you may have heard about the boston area highschool controversy regarding social studies teachers inviting the wheels of justice bus to give their eyewitness accounts of israel and iraq. these are non-violent speakers who certainly criticize the policies of the united states and israel.

it funny how much freedom of speech we assert we have here in the united states. *note it is not uncommon for schools to invite outside speakers to give talks. please read all of it. and definately go to the link called "Breaking the silence" re: Israeli soldiers explaining the orders they are given and their testimonies of the acts they or their comrades committed in the
occupied areas breakingthesilence.org.il)

-hm



Zionists Vs Truth -The Wheels of Justice Battle for Andover
By Joe Carr, 6 January, 2007 lovinrevolution.org

Last night was one of the most contentions events I?ve ever done. Whoever
thought that a simple talk in the library of Andover High School in a small
suburb of Massachusetts would make so many headlines.

It all started last October, when six social studies teachers invited the
Wheels of Justice Bus Tour to talk to a couple classes. The Wheels of
Justice Tour www.justicewheels.org) brings eyewitness accounts of
war and occupation in Iraq and Palestine to communities across the US,
including hundreds of high schools. I was on it for several weeks at the end
of October.

Despite the tour?s well-regarded reputation for supporting nonviolence and
human rights, a group of parents and influential community members pressured
the school?s principal, Peter Anderson, to cancel our visit, claiming that
we are ?anti-Israel? and ?support terrorists?, even going so far as to call
us a ?hate group?. Late the night before we were supposed to speak,
Principal Anderson called one of the teachers and told him the talks were
off.

We drove the bus to the school the next morning anyway, hoping that the
principal could be convinced that this was an unfair violation of the
teachers? rights. But we were unsuccessful, and Principal Anderson, backed
up by an Andover Police Officer, asked us to leave.

The teachers? immediately began organizing, starting with a protest in front
of the school that day. The students followed suit with a petition demanding
we be allowed to speak. They had 200 signatures by lunch time. Local Zionist
groups issued press releases taking credit for blocking us, though Principal
Anderson insists that it was his decision.

The teachers union joined with the ACLU and threatened to file a lawsuit
against the school district if they didn?t allow us to come back. The
school?s lawyers admitted that our case was strong and it could end up
costing the district a lot of money if he didn?t bring us back. Anderson
caved and bought me a plane ticket.

Zionist forces continued to try and apply pressure behind the scenes. They
attempted a court injunction, tried to insist students have permission slips
in order to attend, and threatened to hold a picket outside the school. All
of these failed, and we had an excellent day of classes.

Because of all the publicity, many more teachers were interested in hearing
us speak, so several talks took place in the library with combined classes.
All in all, we spoke to over 200 kids in four sessions. The students were
very respectful, and asked thoughtful and challenging questions. They seemed
to especially like my hip-hop song about Rachel Corrie. Though one student
did tape a sign made from notebook paper to an upper-level window that read
?YOU SUPPORT TERRISM?.

Because some parents demanded to know what we had said to their kids, the
principal agreed to host an evening event that would be open to the public.
He clearly had no idea what he was getting into.

By 7pm, Over 300 people were crammed into the library, standing room only,
shoulder to shoulder. I counted about 100 Wheels of Justice supporters, 120
Zionists, 80 high school students, nearly all of the administration, three
armed Andover police, two TV news cameras, and several photojournalists. You
could cut the tension with a knife.

Principal Anderson opened with a call for respect and civility, threatening
to cancel the event if there was any disruption. Mazin Qumsiyeh, a prominent
Palestinian-American activist, began his talk on Palestinian history. Within
5 minutes, Zionists began screaming at him and calling him a liar. Others
yelled at them to be quiet and let Mazin speak. Anderson got up and again
threatened to cancel the event, but one of the Zionist leaders took the mic
and encouraged her supporters to behave, or otherwise they?d never know what
we told their kids.

The event continued with frequent disruption, including threats of violence
and other missives. Anderson never removed anyone, even though there were
clearly individual provocateurs. Dr Hassan Fouda, an Egyptian-American
activist spoke next about his experiences with nonviolent resistance in
Palestine. Then I talked about my trip to Iraq, and ended with my song about
Rachel Corrie.

The opposition was a little less disruptive during my talk, perhaps because
it was on Iraq, perhaps because I?m not Arab-American. Though several people
in the back tried to distract me during my song about Rachel by making faces
and waving their arms. ?These are adults?? I thought.

