Dear All,
Just 2 items tonight. The first I just received from a friend, who thought that I and others might want to know what the Jewish National Fund is up to. In this message, the JNF asks for support and recommends acts.
I sent them a message in return. Since the JNF speaks about hatred for Israel, my subject line read ‘it’s not hatred,’ which I followed in the body with ‘It’s disgust with Israel’s leaders policies of expansion, colonization, and ethnic cleansing, and lack of justice. And you, JNF, are part and parcel of those policies.
Dorothy Naor’
Please send your own messages to them, flood them with messages, not of love, not of hatred, but certainly of disgust with what the JNF does, and even with anger.
Thanks
—
The 2nd message is about an act of civil disobedience and the willingness to take the punishment for it. This was also forwarded to me by a friend. It’s not about Israel, but perhaps tactics of this sort, perhaps somewhat less drastic, could be used to get your message about the situation here across.
All the best,
Dorothy
====================
Forwarded by Dorinda
JNF, as well as the land and people of Israel, are under attack by those
who seek to undermine support for Israel and all that it does that is good in the world. As they speak out for economic, academic, and cultural boycotts of Israeli individuals and institutions, and use vitriolic hate speech in an attempt to delegitimize and demonize our work, we must do otherwise.
What were they protesting against? Each of the eight Trident
submarines has 24 nuclear missiles on it. The Ground Zero community
explains that each of the 24 missiles on one submarine have multiple
warheads in it and each warhead has thirty times the destructive
power of the weapon used on Hiroshima. One fully loaded Trident
submarine carries 192 warheads, each designed to explode with the
power of 475 kilotons of TNT force. If detonated at ground level
each would blow out a crater nearly half a mile wide and several
hundred feet deep. The bunker area where they were arrested is where
the extra missiles are stored. In December 2010, the five went on
trial before a jury in federal court in Tacoma charged with felony
damage to government property, conspiracy and trespass. But before
the trial began the court told the defendants what they could and
could not do in court. Evidence of the medical consequences of
nuclear weapons? Not allowed. Evidence that first strike nuclear
weapons are illegal under US and international law? Not allowed.
Evidence that there were massive international nonviolent action
campaigns against Trident missiles where juries acquitted protestors?
Not allowed. The defense of necessity where violating a small law,
like breaking down a door, is allowed where the actions are taken to
prevent a greater harm, like saving a child trapped in a burning
building? Not allowed.
Most of the jurors appeared baffled when defendants admitted what they did in their opening statements. They remained baffled when questions about nuclear weapons were objected to by the prosecutor and excluded by the court. The court and the prosecutor repeatedly focused the jury on their position that this
was a trial about a fence. Defendants tried valiantly to point to the elephant in the room – the hundreds of nuclear weapons.
Each defendant gave an opening and closing statement explaining, as much
as they were allowed, why they risked deadly force to expose the US
nuclear arsenal. Sojourner Truth was discussed as were Rosa Parks,
Gandhi, and Martin Luther King.
The resistance of the defendants was in the spirit of the civil rights movement, the labor movement, the suffragist movement, the abolition of slavery movement.
Crowds packed the courtroom each of the five days of trial. Each night
there was a potluck and a discussion of nuclear weapons by medical,
legal and international experts who came for the trial but who were
largely muted by the prosecution and the court.While the jury held
out over the weekend, ultimately, the activists were convicted.
Hundreds packed the courthouse today supporting the
defendants. The judge acknowledged the good work of each defendant,
admitted that prison was unlikely to deter them from further actions,
but said he was bound to uphold the law otherwise anarchy would break
out and take down society.
The prosecutors asked the judge to send all the defendants to federal prison plus three years supervised probation plus pay over five thousand dollars. The specific jail time asked for ranged from 3 years for Fr. Kelly, 30 months for Susan
Crane, Lynne Greenwald, 7 months in jail plus 7 months home
confinement, Sr. Anne Montgomery and Fr. Bill Bichsel, 6 months jail
plus 6 months home confinement. Each of the defendants went right
into prison from the courtroom as the spectators sang to them.
Outside the courthouse, other activists pledged to confront the
Trident in whatever way is necessary to stop the illegal and immoral
weapons of mass destruction.
Bill Quigley is Legal Director of the Center for Constitutional Rights and a law professor at Loyola University New Orleans. He is part of the legal team supporting the defendants and was in Tacoma for the sentencing. You can learn more about the defendants at disarmnowplowshares.wordpress.com. Bill can
be reached at quigley77@gmail.com
