Quakers, Ferguson and Palestinians

Pro-Palestinian protesters take part in a demonstration against the violence in the Gaza strip, in LyonThe multimillion dollar American Friends Service Committee, with offices in several dozen U.S. cities and 14 other countries, is the nearly century old political advocacy arm of Quakers in the U.S. Rooted in the Quaker pacifist tradition, AFSC advocates a form of “peace” that has aligned it with countless dubious international causes over the decades, usually anti-American, anti-Western and often anti-Israel.

AFSC touts accommodation of Iran, for example, naturally more concerned about U.S. or Israeli military action than about a nuclear armed Iran. And AFSC endorses Palestinian nationalism in ways that of course demonize Israel while minimizing Palestinian terror.

But AFSC offered a somewhat new twist when recently highlighting a young Palestinian-American activist’s solidarity visit to, and arrest in, racially charged Ferguson, Missouri.

“When Mike Brown was murdered in Ferguson my people in Gaza were being slaughtered by Israel in Operation Protective Edge,” explained Bassem Masri on AFSC’s blog.

“The timing of the two events woke up a lot of people. When Mike was killed, much of the media started demonizing him and the protestors, often the same sources that blamed Palestinians for their own deaths in Gaza. People naturally saw the connections.”

Masri, a self-described “pissed off citizen,” said Americans have long “maligned” the Palestinian struggle for liberation, but at least the people of Ferguson now understand their common struggle.

“On those terrible nights in Ferguson when the police were attacking peaceful civilians with tear gas, Palestinians under Israeli occupation offered advice on how to deal with the effects of the gas,” Masri recounted.

“Facing violence from an occupying force, whether in Palestine or Ferguson, forges a mindset that demands resistance and standing up for one’s community. When the police used military tanks and checkpoints to imprison the residents of Ferguson, I was reminded of life in the West Bank where I saw the Israeli military use the same tactics of repression.”

Masri said while in Ferguson for protests he’s been “tear gassed, shot at with rubber bullets, and physically assaulted by the police” before his eventual imprisonment and “interrogation,” apparently just like his kindred on the West Bank. The commonality between the the two similar oppressions, he concluded, is clear: racism.

Arrested at a Walmart with a dozen other demonstrators, Masri was, unlike others, jailed over night, for having spat at a police officer. He denied the charge, admitting that he “curses and levels vulgar insults at police officers,” as evidently confirmed proudly on his own film, but no spitting. According to him, the police contrived the charge so as to browbeat him into becoming their “collaborator” against fellow resistance fighters, which naturally he bravely declined.

No doubt Masri enjoys the street theater, and no doubt the chronically aggrieved AFSC was moved by the shared struggles of Ferguson and the West Bank.  The ostensible Israeli repressions of Palestinians are virtually the only form of human rights abuses that typically interest Religious Left outlets like AFSC. But if the West Bank is egregiously suffering, it was not illustrated by a Pew Research global survey of health and happiness in various countries, including the Palestinian Territories that released only days after Masri’s vivid report for AFSC.

According to the Pew study, Palestinians see themselves as better off compared to five years ago at higher rates than do other Arab countries like Egypt, Jordan and Tunisia. Forty three percent of Palestinians said they were better, compared to 36 percent of Tunisians. Palestinians also reported higher satisfaction with their health, safety, education, standard of living and jobs than did Jordanians and Egyptians. Twice as many Palestinians reported overall happiness than did Jordanians, and Palestinians were nearly four times likelier to be happy than Egyptians. They were one third likelier to be happy than Tunisians.

None of which proves or even suggests that the Palestinians are living in Nirvana. But living standards and quality of life are better on the West Bank than in much of the developing world. Palestinians receive more international aid per capita than almost any other people group. There also likely are per capita more international human rights monitors among the Palestinians, from anti-Israel groups like AFSC, than almost anywhere else in the world.

Unsurprisingly, the AFSC blog, for which Masri wrote, features a special “Israel/Palestine” section, an honor not accorded to any other region. For the Religious Left, Israeli infractions against Palestinians merit very special attention.

Masri’s and AFSC’s correlation of Israeli oppression with oppression in Ferguson fits the Religious Left narrative that Israel and America are uniquely set apart in their moral failures. As Masri explained:

“Our goal is to dismantle apartheid regimes wherever they exist. That is the most important link between Palestine and Ferguson, and it is the link that will make both struggles stronger.”

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  • Tradecraft46

    My ancestors were Quakers, some like Ebenezer Coffin very active in the Underground Railway.

    I consider that part of my heritage ruinous and Quakers a taint, that cause wars, but won’t fight them: let others die for their ideals.

    Until we see how truly destructive they are, we are damned to follow their ideals to our death. They have no inner light, just glow of Satan’s presence.

  • http://johnnyangeladvocacygroup.net JohnnyAngel Advocacy Group

    I’m trying to figure out why these groups meant on the overthrow of the government of the USA aren’t considered enemies of/by the American people’s elected Representatives ? Communists were and still are a threat to this government system ! Why are they not being rounded up and either deported back to their own country or curtailing their anti-American efforts ? Could it be that their leader resides in the WH !?

