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For Immediate Release
January, 07 2018, 02:30pm EDT
Contact:
Ariel Gold | CODEPINK national co-director | ariel@codepink.org
Medea Benjamin | CODEPINK co-founder | medea.benjamin@gmail.com
CODEPINK Appalled at Being Banned from Entering Israel; Intends to Increase Efforts to Challenge Israeli Policies of Occupation and Apartheid
WASHINGTON
Israel announced today that 20 organizations worldwide, including CODEPINK, are now banned from entering the county due to their support for the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement. CODEPINK has long campaigned through BDS and solidarity tours, including bringing 800 people to the besieged Gaza Strip, to end the US-funded Israeli occupation and its abuse of Palestinian rights.
CODEPINK has organized two successful BDS campaigns, one against the cosmetics company AHAVA and another against SodaStream. Both companies ended up moving their factories from illegal West Bank settlements. CODEPINK continues to maintain BDS campaigns to demand that the real estate company RE/MAX and vacation rental company Airbnb stop selling and listing homes in illegal settlements.
With the new official blacklist of banned organizations, Israel is seeking to punish and intimidate activists supporting the Palestinian struggle for human rights. The blacklist expands the bans Israel has already had in place since 1948 to bar Palestinian refugees from returning to their homes and lands. The blacklist further demonstrates Israel's reliance on a system of apartheid to stifle opposition to its racist and colonial rule.
CODEPINK takes pride in being recognized as a staunch defender of Palestinian human rights alongside the other five US organizations (19 worldwide) that have also been banned.
Our response to the ban will be to increase all efforts to challenge Israeli policies of occupation and apartheid. We are certain that this ban will undermine its intended goal of covering up Israeli crimes against Palestinians and will help galvanize public opinion for freedom and justice in Palestine. We remain committed to using the BDS nonviolent tactic to reveal corporate complicity in Palestinian human rights violations.
CODEPINK co-founder Medea Benjamin spoke out in response to the blacklist: "It's outrageous that Israel would ban human rights activists who support a Gandhi-like boycott campaign that has historically been the bedrock of nonviolent social change movements. And some people still call Israel a democracy and justify giving it billions of our tax dollars? Enough."
CODEPINK co-founder Jodie Evans said, "Israel is obviously threatened by groups like CODEPINK that stand up for the rights of the oppressed. Our efforts to expose the plight of the Palestine people makes us criminals in the eyes of the Israeli government, but only makes us more determined who show who the real criminals are."
"By banning the leaders of peace organizations like CODEPINK, Israel is isolating itself even further as an apartheid state," said Ariel Gold, national director of CODEPINK "Their BDS blacklist is contrary to democratic principles and Jewish values. As an American Jew, I am proud of my work to challenge Israel's policies of repression. I will not give up the fight."
Nancy Kricorian, 13-year team member of CODEPINK who led the AHAVA campaign said, "As I read through the names of groups now banned from entering Israel because of their advocacy for Palestinian rights, I thought that this list was rather a roll of honor. Israel's desperate attempt to counter the BDS movement with this latest blacklist, along with the millions of dollars they are spending on internet trolling and propaganda campaigns, will not stop our principled support of equality and justice for the Palestinian people."
CODEPINK is a women-led grassroots organization working to end U.S. wars and militarism, support peace and human rights initiatives, and redirect our tax dollars into healthcare, education, green jobs and other life-affirming programs.
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1,000+ Experts Rip EPA for 'Reckless Dismissal of Established Climate Science'
Repealing the endangerment finding, they wrote, "is contrary to science and the public interest."
Sep 16, 2025
More than 1,000 scientists and other experts on Tuesday sent a letter to US Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin explaining why they "strenuously object" to his effort to repeal the EPA's 2009 "endangerment finding," which has enabled federal climate regulations over the past 15 years.
