Sanders campaign says pro-Palestine activists should never have been kicked out of Boston rally

[Cheese Sandwich]

Last edited Tue Oct 6, 2015, 01:35 AM - Edit history (2)

Now with some positive updates

Sanders campaign says pro-Palestine activists should never have been kicked out of Boston rally

“They told us to either put the sign away or leave,” Sana Hashmani, one of the student activists, told The Intercept, which first reported the incident. “We asked why, and they said that Bernie’s campaign staff had said the sign had to go.”

But Sanders campaign manager Jeff Weaver told Boston.com Monday night that the incident ”100 percent” should not have happened and that the staffer never should have asked the students to take the sign down.

Weaver said the individual, whom he described as a “low-level volunteer,” will no longer be working campaign events.

“We’ve communicated to our staff to make sure nothing like this happens again,” he said.

Weaver also said he reached out to the three individuals asked to leave to let them know the incident should not have happened and to apologize on behalf on the campaign.

A cell phone video posted Sunday on YouTube by the Boston chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine shows an event staffer telling the activists that Sanders campaign staff had requested they take the sign down or leave.
...

http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/2015/10/05/bernie-sanders-campaign-says-pro-palestine-activists-should-never-have-been-kicked-out-boston-rally/QbqJeTYKFi4shsKlgk9fPK/story.html

Statement by Boston Students for Justice in Palestine Regarding Ejection From Bernie Sanders Rally (excerpt)

We have discussed the incident with Sanders’s campaign manager, Jeff Weaver, who expressed regret about how we were treated and acknowledged that our sign was “appropriate” and “in the spirit of many other signs there.” We are eager to engage in a dialogue about inclusivity and the elevation of under-represented voices. Sanders speaks up for those hurt by low wages, gender inequality, school tuition, corporate power, and climate change. Recently, he released a broad policy platform to address systemic racism. We want him to also speak up for those hurt by US foreign policy and military aid: we want him to speak up on Palestine. We hope that Sanders and other presidential candidates will seriously consider our government’s role in Israel's human rights abuses as they shape their foreign policy platform.

more: https://www.facebook.com/WillYaFeelTheBern4Palestine

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Thanks to the people who were giving these updates in the thread.

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You can stay but you have to put the sign away:

https://twitter.com/WillYaBern4Pal/status/651068449331015682/photo/1

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

1. I gotta agree with the protesters.

If all they were doing was holding up a sign, I don't see why they needed to be kicked out.

[sabrina 1]

39. Sanders Campaign has fired the 'low level staffer' responsible. Good for him. I wouldn't be

surprised if there were plants among some of the campaign's volunteers and/or staffers. Nothing would surprise me, the dirty tricksters will stop at nothing to stop him.

[Fumesucker]

2. I would like to see that dialogue take place

[Fawke Em]

3. As the mother of a half-Palestinian child and a Bernie supporter,

I can say this won't sway my support, but I would like to know more about it.

It seems odd and not in keeping with his positions, at all.

I'm not going to work myself into a pretzel to defend it, but I doubt Sanders was aware of it, personally. If he was or wasn't, I hope he's made aware of this, if he didn't already know, and he explains the problem.

Maybe using a form of "burn" with Palestine? Maybe his handlers thought that was in bad taste? I really don't know.

[elleng]

25. Hey Fawke. was just thinking of you!!!

to family!

[Fawke Em]

38. Love you and that new grandbaby!

Can you believe our boy is going to college in a bit more than two years? I'll FB pics.

[elleng]

44. QUITE amazing!

Love to all!

[sabrina 1]

40. if you read the report, Bernie has fired the staffer who was not acting on behalf of the campaign at

all, who was solely responsible for the incident.

We should thank him for taking that action.

There will be plants I'm sure among his staff and volunteers. This may or may not have been a plant but this was not the Campaign's decision.

And I'm glad they acted swiftly to get rid of that person.

[liberal_at_heart]

4. The staff member that made that decision needs to be let go.

After seeing Bernie calling for dialogue between people who disagree at Liberty University, I can't imagine Bernie would have supported this.

[LiberalArkie]

5. Yes and quickly.

[magical thyme]

7. although it was a staff member who said "no" to the sign, it wasn't Bernie's staff that evicted

them. It was security and somebody who works "for the lawn" (state property -- the center and its grounds are owned by the state) and they threw them out for videotaping.

[Cheese Sandwich]

10. I don't want anyone to get fired

Also the more I think about it I realize this is only one side to the story.

We don't really know what they were doing with the sign inside.

