A group of Jewish Americans committed to peace in the Middle East through
a negotiated settlement to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, an end of the Israeli
occupation of Palestinian lands, and
opposition to American militarism, imperialism, and exceptionalism.
LA Jews for Peace
We meet the third Monday of each month at 7:00 PM
in LA's Fairfax district.
e-mail us at
info@LAJewsforPeace.org
for the address and driving directions.
Israel-Palestine - the Flotilla & Future Prospects with Richard Falk ,
click here,
53-minute interview with Richard Falk, Special UN Rapporteur on Palestine.
Discuss the attack of Israel on the humanitarian flotilla bound for Gaza at the end of May and future prospects
for the Middle East, the U.S., Israel and Palestine.
Video by Cindy Piester of Pulse TV in Montecito, CA on July 9, 2010.
L.A. Jews demonstrate in support of Gaza-bound flotilla ,
click here,
The first 11 minutes of this 30 minute video is the Cultures of Resistance video of the start of the attack
on the Freedom Flotilla. The remaining 20 minutes are interviews of attendees at the LA Jews for Peace
demonstration at the Westwood Federal Building on June 6, 2010.
The first 11 minutes of this 30 minute video is the Cultures of Resistance video of the start of the attack
on the Freedom Flotilla. The remaining 20 minutes are interviews of attendees at the LA Jews for Peace
demonstration at the Westwood Federal Building.
Protest at Israel Dance Concert
Jews for a Just Peace - North Carolina and friends set-up a simulated demolished house at an Israel Rebranding
Dance recital in Durham. 3 minutes.
Eyewitness Report on Israeli Attack of the Freedom Flotilla
"Witness to State Terror: Abord the Mavi Marmara" is a 10-minute video with an eyewitness account by Fatima Mohammadi,
a passenger abord the Mavi Marmara when it was attacked by the Israeli nave in the pre-dawn hours of May 31, 2010.
This is one of the best eyewitness reports. Includes raw video footage smuggeled off the Mavi Marmara by Iara Lee and Cultures Of
Resistance.
Demonstration to Protest Israeli Piracy of Freedom Flotilla
Wednesday, June 2, 5 - 7 PM; Westwood Federal Building (Wilshire at the 405-freeway)LA Jews for Peace is organizing a demonstration to protest the Israeli piracy of the Freedom Flotilla.
Bring signs calling attention to US complicity in incident (due to its support of Israel) and calls for Obama to
condemn the attack and/or take other action.
Wednesday, June 2, 5 - 7 PM; Westwood Federal Building (Wilshire at the 405-freeway)
LA Jews for Peace Statement on United States Complicity in the Freedom Flotilla Priacy
June 2, 2010:
LA Jews for Peace condemns Israel's piracy of the Freedom Flotilla in international waters, a clear violation
of International Law, and the killing civilian members of the Flotilla who were bringing humanitarian supplies to the
1.5 million people living in the besieged Gaza Strip.
complete statement
Norman Finkelstein Visit to Los Angeles, March 2010
Norman Finkelstein visited Los Angeles in mid March 2010 to deliver a lecture to the Students for Justice in
Palestine at USC on his new book "This Time We Went Too Far" about lastr winter's Gaza bombardment, and do a Q&A after a screening of "American Radical:
The Trials of Norman Finkelstein." Finkelstein's comments during the Q&A were elaborated during a private meeting
with LA Jews for Peace. Summary of Finkelstein's visit is divided into four parts: (1) Finkelstein's chief points about the
Gaza Bombardment, (2) Finkelstein's take on the present political situation in Israel-Palestine, and how to fight for
justice and peace, (3) Rick Chertoff's optimistic viewpoint based on Finkelstein's comments, (4) Duncan MacKay's detailed
summary of Finkelstein's talk about the Gaza Bombardment, and (5) Dick Platkin's critique of Finkelstein's comments.
click here
Jeff Halper Interview
Feb. 2010 interview titled "The Global Pacification Industry," including the key role that Israel plays and
its relation to Americandomestic security. 56 minutes.
