Last Wednesday, April 30, our own Hillel Stavis went down to see Pharaoh the Cambridge Peace Commission at one of their regular meetings, to film and to issue a statement. Readers will be familiar with the group by now (see: here, here, here, here, and here).

There was some initial consternation on the part of members of the Commission as to the idea of being filmed, so they had to be reminded of Massachusetts Law concerning public meetings. Complaints thus dealt with, members simply knuckled down and got themselves through it...mostly in silence...cold, hard silence.

Here is video of the statement Hillel made. I will save you from witnessing the footage of the remainder of the meeting. Hillel doesn't appear on camera since it was his own film and the tripod is set up next to him (you can see his hand and his knee) as you'll see as you watch. I have also transcribed his statement below. He calls the Commission out on the political nature of its Cambridge to Bethlehem work, and on its hypocrisy in ignoring the events in Darfur.

Cambridge, MA residents, this is where your tax money goes.

As an aside, readers may recognize incoming commission director Brian Corr as one of the emcee's of this anti-war protest on Boston Common last October. Marty Federman, of Jewish Voice for Peace, who lead the Israel/Apartheid demonstration the same (Sabbath) day, is seated at the left.

Transcript:

Hillel Stavis: I am a Cambridge resident and I, along with a number of other people who, you are no doubt aware, filed a Freedom of Information Act request for information from this commission. I want to thank you for sending us that information. I think we received a few hundred pages. One of the reasons we requested that information was we wanted to find out more about the Cambridge to Bethlehem Commission that was undertaken last Fall...last Winter. Included in the emails and documentations and other things that were supplied to us by the Commission, there has been some very disturbing information.

Namely, it was stated many times by the Commission's director, and other members of the Commission that the mission was a completely apolitical mission, that it was a people-to-people mission -- it had no political overtones. And yet in the material that was sent us we discovered that there were political orientation sessions that were requested and conducted by the Commission in which very very overt political statements were made. Also, one of the reasons for filing the Freedom of Information Act requests was that at the last meeting of the Cambridge to Bethlehem Committee which was in this building a few months ago there was an attempt to eject the public from the meeting which is a direct violation of Massachusetts Law. That's one of the reasons for the complaints we filed with the Attorney General's Office, and that's still pending, which I'm sure you're aware of. If you're not aware of it you should be aware of it.

At that meeting, a number of us sat completely silent and offered no opinions. One of the members said that they felt "intimidated" by our mere presence which I think was rather bizarre to hear considering that you're all very strong advocates of participatory democracy I would assume. We've also discovered some very disturbing information that came from one of the members, namely Eva Moseley, who was very outspoken, who had a full report back from Bethlehem and she actually had written a long report and I believe she spoke at the meeting that was held at the Senior Center last Winter. One of the emails, for example, say, and I quote -- she's one of the Holocaust survivor members of the group, I think she left Vienna in 1939 and luckily escaped with her entire family from what I understand -- in one of these emails she said, and I want to quote, "I can do my 'I escaped from Nazi Vienna and am unhappy with what Israel does shtick' if you think that would help."

If you're unfamiliar with Yiddish, a shtick is a routine, is a contrived, phony routine. Of course this wasn't revealed in her report back to the City, I think this was a very revealing email.

As to the non-political aspect of the trip, one of the other pieces of information we received -- I'm not going to go on ad nauseum by the way, I just want to make a couple points here -- one of the other pieces of information said, and I quote, this is during the orientation session, remember, this is a non-political trip, "It carries great weight to be able to say, 'I've seen with my own eyes the suffering that the Israeli occupation causes, our government's support for it compounds it." A bit further on, "With care and permission photos of the effects of the occupation are good, a family standing in front of its bulldozed house, people who have been hurt, etc..."

So I think the very premise of the trip was heavily freighted with a political agenda, that many of the individuals involved were duplicitous in their stated purpose on the trip and a lot of these emails reveal it and we intend to make these public.

That's all I want to say right now. If anyone wants to ask me questions, feel free.

Moderator: Any other public comments? OK, let's move on to the next item on the agenda which is check-ins, an opportunity to share a little about...introduce ourselves and say how we are doing, and we...

Stavis: Oh, I'm sorry, there's one last thing...

As to the Darfur issue, I'm a member of the Massachusetts Coalition to Save Darfur and I believe I spoke to you after the last meeting about the Darfur situation. And considering the amount of time, and energy, and zeal this group has put into the Israel issue, the notion that you haven't spent -- as far as I know and I may be mistaken correct me if I'm wrong -- have not had one event on probably the most catastrophic genocidal event of the last ten years, namely the deliberate extermination of 600...I think the number is up to 600,000 people now in Darfur, is to me, unconscionable.

One of the heads of the Save Darfur Coalition contacted Cathy Hoffman [outgoing head of the Cambridge Peace Commission -S], I think he had to phone three or four times and he was finally told, and correct me if I'm wrong Cathy, that you were going to pass the information on to your successor.

That's a hell of an excuse. Unbelievable. I think to any disinterested party here, this would be shocking. Absolutely shocking.