p_flag.jpgA group of rabidly anti-Israel, and often Jew-baiting leftists are holding a demonstration in LA against Israel. Counter demonstrators for Israel are also organizing. Seems like it will be a showdown. Read the announcement for some great laughs about Israel, the great Satan.

Israeli occupation forces launch brutal assault
on Palestinians in Gaza
Food, water, electricity cut off to more than 1 million people
Israel threatens regional war, sending war planes over Syria

Emergency Protest in LA
Stop the attacks! Cut off U.S. aid to Israel!
Thursday, June 29, 4-6 pm
Israeli Consulate: 6380 Wilshire Blvd, LA (near Wilshire & San Vicente)
Click here for map and driving directions

Sponsored by A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition-LA, including member groups Free
Palestine Alliance and Palestinian American Women’s Association, and the National
Council of Arab Americans-LA.

For more info call 323-464-1636 or email [email protected] .
http://www.answerla.org

A bridge destroyed by Israeli army warplanes
on a main road in northern Gaza (photo: AP)

Click here to demand the U.S. stop
funding Israel’s war against Palestine

Using the capture of one of its soldiers as the pretext, the Israeli
Occupation Forces (IOF) launched a brutal assault on the entire population of Gaza in
the early morning hours of June 28. U.S.-supplied F-16 fighter-bombers
destroyed the main power station in Gaza and destroyed bridges on the only major
roads linking the northern and southern sections of the region. The people of Gaza
are now without water and electricity — and many will die. The use of U.S.
planes and other military goods against illegally occupied territories is a
violation of both international and U.S. law.

Israel is also threatening to widen the war, sending war planes over Syria
to “buzz” the home of Syrian President Bashir al-Assad, whose government the
U.S. has been actively working to bring down for more than two years.
The Palestinian population of Gaza, one of the poorest and most densely
populated areas of the world, was already suffering severe shortages of food,
medicine and other necessities due to Israel’s blockade of Gaza and the cut-off of
international aid to the West Bank and Gaza, in effect since January 2006.
The new Israeli assault has resulted in the cut-off of power, water and food
supplies to most of the people in Gaza. The situation constitutes a deliberately
created humanitarian disaster.

Deliberately attacking the civilian population, with the intent of causing
maximum suffering, is clearly a crime against humanity. What we are witnessing
today in Gaza is collective punishment against the Palestinian population as a
whole. It is just one part of Israel’s colonial policy toward the
Palestinians. In historic Palestine, whether the West Bank, Gaza or inside the 1948
borders of Israel, an apartheid system is in place, where many rights reserved for
Jewish Israelis are denied to Palestinians. More than six million dispossessed
Palestinians are denied the right to return to their homeland.

A field of Israeli tanks on the border of Gaza at the Rafa Crossing.
Click here to demand the U.S. stop
funding Israel’s war against Palestine

Israeli apartheid and the latest assault on Gaza is supported by the Bush
regime, Congress and the corporate media because of Israel’s vital role in
Washington’s project of Middle East domination. That is why Israel receives more
military and economic aid from the U.S. — over $3 billion annually — than any
other country in the world.

While a great hue and cry is heard in the mass media about one captured
Israeli soldier, the same media pays no attention whatsoever to the 9,800
Palestinian political prisoners being held illegally (it is illegal for an occupying
power to transfer prisoners from occupied territory) under terrible conditions
in Israeli prisons. At least 335 of these prisoners are children. Palestinian
prisoners are systematically tortured after arrest. Just two days ago, the
Israeli parliament gave the Shin Bet (the secret police) the right to double the
time for secret “interrogation” of Palestinian prisoners — a green light for
even greater torture.

The A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition (http://www.answerla.org ), which has organized
the largest anti-war protests in Washington, DC, Los Angeles, San Francisco and
in other U.S. cities over the past five years, including the historic
demonstration of over 100,000 people supporting Palestinian rights in Washington on
April 20, 2002, is calling for and supporting protests at Israeli embassies,
consulates and U.S. federal buildings, to demand:
• The immediate end to the U.S.-supplied Israeli assault on Gaza
• The release of all Palestinian political prisoners from Israeli
jails
• An end to all U.S. aid to Israel
• An end to colonial occupation, support for self-determination for
the Palestinian people including the right of return.
• No new U.S.-Israeli war against Syria.

In Los Angeles, A.N.S.W.E.R., its member groups the Free Palestine Alliance
and Palestinian American Women’s Association, and the National Council of Arab
Americans-LA are calling for an Emergency Protest outside of the Israeli
Consulate tomorrow – Thursday, June 29, from 4-6 pm. The Consulate is located at
6380 Wilshire Blvd in Los Angeles. Bring signs, banners, flags and more to
support the Palestinian people.

A.N.S.W.E.R is also calling on justice-minded individuals and organizations
to contact Congress and the White House demanding an immediate end to U.S. aid
to Israel. Click here to send your message. For more information go to
http://www.answerla.org.

