4 Jun
2025
4 Jun
'25
11:06 p.m.
Jake, Lo, and I (Aaron) talked about the Apartheid-Free Communities pledge at
tonight's meeting! Here are some combined thoughts.
=== We should sign as soon as possible ===
Signing the pledge will counteract ongoing harm in a small but real way, so we should sign
it as soon as possible.
=== Our obligations ===
Here's an idea of what we think we're promising to do, as an organization, by
signing the pledge.
--- Items 1-3 ---
These are things we have or should have affirmed already, so (re)affirming them presumably
won't change anything about how we operate.
--- Item 4 ---
WE PLEDGE to join others in working to end all support
to Israel's
Apartheid regime, settler colonialism, and military occupation.
Here are some ways we can uphold this promise.
- Sign the pledge. As Lo pointed out in the quoted e-mails below, just putting our name on
the list of signatories already helps uphold our obligations: "It reflects public
support to our elected officials when we press them to divest from Israeli violence. It
reduces harm to Palestinian and Arab members of our community. It challenges the official
narratives and expands the public consciousness around Palestine."
- Confirm on our wiki that we've signed the pledge, and add the Apartheid-Free
Communities logo.
- Facilitate (and, if possible, promote) the use of our space by organizations
"working to end all support to Israel's Apartheid regime, settler colonialism,
and military occupation."
- Provide information resources (like flyers, zines, articles, book chapters, and a
listening / watching / reading list) in the space.
=== Background on the campaign ===
This Apartheid-Free Communities campaign is financed by the American Friends Service
Committee, a Quaker organization. You can find some steering committee members on the
campaign site's "About" page (https://apartheid-free.org/about/).
All the listed steering committee members are Christian or Unitarian organizations, which
for one of us (Aaron) is kind of a red flag.
On the other hand, the list of pledge signatories seems to include more diverse religious
organizations. In particular, it has a good number of Jewish organizations, including the
national and Bay Area chapters of Jewish Voice for Peace.
7:36 p.m.
I support us doing the Apartheid-Free Communities pledge.
Aside: This thread brings up a good question of how do we decision-make?
I looked at the wiki to see if there was any old protocol. There's this
page that looks just like a brainstorming page:
https://sudoroom.org/wiki/Sudo_room/decisions
Also there's our bylaws, which have been newly made:
https://sudoroom.org/wiki/Bylaws. We can have our internal way of doing
things, but I would feel more comfortable if we had our bylaws match what
we do as closely as possible so that we can confidently make decisions. And
I think our bylaws as is are a good starting point: My understanding is our
bylaws allow for a vote on things via ballot by members. Quorum for the
vote is 7 people, and the decision is made by majority vote.
SECTION 12. ACTION BY WRITTEN BALLOT WITHOUT A MEETING
- (a) Any action which may be taken at any regular or special meeting of
members may be taken without a meeting if the corporation distributes a
written ballot to every member entitled to vote on the matter. The ballot
and any related material may be sent by electronic transmission and
responses may be returned to the corporation by electronic transmission.
The ballot shall set forth the proposed action, provide an opportunity to
specify approval or disapproval of any proposal, and provide a reasonable
time within which to return the ballot to the corporation.
- (b) Approval by written ballot pursuant to this section shall be valid
only when the number of votes cast by ballot within the time period
specified equals or exceeds the quorum required to be present at a meeting
authorizing the action, and the number of approvals equals or exceeds the
number of votes that would be required to approve at a meeting at which the
total number of votes cast was the same as the number of votes cast by
ballot.
- (c) Ballots shall indicate the number of responses needed to meet the
quorum requirement and, with respect to ballots other than for the election
of directors, shall state the percentage of approvals necessary to pass the
measure submitted. Ballots must specify the time by which the ballot must
be received in order to be counted.
- (d) A written ballot may not be revoked.
SECTION 5. QUORUM FOR MEETINGS
*A quorum of the Members shall consist of at least seven (7) Members of the
Corporation in good standing as of the date of the vote.* The members
present at a duly called and held meeting at which a quorum is initially
present may continue to do business notwithstanding the loss of a quorum at
the meeting due to a withdrawal of members from the meeting provided that
any action taken after the loss of a quorum must be approved by at least a
majority of the members required to constitute a quorum.
On Thu, Jun 5, 2025 at 4:10 PM imogen via sudo-discuss <
sudo-discuss(a)sudoroom.org> wrote:
9:29 p.m.
presently Israel is starving 2.2 million people to death inside a
concentration camp, and they set up a fake "food distribution site" and
shoot to kill anyone who approaches it.
I was really hoping this "anti apartheid" proposal would be able to go
through more easily and I'm extremely disappointed in what's happening here.
-jake
On Thu, Jun 5, 2025 at 7:37 PM Paige P via sudo-discuss <
sudo-discuss(a)sudoroom.org> wrote:
9:51 p.m.
disappointed at the lack of uncritical support of arab nationalism and
islamic extremism?
trying to pretend religion has nothing to do with this conflict is like
trying to pretend the civil war wasn't about slavery.
neoconfederates who make this claim have to squint and wave away statements
like Alexander H Stephens' Cornerstone Speech: "*slavery subordination to
the superior race is his natural and normal condition" *or the
Mississippi Declaration of Secession:
*"Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery--
the greatest material interest of the world."*
I couldn't understand how people could do this until I saw them deny and
wave away religious extremism and antisemitism, whether from the
Secretary-General of the Arab League:
“I personally wish that the Jews do not drive us to this war, as this will
be a war of extermination and momentous massacre which will be spoken of
like the Tartar massacre or the Crusader wars. This war will be
distinguished by three serious matters. First—faith: as each fighter deems
his death on behalf of Palestine as the shortest road to paradise;"
It is plainly stated in the genocidal charter of Hamas, and in their naming
of the Oct 7 massacre after Al-Aqsa Mosque:
'Peace initiatives, and so-called peaceful solutions and
international conferences are in contradiction to the principles of the
Islamic Resistance Movement... Those conferences are no more than a means
to appoint the infidels as arbitrators in the lands of Islam...
There is no solution for the Palestinian problem except by Jihad.'
Or even from the PNA government of today, which published an official
government statement referring readers to the infamous Hadith that the day
of judgement will not come until you kill the Jews.
Yet people continue to squint and pretend that it's not about religious
conflict. I recently watched the documentary "No Other Land", and, knowing
a bit of Arabic, noticed that whenever the subtitles said "Israeli", the
people were saying the word "Yahud" - Jew. Same when a protest passed by my
house recently - the leaders were chanting in Arabic for the followers to
repeat: "from water to water, Palestine is Arab"
At no point above have I made any apologia for any Israeli actions - only
pointed out the Palestine movement is not aligned with treating Jews as
human beings - very openly not so in Arabic. And in Arabic, they make no
distinction between "Jew" and "Israeli", and say "Arab", not
"free".
But nevertheless I must request a source for your claim that Israel created
a fake feeding site and shot people who went there.
On Thu, Jun 5, 2025 at 9:30 PM Jake Watters via sudo-discuss <
sudo-discuss(a)sudoroom.org> wrote:
6 Jun
6 Jun
12:59 p.m.
I removed the non-member posting pro-genocide propaganda from our
mailinglist. I have conversations about this topic every day and could
easily respond to everything they said, but I don't think this is the right
place for it, I still choose to believe that the vast majority of people on
this list, and who are part of our community, are united AGAINST APARTHEID
and AGAINST GENOCIDE. If people want to discuss the propaganda post, my
email inbox is open and we can have 1:1 or group emails but I believe this
list is not the place for it.
Anyone who wants to learn about what's happening right now can get on the
internet and look at "both sides" and see for themselves who's doing all
the killing and who's doing all of the dying, and who has dropped more
bombs than all of WW2 (as of a YEAR ago
<https://www.aa.com.tr/en/middle-east/amount-of-israeli-bombs-dropped-on-gaza-surpasses-that-of-world-war-ii/3239665>
).
The fact that the people of Gaza are presently facing siege and famine on
top of being openly hunted by Israeli troops (and ISIS fighters funded by
Israel
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collaboration_with_the_Islamic_State#Israel>)
makes it all the more important that we focus on doing everything we can to
end this one-sided slaughter, and at the very LEAST sign the Anti-Apartheid
Pledge as a community.
Let's talk about this again at this upcoming Wednesday meeting. It's sad
that we couldn't have agreed on this when it was originally proposed ten
days ago
-jake
-jake
68
days inactive
69
days old
6 comments
5 participants
participants (5)
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Aaron Fenyes -
Geffen Avraham -
imogen -
Jake Watters -
Paige P