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| Jeff Klein, Ann Wright, and Husam Zomlot at UJP Strategy Conference June 19, 2010 |
About 50 UJP activists gathered June 19 to discuss breaking the siege of Gaza and peace movement strategy in general. Revulsion at the deadly Israeli attack May 31 on a humanitarian flotilla, and at the intransigent justifications provided by Israel and by many U.S. pro-Israel groups, has created a new political situation and new momentum for a change in policy.
Ann Wright, a retired U.S. army colonel and diplomat who resigned in 2003 to protest the Iraq war, was on one of the boats in the Gaza flotilla. She confirmed that the flotilla was purely humanitarian in nature and condemned Israel’s use of collective punishment to effect regime change in Gaza and President Obama’s silence on the death of nine activists, one of them a US citizen.
Gaza-born Palestinian diplomat Husam Zomlot, currently a visiting scholar at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, traced how Israel’s blockade of Gaza is an extension of its overall approach to the Palestinians over the past 60 years. Zomlot stated that peace in the Middle East will be impossible until there is a fundamental change in Israel’s attitude.
Dorchester activist and former SEIU union president Jeff Klein argued that international revulsion against Israel’s murderous attack on the flotilla, and against its intransigent justifications after the fact which were repeated by major pro-Israel US groups, has created a new political situation for the Israel/Palestine conflict. A section of the US elite, mainstream media, and Congress are becoming uncomfortable with uncritical support of Israel and there is an opportunity for this debate to break through into the mainstream, as it already has in all countries except the U.S. Klein has departed for Lebanon where he plans to join a new flotilla which will again try to deliver humanitarian supplies. Read his account of his voyage.
The discussion assessed UJP's Israel/Palestine work. Some felt that UJP had not paid enough attention in the past and needs to do more, though the conference was a positive step. Others pointed out that several UJP community groups have sponsored programs on Israel/Palestine and that the level of work has been increasing in the past couple years.
The group also heard and discussed reports on the US Social Forum which was held in Detroit June 22-26 and on plans for the Unified National Antiwar Conference to be held in Albany July 23-25 and the One Nation, Working Together march on Washington October 2. Task forces presented work on UJP’s work on Afghanistan, Nuclear Abolition, the 25% Solution, and the Majority Agenda.
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