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For Immediate Release
September, 30 2015, 01:15pm EDT
Contact:
Naomi Dann | 845-377-5745 | naomi@jvp.org
Jewish Voice for Peace Releases First-Ever Report on the Use of False Charges of Anti-Semitism to Limit Palestinian Rights Activism on Campuses
Report details a pattern of activities intended to silence criticism of Israel on campus
WASHINGTON
A new report, Stifling Dissent: How Israel's Defenders Use False Charges of Anti-Semitism to Limit the Debate over Israel on Campus, released today by Jewish Voice for Peace, documents efforts by Israel advocacy organizations to intervene in the debate over Israeli policies on campuses. You can read the report here.
Jewish Voice for Peace is a national grassroots organization inspired by Jewish tradition to work for a just and lasting peace according to principles of human rights, equality, and international law for all the people of Israel and Palestine. Years of experience working with students and faculty have revealed a pattern of activities by Israel advocacy groups to silence speech and marginalize Jewish students and faculty who advocate for Palestinian rights on campuses.
Drawing on case studies over the last several years, the report documents how Israel advocacy organizations bully and intimidate Jewish students who do not pass their political litmus test on Israel by employing the following tactics:
- Codifying criticism of the state of Israel as anti-Semitism,
- Intimidating faculty and students through blacklists, letters to administrators, and legal threats,
- Censoring political debate both inside and outside Jewish campus spaces,
- Intervening in campus politics by directing external funds to pro-Israel student government candidates
"Political use of the charge of anti-Semitism threatens to void the term of any meaning at all," said Tallie Ben Daniel, JVP Academic Advisory Council Coordinator. "By filing complaints with the federal government that campuses are 'hostile environments' for Jewish students, Israel-aligned groups conflate some Jewish students' emotional discomfort around criticism of a country with physical safety and targeted harassment based on religious identity, which of course should never be tolerated. Engaging in debate over foreign policy is a constitutionally protected exercise of free speech, and should not be confused with bigotry."
Melanie Malinas describes the ostracism she experienced as a Jewish student, both while an undergraduate at Oberlin College and as a graduate student at Stanford University, when she stood in support of divestment from companies that profit from Israel's occupation of the West Bank: "I do not feel comfortable expressing my political opinions at Hillel or, for that matter, at most Jewish community events. Rather than being a welcoming home for Jewish life on campuses, Hillel has become a political advocacy group opposing a movement for freedom and equality for Palestinians. Hillels and other young adult Jewish communities do not align with my values, so I largely do not participate in them. "
The report recommends that campus administrators strive to create an open campus climate that is inclusive of all student perspectives by avoiding policies that conflate the state of Israel with Judaism or the Jewish people.
Jewish Voice for Peace's report was released in conjunction with a groundbreaking report by Palestine Legal and the Center for Constitutional Rights, "The Palestine Exception to Free Speech: A Movement Under Attack in the US," that documents tactics being used across the country to silence Palestinian human rights advocacy, undermining both First Amendment rights and democratic principles.
To view the full JVP report, visit:
https://stiflingdissent.org
Jewish Voice for Peace is a national, grassroots organization inspired by Jewish tradition to work for a just and lasting peace according to principles of human rights, equality, and international law for all the people of Israel and Palestine. JVP has over 200,000 online supporters, over 70 chapters, a youth wing, a Rabbinic Council, an Artist Council, an Academic Advisory Council, and an Advisory Board made up of leading U.S. intellectuals and artists.
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Biden Implored to Avert 'Carbon Bomb' by Blocking Texas Gulf Oil Terminals
"It's hypocritical for the Biden administration to allow these things to get built and then say the U.S. wants to decrease its own emissions," said one climate campaigner.
Feb 21, 2023
The Biden administration's plan to potentially allow four new oil terminals along the Texas Gulf Coast would unleash a "carbon bomb" potentially equivalent to three years of all U.S. emissions and belie President Joe Biden's stated intent to "act boldly on climate," according to an analysis published on Tuesday.
The analysis—which was conducted for The Guardian by Global Energy Monitor, a San Francisco-based NGO that tracks fossil fuel projects around the world—found that if all four terminals are built and operate at full capacity for their expected 30-year lifespan, they will generate a staggering 24 billion metric tons of greenhouse gases.
