Together in Massachusetts - December 2024 Sawa Updates
Driven by a vision of collective liberation, our diverse peace alliance advocates for equality and justice for Palestinians, Arabs, Muslims, and inclusion for all.
December Updates from Sawa Newton-Area Peace Alliance - Contents
Together for an Inclusive Massachusetts
“No More Bombs with Our Tax Dollars!”
New Project: Sawa Community Conversations
Upcoming Events to Note
Sawa Members in the Press
Together for an Inclusive Massachusetts
Together for an Inclusive Massachusetts (TIM) is an alliance of Jewish, Muslim, Christian, labor, education, student, civil rights and other organizations and individuals advocating for justice and equity in the Commonwealth co-founded by representatives from Boston Workers Circle, Mass Peace Action, Jewish Voice for Peace Boston, Alliance for Water Justice in Palestine, Sawa: Newton-Area Alliance for Peace and Justice, National Lawyers’ Guild Massachusetts and many others. One of our shared principles is the belief that addressing antisemitism is an essential task, which must be done with care, reflecting the diversity of all Jewish people in the Commonwealth, and within a framework that embraces equity and inclusion for all. We want to ensure that the Commonwealth’s next steps are inclusive, transparent, and constructive.
Sign up to receive TIM’s occasional action alerts.
This past summer, the Massachusetts legislature passed a law creating a Special Commission on Combatting Antisemitism responsible for making recommendations to the legislature by November 2025 on addressing antisemitism through changes to state law. Learn more about the Special Commission here.
The Special Commission is dominated by organizations with worrying connections to anti-Palestinian discrimination that conflate legally protected free speech criticizing Israel or advocating for or teaching about Palestinian experience with antisemitism and began meeting in October. The Commission is currently addressing antisemitism in K-12 schools and is expected to focus on post secondary education, the work place, hate crimes, and other topics.
Several troubling themes emerged from comments of the more vocal Commission members during the Commission’s first two meetings::
Commission members argued that the First Amendment has limitations, especially in K-12 and post secondary education, setting the stage to deploy these exceptions to censor curricula in schools and against supporters of Palestinian rights.
Commission members supported enacting the controversial IHRA Definition of antisemitism. Many experts, including the ACLU, Jewish educators, Human Rights Watch, and Israeli human rights organizations, say this definition violates the First Amendment and allows antisemitism to be weaponized, which is actually harmful to Jewish people, as well as Palestinians and others.
Commission members argued that “Anti Israel” is a new category of hate crimes/bias incidents expanding civil rights protections to a country, a claim which has made up a significant portion of cited growth in antisemitism.
Some Commission members are promoting a narrative of “antisemitism on the left” equating critiques of Zionism with Soviet-era propaganda. While examples of right-wing White supremacist antisemitism were mentioned, Commission members alleged that calls for Palestinian human rights and college protests are a greater threat to Jewish safety, despite compelling evidence that “the pro-Palestine movement has not been violent [and that] the rhetorical core of this pro-Palestine movement has not been a call for violence against Jews, but rather a call for freedom for Palestinians and an end to violence being inflicted upon them.” This narrative has troubling law enforcement implications, for the students and others engaging in their first-amendment right to protest actions or their and other governments.
DEI initiatives in schools were claimed by Commission members to exclude the needs of Jewish students, which echoes false allegations that DEI initiatives are antisemitic.
The Massachusetts Teachers Association, which is one of several labor unions to have endorsed a ceasefire resolution and organized a members-only training on understanding Anti-Palestinian Racism, was set up as a primary target for vilification by members of the Commission during the meetings.
CJP and JCRC, two organizations that have exhibited partisan behavior towards Massachusetts Jewish organizations supportive of ceasefire and justice for Palestinians, stated in the Commission meetings that they are “changing curricula” in multiple school districts. Effectively, this means they are censoring educational content that doesn’t align with their views.
The Commission will continue to discuss K-12 education issues at their next meeting on January 23rd. The meeting will be at the State House and livestreamed. Sawa members and others concerned that antisemitism not be weaponized to suppress legitimate civil rights, such as anti-war mobilization, and that this weaponization especially not be extended to our children’s education, are encouraged to attend. (Detailed meeting and livestream information was not available at time of publication - please check the Commission’s website.)
Note: all links in this article were working at time of publication. Sawa cannot assume any responsibility for the maintenance of web links to outside our own site.
Election report:
“No More Bombs with Our Tax Dollars!”
Starting at 7:00 a.m, sharp, last election day, Sawa volunteers and other antiwar activists set off with signs and palm cards, spreading out to polling places across Newton and other cities and towns in Massachusetts Congressional District 4 (CD-4). Our task? To ask voters to write-in the name of pro-peace activist and Sawa member Sana Fadel for Congress.
