The following are the introductory remarks by Lara Kiswani, Executive Director of AROC (Arab Resources Organizing Center), on Oct. 26, 2024,, in Oakland, California. The occasion was author Ta-Nehisi Coates in Conversation with Dena Takruri on the Struggle for Liberation before a packed audience at the First Congressional Church, which has served as a venue for a number of progressive events throughout the years. AROC Action and Palestine Festival of Literature sponsored this presentation.

Coates, the best-selling author of Between the World and Me, discussed his most recent book, The Message. The book includes his thoughts on his visit to Palestine and what he saw and experienced there. The conversation included the Palestinian struggle for self-determination and the Black Liberation movement.

I thought that Sister Kiswani’s comments were most appropriate for the evening’s event, and worthy to share with others who were not in attendance.

— Clarence Thomas, ILWU Local 10, retired, co-founder DeClare Publishing

Oct. 25, 2024: Opening remarks by Lara Kiswani at the event, “Ta-Nehisi Coates in Conversation with Dena Takruri on the Struggle for Liberation” 

Welcome everyone. My name is Lara Kiswani, and would like to welcome you all to our event today and thank the original stewards of this land, the Ramatush Ohlone people, for allowing us to host it here in Oakland. 

Some of you may know me as the executive director of AROC; today I am also with AROC Action, a new organization working to grow the political power of the Arab, Southwest Asian, and North African communities in the San Francisco Bay Area. An organization specifically grown out of the struggle to end the genocidal war on Gaza and to defend against discrimination and repression against Palestinian, Arab people, and our solidarity movement – which you are all a part of. 

This past year has put our collective energies to the test. We have shown up day in and day out in the streets and in the halls of power to do everything we possiblely can to stop the genocide in Gaza and to support our people in Palestine, and Lebanon, and in the wider region. 

Amid all the amazing and inspiring activities, large and small, it has been quite some time since we have organized an event of this nature. But when the opportunity arose to have these two great minds be in conversation, we knew it was important that we pull this together. 

You are probably all here today because you have read Ta-Nehisi Coates’ latest book, the Message. Many of you have felt seen or inspired by his words. Or you are moved by Dena Takruri’s books and inspired by her words. Many of you have surely been moved by Ta-Nehisi Coates’ recent interviews, by his clarity, and unwavering conviction. 

Ta-Nehisi reminded everyone that not only are we surrounded by the majority of people of the world who are saying No to war, No to Racism, No to colonial violence, No to U.S. militarism, No more arming Israel! — But also that Palestinian solidarity is a necessary and common sense practice for any person of conscience. 

It is not a coincidence that it took a renowned Black writer and journalist to cut through this outrageously oppressive political environment in the media that has attempted to erase us as Palestinians. It is not a coincidence because understanding the Black freedom struggle is a logical – and necessary – entry point into seeing and understanding Palestine and the Palestinian freedom struggle.

And that is why it is so meaningful to hold this event right here in Oakland. A town where the slogan “none of us are free until all of us free,” and “an injury to one is an injury to all,” are not hollow empty words, but a deeply felt reality that reverberates across the decades. 

So in case you all were wondering. This isn’t just a discussion or political education. This event is a renewed call to action. 

Ta-Nehisi Coates’ recent solidarity with our movement at every venue and at every turn is an invitation to ground us in our shared histories and to get us in formation for the days ahead. 

This event calls on us to see ourselves as part of a protracted struggle, a generational struggle. 

We know that the U.S. government’s partnership with apartheid Israel is an organic one, organic to the interests of U.S. imperialism. And as the U.S. arms Israel, commits a genocide in Gaza, Israel then exports its training and technology to be used to repress communities and peoples’ struggles across the world. 

INDEED, it was right here in the Bay Area that a multiracial coalition Stopped Urban Shield. After an eight-year campaign successfully defunded and put an end to the largest SWAT training and arms expo in the U.S., that brought the Israeli military and other fascist paramilitaries to train local police right here in our backyard. We fought Urban Shield. And we won. 

We know that the International Longshore and Warehouse union, ILWU Local 10, made history in 1984 when they refused to offload South African cargo during apartheid South Africa. They fought apartheid South Africa. And they won.

And it was right here in Oakland where ILWU Local 10 honored our community pickets and Blocked the Boat. By refusing to handle Israeli cargo and indefinitely stopping the largest Israeli shipping company, Zim Shipping Line, from docking and unloading its goods at the Port of Oakland for 10 years and counting! We fought against Apartheid profiteering and we won. 

