Posts Tagged ‘Jews Say No’

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Shaming the Jewish Communal Fund 11/14/19

December 3, 2019

November 14, 2019

JEWISH GROUPS TELL JEWISH COMMUNAL FUND:  STOP FUNDING ANTI-MUSLIM HATE

 Islamophobia endangers people and threatens their lives.

 Outside the Jewish Communal Fund (JCF) offices in NYC, a coalition of Jewish groups–the Defund Islamophobia Now campaign–called upon the JCF to end its funding to groups promoting Islamophobia and anti-Muslim hate. A report  released in 2018 by three progressive Jewish groups documents how, according to JCF federal Form 990 filings, JCF has funded anti-Muslim hate groups going back at least to 2001, with six of them receiving a total of $2,082,212 between 2013 and 2017.  (In the following year, JCF gave five of these groups nearly $600,000.) This funding coincides with a rise in white nationalist violence and with Muslim communities being increasingly targeted on our streets and by our government.

According to Elly Bulkin from Jews Against Anti-Muslim Racism (JAAMR), one of the members of the Campaign, “We have shared our report with the JCF and asked them to meet with us. Their answer has been silence. Two weeks ago, we delivered to their office a petition signed by over 5,000 people calling upon them to defund Islamophobia and, yet again, we asked for a meeting.  No response. So we are standing outside their offices today having a teach-in and calling upon the JCF to defund the hate that they are funding.”  “It’s not enough for us to say that Muslim lives matter as much as Jewish lives. We need to show it through our actions,” said Gail Miller from Jews Say No!, another member of the Campaign, who also appears in the video the groups created to highlight the issue. “We must remember that Islamophobia is not an abstraction. It endangers people and threatens their lives,” said civil rights lawyer Alan Levine.

 “We wouldn’t—and shouldn’t–stand silent in the face of support for anti-Jewish hate. We also shouldn’t stand silent in the face of support for anti-Muslim hate,” added Asaf Calderon from Jewish Voice for Peace-NYC, also a Campaign member.

 “We know the JCF funds groups that do important work. But that does not justify a penny going to the kind of vicious hate that places an entire community in jeopardy and is an affront to all groups that seek a more just society,” stressed Karen Ranucci, who has been a donor to the JCF. “I recently withdrew my money from the fund as they did not respond to my requests to meet with them to discuss this issue. I would encourage other donors who believe in justice for all to do the same,” she added.

 Some of the Islamophobes who are funded by the JCF include:

·       Pamela Geller, who writes that Islam “is an extreme ideology, the most radical and extreme ideology on the face of the earth”; 

·       Clarion Project, which funds virulently anti-Muslim films; 

·       David Horowitz, whom the Southern Poverty Law Center calls “the godfather of the modern anti-Muslim movement”; 

·       Steven Emerson, who forged a “dossier” linking American Muslim groups with terrorism; and 

·       Daniel Pipes, who claims Muslims wish to “impose Islamic law” in the United States. 

The event, held at 6 PM in front of JCF offices at 575 Madison Avenue between 56th and 57th Street, was sponsored by the Defund Islamophobia Now campaign, initiated by three Jewish organizations–Jews Against Anti-Muslim Racism, Jews Say No!, and Jewish Voice for Peace-NY. They can be contacted at DefundIslamophobia@gmail.com. The event is also endorsed by Jews for Racial and Economic Justice, Kolot Chayeinu, and NYU JVP. 

JSN!’s report on the role of the Jewish National Fund in the ongoing Nakba can be found  here

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Jews Say No! And Granny Peace Brigade take the #SaltWaterChallenge in solidarity with Palestinian hunger strikers

May 23, 2017

The Salt Water Challenge

Today, there are 6300 Palestinian political prisoners in Israeli prisons; this number includes 300 children and 500 administrative detainees (those imprisoned without charge or trial).

Since April 17, Palestinian Prisoners Day, more than 1500 of these political prisoners have engaged in an open-ended hunger strike. Today is Day #37. These prisoners have refused to eat food, only consuming salt water to maintain their health, until the Israeli government meets their demands for basic human rights as stipulated by the Geneva Convention. Freedom and dignity are universal rights inherent in humanity – to be enjoyed by all human beings.

