JWPF Supports Rev. Pinkney

Four members of Jewish Witnesses for Peace and Friends traveled to Benton Harbor, Michigan to witness part of the 6-day trial of our friend and supporter, Rev. Ed Pinkney. He has been waging a decade-long campaign against corruption, corporate control, and an attempt to gentrify his town, which is 96% Black. For his efforts to recall Mayor James Hightower from office for his collaboration with corporate interests, Ed – himself black – was found guilty by an all-White 12-member jury guilty of making changes to the dates on recall petitions he helped circulate.

The evidence presented by Prosecutor Mike Sepic, however, seemed to play more into the hands of the defendant than for the “People”: a Michigan State Police forensic expert testified that while chemical analysis showed that changes to petitions were made, sometimes with different ink, he could not determine when these changes were made or by whom. Rejecting the jury’s decision, Ed writes “Rev Pinkney will not accept the verdict by an all white jury, who were motivated by something other than the truth.” See the press release from BANCO (Black Autonomy Network Community Organization) here, and an excellent news article here.

Politically Correct Commissars – Part Deux

Our last report detailed our friend Michael’s run-in with those politically correct and oh-so-sensitive leaders who determined that his sign “Jews killed thousands (in Gaza)” was so “offensive” that they had him jostled and his sign snatched and destroyed. This week we encountered another Jewish activist, David Smokler of Detroit, who went from nice guy to name caller in less than two minutes. We encountered him at a lunch break during Ed Pinkney’s trial, and responded to his questions re: my “End ‘Israel'” hat. Asked does Israel have a right to exist as a Jewish state, he muddled an answer, but drew the line about suggestions of Jewish power in media, banking, and Hollywood and blamed US imperialism as the force behind the Jewish state’s aggressiveness. When asked to produce a single US governmental document that supported the creation and/or maintenance of a Jewish state in Palestine as part of US interests, I was labeled “narrow” and “xenophobic”, although in 68 years I’ve yet to express any fear of the end of the alphabet (or of Xenia, Ohio for that matter.)

The irony in this brief conversation was that he writes for a publication called The People’s Tribune whose editorial staff features Sandra Reid, who promised this writer no coverage of Palestine (yet alone Israel’s crimes, nor massive Jewish support for same) in the paper. So while Smokler (himself a contributing writer to the Tribune) denied Jewish control or domination in the media, he and Sandra present as prima facie evidence of such control. If it walks like a duck …

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