- The time has come for me to finally write about my experience
with The Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) beginning back in 2001 shortly
after the tragic events of 9-11.
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- I had already begun to learn the Truth about racist,
apartheid Israel shortly after the Second Intifada (uprising or "shaking
off" in Arabic) in September 2000 during a lunch break from my job
at the time, while I was listening to the famous progressive Berkeley-based
KPFA radio station. What I heard mesmerized me. When I reached the
parking lot at my workplace and parked my car, I couldn't get out of the
car because I felt compelled to listen to the entire interview between
an Israeli, a Palestinian and an American with regards to the Israeli-Palestinian
conflict. What I was hearing were things the mainstream US media
never really addresses nor rarely reveals to the American public: mainly
the conflict as seen from the Palestinian point of view, as well as from
an objective point of view (the American non-Zionist interviewer).
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- I also learned from this interview certain generally
hidden facts such how the Israeli prime minister Yitzshak Rabin, who was
really going to make some important concessions with the Palestinians in
order for Israel to finally take some real steps towards justice and peace
between the Israelis and Palestinians, was assassinated in 1995 by an extremist
Zionist Jewish Israeli. That act completely halted any genuine
peace process since then, so the assassin's motive for killing him was
achieved. Obviously this man's ideology has a strong support base
because ever since then, the "peace process" has never seriously
been revived. The "peace process", which is completely
dominated and controlled by Israel, and backed by its supporters in the
US government, is really just a "stalling process", while the
ethic-cleansing campaign continues unabetted. Contrary to what the
Israelis claim, the Palestinians have no "partner in peace" in
the Israelis, who have not stopped stealing more Palestinian land nor their
collective punishment against all Palestinians via crippling roadblocks,
turning off electricity and water supplies at will for long lengths of
time, and basically literally starving the Palestinians in what amounts
to huge open-air concentration camps. The only thing that can stop
this madness is for the USA to stop all manner of support to Israel and
for everyone to boycott apartheid Israel, just as apartheid South Africa
was boycotted.
-
- At any rate, much of my experience about this time can
be found in my first ever political article, which is entitled "Why
I Am A Pro-Palestinian Activist" and at the website for
my tiny media company MarWen Media. You can find the link at: http://www.marwenmedia.com/articles_images/WhyIAmProPal.html
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- However until now, I have never written about my
experience with the Jewish Voice for Peace, which I had discovered
shortly after 9-11 from a flyer I had picked up at La Pena Cultural Center
when I had attended an excellent slideshow entitled "Face of the Occupation"
which was presented by Penny Rosenwasser of MECA (Middle East Children's
Alliance) which is directed by Penny's partner, Barbara Lubin, an anti-Zionist
of Jewish heritage. Penny is also active in the JVP. She
calls herself a Zionist, but I think this is simply just because of a deep
desire on her part to be close to her Jewish community, most of whom
are Zionists.
-
- Her slideshow was the inspiration for my first documentary
"Truth: Exposing Israeli Apartheid". Penny Rosenwasser, a Jewish
American peace and human rights activist, was very generous to me,
allowing me to film her slideshow with my video camcorder and even giving
me a copy of a photo she took of a Jews-only by-pass road in Israel, where
Palestinians are shot and/or arrested if they are caught trying to use
it. Of course there are no signs there which say "No Palestinians
Allowed" because that would broadcast the fact that Israel is an apartheid
country by putting it in writing, confirming the obvious. For more details
on these apartheid roads in Israel including that photo, see http://www.marwenmedia.com/articles_images/ApartheidIsraelRoads.html
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- Her slideshow and this photo of the apartheid by-pass
road for Jews-only are featured prominently in my documentary. When
I premiered my documentary "Truth: Exposing Israeli Apartheid"
at La Pena Cultural Center in Berkeley, California, the very place where
I saw her slide show about a year earlier, I donated half of the proceeds
to the Middle East Children's Alliance.
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- MY DISCOVERY OF THE JVP
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- At any rate, I discovered the Jewish Voice for
Peace from that flyer at her slide show and decided to try to attend one
of their meetings, since it was the only group of any sort that I knew
about which was discussing Middle East politics. At that time, most
Americans were simply clueless about Israel and the Middle East in general.
I should know. I used to be one of them.
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- I showed up at the doorstep of the house in Berkeley
where a meeting of the Jewish Voice for Peace was being held sometime
in early November 2001 and asked the greeter at the door if I was "allowed"
to attend even if I am not Jewish . The person let me in.
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- I found myself seated next to Prof. Joel Beinin, who
teaches at Stanford University and the University of California at Berkeley.
We chatted before the meeting began. He was very nice and informative.
