On March 5, following NYACT’s bi-weekly protest in front of the Google offices in Manhattan, NYACT made a presentation at Manhattan Community Board 4′s (CB4) general meeting.  Following the presentation, which was cut short, CB4 member Brett Firfer, a visibly orthodox Jew, referred to NYACT as “the enemy” and the BDS Movement as “the face of anti-Semitism.”  Click here for full story in Mondoweiss.

photo credit: Bud Korotzer/Desertpeace

CB4 member Brett Firfer (holding camera in right hand)

This sign, posted at the entrance of Four Freedoms Park just below the Coler-Goldwater Hospital on Roosevelt Island and announcing the FDR Hope Memorial, reminds us that “Roosevelt Island was so named to reflect its commitment to being a community where the disabled move freely and develop to their fullest potential.”

With the demolition of Coler-Goldwater Hospital to make way for Cornell NYC Tech, it would seem that this “commitment” has been summarily betrayed. The patients on wheelchairs are no longer to be seen on the island, for they have been removed altogether as part of an ultimate exercise in “freedom” of movement. Isn’t this vaguely reminiscent of a certain pattern of expulsion, demolition, and expropriation in Palestine?

[Transcript of NYACT presentation available on Mondoweiss.]

RSVP at https://www.facebook.com/events/171774193020237/ — and invite your friends!

[Enter event around the corner at 239 Thompson Street.]

Endorsed by: Adalah-NY: The New York Campaign for the Boycott of Israel, Architects and Planners for Justice in Palestine, British Committee for the Universities of Palestine, Deir Yassin Remembered, Desis Rising Up and Moving, Faculty for Palestine, Jews Say No!, NYC War Resisters League, Students for Justice in Palestine at Brooklyn College, Students for Justice in Palestine at City College CUNY, Students for Justice in Palestine at College of Staten Island, Students for Justice in Palestine at Cornell University, Students for Justice in Palestine at the CUNY School of Law, Students for Justice in Palestine at John Jay College, Students for Justice in Palestine at Rutgers University – Newark, United National Antiwar Coalition, U.S. Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel, Queers Against Israeli Apartheid, U.S. Palestinian Community Network