End the Occupation

American Muslims for Palestine, a coalition member of the US Campaign, held its 4th annual national conference outside of Chicago. US Campaign National Organizer Anna Baltzer, along with independent journalists Max Blumenthal, worked with student attendees to strategize for more effective campus activism.

National Organizer Anna Baltzer reports on initiatives around the country to mark the international week of action against Israel's Apartheid Wall.

Now that Palestine has become a full member of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) after an exuberant 107-14 vote in its favor, two obscure sections of U.S. law may force the United States to rethink whether its unconditional support of Israel is in its best interests.

Our National Organizer was interviewed on KPFK in Southern California about the divestment campaign on TIAA-CREF.

Our National Advocacy Director was interviewed on Radioactivity, a call-in talk show in Tampa, FL, about Palestinian bids for statehood at the United Nations and Mahmoud Abbas' refusal to continue participating in a rigged game designed to preserve Israel's leeway to continue its illegal colonization of Palestinian land. He appeared in the second half of the show as a counter-narrative to fellow guest Ken Bandler of the American Jewish Committee.

For the occasion of the US Campaign's 10th anniversary, an article in this Arabic-language, Pan-Arabist, Lebanese daily newspaper quotes the US Campaign's Nadia Hijab, Phyllis Bennis and Josh Ruebner about the organization's evolution from September 2001 to the present, and how the Arab Spring has fundamentally changed the scene in which organizers are working to end U.S. support for Israel's undemocratic and illegal treatment of Palestinians.

Due to pressure from social justice groups across the country, the National Building Museum has canceled a public award ceremony to present Caterpillar Inc. with the 2011 Henry C. Turner Prize. The US Campaign is among several organizations behind a petition and letter writing campaign urging the National Building Museum to rescind its award to Caterpillar.

In this letter to the editor of a daily newspaper in Florida Josh Ruebner calls out U.S. Representative Allen West for claiming to help cut federal spending while spending part of his August recess on an Israel junket designed to increase U.S. spending on weapons to Israel.

Neoconservative Michael Rubin (formerly of the American Enterprise Institute) blames President Obama's alleged Israel-bashing on his "close confidante" relationship with US Campaign Advisory Board Member Rashid Khalidi, who is Edward Said Professor of Arab Studies at Columbia University. Despite Dr. Khalidi actually having no such relationship with the President, we think Khalidi would be proud of the association nonetheless -- not with alleged Israel-bashing, nor Obama's miserably failed Middle East policy, but with the swelling movement to overturn U.S. support the brutal and illegal Israeli policies that Rubin stands for.

Apologists for Israeli occupation and apartheid claim that advocates for holding Israel accountable for its human rights abuses of Palestinians are "holding Israel to a higher standard than other countries." Ironically, they also claim that U.S. military aid to Israel is sacrosanct and cannot be questioned due to the "special U.S.-Israeli relationship." Dan Carle, a spokesperson for Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), has noted correctly that you cannot have your cake and eat it too.

"If you've been trying to find your Member of Congress, you might want to try Jerusalem." National Advocacy Director Josh Ruebner was interviewed on WBAI's "TalkBack!" about the 81 Members of Congress headed to Israel for summer propaganda tours designed to persuade them to increase weapons transfers and other U.S. spending on behalf of the Israeli military.

As the U.S. prepares to cut government spending, Israel is preparing to welcome 81 members of Congress for a weeklong visit sponsored by the American Israel Education Fund, a nonprofit affiliate of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). The US Campaign is requesting people to call their representatives to find out if they will be participating in this trip and request that they refrain.

WAFA reports on our delivery to the US State Department an open letter signed by more than 125 groups and 25,000 people urging the Obama Administration not to veto Palestinian UN membership if the issue arises in the Security Council.

The newspaper reports that the US Campaign has endorsed an international weapons embargo on Israel along with Archbishop Desmond Tutu and many others. The embargo has been called for by the Palestinian Boycott National Committee (BNC).

The publication interviewed National Advocacy Director Josh Ruebner and published a basic profile of the US Campaign, its makeup and future direction, as well as that of the boycott-divestment-sanctions movement in the U.S.

The news service runs our July 19 media release announcing the launch of an open letter calling on the Obama Administration not to veto Palestine's United Nations membership application in the Security Council.

The website of the Palestinian Boycott National Committee (BNC) reports on the US Campaign's support for the BNC's new campaign for a global military embargo against Israel, just launched today, and specifically on our new U.S. city councils initiative at fundcommunityneeds.org.

Our National Advocacy Director was interviewed on WZBC in Boston about the current status of the Gaza Freedom Flotilla II--"Stay Human," and the reasons for its mission.

Mondoweiss cites a US Campaign media release, reporting that 101 organizations of Palestinians, Israelis, Muslim-Americans, African-Americans, Jewish Americans and others have signed a letter thanking the Los Angeles Lakers legend for declining to attend the festival.

