Great Turnout

JWPF would like to thank some wonderful people who pushed our attendance to fifteen on the 2nd annual Eat-a-Cheeseburger Day on October 8. Our Team Statistician informs us that the last time we put 15 vigilers on Washtenaw Avenue was August 13, 2005, and said we should take pride in a group which has showed remarkable steadfastness in the face of daunting Jewish political power.

This writer concluded the day’s work with a tasty cheeseburger in the company of a good friend and Palestinian Muslim, who was driven from his home in Nablus in 1967. If you’d like to share your own personal story of how you consumed a cheeseburger in honor of Bill Henry, we’d be delighted to hear from you. Please include your location at the time of consumption.

Gotta Love Cynthia McKinney

Two members of JWPF attended a formal dinner reception and fund raiser for the Benton Harbor (Michigan) Chapter of the NAACP, headed by our good friends, supporters and vigilers Ed and Dorothy Pinkney. Cynthia McKinney provided the keynote address, and pulled no punches as she challenged another speaker’s assertion that a Johns Hopkins report showed no relationship to a person’s color and the medical treatment he/she received. Ms. McKinney also addressed the incredible resolve of Palestinians and Libyans as they withstand barrages of military might from the Jewish State and its patsies in the US government. She told of being kidnapped by the military of the Jewish state and of a letter she wrote “from an Israeli prison” to her compatriots, similar to Martin Luther King’s “Letter from a Birmingham Jail”.

Will her comments about the crimes of the Jewish state be printed in the next issue of The People’s Tribune? This writer once again approached PT editor Sandy Reid – who was present and reiterated her newspaper’s commitment to local issues – and asked whether this local address, including comments critical of Israel, would be published. “We’ve had this conversation before, and you should read our mission statement” was her terse reply. So we must wait and see if these local comments about a pressing issue of human rights get published.

We detailed this blatant refusal to cover Israeli crimes in our vigil report of January 7, 2010, and invite readers to review it. Ms. Reid appears to remain in the pockets of Jewish power, and we hope to stand corrected upon reading the next issue of The People’s Tribune.

Reminder: October 30th : Protest the Jewish Federation fund raiser at Washtenaw Community College’s Morris Lawrence Building, 4800 East Huron River Drive, Ann Arbor, MI 48105. Time tentatively set for 4:00 pm.

No Jewish State
Henry Herskovitz
Jewish Witnesses for Peace and Friends

Comments? https://blog.deiryassin.org/2011/10/08/report-on-beth-israel-vigil-10-08-11/

JWPF at City Council

This writer’s three-minute address presented to the Ann Arbor City Council this week on the topic of “Israel’s Legitimacy Questioned”, was covered by Dave Askins of the Ann Arbor Chronicle. Video of talk here [20:02 minutes]. Askins writes:

Comm/Comm: Palestine

Henry Herskovitz told the council he wanted to address an issue of fairness. He drew an analogy from the local city code to international politics. He noted that Ann Arbor requires a [central]-unit air conditioner to be in the rear [of the house]. If he wanted to install it on the side, he had to get support from his neighbors, he said. His neighbors’ opinions matter more, when it comes to his air conditioner, and that makes sense, he said. The opinion of someone who lives miles away, he said, should matter less.

Herskovitz continued by noting that in this summer’s edition of the Washtenaw Jewish News, Victor Lieberman appeals to the United Nations vote of 1947 to argue for the legitimacy of the state of Israel. The outcome of that vote, Herskovitz said, was 33-13, with 10 abstaining. Applying Ann Arbor’s doctrine of fairness, the votes from those countries that would be most impacted by creating a new state in that area should count for more. The group that was most impacted by the decision – Palestinians – had no vote whatsoever. He showed the council a map of the world.

Countries that voted no in 1947 included Turkey, Jordan, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Iran and Yemen. Those are neighbors to Palestine, he said, and their votes should have counted more than the votes of those far away. Countries that voted yes in 1947 included the United States, Canada, Brazil, Bolivia, Norway, Australia and New Zealand. The 1947 vote didn’t represent the interests of those people who were most impacted by the decision. The unfairness of that decision, Herskovitz concluded, undermines the claim, based on the 1947 vote, to the legitimacy of the state of Israel.