Our solidarity has produced material gains for our people. And yet, there is still so much more to be done. But I tell with all the confidence I can muster, we will continue to fight. And we will win. 

While we must continue to hold all those accountable, particularly the U.S. government for its role in facilitating this genocide, we must do so while also recognizing the brave voices who have spoken out, risked their careers, their livelihood, including all those who remain unseen and unnamed. We acknowledge the brave voices amongst the trade unions, health care workers, journalists, teachers, students, youth, and the elected officials who choose to stand on the right side of history. 

We know that even if we win liberation for Palestine tomorrow, our struggle is not over. If we do not win the struggle for economic and racial justice, if we do not win the struggle against fascism, if the ongoing struggle for Black freedom isn’t made a reality, and if our Indigenous siblings are still fighting for Land Back, then our fight will continue. None of us are free until all of us are free. 

So we invite you to join AROC Action as a volunteer, as a member, as a donor so we can build the political power necessary to shift policies and governing power. 

If anyone doubted this before, it is certainly clear today that the question of Palestine is central to any social justice movement. Today, there is consensus across progressive communities that the war on Gaza, the U.S.-backed assault on Palestine is a threat to all movements for justice. 

Our struggle to abolish apartheid and fascism in our homeland is one and the same with an international struggle for economic and political democracy, for education and health care for all, for right relations to land, to free all political prisoners, for social justice, gender justice and climate justice, shaped in the interests of working people. 

The Palestinian movement is shaping the world stage today. While we have in fact seen the worst that war and racism have to offer, we’ve also seen the best of humanity across the world. 

Tonight’s event is about that solidarity. It is about the connections between our liberation struggles. It is about the power of our collective action. And more than anything, it is about our inevitable freedom. 

As Ta-Nehisi Coates reminds us in his book, the story of conquered people is incomplete without the story of struggle and freedom. And just as they once said it was impossible to end Jim Crow, impossible to end apartheid in South Africa, we know the centuries-long struggles of those movements make way for our freedom today. Abolitionists, feminists, anti-apartheid leaders, and political prisoners not only teach us about oppression but they teach about how to pave the path toward freedom. 

Let Palestine be the north star for what is possible for all colonized people. Let us fight for a free Palestine, as a roadmap for the freedom of us all. 

Oct. 27 — A rally at Grand Central Terminal in midtown Manhattan demanded an end to the cruel U.S. economic war against Cuba. Just within the last year, U.S. sanctions have cost the Caribbean country $5 billion.

The sanctions prevented Cuba from replacing transformers and other equipment, which resulted in the recent electrical outages there. The rally was held a few days before the United Nations is scheduled to again overwhelmingly pass a resolution condemning the blockade, as it has done for over 20 years.

Many organizations came together to build this event. December 12th Movement members provided security.

The Rude Mechanical Orchestra accompanied the rally wonderfully.

Venceremos Brigade members carried a banner saying “Hands Off Cuba.”

The two co-chairs were Justine Medina of the Young Communist League, an Amazon union activist, and Danny Valdes of the Democratic Socialists of America. Both grew up in Cuban immigrant families.

Brooklyn’s State Senator Jabari Brisport denounced the blockade. He asked the capitalist establishment, “If you think that socialism doesn’t work, why do you blockade Cuba?”

Vinson Verdree of the December 12th Movement reminded everyone that when Africa called, Cuba answered. Two thousand Cuban soldiers gave their lives alongside their African comrades in defeating the old South African apartheid armies.

Representing the Bronx Anti-War Coalition was Richie Merino, who denounced the blockade.

Two recent graduates of the Latin American School of Medicine (ELAM) in Havana spoke of the free education they received there. Both of the young doctors are now helping poor people in the U.S.

More than 200 ELAM graduates work in U.S. hospitals and clinics. Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez has announced that Cuba is giving 200 scholarships to Palestinian medical students.

Speakers denounced the hypocrisy of the U.S. in putting Cuba on its State Sponsors of Terrorism list while supplying the bombs to kill Palestinian and Lebanese Children.

The crowd welcomed long-time Cuban solidarity activists Rosemari Mealy, J.D., Ph.D., and Gail Walker, Executive Director of the Interreligious Foundation for Community Organization (IFCO).

Mealy described the efforts of people in the U.S. to raise funds to purchase hundreds of pacemakers for Cuban heart patients. Walker encouraged people to visit Cuba and find out the truth about the accomplishments of the Cuban revolution.

That’s good advice. U.S. hands off Cuba!