We then set into the much-anticipated question and answer session, moderated
by Principal Anderson, and all hell broke lose. We got through about four
questions, if you can call them questions, more like sermons and diatribes.
Though the Zionists would not let us answer the questions, and some of our
supporters attempted to match their level of disruption in our defense.
Eventually, Anderson called it off and abruptly ended the discussion.

However, many people stayed afterwards to talk with us and with each other.
The high school newspaper and television station went around interviewing
people, and Zionists argued with Mazin and I. Over a dozen students and
parents, including Zionists, came up and apologized to me for the way their
community behaved. A group of Andover HS students had a small caucus to
discuss the event. Student Zionists, supporters, and those on the fence all
agreed that this dialogue is important and that they were embarrassed by
their parents? behavior. We weren?t out of there until 10:30pm.

All this was nothing new for me, indeed I?m used to these Zionist whackos
having M16s and rocks. Though this was particularly extreme for the US. It
reminded me of a talk I did at Washington University in St Louis, where at
least half of the 30-student crowed were there to oppose me, including folks
wearing Israeli Defense Force hats and T-Shirts. Their onslaught was so
intense it caused me to lose my cool and yell, calling the racists. The look
in their eyes reminded me of the soldiers and settlers whose violence has so
traumatized me. A similar situation could have resulted at MSU in Lansing,
MI, where the campus Democrats and Republicans teamed up with a Jewish group
to try and pull the funding for my event. They prepared a packet of
print-outs from my website and lyrics from my songs attempting to
demonstrate that I supported terrorism. When they failed, they vowed to
disrupt the event, and campus officials wanted to bring on armed cops. The
organizers insisted they could maintain control without police, and they set
up an independent student security force stationed at the doors and isles.
My fellow speaker and I even got personal body guards! Over 150 students
showed up to that event, with about 30 of the opposition who remained calm
and quiet. Several more protested outside with signs like ?smash hippy
leftist scum? and enlarged pictures of me with a hammer and sickle on my
forehead.

It never ceases to amaze me how far some people will go to hide the truth.
Though it shouldn?t be surprising, considering that lies and propaganda is
all the Zionist movement has to stand on. Once enough Americans learn the
truth about what our government is supporting in the Middle East, Zionist
imperialism is done for.

In the meantime, we?ll keep speaking out, and educating our youth to think
for themselves. All this does make me think that I could actually be a high
school teacher someday. I am so inspired by the passion of these teachers
and students who continue demanding the truth.


==========
Mazin Qumsiyeh on Andover issue

I just wanted to expand on a few issues beyond what Joe covered (I disagree
with Joe's characterizations in many areas including what the principal did
and why). We normally have four people: a bus manager, a bus driver, and
two speakers. The physical bus could not come back to the school (it was in
the Boston/Andover area giving talks in November) and now it is in Arizona.
We had thus three speakers at this high school:

We gave introduction to the bus and where we have been. The bus speakers
are all volunteers and we spoke at hundreds of middle schools, high schools,
colleges and universities around the country. The bus supports the
universal declaration of human rights and supports non-violence. We believe
that to address violence (that kills far more native people than occupiers
and colonizers) we must address the root causes of injustice, discrimination
and racism. I then spoke of the Israel/Palestine situation by highlighting
my own experiences, the destruction and ethnic cleansing of 530 Palestinian
villages and towns between 1947-1949) and the subsequent nearly six decades
of occupation, ethnic cleansing, and theft of land. The shrinking areas
allocated to Palestinians now constitute less than 12% of historic
Palestine. Zionists flinched when I showed President Carter's book cover on
Israeli apartheid.

Dr. Hassan Fouda then spoke about non-violent resistance and showed many
examples of people of various faiths and backgrounds working together for
peace (Internationals, Israelis, Palestinians, Jews, Christians, Muslims,
etc). Here are just two examples of groups mentioned by Hassan:

Breaking the silence: Israeli soldiers explaining the orders they are given
and giving testimonies of the acts they or their comrades committed in the
occupied areas breakingthesilence.org.il)
Bereaved Parents Circles: Israelis and Palestinians who lost relatives and
who chose to grieve and work together for peace rather than for vengeance
www.theparentscircle.com)
Israel Committee against Home Demolitions www.icahd.org)

Hassan explained the long history of home demolitions and that Israelis do
this to expand settlement areas on the richest Palestinian lands. He also
showed a moving clip of an Israeli Jew (Jeff Halper) pleading with soldiers
trying to demolish a Palestinian home by telling them that the Israeli laws
they are implementing are unjust and should not be obeyed (parallels to the
Nuremberg laws in Nazi Germany).