Amid mounting fears that he would take such action, Zeldin in late July unveiled the rule to rescind the landmark legal opinion that greenhouse gases endanger public health and the welfare of the American people—part of Republican President Donald Trump's broader pro-polluter agenda.
"As climate scientists, public health experts, and economists, we can attest to the indisputable scientific evidence of human-caused climate change, its harmful impacts on people’s health and well-being, and the devastating costs it is imposing on communities across the nation and around the world," states the new letter, organized by the Union of Concerned Scientists. "This explicit attempt to undermine or weaken these findings, as well as the critical regulations linked to them, is contrary to science and the public interest."
"We also strongly oppose the EPA’s reckless dismissal of established climate science as part of its proposal to repeal the endangerment finding, including the agency’s heavy reliance on an unscientific study commissioned by the Department of Energy. This report is rife with inaccuracies, deliberately cherry-picks and mischaracterizes data, and has not undergone a rigorous scientific review process," the letter continues, echoing an expert review of the government report from earlier this month.
🚨NEW: Scientists from nearly every state, DC, and Puerto Rico are calling out Trump's Environmental Protection Agency for failing to fulfill their core duties: protect the environment and public health.
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— Union of Concerned Scientists (@ucs.org) September 16, 2025 at 11:17 AM
Citing major US and global analyses, along with thousands of independent, peer-reviewed scientific studies, the letter stresses that "the scientific evidence on human-caused climate change and its consequences was unequivocal in 2009 and, since that time, has become even more dire and compelling."
It says that "based on the best available science," scientists know:
- Climate change poses severe harms to human health and well-being;
- Climate change is clearly increasing the likelihood of extreme events; and
- The economic toll of climate change is rising.
Harms to human health and well-being include higher rates of heat-related deaths, increased spread of some infectious diseases, and decreased food and water safety due to climate-fueled extreme weather events, the letter says. It also highlights that, according to data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), "billion-dollar disasters in the United States are on the rise, driven by a combination of climate factors and increased development in disaster-prone areas."
Despite such findings, the Trump administration is making various moves to boost the planet-wrecking fossil fuel industry and the president withdrew the United States from the Paris Agreement—again—when he returned to office in January. Parties to the 2015 climate agreement aim to limit global temperature rise this century to 1.5°C above preindustrial levels.
🌎🧪Over 1,000+ scientists joined together to defend the EPA's Endangerment Finding, and you have SIX DAYS to make your voice heard too.
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— Union of Concerned Scientists (@ucs.org) September 16, 2025 at 11:17 AM
"The world stands on the cusp of breaching the 1.5°C (2.7°F) mark on a long-term basis, the global average temperature increase above preindustrial levels that scientists have long warned about," the experts noted Tuesday. "Communities across the nation are already dealing with devastating and costly climate impacts, that are set to worsen as global warming accelerates. Humanity's window to act to stave off some of the worst impacts of climate change is fast closing; any further delay is harmful and costly."
"We urge you to stop dismantling critical climate regulations and evading EPA's responsibility by pushing disinformation about climate science and impacts," they concluded. "Instead, we call on you to act with urgency to help address this pressing challenge by limiting heat-trapping emissions. People across the nation are relying on the EPA to fulfill its mission to protect public health and the environment."
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Trump Threatens to Jail CodePink Protesters Who Disrupted His Dinner With Chants for Gaza
"It is all very reminiscent of McCarthyism," a CodePink spokesperson said.
Sep 16, 2025
President Donald Trump threatened on Monday to jail the peace activists who disrupted his dinner with pro-Palestinian chants last week, referring to their behavior as "subversive."
Last Tuesday, members of CodePink, a women-led antiwar group, verbally confronted the president and several top members of his administration—including Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth—as they dined on steak and seafood at a swanky DC eatery.
The small group of activists castigated the president for his support for Israel's genocidal war in Gaza and its blockade on humanitarian aid, which has caused mass starvation throughout the strip.
