United for Peace and Justice is a coalition of more than 1400 local and national groups throughout the United States who have joined together to protest the immoral and disastrous Iraq War and oppose our government's policy of permanent warfare and empire-building.

Less well known is UFPJ's campaign on Palestine.

Last week, Mark Elf of Jews sans frontieres reported this latest development in the boycott and divestment effort against Israel until it provides a fair and just settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Of late, this has meant creating a sovereign contiguous independent Palestinian nation (as Bush declared in January, 2008), and dealing fairly with all of the associated issues.

So the peace effort continues with nonviolent protests on the ground in occupied Palestine, and around the world activity to divest/boycott Israel among other actions.

Phil Green (Gregory Peck) is a magazine writer assigned to do a story about anti-Semitism. He poses as a Jew and faces discrimination in all walks of life.

This diary is not about anti-Semitism or Gregory Peck. It is about Obama and features an article by Bruce Dixon titled: Obama (and Big Media) Turn Blind Eye to Israeli Apartheid. Bruce Dixon is the Managing Editor of the Black Agenda Report. He wrote this story after he became somewhat miffed by Obama's and Big Media's elective ignorance of Israel's Apartheid style of government during Obama's recent trip to the Middle East. We are immediately reminded here of Reagan's support for South Africa's Apartheid government in the 1980s. Reagan of course did not win over all Americans to his anti-Black views and eventually, South African Apartheid was taken down. By whom? By us, you, and people who were incapable of tolerating racial injustice of the likes meted out by the Afrikaners.

Today it is the right wing Israeli Zionists who have taken up that role, and it is actually South Africans (like Mandela, Tutu, Kasrils, and others) who are speaking out loudly against apartheid practices in Israel.

So where the hell was Obama regarding this matter during his recent Israel trip? Listen to Bruce Dixon and learn a bit about political make-believe: the "don't ask, don't tell" policy with which politicians like Obama and the mainstream media treat Israel.

Haven't seen anything like this since Selma, 1964.

Lawrence of Cyberia wrote the following essay as a comment to a diary at My Left Wing a few days ago. She reproduced it on her site because it was also a suitable response to readers who email her from time to time with questions along the lines of,

How can criticizing a Jewish state not be anti-Semitic?

Lawrence of Cyberia's response (slightly revised to a generic "you") was: I think this question misses the point entirely about why people can be anti-Zionist but not anti-Semitic. And it misses the point because it starts off from a strawman argument (about) why people might be opposed to Zionism. Whether you are a hard Zionist or a soft anti-Zionist, her response is enlightening.

I have never been disappointed by Lawrence's acute logic yet obvious humanism and leanings toward common civil and human rights in government, especially when discussing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. This conflict obviously continues because Israel seems incapable of affording ordinary human rights to Palestinians, the same ones that Jews were deprived of throughout modern history. What we find out is that the oppressed can become oppressors, and that ordinary people have flaws they may be unaware of.