Struggle-La Lucha interviews Andrew M of the PPA

SLL: We understand that the Peoples Power Assembly launched a campaign this past Labor Day around Amazon divesting in genocide and demanding justice for its workers.  What are the concrete demands of the campaign and its goals?

The “Amazon: Invest in Workers, not Genocide” campaign makes demands of both Amazon and the Baltimore City government. As the campaign grows, our demands will remain open to feedback from Amazon workers and the broader community. Currently, they are:

Amazon:

• Institute a $30 minimum wage and proportional wage increases for all workers.
• Full-time benefits for all workers.
• Shut down Project Nimbus and all other projects, contracts, and investments with the apartheid government of Israel.

Baltimore City:

• Hold an open forum for Amazon workers and the community to testify on working conditions without fear of reprisal.
• Pass a city council resolution divesting the City from all projects, contracts, and investments with the apartheid government of Israel.

SLL: In what ways is Amazon investing in genocide?  

The Israeli military uses Amazon’s “Project Nimbus” to automate the software they use to operate their weapons systems. In other words, it allows Israel’s military to use artificial intelligence to surveil, target, and kill Palestinian civilians.

SLL: How have you been implementing your work, and what has been the response?  

An important aspect of this campaign is that, on the one hand, Amazon workers know their community supports them. On the other hand, the community needs to understand Amazon’s working conditions. 

PPA members have been to major transit hubs in Baltimore City, including some Amazon shuttle stops, to hand out and tape up flyers. 

Maybe a more important aspect of the campaign is to connect the worker struggle with the anti-imperialist struggle. So, while our flyers list our demands, they also aim to expose the connection between their employer, Amazon, and the genocide in Palestine. There’s room in the budget to kill innocent people, but none for raises or health care. 

The response from the broader community in Baltimore has been overwhelmingly positive. Amazon workers were enthusiastic about starting a conversation and talking more about conditions at work. 

In one of these conversations, we learned that Amazon prohibited the use of headphones or earbuds except for its own brand.

SLL: How is your campaign related to Starbucks and the Maersk campaign?  

We see our campaign as a localization of the Palestinian Youth Movement’s Mask Off Maersk campaign. 

These kinds of campaigns are crucial to the mass movement to free Palestine — they offer solutions and a program for accomplishing them. They identify the corporations that we all recognize in our everyday lives and expose their role in the system that creates and profits from war and genocide. But more importantly, they offer a way to plug in and fight back.

PPA members have met with many Starbucks Workers United members and organizers at solidarity sip-ins to discuss this campaign. It’s abundantly clear that, at least among the rank-and-file membership, the union effort’s organizers are pro-Palestine, including various calls to boycott Starbucks. In fact, Starbucks sued SBWU members for speaking out in support of Palestine. 

This puts SBWU, at least as an organization, in a precarious position. For now, members can’t say anything in support of Palestine as representatives of SBWU. However, we welcome SBWU members to our demonstrations around Palestine so they can raise their struggles. 

SLL: Is there anything else you would like to add? 

Anyone interested in the campaign can join the email list by signing up at http://tiny.cc/WorkersNotGenocide. 

PAL-Awda statement on the martyrdom of Sinwar

Yahya Sinwar, Abu Ibrahim, Chair of the Political Bureau of the Islamic Resistance Movement, lived a hero and died a legend. PAL-Awda NY/NJ and the Palestinian Assembly for Liberation join with all Palestinians and oppressed people across the region and the world to honor the martyred leader, whose name will go down in history as a symbol of resistance and liberation.

The oppressors of the Palestinian and Arab people call him a “terrorist,” a “fanatic,” an “extremist.” So say the mass murderers in Tel Aviv and their paymasters and armorers in Washington. So say lying US politicians, including both big-party presidential candidates, and the lying corporate media. This is how the oppressors have always described those who resist their tyranny-Nat Turner, John Brown, Sitting Bull, James Connolly, Patrice Lumumba, Malcolm X, Che Guevara, so many more.. This is what the Nazis called the Jewish freedom fighters of the Warsaw Ghetto. So the zionists and their funders have called the many martyred leaders of Palestine.

These are the words of those who wage a war of extermination against the people of Palestine and Lebanon, who burn children to death or shoot them in the head or starve or maim them. Despite the assassinations of Sinwar, Nasrallah, Haniyeh, and Shukr, the zionists have continued their genocidal campaign, proving to the world time and time again that their only goal is the complete occupation of Palestine and the annihilation of the Palestinian people.

