Kucinich Withdraws as Palm Beach County Democratic Keynoter Amid Uproar over His Israel Stance
U.S. Rep. Dennis Kucinich lasted less than 24 hours as headliner for the Palm Beach County Democratic Party's annual fundraising dinner after some of the party's elected officials blasted the Ohio Democrat's stance on Israel and threatened to skip the event.
Dennis Kucinich
Kucinich, who has a history of criticizing the actions of the Israeli government and opposing congressional resolutions in support of Israel, withdrew Friday as the keynote speaker for next week's dinner after being announced Thursday.
The liberal former presidential candidate had been called in as a last-minute replacement for moderate Louisiana Sen. Mary Landrieu. Landrieu was dropped as keynoter this week because party activists were upset by her refusal to commit to blocking a Republican filibuster of health care overhaul legislation.
While Landrieu was the target of behind-the-scenes grumbling, Kucinich sparked public revolt.
State Rep. Kevin Rader, D-Delray Beach, said Friday he was withdrawing his pledge to buy a $1,500 table for the dinner and would encourage other Democrats to boycott the event because of Kucinich's record on Israel.
State Sen. Ted Deutch, D-Boca Raton, who's running for the seat that U.S. Rep. Robert Wexler is vacating, called Kucinich "someone whose position on Israel stands in total opposition to the conscience of this community."
County Commissioner Burt Aaronson called the selection of Kucinich "an absolute horror" and said he would refuse to share the podium with him.
Kucinich has opposed sanctions against the anti-Israel government of Iran. In January, he was one of only five House members to vote against a resolution condemning Hamas rocket attacks on Israel and reaffirming Israel's "right to act in self-defense to protect its citizens against Hamas's unceasing aggression."
Kucinich said Friday in an e-mail to county Democratic Chairman Mark Alan Siegel that he supports the Jewish state and its right to defend itself and said his critics are "falsely characterizing me as 'anti-Israel.' "
But Kucinich said he did not want the controversy surrounding him to hinder the party's ability to raise money, so he would "humbly withdraw."
Siegel said the decision to invite Kucinich was made by a "leadership circle" of about 20 people and no one raised concerns about Kucinich's record on Israel.
Siegel heard those concerns Friday.
"People feel he's anti-Israel. I don't read it that way, but the leadership of AIPAC (the American Israel Public Affairs Committee) and other elements of the Jewish community do and I don't want to get into an argument with them," said Siegel, who is Jewish.
Siegel said he doesn't know who the party will get as a keynote speaker for the dinner, which is scheduled for Nov. 14 at the Palm Beach County Convention Center.
The event has traditionally been called the Jefferson-Jackson dinner, but the name was changed this year to the Truman-Kennedy-Johnson dinner because of qualms among party activists about Thomas Jefferson's slave ownership and Andrew Jackson's Indian-removal policies.
Siegel said the nixing of two keynote speakers this week shows party leaders are listening to the concerns of Democrats.
"In both cases, the same thing happened," Siegel said. "We responded to complaints from important elements of our constituency and neither one of them is speaking."
© 2009 South Florida Sun-Sentinel
the Apartheid Wall
| Twenty years ago today the Berlin Wall fell. Now, join human rights advocates around the world in calling for an end to Israel's apartheid wall. Israel's wall is approximately three times longer than the Berlin Wall, with concrete, razor wire, and a no-man's-land stretching over 400 miles, often confiscating Palestinian land miles past the "Green Line" in the West Bank. In some places the wall is a 25 foot tall concrete monster complete with guard towers. This is the wall that completely surrounds the Palestinian city of Qalqiliya, and is also common in Jerusalem, where it ghettoizes Bethlehem, and stops streets short in neighborhoods like Abu Dis. The other common form that the wall takes is a 230-330 foot wide "buffer zone" that includes a maze of trenches, patrol roads, razor wire, and high-tech surveillance equipment. In either case, the wall is built almost entirely on confiscated Palestinian land. In many places, preparation for the wall includes the Israeli military demolishing Palestinian homes and uprooting orchards that have been in tended by Palestinians for centuries. In 2004, the International Court of Justice declared Israel's apartheid wall illegal due to the fact that is built on confiscated Palestinian land. | Tell Caterpillar that complicity in Israel's wall is criminal
|
| Tell the media that all walls must fall
| |
| Educate your community with our stop the wall resources
|
Many U.S. based corporations, including Caterpillar are profiting from Israel's immoral and illegal wall. Caterpillar directly profits from CAT equipment being used to demolish Palestinian homes and orchards in the path of the wall and in the actual construction of the wall. The picture to the left shows specialized CAT machinery laying razor wire along a portion of the wall. Click here to demand an end to Caterpillar's support for Israel's apartheid wall.
