NON-JEWS AGAINST RACIST ZIONISM
Set out below is a numerically- and alphabetically-based listing of anti-racist non-Jewish opinions on racist Zionism.
122 PALESTINIAN AND ARAB ACADEMICS, JOURNALISTS AND INTELLECTUALS re the IHRA definition of “anti-Semitism”
122 Palestinian and Arab academics, journalists and intellectuals re the IHRA definition of “anti-Semitism” (2020): “We, the undersigned Palestinian and Arab academics, journalists and intellectuals are hereby stating our views regarding the definition of antisemitism by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA), and the way this definition has been applied, interpreted and deployed in several countries of Europe and North America. In recent years, the fight against antisemitism has been increasingly instrumentalised by the Israeli government and its supporters in an effort to delegitimise the Palestinian cause and silence defenders of Palestinian rights. Diverting the necessary struggle against antisemitism to serve such an agenda threatens to debase this struggle and hence to discredit and weaken it. Antisemitism must be debunked and combated. Regardless of pretence, no expression of hatred for Jews as Jews should be tolerated anywhere in the world…
3. The IHRA definition of antisemitism and the related legal measures adopted in several countries have been deployed mostly against leftwing and human rights groups supporting Palestinian rights and the Boycott Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign, sidelining the very real threat to Jews coming from rightwing white nationalist movements in Europe and the US. The portrayal of the BDS campaign as antisemitic is a gross distortion of what is fundamentally a legitimate non-violent means of struggle for Palestinian rights.
200 anti-racist Jewish & non-Jewish American writers’ anti-apartheid Israel letter to PEN America and signed by 11 organizations, 61 individuals and 148 additional signatories (2016): “To PEN American Center: We, the undersigned, including participants at PEN World Voices Festival, ask the Festival to reject support from the Embassy of Israel. The Embassy of Israel is listed among the “Champions” of the World Voices Festival, and as a sponsor of a panel. Given PEN American Center’s mission of supporting freedom of expression, it is deeply regrettable that the Festival has chosen to accept sponsorship from the Israeli government, even as it intensifies its decades-long denial of basic rights to the Palestinian people, including the frequent targeting of Palestinian writers and journalists… Since 2005, Palestinian civil society has called on people of conscience around the world to engage in a peaceful campaign of boycotting, divesting from, and sanctioning (BDS) Israel in order to force it to comply with international law and respect the rights of Palestinians now living under Israeli military occupation, as unequal citizens within Israel, or as refugees, denied their right to return to their homeland. The union representing Palestinian writers, the General Union of Palestinian Writers, actively supports this boycott call. We appeal to PEN American Center to honor this boycott call and refuse sponsorship by the Israeli embassy or any complicit Israeli institution for the 2016 World Voices Festival and for future PEN American Center activities… As with South Africa, where an international boycott played a crucial role in bringing an end to apartheid, we call on PEN American Center not to partner with the Israeli government or other complicit institutions until Israel fulfills its obligations under international law and fully recognizes the Palestinian people’s right to live in full equality and freedom in their homeland [signed by 11 organizations, 61 individuals and 148 additional signatories] (“Letter to PEN American Center: don’t partner with Israeli Government”, Adalah-NY: Campaign for the Boycott of Israel, 2016: https://adalahny.org/web-action/1376/letter-pen-american-center-don-t-partner-israeli-government ).
2017 update on Israeli Apartheid and the ongoing Palestinian Genocide.
According to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS) and National Population Committee. The International Population Day 11/07/2017: “The Estimated Population of Palestine by mid-2017 was about 4.95 Million. Based on estimates prepared by PCBS according to the results of the Population, Housing and Establishments Census of 2007, the total population of Palestine by mid-2017 was about 4.95 million; 2.52 million males and 2.43 million females. The estimated population of West Bank was 3.01 million of which 1.53 million males and 1.48 million females, while the estimated population of Gaza Strip totaled 1.94 million of which 988 thousand males and 956 thousand females”.
The population of Apartheid Israel proper in 2017 was 8.7 million, this comprising 6.6 million Jews, 1.8 million Indigenous Palestinians and 0.4 million non-Jews and non-Arabs (see “Vital statistics: latest population statistics for Israel”, Jewish Virtual Library: http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/latest-population-statistics-for-israel ).
Thus the total Palestinian population of 6.8 million in Greater Apartheid Israel is 6.8 million x 100/13.7 million = 50% of the population of Greater Apartheid Israel, but 5.0 million Occupied Palestinians or 74% of the Palestinian subjects of neo-Nazi Apartheid Israel are excluded by the neo-Nazi Zionists from voting for the government ruling them.
The GDP per capita is US$2,700 for Occupied Palestinians as compared to US$37,000 for Apartheid Israel and Apartheid Israel deliberately kills about 5,000 Occupied Palestinians each year, 10% through violence and 90% through imposed deprivation. About 90% of the land of Palestine has now been ethnically cleansed of Indigenous Palestinians by nuclear terrorist, racist Zionist-run, genocidally racist, democracy-by-genocide Apartheid Israel in a Nazi-style process involving invasion, occupation, gross mendacity, racism, intimidation, gross human rights abuse, mass abuse of women, mass child abuse, blackmail, ethnic cleansing, theft, illegality, torture, violence, killing, home destruction, land seizure, concentration camps, ghettoes, highly abusive military rule, and Jews-only segregation in gross violation of International Law, the UN Genocide Convention, the Geneva Convention, the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, the UN Charter, numerous International Court of Justice decisions, General Assembly motions and Resolution 2334 of the UN Security Council that was passed unanimously except for US abstention (see Gideon Polya, “End 50 years of genocidal Occupation & human rights abuse by US-backed Apartheid Israel”, Countercurrents, 9 June 2017: http://www.countercurrents.org/2017/06/09/end-50-years-of-genocidal-occupation-human-rights-abuse-by-us-backed-apartheid-israel/ ).
40,000 sign Palestine Solidarity Campaign Open Letter to PM David Cameron re 2014 Gaza Massacre (2014).
Palestine Solidarity Campaign Open Letter to PM David Cameron (2014): “Dear Prime Minister, The world is following developments in Israel's war on Gaza with growing concern and disbelief. At the time of writing, the number of deaths has surpassed 700, 78% of whom are civilians. One in five of the dead are children and entire families have been killed in their homes. Patients have been killed in direct strikes on hospitals. On the 20th of July, Israel shelled the Al-Shuja’iyeh area of Gaza City, resulting in more than 70 deaths, overwhelmingly civilians. Medical teams were stopped from reaching the casualties, resulting in more unnecessary deaths. The number of those injured has surpassed 4,000 and more than 2,200 homes have been destroyed. The electricity, water supply and sewage treatment facilities have been further damaged… On the 19th of July, British people of all faiths and ages came out in their tens of thousands in London and around the country to demand action to stop Israel's attack on Gaza. They also demonstrated to ensure the underlying reasons that led to this are tackled, namely the illegal, military occupation of Palestine and the siege on Gaza. We demand that the British Government calls for an immediate end to Israel's action – which is fundamentally based on the collective punishment of the Palestinian people. Further we demand Britain informs Israel that it has completely broken the basic principles of international law with its attack on the civilian population of Gaza, which is unacceptable, and that unless it ends this bloody campaign the UK will move to impose sanctions on it until it adheres to international law. In particular, we demand that Britain will not buy or supply military equipment that has, or could be, used or tested as part of Israel's illegal occupation or as part of its collective punishment of the Palestinian people” (Palestine Solidarity Campaign”, “Open Letter to PM David Cameron”, 25 July 2014: http://act.palestinecampaign.org/petition/camerongaza )
Palestine Solidarity Campaign re Open Letter: “Today, MPs Jeremy Corbyn, Diane Abbott and Jim Fitzpatrick, along with the film director Ken Loach, and Hugh Lanning (Chair) and Sarah Colborne (Director) of Palestine Solidarity Campaign handed in an open letter to the Prime Minister at 10 Downing Street calling for an immediate arms embargo on Israel. The letter was signed by 17 MPs, two peers, and others including Bryan Adams, Jemima Khan, Hanif Kureshi, Will Self, Bobby Gillespie (Primal Scream), Brian Eno, actors Laura Bailey and Maxine Peake, authors William Dalrymple and Ahdaf Soueif, and Ken Loach. PSC put the letter on its website on the morning of Wednesday 23rd July. By the evening of Thursday 24th, the open letter had been signed by more than 21,000 members of the public. Their signatures were also handed in with the letter.
Hugh Lanning, Chair, Palestine Solidarity Campaign
Kamel Hawwash, Vice Chair, Palestine Solidarity Campaign
Sarah Colborne, Director, Palestine Solidarity Campaign
Ben Soffa, Secretary, Palestine Solidarity Campaign
Jeremy Corbyn MP
Caroline Lucas MP
Mark Durkan MP
Jim Sheridan MP
Diane Abbott MP
John McDonnell MP
Martin Caton MP
David Hamilton MP
Paul Flynn MP
Jim Fitzpatrick MP
Graeme Morrice MP
Chris Williamson MP
John Hemming MP
Linda Riordan MP
Mike Wood MP
Roger Godsiff MP
David Ward MP
Jean Lambert MEP
Baroness Jenny Tonge
Lord Raymond Hylton
Murad Qureshi, London Assembly Member
Ziyaad El Aloul, Palestinian Forum of Britain
Shamiul Joarder, Friends of Al Aqsa
Chris Nineham, Stop the War
Mohammed Kozbar, British Muslim Initiative
Ken Loach
Will Self
Bobby Gillespie
Bryan Adams,
David Morrissey
Esther Freud
Hanif Kureishi
Jemima Khan,
Laura Bailey
Peter Gabriel
Alexei Sayle
Bella Freud
Brian Eno
Robert del Naja
David Morrissey
Maxine Peake
Dr Karma Nabulsi
William Dalrymple
Rev Canon Garth Hewitt
Bruce Kent
Steven Rose
Pat Gaffney
Dr Ghada Karmi
Sir Geoffrey Bindman QC
Victoria Brittain
Ahdaf Soueif
John Austin
Dr Salman Abu Sitta” (Palestine Solidarity Campaign, “MPs, actors, authors and musicians among 21,000 demanding arms embargo on Israel”, Palestine Solidarity Campaign, 23 July 2014: https://www.palestinecampaign.org/mps-actors-authors-musicians-among-21000-demanding-arms-embargo-israel/ ).
500 Montreal artists supporting the international campaign for Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions against Israeli apartheid (2010): “ Artists Against Israeli Apartheid: Montreal, February 25th 2010 . Today, a broad spectrum of Montreal artists are standing in solidarity with the Palestinian struggle for freedom and supporting the growing international campaign for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) against the Israeli state. Last winter, the Israeli state launched a violent military assault on the Palestinian people of the Gaza Strip, leaving over 1400 Palestinians dead, including over 300 children. Despite the official end of military operations, the blockade continues to this day, with devastating consequences for Gaza’s residents. Over 60 years from the beginning of the ongoing Palestinian Nakba (catastrophe) in 1948, in which hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were forced from historic Palestine through Israel’s creation, Montreal artists are united in solidarity with the Palestinian struggle for freedom and justice…” (“500 artists against Israeli apartheid”, Tadamon, 25 February 2010: https://www.tadamon.ca/post/5824 ).
60 prominent anti-racist Jewish and non-Jewish Australians oppose Israeli crimes & extremist Netanyahu visit to Australia (February, 2017):
“Australia should not welcome the Prime Minister of Israel
We strongly oppose the official visit to Australia of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Israel continues to defy all United Nations calls for it to comply with international law in respect of its illegal settlement building, and its treatment of the indigenous Palestinian population. Instead, over the last 50 years, Israel has held the people of Palestine under military occupation and:
·continues to illegally build settlements on Palestinian land in the West Bank and East Jerusalem;
·continues to confiscate Palestinian land;
·continues to demolish Palestinian homes;
· continues its policy of imprisonment of Palestinians without trial even of children as young as 12; and
·continues its blockade of the 1.8 million civilian inhabitants of Gaza.
Those actions are not symbolic of a nation desirous of building peace with its neighbours. Those policies build understandable resentment, anger and desperation amongst Palestinians.
We want all Israelis and Palestinians to have peace and freedom; we oppose all forms of terrorism and criminal violence by either side.
We recognise when there is a gross imbalance of power, conflict will never be resolved. Mr Netanyahu’s policies consistently aim to provoke, intimidate and oppress the Palestinian population which increase that imbalance, thus taking Israel irretrievably further from peace. These policies are inconsistent with Australian values and beliefs and we should not welcome him here.
The Australian Government needs to rethink its one-sided support for the Israeli Government. We are appalled that our Government opposes the recent UN Security Councilresolution supporting the application of international law to Israel and Palestine, when most nations, including the United Kingdom, Germany, France and New Zealand, support it. Even the USA did not oppose it. It is time for the suffering of the Palestinan people to stop and for Australia to take a more balanced role in supporting the application of international law and not supporting Mr Netanyahu and his policies.
