ANTI-RACIST JEWISH OPINIONS ON ZIONISM H-N

HALPER, JEFF. Jewish Israeli Professor Jeff Halper slams Israel's extreme right-wing and militaristic policies

Jeff Halper is a Jewish American Israeli. A professor of anthropology, lecturer, political activist, author of several books and co-founder (1997) and Coordinator of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICHAD) (see Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeff_Halper ) .

Jeff Halper re his arrests for anti-racist, humanitarian activism: “[I tell the judge] I am serving the community but they just don't get it! . . . The Israeli government simply does not want to take responsibility and the USA government ignores the situation. Look, Christ was all about justice and love. Jesus was no magician and his message has been lost by Christian Zionists who want Armageddon. They have taken Jesus' teachings and turned them into a travesty by justifying the occupation. Do you know why Israel does not want to become America's 51st state? Because then they would only have two senators!" [1].

Jeff Halper re racist Zionist perversion and attempts to silence him in Australia: “A funny thing happened to me on my way to synagogue in Sydney; my scheduled talk was cancelled… The uproar caused by the prospect of my speaking to the Jewish community in Australia is truly startling to an Israeli. After all, opinions similar to mine are readily available in the mainstream Israeli media. Indeed, I write frequently for the Israeli press and appear regularly on Israeli TV and radio. Why, then, the hysteria? …Well, almost 30 per cent of Israeli citizens are not Jews, we may have permanently incorporated another 4 million Palestinians - the residents of the Occupied Territories - into our country and, to top it off, it's clear by now that the vast majority of the world's Jews are not going to emigrate to Israel. Those facts, plus the urgent need of Israel to make peace with its neighbours, mean something. They mean that Israel must change in ways David Ben-Gurion and Leon Uris never envisioned, even if that is hard for Diaspora Jews to accept.” [2].

Jeff Halper (an anti-racist Jewish American Israeli, professor of anthropology, lecturer, political activist, author of several books and co-founder (1997) and coordinator of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICHAD)) on Israeli Apartheid (2015): “Israel is an apartheid state implementing a Matrix of Control which transforms the Occupied Palestinian Territory into probably the most monitored, controlled and militarised place on earth. It epitomises the dream of every general, security expert and police officer to be able to exercise total biopolitical control. In a situation where the local population enjoys no effective legal protections or privacy, they and their lands become a laboratory where the latest technologies of surveillance, control and suppression are perfected and showcased, giving Israel an edge in the highly competitive global market” [3].

[1]. Eileen Fleming, “American Israeli Jeff Halper arrested for 8th time in Jerusalem”, Online Opinion, 8 April 2008: http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_3149.shtml .

[2]. Jeff Halper, “Diaspora Jewry needs to let go of idealised Israel”, Sydney Morning Herald, 10 April 2009: http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/diaspora-jewry-needs-to-let-go-of-idealised-israel-20090409-a1y6.html?page=-1 .

[3]. Jeff Halper, “War against the People: Israel, the Palestinians and Global Pacification”, Pluto Press, 2015, p.143; quoted in Gareth W.R. Smith, “Apartheid Israel doesn’t need defending, Palestine does”, Echonetdaily, 20 January 2017: https://www.echo.net.au/2017/01/apartheid-israel-doesnt-need-defending-palestine/ ).

HARVARD PROFESSORS. Statement by [72] Harvard Faculty in Support of Palestinian Liberation.

Statement by Harvard Faculty in Support of Palestinian Liberation (22 May 2021):“As US-based scholars who oppose racism and colonial violence in all its forms, we write to express solidarity with the Palestinian people in their struggle for freedom and self-determination. Israeli state violence has devastated Palestinian life through a combination of warfare, territorial theft, and violent displacement. Unwavering US financial, military, and political support has fueled an apartheid system that institutionalizes the domination and repression of Palestinians. The recent reports by Human Rights Watch and the Israeli human rights organization B’tselem are only the latest to document this reality. The current effort to expel Palestinians from Jerusalem’s Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood; the violence in Israeli cities like Lydda and Haifa, in which Israeli police stand by and facilitate right-wing extremist attacks on Palestinians; and the military attack on the Gaza Strip are only the most recent events in a decades-long process of dispossession.

Palestinians are not only denied freedom and self-determination, they are even denied the right to resist. Palestinian resistance in all its forms is criminalized by Israel and the US. Every measure of self-defense by a people without a state or an army against a nuclear power backed by the US is subject to immediate censure while Israel continues its violent aggressions with impunity.

Suppression of support for Palestinian liberation extends into the US academy where even scholarly criticism of Israeli human rights violations is increasingly equated with antisemitism and forbidden by law. The situation in Israel, Gaza, and the West Bank is far worse. Academic freedom and basic educational rights are unavailable for students and faculty at Palestinian universities, and the rights of Palestinians at Israeli universities are severely curtailed. The Israeli government and academic institutions routinely punish scholars – both Jews and Palestinians – who criticize the state’s policies.

In this moment when Israeli ethnonationalist violence is at an all-time high, US military support remains steadfast, and solidarity with Palestine is criminalized, US-based scholars cannot be silent. We demand an end to US support for Israel’s apartheid regime, condemn Israeli state aggression, and affirm our support for the Palestinian liberation struggle.

Signatories

Ajantha Subramanian, Anthropology and South Asian Studies

Steven Caton, Anthropology

Vijay Iyer, Music and African and African American Studies

Walter Johnson, History and African and African American Studies

Kirsten Weld, History

Rosie Bsheer, History

Diane L. Moore, Religion and Public Life

Evelynn M. Hammonds, History of Science and African an African American Studies

Robert F. Pharr, Studies of Women, Gender, and Sexuality and African and African American Studies

Arunabh Ghosh, History

Ju Yon Kim, English

Sidney Chalhoub, History and African and African American Studies

Teju Cole, English

Cemal Kafadar, History

Soha Bayoumi, History of Science

Caroline Light, Studies of Women, Gender, and Sexuality

Bram Wispelwey, Medicine

Lucien Castaing-Taylor, Anthropology and Art, Film, and Visual Studies

Susanna Siegel, Philosophy

Michael Herzfeld, Anthropology

Ned Hall, Philosophy

Glenda Carpio, English and African and African American Studies

Ernst Karel, Anthropology and Art, Film, and Visual Studies

Joyce E. Chaplin, History

Adaner Usmani, Sociology and Social Studies

Tara K Menon, English

Bernhard Nickel, Philosophy

Ali Asani, Study of Religion and Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations

Michael Bronski, Studies of Women, Gender, and Sexuality

Robin Bernstein, African and African American Studies and Studies of Women, Gender, and Sexuality

Alice Jardine, Romance Languages and Literatures and Studies of Women, Gender, and Sexuality

Jean Comaroff, African and African American Studies and Anthropology

Nicholas Harkness, Anthropology

Musa Syeed, English

Ingrid Monson, Music and African and African American Studies

Sarah S. Richardson, History of Science and Studies of Women, Gender, and Sexuality

Alex Rehding, Music

Lucie White, Harvard Law School

Suzanne Preston Blier, History of Art and Architecture; African and African American Studies

Katrina Forrester, Government and Social Studies

Christopher Hasty, Music

Robb Moss, Art, Film, and Visual Studies

Gabriela Soto Laveaga, History of Science

Ana Isabel Keilson, Social Studies

Sugata Bose, History and South Asian Studies

Peter E. Gordon, History

Jesse McCarthy, English and African and African American Studies

Jeffrey Schnapp, metaLAB (at) Harvard; Romance Languages and Literatures

Vincent Brown, History and African and African American Studies

Sylvaine Guyot, Romance Languages and Literatures and Theater, Dance & Media

Tracey Rosen, Social Studies

Tom Conley, Romance Languages and Art, Film & Visual Studies

Glory Liu, Social Studies

Linda Schlossberg, Studies of Women, Gender, and Sexuality

András Riedlmayer, Aga Khan Program for Islamic Architecture

Andrea Wright, Anthropology

Mary D. Lewis, History

Namwali Serpell, English

Malavika Reddy, Anthropology

Philip Deloria, History

Peter Der Manuelian, NELC and Anthropology

George Paul Meiu, Anthropology and AAAS

Matthew Liebmann, Anthropology

Byron Good, Global Health and Social Medicine, and Anthropology

Mary-Jo DelVecchio Good, Global Health and Social Medicine

Claire Messud, English

Claire Chase, Music

Karthik Pandian, Art, Film, and Visual Studies

Carissa Rodriguez, Art, Film and Visual Studies

Salma Waheedi, Harvard Law School

Rebecca Williams, Harvard Kennedy School

Samuel Dolbee, History and Literature” (“Statement by [72] Harvard Faculty in Support of Palestinian Liberation”, Palestinian Forum, 22 May 2021: https://www.palestineforum.net/statement-by-harvard-faculty-in-support-of-palestinian-liberation/ ).

HASHOMER HATZAI (The Young Guard): “A Nazi is a Nazi he be a Jew or otherwise, and it is a false sentiment of the Jewish people to condemn Nazism and condone Jewish fascism”

Hashomer Hatzai (The Young Guard, a secular socialist Jewish Zionist youth movement founded in 1913 in Galicia, Austrian Poland) on 13th March, 1946: “A Nazi is a Nazi he be a Jew or otherwise, and it is a false sentiment of the Jewish people to condemn Nazism and condone Jewish fascism” (Hashomer Hatzai quoted in Vacy Vlazna, “How terrorism created modern Israel- Book Review”, Palestine Chronicle, 7 February 2018: http://www.palestinechronicle.com/terrorism-created-modern-israel-book-review/ ).

HASS, Amira. Jewish Israeli Haaretz journalist: "[Israelis] turned Gaza into an internment and punishment camp for 1.8 million human beings"

Amira Hass (Jewish Israeli Haaretz journalist) (2014): “Those who rejected Fatah and Yasser Arafat’s peace proposal for two states have now been given Haniyeh, Hamas and BDS. Those who turned Gaza into an internment and punishment camp for 1.8 million human beings should not be surprised that they tunnel underneath the earth. Those who sow strangling, siege and isolation reap rocket fire. Those who have, for 47 years, indiscriminately crossed the Green Line, expropriating land and constantly harming civilians in raids, shootings and settlements – what right do they have to roll their eyes and speak of Palestinian terror against civilians? (Amira Hass, “Reaping what we have sown in Gaza” Information Clearing House, 22 July 2014: http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article39186.htm ).

HELLMAN, Lillian. Anti-racist Jewish American writer: "Zionism is an atavism"

Lillian Hellman (June 20, 1905 – June 30, 1984) was an anti-racist Jewish American author of plays, screenplays, and memoirs and was linked with many socialist and humanitarian causes. Outstanding anti-racist Jewish American writer Lillian Hellman was hated and defamed by the Zionists. Alice Kessler-Harris has recently observed that "Hellman was understood by many people in the fifties and sixties to be a "non-Jewish Jew" or a "self-hating Jew". Yet she had been an early opponent of Hitler's Germany and an active contributor to funds for Jewish refugees in the late thirties and forties". Zionist fanatics picketed the Academy Awards in which Vanessa Redgrave was awarded an Oscar for her performance as Julia in "Julia" based on a controversial story about an anti-Nazi heroine by Lillian Hellman (Jane Fonda played Lillian Hellman) (Google "Vanessa Redgrave" for the Wikipedia account: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vanessa_Redgrave ). One can begin to understand the venom of Mary McCarthy's appalling demolition of Lillian Hellman; "Everything she writes is a lie, including "and" and "the"" (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lillian_Hellman ).

Lillian Hellman: "Zionism is an atavism", "[Zionists] were angry that I wasn't" and "I am not only not a well-known Zionist, but Zionist have accused me of being an anti-Zionist". [1].

[1]. Lillian Hellman quoted in “The Stolen Legacy of Ann Frank. Meyer Levin, Lillian Hellman, and the Staging of the Diary.” by Ralph Melnick (p34).

HESSEL, Stéphane. Jewish French Resistance hero & humanitarian compares German Occupation of France in WW2 with Apartheid Israel Occupation of Palestine

Stéphane Frédéric Hessel (20 October 1917 – 26 February 2013) was a Jewish German who became a French citizen. He was diplomat, ambassador, writer, concentration camp survivor, French Resistance fighter and an agent of the Bureau Central de Renseignements et d'Action (Central Bureau of Intelligence and Operations, commonly referred as the BCRA, the World War II-era forerunner of the SDECE, the French intelligence service)(. Born German, he became a naturalised French citizen in 1939. He participated in the editing of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948. His short book Time for Outrage! sold 4.5 million copies worldwide (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St%C3%A9phane_Hessel ).

In 2011 Hessel wrote an article in the German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine, in which he compares the Nazi occupation of France during WWII with the occupation of Palestinian Territories by Israeli army: "The German occupation [of France] was, when compared for example with the present occupation of Palestine by the Israelis, a relatively harmless occupation, apart from exceptions like the arrests, detentions and executions, also of the theft of art treasures.” [1].

[1]. Stéphane Frédéric Hessel quoted in “”, Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St%C3%A9phane_Hessel .

HIRSCH, Samson Raphael. Outstanding 19th century Rabbi Hirsch; Zionism forbidden by orthodox Judaism

Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch (1808-1888) was the most outstanding German and European rabbi of the 19th century (for biographical details see Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samson_Raphael_Hirsch ) .

Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch: “"We mourn over the sin which brought about that downfall (the Temple destruction -- author), we take to heart the harshness which we have encountered in our years of wandering as the chastisement of a father, imposed on us for our improvement, and we mourn the lack of observance of the Torah which that ruin has brought about. Not in order to shine as a nation among nations do we raise our prayers and hopes for a reunion in our land, but in order to find a soil for the better fulfillment of our spiritual vocation in that reunion and in that land which was promised, and given, and again promised for our observance of the Torah. But this very vocation obliges us, until G-d shall call us back to the Holy Land, to live and to work as patriots wherever He has placed us, to collect all the physical, material and spiritual forces and all that is noble in Israel to further the weal of the nations which have given us shelter. It obliges us, further, to allow our longing for the far-off land to express itself only in mourning, in wishing and hoping; and only through the honest fulfillment of all Jewish duties to await the realization of this hope. But it forbids us to strive for the reunion or possession of the land by any but spiritual means. Our Sages say G-d imposed three vows when he sent Israel into the wilderness: (1) that the children of Israel shall never seek to reestablish their nation by themselves; (2) that they never be disloyal to the nations which have given them shelter; (3) that these nations shall not oppress them excessively (Kesubos 111a). The purpose of our exile, in addition to that of punishment, is to test us. Nachmanides (1194-1278) writes that the ultimate redemption depends on the Jewish people remaining faithful and preserving their identity in all the lands of their exile. This is a difficult task. The forces of persecution and the enticements of assimilation have often proved all too powerful. Yet, despite all, a remnant of Jewry has always remained faithful and continues so, praise be to G-d, until this very day. Thus, Jews are enjoined to perform a most precarious balancing act. On the one hand there is the obligation to act in an honest, empathetic, loyal and patriotic manner towards the nation in which they dwell. This obligation extends to Jewish relations with all peoples living within the nation. On the other hand, there is a need for spiritual and to some extent social isolation in order to practice the Torah and preserve Jewish survival. Inclining too far to either side of this dichotomy can result in much evil and confusion. In the proper balance, though, lies the fulfillment of Jewish destiny. And, combined with the yearning for the Messiah, it is the only recipe for the world's salvation”. [1].

Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch (in a prayer book commentary): “During the reign of Hadrian when the uprising led by Bar Kochba proved a disastrous error, it became essential that the Jewish people be reminded for all times of an important, essential fact, namely that (the people of) Israel must never again attempt to restore its national independence by its own power; it was to entrust its future as a nation solely to Divine Providence." [1].

Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch and Reform Jews’ opposition to Zionism as summarized by Dan Cohn-Sherbok and Lavinia Cohn-Sherbok (2010): “Reform Jews therefore objected to Zionism because it undermined Jewish allegiance to host nations and because it emphasized the ethnic, nationalistic spirit of Judaism. Many of the Strictly Orthodox disapproved of Zionism for completely different reasons. Although the Torah teaches that it is the duty of all Jews to pray for the return to Zion, this ingathering must be preceded by the messianic redemption. Only when God has sent His long-promised “anointed one” will the exiles of Israel return to the Holy Land and all nations will turn to Jerusalem to learn of the One God. The neo-Orthodox leader, Samson Raphael Hirsch (1808-88), had taught that it was forbidden to accelerate divine deliverance and that it would happen in God’s good time. The Zionist movement was thus perceived as an evil conspiracy against God’s will and yet another episode in the long history of false messianic hopes” [2].

[1]. Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch, quoted by True Torah Jews Against Zionism: http://www.jewsagainstzionism.com/rabbi_quotes/hirsch.cfm .

[2]. Dan Cohn-Sherbok and Lavinia Cohn-Sherbok, “Judaism: A Beginner’s Guide”, Oneworld, 2010.

HONIG-PARNASS, Tikva: "Discussion of Israel’s democracy must include both the obvious and observable apartheid regime in the 1967 Occupied Territories—to which the left abroad is willing to admit—and the somewhat masked apartheid within the Green Line (“Israel Proper”)"

Tikva Honig-Parnass (anti-racist Jewish Israeli socialist activist and member of the Israeli Socialist Organization Matzpen (“Compass”); she is also a veteran of the 1948 War)(2019): “The Israeli regime encompasses by now all historical Palestine—from the Mediterranean to the Jordan River. Israel has settled half a million of its own citizens there; it has extended its own laws there and uses aquifers and airspace there every single day. In practice, Israel has annexed the West Bank without officially declaring it. Many among the left Zionists adhere to the misleading claim that the West Bank (and Gaza) are exterior to the state of Israel and that the 1967 occupation is only temporary and eventually these areas will constitute the independent Palestinian state. They thus conceal the fact that these areas have in fact been annexed and are part and parcel of Greater Israel—something that allows them to retain the image of Israel as “the only democracy in the Middle East.” Zionism has enforced its government on different parts of Palestine in different historical stages. Hence the different levels of civil rights and civil status of the Palestinian inhabitants of these parts—from no civil rights in the West Bank and Gaza, to formal citizenship granted to the remaining Palestinians after the Nakba of 1948, something that was a condition imposed on Israel in order to be accepted as a member of the United Nations. Therefore, the discussion of Israel’s democracy must include both the obvious and observable apartheid regime in the 1967 Occupied Territories—to which the left abroad is willing to admit—and the somewhat masked apartheid within the Green Line (“Israel Proper”), which they are reluctant to depict as such and still regard as a democracy” (Tikva Honig-Parnass interviewed by Leo Fischer, “Apartheid Israel and the contradictions of left Zionism”, International Socialist Review, Issue #72, 2 May 2019: https://isreview.org/issue/72/apartheid-israel-and-contradictions-left-zionism ) [the last issue after 22 years: https://isreview.org/issue/72 ].

HONOR LIST: numerous anti-racist Jewish and non-Jewish supporters of Palestinian human rights have been listed in an extensive Honor List

Numerous anti-racist Jewish and non-Jewish supporters of Palestinian human rights have been listed in an extensive Honor List by Professor Mazin Qumsiyeh (see “Honor List”, Qumsiyeh: a human rights web: http://qumsiyeh.org/honorlist/ ).

INDEPENDENT AUSTRALIAN JEWISH VOICES. IAJV for non-racism, rejects false "anti-Semitism" Zionist assertions

Independent Australian Jewish Voices (IAJV) is a group containing some of Australia's most eminent Jewish scholars and professionals who urge peace with justice, human rights and equality in Palestine.

Independent Australian Jewish Voices (IAJV), “Statement of Principles: A Call for an Alternative View”, 2007 :

“We are Jews with diverse opinions on the Middle East who share a deep concern about the current crisis in the region.