Spread the Word
Get the message out that Israel's wall must also fall by participating in our media day of action! We're coordinating a day of blogging, writing letters to the editor and op-ed pieces about Israel's wall. Today's newspapers will be filled with articles commemorating the fall of the Berlin Wall, which gives us a great opportunity to write letters to the editor to draw connections between the Berlin Wall and Israel's apartheid wall. Click here to access our media toolkit for tips and resources on how to take action. You can also click here to join our Twitter action today!
There are many other ways to educate your community about the need to bring down Israel's apartheid wall. This week is the 7th annual week of action against the apartheid wall. Click here to use our stop the wall resources to organize a film screening, vigil, or teach-in in your community. Check our calendar for events across the country.
US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation
A group of Palestinians from the popular committees down a part of the Apartheid Wall separating occupied East Jerusaelm from the rest of the West Bank.
http://www.bilin-ffj.org/
content&
On Monday 9 November a hundred Palestinians waving Palestinain flags and wearing florecent jackets saying "WE ARE GOING TO JERUSALEM" took down a peice of the concrete wall near the Kalandia airport.
The fallowing leaflet was distributed by a group of Palestinians who tore down the Wall near Jerusalem:
On 9 November 1989 the world witnessed the moment of the demolition of the Berlin Wall. Similarly, at this moment, twenty years later, a group of Palestinians have demolished part of the Apartheid Wall around Jerusalem. Jerusalem, that bleeds every day... Jerusalem who's children are homeless under the rain. These young boys and girls who were promised by the martyr president Yaser Arafat that they would raise the Palestinian flag on the churches and mosques of Jerusalem. Mosques and churches who's sanctity is defiled while we passively wait for salvation unaware that the responsibility lies with each and every one of us.
Rebuilding popular resistance is essential for Jerusalem and Palestine.
In this event we are calling for a return to the achievements of the popular uprising that began on 9 December 1987. This year, on 9 December, we are calling on people to move en masse towards Jerusalem.
We are calling for the formation of a unified national leadership to lead a mass popular uprising of which all the Palestinian people, groups and political factions are a part of. This popular uprising will be pro-active and innovative with a strategy to mobilize international support for the justice of our cause, as a way out of the current political impasse. We will use this support to create international pressure to end the occupation, and establish an independent Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital, and to restore unity amongst our people, from the West Bank to Gaza.
Thank you for you continued support,
Iyad Burnat- Head of Popular Commitee in Bilin
co-founder of Friends of Freedom and Justice - Bilin
Email- bel3in@yahoo.com
Mobile- (00972) (0) 547847942
Office- (00972) (2) 2489129
Mobile- (00972) (0) 598403676
www.bilin-ffj.org
By Eileen Fleming
09 November, 2009
WeAreWideAwake.org
[Bil'in, West Bank] Twenty years ago on Nov. 9, the Berlin Wall came crashing down due to the build up of pressures exerted by the Solidarity movement demanding freedom at the time of the demise of Communism. The fall of the Berlin Wall symbolically portrayed the end of the Cold War and proved that walls cannot keep people apart. The Berlin Wall was twenty-seven miles of rolls of barbed wire augmented with a high concrete barrier and watchtowers, floodlights, and a no man's land. A few scaled over, some tunneled below and 136 East Germans died trying to cross it.
A wall twice as high and five times as long as the one that fell in Berlin, is close to completion in the West Bank. One of the chants I learned during one of my four visits to the agricultural village of Bilin, was "The wall will fall in Bilin; the wall will fall like in Berlin".
In Bilin, the Green Line is five miles from the separation barrier and for the last five years every Friday afternoon after prayers at the mosque, Palestinians and growing numbers of Israelis and Internationals have been waging a nonviolent solidarity march in resistance to the route of the construction of Israel's Wall-which in Bilin is twenty feet high of wire fencing that denies the farmers access to their olive groves.
For the last five years of Friday's, locals, internationals and Israelis of conscience endure tear gas, rubber bullets, sound bombs and other means of 'crowd dispersal' inflicted upon them by Israeli forces in ever escalating force.
