Monday, February 20, 2017

Are Anti-Israel activists attempting to hijack the People's Climate march?

This is how it begins.

The People's Climate March is scheduled for April 29 and we're already seeing the tell-tale signs of infiltration and co-option.

This email is being shuffled around various "social justice" e-lists. Its all about "peace". Sounds innocuous enough, right?

Subject: Sign the petition! Petition to the organizers of the April 29 People's Climate March: Will you stand for peace?


Friend,


I signed a petition on Action Network telling Petition to the organizers of the April 29 People's Climate March to Will you stand for peace?.


Your website at PeoplesClimate.org proposes a march on Washington on April 29, 2017, to "unite all our movements" for "communities," "climate," "safety," "health," "the rights of people of color, workers, indigenous people, immigrants, women, LGBTQIA, young people, and more," "jobs and livelihoods," "civil rights and liberties," "everything and everyone we love," "families," "air," "water," "land," "clean energy jobs and climate justice," to "reduce greenhouse gas and toxic pollution," for "a transition to an equitable and sustainable New Energy and Economic Future," "that every job pays a wage of at least $15 an hour, protects workers, and provides a good standard of living, pathways out of poverty, and a right to organize," "massive investments in infrastructure systems from water, transportation, and solid waste to the electrical grid and safe, green building and increasing energy efficiency that will also create millions of jobs in the public and private sector," . . . but not peace. We wish to make you aware that approximately half of federal discretionary spending is going into wars and war preparation, and that this institution constitutes our single biggest destroyer of the environment. More on that here. Will you please add "peace" to the list of things you are marching for? If you will, it will become a list of things that WE are marching for, as we will join you.


This email originated with "World Beyond War"

The advisory board of World Beyond War includes anti-Israel activists who were involved with the Gaza flotilla,  including Mairead Maguire,  Medea Benjamin, Ann Wright and Kathy Kelly. Their support and participation in the flotilla, a challenge to the sovereignty of the state of Israel and its right to secure its own borders cheapens their talk of "peace". These are people that reject the existence of a nation state of the Jewish people within  ANY borders. Their vision of "peace" is a world without Israel.

This is the genesis of how a well-meaning and singularly focused event gets hijacked by the anti-Israel cru. If the People's Climate March agrees to add "peace" to their agenda, it opens the door to groups like World Beyond War, who will no doubt offer to provide signage and speakers that will invariably alienate the Climate march core.

Stay in your lane, People's Climate March.  Don't allow groups with an extremist agenda to hijack your message.  We've seen this happen before.

No comments: