Kulongoski criticized for dealing with Israel

Several human rights groups, including Portland State’s own SUPER (Students United for Palestinian Equal Rights), have recently criticized Oregon Governor Ted Kulongoski for conducting business with Israel despite the nation-state’s ongoing human rights violations.

On Oct. 27, Kulongoski signed a Memorandum of Understanding between the State of Oregon and the State of Israel “to develop and strengthen economic, industrial, technological and commercial cooperation between [them],” according to the governor’s press release.

In response, the organization Americans United for Palestinian Human Rights (AUPHR) composed an open letter to the governor, titled “The Moral Implications of Doing Business with Israel.” This letter outlines the organization’s grievances with Israel, which subsume both Israel’s continued occupation of Palestinian lands and its systematic discrimination against Palestinian citizens.

Although Kulongoski declined to meet with AUPHR, Jodi Sherwood, deputy communications director for the governor, sent an e-mail to AUPHR member Peter Miller.

“The Governor believes that the Memorandum…is in the best interest of the people of Oregon. Israel is a strong and democratic friend of Oregon and the United States,” Sherwood said in the e-mail. “This agreement will build on our existing trade relationship with Israel, open up new opportunities to share information and foster commercial ties in areas that are vital to Oregon’s economic future.”

However, SUPER President Wael Elasady said that there is a precedent for Oregon to refuse to do business with states that violate international law, namely, Oregon’s “Sudan Divestment Legislation” that arose from growing concern over Sudan’s genocide.

According to Miller, Israel routinely violates the rights of Palestinians by enforcing racist domestic policies that confer second-class citizenship status upon its Palestinian population. This is true for both the Palestinians who reside within Israel and those who reside in the Occupied Territories: the West Bank, Gaza and Arab East Jerusalem.

“Israel has dozens of laws that privilege Jewish citizens over non-Jewish citizens,” Miller said. “Racism against non-Jews is institutional and in the open.”

Israel’s institutional racism against Palestinians, according to Miller, extends from unequal access to housing and government jobs to limited access to water and the possibility of being jailed indefinitely without due process.

According to Elasady, human rights groups like SUPER and AUPHR make three basic demands of Israel.

First, Israel must end its occupation of Palestinian lands. Second, it must end the second-class citizenship status of Palestinians. Third, it must honor the “right of return” of displaced first-generation Palestinian refugees and their descendents.

SUPER was co-founded in January of 2009 by PSU students Wadah Sofan and Elasady, a student of international studies focusing on the Middle East.

 According to Elasady, SUPER is currently working on raising awareness in the PSU community and in Portland at large on the reality of Israel’s occupation of Palestine. In addition, the organization is expanding an activist tactic known as a “boycott, divestment and sanctions campaign,” in which businesses refuse to carry Israeli products until the nation-state complies with international law.

Elasady said that the campaign is a nonviolent way of placing economic pressure on Israeli society to help abolish Israel’s oppressive policies.

Elasady emphasizes that SUPER is “not anti-Israeli.”

“[SUPER] advocates for equal and full rights for all people, for both Palestinians and Israelis in that region,” he said. 

According to Miller, every American should be conscious of Israel’s track record of violations because the U.S. government heavily subsidizes Israel and is, therefore, complicit in Israel’s apartheid-like laws and imperialist posture on the world stage.

“The U.S. gives Israel $3 billion in military aid every year,” Miller said. “That amounts to about $28 million federal tax dollars leaving the State of Oregon and going to Israel as weapons every year.”

Miller added that this figure should concern Oregonians because the state’s decision to ignore Israel’s crimes comes at great cost to its security interests and to the state’s reputation.