We are committed to ensuring a just peace that recognizes the legitimate national aspirations of both Israelis and Palestinians with a solution that protects the human rights of all.

We condemn violence by all parties, whether state sanctioned or not. We believe that Israel’s right to exist must be recognized and that Palestinians’ right to a homeland must also be acknowledged.

As Australians we are privileged to live in a democratic state that embodies the principles of tolerance and free speech. We feel there is an urgent need to hear alternative voices that should not be silenced by being labelled disloyal or “self-hating.”

Uncritical allegiance to Israeli government policy does not necessarily serve Israel’s best interests. Our concern for justice and peace in the Middle East is a legitimate opinion and should be met by reasoned argument rather than vilification and intimidation. In particular, we are concerned that the Jewish establishment does not represent the full range of Jewish opinion. Contrary to widespread concerns, anti-Semitism is not fuelled by Jews who publicly disagree with actions of the Jewish State.

Jews understand what it is to suffer racism and victimization and therefore we are not only concerned about anti-Semitism but also the demonisation of all other minorities.

We call upon fellow Jews to join us in supporting free debate to further the prospects of peace, security and human rights in the Middle East.

[1]. Independent Australian Jewish Voices, “Statement of Principles: A Call for an Alternative View”, 2007 : http://www.iajv.org/the-declaration/ .

INDEPENDENT JEWISH VOICES (Canada). 1st in Boycott, Disinvestment & Sanctions (BDS) campaign against Israel

Independent Jewish Voices (Canada) is the first Jewish organization in the World to join Boycott, Disinvestment & Sanctions (BDS) campaign in support of Palestinians (see: http://www.bdsmovement.net/?q=node/453 ; IJV (Canada) website: http://www.independentjewishvoices.ca/ ).

Independent Jewish Voices (Canada) voted to the Boycott, Disinvestment & Sanctions (BDS) campaign at its 2009 AGM with the support of 95% of voting delegates, and also called on the Canadian government to "1) cease its one-sided and uncritical support for Israel and 2) insist that Israel abide by international law”.

Diana Ralph, Co-Chair of IJV: "Independent Jewish Voices has voted to join the international boycott campaign because we stand in solidarity with the Palestinian people and support their right to self-determination. We are calling on the Canadian government and all Members of Parliament to push for immediate sanctions on Israel."

Fabienne Presentey, Steering Committee member of IJV: "The time has come for people around the world to rise to the challenge in Israel/Palestine, as we did for South Africa. All voices that can be raised against this injustice must be". [1]

Independent Jewish Voices (Canada), February 19, 2009 Press Release, about Stephen Harper Conservative government’s position on the Israeli/Palestinian conflict and Minister Jason Kenney’s cutting off funding for English Second Language training programs run by the Canadian Arab Federation (CAF): :

We believe that Mr. Kenny [sic] and his Conservative government is threatening CAF’s funding because CAF stands for justice for Palestinian people and because it expresses principled criticism of oppressive Israeli policies.

As Jews, we affirm that criticizing Israeli policies is NOT anti-Semitic. Anti-Semitism refers to hostility and/or prejudice against Jews. Like any other government, Israel has obligations under international law.

To responsibly raise critical concerns about the discriminatory, illegal, and brutal policies of another government is an ethical imperative, which our government should support.

However, the Conservative government has gone further than any previous Canadian administration in endorsing illegal and brutal Israeli assaults on Palestinian and Lebanese people.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper has pledged complete allegiance with Israel and labels as “anti-Semitic” any criticism of Israeli actions (including the Gaza massacre, house demolitions, use of illegal phosphorous and DIME weapons against civilians, etc.).

As Jews, we believe this is a dishonest smoke-screen, a ploy to discredit principled calls for humanity, justice, and compliance with international law.” [2].

[1]. “Independent Jewish Voices (Canada) joins Campaign of Boycott, Disinvestment and Sanctions against Israel”, Global BDS Movement, 17 June, 2009: http://www.bdsmovement.net/?q=node/453 .

[2]. Independent Jewish Voices (Canada), February 19, 2009 Press Release, quoted by Edward Corrigan in “Is it anti-Semitism to defend Palestinian human rights? Jewish opposition to Zionism”, Dissident Voice, 1 September 2009: http://dissidentvoice.org/2009/09/is-it-anti-semitic-to-defend-palestinian-human-rights/ .

INDEPENDENT JEWISH VOICES, UK (IJV, UK). Pro-peace IJV (UK) rejects any form of racism

Independent Jewish Voices (IJV) is a UK organization of pro-Peace British Jews launched in 2007 by 150 eminent British Jews including Nobel Laureate Harold Pinter (see IJV website: http://jewishvoices.squarespace.com/ and Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Independent_Jewish_Voices ).

Independent Jewish Voices (IJV) Declaration: “We are a group of Jews in Britain from diverse backgrounds, occupations and affiliations who have in common a strong commitment to social justice and universal human rights. We come together in the belief that the broad spectrum of opinion among the Jewish population of this country is not reflected by those institutions which claim authority to represent the Jewish community as a whole. We further believe that individuals and groups within all communities should feel free to express their views on any issue of public concern without incurring accusations of disloyalty.

We have therefore resolved to promote the expression of alternative Jewish voices, particularly in respect of the grave situation in the Middle East, which threatens the future of both Israelis and Palestinians as well as the stability of the whole region. We are guided by the following principles:

1. Human rights are universal and indivisible and should be upheld without exception. This is as applicable in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories as it is elsewhere.

2. Palestinians and Israelis alike have the right to peaceful and secure lives.

3. Peace and stability require the willingness of all parties to the conflict to comply with international law.

4. There is no justification for any form of racism, including anti-Semitism, anti-Arab racism or Islamophobia, in any circumstance.

5. The battle against anti-Semitism is vital and is undermined whenever opposition to Israeli government policies is automatically branded as anti-Semitic.

These principles are contradicted when those who claim to speak on behalf of Jews in Britain and other countries consistently put support for the policies of an occupying power above the human rights of an occupied people. The Palestinian inhabitants of the West Bank and Gaza Strip face appalling living conditions with desperately little hope for the future. We declare our support for a properly negotiated peace between the Israeli and Palestinian people and oppose any attempt by the Israeli government to impose its own solutions on the Palestinians.

It is imperative and urgent that independent Jewish voices find a coherent and consistent way of asserting themselves on these and other issues of concern. We hereby reclaim the tradition of Jewish support for universal freedoms, human rights and social justice. The lessons we have learned from our own history compel us to speak out. We therefore commit ourselves to make public our views on a continuing basis and invite other concerned Jews to join and support us.” [1].

[1]. A time to speak out: Independent Jewish Voices (UK): http://jewishvoices.squarespace.com/declaration-2/ .

INTERNATIONAL JEWISH ANTI-ZIONIST NETWORK (IJAN). IJAN slams US imperialism and Zionist racist colonization

The International Jewish anti-Zionist Network (IJAN) is opposed to racism, colonialism and imperialism and to racist Zionism in particular (see: http://www.ijsn.net/home/ ).

The International Jewish anti-Zionist Network (IJAN) is opposed to racism, colonialism and imperialism and to racist Zionism in particular (see: http://www.ijsn.net/home/ ).

The International Jewish anti-Zionist Network (IJAN) to the Tayyar International Conference, 2009: “The International Jewish anti-Zionist Network (IJAN) is a growing network of Jews whose identities are not based on Zionism but on long histories of Jewish participation in liberation struggles from Eastern Europe and Iraq to Brooklyn. IJAN's solidarity with this conference reflects our commitment to these legacies and to our participation in current struggles against racism, colonization, and imperialism. Central to this commitment is solidarity with Arab liberation struggles against US imperialism and Zionism.” [1].

The International Jewish anti-Zionist Network (IJAN) re the pro-Zionist US Alliance and Israeli attempts to derail the anti-racism Durban Conferecne , April 2009: “We are appalled by the concerted effort, led by Israeli officials, Zionist organizations and apologists, to derail the Durban Review Conference. We condemn the use of the memory of the Nazi genocide, as Jewish organizations did during the Durban Review week, in the defense of Israel's systematic domination and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians … It is beyond obvious to us that a conference about racism, and especially a conference that seeks to address the legacy of colonial oppression, must discuss Israel, since Israel is a settler-colonial state that systematically oppresses and denies basic human rights to millions of Palestinians. Israel's attempt to derail this important conference in order to avoid being examined and called to account is an affront against all the victims of racism all over the world, including the six million Jews who perished in the Nazi genocide. “ [1].

Letter published in March 2011 by the International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network that endorses the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) campaign against Israel. The letter was issued in response to a February 15 statement by Zionist (pro-Israel) groups that said the BDS campaign was anti-Semitic and “antithetical to freedom of speech”:

LETTER: "Because academic, cultural and commercial boycotts, divestments and sanctions of Israel:

• are being called for by Palestinian civil society in response to the occupation and colonisation of their land,

• are a moral tool of non-violent, peaceful response to more than sixty years of Israeli colonialism,

• and, rightfully place accountability on Israeli institutions (and their allies and partners) that use business, cultural, and academic ties to white-wash Israel’s responsibility for continuing crimes against humanity,

The undersigned organisations and individuals stand firm in our support of boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) initiatives against Israel until it meets its obligation to recognise the Palestinian people’s inalienable right to self-determination and fully complies with the precepts of international law.

BDS is not anti-Semitic

We reject the notion that the 2005 BDS call from Palestine, and the BDS campaigns the world over which it has inspired, are rooted in anti-Jewish sentiment.

On the contrary, BDS is an anti-racist movement against the daily, brutal occupation of Palestine and military threat to the region by the state of Israel.

False claims of anti-Semitism distort the true nature of the Palestinian struggle and are an affront to, and betrayal of, the long history of Jewish survival and resistance to persecution.

BDS is not anti-democratic

We also reject the assertion that the cultural and academic boycotts of Israel defy the democratic principle of free speech.

Research and development in academic institutions play a central role in designing and defending Israel’s military and intelligence machinery.

Cultural institutions perpetuate the deception of Israeli democracy. To defend freedom of speech for those who disregard justice while demonising those who struggle for justice is a great disservice to genuine democracy.

Through boycott, divestment and sanctions, civil society asserts our commitment to not contribute to the Israeli state, which is responsible for atrocious acts of disregard for human life and well being.

Attacks against BDS campaigns will not prevent us from taking this stance against Israeli impunity.

For the Jewish organisations signed onto this letter, self-determination for Jews includes the right to participate in the movement for justice in Palestine and to live in the world with our fellow citizens in peace, freedom, and equity.

It does not include the domination and colonisation of other people or living separate from our fellow human beings in a state that privileges Jews.

BDS was a key strategy in ending the white South African system of apartheid by applying international pressure.

In pursuit of justice, peace and freedom for all, we speak out as Jews committed to BDS and Palestinian liberation.

• International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network

• Not In Our Name (Argentina)

• Jewish Voice for a Just Peace in Middle East (EJJP, Germany)

• Not in Our Name: Jews Opposing Zionism (Canada)

• Jews for a Just Peace (Fredericton, Canada)

• Independent Jewish Voice (Canada)

• Middle East Children's Alliance (USA)

• Critical Jewish Voice (Austria)

• Women in Black (Austria)

• French Jewish Union for Peace (UJFP)

• Bay Area Women in Black (USA)

• St. Louis Women in Black (USA)

• Philadelphia Jews for a Just Peace (USA)

• American Jews for a Just Peace (USA)

• Jews for Boycotting Israeli Goods (Britain)

• JUNTS, Catalan Association of Jews and Palestinians, Spain)

• Ronnie Kasrils, former South African government minister, writer, founder Not In My Name, South Africa

• Antony Loewenstein, Independent Australian Jewish Voices

• Peter Slezak, Independent Australian Jewish Voices

• Moshe Machover, Professor (emeritus) (UK), founder Matzpen

• Felicia Langer, Israeli lawyer, author, Right Livelihood Award 2006 (Alternative Nobel Prize) 1990, Bruno Kreisky Prize 1991

• Mieciu Langer, Nazi Holocaust survivor

• Hedy Epstein, Nazi Holocaust survivor

• Hajo G. Meyer PhD, Nazi Holocaust survivor

• Kamal Chenoy, IJAN India & The All India Peace and Solidarity Organization

• Paola Canarutto & Giorgio Forti, Rete ECO, Italy

• Liliane Cordova Kaczerginski, IJAN France

• Sonia Fayman, IJAN France & UJFP

• Ernesto Rosenberg, GRAMARPAL (Argentine-Palestinian Friendship Group, Neuquen, Argentina)

• Mark Elf, blogger, Jews sans Frontieres. " END LETTER & SIGNATORIES. [2].

[1]. The International Jewish anti-Zionist Network (IJAN) home page: http://www.ijsn.net/home/ .

[2]. “Jewish groups defend Israel boycott”, Green Left Weekly, 10 April 2011: http://www.greenleft.org.au/node/47299 .

The International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network (IJAN) describes itself thus on its website: “IJAN is an international network of Jews who are uncompromisingly committed to struggles for human survival and emancipation, of which the liberation of the Palestinian people and land is an indispensable part. We are committed to the right of return for Palestinian refugees and to ending Israeli colonization of historic Palestine, which is reinforced by US economic and military power. We support full Palestinian self-determination and the right to resist occupation. We look to the Palestinian grassroots and Palestinian-led organizations as our primary points of reference in this struggle. The State of Israel betrays the long histories of Jewish struggles for liberation and traditions of participation in collective struggles for liberation more broadly. We protest Zionism’s exploitation and debasement of histories of Jewish persecution and genocide to justify the unjustifiable – the colonization of Palestine and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, the theft of their land and destruction of their families, communities and way of life. IJAN is part of the international movement against Zionist militarism and repression. We have active chapters in the United States, Argentina, the UK, Spain, Canada, and France… IJAN organizes from a Jewish location, which we understand as social and historical, but our members hold a range of relationships to the religious, spiritual, and cultural expressions of Judaism. IJAN’s members come from diverse racial and ethnic backgrounds and cultural lineages (including Ashkenazi, Mizrahi and Sephardic)” (The International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network (IJAN): http://www.ijan.org/who-we-are/ ).

ISAACS, Isaac. Sir Isaac Isaacs, first Australia-born Australian Governor-General, denounced Zionism

Sir Isaac Isaacs (1855–1948), an Australian judge and politician, was the ninth Governor General of Australia and the first born in Australia to occupy that post. He was strongly opposed to Zionism (see Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_Isaacs ; also see Max Gordon, “Sir Isaac Isaacs”, Heinemann, Adelaide, 1963).

Sir Isaac Isaacs was concerned for the rights of Indigenous Palestinians and supported the British White Paper of 1939 restricting Jewish immigration to the Palestine Mandate and was accordingly vilified by local Australian Zionists, notwithstanding his great eminence.

The Balfour Declaration is reproduced here for the context (my emphasis added; see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balfour_Declaration_of_1917 ).

Foreign Office,

November 2nd, 1917.

Dear Lord Rothschild,

I have much pleasure in conveying to you, on behalf of His Majesty's Government, the following declaration of sympathy with Jewish Zionist aspirations which has been submitted to, and approved by, the Cabinet:

"His Majesty's Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country".

I should be grateful if you would bring this declaration to the knowledge of the Zionist Federation.

Yours sincerely

Arthur James Balfour

Sir Isaac Isaacs, 1946: “The honour of Jews throughout the world demands the renunciation of political Zionism." [1].

Sir Isaac Isaacs: "the Zionist movement as a whole...now places its own unwarranted interpretation on the Balfour Declaration, and makes demands that are arousing the antagonism of the Moslem world of nearly 400 millions, thereby menacing the safety of our Empire, endangering world peace and imperiling some of the most sacred associations of the Jewish, Christian, and Moslem faiths. Besides their inherent injustice to others these demands would, I believe, seriously and detrimentally affect the general position of Jews throughout the world." [1].

[1]. Sir Isaac Isaacs, quoted by Wikipedia, ”Isaac Isaacs”: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_Isaacs .

ISRAELI ARMY RESERVISTS: Open Letter by 50 Israeli Army Reservists on Why They Refuse to Fight in Gaza

Open Letter by 50 Israeli Army Reservists on Why They Refuse to Fight in Gaza (2014): “We were soldiers in a wide variety of units and positions in the Israeli military—a fact we now regret, because, in our service, we found that troops who operate in the occupied territories aren’t the only ones enforcing the mechanisms of control over Palestinian lives. In truth, the entire military is implicated. For that reason, we now refuse to participate in our reserve duties, and we support all those who resist being called to service.

The Israeli Army, a fundamental part of Israelis’ lives, is also the power that rules over the Palestinians living in the territories occupied in 1967. As long as it exists in its current structure, its language and mindset control us: We divide the world into good and evil according to the military’s categories; the military serves as the leading authority on who is valued more and who less in society—who is more responsible for the occupation, who is allowed to vocalize their resistance to it and who isn’t, and how they are allowed to do it. The military plays a central role in every action plan and proposal discussed in the national conversation, which explains the absence of any real argument about non-military solutions to the conflicts Israel has been locked in with its neighbors.

The Palestinian residents of the West Bank and Gaza Strip are deprived of civil rights and human rights. They live under a different legal system from their Jewish neighbors. This is not exclusively the fault of soldiers who operate in these territories. Those troops are, therefore, not the only ones obligated to refuse. Many of us served in logistical and bureaucratic support roles; there, we found that the entire military helps implement the oppression of the Palestinians” (“Petition By Israeli soldiers and reservists… ” (“Open Letter by 50 Israeli Army Reservists on Why They Refuse to Fight in Gaza. Petition By Israeli soldiers and reservists”, Countercurrents, 26 July 2014: https://www.countercurrents.org/isr260714.htm

ISRAELI COMMITTEE AGAINST HOUSE DEMOLITIONS (ICAHD) opposes and resists illegal demolitions of Palestinian homes by Apartheid Israel

The Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD), co-founded by Jewish American Israeli Professor Jeff Halper in 1997, is an Israeli organization that uses non-violent, direct-action means to oppose and resist illegal and war criminal Israeli demolition of Palestinian homes in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (see Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli_Committee_Against_House_Demolitions and ICHAD website: http://www.icahd.org/eng/ ).

The Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD), statement of aims: “ICAHD is a non-violent, direct-action group originally established to oppose and resist Israeli demolition of Palestinian houses in the Occupied Territories. As our activists gained direct knowledge of the brutalities of the Occupation, we expanded our resistance activities to other areas - land expropriation, settlement expansion, by-pass road construction, policies of "closure" and “separation” , the wholesale uprooting of fruit and olive trees and more. The fierce repression of Palestinian efforts to "shake off" the Occupation following the latest Intifada has only added urgency to our efforts.

As a direct-action group, ICAHD is comprised of members of many Israeli peace and human rights organizations. All of our work in the Occupied Territories is closely coordinated with local Palestinian organizations.

Since its founding, ICAHD's activities have extended to three interrelated spheres: resistance and protest actions in the Occupied Territories; efforts to bring the reality of the Occupation to Israeli society; and mobilizing the international community for a just peace.” [1].

ICAHD statistics on war criminal Israel house demolitions: “ICAHD estimates that 24,145 houses have been demolished in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza since 1967… 4,247 houses, according to the United Nations, were demolished during Operation Cast Lead in Gaza.” [2].

[1]. ICAHD, “What is ICAHD?”, ICAHD website: http://www.icahd.org/eng/about.asp?menu=2&submenu=1 .

[2]. ICAHD, “Stats: demolition statistics since 1967”, ICAHD website, 2009: http://www.icahd.org/eng/articles.asp?menu=6&submenu=2&article=517 .

ISRAELI-NEVO, Atalia. Anti-racist Jewish Israeli activist condemns Israeli Apartheid.