During my initial visit in 2006, the Israeli forces targeted only the activists who ran down the hill along side of the fence, but in June 2009, just as the front of the crowd neared the area of descent, another gate and more barbed wire had been erected in front of it and the Israeli forces assaulted us immediately with tear gas as we approached.
On Nov. 4, 2009, Richard Boudreaux, correspondent for the LA Times, reported from Bilin:
"Every Friday Mohammed Khatib's forces assemble for battle with the Israeli army and gather their weapons: a bullhorn, banners -- and a fierce belief that peaceful protest can bring about a Palestinian state.
"His message is a hard sell: Khatib, 35, is a modern-day Gandhi…And the risks of his activism are enormous…The Israeli army has targeted him. He was arrested, severely beaten and threatened with death during a series of midnight raids on the village this summer. He was freed on condition that he report to an Israeli police station each Friday at the hour of the weekly protest." [1]
Bilin's Israeli attorney, Michael Sfard, credits Khatib with the inspired idea to erect under cover of dark a clandestine 10X10 brick edifice just yards from where 700 upscale Jewish only apartments were being built on Palestinian land and which I photographed in January 2006:
I learned then from Iyad Bornat, Head of the Popular Committee, "A few weeks ago we brought in a caravan [house trailer] on our land close to where the settler's apartments are being built. While we were inside the Israeli Forces sawed the door open and pulled us out and roughed us up. So, we brought in another caravan and during the night we built a concrete brick building within four hours to resist the wall and occupation. People come and go; they are from all over the world. They support our nonviolently resisting the wall that is clearly stealing our land. This wall and the Israeli forces are not allowing us onto our land to care for our olive trees. They confiscated our land and impose military law upon us and claim we are trespassing on our legally owned land."
Abdullah, the Coordinator of Against The Wall in Billin informed me that as of January 2006, 1,600 residents of Billin who legally own 4,000 dunums of property had 2,003 dunums of it confiscated by Israel to build the Jewish only apartments upon which Palestinians are not even allowed to approach.
During my visit I spoke with a few of the two dozen Israelis and Internationals who were maintaining a presence for days or weeks at a stretch, such as a twenty year old from Indiana who was studying Middle East Foreign Policy in Jerusalem and had spent her weekends at the outpost in Bilin since it was constructed. A twenty year old from New York told me, "We are fighting an important struggle. If America would only learn the truth about what is happening here, they would stop their blind support of the Israeli government that denies people basic human rights."
An Israeli activist said, "This cause is very important to me because this is the only way to struggle. This is our only chance to bring back the popular Intifada: a chance for women and children to nonviolently resist the wall and occupation."
A member of the Popular Committee in Bilin who taught Social Work and Psychology at El Quds Open University, told me that he was shot and jailed for two weeks because of his nonviolent resistant activities, "The Judge said he would investigate the soldier who shot me, but the soldier lied and denied he shot and the matter was quickly forgotten by the Israelis.
"Three weeks ago we could not come in here, but when the court admitted the settlement buildings were illegal we put the caravan on the property and when the IDF destroyed that, we built this room. Ever since, more and more Israelis, Lawyers, Sheiks, women and children come and stand with us in solidarity for human rights. Rachel Corrie's family has been here too."
The outpost was demolished long ago and the village has now worked their case through Municipal to the Israeli Supreme Court and both ordered Israel to stop the building, to move the fence and restore about half of the 575 acres of olive groves back to the Bilin's farmers; but construction has not ceased.
On November 6, 2009, Iyad Burnat, wrote:
Bil'in Remembers Berlin
On the twentieth anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, two hundred internationals traveled from the US, UK, Ireland, Italy, Spain and Belgium to join the weekly peaceful demonstration in Bil'in.
Each Friday, Palestinians from the village of Bil'in are joined by hundreds of internationals and Israelis protesting the apartheid wall which annexes Palestinian land.
Iyad Bornat, said "the twelve metre polystyrene wall", which was made and carried by the residents of Bil'in, "was carried from the mosque in the centre of the village and placed on the other side of the fence, with the hope that the Israeli soldiers would remove it."
As demonstrators chanted 'We want peace, without occupation, without settlements, without the wall', four soldiers entered the no mans land between the double fence and dismantled the polystyrene wall which displayed the message "Berlin 1989, Palestine ?".
Victorious cheers from protestors were met by a bombardment of tear gas and sound bombs fired by Israeli soldiers from a military vehicle.
Local boys known as 'shabab' got close to the fence and flying the Palestinian flag were able to remove an equal amount of fence with a set of bolt cutters.
