People are giving their Ideas On Oprah's Visit to Israel

Dear all,

The below opinion was sent to me by Omar Barghouti that I strongly agree with. We must not fall in this trap and ask Oprah to pass by Occupied Palestine, while she's visiting Israel to show solidarity with the Occupiers. On the contrary, we have to send out a statement to boycott her visit and ask Arab channels to boycott her program.

Regards,
Iman


Omar Barghouti

My personal position regarding the planned Oprah "solidarity visit" to Israel is that it is a shame, no less, for an African-American descendant of oppressed slaves to show solidarity with oppressors enslaving an entire nation.

Israel is also an apartheid state, as South African minster Ronnie Kasrils -- who is Jewish -- often remarks. Jimmy Carter, UN representative Prof. John Dugard, and Archbishop Desmond Tutu also concur with this comparison. So how can Oprah turn off her moral compass and allow herself to become complicit in covering up and beautifying Israel's military occupation; apartheid walls; indiscriminate killings of innocent Palestinians, particularly children; uprooting of more than a million trees; house demolitions; and persistent confiscation of land and water resources as policy aiming at gradual ethnic cleansing of Palestinians? If this is not being in bed with injustice, what is?

Inviting Oprah to visit the OPT to "balance" her solidarity trip to Israel is patently wrong, in my opinion. There is no middle ground or balance between a colonial oppressor and its victims. Would Oprah have agreed to visit Pretoria and Soweto in the 1980's? If the answer is no, then her visit to Israel, at the very least, reflects her moral inconsistency. Inviting her to the OPT can at best generate a token visit that will most certainly be used to cover up her "solidarity visit" to Israel. It would inadvertently provide legitimacy to that support for Israel.

I realize the iconic and extremely influential importance of Oprah's views in the US and beyond. This is precisely why I think she ought to reconsider this shameful and ill-conceived trip that will ultimately smear her image internationally and even within the US. Even the "Talk-Show Queen" is not immune to moral accountability!

Visiting Israel for any reason that is not explicitly geared towards resisting its occupation, racism and oppression is reprehensible. Expressing solidarity with Israel as it violates international law and basic human rights with utter impunity is the epitome of immorality.

Oprah should be ashamed for merely entertaining the idea of allowing herself to be thus manipulated to serve Israel's propaganda purposes.

Omar


Dorkhom Writes
Dear all,
You can imagine how powerful this women is, how many millions around the world is washing her..
Lets think about he scenario Oprah has a Zionist Email filter or she might be Zionist her self, that at the end she will not react against our emails and requests ..
We need to discuss about other matter within a group, as group work and diversity is much powerful as working alone and “inventing the wheel 1000 times”. At the end we have to come with a good strategy and actions ..
My self was thinking about he following:
1 - write good letter in many languages and put it on a special home page
2- Design a media-logo about the action (Oprah in Israel)
3 - We send the logo out asking all friends to put it on their home pages. If any one click on it, he/she will brought to the website in 1
4- we can think about Petition to get signed. There we can write, people should boycott Oprah if she went only to Israel
ok, I can not stop dreaming about one Palestine NW for those sharing the same straggle , cooperating and performing campaigns and projects as a team .. I hope the US freinds will be able to develop such an unified electronic operation room ..
For now we can use my blog or any blog to take this Email as a basic for the discussion and following actions ..
My self will be offline till 10th June. I can help with translation into German.
Am attaching a BDS Petition proposal might be interesting for cooperation as well.
Together we are better

Wael