Atalia Israeli-Nevo (anti-racist Jewish Israeli activist) (21 May 2019): “Ever since violence broke out across Israel-Palestine in the past two weeks, the city of Jaffa, where I live, feels like it has been placed under military occupation.… This narrative of protection has been dictated again and again by the State of Israel ever since its establishment in 1948. It was there following the Nakba, in which more than 750,000 Palestinians were expelled from this land without the ability to return, when the Israeli government began waging a systematic campaign of ethnic cleansing against the Palestinian population between the river and the sea, when it placed Palestinian citizens under military rule for nearly two decades, when it passed discriminatory laws and expropriated Palestinian land, or as it maintains a 54-year occupation in the West Bank and more than a decade of siege on Gaza” (Atalia Israeli-Nevo, “As Israeli Jews, we demand international intervention against apartheid. Over 500 Israeli Jews sign an open letter calling for liberation for all people between the river and the sea”, +972, 21 May 2019: https://www.972mag.com/apartheid-israel-jewish-open-letter/?fbclid=IwAR1lv329aWL6IzPzPpo03jmpRwh9VGMdUDKw04C5QuCZkmtsq5CFRr5DiAw .)

ISRAELIS AGAINST APARTHEID.

Israelis Against Apartheid Open Letter to the international community against genocidally racist Zionism, another Gaza Massacre and Israeli Apartheid (2019): “We, Jewish Israelis, oppose the actions of the Israeli government and hereby declare our commitment to act against them. We refuse to accept the Jewish-supremacist regime and call upon the international community to immediately intervene in defense of the Palestinians in Gaza, the West Bank, Jerusalem, the Galilee, the Negev, al-Lydd, Yafa, Ramleh, Haifa and throughout historic Palestine.

Jewish supremacy is the cornerstone of the Israeli regime, and its consistent objective is to transfer and obliterate the Palestinian people, their history, and their national identity. This objective manifests in continued acts of ethnic cleansing by means of evictions and home demolitions, brutal military occupation, denial of civil and human rights, and legislation of a series of racist laws culminating in the Nation-State Bill, defining the State as “the Nation State of the Jewish People”, and them only.

All the above effectively form an Apartheid regime creating Bantustan-like and Ghetto-like areas for Palestinian native communities. We believe that Zionism is an unethical principle of governance that inherently leads to a racist Apartheid regime that has been committing war crimes and denying basic human rights from Palestinians for over seven decades. Such crimes and violations include: the destruction of hundreds of towns and villages and depopulating them of 750,000 Palestinians in 1948, alongside the active prevention of return of refugees; the systematic expropriation of Palestinians’ lands and transferring them to Jewish ownership under the auspices of the state; the occupation of the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, and the Golan Heights and the application of a colonizing military regime, ruling over millions of Palestinians; the gradual annexation of the territories occupied in 1967 by violently engineering demographics; the ongoing siege on the Gaza strip and persistent massacres of the Gazan population by the Israeli Air Force; political persecution of Palestinians throughout Palestine and the ongoing incitement against the political leadership and society at large; All of these atrocities take place due to the impunity Israel receives from the international community and especially the United States.

In recent weeks, the Israeli government has up-scaled its attempts to seize Palestinian homes in East Jerusalem (especially in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood) and house Jewish settlers in them with the aim of completing the Judaization of the city that began in 1967. During the month of Ramadan, Israeli forces intensified their violent onslaught on the Al Aqsa Mosque compound while giving settlers the green light to vandalize and physically harm Palestinians in the West Bank, Jerusalem and throughout the ’48 territories. Mobs of settlers are acting under the auspices, and in coordination with the Israeli police. Israeli media is taking part in the unhinged incitement against Arab citizens of Israel. As a result, the Jewish mobs receive impunity for their violence, while hundreds of Palestinian citizens of Israel are arrested for protecting their homes and communities, or simply for being at the wrong place at the wrong time.

As we write this statement, Israel is committing yet another massacre in the Gaza ghetto. Israel has declined several third-party offers to negotiate a cease-fire agreement with Hamas officials, and has continued to bomb neighborhoods in Gaza. The inhumane siege on approximately two million people continues.

As individuals who belong to the side of the oppressor, and that have tried for years to shift public opinion in Israel in order to change the foundations of the current regime, we have long come to the conclusion that it is impossible to change the Jewish supremacist regime without external intervention.

We call upon the international community to intervene immediately in order to stop Israel’s current aggressions, to adopt the demands of the Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement; to work towards the actualization of the Palestinian Right of Return and to bring about historic justice; to reach a just and democratic solution for all, based on the decolonization of the region and founding a state of all its citizens.

#IsraelisAgainstApartheid”[745 signatories as of 24 May 2019] (Israelis Against Apartheid, “Israeli Jews call “Stop Israel’s Apartheid! An Open Letter to the international community”, May 2019: https://jews4decolonization.wordpress.com/?fbclid=IwAR2N21j-efNd3weSZvFSMlsyaIYfPi5WO5SCSJMYH_pEF3vsFr5rtHm0ca8 ).

JEWISH AND NON-JEWISH AMERICAN WRITERS AND EDITORS urges Boycott of Israel "a state that practices occupation, colonialism, and apartheid"

Open Letter to the Brooklyn Book Festival re Israeli sponsorship (2015): “We, the undersigned, including participants and exhibitors at the Brooklyn Book Festival, recently noticed that the festival has chosen to accept support from Israel's Office of Cultural Affairs in New York for one of its panels…

Israel has systematically attempted to suppress, expropriate and suffocate the art, culture, and literature of Palestinian writers, filmmakers, musicians, artists, and poets. We hope that you agree that partnering with a state that practices occupation, colonialism, and apartheid is paradoxical for a festival that celebrates a "lively literary marketplace"…

As was the case in South Africa, where international solidarity played a crucial role in bringing down apartheid by boycotting the economic, sports and cultural institutions of the apartheid regime, we sincerely hope you will not partner in any capacity with the Israeli government and other complicit institutions, until the Israeli government fulfills it obligations under international law and fully recognizes the Palestinian people’s right to live in full equality and freedom in their homeland.”

Initial Signatories

Other Featured Signatories

* indicates panelist or exhibitor at Brooklyn Book Festival 2014

** indicates past participant in the Brooklyn Book Festival

[1]. “Open Letter to the Brooklyn Book Festival re Israeli sponsorship”, Adalah-NY (The New York for the boycott of Israel): http://adalahny.org/adalah-web-action/1194/open-letter-brooklyn-book-festival-re-israeli-sponsorship .

JEWISH PEACE FELLOWSHIP (JPH). Social justice, peace, reconciliation, non-violence, cessation of Israeli Occupation

Jewish Peace Fellowship (JPF) is committed to non-violence and the Jewish tradition of Peace and Justice. JPF supports Jewish resistance - individual and communal - to the arms race in the United States and Israel and throughout the world and actively opposes capital punishment, conscription, the Israeli occupation, and U.S. armed interventions (see: http://www.jewishpeacefellowship.org/ ).

Jewish Peace Fellowship “About the Jewish Peace Fellowship“: “JPF continues to support Jewish resistance--individual and communal-- to the arms race in the United States and Israel and throughout the world. We actively oppose capital punishment, conscription, the Israeli occupation, and U.S. armed interventions including the former Yugoslavia (1999). We support individuals who serve prison time for civil disobedience against Selective Service registration or in antinuclear actions … JPF is committed to renounce participation in war and other forms of violence. We recognize that there can be no peace without justice, and no justice without reconciliation, so we also support and work with groups in social justice activities as well as peace, reconciliation, and non-violence. “ [1].

[1]. Jewish Peace Fellowship “About the Jewish Peace Fellowship“: http://www.jewishpeacefellowship.org/index.php?p=about .

JEWISH VOICE FOR PEACE (JVP). Israelis and Palestinians. Two peoples, one future

Jewish Voice for Peace demands peace and equality for Israelis and Palestinians (see: http://www.jewishvoiceforpeace.org/ ).

Jewish Voice for Peace, “Mission Statement”: “Jewish Voice for Peace is a diverse and democratic community of activists inspired by Jewish tradition to work together for peace, social justice, and human rights. We support the aspirations of Israelis and Palestinians for security and self-determination. We seek: A U.S. foreign policy based on promoting peace, democracy, human rights, and respect for international law. An end to the Israeli occupation of the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, and East Jerusalem. A resolution of the Palestinian refugee problem consistent with international law and equity. An end to all violence against civilians. Peace among the peoples of the Middle East. We are among the many American Jews who say to the U.S. and Israeli governments: "Not in our names!" JVP supports peace activists in Palestine and Israel, and works in broad coalition with other Jewish, Arab-American, faith-based, peace and social justice organizations.” [1].

[1]. Jewish Voice for Peace, “Mission Statement”: http://www.jewishvoiceforpeace.org/publish/mission.shtml .

JEWS AGAINST OCCUPATION AND OPPRESSION: an anti-racist Jewish Australian organization for Palestinian human rights & opposed to Israeli apartheid

“Jews Against Occupation and Oppression” is an anti-racist Jewish Australian organization for Palestinian human rights and co-founded by Rick Kuhn (an anti-racist Jewish Australian Marxian economist, political analyst, Reader (Associate Professor) at the Australian National University (ANU), Canberra, and an opponent of Israeli apartheid) who has written (2017): “There’s a fight going on inside the [pro-Zionist] Labor Party over the cosmetics of its position on Israel and Palestine. Currently, party leader Bill Shorten is sticking with the ALP’s longstanding policy [2-state solution and no recognition of a Palestinian state yet]. Whether Labor or the Coalition has been in office, Australian governments have been among the fiercest supporters of apartheid Israel since its creation. Unlike about 138 other countries, Australia has refused to recognise the Palestinian Authority [PA] as the government of a Palestinian state. Slavish backing of Israel is mainly a by-product of the Australia-US alliance, which has long benefited the ruling class here… The squabble in the Labor Party over how best to back Israel reflects growing sympathy, crucially from ordinary people rather than governments, for the Palestinians. Increased recognition of the repressive PA as a state is symbolic of this shift. But it won’t satisfy the aspirations of the Palestinians for freedom. Only a democratic state made up of all those now living within the borders of historic Palestine, together with the Palestinian diaspora, can achieve that goal” (Rick Kuhn, “Labor in a tizz over how to save an apartheid Israel”, Red Flag, 6 March 2017, page 25: https://redflag.org.au/node/5696 ).

JEWS AGAINST THE OCCUPATION – SYDNEY. JAO-Sydney: peace and justice behind 1967 borders

Jews Against the Occupation – Sydney (JAO-Sydney) are e a diverse group of Jews in Sydney, Australia, who want peace and oppose the continuing Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories (see: http://jao.org.au/?page_id=14 ).

Jews Against the Occupation – Sydney (JAO-Sydney): “ What we stand for. We are a diverse group of Jews in Sydney, Australia, who oppose the continuing Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories. We support a non-violent negotiated settlement to the conflict. Current and earlier peace frameworks have failed to deliver justice or security for either Palestinians or Israelis. A peaceful, just resolution cannot occur until the Israeli government withdraws all forces and settlements in line with the 1967 borders. Our activities include: providing an alternative and radical Jewish voice; opening dialogues with Palestinians, Jews and others in Australia working towards a just settlement of the conflict; disseminating information and challenging myths about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict; broadening public debate on issues of Israel and Palestine; building links with other Jewish groups in Australia and worldwide seeking to end the occupation We are committed to: Withdrawal of the Israeli army from territories occupied in 1967. The immediate establishment of an international peacekeeping force to end the cycle of violence. An immediate resumption of negotiations aimed at the establishment of a Palestinian state alongside Israel based on the pre-1967 borders, with Jerusalem as the capital of both states. The end of both state-sanctioned violence, including torture and targeted assassinations, and terrorist attacks against civilians. An immediate dismantling of the Separation Wall. The removal of all Israeli settlements from the occupied territories. A just resolution to the situation of Palestinian refugees with the right of return and/or compensation, details subject to agreement between the 2 parties. Social justice for Palestinian Israelis and an end to discrimination against them.” [1].

Vivienne Porzsolt, a spokesperson for Jews Against the Occupation – Sydney re rescinding of an invitation for Professor Jeff Halper (Coordinator of the Israeli Committee against Housing Demolitions , ICAHD).to speak at the Emanuel Synagogue, Woollahra, Sydney: “It is regrettable that yet once again the power brokers of the Jewish community are seeking to block open discussion about Israel. This is self-defeating as the realities of Israel’s brutal occupation and ongoing dispossession of the Palestinians are to be seen every day in our media. These acts of censorship bring no credit on our community and can only provoke the antisemitism they are supposed to avoid.” [2].

[1]. Jews Against the Occupation – Sydney (JAO-Sydney): http://jao.org.au/?page_id=14 .

[2]. Vivienne Porzsolt, quoted by JAO-Sydney Statement, “Noxious culture of silence in the Jewish community” “, JAO-Sydney, a spokesperson for Jews Against the Occupation, JAO-Sydney, 13 march 2009: http://jao.org.au/?p=90 .

JEWS AGAINST THE OCCUPATION. JATO wants peace through justice for Palestine and Israel

Jews Against the Occupation is an organization of progressive, secular and religious Jews of all ages throughout the New York City area advocating peace through justice for Palestine and Israel (see: http://www.jatonyc.org/ and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jews_Against_the_Occupation ).

Jews Against the Occupation Mission Statement: “Jews Against the Occupation is an organization of progressive, secular and religious Jews of all ages throughout the New York City area advocating peace through justice for Palestine and Israel. Our points of unity are as follows:

NO OCCUPATION IN OUR NAME. We as American Jews reject the Israeli government assertion that it is "necessary" to subjugate Palestinians for the sake of keeping Jews safe. We assert that security can only come from mutual respect, and that the occupation of Palestine is only worsening the position of Jews in the Middle East and around the world.

RESTORE HUMAN & CIVIL RIGHTS. The Israeli military fires bone-crushing rubber bullets and live ammunition at unarmed Palestinian civilians engaged in peaceful protest, failing to distinguish between peaceful and violent resistance. The Israeli government has been demolishing Palestinian houses and crops in the Occupied Territories, while allowing Jewish settlers -- many of them American -- to illegally occupy the same land.

END U.S. AID TO ISRAEL. The U.S. government provides more aid to Israel than to any other country—the vast majority of this is for military purposes. Billions of U.S. taxpayer dollars have propped up the occupation and fueled the Israeli government’s war machine (as well as disguising the occupation’s true cost). This aid must end.

STOP ECONOMIC ATTACKS ON PALESTINE. The Israeli government has attacked the Palestinian economy by: closing Palestinian banks; imposing extreme taxes on business; withdrawing operating licenses; destroying industrial equipment; bulldozing farmland and banning fishing; restricting workers' movement; controlling the export of Palestinian goods; closing the borders of the Occupied Territories; and refusing to fund infrastructure like water and electricity -- even in Arab villages within Israel.

LET PALESTINIANS RETURN HOME. Thousands of Palestinians were driven out of their houses and off of their farms during and after the creation of Israel. They must be allowed to return to their homeland.

ANTI-SEMITISM VS. CRITIQUES OF ISRAEL. Jews Against the Occupation stands firmly against anti-Semitism and racism in all its forms. We see our historical struggle against anti- Semitism--a cornerstone of European white supremacist ideology--as inherently linked to all struggles against oppression. We therefore stand in solidarity with the Palestinian people in their struggle for freedom.

Judaism is a cultural and religious identity, which must not be equated with Zionism, a political movement. Criticism of the state of Israel, its policies, or the idea of a Jewish state does not by itself constitute anti-Semitism. Dismissing critics of Israel or of Zionism as "anti-Semitic" is a means of stifling debate and masking the impact of the occupation.” [1].

JATO on olive trees: “"When you lay siege to a city and wage war against it a long time to capture it, you must not destroy its trees." Deuteronomy 20:19. Jewish Tradition teaches us that even in a time of conflict we must not engage in collective punishment of innocent civilians.Over 30,000 Palestinian olive trees have been uprooted during the current intifada by Israeli security forces and settlers. These actions are in direct violation of Israeli law, international law, and Jewish tradition. These trees, some of them hundreds of years old, were the economic and ecological basis of Palestinian towns, having produced oil and olives for the villagers. Each one of them paid the cost of year after year of schooling for a child, or the cost of a room built for a growing child. The Struggle for a Just Peace in Israel/Palestine needs strong voices here in the U.S. Help break the silence around Jewish opposition to the Israeli government's attacks on Palestinians - home demolitions, assassinations, detentions, curfews, collective punishment, and the occupation itself.”

[2].

[1]. Jews Against the Occupation: http://www.jatonyc.org/ .

[2]. JATO, “Words and Actions”: http://www.jatonyc.org/ .

JEWS AGAINST ZIONISM (JAZ) wants "a unitary, secular and democratic Palestine, the return of Palestinian refugees, and full and equal rights for Palestinians, Israeli Jews, and all other people living in the whole of Palestine”

“Jews Against Zionism” (JAZ) in their own words: “ Jews Against Zionism is a group for Jews and others opposed to the Zionist movement and ideology, and to its impact on both Palestinians and Jews. This is not a religious group, not a racist hate group, and not a conspiracy-theory group. JAZ is a political group, committed to coexistence between Palestinians and Israeli Jews.

We believe that the conflict in Palestine cannot be resolved without a return of Palestinian refugees and dismantlement of the Zionist structure of the state of Israel - and that this is impossible in the context of two states and a re-partition of Palestine. We advocate the only approach which can lead to peace with justice in the region: we call for a unitary, secular and democratic Palestine, the return of Palestinian refugees, and full and equal rights for Palestinians, Israeli Jews, and all other people living in the whole of Palestine.” [1].

[1]. “Jews Against Zionism”: http://www.freewebs.com/jewsagainstzionism/ .

JEWS FOR BOYCOTTING ISRAELI GOODS - boycott, divestment & sanctions against Apartheid Israel

Jews for Boycotting Israeli Goods (J-BIG) is an organization of group of British and Israeli Jews resident in the UK who have come together to support the Boycott Israeli Goods (BIG) campaign (see: http://www.bigcampaign.org/index.php?page=jbig ).

Jews for Boycotting Israeli Goods (J-BIG): “We are a group of British and Israeli Jews resident in the UK who have come together in this 40th year of the Israeli occupation of Palestinian land to support the Boycott Israeli Goods (BIG) campaign.

In 1967, the Israeli army took military control of the Golan Heights, the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem. Since that time the government of Israel has built settlements, roads and other infrastructure for its Jewish citizens, using land and resources stolen from the Palestinian people. This situation continues, unchallenged by Western governments, despite Israel’s being in violation of international humanitarian law and over 60 UN resolutions.

Israel daily destroys Palestinian lives, livelihoods and homes; it continues to build its illegal colonies and separation wall on stolen land; it continues to control Gaza while slicing the West Bank into Bantustans, separating Palestinian families from their schools, places of work and agricultural land; it denies Palestinian refugees their right to return and operates a form of racism in many respects worse than the South African apartheid system. Its policies of intimidation and humiliation aim to destroy Palestinian hopes of statehood. Israeli businesses export freely from Palestinian land while the Palestinian economy is on its knees as a result of the occupation.

We believe that this constitutes a betrayal of the best trends in Jewish ethical tradition. It inflames hatreds in our unstable world and renders impossible the achievement of a just peace for Israelis and Palestinians. We therefore support the existing campaign for boycott, divestment and sanctions to enforce Israeli compliance with international law.

We call on those of our fellow Jews who are inclined to support the State of Israel unconditionally to think critically about what Israel does in our names. We call on every ethical consumer, of any faith or none, to refuse to support the Israeli economy for as long as the illegal occupation and exploitation of Palestine persists.” [1].

