Our beginnings…
SFJP started as Another Jewish Voice of Santa Fe in 2008 to protest Operation Cast Lead, the Israeli name for their bombing of Gaza using US supplied F-16 fighter planes, artillery and ammunition including white phosphorous bombs, which killed 1400 Palestinians including 308 children, and wounded 20,000. We joined with Another Jewish Voice of Albuquerque to oppose the $30 billion in annual US Military Aid used for the periodic bombings of Gaza, which Israel casually referred to as “mowing the lawn.”
After 2008-9 we continued to protest US tax dollars supporting the illegal blockade of Gaza and denial of food, clean water, electricity, healthcare and free movement to the people of Gaza. In the summer of 2014 after Israel launched Operation Protective Edge in Gaza, we became Santa Feans for Justice in Palestine (SFJP), continuing our focus on Palestinian human and civil rights. We held marches demanding an end to Israel’s military assault, in which more than 2,000 Gazans were killed, the majority of deaths being civilians, including 500 children. SFJP has regularly raised funds in cooperation with Middle East Children’s Alliance to provide humanitarian assistance to the people of Gaza including water filtration units at schools for students and teachers, food, supplies, warm clothes, medical care, and an outdoor playground in Khuza’a, Gaza.
SFJP has led marches and rallies on the Santa Fe Plaza, at the Federal Building, at the offices of New Mexico senators and representatives, and at the Roundhouse, and in coalitions in Albuquerque to protest ongoing US military, financial and diplomatic support for Israel’s subjugation, dispossession and inhuman treatment of Palestinians including violations of their most basic human and democratic rights. In addition to protests, flyers, and radio show appearances, SFJP has presented a steady stream of films as well as speakers from Palestine and the US including Noura Erakat, Sandra Tamari, Amira Hass, Dr. Mona El-Farra, Remi Kanazi, Sara Roy, Mohammed Omer, Dima Khalidi, Ali Abunimah and Zeiad Abbas, and most recently Miko Peled, Phyllis Bennis and Mohammed El-Kurd.
Santa Feans for Justice in Palestine
Santa Feans For Justice In Palestine (SFJP) is an educational and activist organization primarily based in Santa Fe, New Mexico. We are rooted in civil and human rights movements and support and advocate equal and democratic rights for Palestinians and join with others to provide resources to help Palestinians survive the severe conditions imposed on them by the Israeli State.
We advocate for equal human and democratic rights for all Palestinians, and in particular for an end to US military, economic, and diplomatic support for the illegal Israeli occupation of Palestinian lands, for maintaining the siege of Gaza including periodic bombings, and for Israeli apartheid policies and actions which subjugate, displace, control, kill, imprison and humiliate Palestinians.
As human rights advocates SFJP opposes Israeli Settler Colonial policies and practices which include: using IDF soldiers and colonial and military courts to blindfold, arrest, detain without charge, interrogate, torture and incarcerate Palestinians including minors in pretrial detention and without trials: Segregating and restricting movement of Palestinians by imprisoning Gazans in a barbed wire box, and constructing barrier walls, Israeli-only roads, and checkpoints to segregate and humiliate Palestinians, and home demolitions and land seizures to make way for Jewish only settlements, and providing virtual immunity to IDF soldiers and settlers who attack and kill Palestinians including Palestinians journalists and children.
Public Art.
In 2018, SFJP began displaying indigenous artist Remy’s political images on a prominent wall on Old Pecos Trail, one of the main thoroughfares leading into Santa Fe. The art was very controversial because it depicted the violent mechanisms by which Israel controls all aspects of Palestinian life, as well as opposing the US military funding enabling this Israeli military control.
Several efforts were made to destroy or graffiti over the art, but our indigenous allies from The Red Nation declared a day of restoration and restored the full images in a public ceremony. Under pressure from those who did not like Israeli crimes being shown so graphically, the City of Santa Fe, claimed the art work violated the City Building Code requiring wall signs be limited to stucco colors and roundish shapes. Following a heated City Council hearing in which many testified in favor of maintaining the art on the wall, the Council ordered it be removed.
Recent Actions.
In 2022 SFJP co-sponsored an event in ABQ with JVP-ABQ Coalition and others featuring Maen Hammad, an Amnesty researcher whose investigation found Israel to be an apartheid state.
In April 2023, SFJP sponsored a NM speaking tour with Miko Peled, Jewish Israeli author of The General’s Son. Show poster. The title of Miko’s presentation: “Palestinians on the Edge of the Precipice. Where do we go from here?”
May 15th 2023 represented the 75th anniversary of the catastrophe of 1948 when invading Israeli soldiers killed Palestinians and drove 750,000 Palestinians from their homes to create the Jewish supremacist state of Israel on Palestinians lands. SFJP publicized Al Nakba events and the Nakba’s first time recognition by the UN General Assembly, and promoted the new Netflix documentary about the slaughter of Palestinians in 1948.
What’s happening now?
Steering Committee Chair
Jeffrey Haas
Jeffrey Haas was born and raised in Atlanta, Georgia and attended the University of Michigan and University of Chicago Law School. He was one of the founders of Peoples’ Law Office (PLO) in Chicago in 1969 where he worked on Movement criminal defense and police brutality civil rights cases from 1969 to 2002.
Along with his PLO law partners he represented the families of Fred Hampton and Mark Clark in a thirteen-year civil rights case that exposed the FBI led Cointelpro conspiracy that resulted in a Chicago Police raid on Dec. 4, 1969 that killed Hampton and Clark. He also represented persons charged after the prison rebellions at Attica in 1971 and Pontiac prison rebellion in 1978.
Jeff moved to New Mexico in 2001 where his wife Mariel Nanasi and he organized the Action Coalition of Taos to protest the Iraq War. In 2007 he earned an MFA in creative nonfiction from Bennington College and in 2009 finished writing The Assassination of Fred Hampton: How the FBI and Chicago Police Murdered a Black Panther. From 2016 to 2018 Jeff was one of the main attorneys organizing the defense for Water Protectors at Standing Rock, ND and he was on the Board of the Water Protector Legal Collective from 2016 until 2023.
Jeff has been a Palestinian rights activist and organizer since 2008, when he and others formed Another Jewish Voice of Santa Fe to protest the Israeli bombings of Gaza. In 2014 the organization became Santa Feans for Justice in Palestine, incorporating a leadership of civil and human rights activists, scholars and authors. Jeff is currently on the Advisory Board of the Adalah Justice Project.
Jeff currently lives with his wife Mariel Nanasi, the Executive Director of New Energy Economy, in Santa Fe, New Mexico.