    • PhillipGaley

      “why?”??
      Well, in the main, the nation is overcome by simpletons: I say,
      “We’re some of ‘the good guys’.”, therefrom, we are ‘good guys’; or:
      “Israel is an apartheid state, . . . and so is the USA.”, and likewise,
      therefrom, the simple-minded will parrot that, Israel and the USA are
      apartheid states.

      Some years ago, when Wally Carson retired from one of his political adventures in Oregon, The Oregonian’s front page heralded a big splash for him, waving off to his crown, and included was this quote from Wally: “And remember, whatever is forcefully asserted and plausibly supported is the law.” — a notion which is known and relied on, probably, by every lawyer who is smart enough to open a book or turn a computer on. Sofar as anyone knows, its earliest appearance was in the ancient Greek schools of oratory. And I think, some place or other, Francis Bacon advocated the same (And as an aside, if you read up on Wally Carson, Wikipedia is not quite correct, Oregon—and for some time so—does not have a supreme court justice, but rather, a Chief Administrator—at least, when I was last in Salem—so read the plaque over the door; and this makes sense inthat—with Louisiana and Vermont—Oregon is no longer an English law state.).

      We are informed of people who study such things that, people—and most especially, women—are drawn to, and admire people who are given to strong assertions; and no doubt, herefrom derives much of the temporal success of the Hitler, Mussolini, Clinton, Pelosi, Palestinian types whom we see filling political offices all about us.

      For them—and having at least some sense of measure of their “dumbed-down” audiences—the strength of logic or reason inhering in a word alone, is not enough. No. They resort to histrionics, vis theatrical display of mere emotion for effect (and also, invading popular music, and in genre, called “emo”), in sing-song intonation with gesticulation and
      facial animation.And so, in a word, I would say, the reason as to why we can’t git shed of ‘em, is, our citizenry is just too darned “dumed down”.

  • Marla Hughes

    These pacifists do not understand that the only reason they not just survive but thrive is because others are willing to fight to protect them.

    • Sharps Rifle

      They understand. They just don’t care, and they also think they’re entitled to protection. The Quakers have been a curse on this country for centuries and will continue to be until they are exposed as the bottom-feeding, treasonous hypocrites they are. As Tradecraft pointed out, the Quakers agitated for a war to free the slaves, and did any of them put on a blue uniform and fight to free their beloved enslaved? Nope. They were too “pacifist” (read “cowardly” and “self-important”) to actually get into the fight (and, yes, I realize the War for the Union had other causes and aims than emancipation, but emancipation was the cause that a large minority in the North was most vocal about…and, also, it was South Carolina that fired the first shot, so spare me that “War of Northern Aggression” garbage. You fire the first shot, you’re the aggressor. Period), so hundreds of thousands of men who were better than the Quakers ever could be died for the pet cause of the Quakers.

      Richard Nixon was a Quaker, and although he served in the Navy during WWII, that still doesn’t absolve them for their treasonous and anti-American activities (support of the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese during that war; the pro-Soviet “freeze” movement during the 1980′s; organizing and staging pro-Sandinista protests during the 1980′s; providing aid and comfort to AWOL’s during Desert Shield, as well as OEF and OIF; attempting to interfere with transport of military equipment…). The Quakers are a native-born Fifth Column. Find an evil cause, a cause which opposes liberty and Constitutional Government, and likely, the Quakers will back it.

      The Quakers aren’t pacifists. They’re agitators who lack the guts to actually get into the fights they support. “Let’s you and him fight,” should be the motto if these creeps.

  • tagalog

    In 1969, I (among many others) developed some skepticism about the pacifist nature of the Quakers when the Quakers ran a blood drive in the United States to obtain blood to donate to the Viet Cong during the Vietnam War. Not to United States troops, but to the enemies of the United States who were fighting her on the battlefield.

    That was when I realized that, for our leaders, treason is a very elastic concept when it comes to enforcing the law.

    • Earthling

      Wow! I did not know that about the blood drive. I guess they would have had that for the National Socialists as well.

      Thank you.

  • carpe diem 36

    “They” want to free Gaza, who are those “they” and to free Gaza from whom???
    we know Gaza is not free, but those who hold it hostage are the very ones they voted for, Hamas. Gaza will not be free until those murderers are eliminated.

  • Debbie G

    Thanks to all for the brief history lesson on Quakers. I had no idea….

  • herb benty

    Communism?Progressivism invaded these groups long ago. The Pilgrims/Quakers were high on God when they arrived in America, they never would have sided with the Pals then. Error crept in over the years, they now work against God.

  • lizwagner2

    These leftists just get curiouser and curiouser! First they tell us that Israel is an apartheid. Now they want to convince us that Ferguson, MO is an apartheid, too?

  • roger

    Wow, Bassem Masri is a real and true Palestinian, right down to the screaming, rock throwing, property destroying, looting, fire bombing, towel wearing, blame projecting and thuggery against the innocent.

  • HenDanK

    Thank you for this article. Here is an article about the differences between Christianity and Quakerism. What stood out to me was their belief that man is essentially good rather than sinful. That explains their naive thinking.