The MAIA Steering Committee has four action steps that we are hoping our member groups will promote, plus a wonderful three minute video (put together by the Alliance for Water Justice in Palestine, JVP-Boston, and UUJME) to share with our legislative representatives, both state and federal.
At the moment, it appears that new legislation on the federal level may not be immediately forthcoming as the new administration deals with COVID, the economy, and the white supremacists, all while trying to get a cabinet set up. Given all of this, we have decided to engage in as much education as possible for ourselves and for the new members of the state legislature in order to establish relationships around the issue of Palestine. Some are already informed and others may know nothing or have incorrect understandings of the situation. As such, we have prepared four action steps with lots of helpful resources and educational materials below.
ACTION STEPS
1. Tell Biden to reject the IHRA definition of anti-Semitism
On the state level, we are watching for any stealth legislation on “hate speech” that may show up using the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s (IHRA) definition of antisemitism as a way to silence Palestinian voices, campus movements, and BDS work for Palestinian human rights, freedom and justice. If anyone knows of such legislation, or is willing to ask your legislator to keep an eye out for it, that would be important for all of us to know. In the meantime, we ask that you sign and circulate THIS petition that JVP is circulating asking Biden to both repudiate the attempts to institutionalize this definition and to fight against white supremacy, the real threat to Jewish security and inextricably linked to the fight for anti-racism.
2. Tell the Biden administration to condemn further settlement construction!
HERE is a petition (with a great Bernie meme!) being circulated by Code Pink calling for the Biden administration to repudiate Israeli apartheid and further settlement construction. B’Tselem, the Israeli human rights organization, has recently put out a report with evidence of Israel’s apartheid nature. This is the first acknowledgement from an Israeli organization of the existence of apartheid on the ground and, as such, the report creates an opportunity to raise the issue of apartheid judiciously, taking into account whether and how it makes sense to address apartheid with a given audience.
3. Tell Facebook not to silence discussion of Zionism on Facebook
Right now, Facebook is considering whether the term “Zionist” should be considered hate speech under its Community Standards. If it does move to restrict use of the word “Zionist,” this would block important conversations on the world’s largest social media platform, harm Facebook users attempting to connect across space and difference, and deprive Palestinians of a critical platform to express their political viewpoints. This would silence those attempting to hold the Israeli government accountable — as all governments must be — and bring to light human rights violations on the world’s biggest social media platform. We hope you will sign and circulate this petition to ask Facebook to let us talk!!
4. Let’s talk about conditioning aid to Israel
Here is the really great educational three minute video for sharing anywhere you want to talk about conditioning US aid to Israel. The focus is on how US funding of the military machine in Israel takes critical monies from the states, especially from Massachusetts. The USCPR website has the same information for each state, so please share with friends elsewhere to see how it can be used in their state as well!