A choir of twelve traveled from Belgium to act in support of the Palestinians in this region. Undeterred by the tear gas and holding an EU flag their songs echoed through the olive tree landscape…'Tear down the wall', 'We want peace', 'Ich bin Bil'iner' were amongst the many slogans and chants…Thank you for you continued support, Iyad Burnat, Head of the Popular Committee in Bilin and a co-founder of Friends of Freedom and Justice in Bilin
www.bilin-ffj.org
"Just as a simple man named Gandhi led the successful non-violent struggle in India and simple people such as Rosa Parks and Nelson Mandela led the struggle for civil rights in the United States, simple people here in Bil’in are leading a non-violent struggle that will bring them their freedom. The South Africa experience proves that injustice can be dismantled."- Archbishop Desmond Tutu, after visiting Bil’in, August, 2009.
"The wall will fall in Bilin; the wall will fall like in Berlin."
Eileen Fleming,
Founder of WeAreWideAwake.org
A Feature Correspondent for Arabisto.com
Author of "Keep Hope Alive" and "Memoirs of a Nice Irish American 'Girl's' Life in Occupied Territory" Producer "30 Minutes with Vanunu" and "13 Minutes with Vanunu"
PA warns of violence
if Israeli constructions continue
| |
| Acting Palestinian Authority Chief Mahmoud Abbas (R) and his spokesman Nabil Abu Rudeina |
The Palestinian Authority has warned of an inevitable violence in the region, should the US fail to force Israel into halting settlement activity on the occupied lands.
"If America remains unable to assume its required role, there will be a destructive effect for which Israel and the United States will be held responsible," spokesman Nabil Abu Rudeina told AFP on Monday.
The Palestinians have repeatedly said they will not resume peace talks, unless Washington convinces Israel to completely halt the construction of settlements on the occupied West Bank.
They have also insisted on a clear framework for the talks and a timetable for the establishment of an independent Palestinian state in the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, and East Jerusalem Al-Quds, which was occupied by Israel in 1967.
"Violence will rush in to fill the void left by the failure of efforts to re-launch the peace process, if the US administration does not hurry up and exert pressure on the Israeli government," Rudeina added.
"The peace process has hit a dead-end because of Israel's intransigence and its insistence on a policy of colonization," he said.
The remarks were made hours before Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was to meet with US President Barack Obama in Washington.
Netanyahu, who says he is willing to resume peace talks with the Palestinians, has so far refused the US demands for a freeze of settlement activities.
He, instead, offers a set of proposals for settlement limits that falls short of a complete halt.
SB/MMN
Video: Witness - Ramallah TV
AljazeeraEnglish
|
Video: Jaffa threatens upheaval for Palestinians
AljazeeraEnglish
|
 |
| A recent report found that 91.4 percent of children in the Gaza Strip suffer moderate to severe symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder. (Wissam Nassar/MaanImages) |
More than 40 years of Israeli military occupation have had a devastating impact on Palestinians in Gaza. Air strikes, artillery shelling, ground invasions, jet flybys and other acts of violence have all led to an epidemic of suffering among Gaza's most vulnerable inhabitants. The most recent studies indicate that the vast majority of Gaza's children exhibit symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
Soon after the Israeli winter assault, a group of scholars at the University of Washington discussed different aspects of the situation in Gaza and the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT). Dr. Evan Kanter, a UW School of Medicine professor and the current president of Physicians for Social Responsibility, delivered a somber talk describing the mental health situation among Gaza's population. The numbers he cited described a staggering level of psychological trauma.
Dr. Kanter described studies that revealed 62 percent of Gaza's inhabitants reported having a family member injured or killed, 67 percent saw injured or dead strangers and 83 percent had witnessed shootings.
According to Dr. Kanter, in a study of high school-aged children from southern refugee camps in Rafah and Khan Younis, 69 percent of the children showed symptoms of PTSD, 40 percent showed signs of moderate or severe depression, and a staggering 95 percent exhibited severe anxiety. Meanwhile, 75 percent showed limited or no ability to cope with their trauma. All of this was before the last Israeli invasion.
Dr. Eyad El-Sarraj, head of the Gaza Community Mental Health Programme, and whom Dr. Kanter described as a "medical hero" working under seemingly impossible conditions, has produced "some of the best research in the world on the impact of war on civilian populations." In a 2002 interview he said that 54 percent of children in Gaza had symptoms of PTSD, along with 30 percent of adults. The hardest hit were young ones who had their homes bulldozed or who lost loved ones like their mothers, he said. Again, these figures were obtained well before conditions dramatically deteriorated.
