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For Immediate Release
February, 15 2017, 01:30pm EDT
Contact:
Email:,info@jewishvoiceforpeace.org
JVP Statement on Trump and Netanyahu's Press Conference and "Shared Values"
Following the joint press conference between President Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Jewish Voice for Peace offers the following statement from Executive Director Rebecca Vilkomerson:
Following the joint press conference between President Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Jewish Voice for Peace offers the following statement from Executive Director Rebecca Vilkomerson:
"Today Trump and Netanyahu spoke of their "shared values" of democracy and respect for human rights. These are alternative facts. Their "shared values" are in reality a shared agenda of walls, militarism, xenophobia, racism, anti-Muslim bigotry, and borders closed to refugees. Netanyahu's cynical denial of the real and dangerous anti-Semitism in the Trump administration makes clear that he does not represent the interests of Jews around the globe. Netanyahu and Trump share a vision of the world which paints aspirations for freedom and dignity as security threats and falsely and intentionally pits Islam against the West and democracy. In response to their joint agenda, we will continue to grow the resistance to their anti-refugee, anti-immigrant, and anti-Muslim policies here in the U.S. and in Israel and put forward a vision of true dignity, equality, and justice for all. For this future to be possible, the tactics of boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) will be even more important tools to build a global grassroots pressure against today's one-state apartheid reality."
Jewish Voice for Peace chapters will be protesting to demostrate opposition to Trump and Netanyahu's "shared values" in Washington DC and over a dozen cities today along with interfaith partners. For more details see our press release about the actions. JVP members are also calling on their senators to oppose the nomination of settlement supporter David Friedman as U.S. ambassador to Israel in phone calls this week and at meetings and townhalls in district next week.
Jewish Voice for Peace is a national, grassroots organization inspired by Jewish tradition to work for a just and lasting peace according to principles of human rights, equality, and international law for all the people of Israel and Palestine. JVP has over 200,000 online supporters, over 70 chapters, a youth wing, a Rabbinic Council, an Artist Council, an Academic Advisory Council, and an Advisory Board made up of leading U.S. intellectuals and artists.
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Pope Francis Urges Genocide Probe of Israel's War on Gaza
The pontiff's call comes as the International Court of Justice is reviewing evidence in a South Africa-led genocide case against Israel.
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In a new book set to be released this week, Pope Francis I endorsed a genocide investigation into Israel's war on Gaza—which has killed or maimed more than 150,000 Palestinians and forcibly displaced, starved, or sickened millions more over the past 13 months.
"In the Middle East, where the open doors of nations like Jordan or Lebanon continue to be a salvation for millions of people fleeing conflicts in the region: I am thinking above all of those who leave Gaza in the midst of the famine that has struck their Palestinian brothers and sisters given the difficulty of getting food and aid into their territory," the pontiff wrote in his latest book, which goes on sale in some countries on November 19.
"According to some experts, what is happening in Gaza has the characteristics of a genocide," the Pope added. "It should be carefully investigated to determine whether it fits into the technical definition formulated by jurists and international bodies."
The Pope's words echo last week's finding by a United Nations expert panel that Israel's annihilation of Gaza is "consistent with the characteristics of genocide."
The International Court of Justice—a U.N. organ—is currently weighing a South Africa-led genocide case against Israel backed by more than 30 nations and regional blocs as well as hundreds of groups and experts around the world.
Meanwhile, the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court is seeking arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Israel Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, as well as three former Hamas leaders assassinated by Israel, for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity, including extermination.
Many jurists, scholars, and other experts—including some of Israel's leading Holocaust historians—have called Israel's policies and actions in Gaza genocide. Early in the war, Raz Segal—an Israeli historian and professor of Holocaust and genocide studies at Stockton University in New Jersey—called Israel's Gaza onslaught "a textbook case of genocide."
Numerous world leaders and other international officials, artists, entertainers, and others—including half of Democratic voters in the United States surveyed in May—also agree that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza.