Videos Illustrating Goldstone Findings
Series of videos illustrating findings of the Goldstone Report by www.GoldstoneFacts.org. The first installment is on Chapter 11 -
"Deliberate Attacks against the Civilian Population," is 20 minutes long. Future videos on other chapters will be
here
Click to sign petition
Link to "Breaking the Vessels"
by Jeff Halper (ICAHD), Wednesday, November 19, 2009
click here
Halper argues that the Palestinians plan to declare a Palestinian state alongside Israel with the pre-1967 borders, and ask the U.S. to recognize that state, is perhaps the best option for the Palestinians. Halper says that given the occupation and Israel's unwillingness to negotiate seriously, "something must be done, and given the failure of the international community to either protect the Palestinians or rein in Israel, I [Halper], for one, am at a loss to suggest alternatives that address the urgency of a way out of Israel's growingly genocidal occupation."
Al-Jazeera video (3 minutes) showing Israeli settlers evicting a Palestinian family in East Jerusalem.
Jeff Halper (ICAHD) and Misha Kurz (Breaking the Silence) discuss Goldstone reporton
on Democracy Now, Nov. 3, 2009
Link to
"A progressive Jewish American is Ambivalent to BDS"
Jeff Warner, November 11, 2009
click here
Warner argues that BDS does not work in changing government policy, although BDS may educate Israelis that their treatment of Palestinians is not normal, and Americans that their government is working to preserve the status quo.
Link to "NO PARTNER FOR PEACE: OUR AMERICAN PROBLEM"
by Jeff Halper (ICAHD), Wednesday, November 04, 2009
click here
Halper argues that recent United States foreign policy related to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict around settlements
and the Goldstone report have the effect of "deminishing American Credibility."
Link to "THE CASE FOR A MIDDLE EAST UNION TO
ADDRESS THE ISRAELI-PALESTINIAN CONFLICT," by Dick Platkin, ICUJP, July 30, 2009
click here
Regional approaches -- sometimes called the no-state solution -- to address the Israeli-Palestinian conflict are not new.
For example, in the mid-1950s the Eisenhower Administration proposed a regional water management union to address the
water issues of Israel and Jordan, although Syria and Egypt were also involved in his administration’s failed initiative.
This article sets out the case for a regional solution to end the conflict.
Link to "Healing and Reality in the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict," by Rafael Reuvenyi, published in Tikkun, June 6, 2009.
click here
While many will be dissatisfied with the author’s implicit ‘legitimatization’ of Israel, there is much to his analysis that would go toward explaining why it is that the “Walt & Mearsheimer” wing of the US foreign policy establishment are apparently succeeding in the Obama White House, as evidenced by the Cairo speech and the incipient confrontation over settlement expansion between Obama & the Israeli government.
We don't need to prognosticate the exact direction of this new turn of policy to notice an immediate degree of ‘change’- if not necessarily one we can “believe in”. But equating the suffering of the Palestinians to the Holocaust in a major address, and publicly contradicting the PM of Israel in their DC press conference signals a new direction of some kind. This is the first display (alas!) of the much advertized “audacity” along with the equally touted “hope” we heard so much about, and we can’t ignore it. This does not imply that a viable Palestinian state is immediately in the offing, but with a suicidal US policy in Afghanistan, maybe Obama needs a modus vivendi with Iran, and is willing to tamp down the Israeli land grab lunacy in the Palestinian territories as a token.
Jeff Warner's report on the
VIVA PALESTINA USA Humanitarian Convoy to break the Israeli siege of Gaza
Link to a review of Patrick Taylor's book A World of Trouble, The White House and the Middle East - From the Cold War to the War on Terror, by Bernard Avishai, published in The Nation, June 6, 2009.
Dead: over 1,300 Palestinians (410 children & 104 women); 13 Israelis (3 civilians; 4 from friendly fire).
Wounded: 5,300 Palestinians, perhaps many more (half civilians).
Gaza infrastructure demolished (roads, utilities, medical system, education system, government buildings, etc.).
Gaza housing stock demolished (21,000 building).
Cost of rebuilding: $2 billion or more.
Siege continues.
Cease-Fire Situation -
At present there are two independent, unilateral cease-fires, one by Israel and one by Hamas. Egypt is the prime actor attempting tonegotiate a one-year cease-fire. These efforts are being undermined by continual cease-fire violations, disunity among Palestinians, and Israel's reluctance to open the crossings.
