Saturday 15 May 2010

Steele To Appear At Rally In Support Of Israeli Settlers

On May 23rd, a coalition of pro-Israeli settler organizations will sponsor the 17th annual “Israel Day” concert in New York’s Central Park. Among the sponsors of the event are Friends of Ateret Cohanim and the Hebron Fund, groups that actively support the Jewish takeover of Palestinian neighborhoods in East Jerusalem and Hebron. This year, one of the guest speakers will be Republican National Committee chairman Michael Steele:

The concert, emceed by Nachum Segal, is dedicated to a united Jerusalem, never being divided, not giving up any land anywhere in Eretz Yisrael, which is the Promised Land of the Jewish People, and standing up to the mullahs of Iran. [...]

Michael Steele, chairman of the Republican National Committee, and MK Danny Danon, deputy speaker of the Knesset and chairman of the World Likud, will be the guest speakers.

The event is intended to build support for increasing the number of Jewish settlers in occupied Palestinian territory, which successive U.S. administrations have identified as an obstacle to peace and detrimental to U.S. interests. The promotional materials make clear that the event is dedicated to preventing the creation of a Palestinian state, which both the Bush and Obama administrations have said is an important U.S. national security interest. The poster (pdf) advertising the event declares:

No! to the division of Jerusalem ever.

No! to the surrender of any part of Israel.

No! to the expulsion of Jews from Judea and Samaria. [The West Bank]

If Steele supports these positions, or if he shares the values of blatantly racist organizations like the Hebron Fund and Ateret Cohanim, he should say so. Otherwise he should withdraw from the event.

http://thinkprogress.org/2010/05/14/steele-settler-rally/

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