BDS Movement Gains Support of Activist Chicano Student Group

Leaders of the National Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlán (MEChA), a Chicano student organization, recently voted to endorse the Palestinian call for Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS). The endorsement was approved at the group’s 18th annual conference in Phoenix, Arizona, on March 30. A press release issued after the conference noted that BDS is necessary in light of Israel’s “military occupation and settlement of Palestine.”

The Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) chapters at Arizona State University and the University of Arizona helped MeChA arrive at its endorsement and, according to the statement, led several workshops on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict at the conference.

One of the sessions was called “Concrete Connections,” which compared the U.S.-Mexico border fence to the Israeli security fence in the West Bank, and explored the potential for “cross-movement building” for Palestinians and Latin-Americans. The statement about the conference concluded with, “Together, these civil societies – from Arizona to Palestine – are working towards one goal of fighting oppression and resisting everyday injustice.”

Earlier this week, the Pacific Northwest chapter of MeChA held a regional conference at The Evergreen State College (TESC) in which it endorsed BDS as well. During the conference, MeChA-Evergreen invited other activists involved in the divestment campaign (known as TESC Divest!) to participate in a teach-in connecting the BDS movement to the “indigenous struggles in the Americas.”

A statement issued by the group read, “We recognize that our peoples’ historical and present struggles - against deportation, occupation, exploitation, and dehumanization - in Arizona, in the border, and in the United States - not only coincide, but are also connected to Palestinians’ struggle against Israeli military occupation and settlement of Palestine.”

TESC Divest! has been spearheaded by SJP at Evergreen, as well as the newly formed Olympia, Washington, chapter of Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP).

In recent years, there has been growing collaboration between MeChA, which has approximately 400 chapters around the United States, and Palestinian solidarity groups. Campus chapters of MeChA and SJP (largely on West Coast campuses and especially at University of California schools) have co-sponsored a variety of events seeking to highlight connections between Palestinians and the Latino-American community.

MeChA chapters have even co-sponsored anti-Israel events on campus that have featured extreme speakers and anti-Semites, including an appearance by Amir Abdul Malik Ali at the University of California, Riverside in May 2009. At the appearance, Malik Ali claimed that U.S. politicians are controlled by Israel, warned that although “many are afraid of Zionists…Muslims are not afraid” and described Israelis as “the new Nazis.”

Glenn Spencer, Anti-Hispanic Bigot and Anti-Semite, Speaks to Arizona State Senate

Glenn Spencer, the head of American Border Patrol, an anti-Hispanic hate group, spoke in front of the Arizona State Senate’s Border Security Committee on March 1, 2012. Spencer, who regularly demonizes Hispanics and immigrants, presents himself as an authority on immigration.  Last year, he attempted to speak to the same committee but was “uninvited” after protests from the Anti-Defamation League and others. Spencer’s appearance this year came as a surprise since his name had reportedly not been placed on the committee’s agenda.

Spencer regularly does video surveillance of the Mexican-American border from his ranch in Sierra Vista, Arizona, and maintains two Web sites about his activities. Many of the articles on his Web sites contain anti-Mexican rhetoric and promote the “Reconquista” or Aztlan conspiracy theory that Mexicans in this country are plotting to take over the southwestern part of the United States.

Spencer has appeared at white supremacist events in the past.  In addition, he has directed his bigotry at Jews. In December 2008, Spencer wrote an article on his Web site entitled “Is Jew-Controlled Hollywood Brainwashing Americans?” In the article, Spencer claimed to have many Jewish friends who “have been extremely instrumental in fighting illegal immigration.” However, he asserted,  “this small handful of patriotic Americans are far outnumbered by liberal Jews who now have total control over our media,” adding that “with my memories of the Hollywood elite, I think it is now time that Americans be forewarned that they are probably subject to clever pro-illegal alien propaganda every time they watch something produced in Hollywood.”

Spencer has also been linked to border vigilante extremist Shawna Forde. Forde received the death penalty in 2011 for her role in the May 2009 murders of Raul Junior Flores and his nine-year-old daughter Brisenia during a home invasion in Arivaca, Arizona.  Authorities arrested Forde for the murders in June 2009, shortly after she left Spencer’s property where she had stopped to send emails from her laptop.  Spencer had apparently allowed Forde to live on his property in 2008, but claimed that he told her afterwards that she was no longer welcome at the ranch. 

White Supremacist Dennis Mahon Found Guilty in 2004 Bombing

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A jury in Arizona found Dennis Mahon, 61, a longtime white supremacist and anti-Semite, guilty in the 2004 mail bombing that severely injured Don Logan, an African-American who was director of Scottsdale’s Diversity and Dialogue Office at the time. The jury, however, stopped short of calling the incident a hate crime.

The jury found Dennis Mahon guilty on three charges: conspiracy to damage buildings and property by means of explosives, malicious damage of a building by means of explosives, and distribution of information related to explosives. Also charged in the case was Mahon’s twin brother Daniel, but the jury found Daniel not guilty of the one charge against him: conspiracy to damage buildings and properties.

Police originally arrested the Mahon brothers in June 2009. The arrests followed a lengthy investigation of the mail bombing, which occurred on February 26, 2004, when a box addressed to Logan exploded when he tried to open it at his Scottsdale office.

Both brothers have a long history of involvement in the white supremacist movement. Dennis Mahon held leadership positions within various white supremacist groups in the Midwest in the 1980s and 1990s, including the Ku Klux Klan and White Aryan Resistance (WAR), a now-defunct group led by well-known racist Tom Metzger. Metzger has long advocated “lone wolf” activity. According to the lone wolf model, individuals and small cells engage in activity that leave behind the fewest clues for law enforcement authorities, decreasing the chances that activists will end up getting caught. 

Dennis Mahon reportedly moved to Arizona from the Midwest in 2001 to establish WAR’s presence in the area. His brother Daniel joined him in Arizona.

Daniel Mahon was also an active white supremacist. In May 1999, according to court papers, American Airlines fired him after he violated written work rules that “prohibited threatening and intimidating behavior toward other employees and conduct detrimental to other employees and American Airlines.” Mahon was under investigation by the company for his activities related to his participation in a “Caucasian Employee Resource Group.”

ADL provided assistance to investigators throughout the lengthy case.