Join LA Jews for Peace on Sunday afternoon, September 13, 2009, for a Benefit for Jeff Halper and
ICAHD, the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions
Review of Michael Klare's Rising Powers - Shrinking Planet: The New Geopolitics of Energy By Dick Platkin, LA Jews for Peace
In his new movie W, a biopic about outgoing president George W. Bush, Oliver Stone presents a mad scientist scene in which Vice President Dick Cheney, played by actor Richard Dreyfuss, narrates a series of massive slides demonstrating how the countries adjacent to the Persian Gulf and Caspian Sea contain most of this world’s proven oil and gas reserves. As the Cheney-Dreyfuss presentation unfolds, we see the locations where the U.S. government has constructed dozens upon dozens of Middle East military installations since the first Gulf. We are also told that the country which controls these Middle Eastern oil and gas reserves will control the Eurasian continent. This, in turn, will become key for the U.S. to maintain its dominant position in the global economy.
Much of Cheney’s program for the United States to retain its imperial role as the hegemonic world power can be understood in detail from Michael Klare's most recent book, Rising Powers Shrinking Planet: The New Geopolitics of Energy, (Metropolitan Books, 2008) albeit with a context left out of the movie. For those not familiar with Klare, he is The Nation’s Defense Editor and also a professor of Peace and World Security Studies at Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts.
click for complete essay
A Plea from Israel, Come, Obama, Change My Life
an essay by Edna Canetti, Counterpunch, November 6, 2008
Obama my dear, they tell me that you are going to change the world. Do me a favor, come and change my life personally.
Come to Israel, grab its stupid leadership by the throat and take its foot off the neck of another people. Come and force us to
do what is clear, and written, and fitting, and necessary, come and get us out of the Territories, if necessary do it with a smile
that reveals million-dollar teeth. If necessary bare your teeth and force us to do it. --
click for complete essay
The Case for Putting a Mideast Peace Agreement First
Barack Obama should address the need for an Israeli-Palestinian peace settlement sooner rather than later.
an essay by Gershom Gorenberg, The American Prospect, November 14, 2008
Time's up. Despite the bluster at George W. Bush's Potemkin peace conference in Annapolis one year ago, Israel and the Palestinians will not reach a peace agreement by the end of 2008. Please folks, don't all faint at once from surprise.
Barack Obama will inherit this mess, along with all the others. Very soon, he must decide how quickly to throw his weight
behind Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, what to aim for, and how to succeed where so many others have failed.
The answer: Move fast, very fast. Ignore all advice from old diplomatic hands ... --
click for complete essay
Free Gaza Movement Breaks Siege of Gaza
"A Bone in America's Throat,"
an essay by Jeff Halper, Monday, November 10, 2008
Even before the voting began, Israeli politicians and pundits were asking: Will an Obama Administration be good for
Israel? “Be good for Israel” is our code for “Will the US allow us to keep our settlements and continue to support our
efforts to prevent negotiations with the Palestinians from ever bearing fruit?” For Americans the question should be:
Will the Obama Administration understand that without addressing Palestinian needs it will not be able to disentangle
itself from its broader Middle Eastern imbroglios, rejoin the community of nations and rescue its economy?
-- click for complete essay
Free Gaza Movement Breaks Siege of Gaza
The Free Gaza Movement continues to break new ground. In late August they sailed two boats, the SS Liberty
and the SS Free Gaza, from Cyprus to Gaza City's small port, thereby breaking the Israeli siege of the Gaza Strip.
Building on its initial success, and buoyed by a wave of contributions, the Free Gaza Movement purchased a newer
and better boat, the SS Dignity. They successfully sailed from Cyprus to Gaza City in late October, and again in early November.
Each trip carried humanitarian supplies and international dignitaries.
You can still make a tax-deductable contribution. Make checks out to:
“The Free Gaza Movement," and mail to
The Free Gaza Movement, 405 Vista Heights Road. El Cerrito, CA 94530.
The Palestinians: Warehousing a "surplus people" by Jeff Halper
Jeff Halper’s latest piece titled, The Palestinians: Warehousing a "surplus people." Jeff argues that the situation
the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza endure is “worse then South African apartheid. Halper then quotes
from Naomi Klein’s book The Shock Doctrine to suggest that the real goal of the Israelis, apparently supported by
western democracies, is to “warehouse the Palestinians because they are a “surplus population,” meaning they
have no place and function in the global economy. Finally Halper suggests that Israel’s goal is to end the political
process with the Palestinians by forcing them into a rump, but temporary state that will last for a “very long time.”
Halper concludes with,
"The term "warehousing," then, is meant as a warning. We must continue our efforts to end the Israeli Occupation,
even if this is meant in a wider sense, of creating a genuine Palestine/Israel, or a wider regional confederation,
rather than an apartheid-cum-two-state solution or outright warehousing."