They have massacred hundreds in the camps of north Gaza in just the three days since Abu Ibrahim rose to martyrdom. This very day they have wiped out an entire neighborhood in Beit Lahia, murdering over 100 people. These crimes get no word of concern from US politicians and media, for they themselves are the perpetrators.

To Palestinians, Abu Ibrahim was a hero, a freedom fighter. His life was the very embodiment of the Palestinian cause, of the right to exist and to return and live with peace and freedom in their own land. He lived his life in service to that cause, and in that cause he was martyred.

Like so many Palestinians, Yahya Sinwar was born and raised in Khan Younis refugee camp, in the giant open-air prison called the Gaza Strip. His family was forced there when Zionist gangs destroyed their home town of Al Majdal in 1948. The Zionist settler colony of Ashkelon was built on its ruins.
Sinwar was 5 when zionist forces occupied Gaza. He was 19 when they first imprisoned him. In 1988, he was sentenced to four life sentences for organizing armed resistance to the brutal occupation.

During his 22 years in the enemy’s dungeons, Hamas, the movement he helped found, forced the occupiers to withdraw from Gaza and won the Palestinian general elections. This was the Palestinian people’s answer to the betrayal of Oslo. In 2011, the Resistance won his release and that of 1000 others from the cells of the occupier.

Sinwar was named the leader of Hamas on August 6, 2024, following the assassination of the movement’s political bureau chief, Ismail Haniyeh.

While this is a moment of mourning for us globally, it is also a moment to recognize the dismantling tentacles of the zionist entity, and the weakening of its colonial project. On October 7, 2023, when the Palestinian Resistance broke through the prison gates surrounding Gaza, they destroyed the world’s perception of the israeli occupation forces as an invincible army. Since then, the Palestinian Resistance has been holding its ground in Gaza, despite the billions of dollars in funds and weapons funneled into the genocide by the U.S.

Yahya Sinwar, leading the resistance, embodied the spirit of our collective struggle until his last breath. In his final moments, despite heavy bleeding, with a hand nearly severed, draped in a kuffiyeh and combat gear, Sinwar stood defiant in the face of sadistic occupation, hurling a piece of wood at the israeli drone. His final moments dispelled zionist propaganda that the leadership of our resistance is hiding in tunnels while their people endure genocide. Instead, the world saw him fighting until the very end, defending his land and his people.

Sinwar’s martyrdom, like that of the leaders who came before him, will inspire countless others, igniting a new generation of fighters who will rise in his name.

PAL-Awda NY/NJ

On Nov. 2, the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU) will host the National Workers’ Rally to carry on the spirit of martyr Jeon Tae-il, a dedicated South Korean sewing worker and labor rights activist who tragically took his life at just 22, a protest against deplorable working conditions in South Korea’s factories. This year, the rally will focus on the call for President Yoon Suk-yeol’s resignation.

Statement from the KCTU:

The Yoon Suk-yeol regime: We cannot wait a day, let alone three years. 

The war crisis on the Korean Peninsula has reached its peak. 

The use of loudspeakers and propaganda leaflets against North Korea led to the Yeoncheon artillery incident in 2015 and the destruction of the inter-Korean liaison office in 2020. Despite repeated strong warnings from North Korea, the Yoon regime continues its warmongering, pushing the nation’s fate to the brink of disaster. 

It has been revealed that the South Korean Ministry of National Defense flew drones over Pyongyang, a serious violation of the armistice agreement that could escalate into a full-scale war between the North and South. 

The U.S. military in South Korea, as a party to the armistice and the holder of operational control, bears direct responsibility for this provocation. Already, eight artillery brigades of the Korean People’s Army have entered a state of combat readiness along the border. 

The National Intelligence Service (NIS) spread fake news about North Korea sending troops to Russia, which even the U.S. and NATO said they could not confirm. Nevertheless, Yoon Suk-yeol is deceiving the public with this fake news, seemingly preparing to send artillery shells and the Cheongung-2 missile unit to Ukraine. Yoon is positioning South Korea as an enemy of Russia, aiming to turn the country into a battlefield of destruction and death. 

By offering land for the THAAD deployment, South Korea has already been reduced to a forward base, protecting the U.S. and Japan from Chinese ballistic missiles. Soaring prices, shrinking wages, and public suffering — Yoon Suk-yeol, upon taking office, immediately focused on raising taxes on the common people and cutting taxes for the rich. 

With his push for a 69-hour workweek and labor flexibility, he has brutally violated workers’ rights to survive. He has labeled the construction workers’ union as a violent group, imprisoning and repressing them. By branding unions as criminal and corrupt organizations and even as anti-state groups, he is fueling hatred against unions and is obsessed with wiping them out. 

