Thursday, March 3, 2011, over 40 MN BBC members and supporters packed the quarterly MN State Board of Investments meeting to let those responsible know that we, as people in Minnesota, do not want our money funding Israel’s actions.

Although we were not officially given a spot on the agenda, a group of MN BBCers were able to read comments (click to read them) speaking to our legal and moral arguments for divestment of Minnesota money from Israel Bonds and thus Israeli atrocities.

MN BBC was represented at the meeting by students, teachers, lawyers, journalists, parents, Jews, Christians, Muslims, Palestinian refugees, professionals, lay people and more.

After we made our comments, one of the members of the Board, Rebecca Otto, put forth a motion which was quickly passed for the State Board of Investments’ staff to engage with MN BBC directly, and for the attorney general’s office to assess the legal issues we raised and report back. We view this action-item as yet another small victory on this road to justice! The morning concluded with a celebratory rally outside the capitol.

Photos can be viewed on our group facebook page here: http://on.fb.me/e31QnD. If you haven’t already, join the group! Unedited footage of the entire presentation and rally can be viewed here: http://bit.ly/e2VI4P.  Thanks to everyone who attended, and to those of you who were unable to do so, we look forward to you joining us next time!

Don’t forget: Save the Date! Take off of Work! Whatever you need to do to be at the MN Break the Bonds Day on the Hill, March 30th!

MINNESOTA BREAK THE BONDS CAMPAIGN DEMANDS THAT THE STATE BOARD OF INVESTMENT DIVEST FROM ISRAEL

MINNEAPOLIS – February 1, 2011 – The Minnesota Break the Bonds Campaign (MN BBC), a statewide campaign aimed at ending Minnesota investment in Israel until Israel complies with international law and respects human rights, has issued a written demand, a copy of which is attached, to the Minnesota State Board of Investment (SBI) that the Board divest from Israel Bonds. The demand is based on both legal and moral grounds. MN BBC has also requested that the issue be placed on the Board’s agenda for its next scheduled meeting on March 3, 2011.

The SBI’s investments in Israel Bonds are unlawful. MN BBC’s demand letter refers to provisions of the Minnesota Statutes that restrict state investment in foreign governments. These investments also entangle Minnesota in Israel’s myriad international law and human rights violations.

MN BBC has formally advised the SBI that it will pursue legal action if the Board fails to place the issue on the March 3, 2011 meeting agenda and fails to divest.

Click here for a PDF copy of the actual press release:  FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE FEB 1

Click here for a PDF copy of the Letter to the SBI: Letter to the SBI

Media Contacts

Flo Razowsky: 612-850-4942

Susie Gad: 612-227-5286

Email: mn@breakthebonds.org

Photo: i-consult.org

by Ricarda Sammaneh, January 12, 2011

Israeli Activist Details Battle to End Apartheid in the West Bank

Hapless elderly parents look on in horror and dismay as their sons are clubbed and their livelihoods, in the form of olive trees, go up in smoke via Israeli chainsaws, bulldozers, and jeering soldiers threatening with machine guns. A movie set? No, unfortunately this is the village of Bil’in, Palestine, filmed in 2005 by Israeli and international peace activists in the award-winning documentary Bil’in Habibti (Bil’in My Love) to draw international attention towards illegal Israeli acts of violence and economic destruction against the Palestinian population.

Gal Lugassi, a Jewish Israeli conscientious objector and activist with the Anarchists Against the Wall (AATW) direct action group, showed parts of this film and others as she spoke passionately about Israeli injustice towards Palestinians to a packed house on Sunday January 9, 2010, at Sisters Camelot in Minneapolis.

Gal detailed the stark contrast between her rights as a Jewish Israeli, and the rights of her Arab (Palestinian) neighbors. It was her sense of powerlessness within Israeli society to help Palestinians and peace activists, especially after the Gaza Flotilla Massacre in which international aid workers were murdered by Israeli soldiers, which finally drove Gal to actively engage in direct action as a member of AATW.

It was clear from her speech that Gal Lugassi and other AATW members regularly put themselves at risk of being killed, injured, or otherwise harassed by Israeli authorities, by participating in peaceful demonstrations against Israeli confiscation of Palestinian land, the Apartheid Wall, and other Israeli violations of international law.

