Seahawks’s Michael Bennett Boycotting NFL’s Israel Trip
Michael Bennett, the Seattle Seahawks defensive lineman, pulled out of an Israeli-government sponsored trip to the country, after BDS activists urged him to do in protest of human rights violations against Palestinians.
Im not going to Israel pic.twitter.com/KWzA0nCiFb
— Michael Bennett (@mosesbread72) February 10, 2017
The boycott petition, organized by the U.S. campaign for Palestinian Rights, was signed by prominent activists like Angela Davis, Alice Walker and Harry Belafonte. The seven-day trip, which will still go forward with 11 other National Football League players, is being paid for by the Israeli Ministries of Strategic Affairs and Tourism. Its goal is to turn the players into “goodwill ambassadors” for the country.
Bennett was a member of the Seahawks when the team prevailed in Super Bowl XLVIII to become NFL champions.
Contact Daniel J. Solomon at solomon@forward.com or on Twitter @DanielJSolomon
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you move on, I wanted to ask you to support the Forward’s award-winning journalism during our High Holiday Monthly Donor Drive.
If you’ve turned to the Forward in the past 12 months to better understand the world around you, we hope you will support us with a gift now. Your support has a direct impact, giving us the resources we need to report from Israel and around the U.S., across college campuses, and wherever there is news of importance to American Jews.
Make a monthly or one-time gift and support Jewish journalism throughout 5785. The first six months of your monthly gift will be matched for twice the investment in independent Jewish journalism.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO