Medea Benjamin ignores inquiries on her Caterpillar Investments

Medea Benjamin, BDS doyenne of Code Pink and Global Exchange is in deep denial.

After the BDS -defying  investments of her 12 million dollar "Benjamin Foundation" in Caterpillar, General Electric and Intel were daylighted , Medea's been laying low, hoping that people would forget.

Its not just the "Zionist" inquiries regarding her investments she is ignoring.

Her own supporters are questioning her, and are asking for explanations. Yesterday,  Burkely Hermann, a self described "occupy activist'" asked her directly.

And was met with nothing but silence.

Burkely Hermann is correct. Not only is the BDS hypocritical, its claim that it speaks for the Palestinian people has been  disproven

From the award winning Arab journalist, Khaled Abu Toameh

For some PA officials, BDS is a movement that acts against the true interests of the Palestinians. They say that the actions of those promoting BDS make the Palestinians appear as if they are not interested in peace and coexistence with Israel. BDS activists in Ramallah have succeeded in preventing several planned meetings between Israelis and Palestinians in Ramallah and east Jerusalem.

The Palestinian Authority is also worried that BDS is harming the Palestinians' relations with other countries. The most recent example of BDS efforts to damage Palestinians' relations with friendly countries occurred a few weeks ago, when the "anti-normalization" activists tried to disrupt a performance by an Indian dance troupe in Ramallah.

A PA official in Ramallah explained that BDS and its followers make the Palestinians appear as if they are all radicals who are only interested in boycotting and delegitimizing Israel. "This goes against the PLO's official policy, which is to seek a peace agreement with Israel based on the two-state solution," he said.

 BDS: Hypocritical and anti-peace. Is there anything else you need to know?

Code Pink apologists attempt to spin Medea Benjamins' Caterpillar investments

As the co-founder of Global Exchange and Code Pink , Medea Benjamin is at the forefront of the BDS movement except apparently, when it interferes with her own opportunities for financial gain.  As  Medea Benjamin is confronted by her peers regarding her foundations' investments in Caterpillar the explanation  spin has taken some curious routes.

Via Twitter:
In this discussion, Benjamin Doherty 's (@bangpound)  protected tweets seem to imply that this was  a strategy to allow Medea to vote at Caterpillar shareholder conferences, but that assertion is challenged by  Daniel Shunra, who asserts that the $120,000 investment is beyond what is needed to vote.

Alli McCraken, one of Medea's employees at Code Pink claimed that the investment was a holdover from the days when Medea's father ran the Foundation

Financial disclosure forms indicate that Susan Medea Benjamin was in control of the Benjamin foundation from at least 2009, so no, Alli.  Nice try, though.

Liars and hypocrites clearly need to spend more time fine-tuning their back-stories.  

Incidentally, the 2012 990s  for the Benjamin  Foundation no longer list Caterpillar as an asset, but  holdings in Intel and General Electric, also touted as "complicit in the occupation"  remain.

The take-home lesson from this episode?   For at least some  "progressive" ideologues,  profit trumps politics.  Medea Benjamin is a true 1 per-center

BDS: Hardly a grassroots movement.

There is more "Lets pretend" going on in the BDS movement than in the Magic Kingdom. With Palestinians thrilled to work at Sodastream, happy to buy and sell Israeli products, perfectly fine riding Veolia's  Jerusalem light rail, this "Palestinian civil society" we hear so much about seems as real as Cinderella's fairy godmother.  Also in the realm of fairy tales is the claim that BDS is a grassroots movement.

In the Times of Israel, Max Samarov exposes yet another dark and dirty secret regarding BDS on campus. Its not a student led initiative- the author of the Loyola divestment resolution was a paid BDS operative.

Max writes:

On Tuesday, April 1st, Students for Justice in Palestine presented the Loyola student government with an anti-Israel divestment resolution. But what they neglected to mention was that they didn’t write the legislation themselves. It turned out that the real author was Dalit Baum, a major leader in the global Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) campaign against Israel. Baum is not a student or faculty member of Loyola or any North American university. She is a paid operative working to co-opt student governments into following the BDS Movement’s malicious, anti-Israel agenda. And if she is writing resolutions for one school, it is likely that she is writing them for others as well.