These guys deserve to be heard but if they were disrupting then there is not much choice but to show them out.

But from all appearances they were there participating as supporters, which makes it a sad incident. I don't want anyone to get fired but maybe it should be talked about.

[magical thyme]

6. Bernie is on record as supporting a 2-state solution and believing the US should be providing aid to

the Palestinian people.

I'm going to guess, looking at the packed crowd in the convention center and overflow, that there simply wasn't room for a sign that clearly would have blocked numerous people from seeing.

And having now watched the video, the "no" was clearly to the sign, although I don't know why not on the lawn. Since we weren't party to any discussions, we don't know what the thinking was. But it was the state person who works "for the lawn" who decided they had to leave for videotaping when asked not to.

So I'd want to hear more about how it came about.

[Maedhros]

8. Yep - those activists should have been allowed inside.

Bad move.

[olddots]

9. this will get sorted out

sooner than the trolls can go nuts with it .

[beam me up scottie]

11. I don't see anything wrong with that sign.

Unless it was too big and blocking the view of others?

Bernie welcomes dissent - unless people try to shout him down when he tries to answer their questions.

I'm sure he'll address their concerns.

[Autumn]

12. I don't like that they were asked to leave. That doesn't seem right and I don't think

Bernie would have done that. I'm going to wait to hear more on this.

[Bluenorthwest]

13. That is more like a very large banner than a sign and many venues will not allow such a thing for

any reason. This story and the link do not say which rally this is, so I can't check the venue or event rules but that is a large, large item. Even if it said 'Bernie Will Be President' it would probably be disallowed.

[Cheese Sandwich]

14. Looks like they were being kicked off the lawn. Why couldn't they hold this sign up outside?

This is Boston. In the video I can hear Bill McKibben speaking in the background.

[Catherina]

15. This is dreadful.

Bernie's Foreign Policy, while MILES better than anyone else's who's running, isn't particularly praiseworthy.

I already expressed my displeasure about this incident to his campaign and I hope others will too.

He was ahead of his time many years ago when he supported a 2-state solution with full economic and political power for Palestine and I believe no other candidate will be better for Palestine, but this incident saddens me very much.

Glenn Greenwald tweeted an article from The Intercept about this:

...

“They told us to either put the sign away leave,” said Sana Hashmani, one of the student activists. “We asked why, and they said that’s Bernie campaign staff had said the sign had to go.”

There had been no signs of trouble previously. The pro-Palestine group was doing nothing unusual — except, perhaps, for daring to question Sanders about territories occupied by Israel, of which Sanders has been a not-entirely-progressive supporter. “When we got there and entered the overflow space with our sign, people were supporting us and taking pictures, and other people had signs talking about various social issues as well,” Hashmani said.

In a brief cell phone video of the incident, security staff can be seen threatening to arrest the students if they didn’t leave the premises.

The Sanders campaign did not respond to request for comment about the incident.

...

“The way they reacted to us trying to bring up this issue was very aggressive,” said Jose Govoy, one of the students ejected from the event. “They singled out us, and didn’t seem to want this issue to be brought up at all.”

That view was echoed by Ibrahim Samirah, who said, “We look up to Bernie Sanders on a lot of issues, but we don’t want the same thing to happen where we believed that Barack Obama would meaningfully change foreign policy and nothing of that sort ended up occurring.”

https://theintercept.com/2015/10/05/dissent-on-israel-not-permitted-at-bernie-sanders-event/

[Cheese Sandwich]

17. Sounds like they never entered the building. All this was outdoors.

In the overflow space.

Thanks Catherina. I certainly agree Sanders is the best in the Democratic primary but this just makes me say yuck.

[Fawke Em]

18. I willl.

I plan to ask tomorrow when I'm not so mad.

[oberliner]

20. That article you linked to is not by Glenn Greenwald

It is by Murtaza Hussain.

Is there a different article by Glenn Greenwald on this?

[beam me up scottie]

21. From your source:

Update: A day after the group posted about the encounter on Facebook, a Sanders 2016 spokesperson acknowledged that a campaign staffer was behind the ejection, but said it had occurred in error. “What happened was a poor decision by a low level staffer and doesn’t reflect campaign policy,” the spokesperson said, further stating that the individual who had ejected the students would not be handling the same duties in the future.

