Notices by Raph (raph@social.coop), page 3

Today, May 15th, is Nakba Day, which recognizes the destruction of Palestinian society and homeland in 1948 and the displacement of the majority of the Palestinian people for the formation of today’s modern Israel. Nakba and Shoah, the Hebrew word for Holocaust, mean the same thing: catastrophe. I reject the premise that one people’s salvation must come at another’s destruction.

11/13

The United States has long enabled Israeli war crimes and the status quo of apartheid and occupation. That status quo does not keep Israelis safe, nor Jews around the world. It certainly does not protect Palestinians, who have the right to freedom, safety, self-determination, and dignity, just as much as Jewish people do, and every person does.

9/13

The President has the power to call for a lasting ceasefire, to stop sending weapons to Israel, and to condition aid. The United States has used nearly no leverage throughout the last eight months to hold Israel accountable; quite the opposite, we have enabled and legitimized Israel’s actions with vetoes of UN resolutions designed to hold Israel accountable.' President Biden has the blood of innocent people on his hands.

8/13

And yet I am certain that the answer to this is not to collectively punish millions of innocent Palestinians through displacement, famine, and ethnic cleansing.

Israel’s ongoing offensive against Palestinians does not keep Jewish people safe — in Israel nor in the United States. What I have learned from my Jewish tradition is that every life is precious. That we are obligated to stand up for those facing violence and oppression, and to question authority in the face of injustice.

6/13

As of writing this, Israel has killed over 35,000 people in Gaza, including 15.000 children. The Israeli military has bombed medical infrastructure, besieged a hospital, left mass graves behind, destroyed every university in Gaza, targeted journalists and aid workers, and committed many, many inexcusable atrocities. These are all violations of international law, none of which would be possible without American weapons, and none of which have been condemned by President Biden.

7/13

My whole life has been spent in Jewish community in the US and Israel. I have spent time in Israel/Palestine, and I learned Hebrew and Arabic both formally in school and through connection in community. I have family and friends who are Israeli, Palestinian — and have loved ones who have served in the IDF. People in my community lost loved ones during Hamas’s attack on October 7th? beloveds killed, displaced, and taken as hostages. I am terrified by rising antisemitism around the world.

5/13

Two generations later, I have the honor of working as an appointee for the President of the United States. The weight of this position is not lost on me. This is the story of many people in my community: a story of survival, upward mobility, and fulfillment of the American Dream. And yet, I have asked myself many times over the last eight months: what is the point of having power if you will not use it to stop crimes against humanity?

4/13

I worked for Vice President Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign in 2019, and then moved to Arizona to work for President Biden’s campaign in 2020. I was thrilled to join the Department of Interior because I was inspired by your principled track record of championing progressive causes, in addition to your role as an Indigenous woman leading a Department that historically harmed Indigenous communities, and the potential that it has for reparations, reconciliation, and healing.

2/13

However, I can no longer in good conscience continue to represent this administration amidst President Biden’s disastrous, continued support for Israel's genocide in Gaza.

I am an American Jew. My family escaped antisemitic persecution in Europe and found refuge in America. They changed their names at Ellis Island and worked as farmers, peddlers, and salespeople. My grandparents could not go to college.

3/13

Full text of the resignation letter of Lily Greenberg Call, the first Jewish Biden appointee to resign over the war in Gaza:

#Israel #Palestine #Gaza

Dear Secretary Haaland,

I joined the Biden Administration because I believe in fighting for a better America, for a future where Americans can thrive: one with economic prosperity, a healthy planet, and equal rights for all people. I have dedicated my career to candidates who I believed would further this vision.

1/13

Israeli children, likely belonging to communities of settlers and religious-messianic Jews, having fun destroying aid supplies meant for Gaza.

Useful context is that one of the most common one-liners I hear from Israelis, to this day, is: "the conflict will end when they stop teaching their children to hate us".

#Israel #Palestine #Gaza

More colonialism in the West Bank.

Dozens of masked settlers from the settlement Yitzhar set fields and olive groves on fire on the lands of Burin, in the West Bank. They were escorted by 6-7 armed men in uniforms.

Video documentation by Israeli human rights organization Yesh Din.

#Israel #Palestine #Gaza #WestBank

If they don't care today, they will when they face higher prices because of trade sanctions, when they can't travel freely because of visa restrictions, when Israeli startups can't raise funds, when they lose hundreds of million in European research subsidies, when they can't participate in cultural, sporting, or academic events.

This conflict will only end when the cost of occupation outweighs its benefits for most Israelis.

Boycotts. Divestments. Sanctions.

#Israel #Palestine #Gaza #BDS

Student protestors are portrayed as anywhere between naive and brainwashed. Now listen to this. Nothing naive here.

#Israel #Gaza #Chicago #Palestine #StudentProtests

Fears that antisemitism—or overt support for unbridled violence against anyone affiliated with Israel—pervades the movement are legitimate. There is antisemitism in the movement, just like there is antisemitism in American society.

This antisemitism, and other forms of harassment, must be condemned and, as much as possible, ousted from the protest movement. But the priority right now is to end Israel's murderous assault on Gaza. And this is what this movement is working toward.

16/17

There are now over 100 student encampments.

Thinking about student movements over the past century, when has such a large movement been proven wrong later on? Has there ever been a case where students and young people mass mobilized, protested, occupied, and were later proven wrong? As far as I know, no.

When students are moved by the hundreds of thousand to take action like they are doing right now on university campuses, history usually proves them right.

17/17

News and social media rarely give a full picture of what happens inside protest movements. But based on my experience on campuses and at protests, the overwhelming majority of protestors are there to call for an end to the suffering in Gaza and Israeli crimes against Palestinians.

15/17

If anti-Jewish hatred was widespread, I believe many of these Jewish students would rapidly pack up, go home, and dissociate themselves from the movement and—like everything these days—it would be aggressively shared online.

Yet, they aren't just remaining at the forefront of the movement, but these Jewish protesters are also very visibly taking part in Jewish rituals right in the middle of the encampments.

14/17

Finally, I haven’t heard of Jewish students who were active participants in the encampments and left because of rampant antisemitism. Jewish students have a significant presence in many of the encampments and protests.

13/17

It feels to them as if, by calling for a transformation of Israel from a Jewish state to a state for all its citizens, you are in fact calling for the destruction of the entity that (in their mind) ensures Jewish safety.

So when Zionist Jews feel unsafe in the face of anti-Israel or anti-Zionist rhetoric, they are not faking it: they actually feel threatened, they feel attacked. But their subjective feelings do not mean that they are facing objective threats.

11/17