Professional anti-Israel activist Dalit Baum drafted the Loyola BDS resolution

Dalit Baum is locally well known as an anti-Israel activist. Formerly the "Director of Economic Activism for Palestine" at Medea Benjamin's Global Exchange, she is now working for the American Friends Service Committee. She'll also be a camp counselor at the JVP divestment camp this summer.

You may remember Dalit from the attack on Cliff's,  our beloved local hardware store or from showing up in her pajamas to protest a FIDF fundraiser.

Paid propagandists aren't just a local phenomenon.

 From Arutz Sheva:

Are Israel's leftists pure ideologues or guns for hire? Yotam Feldman, who was born into the leftist camp – his father is liberal lawyer Avigdor Feldman – believes the latter.

In a Hebrew language post at the "Eretz HaEmori" blog, Feldman says that in his life, he has witnessed how Israel's "human rights movement" became a source of income for its activists. He relates how his father's old Subaru "gradually turned" into a BMW, and how the family moved from a rented apartment in Yafo to a spacious Tel Aviv apartment. "

Feldman continues:

"It is a well known but seldom stated fact that a very large part of the leftist activists in Tel Aviv earn their salaries in different ways from the human rights branch. Many of the prominent – and often most vocal – activists in the demonstrations are paid spokespeople, PR people, producers and organizers and of course, lawyers who man the tip of the pyramid in these groups."

"This is a pretty confusing situation because when you are standing in a demonstration or even just engaging in idle talk, it is not clear if the person next to you is expressing his opinion as a result of inner conviction or as an inseparable part of his job…"

 No, its not quite as "grass roots" as the anti-Israel activists would have you believe. It never has been.

Is Code Pink's Medea Benjamin in jail in Egypt?

I'd have a hard time believing anything spoken, emailed or tweeted from the likes of Code Pink, but even a broken clock is right twice a day. With that in mind, I present "Code Pink goes to jail"

A series of tweets from anti-Israel activist Medea Benjamin(nee Susan Benjamin- yes, she re-named herself after a character in Greek mythology best known for slaughtering her own children)  implies that she is behind bars in Egypt.

 The activist community already had a big laugh at Code pink, who recently used an Israeli platform, Wix to design a website promoting their trip to Gaza. BDS fail, girls.

Fresh from her aborted attempt to disrupt the AIPAC 2014 conference,  Medea apparently flew to Egypt. It was supposed to be a brief a pit stop before journeying on to Gaza for "International Woman's Day".

She's since tweeted  "I'm supposed to go w women's delegation to Gaza via Egypt but Egyptians put me in jail at airport".  Ooops.

Apparently the multimillionaire co-founder of global Exchange does not find the accommodations to her liking.

And the room service is terrible

And because its Code Pink,  they strategize on line, on twitter, so the world can see.

After all, no one in Egypt has ever heard of Twitter.

Alli McCracken, who is so dumb its painful then announces to the world. There are more coming.  Oops.

Its hard for me to muster up any sympathy. After all, Gaza needs Code Pink like a lamb needs a wooly blanket.  Gaza is doing quite well without them.




UPDATE:

Medea Benjamin has been deported to Turkey. A press release issued by Code Pink states she was treated "brutally" by Egyptian authorities.

JVP's Rabbi Alissa Wise engages in Sinat Chinam on Tisha B'Av

From Emunah:

After 3 years of increasing pressure on Tiaa-Cref, the answer was clear. The answer was "No". No, the investment giant would not allow its shareholder's meeting to be hijacked by a fringe minority group. No, they would not allow their 3.7 million plan participants retirement futures' be dictated by a tiny minority with a political ax to grind.