The demands of these hunger strikers include:

  1. An end to administrative detention
  2. An end to solitary confinement
  3. An end to the denial of family visits
  4. Access to proper medical care and treatment, and
  5. The right to access distance higher education

On Monday, May 22,  Jews Say NO! and the Granny Peace Brigade stood in the rain at Broadway and 96th Street in NYC to join a growing, worldwide, social media campaign – #SaltWaterChallenge – to draw attention to the plight of Palestinian political prisoners. As supporters of these hunger-strikers, we drank salt water to stand in solidarity with those who refuse a life of humiliation.

Now, we challenge you to do the same.

 

 

 

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New York City Council hearing on BDS

September 10, 2016

imgresThe two sides of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement squared off in New York’s City Hall on Thursday, with BDS activists disrupting a hearing where city council members discussed a resolution condemning BDS. The resolution doesn’t add penalties, but displays a hostility to a non-violent act of free speech, BDS supporters say.

Click to read Resolution 1058-2016 or see the wording after Donna’s testimony below.

Testimony  of Jane Hirschmann and Donna Nevel before the New York City council on 9/8/16

My name is Jane Hirschmann and I am representing a group called Jews Say No! We are a NYC based group of Jews who stand up for human rights and justice in Palestine. We believe that it is in the best tradition of the Jewish people to criticize, argue, think and think some more about issues of justice and fairness and to protest human rights abuses where they exist. Indeed for many of us that is one of the main lessons of the Holocaust. Also as Jews we have a particular obligation to speak out concerning Israel, which purports to speak for Jews everywhere.

As the daughter of Holocaust survivors anti-Semitism concerns me deeply. But to suggest as this resolution does, that the BDS movement is anti-Semitic or an attempt to delegitimize Israel is unfounded rhetoric and defamatory. This resolution and similar ones nationwide have been promoted by the Israeli lobby and segments of this community to distract people from the real issues at hand—Israel’s human rights abuses and blatant disregard for the law. This resolution is based on the premise that if you protest the inhumane behavior and policies of a nation state, you are delegitimizing that state, and in the case of Israel, you are anti-Semitic.

The United Nations and several International courts have made it very clear that Israel is in violation of international law. These violations include the 60 year illegal occupation of the West Bank; the illegal settlement expansion which contravenes long standing U.S. policy and hinders any serious peace effort; the theft of Palestinian lands; the blockade of Gaza and the horrific slaughter of thousands of Gaza civilians, to name just a few. Protesting and boycotting Israel for its lawlessness and violence against the Palestinians is not anti-Semitic. It is pro human rights. Can one criticize a country and their abuses without saying that those engaged in this criticism are either delegitimizing the country or, as in this case, are anti-Semitic? In fact, the notion that our protest of Israel’s abuses delegitimizes Israel is preposterous. Israel by persistently acting in an illegitimate way is delegitimizing itself. Every time it violates human rights standards, it delegitimizes itself; by occupying the West Bank it delegitimizes itself; by building a wall it delegitimizes itself, by stealing Palestinian homes and water it delegitimizes itself; by destroying Gaza it delegitimizes itself. And I could go on and on.

On the issue of boycotts I ask you to remember the bus boycotts in Montgomery. Did the boycotts delegitimize Alabama or did the racist policies delegitimize the State? Or take the boycott of South Africa for its apartheid policies. Did the boycott delegitimize the country or was it the conduct of that country? What about the most recent boycott initiated by Governor Cuomo against North Carolina over their anti-LGBT law. Was this an attempt on the Governor’s part to delegitimize that State or just a peaceful non-violent method to protest and force change by using economic and social pressure?

We in the BDS movement are also using this same time-honored, non-violent method to protest the activities of a nation state—Israel. We are not protesting the Jewish people per se because Israel does not represent nor speak for Jews all over the world. Opposing a country’s policy, is not opposing all of its residents nor is it delegitimizing the country. In the case of Israel we are simply joining a growing portion of the International community to Boycott, Divest and Sanction Israel until it ceases its inhumane treatment of the Palestinians; until the occupation has ended; until the right of return is recognized; and until Palestinians can live in dignity with all the same rights as Israelis.

