From the Israeli newspaper, Haaretz: “How a U.S. Quaker Group That Won the Nobel Peace Prize Ended Up on Israel’s BDS Blacklist”
A Quaker organization that received the 1947 Nobel Peace Prize for its work assisting and rescuing victims of the Nazis is among the blacklisted groups whose senior activists have been barred from entering Israel. Peace activists in Israel who have worked with the group expressed surprise at the decision.
The American Friends Service Committee was included in a list published Sunday of 20 organizations whose leaders will not be permitted to enter Israel due to their support for the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement. The blacklist was compiled by Israel’s Strategic Affairs Ministry and will be implemented by the Interior Ministry.
It’s a very sad development, for Israel and the rest of the world. Blacklisting moderate, mainstream peace organizations like the Quaker-based AFSC restricts the very voices that need to be heard clearly in difficult times like these. If we can’t even talk about peace, how can we possibly ever achieve it?
See also: “US faith groups publish statement defending right to boycott Israel“
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The U.S. should stop supporting, enabling the Evil that is ISRAEL. Israel should never have been established in PALESTINE in 1947-48. That was a crime in itself, an continuing crime against the Palestinians, CHRISTIAN and Muslim. I observed myself.
American Friends Service Committee, ironically, would be first in line to assist Israel if they were ever to call for help.
This is, indeed, sad news.
The late political scientist Karl W. Deutsch:
A nation is a “group of people united by a mistaken view about the past and a hatred of their neighbours.”