Gaza's population is overwhelmingly young. About 45 percent of the population are 14 years old or younger and roughly 60 percent are 19 years and younger. The long-term effects of constant violence and PTSD on such a young population are incalculable.
A recent study by international researchers and the Gaza Community Mental Health Programme entitled "War on Gaza survey study" reveals more worrying figures. Of a representative sample of children in Gaza, more than 95 percent experienced artillery shelling in their area or sonic booms of low-flying jets. Moreover, 94 percent recalled seeing mutilated corpses on TV and 93 percent witnessed the effects of aerial bombardments on the ground. More than 70 percent of children in Gaza said they lacked water, food and electricity during the most recent attacks, and a similar percentage said they had to flee to safety during the recent attacks.
In addition, 98.7 percent of the traumatized children reported that they did not feel safe in their homes. More than 95 percent of the children felt that they were unable to protect themselves or their family members, causing a feeling of utter powerlessness that is compounded by a sense of loss over unfulfilled lives.
A whole generation is being lost to the horrors of large-scale military violence and a brutal occupation. In front of many distraught members in the audience, Dr. Kanter described a study that showed that witnessing severe military violence results in more aggression and antisocial behavior among children, along with the "enjoyment of aggression." There are similar studies among Israeli children who witness violent attacks.
PTSD, Dr. Kanter explained, is an "engine that perpetuates violent conflict." It leads to three characteristic symptoms. First, individuals re-experience the traumatic events in the form of the nightmares, debilitating flashbacks and terrifying memories that haunt individuals for years afterwards. Second, other individuals may develop avoidance symptoms in which they become isolated and emotionally numb, deadened to the world around them. Third, individuals have symptoms of hyper arousal, which may lead to excessive anger, insomnia, self-destructive behavior and a hyper-vigilant state of mind. Other maladies like poor social functioning, depression, suicidal thoughts, a lack of trust and family violence are all associated with PTSD.
The most recent study, "Trauma, grief and PTSD in Palestinian children victims for war on Gaza" by the Gaza Community Mental Health Programme, revealed that in the aftermath of the winter assault on Gaza, an unbelievable 91.4 percent of children in Gaza displayed symptoms of moderate to very severe PTSD. Meanwhile, only about one percent of the children showed no signs of PTSD.
The outlook for children in Gaza suffering from these symptoms is not optimistic. Whereas soldiers who experience traumatic events in a war zone can return home to relative calm and seek treatment, the people of Gaza continue to be held in what one Israeli human rights group labeled the "largest prison on Earth"-- a methodically "de-developed" island isolated from the rest of the world.
One of the most distressing prospects for peace are studies of similar war-torn populations like Kosovo and Afghanistan that showed that military violence often leads to widespread feelings of hatred and the simmering urge for revenge. One can easily predict the future consequences of a large number of young people exposed to this level of trauma.
In an op-ed published during Israel's winter invasion Dr. Eyad El-Sarraj warned that "Palestinian children in the first intifada 20 years ago threw stones at Israeli tanks trying to wrest freedom from Israeli military occupation. Some of those children grew up to become suicide bombers in the second intifada 10 years later. It does not take much to imagine the serious changes that will befall today's children."
"The breakdown of an entire society is happening in front of us," Harvard political economist Sara Roy warned in July. Many share Roy's feeling that "what looms is no less than the loss of entire generation of Palestinians," which she fears may have occurred already.
This will be the enduring legacy of the Israeli occupation.
Aditya Ganapathiraju is a student, independent writer and local organizer. He lives in the Seattle area and works on Palestine and other social justice issues.
I have been working around the clock in the past month to get stopthewall.org.il to work with a new design and interface.
I am inviting you all to have a look at it. If you have any comments, please feel free to email me back. Although the site is in English at this point, I am working on having it available in other languages. Your help is appreciated. :)
Finally, I would like to mention that anyone is welcome to volunteer to post stuff about the wall, settlement, nonviolence, peace and justice, or anything related to the website Just contact me and I will be happy to create you a user account.
Thank you all for your constant support for the nonviolent campaign against the wall and the settlements.
In Solidarity.
Raad Amer
Graduate Program in Conflict Transformation
Center for Justice and Peacebuliding
Eastern Mennonite University
1200 Park Rd
Harrisonburg, VA 22802
http://www.emu.edu/cjp/grad/
0 Have Your Say!:
Post a Comment