thinbluemime
2012-07-02 14:46:53 UTC
Divest in Israel: Presbyterians should support Palestinian aspirations
July 2, 2012 12:00 By Roger Waters
http://www.post-gazette.com/stories/opinion/perspectives/divest-in-israel-presbyterians-should-support-palestinian-aspirations-642882/
On Tuesday, I will be visiting Pittsburgh to perform my Pink Floyd hit
"The Wall" at Consol Energy Center. By coincidence, the General Assembly
of the Presbyterian Church (USA) has gathered this week in Pittsburgh.
One issue the Presbyterians will be debating is whether to take action in
support of Palestinians living under Israeli occupation in the West Bank,
under siege in Gaza and as second-class citizens in Israel under the rule
of the apartheid government there.
I write in support of those Presbyterians who would like their church to
divest its holdings in three U.S. companies -- Motorola Solutions,
Hewlett-Packard and Caterpillar. These companies profit directly from
Israel's illegal occupation of the West Bank and suppression of the
Palestinian people in both the West Bank and Israel itself.
Divestment in these companies is supported by Jewish Voice for Peace,
which has noted that "Caterpillar profits from the destruction of
Palestinians' homes," that Motorola profits by providing safety equipment
to "segregated communities on stolen land" and that Hewlett-Packard
profits by providing "support and maintenance to a biometric ID system
installed in Israeli checkpoints in the occupied West Bank which deprive
Palestinians of the freedom of movement in their own land."
When I wrote "The Wall" in 1979, I thought it was about me and the way I
walled myself off from others because, for one reason or another, not the
least of which was the loss of my father at Anzio in 1944, I saw myself as
a victim. Thirty-three years later I have come to realize that "The Wall"
has a broader message.
The theatrical wall I build each night serves as a metaphor for all the
walls erected to separate us, human being from human being: walls between
rich and poor, between opposing cultural, political or religious
ideologies and particularly between the oppressor and the oppressed. The
Israeli wall in the West Bank is a particularly graphic example. I make
reference to that wall every night in my concert, but the injustices faced
by Palestinians living under Israel's brutal occupation and apartheid are
not adequately addressed through theater and music alone. They warrant
other forms of comment.
I applaud the Presbyterian initiative. In fact, I support the more
wide-ranging BDS campaign of boycott, divestment and sanctions against
Israel and have called on my fellow musicians to follow suit, just as we
did in opposition to apartheid South Africa.
In 2005, 26 years after I wrote "Another Brick in the Wall, Part 2,"
Palestinian children protesting Israel's apartheid wall sang, "We don't
need no occupation! We don't need no racist wall!"
My original song was banned in apartheid South Africa because black South
African children sang it to advocate for their right to equal education.
In the West Bank, the children who protest the wall and sing my song face
tear gas, rubber-coated bullets and even live ammunition.
I made my first trip to Israel and the West Bank in 2006. What I witnessed
there shocked me to the core. The Israeli wall in the occupied West Bank
is an appalling edifice, cutting farmers from farmland, family from family
and children from schools and hospitals.
The standard Israeli response to criticism of the wall is that it is
solely for defense. If that is the case, why was it not built on the Green
Line (the internationally agreed demarcation after the Six-Day War of
1967)? Why does it snake through Palestinian land, as Israel grabs more
and more land each year for illegal, segregated, Jews-only settlements?
No, this is not solely a defensive measure, this is a systematic
colonization of conquered territory that contravenes the Fourth Geneva
Convention and was declared illegal in an advisory but unequivocal
judgment by the International Court of Justice at The Hague in 2004.
In light of the above and despite attempts to intimidate and vilify me by
Israel lobby groups in the United States and elsewhere, I stand in
solidarity not only with the Palestinian people but also with the many
thousands of Israelis who, believing their government's racist policies to
be wrong, are increasingly making their voices heard. What courageous and
beautiful voices they are.
The waters of this debate will inevitably be muddied, as they always are,
by erroneous accusations of anti-Semitism leveled at those who favor
selective divestment from companies complicit in Israel's long record of
human rights violations. I urge the Presbyterians assembled in Pittsburgh
not to be intimidated, but to stand confident with the support of people
of conscience everywhere, including tens of thousands of Jewish Americans
who support divestment as an ethical obligation to end complicity in the
occupation. I urge Presbyterians to adopt their selective divestment
motion to make the price of collusion in human rights violations higher,
and to send a message of hope to the Palestinian people under Israeli
occupation and apartheid.
Good faith attempts to peacefully bring pressure on Israel to change its
policies are no more anti-Semitic than similar actions against the South
African apartheid regime were anti-Christian or anti-white.
In solidarity with Palestinian civil society and the nonviolent resistance
movement in Israel itself, those of us involved in the struggle for
Palestinian self-determination and freedom, including supporters of the
BDS campaign against Israel until it fulfills its obligations under
international law, will ignore the increasingly strident slanders of the
Israel lobby and continue our nonviolent campaign. This is what solidarity
and compassion look like. This is how we will win against injustice.
Roger Waters is a founding member of the British rock band Pink
Floyd.
Tomorrow, Rabbi James A. Gibson of Temple Sinai in Squirrel Hill argues
that a decision by Presbyterians to divest in companies doing business in
Israel would damage relations between Christians and Jews and set back
conciliation efforts between Israelis and Palestinians.
