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Wheels of Justice Expands Reach Through Network, Fall Tour
Posted: May 30, 2007
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The anti-Israel Wheels of Justice (WOJ) bus tour has announced the launch of a national Wheels of Justice (WOJN) Network, as well as plans to tour the Northwest U.S. in the fall of 2007.
The WOJ Network (WOJN), a list serve that WOJ has established to promote "horizontal networking on projects across cities and states," will serve as a systematic way for groups in different states, including many hostile to Israel, to communicate about and share ideas, events, and resources. Currently, groups involved in WOJN include If Americans Knew, a Berkeley-based anti-Israel organization, and Boycott Israel Association.
The WOJN requires individual activists and organization representatives to agree to certain principles in order to join (i.e. Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Palestinian Civil Society Call to Action, and U.S. military withdrawal from countries in Western Asia), according to WOJ organizer Mazin Qumsiyeh.
The fall 2007 leg of WOJ's current tour, which will begin in September 2007, is scheduled to include stops in Arizona, Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, Idaho, Washington, Oregon, and California. This leg may address "significant changes in the political landscape regarding occupations in Iraq and Afghanistan, colonization in Palestine, potential confrontation with Iran, and oppression of civil liberties here at home," according to Qumsiyeh.
While touring the Southwest U.S. in spring 2007, Qumsiyeh and WOJ speaker Tammara Rosenleaf apparently met with U.S. Senator Jeff Bingaman's Chief of Staff to discuss the Iraq war. According to Rosenleaf, they discussed ways to stop funding the war without halting support for the troops, a subject on which Senator Bingaman has been "seeking counsel from his constituents." Rosenleaf also claimed that she emphasized the importance of the U.S. paying reparations to Iraq and staying out of its rebuilding efforts at all costs. A meeting with a Senator's Chief of Staff is unusual for WOJ representatives, who blend anti-Israel views with their opposition to the war in Iraq while on tour. The Southwest leg of the tour lasted approximately five weeks, beginning in April with visits to two high schools and two elementary schools in Louisiana.
Since July 2003, WOJ has traveled across the country presenting a biased, distinctly anti-Israel view of the Middle East during hundreds of visits to high schools, churches, libraries and college and university campuses.
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