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<div>March 16, 2008<br>
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<div>Jewish Labor Committee Attempts to Shut Down Boston Conference on
Zionism<br>
<br>
Zionists walked into a well-known center for left activists in Boston
this week and managed, with a single complaint, to take away an
already agreed-upon meeting space for an April conference on Palestine
organized by the New England Committee to Defend Palestine. Around
March 9, the local branch of a national group called the Jewish Labor
Committee told the director of Encuentro 5 and the landlord of the
building that houses Encuentro that the New England Committee to
Defend Palestine is a "hate group" and demanded that it not
be allowed to hold the conference in Encuentro's meeting space. On
March 14, the director of Encuentro informed the conference organizers
that he would have to accede to pressure from the Jewish Labor
Committee and UNITE-HERE (the Union of Needle trades, Industrial and
Textile Employees and Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees
Union). UNITE-HERE is connected to a trust that owns the
multi-story brick industrial building in Boston's Chinatown.
Encuentro's space is on the 5th floor of this building and is held
without a lease, making it vulnerable to landlord threats.<br>
<br>
Beneath the facts of the case lie a number of ironies:<br>
<br>
* Attacks like this are exactly the subject of the disputed
conference. The purpose of the conference, whose title is
"Zionism and the Repression of Anti-Colonial Movements," is
to expose attacks on activists as they have been carried out
historically by zionist forces. Activists scheduled to speak have been
involved in the Native American struggle against European genocide on
the North American continent, the Black liberation struggle in the US
from slavery onward, the struggle against US imperialism in Central
America, the movement against apartheid in South Africa, the struggle
against US imperialism and genocide in Iraq, and the struggle against
US-Israeli genocide in Palestine.<br>
<br>
* Encuentro bills itself as "a space for progressive movement
building" in Boston (<a
href="http://www.encuentro5.org">http://www.encuentro5.org</a> ).
Massachusetts Global Action -- the organization that runs
Encuentro--argued the need for a "tactical retreat" and
offered us $400 and help finding another venue if we would consent to
leave. We told them that this would undermine the meaning of our
conference, their own work, and the movement as a whole. Our
suggestion to Encuentro was to take this matter to the activist
community -- to the people who use the space -- to tell them
what was taking place and invite them to help organize a struggle to
defend the integrity of our collective work.<br>
<br>
Zionist organizations like the JLC have more material and political
power than perhaps at any time in the past. But this power is
increasingly hollow, since it must increasingly assert itself by
shutting down a discussion about that power--a discussion that is
growing and moving into the mainstream. The JLC did not succeed by
persuading Encuentro 5, but by threatening them through the
building's owners. These are clearly threats that they have the power
to carry out--a fact that proves what critics of zionism are
saying.<br>
<br>
But this also demonstrates that while they have more material power
than ever before, they have less ideological support than ever before.
The legitimacy of the zionist project--the passive consent given to
US support for "Israel"--is collapsing. That collapse must come
before the serious fight over material power--a fight that is
coming.<br>
<br>
We are disappointed that Encuentro 5 and Mass Global Action decided
that it was not strategic for them to challenge this abuse of power
now. We know that the repercussions might well have been severe, and
recognize that this would affect a great deal of effort and work that
has gone into building their organization. We offer the following as a
challenge--not so much to them, but to the movement as a whole,
since finally the question is not about any of our specific,
struggling organizations:</div>
<div><br>
Can we build a movement against imperialism, or against social
injustice in the United States, if the limits of our discussion can be
set by organizations like the JLC--organizations that are committed
to ensuring that billions of dollars in US military and economic
support are given yearly to one of the most militarized colonial
states in the world?<br>
<br>
There is widespread discontent with zionist power. This discontent
will not turn itself into a meaningful response until it becomes
organized around specific battles. This can only take place if at some
point people are willing say "it stops here."<br>
<br>
* "Progressives" are not progressive. The
"progressives" are the Jewish Labor Committee, which calls
itself "the Jewish voice in the labor movement." The JLC did
not come in from the outside but actually has an office in Encuentro's
own space. The Jewish Labor Committee's web site (<a
href="http://www.jewishlabor.org">http://www.jewishlabor.org</a> )
shows its president, Stuart Applebaum, standing proudly with war
criminal Shimon Peres in February in Jerusalem. The JLC has put out a
statement condemning the Palestinian call for boycott, divestment, and
sanctions against "Israel." The JLC statement asserts that
Israelis, who have brutally occupied Palestine for 60 years, carrying
out a program of genocide ever since, should not be seen as
"victimizers."<br>
<br>
The progressives are UNITE-HERE, the brave union for oppressed garment
and hotel workers, which acted in this fiasco as a landlord
bully threatening to kick out tenants for political speech.<br>
<br>
The progressives are leftists who support resistance in Palestine, but
not resistance that uses measures of a kind used by its enemy --
namely, armed struggle. The leadership of the resistance in Palestine,
Lebanon, Iraq and Afghanistan today is Islamic. Progressives in the US
support secular political movements, so they don't support the people
who are actually carrying out the resistance in these countries which
the US and "Israel" are busy devastating. Support for
resistance by oppressed people should be given without
qualification.<br>
<br>
* The criminal has accused his victim of the crime. The real hate
groups are those who support genocide in Palestine. The Boston
Jewish Labor Committee's accusation that the conference organizers are
a "hate group" comes right out of the manual of the
Anti-Defamation League which has gone to great pains to define
political speech and action as good or bad in terms favorable to the
zionist project. The ADL is a "progressive" organization --
it seems to be for the right thing, except when it comes to criticism
of "Israel." Criticism of "Israel" is
anti-Semitism -- that's hate speech, that's against the law. The ADL
was part of a recent attack on a mosque being built in Boston. It was
exposed for lobbying Congress against a bill that condemns the
Armenian genocide. During the late '70's and early '80's, it spied on
organizations in the U.S. that supported the struggle against white
supremacist apartheid in South Africa. This do-good "no place for
hate" organization is actually a front group for a racist foreign
power.<br>
<br>
The limits of political speech on the left are now being defined
by the very organizations who say they're working for the good. There
is no open debate. The idea is to simply prevent political speech. Why
is support for a nasty racist state in occupied Palestine driving so
much of US and international politics? And the question goes beyond
Palestine, since these same organizations have the power to set limits
on the discussion of "social justice" and racism here inside
the US. This includes a history of demonizing black nationalists
like Malcolm X, Stokely Carmichael, and the Black Panthers as
"anti-Semites." In many cases people's careers have been
ruined and their reputations smeared by forces who never came out in
the open. Joseph Massad, Tony Martin, Ward Churchill, and most
recently Catherine Wilkerson, are examples. Ward Churchill will be
among the speakers at the conference.<br>
<br>
The New England Committee to Defend Palestine assures all those who
have been invited to and registered for the April 12 and 13 conference
that we have secured another venue and will be announcing it soon. We
couldn't have provided a better example of zionist interference in
anti-imperialist activism than the one that just happened here. We
have great speakers coming from many different movements. We hope that
supporters of the struggle in Palestine, and all those who recognize
the need to build a truly independent opposition to oppression inside
the US, will join us for this event.</div>
<div><br>
New England Committee to Defend Palestine</div>
<div><a
href="http://www.onepalestine.org">http://www.onepalestine.org</a></div
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