Jewish Activists Ejected While Disrupting Barak's ''Humanitarian'' Award
NYC IMC | 23.09.2002 21:23
New York - Four Jewish human rights activists were removed by police as they disrupted an awards ceremony for Ehud Barak, former Israeli Prime Minister (1999-2000), at the Pierre Hotel.
Date: Sunday, September 22, 2002
New York - Four Jewish human rights activists were removed by police as they disrupted an awards ceremony for Ehud Barak, former Israeli Prime Minister (1999-2000), at the Pierre Hotel.
Holding banners reading "Jews for a Free Palestine," the protesters interrupted Barak’s speech, reciting facts from Barak’s tenure. Protesters focused on the drastic growth in illegal Israeli settlements in the Occupied Territories, the mass uprooting of essential Palestinian crops by the Israeli military, and widespread military killings of Palestinian civilians long before the first incidence of suicide bombing.
"As Jews of conscience, we cannot allow Barak to be honored as a humanitarian," said Wendy Kaplan, one of the protesters. "Barak offered only the rhetoric of peace, while intensifying the illegal and violent occupation of Palestinian lands. Palestinians lost more homes, more farms and more lives under Barak’s regime than ever before."
"We especially protest the idea of Barak’s famous ‘generous offer’ to Palestinians, in which he offered 17.6% of historic Palestinian land," said protester Daniel Lang/Levitsky. "These lands were to be cut off from each other by paramilitary settlements, and divided into South African-style Bantustans by bypass roads. But the rejection of the offer has been used to vilify Palestinians as war-makers ever since."
"Barak gave Israeli soldiers carte-blanche to injure and kill Palestinian civilians engaged in non-violent protest, with his order on October 1, 2000," said protester Louisa Solomon, who recently returned from human rights work in the West Bank. "The targeting of non-violent organizers during the first Intifada, under Barak, has left Palestinians with few alternatives to violence."
"There is intense pressure on American Jews to support the Israeli occupation of Palestine, and never to criticize any Israeli policy," said protester Steve Quester, a former Hebrew school teacher and former kibbutz resident who has also worked as a human rights activist in the West Bank this year. "But we refuse to allow the Israeli government to act in our name, to threaten the security of both Palestinians and Jews worldwide by perpetuating injustice. Barak was never a peacemaker, and his pretenses have cost thousands of lives, Israeli and Palestinian."
Barak’s tenure, from June 1999 through December 2000, saw the expansion of the population of illegal Israeli settlements by 8.26% (or 22,419 settlers) and 6,045 Israeli housing units on occupied land. The Israeli military uprooted 15,180 Palestinian olive trees in the course of building bypass roads to the settlements. Barak ordered the army to use "any action necessary" against Palestinians, under which order Israeli forces fired live ammunition into unarmed crowds of demonstrators, killing 13 Palestinian citizens of Israel, and injuring hundreds more.
New York - Four Jewish human rights activists were removed by police as they disrupted an awards ceremony for Ehud Barak, former Israeli Prime Minister (1999-2000), at the Pierre Hotel.
Holding banners reading "Jews for a Free Palestine," the protesters interrupted Barak’s speech, reciting facts from Barak’s tenure. Protesters focused on the drastic growth in illegal Israeli settlements in the Occupied Territories, the mass uprooting of essential Palestinian crops by the Israeli military, and widespread military killings of Palestinian civilians long before the first incidence of suicide bombing.
"As Jews of conscience, we cannot allow Barak to be honored as a humanitarian," said Wendy Kaplan, one of the protesters. "Barak offered only the rhetoric of peace, while intensifying the illegal and violent occupation of Palestinian lands. Palestinians lost more homes, more farms and more lives under Barak’s regime than ever before."
"We especially protest the idea of Barak’s famous ‘generous offer’ to Palestinians, in which he offered 17.6% of historic Palestinian land," said protester Daniel Lang/Levitsky. "These lands were to be cut off from each other by paramilitary settlements, and divided into South African-style Bantustans by bypass roads. But the rejection of the offer has been used to vilify Palestinians as war-makers ever since."
"Barak gave Israeli soldiers carte-blanche to injure and kill Palestinian civilians engaged in non-violent protest, with his order on October 1, 2000," said protester Louisa Solomon, who recently returned from human rights work in the West Bank. "The targeting of non-violent organizers during the first Intifada, under Barak, has left Palestinians with few alternatives to violence."
"There is intense pressure on American Jews to support the Israeli occupation of Palestine, and never to criticize any Israeli policy," said protester Steve Quester, a former Hebrew school teacher and former kibbutz resident who has also worked as a human rights activist in the West Bank this year. "But we refuse to allow the Israeli government to act in our name, to threaten the security of both Palestinians and Jews worldwide by perpetuating injustice. Barak was never a peacemaker, and his pretenses have cost thousands of lives, Israeli and Palestinian."
Barak’s tenure, from June 1999 through December 2000, saw the expansion of the population of illegal Israeli settlements by 8.26% (or 22,419 settlers) and 6,045 Israeli housing units on occupied land. The Israeli military uprooted 15,180 Palestinian olive trees in the course of building bypass roads to the settlements. Barak ordered the army to use "any action necessary" against Palestinians, under which order Israeli forces fired live ammunition into unarmed crowds of demonstrators, killing 13 Palestinian citizens of Israel, and injuring hundreds more.
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