It takes an amazing level of chutzpah to underfund the pensions, cut our benefits and then propose a bill that uses our pension to pursue your own pro-Israel agenda.
Illinois public employee pensions are the most underfunded pension funds in the country.
This is because the Illinois legislature refused to pay into them what they are required to pay.
Illinois State Senator Ira Siverstein now wants to use them to pursue a foreign policy agenda of support for Israel.
You are probably saying, “What?”
Oh, yes.
Last year Senator Ira Silverstein was defeated in his attempt to defund Illinois public colleges and universities if even one employee supported the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel.
Now he and a bunch of others are back with an idea that Bruce Rauner loves.
This bill would require TRS and other public pension funds to research and investigate companies and divest any investments in those that participate in a political boycott of Israel.
– Rabbi Brant Rosen is a congregational rabbi in Evanston and the co-founder/co-chair of the Jewish Voice for Peace Rabbinical Council.
It’s happening again.
As of this writing, Israel has dropped 800 tons of explosives on Gaza, a strip of land roughly the size of Detroit. The official death toll currently stands at 81, the majority of whom are civilians and half of whom are women and children.
Yes, it’s happening again, and like the similar military onslaughts in 2008/9 and 2012, we’re hearing the same tired talking points from Israeli politicians, the US State Department spokespeople and the American Jewish communal establishment – all variations on the theme of “Well, they started it.” And like before, the suggestion that we examine the larger context of this carnage is tragically lost amidst the noise of the literal and figurative bomb-throwing.
But of course, anyone who is truly interested in seeking a real and lasting solution would do well to look at root causes. In the most immediate sense, that means reckoning seriously with what Forward Editor-at -Large JJ Goldberg has called the “foundation of politics and lies” propagated by Israeli politicians and military leaders that led straight to a “war that nobody wanted – not the army, not the government, not even the enemy, Hamas.”
In the larger context, it means recognizing that this war is but the latest instance of Israel’s “mowing the lawn” in Gaza – a strategy in which Israel shows Hamas who’s boss by way of massive military onslaughts every few years. The most unguardedly honest expression of this strategy was expressed by Israeli journalist Gilad Sharon (son of Ariel) back in 2012:
There is no justification for the State of Gaza being able to shoot at our towns with impunity. We need to flatten entire neighborhoods in Gaza. Flatten all of Gaza. The Americans didn’t stop with Hiroshima – the Japanese weren’t surrendering fast enough, so they hit Nagasaki, too.
And in the ultimate sense, it means admitting that this latest injustice is irrevocably connected to an injustice that occurred decades ago. when scores of Palestinians were driven from their cities and villages in the coastal plain and lower Galilee and warehoused in the tiny Gaza strip. By all accounts, most were simply too overwhelmed to realize what was happening. The ones who tried to return to their homes were termed “infiltrators” and were killed on sight. Others resisted by staging raids in the newly declared state of Israel. Sometimes they succeeded, more often they did not. Either way, Israel decided early on that it would respond to each of these reprisals with a overwhelming military show of force.
It was another attempt to break the illegal Israeli blockade of besieged Gaza.
Jewish peace activists were on the boat Irene bringing non-military supplies to Palestinians.
The boat was attacked by Israeli military. Israeli activist and former Israel Air Force pilot Yonatan Shapira described what happened next.
The soldiers were very brutal to us. They didn’t kill us like they kill the other Palestinians and Muslims, but they were very brutal. I got shot with a taser shock gun, electric, and was brutally treated, just like my brother Itamar. We were detained pretty violently and later, now, were released. And they blame us. They accuse us of attacking the soldiers and threatening the soldiers. And, of course, everything is upside down. It’s a complete lie.
Reacting to recent events in which the Israeli Defense Force killed 9 humanitarian peace activists in international waters as they tried to deliver non-military supplies to Gaza, cultural artists are speaking out and refusing to perform in Israel.
Among the latest are Elvis Costello, Carlos Santana and Gil Scott-Heron, all of whom canceled previously scheduled concerts.
There are many who have died or suffer as a result of the Israeli blockade of Gaza.
One is Furkon Dogan. He was 19 years old and born in Troy, New York. This Nov. 6, 2008 photo made available Thursday June 3, 2010 by his family shows Furkan, one of nine activists killed in Monday’s pre-dawn military takeover of six aid ships by Israeli forces in the international waters of the Mediterranean Sea.
He was shot in the head by Israeli commandos multiple times.
Dogan’s father told Turkey’s state-run Anatolia News Agency that he had identified his son’s body and that he had been shot through the forehead. Still, he said, the family was not sad because they believed Furkan had died with honor.
“I feel my son has been blessed with heaven,” he said. “I am hoping to be a father worthy of my son.”
If this had happened in our own country, there would be national outrage and an appeal for urgent assistance. We are glad that the Obama administration acted quickly to send much needed funding for this effort but the arbitrary and unreasonable Israeli limitations on food and repair essentials is unacceptable and indefensible. People, innocent children, women and non-combatants, are going without water, food and sanitation, while the things they so desperately need are sitting in trucks at the border, being denied permission to go in.
Is it possible that one goal of the Gaza operation was to be so over the top so as to provoke an Iranian response that could then be used to justify escalating the conflict to go after Tehran? Last Friday, for example, Israel bombed Iran’s PressTV Bureau in Gaza. They have had more correspondents on the ground in Gaza than any other TV outlet, including Al Jazeera.
I first heard about this on Friday when I was interviewed by PressTV.com about media coverage. This attack on a media outlet didn’t make much of an impression or inspire protest from other media outlets that seem content to report from outside Gaza.
Think about this: The story below from the Sunday Times, shows us how Washington seems to have a go/no power over the Israeli military. Israel however has influence not only in the Administration but over Congress which passed an Israeli backed resolution of support for Tel Aviv.
WASHINGTON — President Bush deflected a secret request by Israel last year for specialized bunker-busting bombs it wanted for an attack on Iran’s main nuclear complex and told the Israelis that he had authorized new covert action intended to sabotage Iran’s suspected20effort to develop nuclear weapons, according to senior American and foreign officials.
Kathy Kelly, a co-coordinator of Voices for Creative Nonviolence, is writing from Arish, a town near the Rafah border between Egypt and Gaza.
As I write, we can hear the dull thud of explosions in the distance. Israeli airstrikes continue to blast targets in southern Gaza. Merciless bombing of the small Gaza Strip continues into a third week. I heard some people here in Egypt wonder if the Israeli Air Force must be running out of places and people to target. But perhaps the surveillance drones we heard and saw flying over the Rafah border crossing today hunted down more spots on which bombers could fix their cross-hairs.
Fred Klonsky 