According to The Guardian:
The federal government has already quietly approved the Sea Port Oil Terminal project, a proposed offshore oil platform located 35 miles off the Texas coast, south of Houston, and will decide whether to allow three other nearby oil terminal proposals. Combined, the four terminals would expand U.S. oil exports by nearly seven million barrels every day, handling the capacity of half of all current national oil exports.
"The amount of oil going through these projects, and the resulting emissions, are pretty astounding," said Global Energy Monitor analyst Baird Langenbrunner.
\u201cIncreasing oil production is completely at odds with the Biden administration's stated goals of climate progress. https://t.co/1YqchQpfSw\u201d— Food & Water Watch (@Food & Water Watch) 1677016894
Sea Port Oil Terminal (STOP), the largest of the projects, would produce an estimated seven billion metric tons of annual greenhouse emissions, followed by Bluewater Texas (6.7 billion metric tons), Blue Marlin (6.6 billion), and Texas GulfLink (3.8 billion). In 2019, U.S. emissions totaled 6.6 billion metric tons, according to the analysis.
"Even if the emissions are a bit lower... we are fast-forwarding ourselves to the date where we have to stop completely emitting," said Langenbrunner. "Any extra emissions are in direct conflict with climate goals and it's hypocritical for the Biden administration to allow these things to get built and then say the U.S. wants to decrease its own emissions."
SPOT was approved by the Biden administration last November over the strong objections of climate, environmental, and other campaigners. As currently planned, the project would consist of several pipelines—the longest of them 50 miles long—storage tanks, and a deepwater oil export platform.
Last month, green and community groups sued the U.S. Department of Transportation's Maritime Administration (MARAD) over its approval of SPOT.
\u201cRice\u2019s whales lost 22% of their population after the Deepwater Horizon disaster, and now they\u2019re among the most endangered marine mammals on Earth, with fewer than 50 left. That\u2019s one reason why we\u2019re fighting the Sea Port Oil Terminal in court. \nhttps://t.co/SBaZOngGas\u201d— Center for Biological Diversity (@Center for Biological Diversity) 1674665079
"Licensing SPOT exclusively serves the fossil fuel industry's goal of extracting every last drop of oil from the Permian Basin, while failing the communities and ecosystems of the Gulf, our nation, and global climate," Devorah Ancel, a senior attorney at the Sierra Club—one of the groups filing the suit— said at the time.
"Considering the administration's stated commitment to 'tackle the climate crisis,' it is particularly troubling that MARAD's review of SPOT's environmental and community impacts entirely fails to account for the project's significant contributions to climate change," Ancel added, "including impacts from excessive greenhouse gas pollution that will push temperatures higher in the Houston area and disrupt global climate."
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Letting 'Secrecy Prevail,' SCOTUS Declines to Hear Challenge to NSA Mass Surveillance
"If the courts are unwilling to hear Wikimedia's challenge, then Congress must step in to protect Americans' privacy," said the Knight First Amendment Institute's litigation director.
Feb 21, 2023
Privacy advocates on Tuesday blasted the U.S. Supreme Court's refusal to hear the Wikimedia Foundation's case against a federal program for spying on Americans' online communications with people abroad.
The nonprofit foundation, which operates Wikipedia, took aim at the National Security Agency (NSA) program "Upstream" that—under Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act—searches emails, internet messages, and other web communications leaving and entering the United States.
"In the course of this surveillance, both U.S. residents and individuals located outside the U.S. are impacted," the foundation explained in a statement. "The NSA copies and combs through vast amounts of internet traffic, including private data showing what millions of people around the world are browsing online, from communications with friends and family to reading and editing knowledge on Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects."
"This government surveillance has had a measurable chilling effect on Wikipedia users, with research documenting a drop in traffic to Wikipedia articles on sensitive topics, following public revelations about the NSA's mass surveillance in 2013," the group added.
Last August, Wikimedia—represented by the ACLU, Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, and the law firm Cooley LLP—petitioned the high court to take up the case after a divided panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit dismissed it based on the "state secrets privilege."
"The Supreme Court's refusal to grant our petition strikes a blow against an individual's right to privacy and freedom of expression—two cornerstones of our society and the building blocks of Wikipedia," said Wikimedia legal director James Buatti. "We will continue to champion everyone's right to free knowledge, and urge Congress to take on the issue of mass surveillance as it evaluates whether to reauthorize Section 702 later this year."