Many Palestinian Christians have been killed, injured, or otherwise harmed by Israeli forces during the bombardment, invasion, and siege of Gaza. With just 800 to 1,000 people believed remaining in Gaza, members of the world's oldest Christian community warned early in the war that they were "under threat of extinction."
In their most infamous attack on Gaza Christians, Israeli forces bombed the 12th century Saint Porphyrius Greek Orthodox Church, Gaza's oldest, in October 2023, killing 18 Palestinians including numerous children. Among the victims were two women and an infant related to former Republican U.S. Congressman Justin Amash of Michigan.
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Amid the death and destruction wrought by Israel's assault on Gaza, last December's Christmas celebrations were canceled in Bethlehem, the purported birthplace of Jesus Christ.
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Wright, who leads the Denver-based oil services company Liberty Energy, is a Republican donor whose nomination to head the Department of Energy is backed by powerful fossil fuel boosters including oil and gas tycoon and Trump adviser Harold Hamm.
"Chris has been a leading technologist and entrepreneur in Energy. He has worked in Nuclear, Solar, Geothermal, and Oil and Gas," Trump said in a statement announcing his choice. "Most significantly, Chris was one of the pioneers who helped launch the American Shale Revolution that fueled American Energy Independence, and transformed the Global Energy Markets and Geopolitics."
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Trump—who has promised to increase fossil fuel production beyond the record-setting levels of the Biden administration—also said Wright would serve on a new Council of National Energy led by Doug Burgum, his pick to run the Interior Department.
In a post on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, Wright said that he is "honored and grateful for the opportunity" to be nominated by Trump.
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Wright calls himself "a lifelong environmentalist" and said last year that "climate change is a real problem." However, he also said in 2023 that "there is no such thing as clean energy or dirty energy" and that "there is no climate crisis and we're not in the midst of an energy transition either."
While fossil fuel proponents cheered Wright's nomination, climate and environmental defenders voiced alarm over the pick.
"Not surprising but still appalling that Trump's pick for Energy Secretary is a Big Oil CEO," League of Conservation Voters senior vice president for government affairs Tiernan Sittenfeld wrote on X.
Natural Resources Defense Council senior vice president for climate and energy Jackie Wong blasted Wright as "a champion of fossil fuels" whose nomination was "a disastrous mistake."
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Sens. Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island and Ed Markey of Massachusetts spoke at a press conference Saturday following a Friday joint panel discussion at COP29, where they both sounded the alarm over the dangers of Trump 2.0 and offered hope for climate action.
"With Trump and the Republicans taking their turn at the political reins, oil and gas companies will soon have their pick of lackeys to enable their destructive, polluting LNG wish list," said Markey, who chairs the Senate Environment and Public Works Subcommittee on Climate, Clean Air, and Nuclear Safety.
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As the senator noted during a Friday press call, "Just like climate change won't be solved by any one president, climate action won't be stopped by any one president."
Earlier this week, Markey and Congresswoman Veronica Escobar (D-Texas) introduced the Targeting Environmental and Climate Recklessness Act (TECRA), legislation to "restrict access to the U.S. financial system for those individuals and companies most responsible for exacerbating climate change and deforestation."
Whitehouse said in a statement that "dark days are ahead in Washington as Donald Trump, Republicans, and their fossil fuel handlers abdicate America's leadership on climate just as the scientific and economic warnings of climate chaos grow more clear and grim."
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Markey stressed that "climate change and Donald Trump are both existential threats to our health and to our livable future—but we're not giving up on either front."
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"We must work together, both at home and in solidarity with lawmakers around the world, in order to delay and derail Trump and the fossil fuel industry's dirty agenda," he added.
The senators and green groups said one way to get a head start on fighting that agenda is for Biden to halt LNG export expansion. Although climate campaigners praised Biden's January pause on approvals for all LNG exports to non-Fair Trade Agreement countries, a Trump-appointed federal judge lifted the pause in July. In September, the Department of Energy granted LNG export approval to the company New Fortress Energy.
Under Biden's watch, the United States became the world's leading LNG exporter.
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