#RaiseYourVoice About The Ethnic Cleansing Of #Palestine

Occupying the narrative about Palestine and its people has been the chief triumph of Zionists since establishing the state of Israel. As a baby boomer growing up in the U.S. I was told -- and for years I believed -- that Israel had taken uninhabited, barren land and "made the desert bloom." Also that it was the only democracy in the region, besieged by hostile Arab neighbors simply for the fact of being a Jewish state.

I was also told that the Zionists represented all Jewish people -- probably the biggest falsehood of all. Nowadays, my Jewish friends who raise their voices against Israel's violent occupation are attacked verbally, called "self-hating" and sometimes attacked physically for speaking up. Those of us who aren't Jewish are accused of being"anti-Semitic" if we criticize Israel.

Today I join Blog Action Day 2016 with its theme of #RaiseYourVoice in support of everyone with the courage to speak the truth about Israel. As soon as I press Publish, my computer will likely alert me to an attempted cyberattack. So be it.

A student at my alma mater told me that, while she has taken some heat for pressuring Bowdoin College to divest from fossil fuels, the campus group that works to promote BDS (Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions) has drawn "vicious" attacks including threats of violent reprisal. She said that her friends in the BDS group are frightened. This is consistent with Israel's ongoing campaign to silence campus debate about Israel's occupation of Palestine. Exercising academic freedom can be dangerous if you challenge the accepted narrative. Open discussion in pursuit of the truth is unwelcome.

The U.S. corporate press continues pushing Zionist myths right up to the present day. 

In the past several weeks, Netanyahu's "live fire" policy for the Israeli military has resulted in hundreds of deaths and thousands of injuries, many of them to children. According to the U.S. Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation, 

Just this month, more than 1,000 Palestinians have been gravely wounded, more than 500 arrested (many held without charge) and at least 30 killed -- many of them children -- while 8 Israelis have been killed.

Settlers who burn families to death in their homes or attack Palestinian villagers harvesting olives on ancestral land are protected by soldiers as they do so. Settlers driving cars that hit and kill children are not prosecuted for the crime. Shannon Ebrahim reported in The Star:

Hit-and-run attacks against Palestinian children by Israeli settlers are well documented across East Jerusalem and the West Bank. A few examples are: a 5-year- old run over by settlers in the West Bank on January 24, 5-year-old Zakariya Umour run over in the West Bank on April 28, a 10-year-old in Hebron on June 22, a 12-year-old in Jenin on August 7, and 10-year-old Mohammed Najjar on August 16 in Nablus. 

In this disturbing viral video, reportedly filmed by an Israeli soldier, Ahmad Manasra, age 13, bleeds on the ground after being shot; no one goes to assist him for a long time or admonishes the Israeli man screaming curse words at him.

Typical corporate news coverage of Israel and Palestine looks like this:

The greatest power of propaganda lies in its ability to focus our attention on only a fragment of the truth, leading us to believe that the tiny spot we're viewing is the whole picture. If you can see more than you're intended to see, #RaiseYourVoice.

#PowerofWe = You + Me Standing Up For All Of Us

Hey, Bibi, where's the red line on ethnic cleansing? Theft of water rights? Israel's nuclear weapons program?

I am a day late joining in National Blog Action Day which is about right considering I have a full time job, I spent the entire weekend in action with CODEPINK Greater Boston helping to Expose AIPAC at their national summit, and I lost my cell phone one week ago today.

Exposing AIPAC consisted of different actions in solidarity with Palestinian activists in the Boston area, including a teach-in plus distributing cleverly designed faux brochures from the American Israeli Program for Ethnic Cleansing aka AIPEC.

Outside action on Sunday included some of the Occupy participants renting bicycles and circling the Seaport Hotel after a score of state police, Homeland Security guys and Boston PD officers kicked us off the sidewalk because it is "private property, owned by Massport." Probably illegal, but eight people were allowed to continue protesting at the doors while the rest of us were chased off around the block.

At the teach-in with Kristin Szremski of American Muslims for Palestine.

I had a lot of fun helping organizer Ridgely Fuller make posters featuring Mass. Senator Scott Brown posing in the buff for Cosmopolitan because he was one of many politicos coming to the AIPAC summit to pay homage to the big bucks AIPAC pours into campaign coffers.

Back in March when Obama spoke at AIPAC's conference in Washington DC he told them the U.S. relationship with Israel is "sacrosanct." Wow. I guess that means war with Iran, since AIPAC has been beating that drum and stirring up alarm at Iran's non-existent nuclear weapons program in recent months. One of the best signs in Boston (which unfortunately covered me with still wet paint before I realized it) was AIPAC: If you liked Iraq, you will love Iran. That's a reference to the lobbying that led Congress to authorize war against Saddam Hussein and his non-existent weapons of mass destruction.

The #PowerofWe was on display as writers, musicians, academics, journalists, occupiers, protesters, along with Codepink women from Maine and western Massachusetts, joined forces to bring some truth to light. Mainstream media? Absent. But together we, the people, can share energy and real information to effect change.

We are unstoppable, another world is possible!

Photo from March, 2012 in Washington DC Occupy AIPAC.