Letter by J-BIG members to UK media, 2007: “:We welcome the courageous decision of the National Union of Journalists to boycott Israeli goods (Letters, April 23). Given Israel's contempt for international law, with the complicity of the US and UK governments, pressure has to be increased by civil society if justice is to be achieved. A boycott of Israeli goods is a legitimate form of grassroots action and is particularly appropriate as Israel is destroying the Palestinian economy. Such a boycott has been called for by Israeli peace organisations.

As a result of its illegal occupation, Israel is able to flood the Palestinian market with its products, while preventing Palestinian farmers from growing and trading their own. We believe Israel's actions betray Jewish ethical traditions - the cutting down of olive and fruit trees is prohibited by Jewish law. The continuing occupation and exploitation of Palestinian land is a major obstacle to peace for Israelis and Arabs alike which has global implications for world peace.

Deborah Fink, Naomi Wimborne-Idrissi, Mike Cushman, Sylvia Finzi, Tony Greenstein, Ruth Tenne, Deborah Maccoby, Prof Moshe Machover, Mike Marqusee,

Jews for Boycotting Israel Goods.” [2].

Naomi Wimborne-Idrissi (London-based Jewish campaigner for Palestinian rights who helped form Jews for Boycotting Israeli Goods (J-BIG)): "Groups like mine - Jews for Boycotting Israeli Goods - support the call made by nearly 200 Palestinian civil society organisations in 2005 for a broad campaign of boycott, divestment and sanctions, including an institutional academic and cultural boycott, until Israel respects Palestinian human rights and abides by international law." [3].

[1]. Jews for Boycotting Israeli Goods (J-BIG), Statement, Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS): http://www.bigcampaign.org/index.php?page=jbig .

[2]. Letter by J-BIG members to UK media, 2007, specifically in the Jewish Chronicle, 27 April 2007 and in the UK Guardian, “Apartheid and boycotts in the Middle East”, 25 April 2007: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2007/apr/25/israel.comment .

[3]. Naomi Wimborne-Idrissi, “Boycott – the sane response to Israeli Apartheid”, The Palestinian Telegraph, 24 August 2009: http://www.paltelegraph.com/opinions/editorials/1984-boycott-the-sane-response-to-israeli-apartheid .

JEWS FOR JUSTICE FOR PALESTINIANS – two peoples, one future

Jews for Justice for Palestinians is a network of Jews who are British or live in Britain, practising and secular, Zionist and not. They oppose Israeli policies that undermine the livelihoods, human, civil and political rights of the Palestinian people and support the right of Israelis to live in freedom and security within Israel’s 1967 borders (see: http://jfjfp.com/?page_id=2 , http://jfjfp.com/?s=nevegordon and Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jews_for_Justice_for_Palestinians ) .

Jews for Justice for Palestinians: “Jews for Justice for Palestinians is a network of Jews who are British or live in Britain, practising and secular, Zionist and not. We oppose Israeli policies that undermine the livelihoods, human, civil and political rights of the Palestinian people.

We support the right of Israelis to live in freedom and security within Israel’s 1967 borders.

As well as organising to ensure that Jewish opinions critical of Israeli policy are heard in Britain, we extend support to Palestinians trapped in the spiral of violence and repression. We believe that such actions are important in countering antisemitism and the claim that opposition to Israel’s destructive policies is itself antisemitic.

We cooperate with other organisations on specific issues without necessarily endorsing everything they do.

We work to build world-wide Jewish opposition to the Israeli Occupation, with like-minded groups around the world and are a founding member of European Jews for a Just Peace, a federation of Jewish groups in ten European countries a federation of Jewish groups in ten European countries whose principles include: condemnation of all violence against civilians in the conflict, no matter by whom it is carried out; recognition of Israel’s 1967 ‘green line’ borders; commitment to the Palestinians’ right to a state in the territories currently occupied by Israel in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza; calling on Israel to acknowledge its part in the creation of the Palestinian refugee problem and its obligation to negotiate a just, fair and practical resolution of the issue.” [1].

As of 1 October 2013 there were 1,729 signatories ([2].

Signatories as of 1 October 2013 [2]:

Jews for Justice for Palestinians: “A number of signatories have died over the years and we wish to remember their commitment to the cause of justice for Palestinians”:

[3].

[1]. Jews for Justice for Palestinians. “Who are we?”: http://jfjfp.com/?page_id=2 .

[2]. Jews for Justice for Palestinians. “Signatories http://jfjfp.com/?page_id=9 .

[3]. Jews for Justice for Palestinians, “Signatories - deceased”: http://jfjfp.com/?page_id=16014 .

JEWS FOR PALESTINIAN RIGHT OF RETURN demand Palestinian Right of Return and a democratic state throughout historic Palestine

“Jews for Palestinian Right of Return” demand Palestinian Right of Return and a democratic state throughout historic Palestine (see : http://jfpror.wordpress.com/ ).

Petitition of Jews for Palestinian Right of Return, “Jews Say: End the War on Gaza — No Aid to Apartheid Israel!”

Jews for Palestinian Right of Return, July 22, 2014: http://jfpror.wordpress.com/ and https://www.change.org/en-AU/petitions/benjamin-netanyahu-jews-say-end-the-war-on-gaza-no-aid-to-apartheid-israel-bds-with-200-initial-signers .

Jews Say: End the War on Gaza — No Aid to Apartheid Israel!

Jews for Palestinian Right of Return, July 22, 2014

On July 12, 2014, Gaza civil society issued an urgent appeal for solidarity, asking: “How many of our lives are dispensable enough until the world takes action? How much of our blood is sufficient?”

As Jews of conscience, we answer by unequivocally condemning Israel’s ongoing massacre in Gaza, whose victims include hundreds of civilians, children, entire families, the elderly, and the disabled. This latest toll adds to the thousands Israel has killed and maimed since its supposed withdrawal from the Gaza Strip in 2005.

In response to this crisis, we urgently reaffirm our support for a ban on all military and other aid to Israel.

In 1967, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. opposed the Vietnam War with his famous declaration: “For the sake of the hundreds of thousands trembling under our violence, I cannot be silent.”

Today, *we* cannot be silent as the “Jewish state” — armed to the teeth by the U.S. and its allies — wages yet another brutal war on the Palestinian people. Apartheid Israel does not speak for us, and we stand with Gaza as we stand with all of Palestine.

In the face of incessant pro-Israel propaganda, we heed Malcolm X’s warning: “If you’re not careful, the newspapers will have you hating the people who are being oppressed, and loving the people who are doing the oppressing.”

For Israel’s relentless war on Gaza is no more an act of “self-defense” than such infamous massacres as Wounded Knee (1890), Guernica (1937), the Warsaw Ghetto (1942), Deir Yassin (1948), My Lai (1968), Soweto (1976), Sabra and Shatila (1982), or Lebanon (2006).

Rather, it is but the latest chapter in more than a century of Zionist colonialism, dispossession, ethnic cleaning, racism, and genocide — including Israel’s very establishment through the uprooting and displacement of over 750,000 Palestinians during the 1947-1948 Nakba. Indeed, eighty percent of the 1.8 million people sealed into Gaza are refugees.

Like any colonial regime, Israel uses resistance to such policies as an excuse to terrorize and collectively punish the indigenous population for its very existence. But scattered rockets, fired from Gaza into land stolen from Palestinians in the first place, are merely a response to this systemic injustice.

To confront the root cause of this violence, we call for the complete dismantling of Israel’s apartheid regime, throughout historic Palestine — from the River to the Sea. With that in mind, we embrace the 2005 Palestinian call for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign, which demands:

* An end to Israeli military occupation of the 1967 territories

* Full equality for Palestinian citizens of Israel

* Right of return for Palestinian refugees, as affirmed by UN resolution 194

Initial Signers (list in formation; organizations, schools and other affiliations shown for identification only; *Co-founder, Jews for Palestinian Right of Return)

Avigail Abarbanel, Psychotherapist; editor, Beyond Tribal Loyalties: Personal Stories of Jewish Peace Activists (2012, Cambridge Scholars), Inverness, Scotland

Noa Abend, Boycott From Within

Stephen Aberle, Independent Jewish Voices; Vancouver, BC

Lisa Albrecht, Ph.D. Social Justice Program, University of Minnesota

Anya Achtenberg, novelist and poet; teacher; activist; International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network

Mike Alewitz, Associate Professor, Central CT State Unversity; Artistic Director, Labor Art & Mural Project

Zalman Amit, Distinguished Professor Emeritus; Author, Israeli Rejectionism

Anthony Arnove, International Socialist Organization

Gabriel Ash, International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network, Switzerland

Ted Auerbach, Brooklyn for Peace

Anna Baltzer, author and organizer

Ronnie Barkan, Co-founder, Boycott from Within, Tel-Aviv

Judith Bello, Administrative Committee, United National Antiwar Coalition

Lawrence Boxall, Independent Jewish Voices, Canada; Vancouver Ecosocialist Group

Linda Benedikt, writer Munich, Germany

Nora Barrows-Friedman, journalist; Oakland

Prof. Jonathan Beller, Humanities and Media Studies Graduate Program in Media Studies, Pratt Institute, Brooklyn

Medea Benjamin, co-founder, CODEPINK

Rica Bird, Joint Founder, Merseyside Jews for Peace and Justice

Audrey Bomse, Co-chair, National Lawyers Guild Palestine Subcommittee

Prof. Daniel Boyarin, Taubman Professor of Talmudic Culture, UC Berkeley

Lenni Brenner, Author, Zionism In The Age Of The Dictators

Elizabeth Block, Independent Jewish Voices, Toronto ON

Max Blumenthal, Author, Goliath: Life and Loathing in Greater Israel; and Senior Writer for Alternet.org

Mary P. Buchwald, Jewish Voice for Peace-New York

Monique Buckner, BDS South Africa

Maia Brown, Health and Human Rights Project-Seattle & Stop Veolia Seattle

Estee Chandler, Jewish Voice for Peace, Los Angeles

Rick Chertoff, L..A. Jews for Peace

Prof. Marjorie Cohn, Thomas Jefferson School of Law; past president, National Lawyers Guild

Ally Cohen, Ramallah, Palestine; International Solidarity Movement media coordinator

Ruben Rosenberg Colorni, Youth for Palestine, Netherlands

Mike Cushman, Convenor, Jews for Boycotting Israeli Goods (UK)

Margaretta D’arcy, Irish actress, writer, playwright, and peace-activist

Natalie Zemon Davis, Historian

Warren Davis, labor and political activist, Philadelphia, PA

Eron Davidson, film maker

Judith Deutsch, Independent Jewish Voices Canada; Science for Peace

Roger Dittmann, Professor of Physics, Emeritus California State University, Fullerton; President, Scholars and Scientists without Borders Executive Council, World Federation of Scientific Workers

Gordon Doctorow, Ed.D., Canada

Mark Elf, Jews Sans Frontieres, London, UK

Hedy Epstein, Nazi Holocaust survivor and human rights activist; St. Louis, MO

Marla Erlien, New York NY

Shelley Ettinger, writer/activist, New York, NY

Inge Etzbach, Human Rights Activist, Café Palestina NY

Richard Falk, Professor of International Law, Emeritus, Princeton University; Former UN Special Rapporteur on Occupied Palestine, 2008-2014

Malkah B. Feldman, Jewish Voice for Peace and recent delegate to Palestine with American Jews For A Just Peace

Deborah Fink, Co-Founder, Jews for Boycotting Israeli Goods UK

Joel Finkel, Jewish Voice for Peace-Chicago

Sylvia Finzi, JfjfP; Jüdische Stimme für gerechten Frieden in Nahost, EJJP. Germany)

Maxine Fookson, Pediatric Nurse Practitioner; Jewish Voice for Peace, Portland OR-

Richard Forer, Author, Breakthrough: Transforming Fear Into Compassion – A New Perspective on the Israel-Palestine

Sid Frankel, Associate Professor, University of Manitoba

Prof. Cynthia Franklin, Co-Editor, Biography: An Interdisciplinary Quarterly, University of Hawai’i

Racheli Gai, Jewish Voice for Peace

Herb Gamberg, Independent Jewish Voices, Canada

Ruth Gamberg, Independent Jewish Voices, Canada

Lee Gargagliano, International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network

Cheryl Gaster, social justice activist and human right lawyer, Toronto ON

Alisa Gayle-Deutsch, American/Canadian Musician and Anti-Israeli Apartheid Activist

Jack Gegenberg, Professor of Mathematics, University of New Brunswick, Fredericton NB

Prof. Terri Ginsberg, film and media scholar, New York

David Glick, psychotherapist; Jewish Voice for Peace

Sherna Berger Gluck, Emerita Professor, CSULB; Israel Divestment Campaign

Neta Golan, Ramallah, Palestine; Jews Against Genocide; Co-founder, International Solidarity Movement.

Tsilli Goldenberg, teacher, Jerusalem, Israel

Steve Goldfield, Ph.D.

Sue Goldstein, International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network, Canada

Marty Goodman, former Executive Board member, Transport Workers Union Local 100; Socialist Action

Rabbi Lynn Gottlieb, Freeman Fellow, Fellowship of Reconciliation

Hector Grad, International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network, Spain

Prof. Jesse Greener, University of Laval

Cathy Gulkin, Filmmaker, Toronto ON

Ira Grupper, Bellarmine University, Louisville, KY

Jeff Halper, The Israeli Committee Against House demolitions (ICAHD)

Larry Haiven, Independent Jewish Voices Canada, Halifax

Evelyn Hecht-Galinski, publisher, Germany

Stanley Heller, The Struggle Video News TSVN

Shir Hever, Jewish Voice for Just Peace, Germany

Deborah Hrbek, media and civil rights lawyer, NLG-NYC

Dr. Tikva Honig-Parnass, Jews for Palestinian Right of Return

Adam Horowitz, Co-Editor, Mondoweiss

Gilad Isaacs, Economist, Wits University.

Selma James, International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network

Jake Javanshir, Independent Jewish Voices, Toronto

Riva Joffe, Jews Against Zionism

Val Jonas, attorney, Miami Beach

Sima Kahn, MD; President of the board, Kadima Reconstructionist Community

Yael Kahn, Israeli anti-apartheid activist

Michael Kalmanovitz, International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network (UK)

Dan Kaplan, AFT Local 1493

Susan Kaplan, J.D. National Lawyers Guild

Danny Katch, activist and author

Bruce Katz, President, Palestinian and Jewish Unity (PAJU), Montreal, Canada

Lynn Kessler, Ph.D., MPH, psychologist/social justice activist

Janet Klecker, Sonomans for Justice & Peace for Palestine, Sonoma CA

Prof. David Klein, California State University, Northridge; USACBI

Emma Klein, Jewish Voice for Peace, Seattle WA

Sara Kershnar, International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network

Harry Kopyto, Legal activist Toronto ON

Richard Koritz, veteran postal trade unionist and former member of North Carolina Human Relations Commission

Yael Korin, PhD., Scientist at UCLA; Campaign to End IsraelI Apartheid, Southern California

Dennis Kortheuer, CSULB, Israel Divestment Campaign

Steve Kowit, Professor Emeritus, Jewish Voice for Peace

Toby Kramer, International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network

Jason Kunin, Independent Jewish Voices Canada

Dr. David Landy, Trinity College, Dublin

Jean Léger, Coalition pour la Justice et la Paix en Palestine, membre de la Coalition BDS Québec et de Palestiniens et Juifs Unis

Lynda Lemberg, Educators for Peace and Justice, Independent Jewish Voices, Toronto ON

David Letwin,* activist and teacher, Al-Awda NY

Michael Letwin,* former President, Association of Legal Aid Attorneys/UAW Local 2325; USACBI; Al-Awda NY

Les Levidow, Jews for Boycotting Israeli Goods (J-BIG), UK

Corey Levine, Human Rights Activist, Writer; National Steering Committee, Independent Jewish Voices Canada

Joseph Levine, Professor of Philosophy, University of Massachusetts Amherst

Lesley Levy, Independent Jewish Voices, Montreal

Mich Levy, teacher, Oakland CA

Abby Lippman, Professor Emerita; activist; Montreal

Brooke Lober, PhD candidate, University of Arizona, Gender and Women’s Studies Department

Antony Loewenstein, journalist, author and Guardian columnist

Jennifer Loewenstein, Professor of Middle Eastern Studies, University of Wisconsin, Madison

Alex Lubin, Professor of American Studies, University of New Meixco

Andrew Lugg, Professor Emeritus, University of Ottawa, Canada

David Makofsky, Jewish Voice for Peace, Research Anthropologist

Harriet Malinowitz, Professor of English, Long Island University, Brooklyn

Mike Marqusee, Author, If I Am Not for Myself: Journey of an Anti-Zionist Jew

Miriam Marton, JD

Dr. Richard Matthews. independent scholar, London ON

Daniel L. Meyers, Former President National Lawyers Guild-NYC

Linda Milazzo, Writer/Activist/Educator, Los Angeles

Eva Steiner Moseley, Holocaust refugee, Massachusetts Peace Action board member and Palestine/Israel Working Group

Dr. Dorothy Naor, retired teacher, Herzliah, Israel

Marcy Newman, independent scholar; Author; The Politics of Teaching Palestine to Americans

Alex Nissen, Women in Black

Dr. Judith Norman, San Antonio, TX

Henry Norr, retired journalist, Berkeley CA

Michael Novick, Anti-Racist Action-Los Angeles/People Against Racist Terror

Prof. Bertell Ollman, NYU

Karin Pally, Santa Monica, CA

Prof. Ilan Pappé, Israeli historian and socialist activist

Karen Platt, Jewish Voice for Peace, Albany CA

Dr. Susan Pashkoff, Jews Against Zionism, London UK

Miko Peled, writer, activist; Author, The General’s Son: Journey of an Israeli in Palestine

Prof. Gabriel Piterberg, UCLA

Mitch Podolak, Founder, Winnipeg Folk Festival and Vancouver Folk Music Festival

Karen Pomer,* granddaughter of Henri B. van Leeuwen, Dutch anti-Zionist leader and Bergen-Belsen survivor

Lenny Potash, Los Angeles CA

Fabienne Presentey, Independent Jewish Voices, Montréal

Diana Ralph, Independent Jewish Voices Canada

Roland Rance, Jews Against Zionism, London

Karen Ranucci, Independent Journalist, Democracy Now!

Ana Ratner, Artist, Puppeteer, Activist.

Michael Ratner, President Emeritus, Center for Constitutional Rights

Prof. Dr. Fanny-Michaela Reisin, Jewish Voice Germany

Diana M.A. Relke, Professor Emerita, University of Saskatchewan

Prof. Bruce Robbins, Columbia University

Stewart M. Robinson, retired Prof of Mathematics

Professor Lisa Rofel, University of California, Santa Cruz

Mimi Rosenberg, Producer & Host, Building Bridges and Wednesday Edition, WBAI 99.5 FM; Association of Legal Aid Attorneys/UAW Local 2325

Lillian Rosengarten, Author, From The Shadows Of Nazi Germany To The Jewish Boat To Gaza

Prof. Jonathan Rosenhead, British Committee for the Universities of Palestine (BRICUP)

Yehoahua Rosin, Israel

Ilana Rossoff, International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network

Martha Roth, Independent Jewish Voices; Vancouver BC

Marty Roth, Emeritus professor of English, University of Minnesota

Ruben Roth, Assistant Professor, Labour Studies, Laurentian University; Independent Jewish Voices Canada

Emma Rubin, International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network

Cheryl A. Rubenberg, Middle East Scholar; Editor, Encyclopedia of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict; Author, The Palestinians in Search of a Just Peace

Josh Ruebner, Author, Shattered Hopes: Obama’s Failure to Broker Israeli-Palestinian Peace

Mark Rudd, retired teacher, Albuquerque NM

Ben Saifer, Independent Jewish Voices Canada

Evalyn Segal, Rossmoor Senior Community

Sylvia Schwarz, International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network

Yossi Schwartz, Internationalist Socialist League; Haifa

Carole Seligman, co-editor, Socialist Viewpoint magazine

Yom Shamash, Independent Jewish Voices, Vancouver, Canada

Tali Shapiro, Boycott from Within; Israel

Karen Shenfeld, Poet, Toronto ON

Sid Shniad, National Steering Committee, Independent Jewish Voices Canada

William Shookhoff, Independent Jewish Voices, Toronto ON

Melinda Smith, Jewish Voice for Peace, Albuquerque NM

Kobi Snitz, Tel Aviv

Marsha Steinberg, BDS-LA for Justice in Palestine, Los Angeles

Lotta Strandberg, Visiting Scholar, NYU

Carol Stone, Independent Jewish Voices, Vancouver BC

Miriam (Cherkes-Julkowski) Swenson, Ph.D.

