Media Roundup: We’re not going anywhere.
Together, arm-in-arm with Palestinian-led groups, we’ve helped build a movement demanding an end to Israel’s oppression of Palestinians. With Trump and his allies in power, that movement and all progressive movements for justice are under attack.
But we’re not going anywhere. A ceasefire was always the bare minimum, and the coming days and weeks will be critical for the Palestine solidarity movement to turn the temporary agreement reached in mid-January into a full halt of the genocide in Gaza, and an end to Israeli military occupation and apartheid across historic Palestine.
Until Palestine is free.
How Universities Cracked Down on Pro-Palestinian Activism, The New York Times, November 25, 2024
“They do not care about our ability or right to practice our religion. They only care about limiting Palestinian speech.”
Paz Baum, JVP-Northwestern
LETTER: Hoboken should be praised, not criticized, for Palestinian flag raising, Hudson County View, November 25, 2024
“Indeed, for many members of Jewish Voice for Peace, it is precisely the Jewish lessons we learned growing up that lead us to oppose Israel’s current treatment of Palestinians. When six million Jews were slaughtered in the Holocaust, we were taught that such horrors should never happen again, not to Jews, not to anyone. And we take that lesson seriously. We have confidence that the mayor, city council, and people of Hoboken will not allow false and weaponized charges of antisemitism to be used to prevent recognition of Hoboken’s Palestinian community at a time of its greatest anguish.”
JVP-Northern Jew Jersey
JVP Action Condemns House Passage of Bill to Give More Authoritarian Power to Trump, Common Dreams, November 21, 2024
“This bill is a five-alarm fire for anyone who seeks to protect free speech, civil society and democracy. This bill is part of a broader MAGA assault on the fundamental right to public protest that begins with attacks on Palestinian rights groups and is aimed at outlawing all social justice movements fighting for progressive change. It is shameful that the House of Representatives passed a bill that is straight out of the well-worn authoritarian playbook. The Senate must ensure that this bill to dismantle fundamental freedoms does not move forward or become law.”
Beth Miller, Political Director, JVP Action
Inside Project Esther, the right wing action plan to take down the Palestine movement, Mondoweiss, November 22, 2024.
It has never been clearer that defending Palestinian solidarity organizing is one of the most critical frontlines of democracy defense today… this McCarthyite initiative is led by Christian Nationalists, who directly threaten the safety and freedom of all marginalized people, including BIPOC peoples, religious minorities, queer people and women.”
Stefanie Fox, Executive Director, JVP
Jewish Voice for Peace’s “Stop Arming Israel” shabbat, KGNU, November 25, 2024.
“Redefining Jewish ritual as a grounding source as a root to guide me in the life I want to live, which is one that is fighting for a free Palestine.”
Al, JVP-Denver
Are Feds Reviving Years-Old Allegations of Antisemitism to Shut Down Campus Protests? The Progressive Magazine, December 2, 2024.
“Last year saw unprecedented, massive student protests against the ongoing genocide the Israeli government is committing in Gaza. Rightwing organizations know there is no defense of the Israeli government’s horrific attacks on civilians. Since they cannot compete on the field of ideas, the most extreme rightwing groups are turning to ‘lawfare’ to suppress young people’s demands for justice and peace.”
Jonah Rubin, Senior Manager of Campus Organizing, JVP
Alameda County should invest ethically, East Bay Times, December 9, 2024.
“Alameda County should never have invested in Caterpillar. We can’t make the same mistake again. We shouldn’t profit from investments in Israel, militarism or environmental destruction. BDS is not antisemitic. It is just.”
David Spero, JVP-Bay Area
Graduate student union holds rally after IU trustees ignore demand letter, Indiana Daily Student, December 9, 2024
“Daniel Segal, a member of the coordinating committee for Jewish Voice for Peace Indiana gave a speech at the rally. Jewish Voice for Peace Indiana is a state chapter of the world’s largest anti-Zionist Jewish organization campaigning in support of Palestine. He made references to actions taken by Whitten and the IU administration regarding the Israel-Hamas war. Segal mentioned the suspension of IU professor Abdulkader Sinno, faculty adviser for the Palestine Solidarity Committee, and the cancellation of Palestinian artist, Samia Halaby’s exhibit.”
Year in Review: Pro-Palestinian activism sweeps campus, sparking policy changes, The Daily Pennsylvanian, December 10, 2024.
“Oct. 22 — Penn’s chapter of Jewish Voices for Peace hosted a Gaza Solidarity Sukkot in the backyard of the Penn Women’s Center, commemorating lives lost in Gaza.”
‘What a sick world’ — Benjamin Netanyahu shortlisted for Time’s Person of the Year, Images, December 10, 2024.
“War criminals shouldn’t be given a platform to minimise and deny genocide.”
Jewish Voice for Peace
Activists Hold “No to Genocide” Protest Outside Art Basel Miami Beach, Hyperallergic, December 8, 2024.
“My family marched with Martin Luther King against segregation on Miami Beach. I marched as a high school student with the farm workers during the grape boycott. I am so proud to now be standing with the movement to call for justice for the Palestinian people …It’s my obligation as a Jew to say not in my name, never again.”
