Teachers Against Occupation: An Open Letter to Barack Obama

Colleagues in the United States have notified me of the formation of Teachers Against Occupation. They have written an open letter to President-elect Barack Obama, calling for "a new path...in the name of justice" in US foreign policy, and an essay concluding, "As teachers, we must commit ourselves to ensuring the memory and the future of the Palestinian people."

Comments

[Dave]

Taken from the letter -- "Almost certainly, the only hope of a lasting solution is a single state in Israel/Palestine, committed to the civil and human rights of all peoples within its boundaries, irrespective of religion or ethnicity. That is, after all, the standard to which we hold all other states in the world, Israel alone excepted."
------------

This is not true at all. The United States does not adequately address human rights abuses in the other countries of that region. Also, minority groups in Israel are treated much better than the minority groups in neighboring countries, and better than the ones in Gaza. Minorities suffer from persecution even in Egypt. And Saudi Arabia? It can't get any worse than that. These teachers let the US off the hook when it comes to its cozy relations with a number of despotic regimes. Israel is a whipping boy. It's a double standard. Do they say anything about the Turks and what they've done to the Kurds? No. They wouldn't even say anything about the Russians and their treatment of the Meshket Turks, I'm sure. Makes no difference whether they are inside or just outside the country's borders. They let everybody else off the hook.

They hate the West and they hate Israel.

On another note: Their silence on any traditions and practices in other countries/cultures. They refust to condemn all human rights abuses in the Muslim world and in other nations in Africa and Southeast Asia. You say to them the following: "If you had been a British administrator in India, would you have let the natives under your governance burn the widow at the funeral of a man who had died?" The teachers would either remain silent or they would say that the British should not have been there in the first place.

[Dave]

More hysterics....and from a Jew:

“The state terror unleashed from the skies and on the ground against the Gaza Strip as we speak has nothing to do with Hamas. It has nothing to do with ‘Terror.’ It has nothing to do with the long-term ‘security’ of the Jewish State….” What it has to do with is the evil Jews and their evil American supporters." ---- Jennifer Lowenstein, Associate Director of Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Wisconsin