In fact, he told me he was going to give some lectures about the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict to a class at the UC Berkeley and when I expressed
an interest in attending it as a guest, he gave me his permission. I
did show up with my camcorder and filmed the entire lecture. Unfortunately,
I was just getting used to my camcorder and the quality is not not great,
so I did not include any of it in my documentary "Truth: Exposing
Israeli Apartheid". (Note: Ultra hardcore Zionist and Islamaphobic
David Horowitz has relentlessly and savagely slandered Prof. Beinin for
his activism with JVP and beyond.)
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- Anyway, everyone was seated in the crowded room, in chairs,
sofas and on the floor. Lincoln Shlensky sat on the floor in the
middle of the crowded room. He was one of the original members and
leaders of the Jewish Voice for Peace, which was formed in 1996,
after the provocative opening by the Netanyahu government of an archaeological
tunnel under Jerusalem's Temple Mount, which led directly to confrontations
in which 65 Palestinians and 14 Israelis were killed. After
that conflict seemed to settle down a bit during yet another sham of a
"peace process", the Jewish Voice for Peace basically
disbanded. However, shortly after 9-11-01, the group was resurrected
again, apparently to deal some damage control. One astute observer
of the Jewish political scene has made the reasonable statement that
if the JVP didn't exist, then the Likuds would have invented it themselves
for creating good PR for Israel, but really nothing much more than that,
in that there is no positive change in the direction that Israel has embarked
on since day one with regards to the human rights of the non-Jewish native
Palestinians.
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- "ANYONE WHO THINKS ISRAEL HAS ANYTHING TO DO WITH
9-11 IS NAÏVE."
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- Lincoln Shlensky, a pleasant Jewish man, a student
at UC Berkeley and who seemed to be in his mid-30s, twisted himself left
and right in order to look around the room and make eye-contact with everyone
as he opened the meeting with the proclamation that "anyone who thinks
that Israel has anything to do with 9-11 is naïve." (This
may not be an exact quote, but I believe it is.)
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- Hmmm I thought to myself. Very interesting. If
this was indeed the case, why are we even here? It immediately seemed
to me like a bit of self-deception at best and deliberate deception at
worst. It quickly became obvious to me that the Jewish Voice
for Peace was really basically about doing damage control with regards
to Israel's obvious role in 9-11 and they were running interference for
any attempts to blame or criticize Israel in any way for the 9-11 attacks.
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- At that time, I believed, like many others, that 9-11
was blowback as a result from the unjust US foreign policy in the Middle
East which is basically blind, unconditional support for Israel. This
includes funneling billions of US tax dollars yearly in cash and in military
aid to Israel, as well as providing diplomatic cover and even military
cover as demanded by Israel. This is despite the fact that aggressive
and war-mongering Israel, which is a racist, apartheid, Jewish supremacist
state is built upon an on-going campaign of ethnic-cleansing of non-Jewish
native Palestinians from their own land, homes and businesses. Israel
habitually breaks International Laws and UN Resolutions, since day one
of its existence in 1948 when it began the process of wiping Palestine
off the map, with the consent of the ruling international political elites
at the time.
-
- It was only until about 2003 to 2004 that I came to believe
that Israeli agents actually played a direct role in making 9-11 happen,
as in Larry Silverstein allowing the Mossad to plant explosives in the
World Trade Center buildings which brought them down on that fateful day.
Not only did WTC buildings 1 and 2 implode/explode but so did building
7 which was not even hit by a jet. This is really the smoking gun.
But more about that later.
-
- I had begun to study in depth about the true nature of
racist, apartheid Israel beginning with a little booklet I had picked up
that night at La Pena when I went to Penny Rosenwasser's slideshow "The
Face of the Occupation". This highly recommended and well-known
booklet is entitled "Origin of the Palestine-Israel Conflict".
It was written by Jews for Justice in the Middle East. I found it
spell-binding, and it can be printed out in PDF form or just read it at
http://www.cactus48.com
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- Anyway, back to that first JVP meeting. Although I didn't
agree with Lincoln's proclamation about the innocence of Israel with regards
to 9-11, I felt that I maybe I could learn more about it all and even partner
up with some Jewish people who might feel the way I did on some political
activist activities.
-
- Talk about being naïve! That didn't happen, although
I really gave it the good girl scout try.
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- At that time, JVP didn't even have a brochure! I
was surprised at how they basically just sat around talking or you could
say, kvetching, about how they felt. Really it was basically just
a big therapy session for them, to manage their anxieties, their feelings
of guilt, and worries about how this would all affect the Jewish community,
the Jewish state of Israel and its relationship with its sponsor
and benefactor, the United States of America.