Matthew Taylor, author

Laura Tillem, Peace and Social Justice Center of South Central Kansas

Peter Trainor, Independent Jewish Voices, Toronto

Rebecca Tumposky, International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network

Darlene Wallach, Justice for Palestinians, San Jose CA

Dr. Abraham Weizfeld, JPLO

Bonnie Weinstein, Co-Editor of Socialist Viewpoint magazine; Publisher, Bay Area United Against War Newsletter

Sam Weinstein, International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network-Labor; former President, UWUA Local 132

Judith Weisman, Independent Jewish Voices; Not in Our Name (NION); Toronto ON

Paul Werner, PhD, DSFS Editor, WOID, a journal of visual language

Noga Wizansky, Ph.D., artist, instructor, and researcher; Administrator, Institute of European Studies, UC Berkeley

Marcy Winograd, public school teacher, former congressional peace candidate

Bekah Wolf, UC Hastings College of Law Student; Co-founder, Palestine Solidarity Project

Sherry Wolf, International Socialist Organization

Dave Zirin, Author, Game Over: How Politics Have Turned the Sports World Upside Down

JEWS NOT ZIONISTS. Zionism conflicts with the Torah – Judaism is opposed to Zionism

Jews Not Zionist attempts to inform people of the fundamental conflict between Zionism and Judaism and for restoration of the Jewish-Muslim brotherhood that existed prior to the arrival of the Zionist scheme on the global scene. (see: http://www.jewsnotzionists.org/ ).

Jews Not Zionists: “There are in fact many Jewish movements, groups and organizations whose ideology regarding Zionism and the so-called "State of Israel" is that of the unadulterated Torah position that any form of Zionism is heresy and that the existence of the so-called "State of Israel" is illegitimate. No one has had to create any antagonism between our Torah and Zionism because such antagonism exists by virtue of the essence of Judaism itself, which can never tolerate the heresy of Zionism. Zionism is wrong from the Torah viewpoint, not because many of its adherents are lax in practice or even anti-religious, but because its fundamental principle conflicts with the Torah. Unfortunately, due to many undesirable factors, the view of Torah-true Jewry has been concealed from the general public.“ [1].

[1]. Jews Not Zionists: http://www.jewsnotzionists.org/ .

JUDT, Tony. Jewish British historian slams racist Zionist ethnic cleansing of Palestine & demands a non-racist, binational state for Palestine

Tony Robert Judt, FBA (2 January 1948 – 6 August 2010) was born in England to secular Jewish parents. He was a British historian, essayist, and university professor who specialized in European history. Judt moved to New York and served as the Erich Maria Remarque Professor in European Studies at New York University, and Director of NYU's Erich Maria Remarque Institute. He courageously opposed racist Zionism and argued for a non-racist one-state, binational solution for Palestine (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tony_Judt ).

Tony Robert Judt, FBA (2 January 1948 – 6 August 2010) was born in England to secular Jewish parents. He was a British historian, essayist, and university professor who specialized in European history. Judt moved to New York and served as the Erich Maria Remarque Professor in European Studies at New York University, and Director of NYU's Erich Maria Remarque Institute. He courageously opposed racist Zionism (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tony_Judt ).

Tony Judt on a binational state for Palestine (2003): “The time has come to think the unthinkable. The two-state solution—the core of the Oslo process and the present “road map”—is probably already doomed. With every passing year we are postponing an inevitable, harder choice that only the far right and far left have so far acknowledged, each for its own reasons. The true alternative facing the Middle East in coming years will be between an ethnically cleansed Greater Israel and a single, integrated, binational state of Jews and Arabs, Israelis and Palestinians. That is indeed how the hard-liners in Sharon’s cabinet see the choice; and that is why they anticipate the removal of the Arabs as the ineluctable condition for the survival of a Jewish state… A binational state in the Middle East would require a brave and relentlessly engaged American leadership. The security of Jews and Arabs alike would need to be guaranteed by international force—though a legitimately constituted binational state would find it much easier policing militants of all kinds inside its borders than when they are free to infiltrate them from outside and can appeal to an angry, excluded constituency on both sides of the border.⁵ A binational state in the Middle East would require the emergence, among Jews and Arabs alike, of a new political class. The very idea is an unpromising mix of realism and utopia, hardly an auspicious place to begin. But the alternatives are far, far worse.” [1].

Tony Judt on racist Zionist ethnic cleansing of Palestine (2003): “In one vital attribute, however, Israel is quite different from previous insecure, defensive microstates born of imperial collapse: it is a democracy [editor: by genocide]. Hence its present dilemma. Thanks to its occupation of the lands conquered in 1967, Israel today faces three unattractive choices. It can dismantle the Jewish settlements in the territories, return to the 1967 state borders within which Jews constitute a clear majority, and thus remain both a Jewish state and a democracy, albeit one with a constitutionally anomalous community of second-class Arab citizens. Alternatively, Israel can continue to occupy “Samaria,” “Judea,” and Gaza, whose Arab population—added to that of present-day Israel—will become the demographic majority within five to eight years: in which case Israel will be either a Jewish state (with an ever-larger majority of unenfranchised non-Jews) or it will be a democracy. But logically it cannot be both. Or else Israel can keep control of the Occupied Territories but get rid of the overwhelming majority of the Arab population: either by forcible expulsion or else by starving them of land and livelihood, leaving them no option but to go into exile. In this way Israel could indeed remain both Jewish and at least formally democratic: but at the cost of becoming the first modern democracy to conduct full-scale ethnic cleansing as a state project, something which would condemn Israel forever to the status of an outlaw state, an international pariah. Anyone who supposes that this third option is unthinkable above all for a Jewish state has not been watching the steady accretion of settlements and land seizures in the West Bank over the past quarter-century, or listening to generals and politicians on the Israeli right, some of them currently in government.” [1].

Tony Judt on mainstream media censorship of criticism of the race-based state of Israel (2006): “In its March 23rd issue the London Review of Books, a respected British journal, published an essay titled "The Israel Lobby." The authors are two distinguished American academics (Stephen Walt of Harvard and John Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago) who posted a longer (83-page) version of their text on the Web site of Harvard's Kennedy School. As they must have anticipated, the essay has run into a firestorm of vituperation and refutation. Critics have charged that their scholarship is shoddy and that their claims are, in the words of the columnist Christopher Hitchens, "slightly but unmistakably smelly." The smell in question, of course, is that of anti-Semitism… The essay and the issues it raises for American foreign policy have been prominently dissected and discussed overseas. In America, however, it's been another story: virtual silence in the mainstream media. Why? There are several plausible explanations. One is that a relatively obscure academic paper is of little concern to general-interest readers. Another is that claims about disproportionate Jewish public influence are hardly original — and debate over them inevitably attracts interest from the political extremes. And then there is the view that Washington is anyway awash in "lobbies" of this sort, pressuring policymakers and distorting their choices. Each of these considerations might reasonably account for the mainstream press's initial indifference to the Mearsheimer-Walt essay. But they don't convincingly explain the continued silence even after the article aroused stormy debate in the academy, within the Jewish community, among the opinion magazines and Web sites, and in the rest of the world. I think there is another element in play: fear. Fear of being thought to legitimize talk of a "Jewish conspiracy"; fear of being thought anti-Israel; and thus, in the end, fear of licensing the expression of anti-Semitism.” [2].

[1]. Tony Judt, “Israel: the alternative”, New York Review of Books, 25 September 2003: http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2003/oct/23/israel-the-alternative/?pagination=false .

[2]. Tony Judt, “A lobby, not a conspiracy”, The New York Times, 19 April 2006: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/19/opinion/19judt.html?_r=1&ex=1303099200&en=309d2e3dc279ff48&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss .

Tony Judt: “Israel continues to mock its American patron, building illegal settlements in cynical disregard of the “road map.” The President of the United States of America has been reduced to a ventriloquist’s dummy, pitifully reciting the Israeli cabinet line: “It’s all Arafat’s fault.” ... Anyone who supposes that [ethnic cleansing] is unthinkable above all for a Jewish state has not been watching the steady accretion of settlements and land seizures in the West Bank over the past quarter-century, or listening to generals and politicians on the Israeli right, some of them currently in government. The middle ground of Israeli politics today is occupied by the Likud. Its major component is the late Menachem Begin’s Herut Party. Herut is the successor to Vladimir Jabotinsky’s interwar Revisionist Zionists, whose uncompromising indifference to legal and territorial niceties once attracted from left-leaning Zionists the epithet “fascist.” When one hears Israel’s deputy prime minister, Ehud Olmert, proudly insist that his country has not excluded the option of assassinating the elected president of the Palestinian Authority, it is clear that the label fits better than ever. Political murder is what fascists do” (“Jewish Intellectuals Who Have Opposed Zionism and/or Israeli Racism, Injustices, Occupation, Apartheid and/or Ethnic Cleansing”, Hypertext: http://www.thehypertexts.com/Jewish%20Intellectuals%20Who%20Opposed%20Zionism%20Israel%20Racism%20Injustices%20Apartheid%20Ethnic%20Cleansing.htm ).

KAHN, Julius. Presented an anti-Zionist petition signed by 31 prominent American Jews to President Woodrow Wilson, 1919

Julius Kahn (February 28, 1861 - December 18, 1924) immigrated from Germany to the United States with his parents in 1866. He was a Republican US Congressman 1899-1903 and 1904-1924. Julius Kahn presented an anti-Zionist petition signed by 31 prominent American Jews to President Woodrow Wilson as he was departing for the Paris Peace Conference (March 1919) (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julius_Kahn and http://dissidentvoice.org/2009/09/is-it-anti-semitic-to-defend-palestinian-human-rights/ ).

Julius Kahn presented an anti-Zionist petition signed by 31 prominent American Jews to President Woodrow Wilson as he was departing for the Paris Peace Conference (March 1919). The petition was signed by 31 prominent American Jews. The signatories included Henry Morgenthau, Sr., ex-ambassador to Turkey; Simon W. Rosendale, ex-attorney general of New York; Mayor L. H. Kampner of Galveston, Texas; E. M. Baker, from Cleveland and president of the Stock Exchange; R. H. Macy’s Jesse I. Straus; New York Times publisher Adolph S. Ochs; and Judge M. C. Sloss of San Francisco. Part of the petition read: “…we protest against the political segregation of the Jews and the re-establishment in Palestine of a distinctively Jewish State as utterly opposed to the principles of democracy which it is the avowed purpose of the World’s Peace Conference to establish. Whether the Jews be regarded as a “race” or as a “religion,” it is contrary to the democratic principles for which the world war was waged to found a nation on either or both of these bases.” [1].

[1]. Julius Kahn petition, quoted by Edward Corrigan in “Is it anti-Semitism to defend Palestinian human rights? Jewish opposition to Zionism”, Dissident Voice, 1 September 2009: http://dissidentvoice.org/2009/09/is-it-anti-semitic-to-defend-palestinian-human-rights/

KARLIN, Miriam. UK actress: "Jews for Justice for Palestinians is a network of Jews who are British or live in Britain, practising and secular, Zionist and not. We oppose Israeli policies that undermine the livelihoods, human, civil and political rights of the Palestinian people”

Miriam Karlin “Israel must withdraw from all the settlements and dismantle the wall within Palestinian territory. Then, perhaps, we may at last see some justice for Palestinians.” [1].

Miriam Karlin was a signatory to Jews for Justice for Palestinians: “Jews for Justice for Palestinians is a network of Jews who are British or live in Britain, practising and secular, Zionist and not. We oppose Israeli policies that undermine the livelihoods, human, civil and political rights of the Palestinian people.” [1, 2].

Jews for Justice for Palestinians: “A number of signatories have died over the years and we wish to remember their commitment to the cause of justice for Palestinians”:

[2].

[1]. Jews for Justice for Palestinians, “Statement” : http://jfjfp.com/?page_id=2 .

[2]. Jews for Justice for Palestinians, “Signatories - deceased”: http://jfjfp.com/?page_id=16014 .

KASRILS, Ronnie. Jewish South African anti-Apartheid hero slams Israel as "worse than Apartheid"

Ronald (Ronnie) Kasrils was a South African Jewish hero in the fight against Apartheid. He was a member of the National Executive Committee (NEC) of the African National Congress (ANC) (1987- 2007), member of the Central Committee of the South African Communist Party (SACP) (1986-2007) and Minister for Intelligence (2004-2008) (for more details see Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronnie_Kasrils ) .

Ronnie Kasrils on Apartheid Israel, 2007: “Travelling into Palestine's West Bank and Gaza Strip, which I visited recently, is like a surreal trip back into an apartheid state of emergency. It is chilling to pass through the myriad checkpoints -- more than 500 in the West Bank. They are controlled by heavily armed soldiers, youthful but grim, tensely watching every movement, fingers on the trigger… The West Bank, once 22% of historic Palestine, has shrunk to perhaps 10% to 12% of living space for its inhabitants, and is split into several fragments, including the fertile Jordan Valley, which is a security preserve for Jewish settlers and the Israeli Defence Force. Like the Gaza Strip, the West Bank is effectively a hermetically sealed prison. It is shocking to discover that certain roads are barred to Palestinians and reserved for Jewish settlers. I try in vain to recall anything quite as obscene in apartheid South Africa.” [1].

Ronnie Kasrils on Apartheid Israel and Apartheid South Africa, 2009: “At the onset of international “Israel Apartheid Week” in solidarity with the embattled Palestinian people, I want to start by quoting a South African who emphatically stated as far back as 1963 that “Israel is an apartheid state.” Those were not the words of Nelson Mandela, Archbishop Tutu or Joe Slovo, but were uttered by none other than the architect of apartheid itself, racist Prime Minister, Dr. Hendrik Verwoerd. He was irked by the criticism of apartheid policy and Harold Macmillan’s “Winds of Change” speech , in contrast to the West’s unconditional support for Zionist Israel…To conclude: we must spare no effort in building a world-wide solidarity movement to emulate the success of the Anti-Apartheid Movement which played such a crucial role in toppling the apartheid regime in South Africa. Nelson Mandela stated after South Africa attained democratic rule that “ we South Africans cannot feel free until the Palestinians are free.” A slogan of South Africa’s liberation struggle and our trade union movement is “An injury to one is an injury to all!“ That goes for the whole of humanity. Every act of solidarity demonstrates to the Palestinians and those courageous Jews who stand by them in Israel - that they are not alone.” [2].

Ronnie Kasrils re pro-Zionist Canadian university and government blocking of anti-Apartheid Israel activism, 2009: “I’ve been quite taken a back by what is happening here. These university presidents, and your government, are locked in a time warp. They don’t get it. Being anti-Israel, or anti-Zionism does not in any way equal anti-Semitism. But this fact is lost with the presidents of various universities. It’s lost on the Jason Kenney’s. They still hold on to that notion if you “cry wolf,” and say this is anti-Israel and therefore anti-Semitic, that this will still carry any weight. And what I say in dialogue with Zionists, is that around the world this claim is really something that is now over. It is finished. Finito.” [3].

Ronnie Kasrils to Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), a New Hampshire student group promoting divestment in Israel: “As a South African freedom fighter and recently retired minister in our democratic government I salute your stand against apartheid Israel!” [4].

Ronnie Kasrils on Apartheid Israel and Apartheid South Africa: “ The occupation reminds me of the darkest days of apartheid, but we never saw tanks and planes firing at a civilian population. It's a monstrousness I'd never seen before. The wall you built, the checkpoints and the roads for Jews only - it turns the stomach, even for someone who grew up under apartheid. It's a hundred times worse.” [5].

Former South African Intelligence Minister Ronnie Kasrils from a speech at Israel Apartheid Week (2009)."Israel came to resemble more and more apartheid South Africa at its zenith -- even surpassing its brutality, house demolitions, removal of communities, targeted assassinations, massacres, imprisonment and torture of its opponents, collective punishment and the aggression against neighbouring states." [6].

[1]. Ronnie Kasrils, “Israel 2007: worse than Apartheid”, Mail & Guardian On-line, 21 May 2007: http://www.mg.co.za/article/2007-05-21-israel-2007-worse-than-apartheid .

[2]. Ronnie Kasrils, “Who said nearly 50 years ago that Israel was an Apartheid State?”, Speech at Israel Apartheid Week, 2009, Global BDS Movement. Boycotts, Divestment and Sanctions for Palestine, 20 March 2009: http://www.bdsmovement.net/?q=node/347 .

[3] Ronnie Kasrils, quoted by Johan Boyden,”Israel Apartheid week in Canada welcomes Ronnie Kasrils and fights censorship and interference”, The Comment Factory, 9 March 2009: http://www.thecommentfactory.com/israel-apartheid-week-in-canada-welcomes-ronnie-kasrils-and-fights-censorship-and-interference-2046 .

[4]. Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), a New Hampshire student group promoting divestment in Israel, “Endorsements“, 2009: http://www.hsjp.org/endorsements/ .

[5]. Gideon Levy, “Twilight zone/Cry the Beloved Country”, Haaretz, 26 January 2009: http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/862911.html .

[6]. Edward. C. Corrigan, “Israel and apartheid: a fair comparison?”, rabble.ca, 2 March 2010: http://www.rabble.ca/news/2010/03/israel-and-apartheid-fair-comparison .

KING, Oona. UK MP comparing 1.5 million inmate Israeli Gaza Concentration Camp with Nazi Warsaw Ghetto

Oona King was the Labour MP for Bethnal Green and Bow from 1997 until 2005 when she was defeated by former Labour MPand RESPECT candidate George Galloway. Oona Kingwas born in 1967 to a Jewish mother mother committed to justice issues, Murreil Hazels Stern, and an Africna-American father, political theorist Preston King. She is the niece of the medical doctor Dr Miriam Stoppard (her mother's sister) and her playwright husband Tom Stoppard and is a member of the Jewish Council for Racial Equality (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oona_King ).

Ms Oona King MP on comparing the Israeli Gaza Concentration Camp with the Nazi Warsaw Ghetto (2003): " The same in nature … No government should be behaving like that - least of all a Jewish government…I recognise the terror many Israelis live with as a matter of their daily lives. I was more surprised perhaps by the everyday terror that Palestinians live, the detail and nature of which I had not understood. We must support the moderate voices as opposed to strengthening extremists…. It is the same in nature but not extent [as the Warsaw Ghetto] …[although a ] very, very big difference... Palestinians are not being rounded up and put in gas chambers. What makes it similar is what happened to the Jewish people in that time which was the seizing of land, being forced from property, torture and bureaucracy - control used in a demeaning way over the smallest task. On top of that building a wall around them - and that is precisely what the Israeli government is doing. In doing so it is building a political ghetto. I don't think it can escape that conclusion…As a Jewish person, I hoped I would never live to see the day I was ashamed of the actions of the Jewish state." [1].

[1]. Oona King MP, quoted in “MPs compare Gaza to Warsaw Ghetto”, Guardian, 19 June 2003: http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2003/jun/19/foreignpolicy.israel .