Deja vu All Over Again? Occupy This!

Are the crimes of the Jewish state being denied visibility at the “Occupy Wall Street” rallies currently being staged across the country? Did our minimal survey of New York City videos indicate the trend that we’ve seen before? Have the ABP folk (Anything But Palestine) infiltrated and minimized opposition to the longest-running genocide in modern history?

Two members of JWPF attended an “Occupy Ann Arbor” rally this week, and had it not been for our signs and t-shirts, the crimes being committed by Israel with US tax dollars would have gone completely unnoticed. And even though our presence generated positive conversations and a photograph by an AnnArbor.com photographer, that photo never saw the light of day.

One of the speakers representing the “99%” actually warned the crowd against those with “personal agendas” from “taking over” their space, causing this writer to reflect on those dark days on the steering committee of Michigan Peaceworks, when just such specious allegations were flying about. “We don’t want to play the blame game” was the cry then from Jewish leaders of that moribund organization, and they quickly eliminated their own membership after a vote revealed that 78% of members supported a document critical of Israel’s crimes.

So is it merely our personal agenda, or does the creation and maintenance of a Jewish-supremacist state planted squarely in Palestine serve as the lynch-pin connecting many of the issues being raised at theses “Occupy X” rallies? Do three trillion dollars (1956-2002) thrown at that shitty little country mean a hill of beans? How about the three wars now being waged on behalf of the Jewish state? How about the domination of our Congress, White House and Supreme Court? Dare we point out the close connection of Wall Street to over-represented Jewish wealth and influence in the banking community?

JWPF feels that the Israeli genocide of the Palestinian people is absolutely central to many of the problems plaguing our inner cities and economy. It appears that the “Occupy X” crowd – left to its current leadership – will not take on this central issue, unless we push Israeli crimes and Jewish community complicity at every opportunity.

ICPJ* Unbalance

What do you get when you pit two Jewish professors and an overloaded Palestinian on a panel to discuss Mahmoud Abbas’ request to join the United Nations? Certainly not the “provocative discussion” we were promised. And certainly no calls for Boycotts, Divestment and Sanctions were heard, despite the promise to “explore ways to work for peace in this region …”. No, this typical dog-and-pony show merely examined the bark of the tree, without stepping back to see the whole forest (i.e. What are European Jews doing in the Middle East?). Professor Steven Rattner detailed the minutiae of requirements to enter the UN, Aaron Ahuvia predictably whined about how he cared for Palestinians while openly shredding their Right of Return, and all Hani Bawardi could do was poke a hole here and there in this flood of misinformation and misdirection. Four members and associates of JWPF attended this October 6 meeting on the University of Michigan campus.

Reminder: October 30th : Protest the Jewish Federation fund raiser at Washtenaw Community College’s Morris Lawrence Building, 4800 East Huron River Drive, Ann Arbor, MI 48105. Time tentatively set for 4:00 pm.

Nine Vigilers
Go Tigers!
Henry Herskovitz
Jewish Witnesses for Peace and Friends
* – Interfaith Council for Peace and Justice

Comments? https://blog.deiryassin.org/2011/10/08/report-on-beth-israel-vigil-10-01-11/

Meet Tony Soprano, aka Barack Obama

We all know what the fictional New Jersey mob chief does to his political opponents: He kills them. Just ask his former partner Salvatore “Big Pussy” Bonpensiero, or the young Matthew Bevelaqua, two of the eight men Tony whacks during the show’s seven seasons.

Challenging this dubious record, the elected President of the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave now can claim at least three notches on his own gangster Gat. Sending Navy SEALS to liquidate Osama bin Laden for crimes in 2001 that then Secretary of State Colin Powell promised us evidence, but failed to produce any to this day, was Obama’s first notch.

Israeli newspaper Haaretz reports that our President directed the CIA and the U.S. Joint Special Operations Command to execute Anwar al-Awlaki and Samir Khan. See “Obama praises killing of American-born al-Qaida leader in Yemen“.No arrest. No trial. No legal representation. Just more gangland-styled murders. And poor James Gandolfini can only sit and watch as his kill-count gets eclipsed.