This Israeli campaign to stifle first amendment activity, including the BDS movement is an attempt to delegitimize our constitution and the city council should not be a party to this.

Jane Hirschmann, one of the co-founders of Jews Say No!

Testimony before the New York City council

 Donna Nevel, Board Member, Jewish Voice for Peace

As part of my commitment to speaking out and supporting the movement for justice in Palestine and Israel, I would like to speak about why I consider it my responsibility to stand in support of the movement for Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) and why I strongly oppose the resolution being put forth today. As a board member of Jewish Voice for Peace, a national organization dedicated to a just peace for Palestinians and Israelis, I am speaking here to represent the growing numbers of progressive Jews who support this global movement for justice.

The BDS movement is motivated by a call for solidarity from the international community. In 2005, a broad coalition of Palestinian civil society called for Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions against Israel until it complies with international law and ends its violations of Palestinian rights.

The resolution under discussion shamelessly and shamefully distorts the BDS movement’s goals. BDS is about leveraging pressure to compel a state to change its behavior and respect human rights. The BDS movement is not permanent; this pressure is needed only UNTIL Israel complies with basic principles of equality.

BDS has garnered such strong international support among concerned people, including Jews, across the globe because people of conscience oppose decades of denial of a people’s basic human and national rights.

One of the false and destructive accusations being made is that it is anti-Semitic to support BDS. This is not only a highly irresponsible accusation, and harmful to those fighting for justice, but it also does an injustice to the reality of actual anti-Semitism when it occurs.

It is not discriminatory in any way to hold a nation-state accountable for its human rights abuses and for violations of international law. There is nothing anti-Semitic about that in any rational definition of anti-Semitism.

There has been a call from Palestinian civil society, whose community is suffering on a daily basis, to join an international effort to hold Israel accountable to changing its behavior. That is ethical; that is a call I embrace.

 On a final and personal note, I support the ethical and yes, dignified call for BDS–as a Jew and as a human being committed to justice and to peace. I have always felt—and continue to feel—deeply connected to my community’s history of struggle and resistance; of the anti-Semitism and oppression we’ve endured. In no way is my support for BDS and my deep commitment to justice for Palestinians at odds with that deep connection to my people. In fact, it grows out of my history and life as a Jewish person who grew up learning from my deeply ethical parents to be proud of who I was but to never think I was better than anyone else or any other people, and to fight against injustice whenever and wherever I saw it.

Therefore, I will continue to support BDS with thousands and thousands of others across the globe UNTIL there is a just solution rooted in ending state policies that are discriminatory and anti-democratic and in insuring equal rights and respect and safety for all.

I hope you will reject this very wrong-headed resolution that attempts to trivialize and distort a critical human rights issue.

Thank you.

 

Resolution condemning all efforts to delegitimize the State of Israel and the global movement to boycott, divest from, and sanction the people of Israel.

By Council Member Cohen, Deutsch, Garodnick, Greenfield, Grodenchik, Kallos, Koslowitz, Lancman, Levine, Maisel, Treyger, Rosenthal, Cabrera, Palma, King, Gibson, Gentile, Espinal, Richards, Koo, Vacca, Van Bramer, Vallone, Johnson, Dickens, Borelli, Matteo and Ulrich

Whereas, The Global Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Movement (BDS Movement) is a campaign seeking to exclude the Israeli people from the economic, cultural, and academic life of humanity; and

Whereas, This movement targets not just the Israeli government but Israeli academic, cultural, and civil society institutions, as well as individual Israeli citizens of all political persuasions, and in some cases even Jews of other nationalities who support Israel; and

Whereas, The Global BDS Movement targets Israel and only Israel, while ignoring the world’s myriad despotic regimes; and

Whereas, Israel is far and away the most democratic and open society in the Middle East, with well-established rights for religious minorities, women, and LGBT citizens that far exceeds those of any other nation in the region; and