\u201cDisappointing decision today by the Supreme Court to deny cert in Wikimedia v. NSA, a challenge to the mass surveillance of Americans' international communications. \n\nIn short: the government's unjustified claims of secrecy prevailed over the rule of law. https://t.co/NZirFIjXfF\u201d— Ashley Gorski (@Ashley Gorski) 1676998617
As Common Dreamsreported earlier this month, in a separate case, the ACLU sued the NSA along with the Central Intelligence Agency, Department of Justice, and Office of the Director of National Intelligence for failing to respond to public records requests for information about Section 702, which will expire if it is not reauthorized.
"Before Congress votes on reauthorizing this law, Americans should know how the government wants to use these sweeping spying powers," Patrick Toomey, deputy project director for the ACLU's National Security Project, said at the time.
Responding to the development in the Wikimedia case on Tuesday, Toomey declared that "the Supreme Court let secrecy prevail today, at immense cost to Americans' privacy."
"We depend on the courts to hold the government to account, especially when it wields powerful new technologies to peer into our lives like never before. But the Supreme Court has again allowed the executive branch to hide abuses behind unjustifiable claims of secrecy," he continued. "It is now up to Congress to insist on landmark reforms that will safeguard Americans in the face of the NSA's mass spying programs."
In a series of tweets about the case, the ACLU asserted that "we all deserve to use the internet without fear of being monitored by the government" and by declining to hear the case, "the court has slammed shut one of the only doors left to hold the NSA accountable for surveillance abuses revealed in 2013" by whistleblower Edward Snowden.
That thread concluded with a call for Congress to kill Section 702—which Snowden himself echoed on the platform:
\u201cThe @ACLU is exactly right, here. Call Congress.\u201d— Edward Snowden (@Edward Snowden) 1677007904
Alex Abdo, litigation director of the Knight First Amendment Institute, joined them in urging action from U.S. lawmakers.
"This decision is a blow to the rule of law," Abdo said of the high court. "The government has now succeeded in insulating from public judicial review one of the most sweeping surveillance programs ever enacted. If the courts are unwilling to hear Wikimedia's challenge, then Congress must step in to protect Americans' privacy by reining in the NSA's mass surveillance of the internet."
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'Too Many Holes': Rail Workers Say Buttigieg Plan of Action Is Not Enough
"Rank-and-file railroad workers can diagnose and fix the problems. We will believe Pete Buttigieg is serious when he starts talking about public ownership of critical railroad infrastructure and enacting some of our solutions."
Feb 21, 2023
U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg's newly unveiled plan to improve railroad safety is inadequate, an inter-union alliance of rail workers declared Tuesday.
The U.S. Department of Transportation's (USDOT) blueprint for holding rail corporations accountable and protecting the well-being of workers and affected communities comes after a Norfolk Southern-owned train overloaded with vinyl chloride and other carcinogenic chemicals crashed in East Palestine, Ohio on February 3, precipitating a toxic spill and fire that has sparked fears of air pollution and groundwater contamination.
In contrast to the hundreds of U.S. derailments that go largely unnoticed each year, the unfolding environmental and public health disaster on the Ohio-Pennsylvania border has helped expose the dangerous consequences of the Wall Street-driven transformation and deregulation of the freight rail industry—a long-standing process intensified by the Trump administration and so far unchallenged by the Biden administration.
"Profit and expediency must never outweigh the safety of the American people," Buttigieg—who has yet to exercise his authority to restore previously gutted rules and was mulling an industry-backed proposal to further weaken federal oversight of train braking systems as recently as February 10, according toThe Lever—said Tuesday in a statement.
"We at USDOT are doing everything in our power to improve rail safety," said Buttigieg, "and we insist that the rail industry do the same—while inviting Congress to work with us to raise the bar."
USDOT called on Norfolk Southern and other rail carriers to "provide proactive advance notification to state emergency response teams when they are transporting hazardous gas tank cars through their states instead of expecting first responders to look up this information after an incident occurs" and to "provide paid sick leave," among other things.
The department also urged Congress to increase how much it can penalize companies for safety violations, noting that "the current maximum fine, even for an egregious violation involving hazardous materials and resulting in fatalities, is $225,455." As Buttigieg tweeted, "This is not enough to drive changes at a multibillion-dollar company like Norfolk Southern."
