Nader, Israel critic Barghouti given Gandhi Peace Awards in New Haven; Yale disavows views
NEW HAVEN >> Two peace activists from different generations and countries Sunday received the Gandhi Peace Award from the Connecticut group Promoting Enduring Peace.
Palestinian human rights advocate Omar Barghouti and consumer rights crusader Ralph Nader each received the award at Yale’s Sheffield-Sterling-Strathcona Hall. Several hundred people attended, giving standing ovations to the recipients.
Barghouti is the more controversial of the two. Some Jewish groups oppose his work for BDS (Boycotts, Divestment and Sanctions), whose prime goal stated in its literature is “ending Israel’s occupation and colonization of all Arab lands.” His Jewish opponents fear this movement is working against the right of Israel to exist as a nation.
Moreover, Yale University officials issued an unusual statement distancing the university from endorsing the Gandhi event despite the fact it took place in a Yale building.
“A student organization reserved space for the awarding of the Gandhi prize, which is given by an organization not affiliated with Yale,” the statement began. “Yale honors requests by our community to invite speakers and groups to campus in accordance with our academic mission of fostering the free exchange of ideas. Views expressed at these events are those of the individuals involved and do not represent the views of the university as a whole.”
Barghouti’s presence at the ceremony was in doubt until recently, when Israel lifted a travel ban it had imposed on him. On March 20 that government arrested him on suspicion of evading taxes on $700,000 from his company and from speaking fees, according to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz. He was put under house arrest.
A Promoting Enduring Peace leaflet distributed at the event stated: “The Israeli government, which furiously opposes any criticism or pressure, slanders BDS activists as dupes or anti-Semites. They threaten Palestinians who call for BDS.” The leaflet said that was why Barghouti was arrested and his travel document taken away for a period.
Barghouti began his speech by dedicating his award “to the heroic Palestinian political prisoners in apartheid dungeons.” He asserted they are being held unlawfully.
He said the Israeli government is “trying to suppress the BDS movement” because support for it is growing worldwide. BDS literature states it is asking people “to especially target institutions and Israelis who take part in the injustices against Palestinians or help with Israel war-making.” Those targets include G4S, a British company that builds Israeli prisons.
Barghouti repeatedly said the movement is one of “nonviolent resistance.” He also said it is “inclusive,” welcoming all ethnic groups, including Jewish supporters.
“We are inspired by the South African movement against apartheid and the civil rights movement in the United States,” Barghouti said.
But he criticized President Trump for his support of Israeli government policies. He charged: “The Trump administration has embraced the Israeli government and used it as a model. Our oppressors are more united than ever.”
Nader, a native of Winsted, also criticized Israeli policies. “Who has killed 400 times more innocent men, women and children than the other side? The answer is the Israeli government.”
The Jewish Federation of Greater New Haven office could not be reached at the office Sunday evening, but has made clear in statements that many Jews say the BDS Movement’s ultimate motive is the destruction of Israel. Judy Alperin, chief executive officer of the Jewish Federation of Greater New Haven, has said. “We are very concerned about the BDS Movement and what it represents. We do believe that there needs to be two states for two people and that that will only be accomplished through direct negotiations by the parties.
“The BDS Movement, unfortunately, is a little bit of a wolf in sheep’s clothing. It states on the one hand that its goals are this peaceable resistance by a boycott of goods from what would be the Palestinian areas or the West Bank of Israel and, unfortunately, they’re also saying out of the other side of their mouths, to quote Omar Barghouti himself, that he only believes in a one-state solution, a unitary state, where, by definition Jews will be a minority, and he believes basically in the end of Israel. So we have to stand up for the rights of Israel as a nation and its right to exist and I think that the clear objective of the BDS Movement is to cease that existence.”
Nader said “state terrorism” is far more pervasive than terrorism by individuals. “It’s always legitimized as being in the service of national defense.”
This practice continues today, Nader said. He charged U.S. forces “can kill anyone” and U.S. presidents can do it unilaterally, with no declaration of war by Congress, “no adherence to the Geneva Convention.”
Nader asked how many in the audience were affiliated with Yale Law School; only several people raised their hands. Then he said of the military actions, “None of this is possible if the legal profession became a first responder for the rule of law.”
He added, “None of this is possible if other professions in the academic world stopped being so preoccupied with their own concerns and covering their own backs.”
Nader told the crowd, “We come from a culture of violence. We’re taught in school that Christopher Columbus ‘discovered’ America. My father quickly disabused me of that notion when he told me Columbus invaded America in search of gold and exterminated an entire tribe in the Caribbean.”