Signatories
Gavan Griffith QC, former Solicitor General
Gavan Griffith QC, former Solicitor General
The Honourable Murray Rutledge Wilcox, AO, QC, former Federal Court Judge
Julian Burnside AO, QC
John Karkar QC
Paul Heywood Smith QC
Claire O’Connor SC
Janet Holmes-à-Court, AC
Jon Stanhope, ACT Chief Minister 2001-2011
The Hon Alan Griffin, former Labor Minister
The Hon Melissa Parke, former federal member for Fremantle and lawyer for the United Nations in Gaza
Jill Hall, Former member for Shortland
Laurie Ferguson, Former member for Werriwa
Hon. Sandra Kanck, Former Member of the South Australian Legislative Council
Ms Miriam Margolyes OBE, Actor
Dr Randa Abdel-Fattah, Writer and academic
Sara Dowse, Writer
Samah Sabawi, Author, Playwright and PhD candidate Victoria University
Bishop George Browning, Former Anglican Bishop of Canberra and Goulburn, APAN President
Rev Gregor Henderson AM, Past President, Uniting Church in Australi
Associate Professor Peter Slezak, Independent Australian Jewish Voices
Dr Peter Manning, journalist, academic and author
Emeritus Professor Stuart Rees AM, Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies
Ms Wendy Turner, Founding and Executive member of Australia Palestine Advocacy Network
Professor Bassam Dally, The University of Adelaide
Professor Mohamad Abdall, University of South Australia
Jo Jordan, Presiding Clerk, for The Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) in Australia
Christina Wilcox, filmmaker
Sara Saleh, media commentator and human rights activist
Dr Jacinda Woodhead, Editor, Overland magazine
Michael Brull, New Matilda columnist
Associate Professor Halim Rane, Griffith University
Dr Marcelo Svirsky, Senior Lecturer, University of Wollongong
Associate Professor Deborah Zion
Associate Professor Barbara Baird, Flinders University
Associate Professor Jake Lynch, Department of Peace and Conflict Studies
Professor Terri-ann White, The University of Western Australia
Professor John Langmore, University of Melbourne
Associate Professor Ahmad Shboul AM, University of Sydney
David Zyngier, Senior Lecturer, Monash University
Venerable Dr Erica Mathieson, Anglican Archdeacon of North Canberra
Hana Assafiri, Restaurateur and social justice advocate
Sister Susan Connelly, Member, Sisters of St Joseph
Father Claude Mostowik MSC, President Pax Christi Australia
Revd James Barr, Past Moderator, Welsh Calvinistic Methodist Connexion in Victoria
Ibrahim Ayshan, President, General Union of Palestinian Workers - Australia
Rev Harry Kerr, Convenor, Pax Christi Victoria
Dr. Mahmoud Abu Arab, Clinical Psychologist
Issa Shaweesh, businessman
David Forde, Pride of Australia Medal 2014
Dr Kevin Bray, Chair, Australians for Justice and Peace in Palestine
Harry Wallace, Director, Major Issues and Theology Foundation
Annette Brownlie, Chair, Just Peace Qld Inc.
Helen Rainger, President, Palestine Israel Ecumenical Network
Nasser Mashni, Australians for Palestine
Hilmi Dabbagh, Coordinator, Australian Palestinian Professionals Network
Assoc Prof Jon Jureidini Vice President Australian Friends of Palestine Association
Dr Vacy Vlazna, Coordinator, Justice for Palestine Matters
Cathy Peters, Convenor, Coalition for Justice and Peace in Palestine
Jamil Batshoun -President, The Australian Palestinian Club
Bashir Sawalha, President of Australian Palestinian Graduates Club” (“Australia should not welcome the Prime Minister of Israel”, February 2017: https://apanaustralia.files.wordpress.com/2017/02/statement_netanyahu_signatories_for_release_final.pdf ).
64 eminent humanitarians from around the world, including Nobel Laureates and leading anti-racist Jewish and non-Jewish figures, have written an Open Letter protesting the horrendous violence by the state of Israel against its captive Palestinian population and concluding “We call on the UN and governments across the world to take immediate steps to implement a comprehensive and legally binding military embargo on Israel, similar to that imposed on South Africa during apartheid” [7-8] (2014):
OPEN LETTER.
“ Israel has once again unleashed the full force of its military against the captive Palestinian population, particularly in the besieged Gaza Strip, in an inhumane and illegal act of military aggression. Israel ‘s ability to launch such devastating attacks with impunity largely stems from the vast international military cooperation and trade that it maintains with complicit governments across the world. Over the period 2008-19, the US is set to provide military aid to Israel worth $30bn, while Israeli annual military exports to the world have reached billions of dollars. In recent years, European countries have exported billions of euros’ worth of weapons to Israel, and the EU has furnished Israeli military companies with research grants worth hundreds of millions. Emerging economies such as India , Brazil and Chile are rapidly increasing their military trade and cooperation with Israel , despite their stated support for Palestinian rights. By importing and exporting arms to Israel and facilitating the development of Israeli military technology, governments are effectively sending a clear message of approval for Israel’s military aggression, including its war crimes and possible crimes against humanity. Israel ‘s military technology is marketed as “field-tested” and exported across the world. Military trade and joint military-related research relations with Israel embolden Israeli impunity in committing grave violations of international law and facilitate the entrenchment of Israel ‘s system of occupation, colonisation and systematic denial of Palestinian rights. We call on the UN and governments across the world to take immediate steps to implement a comprehensive and legally binding military embargo on Israel , similar to that imposed on South Africa during apartheid.
Adolfo Peres Esquivel Nobel Peace Laureate, Argentina, Ahdaf Soueif author, Egypt/UK, Aki Olavi Kaurismäki film director, Finland, Alice Walker writer, US, Archbishop Desmond Tutu Nobel Peace Laureate, South Africa, Betty Williams Nobel Peace Laureate, Ireland, Boots Riley rapper, poet, arts producer, US, Brian Eno musician, UK, Caryl Churchill playwright, UK, Chris Hedges journalist, Pullitzer Prize 2002, US, Cynthia McKinney politician, activist, US, David Palumbo-Liu academic, US, Etienne Balibar philosopher, France, Federico Mayor Zaragoza former Unesco director general, Spain, Felim Egan painter, Ireland, Frei Betto liberation theologian, Brazil, Gillian Slovo writer, UK/South Africa, Githa Hariharan writer, India, Giulio Marcon MP (SEL), Italy, Hilary Rose academic, UK, Ilan Pappe historian, Israel, Ismail Coovadia former South African ambassador to Israel, James Kelman writer, Scotland, Janne Teller writer, Denmark, Jeremy Corbyn MP (Labour), UK, Joanna Rajkowska artist, Poland, Jody Williams Nobel Peace Laureate, US, John Berger artist, UK, John Dugard former ICJ judge, South Africa, John McDonnell MP (Labour), UK, John Pilger journalist and filmmaker, Australia, Judith Butler philosopher, US, Juliane House academic, Germany, Karma Nabulsi Oxford University, UK/Palestine, Ken Loach filmmaker, UK, Kool AD (Victor Vazquez) musician, US, Liz Lochhead national poet for Scotland, UK, Luisa Morgantini
former vice president of the European Parliament, Italy, Mairead Maguire Nobel Peace Laureate, Ireland, Michael Mansfield barrister, UK, Michael Ondaatje author, Canada/Sri Lanka, Mike Leigh writer and director, UK, Naomi Wallace playwright, screenwriter, poet, US, Noam Chomsky academic, author, US, Nurit Peled academic, Israel, Prabhat Patnaik economist, India, Przemyslaw Wielgosz chief editor of Le Monde Diplomatique, Polish edition, Poland, Raja Shehadeh author and Lawyer, Palestine, Rashid Khalidi academic, author, Palestine/US, Richard Falk f ormer UN special rapporteur on Occupied Palestinian Territories, US, Rigoberta Menchú Nobel Peace Laureate, Guatemala, Roger Waters musician, UK, Ronnie Kasrils former government minister, South Africa, Rose Fenton director, Free Word Centre, UK, Sabrina Mahfouz author, UK, Saleh Bakri actor, Palestine, Sir Geoffrey Bindman lawyer, UK, Slavoj Zizek author, Slovenia, Steven Rose academic, UK, Tom Leonard writer, Scotland, Tunde Adebimpe musician, US, Victoria Brittain journalist, UK, Willie van Peer academic, Germany, Zwelinzima Vavi secretary general of Cosatu, South Africa ”. END OPEN LETTER.
(see Letter, “The arms trade and Israel ‘s attack on Gaza ” , The Guardian, 19 July 2014: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/18/arms-trade-israel-attack-gaza ; BDS Movement Petition : http://www.bdsmovement.net/stoparmingisrael ; “Boycott Apartheid Israel ”: https://sites.google.com/site/boycottapartheidisrael/ ).
“Canberra Declaration on Gaza, 25 July 2014.
We the undersigned members of Australian federal and state parliaments, call on all Australian politicians to condemn the ongoing Israeli military bombardment and invasion of Gaza.
We call on Australian politicians to support an immediate cessation of hostilities and a ceasefire deal which includes an end to Israel's occupation of the Palestinian territories and to the blockade of Gaza.
We call on all Australian politicians to also support the United Nations Human Rights Council's decision to launch an independent inquiry into purported violations of international humanitarian and human rights laws in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem.
Over 1700* Palestinians in Gaza have been killed, since Israel started its military attack on Gaza three weeks ago. The United Nations says at least 75 percent of the dead are civilians, including an estimated 300 children. In the last two days, Palestinian children have been killed at a rate of one per hour.
The rockets fired from Gaza are not in any way justified and insofar as they threaten and harm civilians are illegal under international law. However, these imprecise rockets cannot be compared with the broad-scale bombing of Gaza by Israel which has one of the world's largest military forces.
Collective punishment is not permitted under the Geneva conventions and is a war crime.
Hospitals, places of worship, and a centre for people with disabilities have been among the Israeli military's targets.
The United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) is providing shelter to more than 102,788 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.
The international community including Australia has a vital responsibility to put pressure on Israel to end its current military attack on Gaza and broker a solution of justice and peace.
*updated 7 August 2014
Signed by -
1. Maria Vamvakinou MP, Labor
2. Melissa Parke MP, Labor
3. Laurie Ferguson MP, Labor
4. Alan Griffin MP, Labor
5. Sharon Claydon MP, Labor
6. Adam Bandt MP, Greens
7. Barbara Perry MP, Labor
8. Andrew Giles MP, Labor
9. Paul Lynch MP, Labor
10. Jamie Parker MP, Greens
11. Lynda Voltz MLC, Labor
12. Shaoquett Moselmane MLC, Labor
13. David Shoebridge MLC, Greens
14. Dr Mehreen Faruqi MLC, Greens
15. Dr John Kaye MLC, Greens
16. Jeremy Buckingham MLC, Greens
17. Jan Barham MLC, Greens
18. Senator Claire Moore, Labor
19. Senator Nick Xenophon, Independent
20. Senator Christine Milne, Greens
21. Senator Lee Rhiannon, Greens
22. Senator Sarah Hanson-Young, Greens
23. Senator Larissa Waters, Greens
24. Senator Janet Rice, Greens
25. Senator Richard Di Natale, Greens
26. Senator Penny Wright, Greens
27. Senator Rachel Siewert, Greens
28. Senator Scott Ludlam, Greens
29. Senator Peter Whish-Wilson, Greens
30. Senator Sue Lines, Labor
31. Tammy Franks MLC, Greens
32. Graham Perrett MP, Labor
33. Senator Anne Urquhart, Labor
34. Terri Butler MP, Labor
35. Julie Owens MP, Labor
36. Lisa Chesters MP, Labor
37. Senator Gavin Marshall, Labor
38. Senator Anne McEwen , Labor
39. Senator Carol Brown, Labor
40. Senator Doug Cameron, Labor
41. Cassy O'Connor MLA, Greens
42. Senator Jan McLucas, Labor
43. Lynn MacLaren MLC, Greens
44. Jill Hall MP, Labor
45. Jackie Trad MP, Labor
46. Malcolm Fraser, former Liberal Prime Minister
47. Shane Rattenbury MLA, Greens
48. Yvette Berry MLA, Labor
49. Bronwyn Halfpenny MP, Labor
50. Tony Piccolo MP, Labor
51. Andrew Wilkie MP, Independent
52. Senator Lisa Singh, Labor
53. Khalil Eideh MP, Labor
54. Lee Tarlamis MP, Labor
55. Johan Scheffer MP, Labor
56. Katrine Hildyard MP, Labor
57. Janine Freeman MLA, Labor
58. Amanda Fazio MLC, Labor
59. Mary Porter MLA, Labor
60. Ian Hunter MLC, Labor
61. Stephanie Key MP, Labor
62. Maree Edwards MP, Labor
63. Adam Searle MLC, Labor
64. Sylvia Hale, former Greens MLC
65. John Gazzola MLC, Labor
66. Mark Parnell MLC, Greens".
“Australian MPs take action on Gaza”, The Greens, Lee Rhiannon, 27 July 2014: https://lee-rhiannon.greensmps.org.au/articles/australian-mps-take-action-gaza .