KLEIN, Joe. Anti-racist Jewish American political columnist for Time magazine: "[Zionists] now leading the charge for war with Iran”

Joe Klein (anti-racist Jewish American political columnist for Time magazine and author of the political novel “Primary Colors”): “I have now been called antisemitic and intellectually unstable and a whole bunch of other silly things by the folks over at the Commentary blog. They want Time Magazine to fire or silence me. This is happening because I said something that is palpably true, but unspoken in polite society: There is a small group of Jewish neoconservatives who unsuccessfully tried to get Benjamin Netanyahu to attack Saddam Hussein in the 1990s, and then successfully helped provide the intellectual rationale for George Bush to do it in 2003. Their motivations involve a confused conflation of what they think are Israel’s best interests with those of the United States. They are now leading the charge for war with Iran” (“Jewish Intellectuals Who Have Opposed Zionism and/or Israeli Racism, Injustices, Occupation, Apartheid and/or Ethnic Cleansing”, Hypertext: http://www.thehypertexts.com/Jewish%20Intellectuals%20Who%20Opposed%20Zionism%20Israel%20Racism%20Injustices%20Apartheid%20Ethnic%20Cleansing.htm ).

KLEIN, Naomi. Naomi Klein slams Israeli human rights abuses

Naomi Klein is a famous Jewish Canadian journalist, author and activist who is very well known for her books and critiques of corporate globalization (for biography see Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naomi_Klein; see also Naomi Klein website: http://www.naomiklein.org/main ).

Naomi Klein on “never again to anyone”: “There is a debate among Jews - I'm a Jew by the way. The debate boils down to the question: "Never again to everyone, or never again to us?... [Some Jews] even think we get one get-away-with-genocide-free card...There is another strain in the Jewish tradition that say[s], 'Never again to anyone.”” [1].

.Naomi Klein and other outstanding writers: “The latest chapter of the conflict between Israel and Palestine began when Israeli forces abducted two civilians, a doctor and his brother, from Gaza. An incident scarcely reported anywhere, except in the Turkish press. The following day the Palestinians took an Israeli soldier prisoner - and proposed a negotiated exchange against prisoners taken by the Israelis - there are approximately 10,000 in Israeli jails.

That this "kidnapping" was considered an outrage, whereas the illegal military occupation of the West Bank and the systematic appropriation of its natural resources - most particularly that of water - by the Israeli Defence (!) Forces is considered a regrettable but realistic fact of life, is typical of the double standards repeatedly employed by the West in face of what has befallen the Palestinians, on the land allotted to them by international agreements, during the last seventy years.

Today outrage follows outrage; makeshift missiles cross sophisticated ones. The latter usually find their target situated where the disinherited and crowded poor live, waiting for what was once called Justice. Both categories of missile rip bodies apart horribly - who but field commanders can forget this for a moment?

Each provocation and counter-provocation is contested and preached over. But the subsequent arguments, accusations and vows, all serve as a distraction in order to divert world attention from a long-term military, economic and geographic practice whose political aim is nothing less than the liquidation of the Palestinian nation.

This has to be said loud and clear for the practice, only half declared and often covert, is advancing fast these days, and, in our opinion, it must be unceasingly and eternally recognised for what it is and resisted.

(Signed) Tariq Ali, Russell Banks, John Berger, Noam Chomsky, Richard Falk, Eduardo Galeano, Charles Glass, Naomi Klein, W.J.T. Mitchell, Harold Pinter, Arundhati Roy. Jose Saramago, Giiuliana Sgrena, Gore Vidal, Howard Zinn.” [2].

Naomi Klein to Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), a New Hampshire student group promoting disinvestment in Israel: “Congratulations to the students of Hampshire College for your principled and thoughtful divestment decision. Economic sanctions are among the most potent tools in the arsenal of non-violent tactics. Divestment and boycotts are controversial precisely because they work. So stay strong in the face of the attacks and misinformation, they are a measure of the effectiveness of the tactic you have chosen. And know that that there are many who stand with you, and will soon be inspired to join you” [3].

Naomi Klein on sanctions against Apartheid Israel as against Apartheid South Africa (2009): “It's time. Long past time. The best strategy to end the increasingly bloody occupation is for Israel to become the target of the kind of global movement that put an end to apartheid in South Africa.” [4].

Naomi Klein signed the following letter together with Tariq Ali, John Berger, Noam Chomsky, Eduardo Galeano, Harold Pinter, Arundhati Roy, José Saramago, and Howard Zinn on the occasion of the 2006 devastation of Gaza and Lebanon by the Apartheid Israeli military machine (2006):

“The latest chapter of the conflict between Israel and Palestine began when Israeli forces abducted two civilians, a doctor and his brother, from Gaza. An incident scarcely reported anywhere, except in the Turkish press. The following day the Palestinians took an Israeli soldier prisoner - and proposed a negotiated exchange against prisoners taken by the Israelis - there are approximately 10,000 in Israeli jails.

That this "kidnapping" was considered an outrage, whereas the illegal military occupation of the West Bank and the systematic appropriation of its natural resources - most particularly that of water - by the Israeli Defence (!) Forces is considered a regrettable but realistic fact of life, is typical of the double standards repeatedly employed by the West in face of what has befallen the Palestinians, on the land alloted to them by international agreements, during the last seventy years.

Today outrage follows outrage; makeshift missiles cross sophisticated ones. The latter usually find their target situated where the disinherited and crowded poor live, waiting for what was once called Justice. Both categories of missile rip bodies apart horribly - who but field commanders can forget this for a moment?

Each provocation and counter-provocation is contested and preached over. But the subsequent arguments, accusations and vows, all serve as a distraction in order to divert world attention from a long-term military, economic and geographic practice whose political aim is nothing less than the liquidation of the Palestinian nation.

This has to be said loud and clear for the practice, only half declared and often covert, is advancing fast these days, and, in our opinion, it must be unceasingly and eternally recognised for what it is and resisted.” [5].

[1]. Yotam Feldman, “Naomi Klein: oppose the state not the people”, Haaretz, 2 July 2007: http://haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1097058.html .

[2]. Letter from Naomi Klein with Tariq Ali, Russell Banks, John Berger, Noam Chomsky, Richard Falk Eduardo Galeano, Charles Glass, W.J.T. Mitchell, Arundhati Roy, Harold Pinter, Jose Saramago, Giiuliana Sgrena, and Gore Vidal re Palestine, Peninsular Peace and Justice Centre, Palo Alto, California, USA, 19 July 2006: http://peaceandjustice.org/article.php?story=20060726115326120&query=zinn .

[3]. Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), a New Hampshire student group promoting divestment in Israel, “Endorsements“, 2009: http://www.hsjp.org/endorsements/ .

[4]. Naomi Klein, quoted in “Voices against Israel’s apartheid system”, Green Left Weekly, 10 April 2011: http://www.greenleft.org.au/node/47300 .

[5]. Tariq Ali, John Berger, Noam Chomsky, Eduardo Galeano, Naomi Klein, Harold Pinter, Arundhati Roy, José Saramago and Howard Zinn, “Israel, Lebanon, and Palestine”, Open Letter, 19 July 2006: http://www.chomsky.info/letters/20060719.htm .

KOLKO, Gabriel. Anti-racist Jewish American and leading historian on modern warfare: "There is simply no rational reason that justifies the state’s creation”

Gabriel Kolko: “The result of the creation of a state called Israel was abysmal ... There is simply no rational reason that justifies the state’s creation. The outcome is a small state with a military ethos that pervades all aspects of Israel’s culture, its politics and, above all, its response to the existence of Arabs in its midst and at its borders. From its inception, the ideology of the early Zionists — of Labor Zionism as well as the rightist Revisionism that Vladimir Jabotinsky produced — embodied a commitment to violence, erroneously called self-defense, and a virtual hysteria” (“Jewish Intellectuals Who Have Opposed Zionism and/or Israeli Racism, Injustices, Occupation, Apartheid and/or Ethnic Cleansing”, Hypertext: http://www.thehypertexts.com/Jewish%20Intellectuals%20Who%20Opposed%20Zionism%20Israel%20Racism%20Injustices%20Apartheid%20Ethnic%20Cleansing.htm ).

KOSMINSKY, Peter (film maker): "But if you’re Jewish, as I am, and you criticise the domestic and/or foreign policy of the sovereign state of Israel you are immediately called ‘an anti-Semite’"

Peter Kosminsky (an anti-racist Jewish British writer, director and producer; directed Hollywood movies e.g. “White Oleander” and TV movies e.g. like” Warriors”, “The Government Inspector”, “The Promise”, “Wolf Hall” and “The State”) (2013): “Nothing prepared me for the level of vitriol that was going to drop on me from the Zionist lobby… personal, vicious stuff came my way… I was left with one really striking puzzlement... If I choose to criticise my country, and I often do, nobody or very few people say I'm not patriotic, certainly no people call me ‘a racist’. They accept that it’s a legitimate thing in a free society to criticise the political and diplomatic behaviour, the domestic and foreign policies of a sovereign state. It doesn't mean that you're not a loyal member of that state, it just means that you disagree with its political behaviour. But if you’re Jewish, as I am, and you criticise the domestic and/or foreign policy of the sovereign state of Israel you are immediately called ‘an anti-Semite’. Very clever isn’t it. You can't criticize the behaviour of a sovereign state, a member of the United Nations, without being called ‘a racist’ and of course because of the Holocaust... you know, it's an immensely sensitive accusation to level at someone, that ‘you're anti-Semite’. And to me that's the most troubling thing, as they say a cuckoo in this academic nest... about a whole discourse that the Western world is ultimately hampered in its ability to criticize, irrespective of more geopolitical considerations, we are still after all these years, restricted in our ability to criticize the straightforward behaviour of an elected government in the state of Israel, for fear that we will be accused of being anti-Semites and that's what I've been spending two years and plus, wrestling with...” ( Peter Kosminsky “Peter Kosminsky explains the hate he received”, YouTube, 26 April 2013: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WJ3f9d1l0hg ).

KOZAK, Marion. UK peace & human rights activist & mother of Labor leader Ed Miliband: "Jews for Justice for Palestinians... We oppose Israeli policies that undermine the livelihoods, human, civil and political rights of the Palestinian people”

Marion Kozak (Marion Kozak Miliband) (born 1934 as Dobra Jenta Kozak, also known as Maria Kozak) is a Polish-born Jewish Holocaust survivor who emigrated to the UK in the 1950s. In 1961 she married famous socialist scholar Professor Ralph Miliband (1924–1994) and their two sons, David Miliband and Ed Miliband, were major figures in the Labour Government. Ed Miliband defeated his brother to become the present leader of the British Labour Party. Marion Kozak is a long-standing human rights campaigner, an early activist for the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, and is a long-standing supporter of pro-Palestinian organisations being a signatory of the founding statements of both Jews for Justice for Palestinians (founded 2002) and Independent Jewish Voices (launched 2007) (see Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marion_Kozak ).

Marion Kozak was a signatory to Jews for Justice for Palestinians: “Jews for Justice for Palestinians is a network of Jews who are British or live in Britain, practising and secular, Zionist and not. We oppose Israeli policies that undermine the livelihoods, human, civil and political rights of the Palestinian people.” [1, 2].

[1]. Jews for Justice for Palestinians, “Signatories”: http://jfjfp.com/?page_id=9 .

[2]. Jews for Justice for Palestinians, “About”: http://jfjfp.com/?page_id=2

KUHN, Rick: "Satisfy the aspirations of the Palestinians for freedom. Only a democratic state made up of all those now living within the borders of historic Palestine, together with the Palestinian diaspora, can achieve that goal"

Professor Rick Kuhn (an anti-racist Jewish Australian Marxian economist, political analyst and Reader (Associate Professor) at the Australian National University (ANU), Canberra, and a founder of Jews Against Occupation and Oppression) (2017): “There’s a fight going on inside the [pro-Zionist] Labor Party over the cosmetics of its position on Israel and Palestine. Currently, party leader Bill Shorten is sticking with the ALP’s longstanding policy [2-state solution and no recognition of a Palestinian state yet]. Whether Labor or the Coalition has been in office, Australian governments have been among the fiercest supporters of apartheid Israel since its creation. Unlike about 138 other countries, Australia has refused to recognise the Palestinian Authority [PA] as the government of a Palestinian state. Slavish backing of Israel is mainly a by-product of the Australia-US alliance, which has long benefited the ruling class here… The squabble in the Labor Party over how best to back Israel reflects growing sympathy, crucially from ordinary people rather than governments, for the Palestinians. Increased recognition of the repressive PA as a state is symbolic of this shift. But it won’t satisfy the aspirations of the Palestinians for freedom. Only a democratic state made up of all those now living within the borders of historic Palestine, together with the Palestinian diaspora, can achieve that goal” (Rick Kuhn, “Labor in a tizz over how to save an apartheid Israel”, Red Flag, 6 March 2017, page 25: https://redflag.org.au/node/5696 ).

LANG-LEVITSKY, Daniel. Cofounder of Jews against the Occupation

Daniel Lang-Levitsky is a theatre worker and organizer based in New York City, and a co-founder of Jews Against the Occupation (see: http://www.monthlyreview.org/090622lang.php and http://www.jatonyc.org/ ).

Daniel Lang-Levitsky on solidarity with Palestinians after the latest Israel Gaza Massacre: "One of the main accomplishments of the Israeli government’s bombing and invasion of the Gaza Strip last winter was to inspire new vitality within leftist and peace groups in solidarity with the Palestinian struggle for justice and liberation. This wave of activity has continued after the supposed ceasefire, with demonstrations and direct actions from New York to Los Angeles, Paris, Jaffa, and Tel Aviv. Most noteworthy has been a coming out of sorts of an increasingly large and vocal segment of the Jewish world that is not only opposed to the Israeli government’s wars and military occupations, but critical of Zionism itself." [1].

[1]. Daniel Lang-Levitsky , "Jews confront Zionism", Monthly Review, June, 2009: http://www.monthlyreview.org/090622lang.php .

LANGSAM, David. Australian journalist: "In Australia in the 1980s, I guessed that I was part of a 5-10% minority of Jews prepared to be publicly critical of Israel"

David Langsam is an anti-racist Jewish Australian writer, broadcaster, human rights activist and peace activist.

David Langsam is an journalist) “I am now again the Zionist I once was (But the Zionist caravan has moved on)”: “I guess what I have always tried to do as a journalist is to disprove common currency lies. In 1989 the Israeli lie was that Palestinians children were only shot by the IDF when their parents pushed them forward … In Australia in the 1980s, I guessed that I was part of a 5-10% minority of Jews prepared to be publicly critical of Israel. (Today, that percentage may have crept up to 10-15%, but I believe there are far more that have become disengaged, partly because Israel does bad things and partly because of the bully-boy tactics of its Australian support groups, AIJAC, the State Zionist Council and the Anti-Defamation Commission.) In London in the late 1980s, I surveyed the British Board of Deputies for The Observer newspaper and found one third of respondents opposed Rabin’s 1987 policy of “Break their bones”. In Israel, I am not at all radical – I am mainstream Old Labor, maybe Meretz. I have not changed, Zionism has.” [1, 2].

[1]. David Langsam, “Once you see you cannot unsee” in “Beyond Tribal Loyalties. Personal Stories of Jewish Peace Activists”, edited by Avigail Abarbanel (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2012) (pp 43 & 45).

[2]. David Langsam quoted in Gideon Polya, “Book Review: “Beyond Tribal Loyalties”. Stories of anti-racist Jews”, MWC News, 18 January 2012: http://mwcnews.net/focus/analysis/24184-gideonpolya-beyond-tribal-loyalties.html .

LENDMAN, Stephen. Top anti-racist Jewish American writer slams ethnic cleansing and gross abuse of Palestinians

Stephen Lendman is an outstanding anti-racist, humanitarian Jewish American analyst, writer and a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (see Stephen Lendman blog:: http://sjlendman.blogspot.com/ ) .

Stephen Lendman reviewing Ilan Pappe’s “The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine”: “Since the 1940s, they [the Palestinians] were ethnically cleansed and slaughtered without mercy so their homeland would become one for Jews alone. The shameful result is that Palestinians then and today have almost no rights including being able to live in peace and security on their own land in their own state that no longer exists. Survivors then and their offspring either live in Israel as unwanted Arab citizens with few rights or in the Occupied Palestinians Territories (OPT) where their lives are suspended in limbo in an occupied country in which they're subjected to daily institutionalized and codified racism and persecution. They have no power over their daily lives and live in a constant state of fear with good reason. They face economic strangulation; collective punishment for any reason; loss of free movement; enclosures by separation walls, electric fences and border closings; regular curfews, roadblocks, checkpoints, loss of their homes by bulldozings and crops and orchards by wanton destruction and seizure; arrest without cause, and routine subjection to torture while in custody. They're targeted for extra-judicial assassination and indiscriminate killing; taxed punitively and denied basic services essential to life and well-being including health care, education, employment and even enough food and water at the whim of Israeli authorities in a deliberate effort to destroy their will to resist and eliminate those who won't by expulsion or extermination.”. [1].

Stephen Lendman on Israel/Palestine today: “B'Tselem is the Jerusalem-based independent Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories (OPT) with a well-deserved reputation for accuracy and integrity. It was founded in 1989 to "document and educate the Israeli public, policymakers (and concerned people everywhere) about human rights violations in the OPT, combat the phenomenon of denial prevalent among the Israeli public (and elsewhere, especially among Jews), and create a human rights culture in Israel" to convince government officials to respect human rights and comply with international law. It conducts wide-ranging, carefully researched, and thoroughly cross-checked reports, most recently its June one titled, "Foul Play: Neglect of wastewater treatment in the West Bank." This article discusses its findings as further evidence of how Israel violates international humanitarian law as an occupying power. Because no global authority holds it accountable, over 2.8 million West Bank Palestinians suffer along with another 1.5 million under siege in Gaza for over two years and counting …Of the West Bank's 2.8 million Palestinians, wastewater for over two million of them goes untreated, the result of Israel's wilful neglect in violation of international humanitarian law and its obligation as an occupier.” [2].

Stephen Lendman on Jews against the evil of Zionism (2009): “At its core, Zionism is fundamentally racist, extremist, undemocratic, and militant:

-- in espousing Jewish supremacy, exceptionalism, and uniqueness as God's "chosen people;"

-- in relying on occupation, oppression, violence and dispossession;

-- in justifying a Jewish ethnocracy based on structural inequalities;

-- in ruling by force, not coexistence;

-- in choosing confrontation over diplomacy and the rule of law; and

-- by denying Arabs and all others the same rights as Jews.

No ideology that destructive can endure. No regional peace and reconciliation is possible until it's repudiated.” [3].

[1]. Stephen Lendman, “The ethnic cleansing of Palestine by Ian Pappe”, Global Research, 7 February 2007: http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=4715 .

[2]. Stephen Lendman” “Dangerous Untreated Wastewater in the West Bank”, Stephen Lendman Blog, 17 July 2009: http://sjlendman.blogspot.com/ .

[3]. Stephen Lendman, “Jews against Zionism”, Rense, 7 December 2009: http://www.rense.com/general88/lnd.htm .

LERNER, Michael. Anti-racist Jewish American Rabbi: "But [for a Jew to] say, 'I don’t support the State of Israel,' and you are likely to be labeled a 'self-hating Jew' or anti-Semite, scorned and dismissed""

Rabbi Michael Lerner (anti-racist Jewish American editor of Tikkun Magazine): “If a Jew today goes into any synagogue in the U.S. or around the world and says, 'I don’t believe in God or Torah and I don’t follow the commandments,' most will still welcome you in and urge you to become involved. But say, 'I don’t support the State of Israel,' and you are likely to be labeled a 'self-hating Jew' or anti-Semite, scorned and dismissed" (David Wilson, “From Albert Einstein to Noam Chomsky: famous Jews who have opposed Israel”, Stop the War Coalition, 12 August 2014: http://www.stopwar.org.uk/index.php/news-comment/1307-from-albert-einstein-to-noam-chomsky-famous-jews-who-have-opposed-israel ).