Whereas, The Global BDS Movement does not recognize the right of the Jewish people to national self-determination; and

Whereas, Some of the BDS Movement’s supporters and leaders have trafficked in unacceptable anti-Semitic rhetoric, including comparison of Israeli policy to that of Nazi Germany; and

Whereas, University-based BDS efforts violate the core goals of the university and global cultural development, which thrive on a free and open exchange and debate; and

Whereas, Both Israelis and Palestinians have the right to live in safe and secure states, free from fear and violence, with mutual recognition; and

Whereas, The Global BDS Movement does not support the two-state solution, a goal which can only be reached through direct negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians; and

Whereas, Israel is an ally of the United States and has a long-standing relationship with the City of New York; and

Whereas, The City of New York has the largest population of Jewish residents in the nation and is home to the largest Jewish community outside of Israel; now, therefore be it

Resolved, That the Council of the City of New York condemns all efforts to delegitimize the State of Israel and the global movement to boycott, divest from, and sanction its government and people.

 

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“Shame on Cuomo”: New Yorkers protest

June 11, 2016

Over 300 people protested outside NY Gov. Cuomo’s office, demanding he rescind “unconstitutional” executive order

 

Salon.com FRIDAY, JUN 10, 2016  

"Shame on Cuomo": New Yorkers protest "McCarthyite" blacklist of supporters of Israel boycott movement BDSA protester at a demonstration against New York Gov. Cuomo’s anti-BDS executive order, in New York City on June 9, 2016 (Credit: Jewish Voice for Peace/Jake Ratner)

Hundreds of New Yorkers gathered outside the office of New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo on Thursday, protesting a new pro-Israel policy that legal groups warn is “McCarthyite” and unconstitutional.

Cuomo signed an executive order this weekend that punishes institutions and companies that support a boycott of Israel on behalf of Palestinian human rights.

The New York Civil Liberties Union said the executive order establishes a discriminatory “blacklist” that “raises serious First Amendment concerns.”

Baher Azmy, legal director at the Center for Constitutional Rights, called the new policy “plainly unconstitutional in its McCarthyist vision.”

More than 300 protesters joined the demonstration on Thursday, calling on Gov. Cuomo to rescind the executive order.

Jewish Voice for Peace, a social justice group that co-organized the protest, blasted Cuomo’s executive order as an unconstitutional “attempt to repress the growing movement for Palestinian rights.”

“The overwhelming turnout for this protest speaks to the fact that our political leadership is increasingly out of touch with its constituents,” Beth Miller, an activist with the New York City chapter of Jewish Voice for Peace, or JVP, told Salon.

“The sidewalks and streets were packed with hundreds of people, standing literally toe-to-toe, to send the clear message that we refuse to be silenced,” she added.

“Gov. Cuomo’s executive order does not change the fact that it is our constitutional right to boycott, and it does not change the fact that it is right to boycott Israel until it respects and upholds Palestinian rights,” Miller stressed.

A dense crowd of protesters lined downtown Manhattan’s 3rd Ave. on Thursday evening.

(Credit: Jewish Voice for Peace/Jake Ratner)

(Credit: Jewish Voice for Peace/Jake Ratner)

They carried an array of signs and banners. Many expressed solidarity with past struggles.

One man held a sign that read, “Boycott worked in Montgomery and South Africa, and it will work in occupied Palestine.” Montgomery refers to a city in Alabama where a 1955 bus boycott helped kick off the civil rights movement.

(Credit: Jewish Voice for Peace/Jake Ratner)

(Credit: Jewish Voice for Peace/Jake Ratner)

JVP stresses that the “Palestinian-led civil society BDS movement is modeled on the global campaign that helped bring an end to apartheid in South Africa.”

BDS refers to the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions, an international grassroots movement that promotes nonviolent economic means to pressure Israel to comply with international law and cease its violations of Palestinian human rights. The global campaign was called for by Palestinian civil society in 2005.

Many veteran leaders in the struggle against U.S.- and Israel-backed apartheid in South Africa have endorsed BDS.