Our campaign had begun only 3 1/2 weeks before, when a group of anti-war activists led by members of the Muslim and Palestinian communities met and discussed our frustration that no one had run in the Democratic primary to oppose Jake Auchincloss. Auchincloss was the incumbent CD-4 congressperson, who has been a leading proponent of Israel's brutal, genocidal assault against Palestine. We felt we could not sit by and do nothing - we had to take some kind of action around the general election. Sana agreed to be our candidate, and we exploded into action. It was an intense and exciting three weeks - learning the requirements for running a write-in candidate, contacting clerks in the CD-4 cities and towns to give them the “heads up”, drafting campaign materials, putting up a web page, and getting the word out - culminating in our work at the polls on election day.
At some polling places, the geometry and local rules made it difficult to approach voters, but where we did manage to talk to voters, we were thrilled by their response. So many people wanted to talk with us about the war, and our position opposing Congressman Auchincloss’s and our nation’s relentless support for, and complicity in, Israel’s escalating reign of terror against the Palestinian people.
According to the Secretary of the Commonwealth’s website, Sana Fadel, in the end, garnered 1099 votes. While this is a small fraction of Auchincloss’s 289,347 votes, it is still a creditable accomplishment for an almost-literally last-minute campaign by a political unknown against a supposedly unbeatable incumbent. What’s more, there were some 7000 other write in votes, mostly for a candidate who had run against him two years ago, and 113,853 of the ballots cast had simply “blanked” the Congressional race. In all, 42% of the people casting ballots in CD-4 had refused to vote for the incumbent congressman. Those don’t look like “unbeatable” numbers, to us.
Our campaign did not end on Election Day. We will continue to be a presence at town halls organized by the Congressman, in vigils outside his Congressional offices, through letters and phone calls demanding that he end his AIPAC funded support for the genocide… We invite readers of this newsletter to join us!
We will continue to unite around two values - our desire to end our elected officials’ enabling of an ongoing genocide, and our belief in a diplomatic resolution based on collective liberation and equality for all Palestinians and Israelis.
Imagine - if we could mobilize this amazing effort in just over 3 weeks, what could we accomplish over the next 2 years?
To get involved in the ongoing effort in CD-4, join MA4 Voters for Peace as we build towards 2026: https://linktr.ee/ma4forpeace
New in 2025: Sawa Community Conversations
Sawa is pleased to announce a new opportunity for members and friends to gather for discussion of a film or book relevant to our mission and our concerns. We will meet approximately once each month, alternating between a film screening and a book discussion.
At our first gathering, on Wednesday, January 29 at 7:30 pm, we will watch and discuss the poignant documentary "The Great Book Robbery" (2012), the story of the 70,000 books looted from Palestinians in 1948. The film presents this theft within a larger historical and cultural framework, shedding new light on the Palestinian tragedy and its cultural impact.
Our second meeting, on Wednesday, February 26 at 7:30 pm, will focus on Nathan Thrall's Pulitzer prizewinning book A Day in the Life of Abed Salama: Anatomy of a Jerusalem Tragedy (2023). Thrall recounts a deadly bus accident, tracing the myriad contributing factors of life under Occupation in a geography riven by separation barriers, checkpoints, and drastic inequities.
We are still working on pinning down the location for these first two meetings. We hope you'll save the dates, and watch your inbox for registration details and for announcements of subsequent gatherings. For further information, contact Sue Lanser or Noura Guermazi, co-chairs of Sawa's Community Building Work Group.
Upcoming Events and Activities of Note
Arise and Resist: Organizing for Peace and Justice Under Repression
Sunday, January 19, 2025, 9:30 am - 5:00 pm, in person only.
Roxbury Community College, Media Arts Center, Boston
Sponsors: Massachusetts Peace Action, Boston Democratic Socialists of America, Northshore for Palestine, Our Revolution Massachusetts, Doctors Against Genocide.
Speakers: Dr. Lara Jirmanus (Vote No Preference MA), Dr. Karameh Kuemmerle (co-founder of Doctors Against Genocide, Sawa member), Rami G. Khouri (American University of Beirut and Arab Center Washington, D.C.), Jamie McGonagill (Extinction Rebellion Boston), Khury Petersen-Smith (Institute for Policy Studies)
Detailed information and registration HERE.
Film Viewing: “The Great Book Robbery”
Wednesday, January 29, 2025, 7:30 pm
Location to be determined - SAVE THE DATE!
See above article for more details
Book Discussion: “A Day in the Life of Abed Salama”
Wednesday, February 26, 2025, 7:30 pm
Location to be determined - SAVE THE DATE!
See above article for more details
Sawa Members In The Press
Interviews and press mentions over the past few months.
Pro-Palestinian protesters say they warned Newton police about Scott Hayes
(September - WGBH); Sawa Members interviewed: Sana Fadel, Nathan Foster, David Knuttunen, anonymousMassachusetts education board violated Open Meeting Law (October - Boston Globe); Sawa member mentioned: Sana Fadel
'I feel very silenced': Local Palestinian-Americans reflect on a tragic year (October - WBUR); Sawa member interviewed: Laila Kassis
A year since conflict escalated in the Middle East, a local Palestinian woman and Israeli man remain close friends (October - WBUR); Sawa member featured: Dr. Eman Ansari
Pretrial Hearing Postponed for Alleged Newton Shooter, Protestors Respond (November - BC Heights); Sawa member interviewed: Jill Charney