9 leading anti-racism and human rights activists sign Palestine Solidarity Campaign Open Letter to UK PM Theresa May re Trump and illegal Israeli policies (2017): “Open Letter to Theresa May: stand up to Trump for Palestine, Dear Prime Minister, … This is the vision of Israel which Trump appears to support- an ever expanding Israel with no prospect of self-determination or equal rights for the Palestinian people. We are writing in the hope that the UK will take a lead in providing a robust response to these latest Israeli moves, and will reaffirm the need for Israel to cease its grave violations of international law. We believe you were serious when you committed the UK to signing UNSC resolution 2334. Given that Israel has signalled its utter disregard for this resolution, the question now is how the UK government and other members of the Security Council should act to ensure that it is brought into force. The idea that Israel can be persuaded to abide by international law by gentle persuasion has failed the test of the 25 years since the start of the peace process, during which time it has expanded the illegal settlement population on the West Bank and East Jerusalem from 115,00 to over 650,000. We believe the time has long since past for the UK government to stop talking about settlements as illegal and start treating them as such. We call on the government to announce that the UK will no longer provide financial support for Israel’s programme of settlement expansion. This should be accompanied by a review of all UK financial relationships with Israeli settlements and a ban on the importation of settlement produce to the UK. We wish you a safe journey to the White House and will follow closely the action of the UK government to bring about justice and peace for the people of Palestine
Yours sincerely,
Hugh Lanning – Chair, Palestine Solidarity Campaign
Ben Jamal – Director, Palestine Solidarity Campaign
Kate Hudson – General Secretary, Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament
Lindsey German – Convenor, Stop The War Coalition
Attalah Said – Chair, British Palestinian Policy Council
Zaher Badawi – Chair, Europal Forum
Dr Hafiz Karmi – Chair, Palestine Forum in Britain
Shamiul Joarder – Head of Public Affairs, Friends of Al-Aqsa
Mohammed Kozbar – Vice President, Muslim Association of Britain” (“Open Letter to Theresa May: stand up to Trump for Palestine”, Palestine Solidarity Campaign, 27 January 2017: http://cjpp5.over-blog.com/2017/01/palestine-solidarity-campaign-psc.org-uk-open-letter-to-theresa-may-stand-up-to-trump-for-palestine.html ).
Rashad Abu Shawar (Arab journalist) in reviewing Nawaf Al Zaru’s book “The Ongoing Palestinian Holocaust” (2011): “Because the Palestinian holocaust targets not only human beings but also land, trees, heritage and civilisation, the author gave it a subtitle: The fabrication of 'Israel' and ethnic cleansing policies. And because the Palestinian holocaust did not end with the 1948 war, or the 1967 war, and because the Zionist genocide scheme … and displacement policies are still very much in effect - and will stay that way until the Palestinians are completely and definitively uprooted from the land of their ancestors - the Palestinian holocaust could only be described as 'ongoing'” (Rashad Abu Shawar quoted in “A Palestinian “holocaust””, The National, 20 January 2012: https://www.thenational.ae/a-palestinian-holocaust-1.395990 ).
Gilbert Achcar (French and Lebanese socialist academic, writer and a Professor of Development Studies and International Relations, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, UK): “'Is it an accident that Israel's rulers chose to sign treaties with Anwar Sadat rather than Nasser, and preferred Abbas over Arafat? Or is it a sign of elective affinities between Jew haters and Arab haters, whose vision of the world is the same, only stood on its head?’ and “Statist Zionism is a Janus with one face towards the Holocaust, the other toward the Nakba,” ( Gilbert Achcar, quoted in “Gilbert Achcar”, Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilbert_Achcar ).
Gilbert Achcar on the infamous Balfour Declaration (2017): “Christian Zionists see in the Jews’ “return” to Palestine a fulfilment of the condition of the Second Coming of the Christ, which will be followed by the Last Judgment condemning all Jews to eternal suffering in Hell, unless they convert to Christianity. This same current constitutes nowadays in the USA the staunchest supporter of Zionism in general and of the Zionist right in particular.Indeed, when he was Prime Minister himself, between 1902 and 1905, Arthur Balfour promulgated the 1905 Aliens Act, whose aim was to stop the immigration to Britain of Jewish refugees fleeing the murderous anti-Semitism that was thriving in the Russian Empire. The direct continuity between this fact and the letter of which PM May is proud, could not escape Edwin Montagu’s understanding. The Jewish Minister was particularly aware of the fact that the Zionists were counting on the anti-Semites for the fulfilment of their project of establishing a Zionist state in Palestine.… David Lloyd George’s cabinet tried to assuage [Jewish MP] Montagu’s concerns about the fate of the Palestinian non-Jewish majority and the fate of the Jews who were unwilling to become colonial settlers in Palestine by adding to their pledge to “use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement” of the object of “the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people” the provision that it was “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.” We know the abysmal record of the British government in keeping with these two provisos that were in complete contradiction with the central pledge of the infamous letter as well as with its true spirit. That PM Theresa May, a century later, could find in the infamous Balfour Declaration a matter of pride while stating her satisfaction at her party’s and government’s stance against antisemitism is indeed a reason for dismay at the low level of historical knowledge of Her Majesty’s present government and their speechwriters” (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/ ).
Phillip Andrew Hedley Adams, AO (born 12 July 1939) is an Australian broadcaster for the ABC (the taxpayer-funded Australian equivalent of the UK BBC) , film producer, writer, commentator, atheist and progressive thinker. For several decades he has hosted an ABC radio program, Late Night Live, in which he interviews intellectuals. Hw also writes a column in the Murdoch-owned national newspaper The Australian (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phillip_Adams ).
Phillip Adams on Zionist defamation of those critical of Israel: “I have fronted at numerous Jewish fundraising dinners, written obsessively about the Holocaust, trudged around the death camps, performed opening ceremonies at exhibitions in the Great Synagogue in Sydney and fulminated against John Bennett and other revisionists. As a consequence, I’ve enjoyed excellent relations with the Jewish community and with its principal political and social organizations. And then a funny thing happened. I was the guest speaker at a fundraising dinner at Jewish doctors in Sydney. It was a pleasant, congenial occasion, and despite my friendly criticism of certain aspects of Jewish political behavior (in Australia), I was warmly applauded. However, the Jewish News gave a slightly distorted version of what I’d said, and, lo and behold, I suddenly became the Jews’ worst enemy. Dozens of letters accused me of being an anti-semite. I then received an extraordinary letter from [Jewish community leader] Bill Rubinstein which I found offensive in tone and remarkably patronizing. As it illustrated some of the very points I’d made in my talk to the doctors, I published it in The Australian and all hell broke loose. Lots more letters accusing me of being an anti-semite. All in all, it was such a bruising and unpleasant experience that I decided not to write on Jewish matters again. Or at least to take a long sabbatical from matters semitic. I could cover pages with evidence of my good-will to the Jewish community. … In short, I felt that I’d paid my dues. And yet it took only a hint of cautious, friendly criticism to put me on the receiving end of Jewish anger… So as a friend who has laid wreaths at the concentration camps…. let me ask Australian Jews, and Jewish organizations, to be more careful in the way they respond to debate in the Australian media. In America there has been a systematic overkill which has led to widespread resentment. I would not like that to happen here.” [1].
[1]. Phillip Adams quoted in “Zionism and the press in Australia: two views”, Journal of Historical Review: http://vho.org/GB/Journals/JHR/13/3/LaneAdams15.html .
Nawaf Al Zaru “The Ongoing Palestinian Holocaust”, 1040 pages, Amman 2011 (referred to in “A Palestinian “holocaust””, The National, 20 January 2012: https://www.thenational.ae/a-palestinian-holocaust-1.395990 ).
Tariq Ali (born 21 October 1943), is a British Pakistani historian, novelist, journalist, filmmaker, activist, and commentator. He is the author of numerous books, notably “Clash of Fundamentalisms: Crusades, Jihads and Modernity” (2002) (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tariq_Ali ).
Tariq Ali signed the following letter together with John Berger, Noam Chomsky, Eduardo Galeano, Naomi Klein, 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.” [1].
[1]. 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 .
Khaled Amayreh (Palestinian writer) (2008): “The popular standing of the Palestinian Authority (PA), headed by President Mahmoud Abbas, suffered a serious moral setback this week when agents of the Palestinian mukhabarat, or general intelligence, allegedly tortured an Islamist detainee to death. Majd Al-Barghouti, 44 and a father of eight, was reportedly abducted from the local mosque in the village of Kobar near Ramallah two weeks ago for interrogation pertaining to a firearm the mukhabarat alleged he possessed and was hiding… Israel seems totally unconcerned about what Abbas, or Palestinians in general, think. On Tuesday, hundreds of Israeli soldiers stormed and vandalised half a dozen schools, orphanages, businesses and other premises owned by the West Bank’s largest charity, the Islamic Charitable Society (ICS), in downtown Hebron, in full view of Abbas’s security forces. The attacking Israeli forces seized buildings, stores and buses, and even chairs and kitchen appliances, all for “security reasons”. Last week, Israeli troops raided dozens of money- changing shops, seizing hundreds of thousands of dollars and Jordanian Dinars … Since its occupation of the West Bank in 1967, Israel has seized and closed hundreds of Palestinian civil and charitable institutions under the rubric of fighting “terror”” (Khaled Amayreh, “Palestine: horror and shame”, Global Research, 1 March 2008: https://www.globalresearch.ca/palestine-horror-and-shame/8236 ).
The American Studies Association in its own words “exists to promote and encourage the study of American culture--past and present. Membership numbers approximately 5000” (see: http://www.theasa.net/ ).
Report on ASA boycott (2013): “A prestigious US academic body has joined a growing movement to boycott Israel in protest at its treatment of Palestinians, in a move both welcomed and condemned in a bitterly divisive international arena. The American Studies Association (ASA), which has more than 5,000 members, is the most significant US academic organisation to back a boycott of Israeli educational institutions following a two-thirds majority vote. Around a quarter of members took part in the ballot. The ASA resolution was "in solidarity with scholars and students deprived of their academic freedom", the organisation said in a statement. It cited "Israel's violation of international law and UN resolutions; the documented impact of the Israeli occupation on Palestinian scholars and students; [and] the extent to which Israeli institutions of higher education are a party to state policies that violate human rights." The resolution bans "formal collaborations with Israeli academic institutions, or with scholars who are expressly serving as representatives or ambassadors of those institutions".The vote came amid renewed calls in the aftermath of Nelson Mandela's death for an international boycott drive against Israel similar to the anti-apartheid campaign.’ [1].
American Studies Association on the ASA boycott (2013) : “The members of the American Studies Association have endorsed the Association’s participation in a boycott of Israeli academic institutions. In an election that attracted 1252 voters, the largest number of participants in the organization’s history, 66.05% of voters endorsed the resolution, while 30.5% of voters voted no and 3.43% abstained. The election was a response to the ASA National Council’s announcement on December 4 that it supported the academic boycott and, in an unprecedented action to ensure a democratic process, asked its membership for their approval. Please see the ASA website for a collection of supporting documents..” [2].
American Studies Association Resolution on Academic Boycott of Israel “December 4 2013.
Whereas the American Studies Association is committed to the pursuit of social justice, to the struggle against all forms of racism, including anti-semitism, discrimination, and xenophobia, and to solidarity with aggrieved peoples in the United States and in the world;
Whereas the United States plays a significant role in enabling the Israeli occupation of Palestine and the expansion of illegal settlements and the Wall in violation of international law, as well as in supporting the systematic discrimination against Palestinians, which has had documented devastating impact on the overall well-being, the exercise of political and human rights, the freedom of movement, and the educational opportunities of Palestinians;
Whereas there is no effective or substantive academic freedom for Palestinian students and scholars under conditions of Israeli occupation, and Israeli institutions of higher learning are a party to Israeli state policies that violate human rights and negatively impact the working conditions of Palestinian scholars and students;
Whereas the American Studies Association is cognizant of Israeli scholars and students who are critical of Israeli state policies and who support the international boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement under conditions of isolation and threat of sanction;
Whereas the American Studies Association is dedicated to the right of students and scholars to pursue education and research without undue state interference, repression, and military violence, and in keeping with the spirit of its previous statements supports the right of students and scholars to intellectual freedom and to political dissent as citizens and scholars;
It is resolved that the American Studies Association (ASA) endorses and will honor the call of Palestinian civil society for a boycott of Israeli academic institutions. It is also resolved that the ASA supports the protected rights of students and scholars everywhere to engage in research and public speaking about Israel-Palestine and in support of the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement.” [3].
[1]. Harriet Sherwood, “Major US academic body backs boycott of Israeli educational institutions”, 17 December 2013: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/dec/17/us-american-studies-association-boycott-israel .
[2]. “ASA members vote to endorse academic boycott of Israel:, ASA, 2013: http://www.theasa.net/from_the_editors/item/asa_members_vote_to_endorse_academic_boycott/ .
[3]. ASA, “American Studies Association Resolution on Academic Boycott of Israel”, 4 December 2013: http://www.theasa.net/american_studies_association_resolution_on_academic_boycott_of_israel .