Even Haaretz is slightly outraged by these extra-legal executions:

The killing of al-Awlaki, who was born in the United States, may mark the first time that a U.S. Commander in Chief has given a public order to the country’s security forces to premeditatedly kill one of its own citizens, without access to a trial or due process under American law.

Vigiler M. reminds us that “When the President does it, that means it is not illegal.”

Liberals Give Obama an Ultimatum

Given the lackluster performance by the peace community, noted in last week’s report, we hold the Nobel Peace Prize recipient accountable in this sad saga of current events. Vigil member A posts the following graphic, depicting the visceral rage existing in the liberal community:

http://www-personal.umich.edu/~hersko/Photos/enthusiam%20for%20obama.jpg

And that brings us to a three-year-late response to our liberal Ann Arbor friends, who said that some JWPF’ers threw their votes away by casting them for Green Party candidate Cynthia McKinney in 2008. Our response is that we will most certainly not throw our votes away in 2012. You bet’cha.

Three Reminders

1. Attend the Interfaith Council for Peace and Justice’s panel discussion Thursday, Oct. 6 at 7:00pm (Fittingly, the panel is comprised of two Jews and a Palestinian) on Palestinian statehood in the Koessler Room of the Michigan League. Michigan League is located at 911 N. University Ave.

2. Vigil with us October 8th on the Second Annual Eat-a-Cheeseburger Day (aka Yom Kippur) at Beth Israel Congregation: 2000 Washtenaw Ave, Ann Arbor 48104 from 9:30-10:45AM

3. October 30th : Protest the Jewish Federation fund raiser at Washtenaw Community College’s Morris Lawrence Building, 4800 East Huron River Drive, Ann Arbor, MI 48105. Time tentatively set for 4:00 pm.

Nine Vigilers
Boycott Apartheid “Israel”
Henry Herskovitz
Jewish Witnesses for Peace and Friends

Comments? https://blog.deiryassin.org/2011/09/27/report-on-beth-israel-vigil-09-24-11/

Stop The Presses. A Retraction!

We got slightly carried away in last week’s report when we patted ourselves on the back for eight years of peaceful, consistent protest by claiming JWPF was “the only game in town”. We stand corrected. As Protester (and sometimes vigiler) L proudly informs us:

Standing in public dissent against violent, apartheid Israel and zionism takes tremendous courage. However, I’d like to mention that another protest has been taking place at 5th and Liberty St. since 4/1/06. (back in full swing since summer…). Most who take part would consider it anti-Israel, altho our signs don’t always say so. S has been present most days this summer, and her signs are always about I/P. We often distribute an article all about I/P:

The War on Terror is a Hoax
by PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS 2/4/09
counterpunch.org

We often display a sign: USRAEL BIGGEST ROGUE NATION

I believe I can speak for the growing numbers of “regulars” that we feel our effort merits being mentioned as one of the “games in town.”

We are likewise proud to share public streets with Protester L and followers… and we note that Protester P, friend and sometimes vigiler, holds a weekly anti-war protest on the streets of Ann Arbor, noon to 1pm every Saturday in front of the People’s Food Co-op on Fourth Avenue.

Let Peace Begin with Me? Give us a Break!

Two members of Jewish Witnesses for Peace and Friends attended a Moveable Peace event this past week and carried a few of our signs with us. We noticed what we surmised to be the death of the Peace Movement. From their own event description we find the following promotions:

FREE ADMISSION! FREE FOOD! FUN FOR ALL AGES! Yoga Session @ 10 AM, Face Painting Chalking (www.chalk4peace.org), Peace Puppets, Penny Poll, Japanese Calligraphy

Does anybody really believe that Peace Puppets, or chalking a sidewalk will bring peace? One speaker, obviously enjoying this peace mush, said “Let peace begin with me” [gag!]. We suggest she expand her wish to “Let peace begin with me developing the courage to challenge the existing power structures, including JEWISH POWER“. But there were no challenges to power last Sunday. In fact the usual “peace people” of Ann Arbor kept their distance from our “hateful” signs demanding a boycott of Apartheid Israel. Turnout for this event was minimal at best, perhaps signifying the public’s frustration with the “peace” community’s progress. So, as a public service, we repeat the 154-year-old words of slave-abolitionist Frederick Douglass, now spoken clearly to all who mistakenly feel that face painting is the path to peace:

“If there is no struggle there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom and yet depreciate agitation…want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightening. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters…. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.”