“The signs we held and messages we wanted to convey — such as ‘We will continue to boycott for justice until Palestinian refugees can return to their homes and land’ — reflect the many ways Israel is violating basic principles of human rights and international law,” said Donna Nevel, an activist with Jews Say No!, another group that helped organize the demonstration.

These are “the reasons that the BDS movement is so critical,” Nevel told Salon, stressing that BDS can help pressure Israel to change its illegal policies.

Gov. Cuomo’s Executive Order No. 157 declares that “the State of New York will not permit its own investment activity to further the BDS campaign in any way, shape or form, whether directly or indirectly.”

The new order, in its own language, establishes “a list of institutions and companies that… participate in boycott, divestment, or sanctions activity targeting Israel, either directly or through a parent or subsidiary.”

Cuomo summarized the new policy: “If you boycott Israel, New York will boycott you.”

JVP Executive Director Rebecca Vilkomerson published an op-ed in The New York Daily News on Thursday warning that Cuomo’s executive order will “set a dangerous and likely unconstitutional precedent for governments to deny groups financial opportunities and benefits because of their exercise of First Amendment-protected political speech.”

“When a chief executive unilaterally signs an executive order declaring that the state blacklist and divest from companies and organizations with a particular political view, we usually call that state repression,” she said.

At the protest outside Gov. Cuomo’s office, activists articulated many of the important reasons that a boycott is necessary. They carried a large banner that read “We will continue to boycott for justice until…”, which was accompanied by smaller signs that listed reasons for boycotting Israel.

Some of these reasons included: “until Israel respects Palestinian human rights,” “until the brutal occupation of Palestine ends,” “until Israel stops demolishing Palestinian homes,” “until Israel absolishes segregated schools,” “until Palestinian refugees can return home,” “until the siege of Gaza ends” and “until Palestinians have freedom.”

(Credit: Jewish Voice for Peace/Jake Ratner)

(Credit: Jewish Voice for Peace/Jake Ratner)

“Despite being planned at a very short notice, the protest had a robust turnout and a powerful presence by hundreds of outraged human rights advocates,” said Hani Ghazi, a member of Adalah-NY, the New York Campaign for the Boycott of Israel, the third group that co-organized the demonstration.

Ghazi, a Palestinian American activist, told Salon, “We expect the governor to be democratic and to protect our right to free speech and to practice honorable and nonviolent activism.”

“We expect him to side with his constituents, the people of New York, and not with wealthy corporations that profit from, and institutions that comply with, Israel’s human rights abuses, international law violations and other apartheid policies,” he added.

One protester even donned an enormous papier-mache head that looked like Cuomo’s.

For months, the New York legislature unsuccessfully tried to pass anti-boycott legislation. Cuomo circumvented this legal process completely on Sunday, June 5, signing the surprise executive order.

Dima Khalidi, the founder and director of nonprofit legal advocacy organization Palestine Legal and a cooperating counsel with the Center for Constitutional Rights, blasted Cuomo’s executive action.

“Gov. Cuomo can’t wish away the First Amendment with an executive order,” she told Salon on Monday. “It’s clear that Cuomo is bypassing the legislative process in order to muzzle morally-driven positions protesting systemically discriminatory state policies and a military occupation that is 49 years old this week.”

“As with the constitutionally faulty legislation that was pending in Albany, this Executive Order may not infringe — directly or indirectly — on the rights of New Yorkers to engage in constitutionally protected boycotts to effect economic, political or social change,” she added.

Palestine Legal issued a statement calling the executive order “a blatantly unconstitutional attack on freedom of speech [that] establishes a dangerous precedent reminiscent of McCarthyism.”

Riham Barghouti, another activist with Adalah-NY, accused Cuomo of acting undemocratically in order to implement an unpopular pro-Israel policy.

“Like other politicians, Gov. Cuomo is finding that blind support of the Israeli apartheid state requires repressive, undemocratic measures,” Barghouti said. “He is attempting to silence the growing number of morally conscientious individuals and organizations that support freedom, justice and equality for Palestinians.”

“We, along with our allies, demand that Gov. Cuomo rescind this order punishing supporters of Palestinian rights and BDS,” she added.

