By World BEYOND War, July 24, 2024
On July 23, Madison for a World BEYOND War and others held a press conference in front of U.S. Senator Tammy Baldwin’s office, to ask elected officials to challenge the visit to Congress by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
The event aimed to highlight representatives’ planned response to this official visit from a war criminal. WBW shared a statement by Representative Mark Pocan from a recent interview that he wants to personally serve the arrest warrant that has been requested by the prosecutor at the International Criminal Court for Netanyahu!
WBW asked Senators Ron Johnson and Tammy Baldwin to speak up against the Netanyahu visit too and to join Senator Bernie Sanders in boycotting Netanyahu’s visit tomorrow.
Speakers at the event included Sergey Levitskiy, Esty Dinur, Phil Trachtenberg, and Shahayra Majumder — representatives of World BEYOND War, CODEPINK, and Jewish Voice for Peace. The event was cosponsored by Madison for a World BEYOND War, CODEPINK Madison, and UW Faculty & Staff for Palestinian Liberation.
A group of 25 activists went into Senator Baldwin’s office and met with her state director Sarah Anstaett.
Text of Congressman Pocan’s comments in that interview:
If you want to support Israel, and the people from Israel, you do it by not supporting Netanyahu, I can tell you that. This guy basically is their Trump. Except he’s doing this basically to stay out of jail. That’s the only way, he has to continue all this to not be thrown in jail for crimes that he is already being investigated on.
But what he’s done is crimes against humanity. Killing that many people, this is collective punishment, the children, the women who have been killed in Gaza, the fact that he doesn’t support the priorities of the US.
I think a lot of us are figuring out what to do. There is going to be a big block of us that don’t go and probably do something alternative to get that message across.
But I’ll tell you, I’m still open, if the International Courts decide that they are going to put out an arrest warrant for him, I’m available, you know?! I may have a better chance of serving him than others.
Because this guy really has done war crimes. We need to say that … my goals, I want people in Israel to know, we support people of Israel, we support people of Palestine. We want peace in the region. We think a two-state solution is the best. But Benjamin Netanyahu and Hamas don’t represent any of the values I just mentioned. We need to send that signal that he does not just manipulate Congress for whatever he wants, and I think that’s what we’re working on.
ABC Channel 27 WKOW reported:
MADISON (WKOW) – A coalition of anti-war groups called on the U.S. senators representing Wisconsin to not attend a congressional address by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu planned for Wednesday.
The groups include Code Pink, World Beyond War, and Jewish Voice for Peace. The organizations mustered a group of around two dozen people to demonstrate outside of U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin’s Madison offices on the Capitol Square Tuesday.
The International Criminal Court has requested an arrest warrant for Netanyahu over alleged war crimes committed in the war in Gaza.
The message from the protest was focused. They wanted both Baldwin, a Democrat, and Johnson, a Republican, to avoid and denounce Netanyahu during the prime minister’s visit.
The protesters believe that should be all the reason the senators need to avoid the prime minister.
“I plan to attend and expect to hear Prime Minister Netanyahu lay out exactly how Israel plans to end this war, bring the hostages home, surge aid into Gaza, and take steps toward a two-state solution,” Baldwin said in a statement.
27 News also reached out to Johnson and Eric Hovde – the Republican frontrunner in the primary to challenge Baldwin in November’s general election. Neither responded to a request to comment on this story. . . .