Next Saturday is Eat-a-Cheeseburger Day

PeaceMonger – JWPF’s most fierce supporter – blends a little psychological analysis with some interesting rabbinical admissions in a recently released blog. Click here for the full article.

Next Saturday – Oct. 8, 2011 – is the 2nd annual Bill Henry international Eat-a-Cheeseburger Day. This day honors Bill Henry (né Herskovitz) for a decision that quite possibly saved an eight-year-old boy from a life of “Jewish chauvinism and exclusivism”.

That boy grew up to be Henry Herskovitz and in 1954 young Henry was hungry from fasting on Yom Kippur. Eight-year-olds aren’t required to fast and so the fact that his father Bill bought him something to eat is not remarkable, that he bought him a cheeseburger is.

Under Judaic religious law or halacha, cheeseburgers are treif, i.e. they’re not kosher. Observant Jews aren’t supposed to eat them and some Jews can get pretty worked-up about cheeseburgers. You see, keeping kosher is about Jewish self-segregation. But you don’t have to believe me, you can believe Rabbi Yaakov Luban…

… Okay, so maybe I’ve taken a little interpretive license with this otherwise true story but, still, I like to believe that Bill Henry’s decision to buy his boy a cheeseburger on the “Sabbath of Sabbaths” wasn’t an accident but a mitzvah that helped set his son on the path of becoming a mensch, a fighter for human rights, justice, and, peace for all. So, what the heck? Next Saturday, join people across the globe in eating a cheeseburger (really, any non-kosher food or beverage will do) in honor of our shared humanity and in memory of Bill Henry, a dad who truly loved his son enough not to try to turn him into a bigot.

P.S. If you’re going to buy that cheeseburger at a fast food restaurant (yuck) then skip McDonald’s. With 153 restaurants in Israel, they’re big-time violators of the global boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel. Try Burger King instead, they pulled out of Israel last year.

See also:

“Gems from ‘Jewish Medical Law’ ” in ZionistsOut
“A Light Unto the Butchers?” in ZionistsOut
“McDonald’s bans Arabic” in The Guardian (UK)
“McDonald’s changes its brand to suit kosher appetites” in The Guardian (UK)

Reminders

October 8th: Yom Kippur services will draw an unusually large crowd to Beth Israel, and we ask all readers to help us convey messages of justice to the general public on Washtenaw Avenue by joining us from 9:30 – 10:45AM, 2000 Washtenaw, Ann Arbor.

October 30th : Protest the Jewish Federation Fund Raiser at Washtenaw Community College’s Morris Lawrence Building, 4800 East Huron River Drive, Ann Arbor, MI 48105. Time tentatively set for 4:00 pm.

Five Vigilers
End Jewish Supremacism in Palestine
Henry Herskovitz
Jewish Witnesses for Peace and Friends

Comments? https://blog.deiryassin.org/2011/09/17/report-on-beth…vigil-09-17-11/

Eight Years and Going Strong

Jewish Witnesses for Peace and Friends will celebrate its eighth anniversary of bringing its messages of justice and peace in Palestine to the streets of Ann Arbor. We’re hoping to have a larger than usual turnout for Saturday, October 8th, so if you’ve ever considered joining one of the longest-lasting, consistent, peaceful vigils, aka “the only game in town”, please do so on October 8. Looking forward to (re)meeting you! Please join us from 9:30 -10:45 AM, in front of 2000 Washtenaw 48104 (cross street Austin).

Protest the “Main (Zionist) Event”

JWPF is calling on all people of conscience to join with us as we oppose the Jewish Federation of Greater Ann Arbor’s annual fund-raiser, called the “Main Event”. Typically, the Federation raises over one million dollars in a single evening, at least 28% of which gets sent directly to Apartheid Israel to maintain its ongoing genocide of the Palestinian people. The rest is used to support the Jewish community and to polish its image in an attempt to obscure the blood on the community’s collective hands.