Australians For Palestine (AFP) ”seeks to dispel the myths and disinformation about Palestine in Australia” (see: http://www.australiansforpalestine.net/about-us ).
Australians For Palestine (AFP) position on boycotts, divestment and sanctions (BDS) against Apartheid Israel: “IX. Position on boycotts, divestment and sanctions. Australians for Palestine adopts the position that pressure must be put on Israel through boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) to end its occupation and colonization of Palestinian lands …” [1].
Australians For Palestine (AFP) on the Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine [detailed maps provided] (2012): “Background. For Palestinians, their land is their identity and this has been taken away from them in ever-increasing amounts since the United Nations decided to partition historic Palestine in 1947. The, the total area of historic Palestine was 6.5 million acres, with only a mere 370,000 acres under Jewish control. The Palestinians , who formed the majority population, owned some 2.25 million acres under various titles with the rest cam under the Islamic trust (waqf) and what we would call today “state land”.
The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine. The UN Partition, which divided the land into 56 per cent for the Jewish State, 43 per cent for the Arab State with Jerusalem designated as an International Zone, never eventuated. Instead, the forcible dispossession of Palestinians began even for Israel was declared a state in 1948. Jewish Zionist leaders knew that Israel’s existence could only be assured by ridding it of the indigenous Palestinian population. Zionist militia groups used physical and psychological terror tactics to force Palestinians to flee their homes in towns and villages and then took control of 5 million acres of land. Some 400 Palestinian villages and towns were ethnically cleansed, but the Palestinians never thought for a moment that they would become “permanent” refugees. To obliterate any evidence of these villages, the Jewish National Fund (JNF) planted hundreds of thousands of non-native trees in their place. In effect, the new State of Israel took a further 22 per cent of Palestinian land, and to this day, has denied the indigenous Palestinians their right if return.
Israel’s illegal land grabs are continuing. Since the 1967 war, when Israel occupied the West Bank and Gaza, Palestinians have been victims of a new wave of land expropriations and have witnessed the demolition of their homes and the razing of their farmlands to make way for illegal Israeli settlements, military posts, the Wall and Israeli-only freeways
The Palestinians who remained living in what had become Israel also feel the effects of Israel’s illegal land policies that favour Jewish citizens. For six decades Israel has refused to allow any new towns or villages to accommodate the growth rate of Palestinians. A 1961 law, which states that the JNF exists :for the purpose of settling Jews on such lands and properties”, blatantly discriminates on the basis if ethnicity”. [2].
[1]. Australians For Palestine (AFP), “Statement oif Principles”, About Us: http://www.australiansforpalestine.net/about-us .
[2]. Australians For Palestine (AFP) and Women For Palestine (Melbourne), “Palestinian Land Day [Yawm al Ard]”, Briefing Paper, 30 March 2012: http://www.australiansforpalestine.net/45585#more-45585 .
Iain Banks (born on 16 February 1954) is a Scottish writer. He writes mainstream fiction under the name Iain Banks, and science fiction as Iain M. Banks, including the initial of his adopted middle name Menzies. His novels include “The Wasp Factory", "The Bridge” and the forthcoming “The Quarry”. He is suffering from cancer and may only have months to live: (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iain_Banks ).
Iain Banks in support of Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) against Apartheid Israel (2013): “I support the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign because, especially in our instantly connected world, an injustice committed against one, or against one group of people, is an injustice against all, against every one of us; a collective injury. My particular reason for participating in the cultural boycott of Israel is that, first of all, I can; I'm a writer, a novelist, and I produce works that are, as a rule, presented to the international market. This gives me a small extra degree of power over that which I possess as a (UK) citizen and a consumer. Secondly, where possible when trying to make a point, one ought to be precise, and hit where it hurts. The sports boycott of South Africa when it was still run by the racist apartheid regime helped to bring the country to its senses because the ruling Afrikaaner minority put so much store in their sporting prowess… A sporting boycott of Israel would make relatively little difference to the self-esteem of Israelis in comparison to South Africa; an intellectual and cultural one might help make all the difference, especially now that the events of the Arab spring and the continuing repercussions of the attack on the Gaza-bound flotilla peace convoy have threatened both Israel's ability to rely on Egypt's collusion in the containment of Gaza, and Turkey's willingness to engage sympathetically with the Israeli regime at all. Feeling increasingly isolated, Israel is all the more vulnerable to further evidence that it, in turn, like the racist South African regime it once supported and collaborated with, is increasingly regarded as an outlaw state… The solution to the dispossession and persecution of one people can never be to dispossess and persecute another. When we do this, or participate in this, or even just allow this to happen without criticism or resistance, we only help ensure further injustice, oppression, intolerance, cruelty and violence in the future. We may see ourselves as many tribes, but we are one species, and in failing to speak out against injustices inflicted on some of our number and doing what we can to combat those without piling further wrongs on earlier ones, we are effectively collectively punishing ourselves. The BDS campaign for justice for the Palestinian people is one I would hope any decent, open-minded person would support. Gentile or Jew, conservative or leftist, no matter who you are or how you see yourself, these people are our people, and collectively we have turned our backs on their suffering for far too long.” [1, 2]
[1]. Extracted from Our People by Iain Banks, from Generation Palestine: Voices from the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Movement, edited by Rich Wiles, published by Pluto Press.
[2]. Iain Banks, “Iain Banks: why I’m supporting a cultural boycott of Israel”, Guardian, 5 April 2013: http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2013/apr/05/iain-banks-cultural-boycott-israel .
Dr Ramzy Baroud ( internationally syndicated columnist, a media consultant, founder of PalestineChronicle.com and an author of “ Searching Jenin”, “The Second Palestinian Intifada”, and “My Father Was a Freedom Fighter: Gaza's Untold Story”) on new Israeli Apartheid laws after UNSC Resolution 2334 (2017): “The so-called "Regulation Bill" will retroactively validate 4,000 illegal structures built on private Palestinian land. In the occupied Palestinian territories, all Jewish settlements are considered illegal under international law, as further indicated in UNSC Resolution 2334. There are also 97 illegal Jewish settlement outposts - a modest estimation - that are now set to be legalised and, naturally, expanded at the expense of Palestine. The price of these settlements has been paid mostly by US taxpayers' money, but also the blood and tears of Palestinians, generation after generation. It is important, though, that we realise that Israel's latest push to legalise illegal outposts and annex large swaths of the West Bank is the norm, not the exception. Indeed, the entire Zionist vision for Israel was achieved based on the illegal appropriation of Palestinian land. Wasn't so-called "Israel proper" - as in land obtained by force from 1948 to 1967 - originally Palestinian land?...
Ramzy Baroud (Palestinian writer) (2017): “Gaza is the world’s largest open air prison. The West Bank is a prison, too, segmented into various wards, known as areas A, B and C. In fact, all Palestinians are subjected to varied degrees of military restrictions. At some level, they are all prisoners. East Jerusalem is cut off from the West Bank, and those in the West Bank are separated from one another. Palestinians in Israel are treated slightly better than their brethren in the Occupied Territories, but subsist in degrading conditions compared to the first class status given to Israeli Jews, by virtue of their ethnicity alone. Palestinians “lucky” enough to escape the handcuffs and shackles are still trapped in different ways. Palestinian refugees in Lebanon’s Ein el-Hilweh, like millions of Palestinian refugees in “shattat” (Diaspora), are prisoners in refugee camps, carrying precarious, meaningless identification, cannot travel and are denied access to work. They languish in refugee camps, waiting for life to move forward, however slightly – as their fathers and grandfathers have done before them for nearly 70 years” ( Ramzy Baroud, “The Palestinian prisoners’ revolt”, Red Flag, 8 May 2017: https://redflag.org.au/node/5805 ).
Kevin Barrett (American Middle East scholar, writer and human rights activist) (2019): “Palestinian Genocide has killed 2.2 million. Israel should be paying holocaust reparations, not collecting them. Israel must end the Palestinian Holocaust… Despite conspiring with Zionist and militarist Americans to murder 294 Americans in 1967 [USS Liberty incident] and almost 3,000 Americans on 9/11, Israel has been far more merciful to Americans than to Palestinians. The Zionist assault on Palestine has killed about 2.2 million Palestinians—100,000 directly, the other 2.1 million from imposed deprivation—according to Dr. Gideon Polya, retired science professor from La Trobe University of Melbourne, Australia. Below is Dr. Polya’s recent communiqué. –KB. Palestinian Genocide has killed 2.2 million” (Kevin Barrett, “Palestinian Genocide has killed 2.2 million”, Veterans Today, 10 June 2019: https://www.veteranstoday.com/2019/06/10/new-evidence/ ).
John Peter Berger (born 5 November 1926) is an English art critic, novelist, painter and author of the novel ”G.” which won the 1972 Booker Prize, and “Ways of Seeing” a BBC TV series and book on art criticism (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Berger ).
John Berger advocating a cultural boycott of Apartheid Israel in a letter to the UK Guardian signed by 95 creative writers and artists (2006): “There is a fragile ceasefire in Lebanon, albeit daily violated by Israeli overflights. Meanwhile the day-to-day brutality of the Israeli army in Gaza and the West Bank continues. Ten Palestinians are killed for every Israeli death; more than 200, many of them children, have been killed since the summer. UN resolutions are flouted, human rights violated as Palestinian land is stolen, houses demolished and crops destroyed. For archbishop Desmond Tutu, as for the Jewish former ANC military commander now South African minister of security, Ronnie Kasrils, the situation of the Palestinians is worse than that of black South Africans under apartheid.
Meanwhile, western governments refer to Israel's legitimate right of self-defence, and continue to supply weaponry. The challenge of apartheid was fought better. The non-violent international response to apartheid was a campaign of boycott, divestment and UN-imposed sanctions which enabled the regime to change without bloodshed.
Today, Palestinians teachers, writers, film-makers and non-governmental organisations have called for a comparable academic and cultural boycott of Israel as offering another path to a just peace. This call has been endorsed internationally by university teachers in many European countries, by film-makers and architects, and by some brave Israeli dissidents. It is now time for others to join the campaign - as Primo Levi asked: "If not now, when?" We call on creative writers and artists to support our Palestinian and Israeli colleagues by endorsing the boycott call. Read the Palestinian call pacbi.org.
John Berger
Brian Eno
Sophie Fiennes
Eduardo Galeano
Reem Kelani
Leon Rosselson
Steven Rose
Arundhati Roy
Ahdaf Soueif
Elia Suleiman
and 85 others." [1].
John Berger signed the following letter together with Tariq Ali, Noam Chomsky, Eduardo Galeano, Naomi Klein, 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.” [2].
[1]. Letter to the Guardian signed by 95 creative writers and artists, “Israel boycott may be the way to peace”, Guardian, 15 December 2006: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2006/dec/15/israel.guardianletters .
[2]. 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 .
The Reverend Allan Aubrey Boesak is a veteran of the South African anti-apartheid struggle. He is the former president of the World Alliance of Reformed Churches, and is a signatory of the South African Christian response to the Kairos Palestine Document. This year he gave expert testimony at the Russell Tribunal on Palestine session in Cape Town (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allan_Boesak ).
Reverend Boesak being interviewed by Dr Hanan Chahata about Israeli Apartheid (2011): “Hanan Chahata: You were one of the signatories of the South African Christian response to the Kairos Palestine Document. In this you said that the Palestinian experience of apartheid is "in its practical manifestation even worse than South African apartheid". Can you explain what you meant by this?
Allan Boesak: It is worse, not in the sense that apartheid was not an absolutely terrifying system in South Africa, but in the ways in which the Israelis have taken the apartheid system and perfected it, so to speak; sharpened it. For instance, we had the Bantustans and we had the Group Areas Act and we had the separate schools and all of that but I don't think it ever even entered the mind of any apartheid planner to design a town in such a way that there is a physical wall that separates people and that that wall denotes your freedom of movement, your freedom of economic gain, of employment, and at the same time is a tool of intimidation and dehumanisation. We carried passes as the Palestinians have their ID documents but that did not mean that we could not go from one place in the city to another place in the city. The judicial system was absolutely skewed of course, all the judges in their judgements sought to protect white privilege and power and so forth, and we had a series of what they called "hanging judges" in those days, but they did not go far as to openly, blatantly have two separate justice systems as they do for Palestinians [who are tried in Israeli military courts] and Israelis [who are tried in civil, not military courts]. So in many ways the Israeli system is worse.
Another thing that makes it even worse is that when we fought our battles, even if it took us a long time, we could in the end muster and mobilise international solidarity on a scale that enabled us to be more successful in our struggle. The Palestinians cannot do that. The whole international community almost conspires against them. The UN, which played a fairly positive role in the struggle against apartheid in South Africa, takes the disastrous position of not wanting to offend its strong members like the United States who protect Israel. So even in the UN, where international law ought to be the framework wherein all these things are judged, where international solidarity is not an assumption but is supposed to be the very foundation upon which the UN builds its views on things and its judgements as to which way it goes, the Palestinians don't even have that.
Palestinians are mocked in a way that South Africans were not.” [1].
Francis Anthony Boyle (born 1950) is a professor of international law at the University of Illinois College of Law. He is the author of “The Tamil Genocide by Sri Lanka” and a co-author of “The Plight of the Palestinians” (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Boyle ).
