[Ed. Note: Israel’s a hot topic: in addition to Tedf’s post about the moving of the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem, we have Mass. Peace Action’s press release regarding the invitation from the Jewish Community Relations Council (JCRC) to a dozen state legislators (some of whom are in a position to advance one of JCRC’s state legislative priorities) to visit that nation on an all-expenses-paid visit.]
Mass. Peace Action
11 Garden St., Cambridge, MA 02138
For Immediate Release
Contact: Cole Harrison, 617-466-9274
State Legislators Headed for Lobbyist-Paid Israel Vacation This Week
Cambridge, December 6—Twelve Massachusetts state legislators are headed to Israel on Thursday for a ten-day, all-expenses paid tour of Israel paid for by the Jewish Community Relations Council, a pro-Israel lobby group that is currently pushing those same legislators to support an anti-boycott bill it crafted. A state senator who had planned to join the group has changed his mind and is not going.
“Legislators and public officials should not accept free gifts of travel from lobby groups that have bills before the legislature,” said retired attorney Susan Nicholson, a member of Massachusetts Peace Action’s Palestine/Israel Working Group. “The conflict of interest is particularly acute with respect to Representatives Campbell (D-Methuen), Vincent, (D-Revere), and Sanchez (D-Jamaica Plain), and Senator Patrick O’Connor (R-Weymouth). All four are in a position to have a direct impact on the fate of JCRC’s anti-boycott bill. Campbell, Vincent and O’Connor sit on the State Administration and Regulatory Oversight Committee, which will vote on the bill within the next several months, and Sanchez chairs the House Ways and Means Committee, where the bill will go next if approved by the State Administration Committee.”
The JCRC is the main lobby group supporting legislation pending in the State Legislature, H.1685/S.1689, which would penalize citizens who use boycotts to challenge Israeli occupation of the occupied Palestinian territories. If passed, the legislation would directly benefit Israel in its attempts to escape international condemnation for its 50-year occupation.
In addition to Campbell, Vincent, Sanchez, and O’Connor, the legislators who plan to go on the trip include Reps. Evandro Carvalho (D-Roxbury), Gerard Cassidy (D-Brockton), Ken Gordon (D-Bedford), Danielle Gregoire (D-Marlborough), David Muradian (R-Grafton), Jerald Parisella (D-Beverly), Alan Silvia (D-Fall River), and Chynah Tyler (D-Roxbury).
Sen. Joseph Boncore (D-Revere), who had planned to join the trip, has made the decision not to go, according to a staff member.
JCRC-paid trips to Israel by state legislators are a regular event, but this is believed to be the first time JCRC has had a major pro-Israel bill pending before the Legislature at the time it took legislators on its trip.
“The JCRC-crafted bill currently before the State Administration committee purports to be an anti-discrimination bill, but it is really intended to penalize Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) activism for Palestinian human rights. Nonviolent economic boycotts are as American as the Boston tea party, the civil rights movement, and the anti-apartheid struggle. We urge members of the legislature, particularly members of the State Administration committee who are currently considering JCRC crafted legislation, and the chair of Ways and Means who may soon be, to withdraw from this JCRC sponsored trip to avoid a conflict of interest,” said Cole Harrison, executive director of Massachusetts Peace Action.
Massachusetts Peace Action today released letters it sent last week to Reps. Sanchez and Campbell pointing out the conflict of interest, which said in part:
We, members of Massachusetts Peace Action, have long opposed these lobby-paid Israel trips for public officials as providing a one-sided view of a conflict that is important for American citizens and their elected representatives to understand. The JCRC may call this a “study trip” but the plain fact is that the itinerary and programs are organized to support the official Israeli view, regardless of whatever token attention may be paid to other voices. Further, the trips will likely include visits to Israel-occupied parts of Jerusalem and the Syrian Golan Heights, whose annexation by Israel is recognized neither by the international community nor by the United States. There is nothing objective about this “study.”
JCRC – a registered lobbying organization – has been pressing the legislature to pass H.1685/S.1689. As you probably are aware, H.1685 is aimed at penalizing supporters of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement. This is a movement aimed at pressuring Israel to live up to its obligations under international law and human rights principles. Claims by the JCRC that there will be no “lobbying” during this trip are disingenuous when the JCRC itself has drafted and is actively promoting a bill to be voted on by legislators who are on an all-expense-paid trip costing JCRC many thousands of dollars.
We believe that participation of our elected representatives in such a lobby-paid trip damages the credibility and reputation of the legislature.
JCRC claims that its annual all-expense-paid trips to Israel for legislators present an impartial view of the Israel-Palestine conflict. However, the trip itinerary filed by those legislators who have already filed their disclosure forms lists Mike Hollander as the “tour educator”. According to his Facebook page, Hollander lives in the illegal settlement of Modi’in.
