We bring to your attention the outrageous cancellation by Butler University, Indianapolis, USA, of an event featuring Dr Angela Y Davis on 1 April 2021.
Butler University Organizations and Indianapolis Community Organizations said that the university was “bombarded by pressure from Zionist students . . . because of Davis’s support for Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions” against Israeli occupation and apartheid. This is not the first time: Students for Justice in Palestine said that last year Zionists attempted to stifle free speech with “a well-coordinated and heavily-funded disinformation strategy.”
Cancelling this event is to reject antiracism and promote apartheid and repression. Dr Davis who embodies antiracism for millions in the US and around the world is being censured while the trial of the police who killed George Floyd, triggering antiracist protests in many countries is going on. An important part of Israel’s economy is to arm and train the police and military of repressive regimes around the world. It has strong connections with white supremacist US police. It has armed and defended the Myanmar military during the Rohingya genocide (even after the US and EU had imposed an arms embargo and sanctions) and during the present military coup as people are being shot in cities and bombed in villages for rejecting the dictatorship. Israel and Myanmar have an agreement on how they are depicted in each other’s textbooks.
We cannot allow the extreme right to extend its sphere of influence. We have seen the consequences of this in the UK. From 2015 to 2020, the antiracist leadership of the UK Labour Party (half a million members, including Jewish members, overwhelmingly pro-Palestinian) was under sustained attack for “antisemitism” by the Zionist lobby within the Labour Party working closely with the Conservative establishment, and was eventually forced out. (UK prime minister Boris Johnson is a “passionate Zionist” and the new leader of the Labour Party, Keir Starmer “supports Zionism without qualification”.) An academic study documenting the disparity between the claims made by this right-wing witch-hunt and the factual evidence was censored from distribution. One of its authors, Prof Greg Philo, said: “It is only one step from burning books.” Another of its authors, Prof David Miller, is facing expulsion from Bristol University after a concerted campaign by Zionist students funded by the Israeli embassy.
Dr Renato Loeffler, the son of Holocaust survivors, has described the historical precedent for this censorship: “My grandparents were murdered because the Nazi leaders wanted to create an ethnically pure Aryan state in Germany. As a consequence, I feel a strong duty to oppose by all possible legal means the similar attempt to create an ethnically pure Jewish state in Israel/Palestine, which is the main objective of Zionism.”
We urge all those who are outraged at the treatment of Dr Angela Davis and stand against apartheid anywhere in the world to support the Butler students by writing to Butler University, and to support the campaign in defence of Dr David Miller by writing to the University of Bristol.
Subscribe to our newsletter!
International Jewish Antizionist Network UK
Some useful facts
· Angela Davis was censored in 2019 by the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute which rescinded a human rights award because, she said, of her long-time support for Palestine.
· The Lobby – USA exposed Zionist spying on, smearing and intimidating US citizens who support Palestinian human rights, including in universities and against the Black Lives Matter movement.
· UK school textbooks on Israel/Palestine were altered to favour Israel.
Israel is an apartheid state:
· B’tselem’s report: “A regime of Jewish supremacy from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea: This is apartheid.”
· UN Report: Israeli Practices towards the Palestinian People and the Question of Apartheid by Richard Falk and Virginia Tilley. The report concludes that “on the basis of overwhelming evidence, Israel is guilty of the crime of apartheid, and urges swift action to oppose and end it.”
Israel’s support for dictatorships:
· Israel’s Worldwide Role in Repression by the International Jewish Antizionist Network
· Israel’s Shameful Role in Myanmar’s Genocidal Campaign Against the Rohingya, Ha’aretz.
· Israel, Myanmar sign agreement that allows changing each other’s history textbooks
· The Israeli ambassador, Ronen Gilor, wished Ang Sang Suu Kyi “encouragement for a good decision and good luck” as she travelled to the International Criminal Court in The Hague to defend Myanmar’s military from charges of Rohingya genocide. Gilor’s tweet was later deleted and Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said it had been written “in error.” Dec 2019
· Israeli companies Cellebrite, Elbit Systems and Gaia Automotive Industries have reportedly sold arms and spyware to Myanmar. Spyware purchased by Burmese forces is being used to murder the population who rejected the coup, the New York Times reported. Data collected with Cellebrite technology was used to convict two Reuters journalists in 2018. Khin Maung Zaw, who represented the journalists, said the technology was also used in court cases in 2019 and 2020.
· Myanmar has hired a former Israeli-Canadian arms dealer to “explain” the coup: Myanmar’s military to pay Israeli-Canadian lobbyist $2m to explain ‘real situation’ following coup, 2021.
———————————————————————————————————————————–
INTERNATIONAL JEWISH ANTI-ZIONIST NETWORK UK
