Wonderment
02-24-2011, 09:03 PM
This is from an email sent out by Jewish Voice for Peace:
Omar Barghouti is a key leader of the global movement for Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions against Israel's government. Few people anywhere are better able to convey the power and promise of this nonviolent force for a just resolution to the Israeli/Palestinian conflict based on human rights and equality.
Barghouti - who has advanced academic degrees from US institutions, who lived here for 11 years, whose daughter attends school here- has been inexplicably denied a visa to come to the US in April for a long-planned tour to talk about his new book, "Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions: The Global Struggle for Palestinian Rights," published by Haymarket Books. A book Archbishop Desmond Tutu called “lucid and morally compelling… perfectly timed to make a major contribution to this urgently needed global campaign for justice, freedom and peace.”
Barghouti has invitations to speak in New York City, Harvard, Yale, Brown, Brandeis University, Washington DC, and Philadelphia. But all that may be over if the US doesn't issue a visa...
That's why Haymarket Books and Omar Barghouti have asked for your help. If the US Consulate gets enough emails and calls from concerned US citizens, they could reverse their decision and grant him a visa.
...
Some critics of U.S. foreign policy hoped that President Barack Obama would end George Bush's policy of "ideological exclusion"--denying people the right to visit the United States because they are critical of its policies. But if the U.S. denies Barghouti a visa for political reasons, it would instead be continuing the worst traditions of Obama's predecessor and cold-war style suppression of ideas.
Please tell the Israeli consulate and State Department: let Omar Barghouti speak!
Omar Barghouti is a key leader of the global movement for Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions against Israel's government. Few people anywhere are better able to convey the power and promise of this nonviolent force for a just resolution to the Israeli/Palestinian conflict based on human rights and equality.
Barghouti - who has advanced academic degrees from US institutions, who lived here for 11 years, whose daughter attends school here- has been inexplicably denied a visa to come to the US in April for a long-planned tour to talk about his new book, "Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions: The Global Struggle for Palestinian Rights," published by Haymarket Books. A book Archbishop Desmond Tutu called “lucid and morally compelling… perfectly timed to make a major contribution to this urgently needed global campaign for justice, freedom and peace.”
Barghouti has invitations to speak in New York City, Harvard, Yale, Brown, Brandeis University, Washington DC, and Philadelphia. But all that may be over if the US doesn't issue a visa...
That's why Haymarket Books and Omar Barghouti have asked for your help. If the US Consulate gets enough emails and calls from concerned US citizens, they could reverse their decision and grant him a visa.
...
Some critics of U.S. foreign policy hoped that President Barack Obama would end George Bush's policy of "ideological exclusion"--denying people the right to visit the United States because they are critical of its policies. But if the U.S. denies Barghouti a visa for political reasons, it would instead be continuing the worst traditions of Obama's predecessor and cold-war style suppression of ideas.
Please tell the Israeli consulate and State Department: let Omar Barghouti speak!