The activists chanted, "They feast while Gaza starves," and called Trump "the Hitler of our time" for supporting the military campaign, which an Israeli general recently admitted has resulted in over 220,000 people being killed or wounded.
On Monday, as Trump and his administration continued to map out a sweeping crackdown against left-wing speech following the murder of right-wing activist Charlie Kirk, the president suggested that the women of CodePink should also be punished for their peaceful display of dissent, referring to them as "professional agitators" and "total phonies."
"They started to scream when I got into the restaurant," he said, "'Ohhh'...Something with Palestine. And I said, 'Well, I'm doing a great job for peace in the Middle East, I should get lots of awards for that, right, with the Abraham Accords and everything else.' But the woman just stood up and started screaming. And she got booed out of the place."
Trump called the protester a "mouthpiece" and a "paid agitator," before saying that he'd "asked [Attorney General Pam Bondi] to look into that in terms of RICO, bringing RICO cases against them. Criminal RICO. Because they should be put in jail, what they're doing to this country is really subversive."
RICO refers to the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, which the government has traditionally used to prosecute organized crime groups. But following Kirk's shooting, Trump has suggested it be used to carry out what his deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller said on Friday would be an effort to "dismantle" left-wing organizations in the United States.
Trump has threatened to use RICO charges against liberal nonprofits, including the Open Society Foundations and the Ford Foundation, which Vance referred to on Monday as "terrorist networks." The vice president claimed that these groups push "messaging designed to trigger and incite violence," with his leading example being an article published in The Nation that harshly criticized Kirk's political views following his assassination.
Melissa Garriga, a spokesperson for CodePink, told Common Dreams that Trump's allegations against her antiwar group are untrue.
"CodePink has a very small staff," Garriga said. "A majority of our work is done by CodePink volunteers, who are not paid. They represent the majority of the American public and are not 'mouthpieces' of any foreign government or political party. They are workers, veterans, artists, and peace activists from across the country. We are committed to peaceful, nonviolent means of protest when executing our actions."
"This is not new for us," Garriga added. "Over the past few years, elected officials, more often Republican elected officials, have constantly called for investigations into progressive organizations such as ours. They've launched baseless congressional investigations over CodePink's funding sources that their Democrat colleagues often parrot."
Earlier this year, Senate Intelligence Committee chair Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) claimed that the group was funded by "Communist China" after a retired Army colonel working with the group disrupted a committee hearing with chants of "Stop funding Israel!" CodePink filed an ethics complaint against Cotton in response, calling his accusation "untrue and libelous."
In 2024, when CodePink was castigating the Biden administration's unwavering support for Israel, former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) made a similar suggestion that the group should be investigated by the FBI because, "when they advocate for a ceasefire, it's Putin's agenda at play." Prior to that, when a member of the group confronted Pelosi, the congresswoman responded, "Go back to China."
CodePink strenuously denied having received any funding from the Chinese government or any other foreign governments following calls from several Republicans for the group to be investigated over its campaign against military escalation with China.
"Our financial records are transparent and audited, and any suggestion that external governments or political entities influence us is ludicrous," Garriga reiterated to Common Dreams. "As we have officially stated multiple times, CodePink receives no money from any foreign government, and we are funded by thousands of individual donors and US-based foundations."
"President Trump is trying to intimidate people who speak up for peace and justice, and we won’t be intimidated," she continued. "We represent the popular opinion in the United States: the majority who are against war and genocide."
According to a Quinnipiac poll released at the end of August, 60% of voters across all parties said they opposed sending more military aid to Israel, compared to just 32% who said they supported it. Half of the respondents said they agreed with the international community's growing consensus that Israel is committing a genocide in Gaza.
"It is all very reminiscent of McCarthyism," Garriga said of Trump's threats to crack down on left-wing speech. "It's a critical moment for other organizations to stand in solidarity, loud and clear solidarity with organizations facing repression."
