinct Caucuses will be held all over the state on Tuesday evening February 4. We are encouraging all our members to attend the caucus in your district and bring forward one of the two following resolutions. The first resolution specifically mentions Israel, as in “the State of Minnesota shall immediately divest from any investments in government bonds of the State of Israel.” The second resolution says only that the State of Minnesota shall divest from and not invest in any country which commits serious human rights abuses and war crimes. These are similar to each other and similar to other resolutions some of you have already brought to your precinct caucus in past years, but there are reasons you might want to bring one over the other.

For example, if your caucus two years ago did not pass the resolution which specifically mentions Israel, people voting against it would have a hard time justifying a vote against human rights. On the other hand, some people might find a resolution not specifically mentioning Israel to be somewhat cagey and untruthful. You might think that it’s important to say out loud what you mean.

Note that there are no “whereas clauses” in these proposed resolutions. Resolutions that get passed in the DFL precinct caucuses move up to the Senate District caucuses stripped of the whereas clauses, so these resolutions include everything right in the text.

These resolutions are catering to stated Democratic and DFL principles. If you are going to a Republican caucus you can also bring a divestment resolution forward but you may want to rewrite it using different rationale (whereas clauses). That’s fine.

After your caucus is over, please send us the following:

• your name, email address, and house district (or address)
• which party caucus you attended
• which resolution you brought (send us the entire text of the resolution if you made your own)
• whether it passed or not and by how much
• whether you signed up to be a delegate at the next convention

We will compile all the information and possibly ask for your help in meeting with your state senator and representative with the results.

Have fun! It should be a great time to meet your neighbors!

Here are the two resolutions:

Israel Bond Specific:

Be it resolved that the Minnesota State Board of Investment, the State agency responsible for the investment management of various public employee retirement funds, trust funds and cash accounts totaling approximately $69 billion, shall not invest in the government bonds of the State of Israel and shall immediately divest from any investments in the government bonds of the State of Israel, a portion of the proceeds of which are used to finance Israel’s continued occupation and construction of illegal settlements in the Palestinian occupied territories, until Israel is found to be in full compliance with its obligations under international law as determined by the cognizant agencies of the United Nations, including the International Court of Justice and the UN Human Rights Council.

Generic:

Be it resolved that the Minnesota State Board of Investment, the State agency responsible for the investment management of various public employee retirement funds, trust funds and cash accounts totaling approximately $69 billion, shall not invest in the government bonds of any country that is engaged in the violation of human rights as defined in the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights or in the commission of war crimes in violation of international law.

All films are Mondays at 7:00 pm. Discussion afterwards. Admission is $6.

>January 27: Budrus

Budrus is about the non-violent demonstrations in 2000 conducted by residents of the Palestinian town of Budrus against the building of the Israeli separation wall inside the village causing the loss of 300 acres of land and 3,000 olive trees. Several turns of events including the active participation of Israeli peace activists bring about an unexpected outcome.

>February 3: The Gatekeepers

The Gatekeepers brings together six former heads of Israel’s internal security agency, the Shin Bet, who detail their methods against Palestinian militants and civilians in the Occupied Territories, including targeted killings, torture, recruiting informants, and the suppression of mass protests during two intifadas.

>February 10: Man From Plains

President Jimmy Carter ignites a firestorm of controversy when he tours the country to promote “Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid,” his book which theorizes a Middle East peace solution and asserts that Israel’s staunch stance has negatively affected the region.

> February 17: Five Broken Cameras

Fiver Broken Cameras, nominated for an Oscar in the category of Best Documentary Film, tells the story of non-violent resistance in the village of Bilin to the building of the Annexation Wall and expansion of nearby Jewish only settlements. It is told through the experience of Palestinian villager Emad Burnat, who filmed the majority of the documentary. The IDF, unhappy that their actions were being documented, broke five of his cameras and committed many other acts of violence against the demonstrators, at least two of whom died of their injuries.

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Sponsored by the Twin Ports chapter of the Break the Bonds Campaign: www.twinportsbbc.blogspot.com