Human Shields and “Skunk Water”

Israelis tend to use less deadly force against groups of Israeli and international activists who demonstrate or accompany Palestinians. Gal gave an example of accompanying Palestinian shepherds as they take out their flocks to graze, to act as human shields against armed Israeli settlers who shoot the shepherds on their own land. (Under Israeli law, the “Right to Bear Arms” does not apply to Palestinian shepherds defending their flocks.)

Audience members grimaced as Gal described being sprayed with “skunk water” by Israeli soldiers. “Skunk water,” she stated, “stinks like raw sewage” and covers you with a foul stench that lasts for days. Soldiers use water cannons to spray “skunk water” into crowds and into the homes of Palestinians. It may stink, but it doesn’t kill you.

In contrast, Palestinian demonstrators, including children and the elderly, are shot with rubber bullets aimed at their heads or backs, real bullets, and tear gas. Gal described how tear gas attacks are deadly when soldiers use high-velocity canisters, because of the rapid firing (30 canisters in a few seconds) and the canisters’ force of impact into the head or chest. She went on to say that .22 caliber bullets, which the Israeli authorities declared illegal for crowd control in 2002, are still being used by Israeli soldiers to shoot Palestinians even in the presence of international peace activists. (This is confirmed by other reports, such as the Haaretz article dated 16 November 2009, http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/protesters-idf-used-22-caliber-ammo-at-west-bank-fence-1.4111).

Boycott, Divest, and Sanction (BDS)

Gal showed other graphic examples and photos of steps AATW members take to raise awareness within Israeli society, which, she lamented, is mostly indifferent to the suffering at their back door. She also stressed how important it is for the global community to stand in solidarity with Palestinian civil society by joining the BDS campaign of Boycotting goods that profit off of the Israeli occupation and Divesting from Israel, as this has been shown to be the most effective means of ending Apartheid in other countries violating international law (according to the informational site www.IfAmericaKnew.org and others, Israel is the target of 65 United Nations Resolutions)

The Role of Direct Action Groups in Israel

Anarchists Against the Wall is a direct action group that was established in 2003 in response to the construction of the wall Israel is building on Palestinian land in the Occupied West Bank. Since its formation, the group has participated in hundreds of demonstrations and direct actions against the wall specifically, and the occupation in general, all over the West Bank. All of AATW’s work in Palestine is coordinated through villages’ local popular committees and is essentially Palestinian led.

In 2008, AATW was jointly awarded the prestigious Carl von Ossietzky Medal in Berlin, given annually by the International League of Human Rights, and named after German Nobel Peace Prize winner Carl von Ossietzky, who died in a Nazi concentration camp. AATW works in cooperation with Palestinians in a joint popular struggle against the occupation.

This event was jointly sponsored by the Minnesota Break the Bonds Campaign (MN BBC) and Minneapolis Autonomous Radical Space (MARS). The event was a fundraiser to help cover legal expenses incurred by Israeli and Palestinian demonstrators persecuted in the Israeli legal system, as well as a venue for raising awareness and funds for the Minnesota Break the Bonds Campaign actively pursuing changes with the current legislative session.

Gal Lugassi is an Israeli conscientious objector who is an activist with the Anarchists Against the Wall action group, and the Boycott! from Within group. She also volunteers at the Coalition of Women for Peace with the Who Profits project. Gal is a 3rd year BA student of Gender Studies at Tel-Aviv University.

Photo: http://wrir.org/index.php?/blog/entry/1857/

Sylvia Schwarz, The Destruction of the Mamilla Cemetery: Desecration of a Sacred Site, September 9, 2010

The Ma’man Allah (Mamilla) Cemetery was the oldest Muslim cemetery in Jerusalem with graves dating back to the seventh century, comprised of 33 acres and tens of thousands of graves. After 1948 the Israeli ministry that maintained the site reassured world leaders that this important religious site would be cared for in perpetuity.

Less than fifteen years later, in the 1960s a park was built in part of the cemetery and a parking lot covered another part. These were followed by a school, football field, underground parking garage, and road. Electrical wires were laid in other sections.

The final few acres were dug up just before the beginning of Ramadan, in the middle of the night (as can be seen on the CNN video: http://www.cnn.com/video/data/2.0/video/world/2010/08/13/vo.cemetery.demo.cnn.html) so that Israel can build the Museum of Tolerance in conjunction with the Simon Wiesenthal Center in the United States.