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'Corporate Greed Is Out of Control': Tlaib-Sanders Bill Would Tax Companies for Excessive CEO Pay
"At a time of record-breaking income and wealth inequality, we must demand that the wealthiest people and most profitable corporations in America finally pay their fair share of taxes," said Sen. Bernie Sanders.
Sep 16, 2025
With the world's richest person, Tesla CEO and Republican megadonor Elon Musk, on the cusp of becoming the first trillionaire on the planet, two leading progressive lawmakers are calling on Congress to pass a bill to "rein in the obscene salaries of America's top executives."
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) on Monday introduced the Tax Excessive CEO Pay Act with the aim of raising taxes on companies that pay their executives more than 50 times their workers' wages.
The legislation would impose penalties starting at 0.5 percentage points for companies with CEO-to-worker pay ratios between 50-to-1 and 100-to-1. Firms where executives make more than 500 times their workers' pay would be forced to pay the highest rate.
The bill would also require the US Treasury Department to crack down on tax avoidance, including schemes that disguise pay disparities by outsourcing jobs to contractors.
Sanders said that exorbitant CEO pay and massive pay gaps at corporations are intolerable "while 60% of Americans live paycheck to paycheck and millions work longer hours for lower wages."
"It is unacceptable that the CEOs of the largest low-wage corporations make more than 630 times what their average workers make," said the senator, who has been criss-crossing the country this year with his Fighting Oligarchy Tour, galvanizing people in red and blue districts against wealth inequality, political corruption, and corporate power.
"This is not only morally obscene, but also insane economic policy," said Sanders. "At a time of record-breaking income and wealth inequality, we must demand that the wealthiest people and most profitable corporations in America finally pay their fair share of taxes and treat all employees with the respect and dignity they deserve. That’s precisely what this legislation begins to do."
The proposal would raise an estimated $150 billion over a decade if tech giants, Wall Street firms, and other large corporations continue their current compensation patterns, and Sanders and Tlaib noted that the largest companies in the US would have paid billions of dollars more in taxes last year had the legislation been in effect.
JPMorgan Chase would have paid $2.38 billion in taxes, while Google would have paid $2.16 billion and Walmart would have paid $929 million.
With 62% of Republican voters and 75% of Democrats supporting a cap on CEO pay relative to worker salaries, the legislation would likely be well received by Americans across the political spectrum—but Republican lawmakers have shown little to no interest in confronting the pay gap, ensuring fair wages for workers, or reining in excessive executive compensation.
With the current CEO-employee pay gap, CEOs at the 350 largest publicly owned firms make 290 times more than the average pay of a typical worker at their companies, with the gap much larger at some corporations.
The median Walmart worker made $29,469 in 2024, while CEO Doug McMillon took home $27.4 million—a 930-to-1 gap.
The median Starbucks worker would have to work for more than 6,000 years to earn the pay CEO Brian Niccol took home in 2024.
"Working people are sick and tired of corporate greed," said Tlaib. “It’s disgraceful that corporations continue to rake in record profits by exploiting the labor of their workers. Every worker deserves a living wage and human dignity on the job."
"It’s time," she added, "to make the rich pay their fair share.”
Tlaib and Sanders introduced the legislation as Pope Leo spoke out against exorbitant CEO pay in his first interview since taking the helm of the Catholic Church, reserving particular condemnation for Musk, for whom the Tesla board proposed a $1 trillion pay package if he grows the company by eightfold over the next decade.
“CEOs that 60 years ago might have been making four to six times more than what the workers are receiving... it’s [now] 600 times more than the average workers are receiving,” the pope told the Catholic outlet Crux.
“Yesterday, the news that Elon Musk is going to be the first trillionaire in the world: What does that mean and what’s that about?" he added. "If that is the only thing that has value anymore, then we’re in big trouble.”
Sanders said Monday that the pope "is exactly right."
"No society can survive when one man becomes a trillionaire while the vast majority struggle to just survive—trying to put food on the table, pay rent, and afford healthcare," said Sanders. "We can and must do better."
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