We must face the fact that there are people out there, both Jewish and gentile, who are looking to destroy Israel by building a following of Israel opposers. This is not a debate. There will be no one representing Israel in order to answer questions and concerns. No one will be explaining why we have built walls, fences, checkpoints, roadblocks and blockade and why Arabs stand in long line to get from one city to another. It will be taught that this is all part of an apartheid regime, and listeners are going to believe it. And what is the Israeli government doing about this? Absolutely nothing!
- Michelle
Source: HaymarketBooks
The world's most prominent public intellectual Noam Chomsky, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author Alice Walker, and the civil rights leader Angela Davis will be offering and weighing testimony at the Russell Tribunal on Palestine (RToP), an international people’s tribunal that was created to expose human rights abuses and stir people to action in opposition to Israel’s recognized violations of international law.
In addition to them, Russell Means and Dennis Banks, dubbed by the LA Times, "the two most famous Indians since Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse," will join Israeli historian Ilan Pappé, the former Palestine Liberation Organization spokesperson Diana Buttu, and a Who's Who of international human rights figures at RToP in New York City, Oct. 6-7, 2012.
RToP was launched in 2009 following the massacre of more than 1,400 Gazans perpetrated by Israel, and has since worked to bring together legal experts, scholars, activists, and other people of note to help shed light on the reality of Israel’s occupation of Palestine. RToP also shines a light on the active role that third parties—foreign governments and corporations—play in perpetuating human rights violations in Israel-Palestine.
Walker, Davis, Means, and Banks—all of whom are Black or Native American—are among the Russell Tribunal participants to issue an “urgent call to others who share our commitment to racial justice, equality, and freedom.” They invite people to attend the hearings in New York City on October 6 and 7, writing, “Each and every one of us—particularly those of us and our fellow jury members who grew up in the Jim Crow South, in apartheid South Africa, and on Indian reservations in the United States—is shocked by what Israel is doing to the Palestinians.”
Previous sessions of the tribunal have been held in Barcelona, London, and Cape Town. These hearings have addressed, respectively, European Union support for Israel, the complicity of corporations in the occupation of Palestine, and the question of whether Israel is guilty of the crime of apartheid. The fourth and final session will be held in New York City this October 6-7, and will examine the role of the United Nations and the United States in perpetuating Israel’s impunity in depriving the Palestinian people of their right to self-determination.
If you want more information about the Russell Tribunal on Palestine-NYC or to arrange for an interview with one of our speakers or jurors, please call Sherry Wolf at 773-991-3877 or e-mail sherrywolf2000@yahoo.com
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Source: The New School
WHAT:
Is the American relationship with Israel at a turning point? In this public forum, leading commentators including Noam Chomsky, Norman Finkelstein, and others discuss the possibility that increasing awareness of the conflict among the American Jewish community is creating a more critical stance towards Israel. Such a separation between traditional allies could give new impetus to resolving a conflict that has, for many years, seemed intractable.
Sponsored by the Vera List Center for Art and Politics, the Department of Humanities at The New School for Public Engagement, OR Books.
WHO: Anna Baltzer, three-time volunteer with the International Women's Peace Service in the West Bank, and Fulbright scholar
Noam Chomsky, Institute Professor, Department of Linguistics and Philosophy, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Norman G. Finkelstein, activist, writer and independent scholar
Adam Shatz, contributing editor, London Review of Books
WHEN: 4:00 – 6:00 P.M., Saturday, October 6, 2012.
WHERE: Tishman Auditorium, Alvin Johnson/J. M. Kaplan Hall, 66 West 12th Street
TICKETS: Free; no tickets or reservations required; seating is first-come first-served
This event is part of the Vera List Center for Art and Politics' (VLC) public programming which, in honor of the VLC's twentieth anniversary, is free of charge for 2012-2013. At the auditorium doors, be sure to pick up your own copy of Hello I Am Hello I Was by artist Paul Ramírez Jonas, an unlimited print edition commissioned to celebrate the VLC anniversary. Hello I Am Hello I Was, which is free to all attendees, is a reflection on the transformative nature of open discourse in the public sphere.
The New School, a leading progressive university in New York City, was founded in 1919 as a center of intellectual and artistic freedom. Today The New School is still in the vanguard of innovation and experimentation in higher education, with more than 10,000 undergraduate and graduate students in design and the social sciences, the humanities, management, and the performing arts and thousands of adult learners in continuing education courses. Committed to public engagement, The New School welcomes thousands of New Yorkers yearly to its celebrated public programs and maintains a global presence through its online learning programs, research institutes, and international partnerships. Learn more at www.newschool.edu