Professor Francis Boyle on race-based Apartheid Israel (2010): "Israel has never been anything but a Bantustan for Jews setup in the Middle East by the White racist and genocidal Western colonial imperial powers in order to serve as their racist attack dog and genocidal enforcer against the Arab and Muslim world. From the very moment of Western imperialism's genocidal conception of Israel in 1947-1948, Israel has historically always functioned as Jewistan – the world's Bantustan for the Jews. So Israel might as well finally change its name today to Jewistan, own up to its racist birthright, and make it official for the rest of the world to acknowledge…In the meantime, the Palestinians should sign nothing with Jewistan/Israel and let this Bantustan for Jews collapse of its own racist and genocidal weight. Good riddance!" [1]
Professor Francis Boyle on Israeli genocide in Gaza (2010): “What we're seeing in Gaza now, is pretty much slow-motion genocide against the 1.5 million Palestinians who live in Gaza.... If you read the 1948 Genocide Convention, it clearly says that one instance of genocide is the deliberate infliction of conditions of life calculated to bring about the physical destruction of a people in whole or in part. And that's exactly what has been done to Gaza, since the imposition of the blockade by Israel; then the massacre of 1,400 Palestinians, two-thirds of whom were civilians, in Operation Cast Lead. And that also raises the element in the Genocide Convention, of murder, torture, and things of that nature." [2].
[1]. Professor Francis Boyle quoted in “Francis Boyle”, Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Boyle .
[2]. Professor Francis Boyle, quoted in “Francis Boyle: Israel committing genocide in Gaza”, MWC News, 15 November 2012: http://mwcnews.net/focus/analysis/22858-francisboyle-genocide-in-gaza.html .
Anglican Bishop George Browning (President of the Australia Palestine Advocacy Network, APAN) on Australian objection to ICC investigation of Apartheid Israeli war crimes ((2020): “No country is above the law – Australia and Israel should let the International Criminal Court [ICC] do its job in investigating possible war crimes involving Israel and Palestine. Australia must be known as a country that unwaveringly stands for international law and justice” ( “Israeli president in Federal Parliament: groups call on Australia and Israel to stop blocking International Criminal Court”, Medianet, 25 February 2020: https://www.medianet.com.au/releases/184593/ ).
Patrick Joseph "Pat" Buchanan (born November 2, 1938) is an important conservative US political commentator, author, columnist, political candidate and broadcaster. Pat Buchanan was a senior advisor to American presidents Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford and Ronald Reagan and was a host on CNN’s Crossfire (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pat_Buchanan ).
Pat Buchanan on what the Catholic Church has described as a “concentration camp” (2009): ““And they [Gaza rockets] triggered a blitzkrieg against the Palestinians in Gaza, which in my judgment is an Israeli concentration camp where a million and a half people are locked up.” [1].
[1]. Partial transcript from a Pat Buchanan interview video, “Pat Buchanan: Israel turning Gaza into a “concentration camp””, Prison Planet, 9 January 2009: http://www.prisonplanet.com/pat-buchanan-israel-turning-gaza-into-a-%E2%80%98concentration-camp%E2%80%99.html .
BURCH. Michael R. Burch (anti-racist American poet, writer, human rights activist, and founder and editor-in-chief of “The HyperTexts”): “Epitaph for a Palestinian Child ―for the children of Gaza and the Nakba -
I lived as best I could, and then I died.
Be careful where you step: the grave is wide” (Michael R. Burch, “Michael R. Burch”, The Hyper Texts: http://www.thehypertexts.com/Michael_R_Burch_Poet_Poetry_Picture_Bio.htm ).
Michael R. Burch compilation of truth-telling, anti-racist Jews and non-Jews critical of Zionism, Israeli Apartheid and the Palestinian Genocide: “Jewish Intellectuals Who Have Opposed Zionism and/or Israeli Racism, Injustices, Occupation, Apartheid and/or Ethnic Cleansing… [numerous quotations from anti-racsit Jews]. Other Jewish critics of Zionism and Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians include renowned author Philip Roth, acclaimed poet Adrianne Rich, actor Ed Asner, actress Rosanne Barr, Sidney Hook, Jeff Halper, I. F. Stone, Paul Wellstone, Maxine Rodinson, Moshe Menuhin, Yehudi Menuhin, Alfred Lilienthal, Roger Cohen, Professor Don Peretz, journalist Eric Rouleau, Harvard Professor Sara Roy, Professor Jennifer Loewenstein, former South African government mnister Ronnie Kasrils, Professor Saul Landau, Professor Zachery Lochman, Professor Joel Beinin, Professor Ian Lustick, Professor Edward Herman, writer Stephen Lendman, Anthony Loewenstein, Professor Steven Zunes, Stanley Heller, Danny Schechter, Lenni Brenner, Jeff Blankfort, author and journalist Alain Gresh, Professor Cheryl Rubenberg, Professor Michael Selzer, Professor David Fromkin, Howard Zinn, author Seymour M. Hersh, Bob Simon, Senior CBS Foreign Correspondent Barry Lando, Democracy Now radio host Amy Goodman, media critic Norman Solomon, writer Bennett Muraskin, Professor Lawrence Davidson, Jerome M. Segal, Professor Mark Levine, Rabbi Michael Lerner, Rabbi Brant Rosen, Jewish Voice for Peace activist Sydney Levy, Mark Braverman, author Phylis Bennis, journalist and editor David Finkel, Professor Mark Ellis, Joel Fischer, Professor Noel Ignatiev, Professor Bill Robinson, Allan C. Brownfeld editor of the American Council for Judaism Issues magazine, New York University Professor Bertrell Ollman, Dr. Gideon Polya, activist and writer Ralph Schoenman, writer Mike Marquisee, Swedish activists Snorre Lindquist and Lasse Wilhelmson, New York Times journalist Anthony Lewis, journalist Robert Scheer, journalist and blogger Philip Weiss, journalist Adam Horowitz, blogger Richard Silverstein, activist and writer Tim Wise, Professor Eric Alterman, Tsela Barr, Judith Laitman, Haley Michaels Pollack, Michelle Goldberg, activist and writer Adrienne Weller, Dan Leiberman editor of Alternative Insight, Dr. Marc Sapir, Hannah Mermelstein, Anna Baltzser, Professor Sharon Weill, Professor Randall Kuhn, author Ben Ehrenreich, Dr. Norton Mezvinsky, Dr. Joel Kovel and many other leading Jewish activists, intellectuals and religious figures.
Jewish and Israeli Peace and Humanitarian Organizations that have Opposed Israel's Racism, Apartheid and/or Ethnic Cleansing
Breaking the Silence (Israeli soldiers tell the truth about the Occupation)
Rabbis for Human Rights
Jews for Justice for Palestinians
Israeli Committee Against Home Demolitions
B'Tselem
Jewish Voice for Peace
American Jews for a Just Peace
Gush Shalom
Jews Against the Occupation
and many others ...
Nobel Peace Laureates Who have Opposed Israel's Racism, Apartheid and/or Ethnic Cleansing
Desmond Tutu
Nelson Mandela
Jimmy Carter
Adolfo Peres Esquivel
Jody Williams
Mairead Maguire
Rigoberta Menchú
Betty Williams
Christian Churches and Organizations that have Opposed Israel's Racism, Apartheid and/or Ethnic Cleansing
Baptist Peace Fellowship of North America
Episcopal Peace Fellowship’s Palestine Israel Network
Israel/Palestine Mission Network of the Presbyterian Church (USA)
Palestinian Christian Alliance for Peace
Presbyterian Peace Fellowship
Quaker Palestine Israel Network
United Church of Christ Palestine Israel Network
Other Individuals and Organizations that have Opposed Israel's Racism, Apartheid and/or Ethnic Cleansing
Amnesty International
Mohandas Gandhi
Vanessa Redgrave (she sold a house to raise money to film a documentary about the plight of the Palestinians)
Roger Waters
Brian Eno
Boots Riley
Alice Walker (author of The Color Purple)
Michael Ondaatje
Edward Said
Rashid Khalidi
David Palumbo-Liu
Mira Nair
Mike Leigh
Ken Loach
John Pilger” (Michael R. Burch, “Jewish Intellectuals Who Have Opposed Zionism and/or Israeli Racism, Injustices, Occupation, Apartheid and/or Ethnic Cleansing”, The Hyper Texts: http://www.thehypertexts.com/Jewish%20Intellectuals%20Who%20Opposed%20Zionism%20Israel%20Racism%20Injustices%20Apartheid%20Ethnic%20Cleansing.htm ).
Wendy Campbell (US writer, film-maker, creator of the documentaries called "Neturei Karta: Jews Against Zionism" and "Truth: Exposing Israeli Apartheid") on racist Zionism (2004): “ Definition of Zionism. At any rate, please allow me to explain my definition of "Zionism". Zionism is a racist ideology that allows for Jews from anywhere in the world to go to Israel-Palestine to claim superior rights to the land and government there at the expense of the indigenous non-Jewish Palestinians. It can be argued that Zionist Jews expect certain privileges above and beyond the average citizen in any country they live. By the way, not all Jews are Zionists, and not all American Jews think of Israel as their homeland. Many American Jews, I'm sure, if not most, think of themselves as Americans first and foremost. Many American Jews, I'm sure, accept their fellow Americans as equals regardless of their religion, race, ethnicity or gender. However, only Jews enjoy completely equal rights in Israel, where it is not a true secular democracy even for Jews, in that only marriages between Jews are acknowledged as legal in Israel, for just one example. Furthermore, all non-Jews are marginalized in Israel.
Zionist American Jews are the chauvinistic Jews who commonly believe in innate, irreducible differences from others and their own cultural-religious superiority to gentiles, or non-Jews. This attitude apparently enables them to justify Israel's national campaign of blatant ethnic cleansing against the non-Jewish Palestinians at worst as per "hard Zionists" or at the very least, complete segregation as per the apartheid two-state solution favored by "soft Zionists"” (Wendy Campbell, “Miami Florida: Zionist Occupied Territory”, Rense.com, 6 March 2004: http://www.rense.com/general50/pro.htm .
Mike Carlton is a leading Australian journalist and columnist who was driven to resign from the Sydney Morning Herald after Zionist attacks on his humane reportage of the latest Israeli Gaza Massacre (see: http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/mike-carlton-resigns-from-the-sydney-morning-herald-20140806-100w1u.html ).
Mike Carlton responded to Apartheid Israel's ongoing Gaza Massacre (2014): “Yes, Hamas is also trying to kill Israeli civilians, with a barrage of rockets and guerilla border attacks. It, too, is guilty of terror and grave war crimes. But Israeli citizens and their homes and towns have been effectively shielded by the nation's Iron Dome defence system, and so far only three of its civilians have died in this latest conflict. The Israeli response has been out of all proportion, a monstrous distortion of the much-vaunted right of self defence. It is a breathtaking irony that these atrocities can be committed by a people with a proud liberal tradition of scholarship and culture, who hold the Warsaw Ghetto and the six million dead of the Holocaust at the centre of their race memory. But this is a new and brutal Israel dominated by the hardline, right-wing Likud Party of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his coalition… Fascism in Israel? At this point the Australian Likudniks, as Bob Carr calls them, will be lunging for their keyboards. There will be the customary torrent of abusive emails calling me a Nazi, an anti-Semite, a Holocaust denier, an ignoramus. As usual they will demand my resignation, my sacking. As it's been before, some of this will be pornographic or threatening violence... That is why the killing and the dying goes on. Ad nauseam, ad infinitum. And the rest of the world, not caring, looks away” [1].
Mike Carlton’s comments on his Zionist-impelled resignation from the Sydney Morning Herald (2014) : “When for weeks you're called Nazi scum and a lot worse, eventually it gets to you and I told a few people where to go. I would have thought in this country of ours that telling a few people where to get off occasionally was not a crime, but the sad thing is to see a once-great newspaper like the Herald buckle to the bullies. Certainly the understanding I had with the editor-in-chief was that there would be apologies and that I would carry on. Higher up the food chain they wanted me suspended for four to six weeks. That was [Sean] Aylmer, and that's when I resigned last night. I'd like to thank my colleagues at the Herald for the massive support they're giving me right now" [2].
[1]. 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 .
[2]. Megan Levy, “Mike Carlton resigns from the Sydney Morning Herald”, Sydney Morning Herald , 6 August 2014: http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/mike-carlton-resigns-from-the-sydney-morning-herald-20140806-100w1u.html .
Bob Carr ( former Australian foreign minister, former New South Wales premier, and a patron of Australian Labor Friends of Palestine) on one-person-one-vote (2016): “Donald Trump can tweet and bluster. But the resolution [UNSC Resolution 2334] stands as international law, to be taken seriously by cabinets and bind the International Criminal Court. After years of provocation by Israeli hawks that's the genius of what Obama and Kerry have pulled off. If Israel responds with more settlements, or annexes slabs of the West Bank, then UN agencies and member states have to decide how to react. Leave that "how" to another day. In the meantime consider the following motion, an elegantly simple one: "Given that Israel continues to defy the 2016 resolution of the Security Council and spreads settlements so that a Palestinian state is no longer possible we move that every resident of Greater Israel be afforded equal rights. This includes the right to vote in national elections." How would you vote on that motion – in a parish council or church synod? At a union or party conference? A council meeting? On a campus? And what happens next?” (Bob Carr, “The genius of the UN’s resolution on Israeli settlements”, Sydney Morning Herald, 26 December 2016: http://www.smh.com.au/comment/the-genius-of-the-uns-resolution-on-israeli-settlements-20161225-gthumf.html ).