As of Tuesday, neither Sanchez nor Campbell has filed trip disclosures with the state Ethics Commission. The Ethics Commission regulations require legislators to make disclosures “prior to any travel.”
“The Ethics Commission’s disclosure forms themselves do not adequately inform the public of the conflict of interest,” commented Nicholson. “According to the Ethics Commission regulations, a disclosure is a written statement that sets forth all the relevant facts (930 CMR 5.04). However, the disclosure form does not require legislators to disclose that the organization paying for their trip – JCRC- is a registered lobbying organization, or that this same organization is lobbying for the passage of specific legislation that the travelers are in a position to impact. In other words, the form omits the very facts that generate the conflict of interest.”
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Massachusetts Peace Action is the state affiliate of Peace Action, the nation’s largest peace organization, founded in 1957 as the Committee for a Sane Nuclear Policy (SANE). Peace Action works to abolish nuclear weapons, promote government spending priorities that support human needs, encourage real security through international cooperation and human rights, and support just and nonmilitary solutions to the conflicts in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, and Palestine. The public may learn more and take action at masspeaceaction.org. For more up-to-date peace insider information, follow us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram or Youtube at@masspeaceaction.
One of the evils Zionism was meant to remedy was the widespread tendency to see Jews as symbols or actors in someone else’s play rather than as real people who could have a say in their own destiny and who, like everyone else, are neither perfect nor irredeemably bad. And one of the tragedies of the world’s reaction to the State of Israel is that at least some now look at the State of Israel the way they used to look at the Jews. For some (not all) Evangelicals, for example, the State of Israel is favored because of the role it plays in their eschatology. And for many opponents of Israel, the State of Israel is uniquely bad because—surprise!—it is said to have many of the characteristics that formerly were attributed to the Jews as individuals.
So my first critique of Mass Peace Action’s post is that it seems to say: “Don’t let our legislators go to Israel! If they see Israel as it really is, a country full of real people, that is neither perfect nor awful, they may no longer be as sympathetic to our efforts to insist on a boycott!” The emperor has no clothes if you need a boycott in order to make sure that people continue to think that the boycott is justified.
Second, what about the bill itself? Here is the supposedly objectionable language: to bid on a public contract you have to certify that you will not “refuse, fail, or cease to do business with any other person when that action is based upon such other person’s race, color, creed, religion, sex, national origin, gender identity or sexual orientation.” What does it look like when someone refuses to do business with Israelis because they are Israelis? Let me give you an example: an Israeli passenger buys a ticket to fly from New York to London on Kuwait Airways. When the airline finds out about his nationality, it doesn’t just send him to the back of the plane—it tells him he can’t fly at all. And when our government accuses the airline of violating US antidiscrimination laws applicable to airlines, the airline decides to stop flying the route altogether rather than to do business with Israelis. And by the way, if you think “Israeli” is entirely divorced from “Jewish” here, I have a Captain Picard facepalm meme I would like to show you.
sorry, here’s the link to the example I cited.
I have yet to have a conversation with someone who is ‘pro-Israel’ about the State of Israel in which it is admitted that anything the State of Israel has done is wrong. I have not, and will never claim, that any person, state, ethnicity or nationality is ‘irredeemably bad’… but we’re not allowed to call it merely bad actions: regarding Israel’s actions towards the Palestinians, for example, we’re not even allowed to call it ‘occupation,’ or ‘oppression.’ And, when some do, we’re accused of saying the Israelis are bad, in and of themselves, rather than their actions are bad, as are many actions of many other, ordinary, humans. I think that, if you want to start to fulfill the aims of Zionism you have to, at the least, admit there are provocations on both sides… because fallible humans on both sides provoke.
… and yet…
Do you not see how your statements are incongruous? Not least because you invoke the “world’s reaction” in toto whilst adding the qualifier “at least some”… after invoking Zionism to set different (entirely agreeable) terms. You can’t have it both ways.
If, inferring from your stated aim of Zionism, that Israelis are ordinary people (and they are), for whatever good or ill that follows, it’s not entirely clear that a junket to Israel, paid for by Israeli lobbyists, is going to show “Israel as it really is.” There are, in fact, no assurances that it’s going to be anything other than a ‘potemkin on the Jordan’ cooked up by a hyper-sensitive politics that is filled with paranoia and distrust… which, again, is something entirely fallible human beings, Palestinians and Israelis included, might do…
Really? I think you need to get out more. As a matter of international law, Israel is an occupier on the West Bank. Is this the view of some college-age poseurs who like to virtue-signal with their keffiyehs? Well, sure, but it’s also the view of the Israeli Supreme Court.
That was kind of the point of my post. The Israelis are fallible and imperfect, just like everyone else.