-
- I was ready for taking some real actions, as in printing
up some postcards to hand out to educate the American public and to mail
to politicians about the Israel-Palestine conflict. At that time,
I was actually wanting to promote the Two-State Solution, two separate
states of Israel and Palestine, because at that time I thought that was
the more "realistic" solution. When I tried to enlist the
help of others on the JVP's subcommittee of "Stop US Military Aid
to Israel" to help me pay for some postcards to be printed up promoting
the Two-State Solution (since I worked at a printing company, and would
get a discounted price on printing them) I got no takers. In fact,
one Jewish woman at JVP even ridiculed my efforts. So I decided
to take a different tact and got some other activists and friends outside
of the JVP to help me pay for the postcards calling for the Two-State Solution
based on the 1967 borders. When I asked the leaders of JVP if I could
reference their website on the postcard, even just to say "For more
information", not claim "Endorsed by JVP", they said N-O.
No way. I was perplexed and getting discouraged with them and their
lack of a sense of urgency about doing anything or making a strong stand
on anything besides just saying they were "against the occupation",
which is akin to saying you are against rape but not sexism.
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- Some of the members of JVP began to make it clear that
I was not really welcome to be there, especially Joel Beinin's wife Miriam,
and another woman, and a couple of the men, too. So I stopped going
to their meetings.
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- To be fair, some members of JVP were exceptionally kind,
generous and open to me. And perhaps many of them are as clueless
as your average American. But unlike your average American, they
are committed to maintaining Israel as a Jewish supremacist state.
Anyway, the time had come for me to part ways with the Jewish Voice
for Peace.
-
- I later became an advocate of the One-Democratic State
solution, after realizing that the Two-State Solution is really just official
apartheid, shortly before I made my documentary "Truth: Exposing Israeli
Apartheid" in 2003, and I had some postcards made up advocating the
One-Democratic State solution for disseminating to the public and politicians.
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- Later I ran into a JVP member at an event screening a
documentary about the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, and I said hello to
him. He was very cold to me and mentioned that he had heard that
I was getting "radical", to which I said, I guess you could say
that (according to some people that might seem true, but not to me) , but
I am NOT violent. Then he said darkly, "You better be careful."
It sounded like he said it as a threat to me rather than out of concern
for my safety.
-
- I have long since abandoned any attempts to seek approval
or permission from Jewish people with regards to my activism efforts.
I act only based on my beliefs in The Golden Rule, the Ten Commandments
and the teachings of Jesus Christ. I don't need to managed by Jews,
although some of them seem to think I do. I avoid seeing everything
through a Jewish filter by avoiding as much as possible the US mainstream
media. I do read it or watch it occasionally just to keep current of the
latest propaganda, but I get most of my news from a wide variety of sources
on the internet, sometimes even from the website of the progressive Israeli
newspaper the Ha'aretz. I also count myself as fortunate to have
some good Jewish friends who are also activists in seeking justice, freedom,
equality, peace and security for the Palestinian people.
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- FIRST SEED PLANTED WITH REGARDS TO 9-11 AS THE INSIDE
JOB
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- I first heard about 9-11 being an inside job from a flyer
that was being disseminated at some anti-war rally by some activists in
San Francisco on behalf of Lyndon LaRouche, a political figure who has
run for president numerous times. The flyer just said something about how
the US government was involved with making 9-11 happen and that the Arab
terrorists were just patsies. At first I was just flabbergasted!
I even called up a representative for LaRouche and questioned him
about this bizarre assertion. After I finished talking with this man, I
hung up, still shaking my head, still thinking it was really far-fetched.
However, the seed had been planted and it started to slowly grow.
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- On July 2003, I attended a 9-11 Truth Fourth of July
event at an artsy building where many kinds of creative and alternative
events regularly occur in the Mission district of San Francisco. At
that time, my belief that 9-11 was indeed an INSIDE JOB by elements in
our own government had fully blossomed.
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- Then, as the extremely convincing evidence kept pouring
in about the use of explosives to bring down the World Trade Centers which
were owned by neocon Larry Silverstein who is best friends with the Israeli
ex-Prime Minister Netanyahu (one of the authors of PNAC), along with the
reports of the "dancing Israeli spies", the warnings made to
the Israeli Mossad front company Odigo in the World Trade Center, Mossad
agent Dominic Suter and his Urban Moving Systems with his van with explosives,
the Fox News 4-part series on "Israeli Spying in the US" which
was later spiked from its archives, the manifesto of the neocons' Project
for New American Century, I have become totally convinced that along with
Americans Bush, Cheney, and Israeli-Americans Wolfowitz, Perle and their
neocon cohorts, that Israeli agents played a major role in "making
it happen" with regards to the 9-11 attacks. The free-fall collapse
of Building 7 was really the biggest smoking gun, along with Larry Silverstein's
video-taped admission about it being "pulled", which can be easily
found on the internet. The fact that the government and the mainstream
media have refused to address any of this in any meaningful way confirms
my conclusions shared by many others, that there is a cover-up of 9-11
as an inside job and the apparent Israeli connection as well.