Yoon has vetoed 24 labor and public welfare bills while pushing through a decision to clear his wife, Kim Keon-hee, of stock manipulation charges. He is driving the public to the brink of survival, and to escape his political crisis, he is plunging the nation into a deadly war crisis. To save workers, Yoon Suk-yeol must be defeated; to save the people, Yoon must be overthrown. 

Recently, U.S. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump called South Korea an ATM, boasting that if he were president, he would demand $10 billion a year. South Korea remains subordinated to the U.S., being extorted and mocked by the U.S. military, and now facing the outbreak of war. The path to overcoming this national crisis is clear: Yoon Suk-yeol, the puppet of the U.S., must be brought down, and the U.S. must be expelled.

The daughter of Los Angeles Times owner Patrick Soon-Shiong says the paper Is refusing to endorse a candidate overseeing genocide. “For me, genocide is a line in the sand.”

In a series of social media posts on Oct. 24, Nika Soon-Shiong said that the decision stems from opposition to Democratic candidate Kamala Harris’ stance on the war on Gaza. She noted that her father, a South African transplant surgeon, worked as an emergency surgeon at Baragwanath Hospital in Soweto during the apartheid era, stating, “For my family, apartheid is not a vague concept.” 

Nika said, “This is not a vote for Donald Trump. This is a refusal to endorse a candidate overseeing a war on children.”

Petition

Sign this petition at MesOpinions

From: “The Union of Political Emigrants and Political Prisoners of Ukraine” and the “International Antifascist Solidarity with Ukraine” (IUAFS)

We call for the cessation of arms deliveries from the United States, France, Great Britain, Germany, and other NATO members to the illegitimate Zelensky regime in Kiev and for an end to requests for deep missile strikes on Russian territory!

We also demand an end to the current attacks against Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, and Iran!

The world is currently facing the possibility of two major regional wars: one in Europe, between Russia and Ukraine, and the other between Israel and several Middle Eastern states.

These wars are the result of years of aggression and expansion by NATO members and their client states.

The French and British governments and other NATO members in their “free” media have not informed their residents that missile strikes “Storm Shadow” from Ukrainian territory were to be coordinated by French and British military personnel on the ground in Ukraine, which de facto leads the armed forces of these countries into a state of war with Russia.

Furthermore, the French government and other NATO member states authorize and organize the ever-increasing dispatch of mercenaries from France, Poland, Latin America, and other countries to the combat zone of the Ukrainian conflict and organize terrorist activities in Africa, in the Sahel region. Groups of these mercenaries are already actively participating in the escalation of the conflict on the territory of the Russian Federation.

They have not told the people of France and Britain that the only thing preventing these countries from the madness of “acting alone” by launching missile strikes against Russia is that they need authorization from the United States, which controls the satellite data and software used by the Storm Shadow and Scalp missiles.

Most Western governments (France,  Britain, and the USA) refused to (officially) condemn the genocide of civilians in Gaza, and for ten years almost completely ignored the thousands of victims of bombing, starvation and disease in Yemen. We haven’t seen open doors and red carpets for Palestinian or Yemeni refugees! The Kiev regime and Israel enjoy the support of France, Britain and the USA, as well as almost all NATO members, who have branded the enemies of the Kiev authorities and Israel as “terrorists.”

They are now covering up the deaths of thousands of civilians in Lebanon, and have declared the assassination of the leaders of what is called the “Axis of Resistance” a success in the fight against “terrorism.”

We call on everyone to join us in demanding an end to this madness and the establishment of ceasefires and genuine peace agreements in Gaza, Yemen, Lebanon, Ukraine and Myanmar!

We demand:

1. Oppose the war in Europe and plans to deploy long-range hypersonic weapons like the Dark Eagle in Germany by 2026, which can reach targets deep within Russia. This could lead to a nuclear war between Russia and NATO!

2. Immediately end the war that could engulf the entire Middle East due to Israel’s ruthless aggression!

3. Stop sending mercenaries and NATO military personnel from France and the EU to the conflict zones!

4. We support the Sahel Alliance countries of Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger, which have recently freed themselves from the French neocolonial yoke!

We call for immediate peace negotiations in all conflict zones!

