Eran Efrati, on Israeli military training US police. Explosive! (4 mins) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y6wwLH2mimg
CONVERSATION WITH ERAN EFRATI, director of the organization Researching the American-Israeli Alliance (RAIA)
Topic: Deadly Exchange: What are American Police Forces Learning in Israel? A conversation that will bring the occupation of Palestine home to Central New York.
Date: Thursday, April 19, 6:15pm
Location: Greater Ithaca Activity Center (GIAC), 301 W. Court St., Ithaca, NY
Local contact: Beth Harris, beth55harris@gmail.com, 607-266-7587
Eran Efrati was a combat soldier with the Israeli military, which opened his eyes to the realities of the military occupation in Palestine. He is now an investigative researcher and director of the organization Researching the American-Israeli Alliance (RAIA). His research exposes the links between US law enforcement and the Israeli military, which has since 2002 been training US municipal and campus police. While Black Lives Matter and other social movements are seeking accountability and an end to police violence, American police officers, Border Patrol and ICE have been training with an apparatus that enforces a military occupation in Palestine.
Knowing this, Eran asks: “How can we resist the militarization of policing and the criminalization of citizens and immigrants?”
Eran is keenly aware of the slippery slope of applying military tactics to policing civilian populations, a topic of grave concern to Ithacans and all Americans.
This community conversation is free and open to the public. Donations to support RAIA can be made by checks written to RAIA’s fiscal sponsor, the AJ Muste Memorial Institute.
Musician Dara Anissi will open the evening with oud music dedicated to the people of Gaza.
Eran Efrati’s talk is presented by the Ithaca chapter of Jewish Voice for Peace and the Committee for Justice in Palestine. It is co-sponsored by many religious, peace and justice organizations in Tompkins, Broome and Tioga Counties, including the Tompkins County Immigrant Rights Coalition, Episcopal Peace Fellowship, Veterans for Peace of Broome County, Social Justice Council of the 1st Unitarian Society of Ithaca, Finger Lakes Veterans / Warrior Writers, Dorothy Cotton Institute, Cornell Islamic Alliance for Justice, United Methodist Upper NY Conference Task Force for Palestine/Israel, Multicultural Resource Center, Broome-Tioga Green Party, Ithaca Catholic Worker, Group 73 of Amnesty International of Ithaca NY, Ithaca Democratic Socialists of America, Congregation Tikkun v’Or Israel-Palestine Social Justice Workgroup, Ithaca College Futures Club, Cornell Students for Justice in Palestine, and Food Not Bombs.
As the new Poor People’s Campaign is gathering momentum and organizing across the country, locally and regionally, people are grounding themselves in understanding what, on April 4, 1967, MLK Jr. called the three evils of racism, poverty and militarism in his extraordinary and groundbreaking speech at Riverside Church in NYC, Beyond Vietnam–A Time to Break the Silence in which he took a courageous moral stand against the war in Vietnam,
Dr. King began to explore a new kind of revolution, a vision of people at the grassroots/community level creating new values, relationships, and structures as the foundation for a new society and combining the struggle against systemic racism with a struggle against poverty and militarism.
“We have left the realm of constitutional rights and we are entering the area of human rights.” …. “The Constitution assured the right to vote, but there is no such assurance of the rights to adequate housing, or the right to an adequate income … It is morally right to insist that every person have a decent house, and adequate education and enough money to provide basic necessities for one’s family.”
In 1968 the Poor People’s Campaign set up a multiracial, multi-ethnic Resurrection City on the Washington Mall and demanded an economic bill of rights.
Today the new Poor People’s Campaign is bringing together Americans who have a lot more in common than we are often led to believe about each other. Building coalitions and solidarity is not easy. As we remember the tragedy of his assassination fifty years ago, we can also look deeply at the legacy of Dr. King’s remarkable role in the Freedom Movement, the power of non-violent direct action, and his ability to see the interlocking web of all forms of discrimination, violence, oppression, and war. To these we add the fundamental need for a healthy planet and an end to environmental degradation. We can look at the good news of the massive amount of effective organizing happening all over the country now to end the many forms of interpersonal, cultural and state-sponsored violence, and the reverse the daily dismantling of the basic public protections of people’s civil, political, economic, cultural and social rights. Something powerful is happening here.