Michael Lerner (anti-racist Jewish American Rabbi) delivering a eulogy for Muhammad Ali (2016): “One of the reasons we have called upon the United States to stand up to the part of the Israeli government that is oppressing Palestinians [applause] is that we as Jews understand that our commitment is to recognize that God has created everyone in God’s image and that everyone is equally precious and that means the Palestinian people as well as all other people on the planet ”(Phil Weiss and Annie Robbins, “Michael Lerner brings down the house at Muhammad Ali funeral by standing up for Palestinians and against Netanyahu”, Mondoweiss, 11 June 2016: http://mondoweiss.net/2016/06/standing-palestinians-netanyahu/ ).

LEVI, Primo. Anti-racist Jewish Italian science fiction writer & Auschwitz survivor: "Everyone has their Jews. For the Israelis they are the Palestinians"

Primo Levi (famed anti-racist Jewish Italian science fiction writer, industrial chemist and Auschwitz survivor): "Everyone has their Jews. For the Israelis they are the Palestinians" (David Wilson, “From Albert Einstein to Noam Chomsky: famous Jews who have opposed Israel”, Stop the War Coalition, 12 August 2014: http://www.stopwar.org.uk/index.php/news-comment/1307-from-albert-einstein-to-noam-chomsky-famous-jews-who-have-opposed-israel ).

LEVITSKY, Steven. Anti-racist Jewish American scholars Steven Levitsky (Harvard) & Glen Weyl (Chicago): "We are lifelong Zionists... we’ve chosen to boycott Israel"

Anti-racist Jewish American scholars Steven Levitsky (a professor of government at Harvard University) and Glen Weyl (an assistant professor of economics and law at the University of Chicago) (2015): “We are lifelong Zionists. Like other progressive Jews, our support for Israel has been founded on two convictions: first, that a state was necessary to protect our people from future disaster; and second, that any Jewish state would be democratic, embracing the values of universal human rights that many took as a lesson of the Holocaust. Undemocratic measures undertaken in pursuit of Israel’s survival, such as the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza and the denial of basic rights to Palestinians living there, were understood to be temporary. But we must face reality: The occupation has become permanent. Nearly half a century after the Six-Day War, Israel is settling into the apartheid-like regime against which many of its former leaders warned. The settler population in the West Bank has grown 30-fold, from about 12,000 in 1980 to 389,000 today. The West Bank is increasingly treated as part of Israel, with the green line demarcating the occupied territories erased from many maps. Israeli President Reuven Rivlin declared recently that control over the West Bank is “not a matter of political debate. It is a basic fact of modern Zionism.” This “basic fact” poses an ethical dilemma for American Jews: Can we continue to embrace a state that permanently denies basic rights to another people? Yet it also poses a problem from a Zionist perspective: Israel has embarked on a path that threatens its very existence… It is thus, reluctantly but resolutely, that we are refusing to travel to Israel, boycotting products produced there and calling on our universities to divest and our elected representatives to withdraw aid to Israel. Until Israel seriously engages with a peace process that either establishes a sovereign Palestinian state or grants full democratic citizenship to Palestinians living in a single state, we cannot continue to subsidize governments whose actions threaten Israel’s long-term survival” (Steven Levitsky and Glen Weyl, “We are lifelong Zionists. Here’s why we’ve chosen to boycott Israel”, Washington Post, 23 October 2015: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/a-zionist-case-for-boycotting-israel/2015/10/23/ac4dab80-735c-11e5-9cbb-790369643cf9_story.html?utm_term=.dfeafec3b09f ).

LEVY, Gideon. Progressive Israeli journalist slams racism of an increasingly Fascist Israel

Gideon Levy is a columnist and editorial board member of the progressive Israeli daily newspaper Ha’aretz (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gideon_Levy ).

Gideon Levy on an increasingly fascist Apartheid Israel (2014): "All the seeds of the incitement of the past few years, all the nationalistic, racist legislation and the incendiary propaganda, the scare campaigns and the subversion of democracy by the right-wing camp – all these have borne fruit, and that fruit is rank and rotten. The nationalist right has now sunk to a new level, with almost the whole country following in its wake. The word 'fascism', which I try to use as little as possible, finally has its deserved place in the Israeli political discourse" [1].

[1]. Gideon Levy quoted in Mike Carlton, “Israel’s rank and rotten fruit is being called fascism”, Sydney Morning Herald, 26 July 2014: http://www.smh.com.au/comment/israels-rank-and-rotten-fruit-is-being-called-fascism-20140724-zwd2t.html .

LEVY, Lesley. Canadian peace activist: "“Not in my name!” I cannot remain informed of what Israel is doing to the Palestinian people and at the same time continue to be a silent bystander"

Lesley Levy is an anti-racist Jewish Canadian human rights and peace activist.

Lesley Levy on “Not in my name” (2012): “I have been actively involved in the Palestinian rights, anti-occupation movement for the past nine years … When mainstream Jews insist that Zionism and Judaism are synonymous, I cannot help as a Jew but to feel tarred with the same brush. There is a yearning to cry out, “Not in my name!” I cannot remain informed of what Israel is doing to the Palestinian people and at the same time continue to be a silent bystander… My sense of outrage, guilt , and shame about the treatment of Palestinians clearly demonstrates that I do identify strongly as a Jew. I can disagree with the Zionist ideology and the policies of the Styate if Israel and still be proud of my Jewish heritage. One advantage of being in my sixties is that I have much less to lose by speaking out. I no longer worry about what others think, or whether it will ruin my chances of getting a job. I have earned the courage of my convictions.” [1, 2].

[1]. Lesley Levy, “The courage of my convictions”: in “Beyond Tribal Loyalties. Personal Stories of Jewish Peace Activists”, edited by Avigail Abarbanel (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2012) (pp 87-88 & 94).

[2]. Lesley Levy quoted in Gideon Polya, “Book Review: “Beyond Tribal Loyalties”. Stories of anti-racist Jews”, MWC News, 18 January 2012: http://mwcnews.net/focus/analysis/24184-gideonpolya-beyond-tribal-loyalties.html .

LINDELL, Geoffrey. Australian Law professor denounces and renounces the racist Zionist "law of return" that "is in fact a form of racist privilege that abets the colonial oppression of the Palestinians"

G. J. Lindell is an Australian barrister and solicitor and an honorary protfessor in the law faculties of both the University of Adelaide and the University of Melbourne (http://www.findanexpert.unimelb.edu.au/researcher/person364.html and http://antonyloewenstein.com/2010/03/03/prominent-australian-jews-including-peter-singer-reject-the-israeli-right-of-return/ ).

Professor Geoffrey Lindell as a signatory on the "Petition Against the Right of Return to Israel on Behalf of Australian Jews” (March 2010): “We are Jews from Australia, who, like Jewish people throughout the world, have an automatic right to Israeli citizenship under Israel’s “law of return.” While this law may seem intended to enable a Jewish homeland, we submit that it is in fact a form of racist privilege that abets the colonial oppression of the Palestinians.

Today there are more than seven million Palestinian refugees around the world. Israel denies their right to return to their homes and land—a right recognized and undisputed by UN Resolution 194, the Geneva Convention, and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Meanwhile, we are invited to live on that same land simply because we are Jewish, thereby potentially taking the place of Palestinians who would dearly love to return to their ancestral lands.

We renounce this “right” to “return” offered to us by Israeli law. It is not right that we may “return” to a state that is not ours while Palestinians are excluded and continuously dispossessed.’ [1].

[1]. Antony Loewenstein, "Prominent Australian Jews reject the Israeli "right of return", Media release, 3 March 2010:

http://antonyloewenstein.com/2010/03/03/prominent-australian-jews-including-peter-singer-reject-the-israeli-right-of-return/.

LOEWENSTEIN, Antony. Slams Zionist use of “anti-Semite” slur and demands honest debate on Israel and Palestine

Antony Loewenstein on his book “My Israel Question”: “Over two years of writing, researching and spending time in the Middle East and the US--as well as being slammed by simply defending the rights of Palestinian human rights campaigner Hanan Ashrawi after she won the 2003 Sydney Peace Prize--I soon realised that I wasn't being silenced but the issues of Israeli occupation and the Zionist lobby were routinely avoided by the mainstream media. I wanted my book to readdress that imbalance. Honest debate about Israel and Palestine is sadly lacking in Australia and much of the Western world. It's invariably overly emotive, factually challenged, partisan and counter-productive …Discussing Israel and Palestine is therefore vital in an age of rising fundamentalisms. Labelling critics of Israel as anti-Semitic or anti-Israel merely attempts to silence individuals who passionately believe the current political path of the Jewish state is destined to lead to its disappearance. I share this fear. The simple truth is that Israel's long-term security lies with the Arab world, not a superpower thousands of miles away. A superpower, it should be noted, that has suffered an inglorious and welcome defeat in Iraq and whose reputation in the Arab and Muslim world has never been worse.” [1].

[1]. Antony Loewenstein “My Israel Question”, Counterpunch, 13 September 2006: http://www.counterpunch.org/loewenstein09132006.html .

LOEWENSTEIN, Jennifer. “Israel will accept no authority in the Palestinian territories that it does not ultimately control”

Dr Jennifer Loewenstein is the Associate Director of the Middle East Studies Program at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Madison, Wisconsin, USA and has been a Visiting Research Fellow at OxfordUniversity's Refugee Studies Centre (for biographical details see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jennifer_Loewenstein ).

Dr Jennifer Loewenstein on Zionist Israeli racism: “The destruction of Gaza has nothing to do with Hamas. Israel will accept no authority in the Palestinian territories that it does not ultimately control. Any individual, leader, faction or movement that fails to accede to Israel’s demands or that seeks genuine sovereignty and the equality of all nations in the region; any government or popular movement that demands the applicability of international humanitarian law and of the universal declaration of human rights for its own people will be unacceptable for the Jewish State. Those dreaming of one state must be forced to ask themselves what Israel would do to a population of 4 million Palestinians within its borders when it commits on a daily, if not hourly basis, crimes against their collective humanity while they live alongside its borders? What will suddenly make the raison d’etre, the self-proclaimed purpose of Israel’s reason for being change if the Palestinian territories are annexed to it outright?” [1].

Dr Jennifer Loewenstein as a signatory to a latter entitled “The reality of the Geneva Accord”, 2003: “The Geneva accord was signed Monday 1 December 2003 amid great media and political fanfare. The 50-page document lays out a plan for a presumed "peace agreement" between Israel and the Palestinian people. We, the undersigned, consider this initiative as inconsistent with the prerequisites of a just and durable peace for the following reasons:

1. It attempts to nullify the Palestinian right of return, both as a collective national right and as an individual right. By doing so, it strengthens existing attempts to relocate and scatter Palestinian refugees throughout the world and gives credence to plans to abrogate international law pertaining to the inalienable nature of the right of return. The net result would be to extract the very anchor of the Palestinian struggle for self-determination: the indivisible oneness of the Palestinian people and their right to their homes, properties and homeland.

2. It provides a Palestinian-Arab cover for the exclusive nature of the Israeli polity as a "Jewish State", thus abrogating the national character of the Palestinian people within 1948 borders. It therefore fails to recognize the right of the 1.2 million Palestinian citizens of Israel to live in a democratic state for all its citizens: Jews and Palestinians, and it sets the stage for mass transfer and ethnic cleansing in the future to maintain demographic Jewish dominance.

3. It accepts the reconfiguration of Jerusalem based on Israeli annexation plans, and grants Palestinian-Arab legitimacy to the colonial process that altered the Arab character of Jerusalem, making it impossible for the Palestinians to exercise control over "East Jerusalem", not to say anything about "West Jerusalem", which was conquered and ethnically cleansed in 1948.

4. It permanently accepts the presence of the vast majority of Israeli settlement colonies, particularly those that surround Jerusalem from the east, south, north and northwest, where most post-1967 settlers live, and alters the geography of Palestine to accommodate such colonial seizures.

5. It codifies a process that would limit the upper ceiling of a potential Palestinian polity to a truncated and demilitarized entity void of sovereignty, and sets in motion a process of expanding Israeli political oversight and control over any potential Palestinian entity.

6. It paves for an economic-political relationship that subordinates the Palestinian people to an exclusive and dominant Israeli polity, thus strategically de-linking the Palestinians from the Arab people and subjugating the national interests of all Arabs to the singular power of an Israeli-US alliance.

7. It allows for Israeli military and economic penetration and permanent outposts into the presumed Palestinian entity.

8. It leaves open all Israeli claims to the region's water resources, natural wealth and airspace. The text makes several references to annexes, but these issues have, in effect, been deferred, and may become the "final status" issues of the Geneva understanding.

9. It dilutes the international consensus on the conflict and attempts to transform the basis of the Palestinian struggle from one of national self-determination and return to that of modified civil rights within a prescribed political framework.

10. Most importantly, it weakens the national unity and resolve of the Palestinian people, leading to the potential defeat of the current Intifada in the same manner that Madrid and Oslo [accords] destroyed the first a decade ago.

11. It diminishes European commitment to Palestinian sovereignty and, most importantly, it expands the margin of Palestinian concessions, which have been bottoming out during the past two decades, making it very difficult for future Palestinian negotiators to back away from these concessions, including the renunciation of the right of return.

12. It assumes the Palestinian victims of Israel are the criminals, and the new judges allegedly more liberal than previous ones in the sentencing.

The Geneva accord is a natural extension and an inevitable result of the "Road Map" and all associated models. The outcome of all, if allowed to succeed, would be to terminate the Palestinian march to freedom, to nullify indefinitely and delegitimize the Palestinian right to return, and to subordinate the Arab nation to a heavily militarized outpost with normalized relationships with its surrounding.” [2].

[1]. Dr Jennifer Loewenstein, “If Hamas did not exist”, The Palestine Chronicle, 31 December 2008: http://www.palestinechronicle.com/view_article_details.php?id=14575 .

[2]. Dr Jennifer Lowenstein as a signatory with many other scholars to a letter entitled “The reality of the Geneva Accord”, 1993, Spotlight, 6 December 2003: http://74.125.155.132/search?q=cache:TtwoKvKTA1IJ:www.redress.btinternet.co.uk/petition3.htm+%22Jennifer+Loewenstein+PhD%22&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=au .

LUDEN, Yizhak. Anti-racist Jewish Polish socialist and member of the anti-Zionist Jewish Labor Bund:"The few Bundists who came [to Palestine] made clear our political position in support of Palestinians, and for a one state solution"

Yitzhak Luden, ( anti-racist Jewish Polish socialist and member of the anti-Zionist Jewish Labor Bund) (2012): “One hundred and fifteen years ago, the Zionists held their first congress in a casino in Basel. The Bundists on the other hand, had their first meeting in the attic of a farm near Vilnius a month before. The Zionists were bourgeois from the start!... I came to Israel in 1948 not as a Zionist, but as someone fleeing war-torn Europe. Poland denied Bundists the right to organize, and the few Bundists who came made clear our political position in support of Palestinians, and for a one state solution… The religious Jews had traditionally organized Jewish communities. The Bund came out against both this and Zionism. It began to organize worker cooperatives and the social lives of many Jews. I was at first a member of the Bundist youth organization, SKIF. And some of my friends from SKIF who stayed in Warsaw later fought in the Ghetto resistance” (Yitzhak Luden quoted in Alon Aviram, “Remember the Jewish Labor Bund?”, +972, 25 November 2012: https://972mag.com/remember-the-jewish-labor-bund/60337/ ).

MAGNES, Judah. Reform rabbi and anti-racist Zionist

Judah Magnes (1877-1948) was an outstanding Reform rabbi in both the US and Palestine. The first chancellor of the Hebrew University and later president (1935-1948), he argued for non-racism and a bi-national state in Palestine (see Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judah_Leon_Magnes ).

Judah Magnes re Peel Commission and Partition, 1937 (New York Times, 18 July, 1937): “With the permission of the Arabs we will be able to receive hundreds of thousands of persecuted Jews in Arab lands … Without the permission of the Arabs even the four hundred thousand [Jews] that now are in Palestine will remain in danger, in spite of the temporary protection of British bayonets. With partition a new Balkan is made.” [1].

Judah Magnes on Zionism: "If we cannot find ways of peace and understanding, if the only way of establishing the Jewish National Home is upon the bayonets of some Empire, our whole enterprise is not worthwhile, and it is better that the Eternal People that has outlived many a mighty empire should possess its soul in patience... It is one of the great civilizing tasks before the Jewish people to enter the promised land, not in the Joshua way, but bringing peace and culture, hard work and sacrifice and love, and a determination to do nothing that cannot be justified before the conscience of the world." [1].

Judah Magnes (in resigning leadership of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee over the issue of their refusal to aid Palestinian refugees), 1948: "How can I continue to be officially associated with an aid organization which apparently so easily can ignore such a huge and acute refugee problem?" [1].

[1]. Judah Magnes, quoted in Wikpedia, “ Judah Leon Magnes”: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judah_Leon_Magnes .

MARGOLIS, Eric. "no joy in Gaza. This miserable, squalid human garbage dump is a giant open-air prison packed with 2 million Palestinian refugees driven from the newly created state of Israel in 1948"

Eric Margolis (anti-racist, Jewish-origin, conservative US writer) on Palestinian human rights and the Palestinian Genocide (2018): “There was no joy in Gaza. This miserable, squalid human garbage dump is a giant open-air prison packed with 2 million Palestinian refugees driven from the newly created state of Israel in 1948. Israel and its close ally Egypt keep Gaza bottled up on its land and sea borders. Palestinians are only allowed to fish along the shore. Coastal gas and oil reserves have been expropriated by Israel and Egypt. Gaza’s two million people subsist on the edge of starvation. Israel openly boasts that it allows just enough food into the enclave to prevent outright starvation. Chemicals to treat water are banned. Electricity runs only a few hours daily because the power plant was bombed by Israel’s US-supplied air force. Hospitals have almost no medicines. In short, wartime conditions in the open-air prison. Even the wretched animals in Gaza zoo are starving. The intensive punishment of Gaza, a crime under international law, began after its people voted in a free election for the Hamas movement over the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) which is more or less run by Israel and the United States. Israel helped found Hamas in 1987, but then sought, with the US, to destroy the organization, branding it ‘terrorist’… When Israel was created by the US and UN (with Soviet support) in 1948, from 750,000 to one million native Palestinians were driven from their ancestral home at gunpoint or panicked to flight by massacres and ethnic cleansing. Their villages were bulldozed. When Israel conquered and annexed the West Bank and the Old City of Jerusalem in 1967, another 500,000 Palestinians were made refugees. Some 50,000-250,000 Syrians were driven by Israel from the strategic Golan Heights. Bedouins were driven from Israel’s Negev Desert. By our era, the number of homeless Palestinians has grown to 5 million refugees helped by the UN and at least another million scattered about the Mideast. The actual number could reach as high as 8-9 million thanks to the Palestinian’s high birth rate and strong family values. Half of Jordan’s people are Palestinian refugees. Kuwait had 400,000 Palestinians until they were expelled in 1990-1991 after their leader, Yasser Arafat, foolishly backed claims by Saddam Hussein that he was occupying Kuwait in order to trade it for a Palestinian state. This was the biggest Palestinian expulsion since 1948. Egypt’s brutal dictator, Gen. al-Sisi, is now the biggest persecutor of Palestinians after Israel, keeping them locked away in the Gaza prison” (Eric Margolis, “Palestinians – 70 years of suffering”, The Unz Review, 26 May 2018: http://www.unz.com/emargolis/palestinians-70-years-of-suffering/ ).