An enormous amount of knowledge was lost with the destruction of the Mamilla Cemetery, according to St. Paul based archaeologist, John E. Landgraf, Ph.D., because the era since the end of the Byzantine period and the beginning of the Islamic conquest (around 638 CE) up to the present day is the least known period of history in the Middle East generally. There is much to be learned by examining skeletal remains, headstones, and tombs. However, the Israeli Department of Antiquities, which has recently been taken over by the Orthodox Rabbinate, does not allow any human skeletal remains to be examined; Jewish remains must be re-interred as quickly as possible out of respect, whereas non-Jewish remains at the Mamilla Cemetery were disposed of along with tombstones and other debris in construction dumpsters.

Dr. Landgraf, who participated in a number of archaeological digs in Israel and the West Bank between 1965 and 1980, said that the Israeli Department of Antiquities was seldom interested in the preservation of remains or artifacts from the Islamic period. In the late 1960s the discovery of Muslim graves at Tell Gezer did not interest the American head archaeologist at the time, and so bulldozers were used to push remains, artifacts, and debris back into the graves.

Archaeological excavations are a way of learning about the past in an orderly fashion. One exposes history a layer at a time, and by careful examination knowledge can be gained of the various eras and cultures. When Israel occupied East Jerusalem in 1967 Israeli archaeologists used bulldozers to excavate the Western (Wailing) Wall area down to the late Roman period, destroying the homes of Palestinians living there at the time, and along with them the 1500-year history of the people who had lived there since the Byzantine period. “Thus there is a loss of continuity in our understanding of the past,” said Dr. Landgraf.

It is ironic that in the midst of mass hysteria over an Islamic center to be built in lower Manhattan, because some people feel that this would be disrespectful to the dead, that a genuine desecration of a sacred place occurs, unreported in most mainstream media. “The unfortunate reality is that Indigenous populations live in a world in which we are never safe from colonizer assaults – even when we are dead,” says Wazayatawin, Ph.D., Indigenous Peoples Research Chair and Associate Professor, Indigenous Governance Program, University of Victoria, someone who has worked on behalf of Indigenous peoples in this hemisphere for many years, and sees many parallels with the experience of Palestinians.  “The ongoing desecration of Indigenous burial sites, including the Mamilla Cemetery in West Jerusalem, reflects a deeply embedded colonizer mentality that views subjugated peoples as fundamentally inferior and unworthy of even the most basic dignities afforded other human beings,” she says.

Dr. Wazayatawin continues, “The act of erasing a people’s memory from the landscape is a necessary element in the colonization process.  In order for the colonizers to legitimize their occupation of another’s land, they must eradicate all memories of the colonized, including even the human remains that demonstrate a deep and powerful connection to the land itself.”

Everywhere in Israel are the eradicated memories of the dispossessed Indigenous people. Old mosques are transformed into bars and nightclubs, so that patrons drink alcohol where Muslims used to pray. The history museum in Jaffa (more of a tourist site than an educational institution) is inexplicably silent about the existence of people in the city between the Roman times and Napoleon’s invasion. Street names are changed from their ancient Arabic names to new Hebrew ones. Golda Meir’s famous comment “there is no such thing as a Palestinian people” reflected her desire, not a reality, but it has been repeated so often that many Israelis believe it. The destruction of a cemetery shows starkly how little regard Israel holds for the humanity of the Palestinians. As Dr. Wazayatawin says, “There is something terribly wrong with a culture that digs up the dead of others.  The societal justification for such a crime reveals its own sickness.”

First posted: http://www.tcdailyplanet.net/news/2010/09/05/destruction-mamilla-cemetery-desecration-sacred-site

Photo: http://ccrjustice.org/ourcases/current-cases/mamilla

Photo (courtesy of Elisabeth Geschiere): Some of the numerous Palestinian homes and shops along Shuhada Street in Hebron, West Bank that have been closed by Israeli Occupation Forces.

Joel Weisburg, Northfield News, June 18, 2010

To the editor:
I am a Jew who is critical of many Israeli policies toward Palestinians. I feel I must respond to my colleague Alan Rubenstein’s suggestion (Northfield News, June 16) that an earlier letter writer, Bill McGrath, was “duped by anti-semites” into calling for boycott, divestment and sanctions against Israel for attacking the Gaza aid convoy.

The great majority of the participants in the aid convoy were nonviolent peace activists. I would have been proud to have been among them, trying to deliver aid to a people who are living in destitution due to Israel’s and Egypt’s blockade. I would not be surprised if a small number among the flotilla participants were anti-Jewish, but this was far from a common thread among them.