[Editor: Of the present 50% Indigenous Palestinian majority in “Greater Israel”, 72% presently cannot vote for the government ruling them i.e. they suffer Apartheid].
James Earl "Jimmy" Carter, Jr. (born October 1, 1924) served as the 39th President of the United States from 1977 to 1981 and was the recipient of the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize (the only U.S. President to have received the Prize after leaving office). Prior to becoming president, Carter served two terms in the Georgia senate followed by the governorship of the State of Georgia from 1971 to 1975 and was a peanut farmer and naval officer (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimmy_Carter ).
Jimmy Carter in his book “Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid” (2006): “Israel’s continued control and colonization of Palestinian land have been the primary obstacles to a comprehensive peace agreement in the Holy Land…The United States is squandering international prestige and goodwill and intensifying global anti-American terrorism by unofficially condoning or abetting the Israeli confiscation and colonization of Palestinian territories.” [1, 2].
Jimmy Carter speech about his book “Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid” (2006): “Some people have said the title is provocative, and I accept that categorization, but I don’t consider the word “provocative” to be a negative description, because it’s designed to provoke discussion and analysis and debate in a country where debate and discussion is almost completely absent if it involves any criticism at all of the policies of Israel. And I think the book is very balanced.
Secondly, the words “Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid” were carefully chosen by me. First of all, it’s Palestine, the area of Palestinians. It doesn’t refer to Israel. I’ve never and would imply that Israel is guilty of any form of apartheid in their own country, because Arabs who live inside Israel have the same voting rights and the same citizenship rights as do the Jews who live there.
And the next word is “peace.” And my hope is that the publication of this book will not only precipitate debate, as I’ve already mentioned, but also will rejuvenate an absolutely dormant or absent peace process. For the last six years there’s not been one single day of good faith negotiations between Israelis and their neighbors, the Palestinians. And this is absolutely a departure from what has happened under all previous presidents since Israel became a nation. We’ve all negotiated or attempted to negotiate peace agreements. That has been totally absent now for six years. So “peace.”
And then the last two words, “not apartheid.” The alternative to peace is apartheid, not inside Israel, to repeat myself, but in the West Bank and Gaza and East Jerusalem, the Palestinian territory. And there, apartheid exists in its more despicable forms, that Palestinians are deprived of basic human rights. Their land has been occupied and then confiscated and then colonized by the Israeli settlers. And they have now more than 205 settlements in the West Bank itself. And what has happened is, over a period of years, the Israelis have connected settlements with highways, and those highways make the West Bank look like a honeycomb and maybe a spider web. You can envision it. And in many cases, most cases, the Palestinians are prevented from using the highways at all, and in many cases, even from crossing the highways.
I’d like to make one other point. When Israel was founded back in 1948 by the United Nations, Israel was allocated 56% of what we would call “the holy land” between Jordan and the Mediterranean Sea. After the wars, when the Arabs tried to destroy Israel, treaties were worked out, and Israel wound up with 77% of the holy land. 22% was designated as the West Bank, and 1% only, Gaza. So at the optimum case, as recognized by all the United Nations resolutions, Israel would wind up with 77% of the area, and the Palestinians only 23%, including Gaza and the West Bank. And remember that Gaza is on the sea coast, where the Philistines lived during the time of King David, and it’s separated by 40 kilometers, about 30 miles, from the rest of Palestinian territory. So in order for a Palestinian to go from Gaza to the West Bank, they have to go through 30 miles of Israeli land, though that’s just a geographical description.
This book is designed to restimulate the prospect for peace. And I’m going to just read three options that Israelis face. And I’d like to say at the beginning that none of them are completely acceptable to all Israelis. But for the last 40 years, a strong majority of Israelis have preferred to relinquish Arab land in return for peace. And this sentiment prevailed until the time when Prime Minister Rabin was assassinated by an irate Israeli who didn’t like what Rabin and Shimon Peres had done at Oslo in negotiating a peace agreement for which they both received the Nobel Peace Prize.” [1].
[1]. Jimmy Carter, “Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid” (Simon & Schuster; 2006): http://www.amazon.com/Palestine-Peace-Apartheid-Jimmy-Carter/dp/0743285026 and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestine_Peace_Not_Apartheid .
[2]. Jimmy Carter, quoted in interview, “Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid… Jimmy Carter in his own words “, Democracy Now, 30 November 2006: http://www.democracynow.org/2006/11/30/palestine_peace_not_apartheid_jimmy_carter .
Jimmy Carter, "Palestine Peace Not Apartheid".
Former President Jimmy Carter put the nub of the Israel-Palestine question this way in his best selling book "Palestine Peace Not Apartheid": "The overriding problem is that, for more than a quarter century, the actions of some Israeli leaders have been in direct conflict with the official policies of the United States, the international community, and their own negotiated agreements. Israel's continued control and colonization of Palestinian land have been the primary obstacles to a comprehensive peace agreement in the Holy Land. In order to perpetuate the occupation, Israeli forces have deprived their unwilling subjects of basic human rights. No objective person could personally observe existing conditions in the West Bank and dispute these statements" (Jimmy Carter, "Palestine Peace Not Apartheid"; quoted in William Hughes, “Israel is a rabid state”, Rense, 9 December 2006: http://rense.com/general74/isss.htm ).
CHARLES, Prince of Wales. Charles (Prince of Wales and now King Charles III) as reported by Al Jazeera: “In his first official trip to the occupied West Bank in January 2020, Charles expressed his heartbreak over witnessing the “suffering” and “hardship” endured by the Palestinian population under Israeli occupation. During his speech from Bethlehem, Charles said: “It is my dearest wish that the future will bring freedom, justice and equality to all Palestinians, enabling you to thrive and to prosper.”” (What are King Charles III’s views on the Middle east”, Al Jazeera, 9 September 2022: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/9/9/king-charles-iii-what-are-his-views-on-the-middle-east .)
Kathleen Christison is a former CIA political analyst and has worked on Middle East issues for 30 years. She is the author of “Perceptions of Palestine” and “The Wound of Dispossession”. Bill Christison was a senior official of the CIA. He served as a National Intelligence Officer and as Director of the CIA’s Office of Regional and Political Analysis. They spent October 2006 in Palestine and on a speaking tour of Ireland sponsored by the Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign (see: http://www.counterpunch.org/2006/11/27/genocide-or-erasure-of-palestinians/ ). .
Kathleen and Bill Christison on the genocide or erasure of Palestinians (2006): “You can argue over terminology, but the truth is evident everywhere on the ground where Israel has extended its writ: Palestinians are unworthy, inferior to Jews, and in the name of the Jewish people, Israel has given itself the right to erase the Palestinian presence in Palestine — in other words, to commit genocide by destroying "in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial, or religious group." As we debate about and analyze the Palestinian psyche, trying to determine if they have had enough and will surrender or will survive by resisting, it is important to remember that the Jewish people, despite unspeakable tragedy, emerged from the holocaust ultimately triumphant. Israel and its supporters should keep this in mind: empires never last, as Ahmad said, and gross injustice such as the Nazis and Israel have inflicted on innocent people cannot prevail for long.” [1, 2].
[1]. Kathleen and Bill Christison, “Does it matter what you call it? Genocide or erasure of Palestinians”, Counterpunch, 27 November 2006: http://www.counterpunch.org/2006/11/27/genocide-or-erasure-of-palestinians/ .
[2]. Kathleen and Bill Christison, “Does it matter what you call it?”, republished as Chapter 16 in “The Plight of the Palestinians. A long history of destruction”, edited by William Cook, Palgrave Macmillan, London 2010: http://mwcnews.net/focus/analysis/4047-the-plight-of-the-palestinians.html .
The Coalition Against Israeli Apartheid (CAIA) is a Canadian organization opposed to Canadian complicity in Apartheid Israel. CAIA may very well have anti-racist, humanitarian Jewish members but is not a specifically Jewish organization and hence is listed in this compendium of "Non-Jews Against racist Zionism" (see: http://www.caiaweb.org/who-we-are/ ).
The Coalition Against Israeli Apartheid (CAIA) stated the following about who they are : “The Coalition Against Israeli Apartheid was formed in January 2006 as part of a growing, global movement against Israeli apartheid.
We believe Israel is an apartheid state that resembles South African Apartheid. Palestinian citizens of Israel are denied from controlling and developing over 90% of land because they are Palestinian. Palestinians expelled in 1948 and 1967 are denied the right to return to their homes and lands, despite the fact that anyone of Jewish background – from anywhere in the world – has the automatic right to become an Israeli citizen. In the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip, Palestinians live under separate and discriminatory military law.
The Canadian government provides extensive political and economic support to the Israeli apartheid regime. Canadian corporations profit through investments and joint operations with Israeli companies. We work to end all Canadian complicity in this apartheid state. We are a network of concerned individuals and organizations working to end this apartheid system. We believe that justice will not be achieved without equal rights for everyone in the region, regardless of religion, ethnicity or nationality. We understand Israeli apartheid as one element of a system of global apartheid. To this end, we stand in solidarity with all oppressed groups around the world, in particular, the indigenous people of North America. We oppose all forms of racism, Islamophobia and anti-Semitism.
Our demands are based upon a July 2005 call from over 170 Palestinian organizations in support of a global campaign of boycotts, divestment and sanctions (BDS). BDS should be maintained until Israel meets its obligation to recognize the Palestinian people’s inalienable right to self-determination and fully complies with the precepts of international law by
1. Ending its occupation and colonization of all Arab lands, dismantling the Wall and freeing all Palestinian and Arab political prisoners.
2. Recognizing the fundamental rights of the Arab-Palestinian citizens of Israel to full equality.
3. Respecting, protecting and promoting the rights of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and properties as stipulated in UN General Assembly Resolution 194.” [1].
[1]. The Coalition Against Israeli Apartheid (CAIA), “Who we are”: http://www.caiaweb.org/who-we-are/ .
J.M. Coetzee (Nobel Prize-winning South African writer)(2016): "To speak of Jerusalem and the West Bank, we see a system of enforced segregation based on religion and ethnicity put in place by an exclusive self-defined group to consolidate a colonial conquest, in particular to maintain, and indeed extend, its hold on the land and its natural resources" (J.M. Coetzee quoted in Iqbal Jassat, “Apartheid Israel: JM Coetzee delivers a devastating blow”, Politicsweb, 29 May 2016: https://www.politicsweb.co.za/opinion/apartheid-israel-jm-coetzee-delivers-a-devastating ).
John Ricardo I. "Juan" Cole (born: October 23, 1952) is an anti-racist, humanitarian American scholar, public intellectual, and historian of the modern Middle East and South Asia. He is Richard P. Mitchell Collegiate Professor of History at the University of Michigan (see Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juan_Cole ).
Juan Cole on Israeli Apartheid (2013): “By denying the Palestinians a state, Israelis are actively destroying the Palestine they agreed to create in the Oslo Accords that Israel signed in 1993. Israelis prevent Gaza from exporting most of what it makes. The territory is denied an airport or seaport, and severe restrictions are placed on imports, plunging many of the Palestinians there into food insecurity and creating high incidences of anemia. In the West Bank, Israeli authorities are resorting to an ever more robust Israeli apartheid, which the world is signaling it will not accept… Because of overwhelming American support, especially in Congress, and because of the vast amounts of money and arms the U.S. has provided, fortress Israel can forge ahead with its colonization project if its leaders so choose. But Israel cannot escape the two inevitable consequences of this action. If it denies the Palestinians a state and insists on keeping Palestinian land, then it will become responsible for resolving the dire problem of Palestinian statelessness. And until it does that, Israel will increasingly be seen as an apartheid state and come under debilitating sanctions, first from civil society and then from governments.” [1].
Juan Cole on Israeli support for South African Apartheid (2013): The US considered the African National Congress to be a form of Communism, and sided with the racist Prime Ministers Hendrik Verwoerd and P.W. Botha against Mandela. Decades later, in the 1980s, the United States was still supporting the white Apartheid government of South Africa, where a tiny minority of Afrikaaners dominated the economy and refused to allow black Africans to shop in their shops or fraternize with them, though they were happy to employ them in the mines… Likewise British PM Margaret Thatcher befriended Botha and castigated Mandela’s ANC as terrorists. As if the Afrikaners weren’t terrorizing the black majority! She may have suggested to Botha that he release Mandela for PR purposes, but there is not any doubt on whose side she stood. The Israeli government had extremely warm relations with Apartheid South Africa, to the point where Tel Aviv offered the Afrikaners a nuclear weapon (presumably for brandishing at the leftist states of black Africa). That the Israelis accuse Iran of being a nuclear proliferator is actually hilarious if you know the history. Iran doesn’t appear ever to have attempted to construct a nuclear weapon, whereas Israel has hundreds and seems entirely willing to share.” [2].
