Pro-divestment party announces candidates
By Kristin Erekson
The Jewish Advocate
Green-Rainbow Party's Grace Ross, left, next to James O'Keefe, right.Jewish community sees an attempt by Green-Rainbow Party to protest Israel
Members of the grassroots Green-Rainbow Party of Massachusetts announced their candidacy for statewide offices Tuesday, drawing concerned Jewish protesters to the State House steps seeking to expose the faction's "anti-Semitic beliefs" and "main defamation of Israel," according to Jewish protesters in attendance.
After collecting more than 14,000 signatures to qualify for the November ballot, activist and organizer Grace Ross said that she was running for governor of Massachusetts, reminding the public that "the GRP is a real and vibrant party that embodies the power of the regular people when we put our best energies together." Other Greens going for office are 22-year-old nurse Wendy Van Horne for lieutenant governor, physician Jill Stein for secretary of the Commonwealth and former computer software manager and engineer James O'Keefe for state treasurer.
Founded in 1996, it's not the Green-Rainbow's environmental initiatives that instill a sense of uneasiness in some members of the Jewish community, but the party's beliefs on calling for an end to all American military and economic aid to Israel.
"The Green party is fighting for a noble cause, but they have been hijacked by some unsavory individuals trying to steer the party to an ignoble cause," said Seth Brysk, the director of the Israel Action Center at the Jewish Community Relations Council in Boston. "This is clearly another attempt to foist divestment from Israel upon Boston and the Greater Boston community. I am concerned that they will use extreme and radical politics to achieve what terrorism and militarism have failed to do, which is to try by any means to destroy the state of Israel."
A statement on the GRP's Web site on their position on Palestine said: "The Green-Rainbow Party supports the following means to bring pressure to bear on Israel: divestment initiatives that seek to withdraw institutional investments from Israel state bonds and corporations that do business with Israel; academic boycotts of Israeli academics and academic institutions."
Hot off the heels of an optimistic evaluation of investment prospects in Israel by State Treasurer Timothy Cahill in June, O'Keefe said that if he was voted into office he would endow money in "renewable energy and small businesses" rather than nations that tend to "occupy other people and countries."
"Our money is going towards the fighting and killing of people," O'Keefe said. "Bombing people and their infrastructures is not a way towards peace. I just wish that both sides could come to a non-violent resolution."
But 24-year-old Sharon resident Asya Chernyak, who trudged through the rain holding an Israeli flag in protest of the GRP press conference, said the Greens "are not just happy environmentalists."
"I know [these people] are openly anti-Israel, anti-Zionist and anti-Semitic," Chernyak said. "They only support Palestinians and blowing up innocent women and children. I am hoping many more Jews come forward to fight. I know we are going to win this."