About the author

Rabbi Yonah

20 Comments

  • Please, it dishonors many to call these revanchists ‘leftists’. Some, perhaps a clear minority of their postions would be regarded as anywhere close to ‘left’ in an American context. The rest is just a grab bag of some of the worst radical& reactionary and definitively anti-democratic clap trap ever to come down the pike. Cheers, ‘VJ’

  • FYI, as VJ wrote, ANSWER is one of the most dishonorable and disreputable “leftist” organizations to enter the American sphere. They get their “credibility” exclusively from printing a lot of flyers, creating some e-mail lists and manipulating other groups to sign on–the way the suddenly emerged as the visible representatives for the entirety of the anti-war movement. Mostly through the organization of those massive symbolic protests over the past five years. In reality, ANSWER is a front for the Workers’ World Party (WWP), some authoritarian Stalinists who have a weak version of anti-imperialism at the heart of their battle cries and a shaky history of supporting militant and murderous brutes like Saddam Hussein and Milosevic. They should be disregarded as a representation of leftist anything, but taken seriously because they now hold a pretty large chunk of pull within the misguided youth demographic and they’re damn good at getting the media to show up. Infoshop has a pretty good primer on ANSWER and WWP.

  • I’m sorry Rabbi, but from where I come from, these guys are more Martians than ‘leftists’. It’s too bad that they’re often confused as being much of anything actually. There’s not a recognized political party in the US other than truly fringe groups that would embrace them or break bread with them. Both neo Nazi’s & socialists have though. So I think it’s a moot point. I’d join you in protesting them if I were there. And I’m a true blue Democrat. Cheers, ‘VJ’

  • i think if one heads far enough left, he hits right…i think

  • I’m not happy about the leftist comment either. The nature of their aberration we are talking about is not being on the left – it is their stance on Israel which is not a leftist belief.

  • Whatever they are – ANSWER is BIG. Their signs and banners have been prominent in most of the anti-war public shindigs over the past few years, and their money has been prominent behind the scenes.

  • I think we are kidding ourselves, folks. The Jew-baiters have highjacked the Left. Go to any antiwar protest, listen to any forum. The Left is aligning itself with those who would kill us. We can pretend ANSWER doesn’t represent the Left, but we can’t hide from the fact that the Left has embraced the idea of a world without Israel, and thus, Jews. It saddens me, and keeps me silent where I would usually join with progressives in my community. They are abandoning us to embrace the fashionable “underdog.”

  • Hey Rabbi, there are many right wing conservatives who hate Jews and Israel also, people like Buchanan, Duke, come to mind.

  • Just wanted to let you know that I sent out a mass email to the Likud list here in LA.

    I’ll be there and I hope that it brings other’s out too!

    This is so insane.

  • Steves Rick,
    Yes I agree. But they are not holding the anti-Israel rally today in LA.

    VJ‚ why cant you accept that these people are products of the left? They are seriously NOT martians. They are so-called progressive people, that align themselves with Left ideologies like socialism, and are completely Lefty. Except for the large amounts of Muslim Jew-haters that join in these rallies, who are NOT leftists, but they are cynical Israel haters and will use the Left against Israel. Even though if they werein charge all the ANSWER folks would be locked up or executed under Sharia law.

  • “Hey Rabbi, there are many right wing conservatives who hate Jews and Israel also, people like Buchanan, Duke, come to mind.”

    If you could, please post links that show the Democratic Party in the U.S. condemning the Anti-Semitic slogans coming from the far-left, and if you could, post links that show any Republicans serving in the current Congress/Administration who support Anti-Semitic statements.

  • Michael Moore when asked what are the greatest evils in the world stated “Israel and Oil Companies” – he was a guest of honor at the 04 DNC Convention; Jimmy Carter is a rabid anti semite and an elder statesmen for the Democratic Party; In Congress recently the “anti Hamas” bill was overwhelmingly approved by all but 1 member of the GOP (a Texan who votes no on everything) and around a dozen Dems; Need I go on? I know it hurts to my Jewish brothers, being that you vote Dem every chance you get, but anti semitism and anti Israel sentiment is part and parcel of today’s democratic party.

    Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, Cindy Sheehan, etc and so on – all democratic supports, all haters of Jews and Israel.

    Keep your head in the sand.

  • Let’s not forget that crap we saw on Daily Kos some days ago.

    Then again, Republicans have Patrick Buchanan.

  • When Buchanan is held up by the Republicans as an honored indiviual, let me know – Buchanan and Duke both were essentially ex communicated from the GOP – when is the DNC going to do the same for the anti semites in their midst?

  • h, Buchanan was a serious contender as presidential nominee about 4 cycles ago. Or is it 5 – man, my memory is going. He was able to get a substantial following and influenced the Republican convention because he had so many delegates lined up. Point being that both sides have people who say and do things that we might find objectionable. There’s no question the Dems need to have some serious introspection, but then again right now it’s under a Republican administration that the AIPAC guys have been charged, and by the look of things, they could have picked a lot of other groups or individuals to bring up these sorts of charges if their goal was to make a point about transfer of information everybody thought was legal.

  • The Jewish voters’ nostalgia for the “old” democrat party (think Truman) keeps the Jewish voters in the back pocket of this party. When the democrat party allows itself to be associated with Jimmy Carter, Michael Moore, Al Sharpton….I could go on and on.. and the Jewish vote keeps going to that party there is some serious introspection required of the Jewish community. The democrat party IS the party of the Left … the Left (in case you do not already know) …as a whole…are anti-semites.

    And STOP bringing up Pat Puke-Canon …The republican party threw him over board some time ago….

  • i’m just testing, since the site won’t seem to post the comment I’ve tried to submit

  • Sometimes certain key words cause a comment to enter the filtering module of the site. Usually we catch those, but on occasion if the comment looks like the rest of the spam, we may accidentally erase it. If we’ve erased a comment of yours, I apologize, it was not intentionally.