© The Herald-Sun via AP / Bernard ThomasLydia Rose, right, participates at the Jewish Voice for Peace gathering on Hanukkah to challenge Islamophobia and fight against racism, December 11, 2015 in Durham, North Carolina.
From Durham to Northampton, activists are finding ways to end their cities' support for Israeli human rights abuses.Rachel Weber knew she had to work fast.
Two months back, on October 19, the Northampton, Massachusetts, activist discovered through a public-records request that the police chief of her small liberal city planned to go to Israel on a police delegation sponsored by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL). The trip, billed as an all-expenses-paid opportunity to learn counter-terrorism tactics from Israeli police officials, was planned for December.
That October day, Weber got in touch with local allies, and scrambled to plan a course of action against the junket, which she found troubling because of Israeli forces' involvement in a decades-long project of military occupation and dispossession of Palestinians.
"The folks on these visits, they go to sites where grave human-rights violations are occurring," said Weber.
Five weeks later, she got word from Northampton Mayor David Narkewicz: He was canceling police chief Jody Kasper's participation in the delegation.
Comment: It seems vegans are actually good for something.
It's amazing that vegans, who think themselves peaceful and caring, seem to be the first to issue death threats to people who don't share their twisted ideological views.
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