EI reports on an announcement from our National Organizer, Anna Baltzer, that Abdul-Jabbar has decided not to visit Israel, due to concerns arising "after the Nakba Day violence."

US Campaign National Advocacy Director Josh Ruebner was the guest on this edition of the Bob Tuskin Show, discussing Israel's lethal response to Palestinian refugees who protested along its borders in their recent commemoration of 44 years of their dispossession since the military occupation of the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem.

In a wrap-up of activities during AIPAC's annual convention and the concurrent "Move Over AIPAC" conference, Rubin mentions the 75 people who attended a lobbying workshop by our National Advocacy Director, Josh Ruebner, one day before visiting the offices of their congressional representatives to demand an end to U.S. military aid to Israel.

In her article about her violent treatment while disrupting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's address to Congresss on May 24, Abileah mentions the US Campaign and other organizations taking "action to support human rights and a just peace for Palestinians."

Our National Advocacy Director was interviewed on Caravan, a radio magazine for Montreal's Arab and Muslim communities, about Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's speech this week before a joint meeting of the U.S. Congress, and the background influence of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC).

Commenting on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's May 24 address to Congress, our National Advocacy Director writes: "In a world in which Israel finds itself as isolated as ever by a ... movement of boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) against its apartheid policies ... Netanyahu can still play the ace up his sleeve to aplomb and then chum around like the king of the castle."

"For all of President Obama's repeated insistence that the status quo in Israeli-Palestinian relations is unsustainable, recent developments make clear that his administration has no new ideas or strategies to achieve a breakthrough toward peace," writes our National Advocacy Director.

Our National Advocacy Director writes: "The United States cannot continue to decry violent repression by governments against individuals acting to assert their fundamental human rights while continuing to provide Israel with the means ... to continue its human rights abuses of Palestinians."

US Campaign National Organizer Anna Baltzer was one of two guests on this segment of Adam vs. The Man, discussing latest events on the ground in Palestine, around the 63rd anniversary commemoration of the Nakba.

Fleming, who is with US Campaign member group "We Are Wide Awake," in her reflections on the 63rd anniversary commemoration of the Nakba, recalls our 2008 competition to express the Palestinian narrative through visual arts, poetry, essays, music, video and digital media (still viewable at www.expressionsofnakba.org) in which she received honorable mention.

Barghouti writes: "...one cannot but highly admire the courage, creativity and resilience of human rights and advocacy groups in the U.S., like CodePink, the US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation, Jewish Voice for Peace and many others that insist on challenging AIPAC..."

On the occasion of Portland's 2011 annual Nakba rally, KBOO interviewed our National Advocacy Director about U.S. military aid to Israel, what the US Campaign is doing about it, and what others can do by attending the "Move Over AIPAC" conference May 21-24 in Washington, DC.

Our National Advocacy Director says U.S. weapons transfers create perverse economic incentives for Israel to defy U.S. policy goals, such as halting Israel's colonization of Palestinian land, ending its collective punishment of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, and negotiating a lasting peace agreement in good faith.

Until now the extent of U.S. weapons transferred to Israel, and their direct relationship to Israel's killing of Palestinian civilians, have been difficult to detail. This article introduces our new web site -- "How Many Weapons to Israel?" -- which catalogues and quantifies the types, values, and quantities of U.S. weapons transferred to Israel between 2000-2009.

Hear our National Advocacy Director interviewed for five minutes about Israeli military misuse of U.S.-provided weapons, plus the resulting financial strain on U.S. communities, plus our Tax Day 2011 launch of our awesome new online resource, weaponstoisrael.org.

Chicago's, Radio Islam interviewed our National Advocacy Director for 25 minutes on U.S. military aid to Israel.

While members of Congress and the Obama administration wrestle over painful budget cuts, military aid to Israel is about the only expenditure safe from the chopping block. To highlight the extent of this aid, and its often tragic human consequences for Palestinians and others, our resource weaponstoisrael.org was launched to coincide with Tax Day. On this hour-long show, Amer Shurrab, a Palestinian from the Gaza Strip, Emily Henochowicz, a student injured by an Israeli military gas canister, and Josh Ruebner, our National Advocacy Director, discuss the context for this new resource.

Here's a letter to the editor by US Campaign staff member Mike Coogan, speaking on behalf of only one of the hundreds of congressional districts throughout the United States that are losing money they "don't have" for a military occupation that is claimed by Republican Congressman Eric Cantor to not exist.

Chernus points to the US Campaign for the second time this month, leading readers to our online tax mapping tool, AidToIsrael.org, and citing our figure of $21.59, what the average U.S. taxpayer will contribute in military aid to Israel in 2011, now that Barack Obama has nearly succeeded in upping the ante of Israel aid set forth by George W. Bush. Obama has only to get final approval from Congress, which has consistently rubber-stamped U.S.-Israel military aid for a long time, as a matter of course.