[1]. Juan Cole, “Israel’s Apartheid deepens, along with its global isolation”, Truthdig, 12 December 2012: http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/israels_apartheid_deepens_along_with_its_global_isolation_20121212 .
[2]. Juan Cole, “United States, Israel opposed Mandela, supported Apartheid”, Informed Comment, 6 December 2013: http://www.juancole.com/2013/12/mandela-supported-apartheid.html .
The Committee for Black Americans for Truth about the Middle East (1970): “We stand with the Palestinian people in their efforts to preserve their revolution, and oppose its attempted destruction by American Imperialism aided by Zionists and Arab reactionaries… Zionism is a reactionary racist ideology that justifies the expulsion of the Palestinian people from their homes and lands, and attempts to enlist the Jewish masses of Israel and elsewhere in the service of imperialism to hold back the Middle East revolution” ( The Committee for Black Americans for Truth about the Middle East ,”An Appeal by Black Americans Against United States Support for the Zionist Government of Israel”, The New York Times, 1 November 1970 and quoted in Black for Palestine, “An Appeal by Black Americans Against United States Support for the Zionist Government of Israel”, 1 November 1970: http://www.blackforpalestine.com/1970-black-nyt-statement.html ).
Professor Mazin Qumsiyeh (Palestinian scientist, human rights activist and researcher at Bethlehem University and Birzeit University): “Congressman Paul Findley published a book in the 1970s called "They Dare to Speak Out". He listed many examples of courageous individuals who speak truth to power with regard to US policy in the Middle East. Speaking out against Israeli occupation, oppression, and apartheid is not cost free but the reward of being able to live with one's conscience is priceless. This list is just a sampling of names of people we consider with honor for their honest and truthful stand for peace with justice… [LONG LIST COMMENCING] Avigail Abarbanel… [AND CONCLUDING] Sowwan wa Sabr” (Mazin Qumsiyeh, “Honor List”, Qumsiywh: a human rights web: http://qumsiyeh.org/honorlist/ ).
Jonathan Cook (born 1965) is a UK writer and a freelance journalist based in Nazareth, Israel, who writes about the Middle East and about Israel and Palestine in particular. He has a M.A. in Middle Eastern studies from the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, in 2000 (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_Cook ).
Jonathan Cook on Apartheid in Israel (2010): “The pretty two-storey home with a red-tiled roof built by Adel and Iman Kaadan looks no different from the rows of other houses in Katzir, a small hilltop community in northern Israel close to the West Bank. But, unlike the other residents of Katzir, the Kaadans moved into their dream home this month only after a 12-year battle through the Israeli courts. The small victory for the Kaadans, who belong to Israel's Palestinian Arab minority, dealt a big blow to a state policy that for decades has reserved most of the country's land for Jews. Katzir is one of 695 so-called "co-operative associations", communities mostly established since Israel's creation in 1948, whose chief purpose is to bar non-Jews from residency.
In October, the Israeli parliament moved to enshrine in law the right of these associations, comprising nearly 70 per cent of all communities in Israel, to accept only Jews. The Constitution, Law and Justice Committee approved a private members' bill that will uphold the right of the communities' admissions committees to continue excluding Arab citizens, who make up one-fifth of the population. The bill is expected to pass its final reading in the coming weeks. Commentators have compared the legislation with South Africa's notorious apartheid laws such as the Group Areas Act. A leading jurist, Mordechai Kremnitzer, of Hebrew University in Jerusalem, said the bill gave off the "foul odour of racism". The legislation, both its supporters and opponents are agreed, is a rearguard action to prevent the possibility that other Arab citizens might be inspired to follow the Kaadans' example.
Israel Hasson, of the centrist Kadima party, who was among the bill's formulators, said it reflected "the state's commitment to the realisation of the Zionist vision" in Israel. That vision is embodied in a decades-old "Judaisation" programme to settle as many Jews as possible in the heavily Arab-populated north. Suhad Bishara, a lawyer with the Adalah legal centre for the Arab minority, said that the long-standing practice of using admissions committees to weed out applications from Arab citizens was being given legal standing for the first time. "This legislation makes clear in very blunt fashion that the thrust of policy in Israel is towards maintaining segregation in housing between Jewish and Arab citizens," she said. The question of control over land, Ms Bishara said, was felt especially keenly by the Arab minority, because the state had nationalised 93 per cent of all territory inside its recognised borders... The new legislation, known as the Admissions Committee Bill, is designed to pre-empt any ruling by the court. Gush Shalom, an Israeli peace group, said it would petition the Supreme Court to strike down the bill if, as expected, it becomes law in the next few weeks. The liberal Haaretz newspaper called the bill an "outrageous" attempt to preserve "Jewish purity" in communities such as Katzir and Rakafet. But the rightwing Jerusalem Post newspaper backed the legislation, saying Israeli Jews "should have the right to live in a community where they are not threatened by intermarriage or by becoming a cultural or religious minority". [1].
[1]. Jonathan Cook, “Apartheid Israel-style law to keep Jews and Arabs apart”, Global Research, 15 December 2010: http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=22412 .
Ismail Coovadia was a hero in the struggle against Apartheid in South Africa and a former South African Ambassador to Israel (see: http://www.countercurrents.org/vlazna300114A.htm ).
South African Ambassador to Israel, Ismail Coovadia who refused, on his retirement, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and JNF honour of the customary planting of 18 trees in the Ambassador’s Forest and the later 3542 trees donated in his name with this ethical statement: "I have supported the struggle against Apartheid South Africa and now I cannot be a proponent of what I have witnessed in Israel, and that is, a replication of Apartheid!" [1].
[1]. Vacy Vlazna, “Jewish National Fund’s War Crimes Mission”, Countercurrents, 30 January 2014: http://www.countercurrents.org/vlazna300114A.htm .
Jeremy Corbyn (UK MP and leader of the Labour Party) re 2014 Gaza Massacre (2014): “The UK has a very close relationship with Israel, including buying and selling arms, and it’s time that this relationship was brought to an end since Israel is now under investigation for war crimes over the bombing of Gaza. I received an email from Dr Mads Gilbert, working in Shifa Hospital, and it brought tears to my eyes when he was describing the pools of blood, the electricity cut off, the lack of clean water and the continuous surge of the dead and injured pouring into the hospital. It’s people like that who are saving lives, and Israel which is taking lives” (Palestine Solidarity Campaign, “MPs, actors, authors and musicians among 21,000 demanding arms embargo on Israel”, Palestine Solidarity Campaign, 23 July 2014: https://www.palestinecampaign.org/mps-actors-authors-musicians-among-21000-demanding-arms-embargo-israel/ ).
Benjamin L. Corey (Anabaptist US Missiologist, author, blogger, speaker and a prominent figure within the Emerging Church Movement, Progressive Christianity and radical Christianity) (2017): “In the Israel/Palestine conflict, is Israel guilty of genocide against the Palestinians? Yes– absolutely. The other day I wrote a short piece on why the Bible does not command us to blindly stand with the modern state of Israel, and one of the points I made is that Israel is guilty of genocide. There were no shortage of internet commenters who objected to my use of this word and felt it was over the top. However, I stand by my assertion that Israel is guilty of genocide, so allow me to expand upon that.
I believe the main reason many push back on the idea that Israel is guilty of genocide is because of a lack of understanding of the full nuance of the word, and what genocide can look like in a modern context. While rounding up people for mass executions would be obvious evidence of genocide, the reality is that genocide can take place in ways that are more subtle– making it palatable for the masses, and even seem justified at times. Some scholars have referred to the Israel/Palestine conflict as “incremental genocide” and I would agree with that term. Instead of an overt, blatant attempt to eradicate a people group, incremental genocide involves actions and policies that are designed to slowly erode, break up, and destroy a specific population. Think for example of early American history and the genocide of Native Americans. While it wasn’t always mass killings, genocide occurred by military conflict, expanding land holdings, resettlements, and creating conditions that were destructive for the indigenous population. While it took many years to complete, and while it took many forms, what early Americans did to the indigenous people of North America was nothing short of genocide. The same holds true for Israel.
The legal definition of genocide includes the following: “Acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group such as:
(a) Killing members of the group;
(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part.”
While A and B are both elements we find present in Israel’s approach to Palestinians, the key aspect of genocide being waged by Israel is found in C: the deliberate infliction of conditions that in part or as a whole will destroy a people group. Arab Christians and Muslims known as Palestinians have been undoubtedly the target of Israel and a desire to eradicate them from the land” (Benjamin L. Corey, “Yes, what Israel is doing to Palestinians is actually genocide”, Patheos, 1 March 2017: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/formerlyfundie/yes-israel-palestinians-actually-genocide/ ).
Edward Corrigan is one of the top Immigration and refugee lawyers in Canada and has written extensively on Jewish opposition to racist Zionism (see: http://www.opednews.com/author/author43305.html ).
Edward Corrigan on false racist Zionist allegations of anti-Semitism against those criticizing Israeli human rights abuses (2010): “It must be recognized that there is a wide range of opinion on Zionism within the Jewish community. We must reject specious arguments and false allegations of anti-Semitism. We need to fight for freedom of speech, academic freedom, critical inquiry and democratic debate, at all universities and colleges, in the media, in the halls of political power and all across North America. Individuals should be allowed to decide for themselves questions regarding Zionism and the Palestinians based on open debate, the facts, and informed opinion, not on suppression of debate, intimidation and censorship.” [1].
[1]. Edward Corrigan, “Is it anti-Semitic to defend Palestinian rights?”, OpEd News, 12 January 2010: http://www.opednews.com/articles/4/Is-It-Anti-Semitic-to-Defe-by-Edward-Corrigan-100112-428.html .
Edward Corrigan (a Canadian lawyer certified as a Specialist in Citizenship and Immigration Law and Immigration and Refugee Protection by the Law Society of Upper Canada in London, Ontario, Canada) in a must-read, detailed and documented analysis entitled “Jewish critics of Zionism and of Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians (2010): “It may surprise some but most of the strongest critics of Zionism and Israel’s policies toward the Palestinians are Jewish. However, as Michael Selzer writes, “Zionism is a complex phenomenon, adequately understood by only a small percentage of its critics and by even a smaller percentage of its supporters.” As Professor Yakov M. Rabkin writes, “According to a sarcastic remark of an Israeli colleague, ‘Our claim to this land could be put in a nutshell: God does not exist, and he gave us this land.’ Indeed, secular nationalism and religious rhetoric lie at the root of the Zionist enterprise.
The political ideology of Zionism was the subject of intense debate, especially within the Jewish religious community. However, Zionism meant different things to different people. Zionism could be interpreted in a religious, political, national or racial light depending upon the circumstances. For some, Zionism was a solution for the age-old problem of anti-Semitism. For others merely an excuse for getting rid of the Jews. As Hannah Arendt noted, “The Zionist Organization had developed a genius for not answering, or answering ambiguously, all questions of political consequence. Everyone was free to interpret Zionism as he pleased …”
The only Jewish member of Lloyd George’s cabinet when Great Britain first threw its weight behind Zionism in 1917, Sir Edwin Montagu, was adamantly opposed to the creation of a Jewish state. He attacked the Balfour Declaration and Zionism because he believed they were anti-Semitic. Montagu argued that Zionism and anti-Semitism were based on the same premise, namely that Jews and non-Jews could not co-exist.
Montagu’s opposition to Zionism and the Balfour Declaration was supported by the leading representative bodies of Anglo-Jewry at the time, the Board of Deputies and the Anglo-Jewish Association, and in particular, by three prominent British Jews Claude Montefiore, David Alexander and Lucien Wolf.
Without the history of Christian anti-Semitism that has existed in Europe and the centuries of persecution of the European Jewish community political Zionism would have no legitimacy. As Hannah Arendt noted that on the question of anti-Semitism the Zionists “have indeed exploited it”…
[about 70] Other present day Jewish critics of Zionism and Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians includes…
Collections of writings on Jewish criticism of Zionism…
There are a number of other anthologies and collections of writings from anti-Zionist Jews. These include Zionism Reconsidered, Michael Selzer ed. (London: The Macmillian Company, 1970); Zionism: The Dream and the Reality: A Jewish Critique, Gary V. Smith ed. (New York: Barnes & Noble Books, 1974); Jewish Critics of Zionism and the Stifling and Smearing of a Dissenter, by Moshe Menuhin, (Belmont, Massachusetts: Association of Arab University Graduates, 1976); Judaism or Zionism: What Difference for the Middle East?, EAFORD & AJAZ (American Jewish Alternatives to Zionism) eds., (London: Zed Books,1986); The End of Zionism and the Liberation of the Jewish People, Eibie Weizfeld ed. (Clarity Press: Atlanta, 1989); Radicals, Rabbis, and Peacemakers: Conversations with Jews Against the Occupation, Seth Faber ed. (Monroe ME: Common Courage Press, 2005).” (Edward Corrigan, “Jewish critics of Zionism and of Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians”, Dissident Voice, 16 April 2010: https://dissidentvoice.org/2010/04/jewish-critics-of-zionism-and-of-israels-treatment-of-the-palestinians/ ).
