Is real Bans 20 Opposition Groups From Travel to Isreal

CodePink co-founder Medea Benjamin
I Am American, Jewish, and Banned From Israel for My Activism
This month, the Israeli government announced that activists. including Codepink, would be banned from entering Israel due to support for the nonviolent boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement.

by Medea Benjamin

January 26th, 2018

By Medea Benjamin
This month, the Israeli government announced that activists affiliated with 20 organizations, including my organization Codepink, would be banned from entering Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories because of our support for the nonviolent boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement for Palestinian rights.

As a Jew, this causes me tremendous sadness because I have a lifetime attachment to Israel and Palestine. It also deepens my commitment to working for peace and equality for all the peoples of the region.

I first went to Israel 50 years ago, right after the June 1967 war. I was 16 years old and spent the summer living on the kibbutz Ein Gedi, right on the Dead Sea. I loved the kibbutz, where I learned about farming, communal living and socialism (yes, it was a socialist kibbutz at the time). I also learned, however, about the contempt and racism many Jews exhibited towards Palestinians and other Arabs.

I made friends with Arabs who taught me how the Jewish state had dispossessed Palestinians from their lands during Israel’s establishment, created millions of refugees who were not allowed to return, and denied basic rights to the Palestinians who remained as second-class citizens.

Over the years, I have stood in solidarity with both Palestinians and Israelis trying to build a truly democratic nation. I co-founded the group Global Exchange, which has been taking delegations to the region since 1990. Unlike most trips organized by US groups, these trips take people to meet Palestinians in the occupied West Bank. They work together in the olive harvest, join efforts to stop Palestinian homes from being demolished by Israel’s ever-expanding illegal settlements, and meet with Israelis who defend Palestinian rights.

In 2002, Jodie Evans and I founded the women-led peace group Codepink, to stop the war in Iraq. Along with protesting the US’s ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, weapons sales to Saudi Arabia, and other aspects of militarism, we have incorporated the Palestinian struggle for freedom into our agenda.

After the horrific 2009, 2012 and 2014 Israeli bombings of Gaza, we took hundreds of people to the beleaguered Gaza Strip to witness the devastating human suffering and bring critical humanitarian aid. We joined up with the international Freedom Flotillas that every year since 2010 have been sending ships to try to break the Israeli-imposed blockade of Gaza and its collective punishment of more than 1.8 million Palestinians.

We have pushed the US government to stop giving more than $3bn of our tax dollars to the Israeli government in military aid each year. We have supported courageous Palestinians such as Issa Amro and 16-year-old Ahed Tamimi who face long jail sentences for their human rights activism, and worked with wonderful Israeli groups such as Rabbis for Human Rights and the Israeli/Palestinian Coalition of Women for Peace.

In 2005, when Palestinian civil society called on the global community to support BDS as a tactic to advance their struggle for freedom, justice and equality, we signed on. Over the years, we have engaged in successful advocacy campaigns, such as pushing the cosmetics company AHAVA and SodaStream to move their factories out of illegal West Bank settlements. We are also campaigning to stop AirBnB and Remax from renting and selling settlement properties.

The Palestinian-led BDS movement is fashioned after the boycott movement that helped bring down apartheid in South Africa. Its goal is to apply nonviolent economic pressure on Israel until it ends its occupation of all Palestinian lands conquered in 1967, grants equal rights to Palestinian citizens of Israel, and honors United Nations resolution 194 that upholds the right of return for Palestinian refugees expelled from their homes by Israel.

Beyond the movement’s economic impact, it has transformed the discourse around Palestinian disenfranchisement and built a broader global movement. From major church denominations, academic associations and labor groups, to social justice movements like Black Lives Matter and Standing Rock, to pop culture icons refusing free trips to Israel, as BDS grows worldwide, Israel becomes more and more desperate to contain it. The latest effort is this blacklist of 20 pro-BDS organizations.

This new ban comes on the heels of arrests and prosecutions of nonviolent Palestinian activists who face long jail sentences. It is clear that Israel, egged on by its supporters in the Trump administration, is increasing its repression of human rights activists and critics.

