[Peace-discuss] Letter to the News-Gazette

[C. G. Estabrook]

Local pols side with racist bill
Wed, 07/29/2015 - 7:00am | The News-Gazette

The government of Israel, protected by the U.S., is operating a system of oppression in the Palestinian territories that it illegally occupies.

What's happening in the occupied territories is worse than South African apartheid, a generation ago. (White South Africa needed blacks as a workforce, the Israelis want the Palestinians out.)

In order to counter the sort of opprobrium that brought down South African apartheid, the Israeli government works to suborn even U.S. state legislatures.

In Illinois, Israel promoted Senate Bill 1761, which directs the state to remove pension funds invested in companies that observe the international boycott of the occupied territories. On July 23, the governor of Illinois signed the bill into law.

The self-proclaimed liberal legislators from Champaign-Urbana, state Sen. Scott Bennett and state Rep. Carol Ammons, refused to vote against the bill.

Rep. Ammons requested a meeting with the local Green Party, ostensibly to explain her nonvote. Although she brought along a retired UI professor and a Democratic Party functionary, the meeting did not go well.

She refused to answer directly the question, "If you had it to do over again, would you vote against SB 1761?" She said she would consult with staff and see how others were voting.

She refused to answer directly the question, "If the bill had defended South African apartheid rather than Israeli apartheid, would you have voted against it?" She asserted with some heat that she was not a racist.

But she refused to vote against a racist bill.

C.G. ESTABROOK

Champaign