[Catherina]

22. Thank you! I missed that update. Here's another update

From the comments, Jeff Weaver

This is Bernie’s campaign manager. This was done by a low level staffer and a volunteer without authorization. The staffer has now been banned from working future events. The sign in question was appropriate and in the spirit of many of the other signs there. I have talked personally with the people excluded and expressed my regrets about this happening. When I talked with the reporter he said the story had not gone up yet and he said this information would be included but somehow it was not. Admittedly it was later in the day so maybe he just decided to let it run in its current form without update. Other event staff are being informed about this and instructed to ensure this doesn’t happen again. Hope that clears things up.

https://theintercept.com/2015/10/05/dissent-on-israel-not-permitted-at-bernie-sanders-event/?comments=1#comment-169442

It's not cool that the story went up without the including that information.

[beam me up scottie]

23. No, it's not cool at all. I think that happened for a reason.

I hope there is an article that clears everything up tomorrow.

[Catherina]

27. Let's watch for this. It's important. Article needs to be corrected

The author posted this to his twitter 2 hours ago. Disappointing since the campaign manager's comment was before that but I can't tell how much before that lol.

Murtaza Hussain ‏@MazMHussain 2h2 hours ago

Bernie Sanders campaign called me and made clear that the ejection of the SJP students was not campaign policy. Update soon.
https://twitter.com/MazMHussain/status/651225964832141312

[beam me up scottie]

29. Good to know! THanks!

[Cheese Sandwich]

34. Thanks for the info

That was weird because the story was changing very fast while we were talking about it.

Sorry for the interruption. You may now return to your scheduled revolutionary activities.

[beam me up scottie]

36. I knew something wasn't right about this story.

At least we got ahead of the story before someone used it to "prove" Bernie doesn't care about *insert name of minority group here*.

[whatchamacallit]

16. Unless there was some technical issue

they should have been allowed to stay IMO.

[MrMickeysMom]

19. I think they should have been let in... It's just a different sign...

Somebody goofed up on that one.

[Catherina]

24. You know what I love about Sanders supporters?

Every Sanders supporter in this thread disagrees with what happened and no one's lying or trying to paint it as anything other than what it was- an awful thing to do.

I'm really pleased about that.

Thankfully, we now know that the Sanders campaign was not behind this. I hope the apology is spread far and wide and that our Palestinian brothers, sisters, and supporters make their presence seen at future events because their voices matter too.

[liberal_at_heart]

26. You mean we're not mindless Bernie worshipers? That can't be right.

[MoveIt]

28. +1

I too was struck by the equanimity of the calls to hear these protesters message by Sanders supporters.

One thing is certain, the plight of Palestinians won't be discussed much at $2700 per plate events with Hillary.

[Cheese Sandwich]

31. Thanks, I'll add some of these updates to the OP

[Catherina]

42. Terrific!

I'm in the middle of some things right now but I'll go check to see if there's anything new

[Fawke Em]

41. I, too, am proud of us and proud of the campaign for realizing

how horrible that staffer behaved and acting accordingly.

We really do rock, don't we?

[oberliner]

30. Bernie Sanders campaign says pro-Palestine activists should never have been kicked out of Boston ral

Bernie Sanders campaign says pro-Palestine activists should never have been kicked out of Boston rally

Excerpt:

But Sanders campaign manager Jeff Weaver told Boston.com Monday night that the incident ”100 percent” should not have happened and that the staffer never should have asked the students to take the sign down.

Weaver said the individual, whom he described as a “low-level volunteer,” will no longer be working campaign events.

“We’ve communicated to our staff to make sure nothing like this happens again,” he said.

Weaver also said he reached out to the three individuals asked to leave to let them know the incident should not have happened and to apologize on behalf on the campaign.

http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/2015/10/05/bernie-sanders-campaign-says-pro-palestine-activists-should-never-have-been-kicked-out-boston-rally/QbqJeTYKFi4shsKlgk9fPK/story.html?s_campaign=bcom%3Asocialflow%3Atwitter

[beam me up scottie]

32. Thank you, oberliner!

[Cheese Sandwich]

33. Thanks

I updated the OP

[Scootaloo]

37. Good response. n/t

[azurnoir]

45. Thanks for the update *2

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1134114392#post3

[liberal_at_heart]

35. Glad to hear that Jeff Weaver reached out to the individuals right away and that the

staff member will not be working events anymore. Sounds like swift action was taken.

[liberal_at_heart]

43. K&R. Bernie Sanders campaign handled this situation in a very timely manner.

[beam me up scottie]

46. K & R!

Thanks for the edit and the update!

The article that has been repeatedly posted here is despicable, claiming that no dissent of Israel is allowed at Bernie's rallies is absurd.