Navajo President meeting with Israeli Apartheid government

Grassroots Navajos outraged, call Navajo president 'war machine puppet'

By Brenda Norrell
Censored News
http://www.bsnorrell.blogspot.com
Dec. 10, 2012
 

Navajo President Ben Shelly

Navajos reacted swiftly today to the news that Navajo President Ben Shelly is meeting with the Apartheid government of Israel today. The news comes the same day that Native American musician and poet Joy Harjo rejected a petition from Native Americans and Palestinians to cancel her performance in Israel.

Outraged grassroots Navajos called Shelly a "war machine puppet."

Louise Benally, Dine' resisting relocation at Big Mountain, Arizona, said, "Ben should stay in Israel, to learn how to farm, they are only puppets for the war machines."
 

"Is he learning how to farm food, or weapons of mass destruction?" said Benally, among those on Black Mesa who say the Navajo Nation government is a puppet government of the US, which abandoned them for coal mining and power plant dollars.

Reacting to Shelly being in Israel, grassroots Navajos quoted Russell Means.

Means said, “Every policy the Palestinians are now enduring was practiced on the American Indian. What the American Indian Movement says is that the American Indians are the Palestinians of the United States, and the Palestinians are the American Indians of the Middle East,” Means said in 2009 before he became ill with cancer. Further, Means pointed out that the Zionists who control Israel now control the United States. “The power of the US in world politics diminishes every day.” http://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2009/01/russell-means-breaking-silence-on-obama.html

Shelly said in a statement that he is meeting with Israeli leaders to improve agriculture.

Agriculture, however, is already a controversial issue for the Navajo Nation government.

The Navajo farm, Navajo Agricultural Products Industry, near Farmington, N.M. has promoted Monsanto's genetically modified seeds for years, while other Indigenous Peoples around the world were burning those seeds. By now, those genetically modified seeds would have cross pollinated with traditional nearby Dine' crops.

Indian Country Today censored exposure of another fact about NAPI: Raytheon Missiles has a factory on NAPI farm land where commercial crops are grown for potato chips and other food products. Indian Country Today censored this fact during trade negotiations between the Navajo Nation and Cuba in 2006. Raytheon Missiles continues today to have the factory where the Navajo Nation grows corn, wheat, barley and other crops.

Shelly said he will be learning about Israel's new technology.

Tohono O'odham, on their homeland on the US/Mexico border in southern Arizona, say Israel's Apartheid technology is already being used against them. Israel's defense contractor, Elbit Systems, was subcontracted by Boeing for the border wall and spy technology on the Arizona border, using similar technology Elbit used on the Apartheid border of Palestine.

Shelly will meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu December 12, 2012. Navajo radio station KTNN reported that Shelly will meet with the Prime Minister and "begin dialogue on nation to nation relations and invite him to the Navajo Nation for future talks." Shelly arrived Saturday in Tel Aviv and plans to leave on Friday.

Shelly and First Lady Mrs. Shelly are in Israel for a week to meet with dignitaries of the Knesset, Israel’s legislative body, and the Ministry of Agriculture, according to a press statement. Shelly will meet with the Christian Allies Caucus of the Israeli Knesset, which includes members from six of 13 political parties in Israel. The caucus is chaired by David Rotem, who also serves as chair of the Knesset Committee for Law and Justice.
Shelly press statement http://www.president.navajo-nsn.gov/?p=603


Also see:
Louise Benally, censored by Indian Country Today, when she compared the war in Iraq with the Long Walk and imprisonment to war in Iraq http://bsnorrell.tripod.com/id78.html

Brenda Norrell has been a news reporter in Indian country for 30 years, beginning with Navajo Times. After serving as a longtime staff reporter for Indian Country Today, she was censored, then terminated. She began Censored News as a result, now in its seventh year.

brendanorrell@gmail.com