The event will be held in the Towsley Auditorium at Washtenaw Community College’s Morris Lawrence Building, 4800 East Huron River Drive, Ann Arbor, MI 48105 on Sunday, October 30, 2011. JWPF plans to start our protest at 4:00 pm. More details in future reports, so stay tuned.

Astonishingly, the keynote speaker’s presentation is entitled “[Dis] Honesty: How people cheat a little bit and feel good about it”. Perhaps Jews attending this talk will come away recognizing the dishonesty inherent in supporting a fascist, racist country while claiming to be enlightened, humane people. We suppose it’s more likely they will re-learn an already-practiced method of feeling good about supporting ethnic cleansing.

Jews in Palestine Still Trying to Call the Shots

Zionist-led Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD) has issued a statement concerning the Palestinian statehood initiative at the United Nations. Contained within the statement is a revealing caution: ” Believing that it is the Palestinian people’s right to determine what they consider a just peace and it is our role as their Israeli partners to support them – with one caveat: that any solution be inclusive of all the people residing in Palestine/Israel …” In other words, we Jews will demand that the land already stolen and colonized by European and American Jews will remain stolen and occupied. Any possibility that Palestinians might not automatically grant citizenship to European and American Jewish colonizers will be met with Zionist resistance. No, ICAHD, if you truly support Palestinian liberation, you will let them make their own decisions about a “just peace” and their own future and not insist that colonizers get to keep the fruits of their crimes.

Seven Vigilers
The PLO is to “liberate”, not legalize partition
Henry Herskovitz
Jewish Witnesses for Peace and Friends

Comments? https://blog.deiryassin.org/2011/09/17/report-on-beth…vigil-09-10-11/

Orwell Lives! Rabbi Dobrusin Designated Vice-Chair of RHR-NA

Rabbis for Human Rights – North America has welcomed Beth Israel’s Rabbi Rob Dobrusin as its new vice chair. Think about it: RHR-NA claims to be an organization that “acts on the Jewish imperative to respect and protect the human rights of all people” while supporting a state – the “Jewish state” – that consistently denies the human rights of Palestinians. The organization even has the chutzpah to reference the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, while it clearly and consistently violates Article 13 of that document, which states that “Everyone has the right to freedom of movement and to leave and return to one’s country”. Clearly, if Rabbis for Human Rights – NA truly adhered to their own name and mission, the rabbis would be shouting from the rooftops that Palestinians have — and Israel should respect — the full and immediate Right of Return they have been longing for these past sixty-three years.

But of course, RHR-NA does not do this. And now they have added to their record of Orwellian logic (e.g. “War is Peace”) by elevating within their ranks Beth Israel’s senior Rabbi, who makes clear his Zionist (read: racist) commitment to the Apartheid state: “While our congregants’ political opinions and philosophical perspectives are all over the map, there is one general statement which I can make on behalf of the congregation – Beth Israel Congregation affirms without any hesitation or equivocation the legitimacy of the existence of the State of Israel as a Jewish state, and affirms the right of Israel to defend itself from enemies who seek its destruction” [Ann Arbor News, Jan. 14, 2007]

Rabbi Dobrusin also supports torture. Supporting both human rights and torture involves such twisted doublespeak that we advise our readers not to try this at home. Both this writer and PeaceMonger have exposed this human wrong in our Reports of June 21, 2008 and June 11, 2011. And what would the author of “1984” have to say about bringing impressionable, young Jewish children to the Apartheid state, and posing them with armed soldiers on military vehicles, all the while bleating how passionate and caring a Jewish supremacist state can be. It rocks the mind.

Vigilers Attend Impromptu Protest

Two members of Jewish Witnesses for Peace and Friends responded to a request from two local activists to join them on the University of Michigan campus this week to help them raise awareness of Israel’s ongoing atrocities in Palestine. We stood in front of the Michigan Union and greeted new students as they passed by, handing out map cards to those who showed interest.

Al-Quds Day Demonstration Successful

Two hundred and fifty cars pulled out of Hemlock Park in Dearborn Michigan on August 26th, and cruised to downtown Detroit, and midtown University of Detroit areas before returning to Dearborn. Messages of peace, calling for an end to Zionism, were written on the cars for this first-ever auto rally celebrating Al-Quds Day. Palestinian flags were raised high, and many of the lead vehicles sported placards as well. In addition to being one of six sponsors of the event, JWPF sent two cars with two members and three supporters along the route. Complete coverage of the event by the Arab American News visible here.

Aug. 27 – Eight vigilers
Sept. 3 – Nine
What are European Jews doing in the Middle East?
Henry Herskovitz
Jewish Witnesses for Peace and Friends

Comments? https://blog.deiryassin.org/2011/09/13/report-on-beth…vigil-09-03-11/

Why the First Amendment Is Valued

For almost eight years members of Jewish Witnesses for Peace and Friends (JWPF) have exercised the individual and collective free speech rights guaranteed by the US Constitution. Early on, this writer would time and again confuse the applicability of the First Amendment by alerting our legal counsel that his ability to speak was being denied. And time and again our legal counsel would patiently differentiate between that speech which was denied by PRIVATE individuals – a legal denial – and speech which would be denied by PUBLIC organizations, i.e. a government entity. The First Amendment only protects us when the GOVERNMENT attempts to silence our voices and even then not always.

Example: In 2004, JWPF launched a successful boycott campaign against Hiller’s Market, located in the Arborland Shopping Center. We wished to flyer customers as they entered and left the market but were denied that opportunity to communicate, because Arborland is private property, and the owners restricted political speech there. So JWPF mounted a protest outside the shopping center, alongside the highly trafficked – and public – Washtenaw Avenue. Only there would our First Amendment rights be protected. And they were.

What other private venues have tried to silence our voices? First to mind is Beth Israel Congregation, whose Rabbi occasioned our vigils by denying us a weekday venue at BIC to inform the members what was happening in Palestine. Then there’s the Interfaith Council for Peace and Justice who, in violation of their own core values (to wit: “Not using power to dominate”), simply ejected the Middle East Task Force when boycotting Apartheid Israel was unpalatable to a few chosen people in powerful positions.

We also remember when Clark Smith of radio station WEMU invited this writer to debate David Shtulman, Executive Director of the Jewish Federation of Greater Ann Arbor, on the Lynn Rivers Show. What happened? Shtuhlman refused to debate, and Smith pulled the plug on the interview. Former US Representative Rivers – an extremely competent interviewer, capable of asking hardball questions – would not even return emails asking her for coffee and conversation on this topic.

When the Ann Arbor News was in existence, the editorial staff refused to print an Op-Ed, refuting the false claims alleged against JWPF by Rabbi Rob Dobrusin in his printed Op-Ed (2007). In fact, the local alternative and Jewish-dominated newspaper Critical Moment likewise refused to publish our voice.

Jewish-led peace groups have also worked to silence and censor. Michigan Peaceworks continues to protect Apartheid Israel from blame in their campaigns, and has denied JWPF speaking opportunities. Likewise the Unitarian Universalists for Justice in the Middle East would not support JWPF’s request to use a UUAA hall as venue for our Forum held March 29th.

Pastor Ken Wilson of the Vineyard Church of Ann Arbor claims our messages on our signs are so short as to be insignificant. He wrote to his congregation that JWPF delivers only a “fraction of a tweet” of information on Washtenaw Avenue. And though his goal was to remove our presence from the sidewalks of Beth Israel, his comment strikes home: our messages are indeed short, considering the avalanche of mass media distortion of Palestinian resistance, both from mainstream sources and the Zionist-dominated peace movement. Our disagreement with the pastor comes from the need to expand the message; he wants less speech, we want more. Our voice – and more importantly the voices of Occupied Palestine (all of Palestine is occupied) – needs to be expanded, not shriveled up. So we will continue to rely on our First Amendment rights to deliver our messages.

Quotable

…as long as Jews operate politically, culturally and socially within exclusive racially oriented cells, be it Israel, Zionism, Jewish ‘anti’ Zionist networks or even ‘Jews only’ football clubs , they will encounter problems.

Gilad Atzmon, “An interesting exchange with a Jewish Anti-Zionist”

Eight vigilers
Zionism: Kosher Apartheid
Henry Herskovitz
Jewish Witnesses for Peace and Friends

Comments? https://blog.deiryassin.org/2011/08/20/report-on-beth…vigil-08-13-11/