Finally, USDOT committed to strengthening its regulation of the rail industry by "advancing the train crew staffing rule, which will require a minimum of two crew members for most railroad operations," and by "initiating a focused safety inspection program on routes over which high-hazard flammable trains (HHFTs) and other trains carrying large volumes of hazardous material travel," among other proposals.
"Each of these steps," the agency said, "will enhance rail safety in the United States."
But according to Railroad Workers United (RWU), which focused in particular on the issue of train crew staffing, "there are too many holes" in Buttigieg's plan to ensure the safety of the nation's rail system.
"As currently written, the proposed rule could allow for numerous instances of single-crew operations in the coming years," RWU tweeted. The alliance also shared a letter it sent to USDOT last September accusing the Federal Railroad Administration of "attempting to placate unions, community groups, and the general public on the one hand with a 'two-person train crew rule' while, on the other hand, signaling a green light to the industry to run trains with a single crew member."
\u201cThere are too many holes. As currently written, the Proposed Rule could allow for numerous instances of single crew operations in the coming years. #railsafety\u201d— Railroad Workers United \u270a (@Railroad Workers United \u270a) 1676992398
The U.S. endures more than 1,000 train derailments per year and has seen a 36% increase in hazardous materials violations committed by rail giants in the past five years.
After another Norfolk Southern train carrying hazardous materials derailedlast week near Detroit, Michigan, Sen. Bernie Sanders(I-Vt.) joined RWU in characterizing these daily occurrences as predictable—and preventable—outcomes of cost-cutting and profit-maximizing policies pushed by rail industry bosses and financial investors.
Given the scale of the problems and the slow pace and limited nature of the rulemaking process, RWU recently implored the U.S. labor movement to support the nationalization of the country's railroad system, arguing that "our nation can no longer afford private ownership of the railroads; the general welfare demands that they be brought under public ownership."
The alliance reiterated that demand on Tuesday, writing on social media that "we will believe Pete Buttigieg is serious when he starts talking about public ownership of critical railroad infrastructure and enacting some of our solutions."
\u201cRank-and-file railroad workers can diagnose and fix the problems. We will believe Pete Buttigieg is serious when he starts talking about public ownership of critical railroad infrastructure and enacting some of our solutions.\u201d— Railroad Workers United \u270a (@Railroad Workers United \u270a) 1676997003
As More Perfect Union noted, the six most "urgent changes" outside of nationalization recommended by RWU to "improve safety and stop the railroads' worst excesses and abuses" include:
- Preserve the standard two-person crews;
- Restrictions on train length;
- Adequate time off for rail workers to mitigate fatigue;
- Proper staffing levels to allow work to be done safely and efficiently;
- Equip all railcars and trains with electrically controlled pneumatic (ECP) brakes; and
- Implement safety programs that pinpoint hazards, not worker behaviors.
Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen (BLET) national president Eddie Hall, meanwhile, said in a statement that Buttigieg "is correct in saying that 'a healthy and well-supported workforce is a safer workforce.'"
"It's outrageous that 79% of the American public employed in the private sector receive paid sick leave benefits but not locomotive engineers and conductors, the essential workers who keep the supply chain operating," said Hall. "Many of our union's general chairmen are currently in talks with the railroads about correcting this safety lapse and injustice."
The Biden administration and Congress recently imposed a contract without paid sick leave on rail workers who were threatening to strike, and federal lawmakers have refused to pass legislation extending the lifesaving benefit to the millions of workers who lack it nationwide.
While Hall praised Buttigieg for saying that "profit and expediency must never outweigh the safety of the American people," the union leader lamented that the transportation secretary "didn't say anything specifically about 'PSR,' the operating model adopted by the nation's largest railroads designed to cut corners and boost profits."
"I assure you the 'S' in PSR is not about safety," said Hall. "Under PSR or Precision Scheduled Railroading, which in itself is an oxymoron, the railroads have cut the workforce by nearly a third over the past six years. They have reduced the number of thorough inspections of rail cars, along with other service cuts. Under the PSR model the largest railroads have lengthened trains to as long as three miles from end to end and intentionally slowed the supply chain."
"Railroads largely self-regulate and PSR has led to irresponsible practices at the cost of safety," he added. "It needs to be eliminated or reformed."
The National Transportation Safety Board is currently investigating the cause of the derailment in East Palestine. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on Tuesday ordered Norfolk Southern to pay for all associated cleanup work.
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