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October 28, 2013
Dear Supporters,
Last week we
found out that CODEPINK had been added to the Anti-Defamation League's
list of Top
Ten Anti-Israel groups in America for the first time.
We are there alongside our coalition partners at Jewish Voice
for Peace (JVP) and the U.S. Campaign to End the Israeli
Occupation. As JVP put it in their response
to the news:
“As
an organization that has a history of fomenting Islamophobia, spying
on leftist and human rights groups, denying the Armenian genocide,
and surveillance and infiltration against Arab American activists,
the ADL has long proven that it is willing to stoop to all kinds
of nefarious activities in its self-proclaimed defense of Israel.”
In their description
of CODEPINK's supposed
infractions the ADL cited our boycott work, mentioning
the Ahava campaign as well as our participation in the Stop SodaStream
coalition. Also mentioned were Medea Benjamin's criticisms
of AIPAC's outsized influence on U.S. government policy and
Rae Abileah's disruption of Benjamin Netanyahu's speech
to Congress in 2011. We believe that our boycott work and our advocacy
on behalf of human rights for all in Israel and Palestine are in
line with our social justice values and so we claim this listing
as a badge of honor.
We also want
to thank the 5,722 people who signed our petition calling on Nordstrom
to stop selling illegal settlement goods from Ahava Dead Sea Laboratories.
Nordstrom refused repeated requests for a time to make an in-person
delivery and asked us to mail the signatures, which we did.
In the meantime,
Ed Mast of THEY REALLY SAID THAT, made a terrific video entitled
“MUD
IS A GRAY AREA: Talking with Nordstrom about Ahava and Occupation.”
Please watch it and share. You can still send a letter to Blake
Nordstrom via the Stolen
Beauty website.
If you like
the work we have been doing, please consider making a donation
to support our campaigns. Thanks for your support, and thanks for
helping to take the profit out of occupation.
Working for
justice, dignity and equality for all in Israel and Palestine,
Nancy
and the Stolen Beauty Team
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