Donna Nevel, JVP-South Florida
Opinion: Belfast follows Portland’s lead with courageous divestment vote, Portland Press Herald, December 11, 2024.
“Antisemitism is discrimination, targeting, violence, and dehumanizing stereotypes directed at Jews because they are Jewish. Anti-Zionism is opposition to the “political ideology of Zionism, which resulted in the expulsion of 750,000 Indigenous Palestinians from their land and homes. Anti-Zionism rejects “the creation of a nation-state with exclusive rights for Jews above others on the land.”
JVP
JTA Coverage of the Intersection of LGBTQ+ issues and Palestine, Jewish Telegraphic Agency, December 10, 2024.
“At JVP, we understand that all people’s liberation is intertwined, and we work towards a world where everyone is safe and free. Our commitment to LGBTQ+ rights is inextricably linked with ending genocide, occupation, apartheid, and militarism, which endangers queer people across the world. Queer liberation in Palestine is only possible in a free Palestine.”
Liv Kunins-Berkowitz, Media Coordinator, JVP
Not Another Bomb, The Progressive Magazine, December 18, 2024.
“For decades, I have opposed my own government’s long, bloody record of racism, violence, and war. Now I must call out the deep complicity of the United States in Israel’s genocide, ethnic cleansing, and apartheid. Every bomb dropped, every home demolished, every child crushed by rubble is paid for by billions of our taxpayer dollars. Our weapons are killing them. The teachings of Hillel call upon me to understand this as the murder of our own children, our own families, and our own communities.”
Marc Rosenthal, JVP Member
University of Rochester students face 7 years in jail for displaying ‘Wanted’ posters on campus, Mondoweiss, December 14, 2024
“At JVP we’ve been quick in trying to combat the narrative about antisemitism and calling on our university to be transparent about how they’re coming to these conclusions of antisemitism. The school has frequently avoided questions on how they define antisemitism and what their process is for determining whether something is antisemitic so we’re calling for transparency there.Additionally, we have petitions for dropping the charges, repealing the student suspensions and we’ve organized protests against the charges alongside SJP.”
Faye Stephenson, JVP-University of Rochester
On Being a Weapon: Jewishness 431 days into a Genocide, Political Theology Network, December 11, 2024
“Of course, American Jews do protest against their conscription. A common Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) sign days after October 7th, “Our Grief is Not Your Weapon,” was an early attempt at making an intervention in this inverted discursive world in which we find ourselves. The slogan argued that whatever mourning many Jews may be in—even as someone who has no immediate family in Israel, in a small Jewish world I nonetheless knew two people who were killed on October 7th—this grief should not be weaponized to launch a brutal war against Gaza.”
Benjamin Balthazar, JVP Member
RI senators missed historic moment to block weapons to Israel | Opinion, The Providence Journal, December 14, 2024
“As a member of Jewish Voice for Peace-Rhode Island, a coalition of anti-Zionist Jews and allies, I am firm in my commitment to a full arms embargo against Israel. We are witnessing a genocide thatover 250 international human rights and aid organizations have corroborated in devastating detail. The JRD was not a call for a full arms embargo. It represented a tiny, crucial interruption in a massive flow of weaponry that has killed a population with the largest number of verified deaths among 5- to 9-year-olds.”
Allie Trionfetti, JVP-Rhode Island
After Trump’s Win, Jewish Peace Activists in Baltimore Continue Fighting for a Free Palestine, Baltimore Beat, January 6, 2025
“Judaism requires us to live in peace with our neighbors, protect the oppressed, and seek justice. What the state of Israel is doing contradicts these values”
Nikki Morse, JVP-Baltimore
Pro-Palestinian activists lambasted Biden and Harris. Trump will be an even bigger dilemma, Politico, January 1, 2025
“The Palestinian rights movement is very clear eyed in understanding that it is very likely that this Trump administration will mean that things get much worse for Palestinians”
Beth Miller, Political Director, JVP Action
Israeli-born author renounces citizenship, calling it ‘a tool of genocide’, Middle East Eye, December 31, 2024
“The idea of these Jewish-led actions is that Jews have a specific role to play within Palestinian liberation,” both as a counter to “Zionist propaganda” and “to put bodies out front, to draw the fire”
Avi Steinberg
Against the Grain: U.S. Jewish Anti-Zionism, KPFA, December 24, 2024
“Jewish opposition to Israel, so visible recently through the spectacular actions of groups like Jewish Voice for Peace, is not a recent phenomenon. Historian Marjorie Feld argues that what may seem like unprecedented criticism of Israel by U.S. Jews is part of a long tradition of dissent, which has been repressed by establishment Jewish organizations and frequently erased by historians.”
UMaine System board says it won’t consider divesting from Israel, Portland Press Herald, December 23, 2024
“This idea that the board is staying in their lane, or not taking a position, fundamentally ignores the fact that we currently have over a million dollars invested in complicit corporations. We already have a position, and it’s to support genocide, to support apartheid.”
Willow Cunningham, JVP-University of Maine
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