(Credit: Jewish Voice for Peace/Jake Ratner)

(Credit: Jewish Voice for Peace/Jake Ratner)

Anti-boycott legislation has been introduced in more than 20 states throughout the U.S. Bills that are likely unconstitutional have been passed in nine states.

Sen. Chuck Schumer heaped praise on Cuomo for his executive order. The New York senator said he is “looking at introducing a federal law to do the same thing” across the country.

Activists say Thursday’s protest was the first action in a new campaign to pressure the governor to repeal the order.

“This is a new low for the state-sanctioned backlash against the movement for Palestinian human rights,” Nic Abramson, an activist with Jews Say No!, said in a statement.

Abramson emphasized that the Palestinian solidarity movement “is growing and strengthening daily.”

JVP stands by the BDS movement. Vilkomerson, the executive director, defended BDS in Salon in February, warning that she and her organization were on the verge of being blacklisted.

“We act in solidarity with the Palestinian call for international grassroots pressure on Israel until it complies with international law and ends its ongoing repression of Palestinian rights,” explained JVP activist Gabrielle Spears in a statement.

She emphasized, “We will continue to boycott Israel until Palestinian children can live without fear of imprisonment and torture, until there are no longer separate roadways for Israeli Jews and Palestinians, until Israel stops bombing and killing Palestinians, and until the checkpoints and apartheid wall are dismantled.”

Ben Norton is a politics staff writer at Salon. You can find him on Twitter at@BenjaminNorton.

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We will boycott Israel until it ends human rights abuses against Palestinians

June 10, 2016

Protesters told Cuomo: We will boycott Israel until it ends human rights abuses against Palestinians

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New Yorkers demonstrated outside the Governor’s office after he signed an unconstitutional executive order against using boycotts to advocate for an end to Israel’s human rights abuses.

Thursday June 9, 2016–Hundreds of New Yorkers demonstrated outside Governor Cuomo’s Midtown offices, outraged by the Governor’s unconstitutional executive order requiring the state to create a blacklist and divest from corporations and institutions that support the Palestinian-led boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement targeting Israel. Protesters carried signs that read “We will continue to stand for justice and boycott Israel until the Palestinian people achieve freedom, justice, and equality,” in defiance of the attempt to repress the growing movement for Palestinian rights.

Demonstrators called on Governor Cuomo to rescind his executive order.

NYCCuomoProtest-8

“We act in solidarity with the Palestinian call for international grassroots pressure on Israel until it complies with international law and ends its ongoing repression of Palestinian rights. We will continue to boycott Israel until Palestinian children can live without fear of imprisonment and torture, until there are no longer separate roadways for Israeli Jews and Palestinians, until Israel stops bombing and killing Palestinians, and until the checkpoints and apartheid wall are dismantled,” said Gabrielle Spears, Jewish Voice for Peace.

Riham Barghouti from Adalah-NY commented, “Like other politicians, Governor Cuomo is finding that blind support of the Israeli apartheid state requires repressive, undemocratic measures. He is attempting to silence the growing number of morally conscientious individuals and organizations that support freedom, justice and equality for Palestinians. We, along with our allies, demand that Governor Cuomo rescind this order punishing supporters of Palestinian rights and BDS.”

“Governor Cuomo’s McCarthyite order calls for a publicly available blacklist of all companies and institutions that support using boycotts to bring about justice for Palestinians,” said Nic Abramson, Jews Say No! “This is a new low for the state-sanctioned backlash against the movement for Palestinian human rights–a movement that is growing and strengthening daily,” he added.

This executive order comes at a time of growing recognition that external pressure will be needed to end Israel’s occupation and repression of Palestinian rights and establish the conditions of equality that are necessary for a just and lasting peace.

BDS is under attack by politicians in Israel, France, the US, and other European countries attempting to impose laws to repress and even outlaw the growing movement for justice. The Israeli government has threatened Palestinian organizers of the BDS movement with “elimination” and effectively imposed a travel ban on one of the movement’s founders, Omar Barghouti.