The Hamas movement that rules Gaza was elected by the people of Gaza in an election that international observers claimed was free and fair. Dr. Rubenstein is correct that the Hamas movement makes clear its desire to destroy Israel. Nevertheless, Israel needs to negotiate with its enemies, as does every country that faces a foe. But instead of attempting to talk to its enemies, it often responds with force. Two of the latest instances were the Israeli invasion of Gaza 18 months ago which resulted in hundreds of civilian deaths and Israel’s attack on the aid flotilla.

These actions are abhorred by many people, including some Jews like me. The Israeli government appears to feel that it can use disproportionate force with few resulting consequences. Part of the reason for this is undoubtedly the strong U.S. government support for its policies. Israel is the largest recipient of U.S. aid dollars, and we regularly veto U.N. resolutions condemning its actions against Palestinians.

Those of us who support a policy of boycott, divestment, and sanctions toward Israel are seeking to use nonviolent means to change its inhumane policies, much as was done toward South Africa and other countries that violate human rights. We are attempting to help bring justice to a people living under an unjust military occupation. I hope that readers will judge for themselves whether this means we have been “duped by anti-Semites.”

Joel Weisberg is a resident of Northfield, Minnesota.

First posted at: http://northfieldnews.com/news.php?viewStory=53197

Amber Michel, SC Times, June 24, 2010

In the days since the humanitarian mission to Gaza was besieged by Israeli commandos, I have grown increasingly frustrated with the declaration by Israel that its heavily armed commandos were acting only in self-defense. I’m also angry with my own government’s unwillingness to condemn the attacks.

Despite the bad, albeit predictable, behavior of the United States and Israeli governments, nothing is more offensive than the politically motivated claims that there is indeed no humanitarian crisis in Gaza.

How quickly we forget the death and destruction that washed over Gaza just 18 months ago. More than 1,400 were slaughtered; a devastating 24 percent of those were children.

No humanitarian crisis? Consider the findings of these aid organizations:

United Nations: “Around 70 percent of Gazans live on less than $1 a day, 75 percent rely on food aid and 60 percent have no daily access to water.”

World Health Organization: “Trucks of medical equipment bound for Gazan hospitals have repeatedly been turned away without explanation.”

Red Cross: “Import procedures are keeping even basic medical items … from entering the strip.”

Gaza desperately needs aid and supplies. The Gaza Freedom flotilla was on a peaceful humanitarian mission to deliver those badly needed goods.

Nearly one year ago, I was in a meeting with American citizen Huwaida Arraf, co-founder of the International Solidarity Movement, key organizer of the Gaza Freedom flotilla and passenger on one of the ships raided by Israel.

I could not have imagined that one year later I would hear reports of the massacre of so many innocents on a humanitarian mission. Thankfully, Huwaida was not seriously injured.

There is a humanitarian crisis. We as Americans, through the $3 billion in aid we provide Israel annually, are largely responsible for the suffering of millions in Gaza and the West Bank.

We have the opportunity to declare that as Minnesotans, we will not pay for any more suffering in Gaza and the West Bank. Minnesota owns $19 million in Israeli bonds, purchased with state pension and retirement funds. We can end Minnesota’s support for Israel’s murderous behavior. Be heard, Minnesota. Contact your legislators and tell them, “No Minnesota money for war crimes!”

Amber Michel is the Central MN regional organizer for Minnesota Break the Bonds and founder of Students for a Free Palestine at St. Cloud State University.

First Posted at: http://www.sctimes.com/article/20100624/OPINION/106240023/1006

Photo: www.indymedia.ie/article/91057

Rich Broderick, TC Daily Planet, June 2 2010.

It’s hard to decide which spectacle was more pathetic.

Was it hapless Eric Holder, the Attorney General who closed the book on torture, illegal surveillance and a host of other crimes committed by the Bush Administration, now bravely announcing the opening of criminal and civil investigations into the British Petroleum oil rig disaster?

Or was it the equally hapless Hilary Clinton the very next day rejecting demands for an independent investigation of Israel’s criminal attack in international waters on a Turkish aid flotilla and asking instead, pretty please, for Israel to conduct its own “impartial” inquiry into just how its military came to commit yet another outrage?

What a Hobson’s Choice of impotence!

If the timing of Israel’s latest act of aggression had not been determined by outside forces – the launching of the aid flotilla – I might suspect that the Netanyahu government conducted its raid on the Mavi Marmara to coincide with the distraction created for Americans by the Gulf of Mexico oil spill.