Source: https://www.mesopinions.com/petition/politique/liban-gaza-ukraine-fourniture-armes-envoi/234480

At first glance, the phrases “Stand Up to Hate” and “Combat Anti-Semitism” seem innocuous enough. After all, who wants to be known as a hateful bigot or a virulent anti-Semite? Outside of a select realm of Nazis and fascists, those who are proudly hateful anti-Semites rank few in the large masses of the working class. 

These two phrases are at the center of billionaire Robert Kraft’s non-profit, the Foundation to Combat Anti-Semitism, and its various media campaigns. If only this foundation were actually committed to fighting anti-Semitism or racist hate. In reality, Kraft’s nonprofit and its campaign have nothing to do with ethnic or racial hatred. The Foundation to Combat Anti-Semitism is, in reality, the foundation to combat anti-Zionism. 

To be clear, anti-Semitism is certainly a problem in the United States. Neo-Nazi organizing continues to grow. The Jewish community faces dozens of anti-Semitic hate crimes a year that have nothing to do with Israel but simply are based in anti-Jewish bigotry. Further, anti-Semitic rhetoric continues to ring from the highest levels of the U.S. political class. 

Robert Kraft is not concerned with those forms of anti-Semitism. Actually, Robert Kraft is not concerned with anti-Semitism at all. He is simply concerned with profits and the protection of his investments in the Zionist entity, which include various athletic facilities and “entrepreneurship” funds.

Kraft founded the so-called Foundation to Combat Anti-Semitism in 2019 with a $20 million grant. So, did Kraft establish this organization in response to the neo-Nazi march on Charlottesville, the mass shooting at Tree of Life Synagogue, or the murder of gay Jewish teenager Blase Bernstein? No, he did not. 

At a private event in 2019 in “Jerusalem,” Kraft discussed his plan to build his foundation. Kraft boldly announced at this event that his $20 million foundation would be aimed at combating the Boycott, Divest, and Sanctions movement and any other “delegitimization of Israel.” 

At the time, Kraft had already funded and led 27 missions to the Zionist entity. That number has only skyrocketed since. The Foundation’s opening propaganda salvo involved a team-up with two rappers, both Black men: Meek Mill and Jay-Z. 

Outside of collaborating with those two rappers, the Foundation was pretty quiet in its first few years. In 2022, it launched its first major “Stand up to Jewish Hate” during the Super Bowl, which draws tens of millions of viewers worldwide every year.

According to Kraft, he was driven to fund this ad campaign in the wake of anti-Semitic statements from two Black men, Kyrie Irving and Kanye West. For Kraft and the Foundation, the statements of these two Black celebrities were clear indicators that anti-Semitism in the United States had risen to an unacceptable level. 

Were the synagogue mass shootings and neo-Nazi torch marches not clear enough indicators that anti-Semitism was surging? Kraft only seems to care when Black or Brown people are allegedly anti-Semitic. 

This messaging plays into a common misconception that the Black community is somehow inherently more anti-Semitic than other communities. This is a strange notion considering that even according to the Zionist “Anti-Defamation League,” the vast majority of anti-Semitic hate crimes are perpetrated at the hands of neo-Nazi and white supremacist organizations. Regardless, even this racist messaging was a smokescreen for Kraft’s real motivation in his Foundation: to break the BDS movement. 

In the years since its founding, the Foundation has pumped millions of dollars into studies and media campaigns that assert anti-Semitisim includes criticism of Israel. This included an October 2023 report that categorized as anti-Semitic any comparisons between Gaza and Auschwitz and Jewish students building “Sukkahs” in solidarity with Gaza. That’s right, building shelters for the Jewish holiday of Sukkot in solidarity with the homeless of Gaza is somehow anti-Semitic. 

The bodies of 11 Jews lying in pools of blood in Pittsburgh weren’t enough to push Kraft to action, but Jewish students standing in solidarity with Palestine were. As a part of this attack on the anti-Zionist and BDS movements, Kraft announced in April of this year that he was pulling all of his financial support from Columbia University because of pro-Palestine protests. 

Comparisons between fascist “Israel” and Nazi Germany are not anti-Semitic. Jewish students who stand in solidarity with Palestine are not anti-Semitic. Boycotts of corporations that fund the genocide of Palestine are not anti-Semitic. 

Robert Kraft is not a friend of the Jewish community or any community that suffers from apartheid, racist hatred, or class oppression. He is a right-wing billionaire who inherited his fortune from his father-in-law and long prided himself in his friendship with Donald Trump. 

Don’t be fooled by Kraft and his Foundation’s smooth talk and expensively produced television advertisements. He is just another racist Zionist billionaire. 

Lev Koufax is an anti-Zionist Jewish activist.