This tactic, however, will only continue to make a pariah of the Israeli government. As former South African government minister Ronnie Kasrils said: “Attempts by the former South African apartheid government to discredit and threaten the BDS movement failed and backfired, only intensifying international protest which assisted in bringing down that unjust regime. Apartheid Israel is following that path.”

In the face of Israel’s increasingly draconian attempts to suppress nonviolent activists at home and abroad, we will strengthen our principled work in support of freedom and justice for all people in Israel/Palestine.

Top Photo | CodePink co-founder Medea Benjamin walks with other protesters against the Republican health care bill as they were escorted by the U.S. Capitol Police officers away from the office of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Ky., July 17, 2017, on Capitol Hill in Washington. (AP/Manuel Balce Ceneta)

Medea Benjamin, co-founder of Global Exchange and CODEPINK: Women for Peace, is the author of Drone Warfare: Killing by Remote Control. Her previous books include Don’t Be Afraid Gringo: A Honduran Woman Speaks from the Heart, and (with Jodie Evans) Stop the Next War Now (Inner Ocean Action Guide).

This article was made possible by the readers and supporters of AlterNet, where it first appeared.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect MintPress News editorial policy.

PALESTINE ISRAEL MEDEA BENJAMIN BOYCOTT DIVESTMENT SANCTIONS

You Might Also Like
Marielle Franco speaking at a campaign rally in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in 2016. Photo: Mídia Ninja/Flickr CC BY-SA 2.0
Suspicious Murder of Anti-Police Brutality Activist Sparks Large Protests In Brazil
President Donald Trump meets with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the Oval Office of the White House, Monday, March 5, 2018, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
Under New Deal, Palestinians to Be Offered Less Than Half of West Bank

68 Comments
FEATURED VIDEOS
Somalis remove the body of a man killed in Saturday's blast, in Mogadishu, Somalia Sunday, Oct. 15, 2017. The death toll from the huge truck bomb blast in Somalia's capital rose to over 50 Sunday, with more than 60 others injured, as hospitals struggled to cope with the high number of casualties, security and medical sources said. (AP/Farah Abdi Warsameh)
Imperialism, Intervention, “War On Terror” Detonate In Mogadishu
The recent devastating car bombing in Mogadishu has been blamed by Somali officials on the terrorist group al-Shabab. But the violence (and famine) that have beset Somalia have deeper roots — decades of imperialism and intervention, and use of Somalia as a staging grounds for the “war on terror.”

In this photo taken March 15, 2017, an AR-15 style rifle manufactured by Battle Rifle Co. is display in Webster, Texas. (AP/Lisa Marie Pane)
A Culture Of Violence: A Parade of Stephen Paddocks With A Huge Pile Of Guns
Buried among statistics on gun profits and lobbying efforts is the terrifying reality of just how unique America’s gun obsession and associated violence are. And the equally terrifying plan by the NRA to “normalize” gun possession in nearly every nook and cranny of American life.

People watch a TV screen showing an image of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un delivering a statement in response to U.S. President Donald Trump's speech to the United Nations, in Pyongyang, North Korea, at the Seoul Railway Station in Seoul, South Korea, Friday, Sept. 22, 2017. (AP/Ahn Young-joon)
Media On North Korea: Easier To Demonize Than Try To Understand
U.S. campaigns for regime change characteristically focus on the “madness” of the “dictators” to be toppled. In the case of North Korea, the narrative is spiced by the country’s developing nuclear capabilities — which North Korea views as its main line of defense against . . . regime change.

A Rohingya Muslim woman, who crossed over from Myanmar into Bangladesh, lies unconscious on the shore of the Bay of Bangal after the boat she was traveling in capsized at Shah Porir Dwip, Bangladesh, Thursday, Sept. 14, 2017. Nearly three weeks into a mass exodus of Rohingya fleeing violence in Myanmar, thousands were still flooding across the border Thursday in search of help and safety in teeming refugee settlements in Bangladesh. (AP Photo/Dar Yasin)
Nearly 2,000 Dead In Myanmar Amid Military-Led Ethnic Cleansing Of Rohingya
Aung Su Kyi, the leader of Myanmar, has been accused of “legitimizing genocide” against the country’s Rohingya Muslims, despite being a Nobel Prize laureate. Her country’s military has massacred thousands of Rohingya, leading some to call for Kyi’s Nobel Prize to be revoked.