In the US, bills to limit BDS activities have been introduced in over 20 states, and have been passed in 9 states. Prior to Cuomo’s executive order, two bills to punish BDS supporters had stalled in the New York legislature due to questions about their constitutionality and opposition from New Yorkers who support BDS and are concerned about the threat of the legislation to their civil liberties.

The Palestinian-led civil society BDS movement is modeled on the global campaign that helped bring an end to apartheid in South Africa. Through boycott and divestment from companies profiting from Israel’s oppression of the Palestinian people, boycott of complicit cultural and academic institutions, and sanctions targeting Israel, the movement aims to pressure Israel to respect the basic rights of the Palestinian people, whether living under Israeli military occupation, as unequal citizens within Israel, or as refugees denied their right of return.

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Here’s the paper!!!

February 4, 2016

http://itsnotthetimes.com/

http://www.scribd.com/doc/297836018/NYT-Parody

 

 

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Video: All the News We Didn’t Print: New York Times Parody Edition

February 4, 2016
Published on Feb 4, 2016

Ten thousand copies of a special supplement of The New York Times focused on Israel and Palestine were distributed across NYC February 2, 2016. The special parody supplement, created and distributed by Jewish Voice for Peace–New York chapter and Jews Say No!, included such articles as “Congress to Debate US Aid to Israel” and “In the Footsteps of Mandela and King: A Non-Violent Movement Gains Ground Ten Years On,” as well as an editorial, “Our New Editorial Policy: Rethinking Israel-Palestine.” The paper was intended to point out how biased current reporting is on Israel and Palestine and to show what a paper that was fair and accurate could look like.

More information at: jvp.org/itsnotthetimes and view the paper at: http://bit.ly/1VR2PhZ

 

 

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Faux New York Times highlights biased coverage on Israel/Palestine

February 3, 2016

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 

Contact:
Beth Miller | miller.bethavedon@gmail.com 

Donna Nevel | denevel@gmail.com | 917-570-4371

(February 3, 2016)–Ten thousand copies of a special supplement of The New York Times focused on Israel and Palestine were distributed across NYC yesterday, while thousands of on-line versions made their way across the internet. The special supplement, which was a parody, includes such articles as “Congress to Debate US Aid to Israel” and “In the Footsteps of Mandela and King: A Non-Violent Movement Gains Ground Ten Years On,” as well as an editorial, “Our New Editorial Policy: Rethinking Israel-Palestine.” 

Created by members of Jewish Voice for Peace New York (JVP NY) and Jews Say No!, (JSN), two NYC organizations devoted to justice in Palestine and Israel, the paper was created to “point out how biased current reporting is on Israel and Palestine and to show what a paper that was fair and accurate could look like,” according to JSN member Alan Levine, one of the paper’s writers.

“As a leading source for news in the United States and in the world, The New York Times has a responsibility to its readers to provide fair, balanced, and fact-based coverage. Our paper reflects the news that we wish The Times and other papers would report,” says Candace Graff, one of the organizers of the action from JVP NY. “It includes the context and facts too often missing from The New York Times and other U.S. media outlets.”

The articles highlight Israel’s ongoing policies of military occupation, displacement, and oppression, and “facts on the ground,” such as settlement expansion, the rise in settler violence, discriminatory anti-democratic laws targeting Palestinian citizens of Israel, and the increase of right-wing voices in the Knesset.  “These are all subjects that deserve to be covered and reported on,” Graff added. In a nod towards how U.S. policy on Israel might change if the mainstream media reported fairly on the continuing human rights abuses against Palestinians, the paper includes an editorial that calls on Congress to condition further Israeli military aid on compliance with the Leahy Law, which forbids U.S. military aid to foreign units that have committed human rights abuses. 

The two groups will release a brief video about the action tomorrow (2/4) that includes footage of the group distributing the paper on the streets of NYC. Jane Hirschmann, a member of Jews Say No!, and Ben Norton, a writer at Salon who first revealed the creators of the paper, discussed media bias around Israel/Palestine on Democracy Now this morning (2/3). The faux paper’s domain and twitter account were suspended, but can be viewed here and here. 