A life long member of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, Carolyn was present on September 15, 1963, when white racists bombed the Church. Carolyn’s four young friends were killed. As a teenager, Carolyn felt her “calling” by 
attending the mass meetings and rallies at the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church. She was among thousands of students hosed by firemen during the 1963 marches. She survived a second bomb explosion that destroyed a large portion of her home in 1964. An “authentic child of the movement,” Carolyn believes that God spared her life on September 15, 1963 so that she could continue to live in service to others.
Reverend McKinstry is a National Advisor to the Dorothy Cotton Institute.
$125 per ticket. To reserve your seats or donate online click here.
Dorothy Cotton Institute
PO Box 321
Ithaca, NY 14851
Led by Kirby Edmonds and Laura Branca, eight local teens have been trained to lead important workshops for young employees
The Midstate COSH trainers will train fellow teenagers and youth in these areas:
Introduction to Workplace Rights Under OSHA
Sexual Harassment
Workplace Violence
Health & Safety Hazards
Solutions at Work
If you are interested in having a teen-led workshop (usually 2-3 hours long) on these issues, please contact Antonio Triana <r10triana@gmail.com> or Midstate COSH <midstatecosh@gmail.com>
| ➜ Job opportunities are available with the Midstate Council for Occupational Safety and Health this Summer 2017.
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Deal struck with Israel after intense talks hailed as ‘victory’ for Palestinian prisoners on hunger strike for 40 days
A mass hunger strike staged by Palestinian prisoners over conditions in Israeli jails was suspended on Saturday after a deal with Israel, officials said. About 1,500 inmates launched the action on April 17, in one of the largest such strikes. Read more
Rabbi Brian Walt, Co-chair of the Jewish Voice for Peace Rabbinical Council, will share his experiences in Hebron with Palestinian Youth Against Settlement leader Issa Amro and Israeli Breaking the Silence leader Yehuda Shaul and the reality of apartheid in the West Bank.
Ariel Gold, CODEPINK Campaign Director and Youth Against Settlements International Advocacy Coordinator, will provide an an update of the work CODEPINK, Veterans for Peace, Jewish Voice for Peace, Amnesty International, and others are doing with Joint List Knesset members, State Department officials, and members of the US Congress to support Issa Amro as he faces 18 charges in Israeli military court. She will provide an eye witness account of Youth Against Settlement’s annual “Open Shuhada Street” campaign that took place this past February in Hebron.
Kirby Edmonds, Senior Fellow and Program Coordinator of the Dorothy Cotton Institute (DCI), will discuss his experience in Hebron, when helping to lead the DCI’s delegation to East Jerusalem and the West Bank with leaders from the U.S. Civil Rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s, younger civil and human rights leaders, social justice activists, and peace builders. Kirby will share how the oppression in Hebron and the Palestinian grassroots nonviolent resistance movement relate to the US struggles for racial justice and human rights.
On March 13, the Dorothy Cotton Institute presented an interactive half-day training workshop on understanding the human rights framework, for students from two high schools–Lehman Alternative Community School, and New Roots Charter School. The half-day workshop was hosted by LACS in their terrific theater space. DCI Senior Fellows Kirby Edmonds and Laura Branca designed and led the training.
A highly committed team of educators who are champions for equity and inclusion in their schools worked together to organize, find a time and space, and encourage their students to attend.
Many of the youth who attended the workshop are already involved working for justice and positive change in their schools and in their lives. The purpose of this workshop was to encourage them to use their understanding of human rights for creative self-expression, scholarship, and positive action to end discrimination and respect human dignity. The DCI is invited some youth to design a panel at The History Center about their work for social justice, date TBD.
Human Rights are Universal, which means that they belong to all people, everywhere. Yet it’s surprising how many people do not know very much about array of rights and responsibilities that our nation and hundreds of other nation states across the globe have made a commitment to protect and uphold.
The Right to Know Our Rights: The Declaration of Human Rights Education and Training says that first and foremost is our right to know our rights, and that all people, everywhere, are entitled to human rights education. The Dorothy Cotton Institute is very pleased to offer young people the opportunity to examine their experience through the lens of human rights and responsibilities.
If you are interested in future human rights workshops for young people, educators or activists, please contact Kirby Edmonds at tfckirby@aol.com, or 607-277-3401.
Links to the American Civil Liberties Union and National Immigration Law Center:
When encountering
law enforcement questioning
If your rights are violated at
a demonstration or protest
If Immigration Agents (ICE)
National Immigration Law Center
Rights at Airports