-
- I have reached my conclusions in a way that is very similar
to the account by Ryan Dawson at this URL: http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/9-11neocon.php
-
- Another book that really lays it on the line with all
the evidence and proof is "9-11 Evil" by Victor Thorne and Lisa
Guiliani available at: http://www.wingtv.net/911evil.html
-
- There are by now lots of books and many DVDs that really
make the case for 9-11 having been an INSIDE JOB, although many do not
mention the Israeli connection directly or at all in some cases, mainly
due out of fear of retaliation and being smeared by the common smear words
used by shills for Israel towards anyone who dares to criticize the Jewish
state of Israel, Zionism and its political supporters. The typical, predictable
smear words include" "anti-Semite", "nazi", "hitler",
"holocaust denier", "white supremacist", which certainly
all completely untrue accusations with regards to myself and generally
untrue with regards to anyone who is smeared as such by Israel-firsters.
It's just a method the Israel-firsters use to attempt to intimidate
anyone from criticizing Israel and Zionism, in an all out dirty effort
to maintain the status quo with regards to US support for the Jewish supremacist
state of Israel.
-
- But more and more people are forging ahead with criticizing
Israel and its racist policies anyway because their sense of moral consciousness
speaks to them much more loudly than any Zionist thug ever could. For
example, President Jimmy Carter and the Professors Walt and Mearsheimer
have had to endure such smears even though their criticisms of Israel and
its ardent supporters were rather milk toast.
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- In concluding this article, to come full circle, I would
like to make the proclamation that anyone who doesn't think that Israel
was involved with 9-11 is naïve, at best.
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- *****
-
- (For the record, as per their website and its mission
statement, the JVP does not advocate for the one-democratic state solution
to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict where all its residents would enjoy
completely equal rights regardless of religion, ethnicity or race; nor
does JVP support a boycott of Israel similar to the boycott of apartheid
South Africa; nor does it make a stand for supporting the Palestinian refugees'
Right to Return to their ancestral homeland as equals. In other words,
the JVP cleverly and deceptively avoids these issues with smoke and mirrors,
making only ambiguous statements, all the while trying to place all the
blame for Israel's racist policies on the USA.
-
- Just for one example of their deceptive " blame
game" while trying to maintain their innocence of playing any part
in Israel's sins : they bought shares of the Caterpillar company which
manufactures the vehicles which Israelis use to demolish thousands of Palestinian
homes, orchards and businesses every year, so that the JVP can go to Caterpiller's
investor meetings to complain about Caterpillar's sales to Israel, when
the JVP should really just put pressure on Israel and the Jewish settlers
there to stop buying these Caterpillar vehicles and to stop using them
to demolish Palestinian homes, orchards and businesses. The Caterpillar
tractors don't demolish Palestinian property on their own- they are operated
by Zionists! In other words, the JVP are essentially themselves Zionists
who do not want to disturb the status quo with regards to maintaining US
economic support for Israel as the Jewish supremacist state that
it is, nor does the JVP recognize or address the racist nature of Zionism,
nor do they consistently directly criticize their brethren and the leaders
in Israel.
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- The JVP also decries the use of the words which accurately
describe Israeli policies and actions including apartheid, ethnic-cleansing
and genocide. Simply put, the JVP wishes to preserve the Jewish supremacist
nature of the state of Israel but wish place the blame on others, specifically
the US, for the inevitable strife and injustices that are a direct result
of the racist ideology of Zionism.)
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- Wendy Campbell is an American human rights activists
whose documentaries include: "Truth: Exposing Israeli Apartheid",
"Rosa Remembers Palestine", "Neturei Karta: Jews Against
Zionism", and "Syria: Land of Friendly People and Hidden Treasure".
Her many articles have been published on a wide variety of websites
and newspapers (google: "Wendy Campbell Palestine Israel") and
also appear at her websites: www.marwenmedia.com <<http://www.marwenmedia.com/>http://www.marwenmedia.com/>
and www.exposingisraeliapartheid.com <<http://www.exposingisraeliapartheid.com/>http://www.exposingisraeliapartheid.com/>
She can be reached at <mailto:info@marwenmedia.com>info@marwenmedia.com
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