First Published 2012-07-02 00:09:50
July 2, 2012 12:00 By Roger Waters
http://www.post-gazette.com/stories/opinion/perspectives/divest-in-israel-presbyterians-should-support-palestinian-aspirations-642882/
On Tuesday, I will be visiting Pittsburgh to perform my Pink Floyd hit
"The Wall" at Consol Energy Center. By coincidence, the General Assembly
of the Presbyterian Church (USA) has gathered this week in Pittsburgh.
One issue the Presbyterians will be debating is whether to take action in
support of Palestinians living under Israeli occupation in the West Bank,
under siege in Gaza and as second-class citizens in Israel under the rule
of the apartheid government there.
I write in support of those Presbyterians who would like their church to
divest its holdings in three U.S. companies -- Motorola Solutions,
Hewlett-Packard and Caterpillar. These companies profit directly from
Israel's illegal occupation of the West Bank and suppression of the
Palestinian people in both the West Bank and Israel itself.
Divestment in these companies is supported by Jewish Voice for Peace,
which has noted that "Caterpillar profits from the destruction of
Palestinians' homes," that Motorola profits by providing safety equipment
to "segregated communities on stolen land" and that Hewlett-Packard
profits by providing "support and maintenance to a biometric ID system
installed in Israeli checkpoints in the occupied West Bank which deprive
Palestinians of the freedom of movement in their own land."
When I wrote "The Wall" in 1979, I thought it was about me and the way I
walled myself off from others because, for one reason or another, not the
least of which was the loss of my father at Anzio in 1944, I saw myself as
a victim. Thirty-three years later I have come to realize that "The Wall"
has a broader message.
The theatrical wall I build each night serves as a metaphor for all the
walls erected to separate us, human being from human being: walls between
rich and poor, between opposing cultural, political or religious
ideologies and particularly between the oppressor and the oppressed. The
Israeli wall in the West Bank is a particularly graphic example. I make
reference to that wall every night in my concert, but the injustices faced
by Palestinians living under Israel's brutal occupation and apartheid are
not adequately addressed through theater and music alone. They warrant
other forms of comment.
I applaud the Presbyterian initiative. In fact, I support the more
wide-ranging BDS campaign of boycott, divestment and sanctions against
Israel and have called on my fellow musicians to follow suit, just as we
did in opposition to apartheid South Africa.
In 2005, 26 years after I wrote "Another Brick in the Wall, Part 2,"
Palestinian children protesting Israel's apartheid wall sang, "We don't
need no occupation! We don't need no racist wall!"
My original song was banned in apartheid South Africa because black South
African children sang it to advocate for their right to equal education.
In the West Bank, the children who protest the wall and sing my song face
tear gas, rubber-coated bullets and even live ammunition.
I made my first trip to Israel and the West Bank in 2006. What I witnessed
there shocked me to the core. The Israeli wall in the occupied West Bank
is an appalling edifice, cutting farmers from farmland, family from family
and children from schools and hospitals.
The standard Israeli response to criticism of the wall is that it is
solely for defense. If that is the case, why was it not built on the Green
Line (the internationally agreed demarcation after the Six-Day War of
1967)? Why does it snake through Palestinian land, as Israel grabs more
and more land each year for illegal, segregated, Jews-only settlements?
No, this is not solely a defensive measure, this is a systematic
colonization of conquered territory that contravenes the Fourth Geneva
Convention and was declared illegal in an advisory but unequivocal
judgment by the International Court of Justice at The Hague in 2004.
In light of the above and despite attempts to intimidate and vilify me by
Israel lobby groups in the United States and elsewhere, I stand in
solidarity not only with the Palestinian people but also with the many
thousands of Israelis who, believing their government's racist policies to
be wrong, are increasingly making their voices heard. What courageous and
beautiful voices they are.
The waters of this debate will inevitably be muddied, as they always are,
by erroneous accusations of anti-Semitism leveled at those who favor
selective divestment from companies complicit in Israel's long record of
human rights violations. I urge the Presbyterians assembled in Pittsburgh
not to be intimidated, but to stand confident with the support of people
of conscience everywhere, including tens of thousands of Jewish Americans
who support divestment as an ethical obligation to end complicity in the
occupation. I urge Presbyterians to adopt their selective divestment
motion to make the price of collusion in human rights violations higher,
and to send a message of hope to the Palestinian people under Israeli
occupation and apartheid.
Good faith attempts to peacefully bring pressure on Israel to change its
policies are no more anti-Semitic than similar actions against the South
African apartheid regime were anti-Christian or anti-white.
In solidarity with Palestinian civil society and the nonviolent resistance
movement in Israel itself, those of us involved in the struggle for
Palestinian self-determination and freedom, including supporters of the
BDS campaign against Israel until it fulfills its obligations under
international law, will ignore the increasingly strident slanders of the
Israel lobby and continue our nonviolent campaign. This is what solidarity
and compassion look like. This is how we will win against injustice.
Roger Waters is a founding member of the British rock band Pink
Floyd.
Tomorrow, Rabbi James A. Gibson of Temple Sinai in Squirrel Hill argues
that a decision by Presbyterians to divest in companies doing business in
Israel would damage relations between Christians and Jews and set back
conciliation efforts between Israelis and Palestinians.
First Published 2012-07-02 00:09:50