Certainly there is precedent for such suspicions. Israel’s re-invasion of the West Bank during the Second Intifada, its 2006 incursion into Lebanon (which left behind more than one million unexploded cluster bombs), and the massacre it carried out in December 2008 and early January 2009 in the Gaza Strip all took place while our eyes were turned elsewhere.

But even without the element of convenient timing, there are powerful currents connecting these two disasters – the BP spill, which is destroying one of the world’s largest, most productive, and fragile ecosystems, and Israel’s commando raid on the high seas.

To begin with, both predatory capitalism – the not-so-invisible hand governing the activities of criminal enterprises like BP – and predatory Zionism are, in the simplest terms, enemies of life. In the case of global capitalism, the enemy of all forms of life on earth. In the case of Zionism, the enemy of Palestinian life.

What’s more, these two apocalyptic ideologies – predatory capitalism and predatory Zionism — are within sight of achieving the wreckage that is the inevitable outcome of their activities. Even before the Gulf spill, the planetary ecosystem upon which human and most other forms of life depend for survival was at a tipping point from beyond which there will be no turning back. And Israel, by murdering and starving an entire generation of Palestinian children and stealing whatever scrap of land or natural resource might make it possible to support an independent Palestinian economy, is on the verge of eliminating any vestige of hope for a viable Palestinian state – which Israel never wanted in the first place.

Lastly, the most important connection between these phenomena is that both absolutely depend on the United States for political, economic, and military support in order to thrive and carry out their evil ends.

More than 98 percent of the oil pumped out of the Gulf of Mexico’s 3800 drill rigs is refined into gasoline for use in private automobiles – the cars we drive by choice and because, lacking a system of mass transit, we mostly have no choice but to drive. U.S. policy in the Middle East is driven by a quest for regional hegemony, the better to maintain access to oil fields and untapped reserves.

In turn, our oil-driven foreign policy helps feed this country’s military-industrial-complex, which, along with the End-Timers of the Christian Right and members of the Israel-right-or-wrong fifth column crowd, is one of the chief constituents of our “special relationship” with the Zionist state.

I’m not exactly sure how to get a handle on predatory global capitalism. The Caux Round Table (http://www.cauxroundtable.org/), an international non-profit headquartered in the Twin Cities, is trying to promote principles of ethical conduct in the world’s business community. Supporting their efforts might help, though I am also inclined to think that the exemplary execution of one or two of the psychopaths who run companies like BP might not be a bad idea either.

When it comes to predatory Zionism, there have emerged some peaceful and perhaps even effective ways to make a difference. One is the Global Boycott, Divest and Sanction Movement (http://bdsmovement.net). Begun about five years ago by Palestinian organizations, BDS has gained the support of many non-Palestinians, both inside and outside Israel, including most notably Canadian author and leading anti-global capitalism crusader, Naomi Klein. The BDS movement seeks to use tactics similar to those brought to bear on South Africa in efforts to end that nation’s apartheid policies.

Meanwhile, a local organization with ties to Global BDS, the Minnesota Break the Bonds Campaign (http://mn.breakthebonds.org/), wants to convince legislators to divest some $19 million in Israeli bonds currently held by several state pension and retirement funds.

Not only are those bonds helping to underwrite illegal settlements on the West Bank as well as Israel’s now three-year-old blockade of the Gaza Strip, a blockade that was not — pace America’s lapdog media — initiated to stop rockets from landing in Israel but to impose collective punishment on Gaza for electing a Hamas-led government. Minnesota’s pension funds could actually earn better rates of return if they were invested in higher-yielding – and less-bloodstained — bonds.

As horrific images of poisoned seas and dead wildlife compete with horrific images of the murder of pro-Palestinian activists on the high seas, it’s tempting to throw up our hands in despair. But despair is precisely the response that the BP’s and the Netanyahu’s and all their packs of flying monkeys in politics and the press want us to feel.

The Devil always has the best arguments. The Devil has always had the best arguments.  The antidote to despair is not argument but action. Even if the actions seem small and incremental, that’s still better then turning away – and in turn, throwing in our lot with the enemies of everything decent and just.

The enemies, indeed, of life itself.

First posted at: http://www.tcdailyplanet.net/blog/rich-broderick/murder-high-seas-divesting-death-and-destruction

Photo: http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE65325D20100604