What was left for JVP to do, but protest? And true to form, they scheduled their day of rage for the Jewish fast day Tisha b'Av. You didn't actually expect them to mourn the loss of our temple, did you?

At first glance, the July 16th Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP), Global Exchange and American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) Tiaa-Cref protest in San Francisco seemed like a salute to corporate America, with its baffling array of signage.

 If they can't even spell apartheid, how can they possibly look it up and know what it means?

Spelling challenged anti-Israel protester in San Francisco

Song leader Dalit (Dov) Baum vainly tried to engage the handful of protesters, leading chants and songs. 

Dalit (Dov) Baum leading Tiaa-Cref protest

Eventually a  ukulele was brought out. It was that bleak. Passersby hurried past on their way to grab a bite of lunch, largely ignoring the group.

Rabbi Alissa Wise of JVP's Rabbinic Council also attended the protest. In her blog, the Palestinian Talmud, she writes

Tochecha is about our obligation to tell someone when they have done or are currently straying and behaving wrongly – whether to us, or to another. What’s more, tochecha requires us also to engage with those we are rebuking and assist them and support them in the repair of the wrong you are calling out.

Almost like a real rabbi, right? But don't let it fool you.

While I was photographing the protest, Rabbi Alissa Wise walked up to me, chanting loudly into her megaphone, and deliberately placed it inches from my ear.  It was an assault on more than my senses. We've learned to expect temper tantrums from JVP, but coming from the head of the JVP Rabbinic Council, this act was particularly appalling.  When those invested with the spiritual guidance of a group engage in such harmful, petty and vicious acts, we can see quite clearly why the group's moral compass is askew.

You have strayed, Rabbi Wise. You have behaved wrongly. Your baseless hatred, your Sinat Chinam caused you to publicly violate the personal space of a woman old enough to be your mother, simply because you disagreed with her politics.

Sadly, in her own deeply disturbing way, JVP's Rabbi Alissa Wise delivered a wordless sermon on Sinat Chinam on Tisha B'Av.

Good-bye fair trade Chocolate. Time to Boycott Global Exchange

Yeah, I like their fair trade chocolate too, but I'll need to find a better source. Global Exchange has crossed the line. Today, they sent out an announcement:

"Don't Harmonize With Apartheid"
Sun, Feb 27, 2011 6:00 pm
Davies Symphony Hall
201 Van Ness @ Civic Center
San Francisco
Boycott the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra on its US Tour!

Bring your pots and pans, kazoos, ukuleles, whistles, creativity and everything else needed for a cacaphonic protest

The Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel has issued an appeal to BDS activists in the United States to boycott the US tour of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra (IPO) in February and March 2011, due to its complicity in whitewashing Israel's persistent violations of international law and human rights. The IPO is scheduled to perform in Palm Beach, New York, Seattle, San Francisco, and Los Angeles.

The IPO is one of the flagship institutions of the Israeli state, tracing its history to the 1930's under the British Mandate. The IPO Foundation describes the orchestra as "Israel's musical ambassador." .

An organization with a slogan "building people to people ties" is advocating the disruption of a cultural event that has the express purpose of, wait for it "building people to people ties" . years ago, the Philharmonics famed "Keynote" program ran program for Israeli and Palestinian children. One concert, for children of the Dheisheh Refugee Camp, was a multi-cultural, bi-lingual encounter featuring the IPO percussion section and an ensemble of Arab musicians from Nazareth. Rather than encourage this kind of activity, Global Exchange is proposing a disruption.

What can you do?

If you aren't busy Sunday night, pick up tickets for the Philharmonic. Davies Hall is a wonderful venue for a concert.

Can't make it to San Francisco? Pick up the phone. Global Exchange has stores throughout the country, as well as a thriving catalog business. Use their 800 number- 1 800 497 1994. Tell them you shop their stores or their catalogs regularly. Tell them how deeply offended you are that they are encouraging the disruption of a cultural event. Tell them you aren't planning on shopping there ever again.

And please, pass the word on to your friends.
Thank you!