Joe Carr spoke of the atrocities committed in Iraq since the American
occupation of 2003 (and before, US led sanctions killed over ? million Iraqi
Children). An excess Iraqi death toll of 655,000 Iraqis in 3.5 years
constitutes genocide. He also spoke of the loss of three of his friends:
Tom Fox (a member of Christian Peacemaker team who was killed in Iraq),
Rachel Corrie (killed by an Israeli soldier driving a US made and paid-for
Caterpillar bulldozer) and Tom Hurndall (shot by an Israeli sniper using a
US made/paid for gun while Tom and Joe and others were helping Palestinian
children in an area where snipers specifically targeted them).

The students and teachers were extremely interested and asked pertinent and
good questions in the four presentations we made. In the evening, we were
asked to do a public presentation. The Zionist movement was recruited from
even nearby towns and cities (one of them in asking the question did not
even know where he was). But there was even more people who are supportive
of peace and justice (thanks to Meerimack Valley Peace community and
others). The Zionists tried to shout the presentation down. One person
stood and told them it would be good for their cause to ?hear what we told
the students?. This did not make a big difference and halfway into the
Q& A session, the principal called the meeting off. People continued to mill
around and engage in conversations. Some of the books we had on the wheels
of justice table were stolen while people were busy talking to each other.

They tried various (and expected) strategies to intimidate, silence,
discredit, shoot the messenger etc. They had the usual few bad cops and a
couple of ?good cops? to effect the desired change. All has parallels in
Zionist history (1.5 million cluster bombs in Lebanese civilian areas this
summer to leave a message while Peres talks as the "good cop"). They were
getting frustrated and angry that most of their tricks did not work (and if
anything backfired), as people do not like to pushed around/bulldozed.
Similarly in Iraq, Lebanon and in Palestine, things are not quite working
well for the agenda of apartheid and racism. The more aggressive and
violent they are, the poorer they perform to achieve their own objectives of
control whether in Iraq, Palestine, or Andover. I personally believe this
is because of their biggest Achilles? heel: that they think in
racist/tribalistic fashion (us here-them there as Rabin put it) and are
trying to push other Americans to do the same. To them ?the other? cannot
be human or humanized (let alone have self-determination) or even engaged
with in a civil way. Early Zionist founders said it very clearly in the
late 19th century and early 20th century "We want to be feared not loved".

Despite repeated efforts to explain that we are three people with different
backgrounds and different political outlooks, they still kept insisting that
this is somehow a tribal conflict (we and the teachers who invited us were
labeled as ?pro-Palestinians? ?anti-Israeli?, and even ?anti-Semitic?).
Despite our talk clearly showing the diversity of groups and people in that
part of the world, they ignored all of that and pushed ahead as if the
struggle is between Israelis and Palestinians (if it is binary, it is
actually between those who support human rights and international law and
those who don?t).

Of course I continue to challenge Zionists to public debates (most of them
refuse). I am willing to travel for such debates with any leading Zionists
(already covered Morton Kline of ZOA, David Harris of AJC, and a few
others). Truth after all should be visible and the more light one sheds on
things, the more the lies will get exposed. (the religions and non-violent
philosophies WE follow teach us to hate the bad deeds but not the misled
humans who do the bad deeds). We will continue to speak truth to power
without hate or malice to anyone. The wheels of justice keeps roling. Stay
tuned.

PS: not one of the students opted-out of our talks (even the children of the
the tiny minority of parents who demanded that option).

Here are some of the stories about our appearance. I put these in
approximate order of unfairness (first unfair progressing totally
outrageous/hogwash):
Isn't it amazing that the Eagle Tribune wrote three or four articles on this
"controversy" without ever interviewing one of the people fronm the Wheels
of Justice bus tour??!!
www.boston.com www.thejewishadvocate.com www.eagletribune.com www.eagletribune.com www.jrtelegraph.com
Protests, injunction threatened against pro-Palestinian speakers. www.eagletribune.com

And here are Zionist ratings (unrated :-) "opinion" is too strong a word
since most of these folks parrot others in the Zionist/racist camp and
cannot come up with their own opinions): www.eagletribune.com www.nysun.com www.israelforum.com www.israelforum.com www.israelforum.com www.israelforum.com

Mazin Qumsiyeh wheelsofjusticetour.org qumsiyeh.org