Suggesting that Palestinians are economically better off under Israeli military occupation, as were black South Africans under Apartheid, Mr. Tooley bashes "Religious Left" organizations that have endorsed the global nonviolent campaign of boycott, divestment and sanctions to end Israeli occupation and apartheid instead of decrying widespread Arab despotism -- organizations that are among the US Campaign's 325-strong coalition -- and erroneously identifies the Kairos Palestine document as calling for the end of Israel.

Israel's policies appear increasingly retrograde to our National Advocacy Director as pro-democracy and freedom movements sweep the Middle East.

Chernus mentions the US Campaign as one of several U.S. organizations who are unafraid to challenge the U.S. mainstream Jewish community's myths about Israel, and don't bother getting into discussions about Israeli insecurity, but instead work at educating the public about Israel's violence and human rights abuses upon Palestinian civilians.

An announcement about David Wildman, US Campaign Steering Committee Member and Executive Secretary for Human Rights and Racial Justice for the United Methodist Church General Board of Global Ministries, speaking about current issues and peaceful solutions such as product boycotts.

When U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice thrust a solitary American arm into the air to cast the Obama Administration’s first-ever Security Council veto in defense of Israel's illegal settlements, the United States regrettably placed itself squarely on the wrong side of history as movements for freedom and democracy revolutionize the Middle East.

Press TV reports on our February 2011 petition to the Obama Administration, asking it not to veto an upcoming UN Security Council Resolution condemning Israel settlements.

In its "weekly roundup of progressive activism that the mainstream media ignores, undercovers, or misrepresents," Uprising Radio cited the new campaign on Combined Systems Incorporated (CSI) to stop sending its tear gas canisters to abusive regimes such as Egypt and Israel, which has been spearheaded by the US Campaign and several of its coalition member groups. (Includes audio.)

Abdul Rahman argues for portrayal of Israel's real image toward Western audiences by "groups with intellectual and organizational maturity," naming the US Campaign's coalition of more than 325 organizations (although he mistakenly puts it at 180), highlighting particularly our 2009 U.S. congressional petition to freeze U.S. assistance to Israel until it agrees to conditions that better serve U.S. interests.

Parry gives a wrap-up of presentations made at the Russel Tribunal in London last November, which included one by the US Campaign's National Advocacy Director, and which "provided compelling overviews of Israel's massive military industry and the role of Western-based companies—some subsidiaries of Israeli companies—in supplying or purchasing components and technology in violation of international law."

Mellen reports on new advocates in Congress for cutting U.S. military aid to Israel, mentioning that the US Campaign recently published data showing that the $3 billion the US sends to Israel every year could be used instead to retrain 498,000 workers for green jobs or to provide access to primary health-care services for more than 24 million uninsured US citizens.

The US Campaign's Josh Ruebner writes: "Don't lament the end of negotiations that put Israeli demands, backed almost unconditionally by the U.S. and at the expense of basic Palestinian rights, first and foremost."

Our National Advocacy Director cites the Israeli military's January 1 killing of Palestinian nonviolent demonstrator Jawaher Abu Rahmah as cause for U.S. activists to take immediate action against the Jamestown, PA, company whose tear gas products have killed two members of the Abu Rahmah Family, and ironically are marketed at the website: www.less-lethal.com.

Tuhus interviews the US Campaign's Communications Director on nonviolent protest in the West Bank, the Israeli military's killing of Jawaher Abu Rahmah on January 1 in Bil'in, and actions within the U.S. peace and justice movement to stop tear gas and other weapons transfers to Israel, and to hold accountable such companies as Combines Systems, Inc., which manufactures the tear gas canisters used lethally by the Israeli military. (Includes audio.)

While reporting on various recent ad campaign controversies around the U.S., around U.S. military aid to Israel, this article also hearkens back to 2007, when the US Campaign placed advertisements in the Washington, D.C., Metro featuring a Palestinian child facing an Israeli tank. The opposing group StandWithUs had responded by posting its own ads right beside ours.

In this article our National Advocacy Director, Josh Ruebner, writes: "If the United States actually were to take [the Universal Declaration of Human Rights] as the basis for a revamped strategy to achieve Israeli-Palestinian peace, then it would face greater odds of success than its current strategy of sublimating Israeli accountability and Palestinian rights to the demands of a fruitless 'peace process.'"

Chernus writes: "When enough of us demand that our own government assert itself to end the long-standing injustice in the Middle East, we will make it politically safe for the president to do just that, and we can feel proud."

Here are 10 minutes of excerpts from our steering committee member Phyllis Bennis' three-hour appearance on C-Span2's monthly literary call-in program, Book TV. These selections from her broad discussion of US foreign policy on Book TV pertain exclusively to the US role in the Israel-Palestinian conflict.