Nader asked, “How do we build a culture of peace?” He noted small groups can do it, such as elderly women gathering on town greens to protest nuclear weapons.
Nader said if the military budget were to be cut rather than increased, Americans would see improvements in mass transit, schools and other critical programs. “We would not have to cut the budgets of community colleges and state universities.”
Outside the building, a lone protester, Lance Laytner of New York, stood next to a giant inflated Pinocchio that had the message: “Omar Barghouti cheats on taxes, lies to students.” Laytner said Barghouti and his supporters “say they’re nonviolent but they’re anything but nonviolent. I don’t think he should be getting a peace award when he’s generated violence.”
Ralph Nader 's parent came from Lebanon so Jew hatred is as natural as thinking anti Israel. Where is his concern for Lebanon being run by an accredited terrorist group, Hezbollah. Both want Jews marched out of every bit of Israel, preferably at the point of a gun.
BARGHOUTI IS A CONVICTED MURDERER. NOTHING MORE
BYJAMAL BARAKAT
APRIL 22, 2017 22:02
Trying to portray Barghouti as some type of Nelson Mandela is grotesquely offensive to the memory of that great man.
PALESTINIAN YOUTHS carry flags with the image of Marwan Barghouti during a protest in the West Bank. (photo credit:REUTERS)
When terrorism explodes in your face, we are all the same – we run. Amid the screams of panic and pain, through the smoke and with bullets hunting us down, we flee for our lives. It is an inspiring phenomenon that the first responders are running past us the other way – directly into the gunfire, explosions and flames. America saw it on 9/11, but the unhappy truth is that in Israel we see it all the time.
My younger brother, Salim, was one such first responder – a dedicated police officer who loved his job, loved serving his country and fellow citizens, and who in 2002 ran straight into danger when he heard a Palestinian terrorist throwing grenades and shooting up the Seafood Market restaurant in Tel Aviv.
My younger brother, Salim, was one such first responder – a dedicated police officer who loved his job, loved serving his country and fellow citizens, and who in 2002 ran straight into danger when he heard a Palestinian terrorist throwing grenades and shooting up the Seafood Market restaurant in Tel Aviv.
With two innocent civilians on the ground dying or already dead and over a dozen others wounded, Salim charged the terrorist and shot him before he could kill more innocent people. But as Salim moved in to see if the terrorist was wearing a suicide explosive belt, the wounded terrorist suddenly thrust a knife into my brother, killing him.
The man who organized that attack was Marwan Barghouti.
When I heard that The New York Times gave him a stage from which to launch his mass prison hunger strike and called him a “Palestinian leader and parliamentarian,” my blood boiled. This is the cold-blooded killer who orchestrated murderous attacks and sent terrorists to hurt innocent people.
My younger brother died and our family has been grieving since.
I am a proud member of Israel’s Druse community.
Even though we are fully committed to our country, we are not against the Palestinians. I support the two-state solution, but not by Barghouti’s way of killing innocent people and falsely justifying it with claims of “colonization” and “liberation.”
By his own actions he chose the path of illegal violence. It is Barghouti who put himself where he belongs, behind bars for life.
It is an offense to the civilized world to hear that Barghouti is pretending to be a “political prisoner.”
He most certainly is not. He is a convicted murderer and the mastermind behind an organized campaign of vicious, brutal attacks against innocent civilians.
He was a leader of the notorious al-Aksa Martyrs’ Brigades that was designated as a terrorist group by the United States, Canada and the EU.
In those horrific years when the Palestinians chose to stage armed attacks, Barghouti’s assailants carried out shootings, bombings, knifings – murdering hundreds of civilians including women and children and wounding thousands more. And ever since, this killer of innocents has been jockeying for political power from his prison cell.
Unlike America and other countries, Israel does not have capital punishment for premeditated murder, of which Barghouti was found guilty in a court of law. His own organization repeatedly sang the praises after each attack, gloating about the murders that brought catastrophe to so many Israeli families, including mine. An additional insult to humanity is that the Palestinian Authority pays reward money to the terrorists who carried out these attacks – over $300 million annually – including to the family of the man who murdered by brother.
Trying to portray Barghouti as some type of Nelson Mandela is grotesquely offensive to the memory of that great man. All attempts at trying to spin a convicted killer as some kind of savior of his people simply evades the truth that this man stood behind the murder of my brother and should never be set loose to sow more tragedy that pushes peace further away.
Peace will only come through negotiations, not by sending killers out to spread more destruction. My brother should have been the last one to lose his life to this senseless violence. It is my hope that nobody else in the world should share this terrible lifetime of bereavement from losing a family member to terrorism.
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