MARGOLYES, Miriam. Famous actress renounces racist Israeli "law of return" that grossly violates Indigenous Palestinian rights

Miriam Margolyes, OBE (born 18 May 1941) is an English actress and voice artist. Her earliest roles were in theatre and after several supporting roles in film and television she won a BAFTA Award for her role in “The Age of Innocence” (1993). She is a Palestinian human rights activist, having been a member of the British-based ENOUGH! coalition that seeks to end the "Israeli occupation of the Gaza Strip and West Bank (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miriam_Margolyes ).

In March 2010 Eva Cox and a large number of other decent, anti-racist Australian Jews signed a petition against the racist and genocidal Israeli "law of return" that gives all Jews (as defined by the racist Zionists running Apartheid Israel) the "right" to live in Palestine with Israeli citizenship to the exclusion of 7 million Palestinians forbidden to live in the land inhabited continuously by their Palestinian forebears since the literal dawn of history. According to outstanding Jewish Australian writer Antony Loewenstein "Some of the key signatories include world-renowned ethicist Peter Singer, actor Miriam Margolyes, legendary feminist campaigner Eva Cox, La Trobe University’s Dennis Altman, Monash University’s Andrew Benjamin, Sydney University’s David Goodman and John Docker, legal scholar GJ Lindell, best-selling author and journalist Antony Loewenstein, writers Susan Varga and Sara Dowse, ANU’s Ned Curthoys and many others" (see:

http://antonyloewenstein.com/2010/03/03/prominent-australian-jews-including-peter-singer-reject-the-israeli-right-of-return/

).

The petition is reproduced below.

"Petition Against the Right of Return to Israel on Behalf of Australian Jews

March 2010

We are Jews from Australia, who, like Jewish people throughout the world, have an automatic right to Israeli citizenship under Israel’s “law of return.” While this law may seem intended to enable a Jewish homeland, we submit that it is in fact a form of racist privilege that abets the colonial oppression of the Palestinians.

Today there are more than seven million Palestinian refugees around the world. Israel denies their right to return to their homes and land—a right recognized and undisputed by UN Resolution 194, the Geneva Convention, and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Meanwhile, we are invited to live on that same land simply because we are Jewish, thereby potentially taking the place of Palestinians who would dearly love to return to their ancestral lands.

We renounce this “right” to “return” offered to us by Israeli law. It is not right that we may “return” to a state that is not ours while Palestinians are excluded and continuously dispossessed.

Signed:

Professor Peter Singer – Princeton University

Miriam Margolyes (OBE) – renowned actor

Eva Cox (AO) – National Chair of the Women’s Electoral Lobby.

Professor Dennis Altman – Professor of Politics, La Trobe University

Professor Andrew Benjamin – Monash University

Sara Dowse – writer

GJ Lindell – Adjunct Professor of Law, University of Adelaide

Susan Varga – writer

Antony Loewenstein – writer, journalist, author of My Israel Question

Professor David SG Goodman – Professor of Chinese Politics, University of Sydney

Professor John Docker – Sydney University

Jean McClean – advisor to Vice-Chancellor at Victoria University on East-Timor

Dr Peter Slezak – University of New South Wales

Dr Tony Balint – Blue Horizon Clinic

Dr Ron Witton – University of Wollongong

Dr Ned Curthoys – Australian National University

Dr Rick Kuhn – Australian National University

Dr. Tamas Pataki

Russell Bancroft – Manager Industrial Relations, Government Branch

Alice Beauchamp

Toni Beauchamp

Wendy Crew

Bronwyn Dahlstrom

Nicole Erlich – PhD candidate, University of Queensland

Marshall Harris

David Hermolin

Sylvie Leber

Jeffrey Loewenstein

Stefan Moore

Martin Munz

Vivienne Porzsolt

Joe Rich

Margot Salom

Rene Tsukasov

Nic Witton." [1].

[1]. Antony Loewenstein, "Prominent Australian Jews reject the Israeli "right of return", Media release, 3 March 2010:

http://antonyloewenstein.com/2010/03/03/prominent-australian-jews-including-peter-singer-reject-the-israeli-right-of-return/.

Miriam Margolyes (anti-racist Jewish British actor): “The black South Africans asked for our support and now it's the Palestinians who are asking for our support. I hate what Israel is doing over there to the Palestinians. I think that boycotting is a very active and non-violent way of protesting" (David Wilson, “From Albert Einstein to Noam Chomsky: famous Jews who have opposed Israel”, Stop the War Coalition, 12 August 2014: http://www.stopwar.org.uk/index.php/news-comment/1307-from-albert-einstein-to-noam-chomsky-famous-jews-who-have-opposed-israel ).

MATE, Gabor: "The essence of Canadian policy has always been support for the establishment and continued dominance of an expansionist Zionist state in the territories that now comprise Israel, Gaza, and the West Bank"

Dr Gabor Maté' (anti-racist Jewish Hungarian Canadian anti-addiction physician and humanitarian )( 2014): “As a Jewish youngster growing up in Budapest, an infant survivor of the Nazi genocide, I was for years haunted by a question resounding in my brain with such force that sometimes my head would spin: “How was it possible? How could the world have let such horrors happen?” It was a naïve question, that of a child. I know better now: such is reality. Whether in Vietnam or Rwanda or Syria, humanity stands by either complicitly or unconsciously or helplessly, as it always does. In Gaza today we find ways of justifying the bombing of hospitals, the annihilation of families at dinner, the killing of pre-adolescents playing soccer on a beach. In Israel-Palestine the powerful party has succeeded in painting itself as the victim, while the ones being killed and maimed become the perpetrators… And what shall we do, we ordinary people? I pray we can listen to our hearts. My heart tells me that “never again” is not a tribal slogan, that the murder of my grandparents in Auschwitz does not justify the ongoing dispossession of Palestinians, that justice, truth, peace are not tribal prerogatives. That Israel’s “right to defend itself,” unarguable in principle, does not validate mass killing” (Gabor Maté', “Beautiful dream of Israel has become a nightmare”, Gabor Maté', 28 July 2014: https://drgabormate.com/beautiful-dream-israel-become-nightmare/ ; Gabor Maté', “Beautiful dream of Israel has become a nightmare”, Toronto Star, 22 July 2014: https://www.thestar.com/opinion/commentary/2014/07/22/beautiful_dream_of_israel_has_become_a_nightmare.html ).

Dr Gabor Maté: ”Yves Engler’s meticulously researched volume [“Canada and Israel – Building Apartheid” by Yves Engler] refutes, for anyone who still believes it, the myth that Canada is or ever has been an honest broker in the Middle East. Reading Engler’s work leaves one with the inescapable and sad conclusion that the essence of Canadian policy has always been support for the establishment and continued dominance of an expansionist Zionist state in the territories that now comprise Israel, Gaza, and the West Bank. As a former Zionist youth leader, I thank Engler for setting the record straight and can only lament our country’s historical and ongoing contribution to the tragedy enveloping the long-suffering peoples of the Promised Land, Arab and Jewish” (Dr Gabor Maté: quoted in Montreal Serai, “Canada and Israel – Building Apartheid”, 28 September 2010: https://montrealserai.com/article/canada-and-israel-building-apartheid/ ).

Dr Gabor Maté interviewed on RT (2019): “[Re anti-semitism allegations against Jeremy Corbyn] it’s utter nonsense”: (“Gabor Maté interview”, You-tube, 22 July 2019: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-n5YiCRIujo ) .

MENUHIN, Moshe. Anti-racist, anti-Zionist Orthodox Jewish scholar and writer

Moshe Menuhin (1893-1983) was born in Russia but lived in Palestine, Israel and the US. A prominent anti-Zionist, he was the author of "The Decadence of Judaism in Our Time", "Jewish Critics of Zionism", and of the family history "The Menuhin Saga". He was the father of famous violinist and universalist Yehudi Menuhin (see Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moshe_Menuhin ).

Moshe Menuhin re Israeli oppression of Palestinians: “Jews should be Jews - not Nazis.” [1].

Moshe Menuhin re justice for the Arabs: “The education of prophetic Judaism that I got from my grandfather did not allow me to become an Arab hater. The Jews and Arabs can and should become good neighbors and collaborate jointly in every sense. And as the Arabs gain their political state and freedom (in Palestine), and as the world concentrates more and more on peace, justice and mutual aid, the border lines will stop having any significance.” [1].

Moshe Menuhin re an exclusively Zionist Jerusalem: “World Jewry never needed Jerusalem for their spiritual lives… [for 2,000 years] it was the diaspora that gave spiritual assets to those few Jews who lived peacefully with the Arabs in Arab Palestine. With the coming of the new world order of a civilized nature, such claims of influence, spiritual centers, are archaic and out of date. The best of all nations and races belongs to all humanity, and the negative phases evolution will discard as ‘spiritual’ garbage.” [1].

[1]. Moshe Menuhin quoted by Grace Halsell in “Like father, like son: a tribute to Moshe and Yehudi Menuhin”, Washington Report on Middle East Affairs (WRMEA), July 1996: http://www.wrmea.com/backissues/0796/9607018.htm .

MENUHIN, Yehudi. Outstanding violinist, universalist, anti-racist and anti-Zionist

Yehudi Menuhin (1916-1999) was an outstanding violinist and universalist (US-born he became a Swiss citizen in 1970 and a UK citizen in 1985; Nehru Peace Prize and goodwill ambassador for UNESCO) (see Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yehudi_Menuhin ).

Yehudi Menuhin addressing the Israeli Knesset in 1991: “You must love if you yearn to be loved; you must trust to be trusted, serve in return to be served …[between Palestinians and Israelis] there must be absolute reciprocity, absolute equality.” [1].

Yehudi Menuhin re Jerusalem, 1996: “The idea of Jerusalem as an exclusive Jewish city is unthinkable because too many different groups owe it their allegiance, religiously and politically, and everyone who has tried to make Jerusalem into their own has been ruined.” [1].

Yehudi Menuhin re disproportionate Israeli violence, 1996: “[saddened] because Israel needs friends and the reaction to the present unleashing of indiscriminate killing is not going to win Israel any friends.” [1].

[1]. Yehudi Menuhin quoted by Grace Halsell in “Like father, like son: a tribute to Moshe and Yehudi Menuhin”, Washington Report on Middle East Affairs (WRMEA), July 1996: http://www.wrmea.com/backissues/0796/9607018.htm .

MEYER, Hajo. Jewish Auschwitz survivor Dr Hajo Meyer: "An anti-Semite used to be a person who disliked Jews. Now it is a person who Jews dislike"

Dr. Hajo Myer is a Jewish survivor of Auschwitz and author of “ An Ethical Tradition Betrayed – The End of Judaism” (see: http://bellaciao.org/en/spip.php?article22400 ).

Dr. Hajo Myer on the Zionist perversion and on present-day false Zionist use of the term :”anti-Semite” (2007): “An anti-Semite used to be a person who disliked Jews. Now it is a person who Jews dislike.” [1, 2].

[1]. Dr Hajo Meyer, “ An Ethical Tradition Betrayed – The End of Judaism” (2007), p179.

[2]. Dr Hajo Meyer quoted in Alan Hart, “Anti-Semitism: What it IS and is NOT”, Bellaciao, 31 January 2013: http://bellaciao.org/en/spip.php?article22400 ; also published in Vetasrns Today, 30 January 2013: http://www.veteranstoday.com/2013/01/30/anti-semitism-what-it-is-and-is-not/ .

MONTAGU, Sir Edwin. Anti-racist Jewish British MP: "[Zionism is]a mischievous political creed, untenable by any patriotic citizen of the United Kingdom"

Sir Edwin Montagu (anti-racist Jewish Brit & the second British Jew to enter the British Cabinet): "[Zionism is]a mischievous political creed, untenable by any patriotic citizen of the United Kingdom" and in opposing the Balfour Declaration of 1917 he was probably responsible for inserting the provision in the Balfour Declaration that said: "Nothing shall be done that may prejudice the civil and religious rights of the existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country". In a memo to the British Cabinet, he outlined his accurate understanding of the Balfour Declaration: "...I assume that it means that Mahommedans [Muslims] and Christians are to make way for the Jews and that the Jews should be put in all positions of preference... When the Jews are told that Palestine is their national home, every country will immediately desire to get rid of its Jewish citizens, and you will find a population in Palestine driving out its present inhabitants, taking all the best in the country..." (“Jewish Intellectuals Who Have Opposed Zionism and/or Israeli Racism, Injustices, Occupation, Apartheid and/or Ethnic Cleansing”: http://www.thehypertexts.com/Jewish%20Intellectuals%20Who%20Opposed%20Zionism%20Israel%20Racism%20Injustices%20Apartheid%20Ethnic%20Cleansing.htm ).

Edwin Samuel Montagu (the only Jewish member of the cabinet headed by David Lloyd George, to which Balfour belonged, and only the third Jewish minister in British history) presciently commenting to the British Cabinet on the draft of the Balfour letter when he received it in August 1917 (1917) [the Balfour Declaration was sent to Lord Rothschild on 2 November 1917]: “I wish to place on record my view that the policy of His Majesty’s Government is anti-Semitic and in result will prove a rallying ground for Anti-Semites in every country in the world… it seems to be inconceivable that Zionism should be officially recognised by the British Government, and that Mr. Balfour should be authorized to say that Palestine was to be reconstituted as the "national home of the Jewish people". I do not know what this involves, but I assume that it means that Mahommedans and Christians are to make way for the Jews and that the Jews should be put in all positions of preference and should be peculiarly associated with Palestine in the same way that England is with the English or France with the French, that Turks and other Mahommedans in Palestine will be regarded as foreigners, just in the same way as Jews will hereafter be treated as foreigners in every country but Palestine…Perhaps also citizenship must be granted only as a result of a religious test… I can easily understand the editors of the [anti-semitic] Morning Post and of the New Witness being Zionists, and I am not in the least surprised that the non-Jews of England may welcome this policy” (Edwin Samuel Montagu quoted in Gilbert Achcar, “Zionism, anti-semitism and the Balfour Declaration”, Open Democracy, 2 November 2017: https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/zionism-anti-semitism-and-balfour-declaration/ ).

MYERS, Wayne. Anti-racist Jewish British writer explains “Why I am no longer a Zionist”

Wayne Myers is a Jewish British Oxford University graduate, writer and blogger (see: http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/why-i-am-no-longer-a-zionist-8364214.html ). .

Wayne Myers on “Why I am no longer a Zionist” (2012): “Not only can I no longer defend any of this, I can no longer defend Zionism at all, not even in an abstract philosophical sense outside of any context involving the actions of the Israeli state. The Law of Return, under which I - an occasional tourist who just happens to be Jewish – can claim Israeli citizenship at a moment's notice, while a Palestinian actually born in, say, Haifa, but subsequently exiled cannot – that is a racist law. The notion of a Jewish state? That is – as far as it has been put into practice since 1948 - a racist notion.

Is Zionism racism? It didn't have to be. There were historical strands within Zionism that were not racist. Martin Buber – Zionist founder, in 1925, of the Brit Shalom organisation advocating a binational state, was not a racist, and nor were the pre-1948 Hashomer Hatzair.

But right now?

It's really very hard indeed to argue otherwise.

And it's such a blessed relief to feel that I am no longer obligated to attempt to do so.

That relief does not, however, in any way reduce the anger I feel at the current massacre of civilians in Gaza.” [1].

[1]. Wayne Myers, “Why I am no longer a Zionist”, The Independent , 28 November 2102: http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/why-i-am-no-longer-a-zionist-8364214.html .

NETUREI KARTA – Jews United Against Zionism. Zionism is contrary to orthodox Judaism

The Neturei Karta (Aramaic for "Guardians of the City” ) opposed the establishment of and retain all opposition to the existence of the so-called "State of Israel".The group was founded in Jerusalem, Palestine in 1938, splitting off from Agudas Yisroel (which was established in 1912 for the purpose of fighting Zionism but eventually surrendered to Zionism) (see: http://www.nkusa.org/aboutus/index.cfm ).

Neturei Karta on the blasphemy of the Zionist State: "The founding of the Zionist State is in direct contradiction to the teachings of the Torah, which forbids the establishment of a Jewish State and commands Jews to remain in exile until released from that exile by G-d Himself without any human intervention. At which time all Nations of the world will live together in peace. Two thousand years ago, at the time of the destruction of the holy Temple, the Jewish people were commanded by the Creator (kesubos 111a) not to go up en masse to the land of Israel; not to rebel against the nations; and not to in any way attempt to end the exile. Torah faithful Jews are to behave in a civil, honest and grateful manner towards their host nations throughout the world. The Zionist intervention against G-d’s will by establishing the ‘State of Israel’, represents a direct rebellion against G-d and the Torah, a rebellion which has generated untold pain and suffering, to Jew and non-Jew alike.” [1].

[1]. Neturei Karta, “Israeli Independence Day”: http://www.nkusa.org/activities/Statements/20090429IID.cfm .

Neturei Karta Orthodox rabbi on YouTube: “Zionism is racism” (Neturei Karta Orthodox rabbi on YouTube, “Zionism is racism”,: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L9U5KQsF8nI ).

NIMNI, Ephraim. UK multiculturalism expert on genocidal racist Zionist and Jewish Israeli paranoia & ongoing Palestinian Genocide

Ephraim Nimni, is a reader in the School of Politics, International Studies and Philosophy at Queen's University Belfast in Northern Ireland. He edited “The Challenge of Post-Zionism” (2003) and is a scholar in the areas of Comparative ethnic conflict, Theories of ethnicity and nationalism, national cultural autonomy and minority rights, extra-territorial self-determination, Multiculturalism, and the Israeli Palestinian Conflict. (see: http://www.qub.ac.uk/schools/SchoolofPoliticsInternationalStudiesandPhilosophy/Staff/Nimni/ and http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/encounter/voices-of-dissent/3135248 ).

Professor Ephraim Nimni on genocidal Zionist and Jewish Israeli racism (2009): “In most Western societies, to say that you want your particular country to be a state of all its citizens, would be a kind of banal platitude that would be a non-starter in any political discussion - everybody would agree to it. In the Israeli state, if I want to say that I would like to see the State of Israel to be a state of all its citizens, that is a profoundly controversial argument, and this makes Israel to be very much at odds with all of Western Liberal democracies… There's a term that has become very fashionable in Israeli society, it's the idea of a transfer of population, the idea that those Palestinians that are Israeli citizens in the process of a settlement with the Palestinians, they will have to be transferred to other parts so that the territory that remains part of the Israeli state will remain overwhelmingly Jewish. And that situation in which they feel that the Jewish majority is slowly dwindling, is an issue that is in many ways exacerbating the insecurity. And there is this kind of obsessive, I would say paranoiac and obsessive desire to protect this identity, this Jewish identity and this Jewish being at all costs.” [1].

[1]. Professor Ephraim Nimni interviewed by Gary Bryson in “Voices of Dissent” , ABC Radio National, “Encounter”, 22 March 2009: http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/encounter/voices-of-dissent/3135248 .

NOT IN MY NAME. Peace with justice for all requires Israeli withdrawal from Occupied Territories

Not in My Name is a largely Jewish organization committed to peace and justice for all in the Holy Land and demanding an end to the Israeli Occupation (see: http://www.nimn.org/index.php ).

Not in My Name, “Where we stand. Common ground”: “Not In My Name, as a predominantly Jewish organization, is deeply committed to a peaceful and just resolution of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, a resolution that will provide safety, security and freedom for Jews, Palestinians, and all others living in this region. We believe that such a peace can only be achieved when Israel withdraws from its settlements in the Palestinian territories and addresses the legitimate national and human rights of the Palestinian people. We do not accept that Jewish survival depends on unconditional support for the Israeli government and its policies. Rather we believe that the future safety and survival of our people rests on our ability to live in peace with our neighbors and to work to ensure justice and security for all people.” [1].

[1]. Not in My Name, “Where we stand. Common ground”: http://www.nimn.org/About/menu/000010.php?section=Where%20We%20Stand .