I think this is just a way of saying, “the reality these legislators might see may not match my narrative!” Do you think our legislators are innocent naifs easily led astray by the mad hasbara skills of their Israeli puppetmasters? Do you see no value in actually visiting a place before opining on it?
I once was invited on a tour of Ecuador, paid for by the Ecuadoran government, which was trying to get more favorable coverage of a case I write about, the Chevron/Ecuador case. Was I able to make an honest appraisal of what I saw, notwithstanding the freebies? I think so.
See… this is what I mean: It’s incompatible; “innocent naifs easily led” is something entirely possible and completely apart from “mad hasbara skills of [an] Israeli puppetmaster.” If you have one (“innocent naif”) who are ‘easily led’ you don’t need the other (“Israeli puppetmaster”) or ‘mad hasabara skills’ unless you’re obsessive about whether or not I imagine Israeli’s as puppetmaster with ‘mad hasbara skills.’ It’s entirely possible, easy even, for me to think that our Massachusetts legislators are fairly naive and easily led by ordinary people (Israelis) who are without devious skills of any kinds…. But, for some reason, it’s important to you that you think I think Israelis are more devious than other ordinary humans.
Maybe you are the one who should get out more.
And it’s kinda telling that you suggest Israelis invented propaganda (‘hasbara’) as opposed to being A) just as susceptible to it, and 2) equally as tempted by it as other, ordinary, humans. Which is the point.
Well, you’re right, a legislator could be “fairly naive and easily led” even if there is no one devious doing the misleading. I suppose you just have a much lower opinion of our elected representatives than I think is warranted. Really, I’m not sure how we can trust them to legislate at all.
No. Not really. I think a teaching experience, which is essentially what you want this junket to be, is, by definition, for the ‘naive.’ And I think ‘easily led’ is seen in the pricetag (free) and in the tangential nature of a trip (called herein a ‘vacation’) to Israel by Massachusetts legislators regarding a piece of legislature that should be generalized (but really isn’t…)
I expect Massachusetts legislators to be knowledgeable, or at least not wholly ‘naive,’ when it comes to the MBTA or Cape Cod fisheries, etc. I don’t expect them to be knowledgeable about Israeli settlements or occupations or international law… Nor do I know, for sure, that a trip to Israel will inform this particular bit of legislating.
Really, I’m not sure how we can trust them to legislate at all.
Nobody ever said legislation wasn’t damned messy.
I for one fit your description as someone who supports Israel’s right to exist and defend itself, but do not believe it can do no wrong.
No doubt that there are plenty of lobbyists who would be happy to spend money on legislators in order to “educate ” them and help them see “how things really are “. It’s not ethical and should not be legal.
This trip is about punishing people for boycotting the Israeli government’s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. I’m surprised that Tedf thinks he’s fooling anyone.
Yes, I am definitely out to fool the unsuspecting. Somehow my clever yet underhanded efforts have been foiled. Sheesh.
I think the easiest way to avoid the conflict of interest is to end these junkets entirely. End them for Ireland and any other foreign country state legislators might want to go to on lobbyist dime. Maybe force them to take a daily junket on the T by being forced to ride that to work. That’s a great way for them to see the real Boston and the real Massachusetts and maybe they can work to fix those places they have power over rather than getting sucked into a conflict sane Presidents have been unable to solve, let alone the asshole in the White House now.
Foreign policy debates are an old City Council standby in Cambridge, a great way for showhorses to do nothing rather than actually work to solve the city’s problems. It’s really sad to see them derail and already ineffective institution putting off local priorities in the name of preserving perks and political power.
Fuck BDS. Fuck JCRC. I want them both banned from the statehouse. Let’s fix our state first, and leave world peace to the ‘experts’.
I agree that fact-finding missions should be on the taxpayer’s dime rather than sponsored by lobbyists (and from personal funds if extended beyond what is necessary for work). Why such strong language in your last line?
“Mass. Peace Action” should be wary of getting too cute: is this a ‘vacation?’ in which case it’s pretty much a straight up gift from lobbyists and should be barred. Or is it a trip with an actual purpose, educational or otherwise… that might provide insight on a matter about which the General Court should be informed… The title of the memo suggests the former, but the content suggests the latter.
If any of these state legislators comes back with information about Israeli nuclear weapons, I’ll concede that this is a fact finding trip.
Otherwise, this trip is no more legitimate than Tom Delay’s junket to the Northern Marianas. These lawmakers are on the take, pure and simple–beholden to lobbyists with ties to a foreign government. The legislators should resign, along with any government officials who have gone on similar trips, no matter to what country.
Assume these trips are legal there is no reason for anyone to resign for playing by the rules currently in place.
“Playing” is the operative term here. There should be more to being a state rep or senator than gaming the rules to maximize your Mediterranean tan. By any objective ethical standard these trips stink. I don’t care about loopholes. This is influence peddling.