Credits:

Editors: Elly Bulkin, Nina Felshin, Donna Nevel, Rosalind Petchesky

Designer, print edition: Sarah Sills

Designer, online edition: Asa Diebolt

Production, Online edition: Talia Baurer

Writers: Gordon Beeferman, Brandon Davis, Naomi Dann, Candace Graff, Alan Levine, Aurora Levins, Morales, Donna Nevel, Rosalind Petchesky, Ellen Ross, Lynn Lopez Salzedo, Carl Schieren, Irene Siegel, Pamela Sporn

Copyeditor: Dorothy Zellner

Videographers: Rona Merrill, Pam Sporn

Media team: Naomi Dann, Beth Miller, Donna Nevel

Distribution coordinators: Candace Graff, Jane Hirschmann

A large group of volunteers distributed the papers across the city.

The New York City chapter of Jewish Voice for Peace is part of a national, grassroots organization inspired by Jewish tradition to work for a just and lasting peace according to principles of human rights, equality, and international law for all the people of Israel and Palestine. Jewish Voice for Peace has over 200,000 online supporters, over 60 chapter, a youth wing, a Rabbinic Council, an Artist Council, and Academic Advisory Council, and an Advisory Board made up of leading U.S. intellectuals and artists. Jews Say No!, based in NYC, engages in community education, street theatre, and organizing, and makes their voices heard within the Jewish community and as partners in the broader movement for justice in Palestine/Israel. 

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Democracy Now

February 3, 2016

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Progressive Jewish groups make New York Times parody issue

February 3, 2016

WEDNESDAY, FEB 3, 2016 07:30 AM EST

Jews Say No! and Jewish Voice for Peace-NY make New York Times parody issue to protest newspaper’s “biased Israel-Palestine coverage”

Satirical publication, handed out on the street and emailed, condemns the Times’ pro-Israel slant

 

Progressive Jewish groups make New York Times parody issue to protest newspaper's "biased Israel-Palestine coverage"

“Congress to Debate U.S. Aid to Israel,” reads the front page of the latest edition of The New York Times — or, rather, the latest fake edition of the Times.

Activists from progressive Jewish human rights groups created a very convincing-looking fake edition of The New York Times to protest the leading newspaper’s coverage of Israel.

The parody publication is written from a left-wing, anti-racist, anti-Islamophobic perspective that criticizes Israel’s violations of international law and Palestinian human rights, along with what the groups say is the Times’ failure to adequately address these crimes.

Early Tuesday morning, the activists, under the name The New York Times, sent an email out to reporters across the country titled “NYT Announces New Editorial Policy: Rethinking Our Coverage of Israel-Palestine.” The email included a link to an entire website modeled on the Times’ own site, http://www.NewYorkTimes-IP.com, which the activists created.

Less than 24 hours after the site was made public, on Tuesday evening, it was taken down. It is archived here.

On the “NYT-IP” Twitter account the groups made, activists shared photos of them handing out more than 10,000 copies of a print edition of the paper for free in downtown New York City on Tuesday morning. This Twitter account was also suspended later that evening, but is archived here.

nyt-ip received copy

No group immediately took credit for the action on Tuesday, while reports filled the media.

Jewish Voice for Peace — New York and Jews Say No! informed Salon that they had organized the protest. The former is the local branch of Jewish Voice for Peace, or JVP, an American human rights and social justice organization that challenges the Israeli government’s continued violence against and oppression of the indigenous Palestinian people. Jews Say No! is a New York City-based peace group that, like JVP, protests Israel’s illegal 48-year occupation of the Palestinian territories and periodic heavy bombing of Gaza.

In December, during Hanukkah, both groups organized another campaign — a series of protests across the country condemning Islamophobia, racism, anti-refugee xenophobia and police brutality.

Throughout the past few months, JVP and Jews Say No! meticulously designed the fake four-page New York Times newspaper and website. They assembled more than 20 people and created an editorial team dedicated to creating top-quality, wittily written, fact-checked coverage.

The fake “special edition” issue carries the slogan “All the news we didn’t print,” and blasts the Times for what the activists see as its biased, pro-Israel coverage.

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