At the 2012 Pacific Northwest Movimiento Estudiantil Chican@ de Aztlán (MEChA) Regional Conference, chapter leaders voted to endorse the Palestinian call for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions aimed at forcing Israel to meet its obligations under international law. The Pacific Northwest MEChA Conference’s endorsement follows an endorsement made at the 2012 National MEChA Conference held in Phoenix, Arizona. That announcement came on a day that commemorated Cesar Chavez Day and Palestinian Land Day, linking the two liberation struggles against discrimination and oppression. The Regional Conference was hosted by the Evergreen State College MEChA chapter. Evergreen State College has recently been an epicenter of Palestine solidarity. In 2010, students voted overwhelmingly for divestment from companies that profit from the Israeli occupation, such as Caterpillar, Inc. Caterpillar has been the focus of calls for boycott at Evergreen since the death of Evergreen student Rachel Corrie in Gaza. Corrie was crushed under a Caterpillar D9 weaponized bulldozer operated by the Israeli military as she attempted to non-violently prevent the demolition of a Palestinian home. More recently TESC Divest! launched the We Divest! campaign to pressure investment giant TIAA-CREF to divest from companies profiting from the Israeli occupation, including Caterpillar and Elbit Systems. MEChA de Evergreen stated that “As a chapter, we endorse and support the global call for BDS... We recognize that our peoples’ historical and present struggles - against deportation, occupation, exploitation, and dehumanization - in Arizona, in the border, and in the United States - not only coincide, but are also connected to Palestinians’ struggle against Israeli military occupation and settlement of Palestine. Elbit, the company that provides surveillance equipment on Israel’s illegal apartheid wall in the West Bank, was also contracted by the U.S.

This is for stories, articles, blogs, and other posts related to the Thursday 15 July 2010 decision by the Olympia Food Co-op Board of Directors to boycott products from Israel due to aggression against Palestinians by the state of Israel.

As some folks know, I am one of the many people who worked on the campaign to get the Olympia Food Co-op to honor the boycott of Israeli products.

Yesterday, the Olympian published a letter by Rabbi Yohanna Kinberg against the boycott. Unfortuantely, Rabbi Kinberg’s letter contained significant misinformation about the boycott. There is already a lot of misinformation out there, but the fact that this was published in the Olympian by a respected clergy member was disconcerting, exacerbated by the fact that she knew what she was writing was false.

This problem was compounded when the Olympian issued an editorial today repeating Rabbi Kinberg’s falsehoods.

Rabbi Kinberg’s letter, as printed, was only 162 words. Here is the most egregious portion of the letter, followed by an examination of the falsehoods:

The foreign policy of USA is intimately connected with Israel. Following World War Two, the keepers of political and economic power in the USA designed to further efforts toward dominance of global economics and politics.

There is a lot of support for divestment, and in that environment I think it is critical for people to keep in mind the bigger picture, which is of a long and calculated strategy of geo-political dominance led by keepers of political power.