Angela Davis (African American scholar, author and renowned civil rights activist) supporting BDS against Apartheid Israel (2014): “In the US, there are some 2.5 million people in our country’s jails and prisons and military prisons, and jails in Indian country, and immigrant detention centers — on any given day, that is to say, there are 2.5 million people, approximately. It’s a daily census, so it doesn’t reflect the numbers of people who go through the system every week, or every month, or every year. The majority of those people are people of color. The fastest-growing sector consists of women, women of color. Many prisoners are queer, and trans — as a matter of fact, trans people of color are the group most likely to be arrested and imprisoned. Racism provides the fuel for the maintenance, reproduction and expansion of the prison industrial complex. And so, if we say, as we do, abolish the prison industrial complex, we should also say abolish apartheid. And end the occupation of Palestine. When we have, in the States, described the segregation in occupied Palestine, that so clearly mirrors the historical apartheid of racism in the southern United States of America, especially when we talk about this to black people, the response is often “why hasn’t anyone told us about this before? Why hasn’t anyone told us about the signs in occupied Palestine? And about the segregated express auto-highways? Why hasn’t anyone told us this before? ”And so, just as we say “never again” with the respect to the fascism that produced the Holocaust, we should also say “never again” with respect to apartheid, in the southern US. But that means, first and foremost, that we will have to expand and deepen our solidarities with the people of Palestine. People of all genders and sexualities. People inside and outside prison walls. Inside and outside the apartheid wall. Boycott G4S, support BDS, and finally, Palestine will be free” (transcript of Angela Davis speech in Nora Barrows-Friedman, “Angela Davis: “support BDS, and Palestine will be free””, Electronic Intifada podcast, 17 January 2014: https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/nora-barrows-friedman/angela-davis-support-bds-and-palestine-will-be-free ).
Junot Díaz (a Dominican-American writer, creative writing professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), fiction editor at “Boston Review” and winner of the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for his novel “The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao”) was signatory to American writers’ anti-apartheid Israel letter to PEN America and signed by 11 organizations, 61 individuals and 148 additional signatories) (2016): “To PEN American Center: We, the undersigned, including participants at PEN World Voices Festival, ask the Festival to reject support from the Embassy of Israel. The Embassy of Israel is listed among the “Champions” of the World Voices Festival, and as a sponsor of a panel. Given PEN American Center’s mission of supporting freedom of expression, it is deeply regrettable that the Festival has chosen to accept sponsorship from the Israeli government, even as it intensifies its decades-long denial of basic rights to the Palestinian people, including the frequent targeting of Palestinian writers and journalists… Since 2005, Palestinian civil society has called on people of conscience around the world to engage in a peaceful campaign of boycotting, divesting from, and sanctioning (BDS) Israel in order to force it to comply with international law and respect the rights of Palestinians now living under Israeli military occupation, as unequal citizens within Israel, or as refugees, denied their right to return to their homeland. The union representing Palestinian writers, the General Union of Palestinian Writers, actively supports this boycott call. We appeal to PEN American Center to honor this boycott call and refuse sponsorship by the Israeli embassy or any complicit Israeli institution for the 2016 World Voices Festival and for future PEN American Center activities… As with South Africa, where an international boycott played a crucial role in bringing an end to apartheid, we call on PEN American Center not to partner with the Israeli government or other complicit institutions until Israel fulfills its obligations under international law and fully recognizes the Palestinian people’s right to live in full equality and freedom in their homeland [signed by 11 organizations, 61 individuals and 148 additional signatories] (“Letter to PEN American Center: don’t partner with Israeli Government”, Adalah-NY: Campaign for the Boycott of Israel, 2016: https://adalahny.org/web-action/1376/letter-pen-american-center-don-t-partner-israeli-government ).
Haidar Eid (a member of The Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) and Al-Shabaka (The Palestinian Policy Network) Policy Adviser, and the author of “Worlding Postmodernism: Interpretive Possibilities of Critical Theory”) (2016): “Why boycott Apartheid Israel… I live in Gaza which has been under a hermetic Israeli siege for ten years. We have shortages of everything from electricity and water, to medicines and chocolate. Israel does not allow books and cement into Gaza, so we cannot nourish the brains of our children, nor can we build homes for them. Israel has been allowed to dehumanize and dispossess Palestinians for decades with impunity. US and international support have given Israel free rein to separate Palestinians in the West Bank, Gaza and 1948 and increase the number of Palestinian refugees whenever it felt like. But with the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, we’re fighting back” (Haidar Eid, “Why boycott Apartheid Israel: a response top a liberal friend”, Palestinian Chronicle, 21 October 2016: http://www.palestinechronicle.com/boycott-apartheid-israel-response-liberal-friend/ ).
ELIZABETH (Queen Elizabeth II) as reported by UPI: “The Queen visited much of the Middle East during her 70 year reign, but never visited Israel” ( “Palestinian newspapers announce the death of Queen Elizabeth II”, UPI, 9 September 2022: https://www.upi.com/News_Photos/view/upi/d285fc29de46a32b181131fd1b178e29/ ).
Yves Engler (Canadian author of “Canada and Israel – Building Apartheid” and many other books) (2010): “How long Israel will continue in this geostrategic role for the US empire is unknown, but so long as it does, there will be a powerful force pushing Canada to be one-sidedly pro-Israel.” ( Yves Engler, “Canada and Israel – Building Apartheid”, Fernwood Publishing and RED Publishing, 2010; quoted in Montreal Serai, “Canada and Israel – Building Apartheid”, 28 September 2010: https://montrealserai.com/article/canada-and-israel-building-apartheid/ ).
“Yves Engler has signed, together with 500 artists, a call to support the international campaign for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions against the state of Israel for the Israeli apartheid against Palestinians” (Yves Engler, Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yves_Engler ; see “500 artists against Israeli apartheid”, Tadamon, 25 February 2010: https://www.tadamon.ca/post/5824 ).
Brian Eno (Brian Peter George St. John le Baptiste de la Salle Eno ) (born 15 May 1948) is an English musician, composer, record producer, singer, visual artist and a major innovator of ambient music (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Eno ).
Brian Eno advocating a cultural boycott of Apartheid Israel in a letter to the UK Guardian signed by 95 creative writers and artists (2006): “There is a fragile ceasefire in Lebanon, albeit daily violated by Israeli overflights. Meanwhile the day-to-day brutality of the Israeli army in Gaza and the West Bank continues. Ten Palestinians are killed for every Israeli death; more than 200, many of them children, have been killed since the summer. UN resolutions are flouted, human rights violated as Palestinian land is stolen, houses demolished and crops destroyed. For archbishop Desmond Tutu, as for the Jewish former ANC military commander now South African minister of security, Ronnie Kasrils, the situation of the Palestinians is worse than that of black South Africans under apartheid.
Meanwhile, western governments refer to Israel's legitimate right of self-defence, and continue to supply weaponry. The challenge of apartheid was fought better. The non-violent international response to apartheid was a campaign of boycott, divestment and UN-imposed sanctions which enabled the regime to change without bloodshed.
Today, Palestinians teachers, writers, film-makers and non-governmental organisations have called for a comparable academic and cultural boycott of Israel as offering another path to a just peace. This call has been endorsed internationally by university teachers in many European countries, by film-makers and architects, and by some brave Israeli dissidents. It is now time for others to join the campaign - as Primo Levi asked: "If not now, when?" We call on creative writers and artists to support our Palestinian and Israeli colleagues by endorsing the boycott call. Read the Palestinian call pacbi.org.
John Berger
Brian Eno
Sophie Fiennes
Eduardo Galeano
Reem Kelani
Leon Rosselson
Steven Rose
Arundhati Roy
Ahdaf Soueif
Elia Suleiman
and 85 others." [1].
[1]. Letter to the Guardian signed by 95 creative writers and artists, “Israel boycott may be the way to peace”, Guardian, 15 December 2006: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2006/dec/15/israel.guardianletters .
Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is the 25th and current Prime Minister of Turkey, and the chairman of the ruling Justice and Development Party, which holds a majority of the seats in the Grand National Assembly of Turkey (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recep_Tayyip_Erdo%C4%9Fan ).
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan speaking to the UN Alliance of Civilizations meeting in Vienna in February 2013: :"Just as with Zionism, anti-Semitism and fascism, it has become necessary to view Islamophobia as a crime against humanity." [1].
Recep Tayyip Erdogan quoted in “John Kerry to urge Turkey top patch up relations with Israel after Zionism row”, Guardian, 1 March 2013: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/mar/01/kerry-turkey-relations-israel-zionism .
Mohammad Fadhel (Arab journalist and researcher in Dubai) (2017): “Balfour: Britain must own up to responsibility for the Palestinian Holocaust. This disastrous imperial legacy is still highly visible… Richard Gott wrote in the Guardian in July 2006: “The brutal story of the British Empire continues to this day”, and “This disastrous imperial legacy is still highly visible, and it is one of the reasons why the British Empire continues to provoke such harsh debate. If Britain made such a success of its colonies, why are so many in an unholy mess half a century later ...?” Gott placed Palestine on top of the list of conflicts caused by the brutal story of the British Empire, but it is clear that the British colonial malice continues to this day, and English politicians are still committed to the core of what Balfour justified through his shameful declaration when he said that “The desires of 700,000 Palestinian Arabs are of no importance compared to the fate of a European colonial movement [Zionism] in essence”” (Mohammad Fadhel, “Balfour: Britain must own up to responsibility for the Palestinian Holocaust”, Gulf News Opinion, 2 November 2017: https://gulfnews.com/opinion/op-eds/balfour-britain-must-own-up-to-responsibility-for-the-palestinian-holocaust-1.2117721 ).
The Federation of Unions of Palestinian University Professors and Employees is an association of Palestinian professors and other university staff.
Edited version of an open letter issued by the Federation of Unions of Palestinian University Professors and Employees and the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (2006): “At this time of escalating colonial repression, coupled with a particularly inhumane and illegal siege, Palestinians will be eagerly following Natfhe's national conference when it convenes on May 27. They are heartened by the growing movement for a boycott, divestment and sanctions.
“The Federation of Unions of Palestinian University Professors and Employees and the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel salute the British academics who have proposed a motion to boycott Israel, to be tabled at the conference in Blackpool. We believe that this is a courageous initiative. It comes at a time when it is becoming increasingly clear that the international community, as represented by the centres and institutions of global power, is incapable of delivering justice to the Palestinian people. The only hope rests with initiatives from international activists for justice in Palestine to put pressure on Israel to end its oppression of Palestinians.
Israeli academic institutions are implicated in the various forms of oppression exercised against Palestinians. Israeli research institutes, think-tanks and academic departments have historically granted legitimacy to the work of academics who advocate ethnic cleansing, apartheid, denial of refugee rights and other discriminatory policies against Palestinians, whether in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, inside Israel or in exile.
Collaboration and co-operation with the intelligence services, the Army and other agencies of the occupation regime is part of the routine work of the Israeli academy.
Furthermore, no Israeli academic body or institution has ever taken a public stand against the military occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, nor have academic institutions or representative bodies of Israeli academics criticised their Government's longstanding siege of Palestinian academic institutions. Indeed, the current regime of economic sanctions and other collective punishments imposed upon an entire society by the Government of Israel, with grave complicity from the US and the European Union, have gone without notice in the business-as-usual world of the Israeli academy. Nor has the academy raised its voice against racism within Israel, as exemplified by the recent ruling of the Israeli High Court upholding a ban on the reunification of Palestinian citizens of Israel with their spouses in the Occupied Palestinian Territory and therefore infringing, on ethnic grounds, on the basic human right to choose one's partner.
The Palestinian call for a boycott of Israeli academic institutions is endorsed by the most important federations and associations of academics and professionals and is supported by dozens of civil society institutions in Palestine. Like the Palestinian civil society's widely endorsed call for a campaign of boycott, divestment and sanctions, it is based on the same moral principle embodied in the international campaign against apartheid in South Africa: that people of conscience must take a stand and use civil resistance to bring an end to oppression. Palestinians are appealing to academics, professionals, artists and other activists to work towards bringing an end to a regime that practises colonial oppression and discrimination against its Palestinian citizens and that denies the rights of Palestinians to return to their homeland.
We hope that Natfhe members will join the growing international movement by showing that business cannot be conducted with the Israeli academy until it takes an unequivocal stand against the forms of oppression practised by the Israeli state. This is what conscientious British academics did more than 20 years ago during the struggle against apartheid in South Africa; this is what we hope they will do to help resist Israel's version of apartheid.
Until it effectively ends its complicity, the Israeli academy - as a major institutional upholder of the prevailing order - cannot expect exemption from the boycott. Boycott and divestment are the only non-violent forms of action available to people of conscience the world over. We salute those who recognise that, since justice for Palestinians cannot be expected from the international centres of world power, they must organise to further the cause of justice and genuine peace.” [1].
Sophie Fiennes (Sophia Victoria Twisleton Wykeham-Fiennes; born 12 February 1967) is an English film director and producer (e.g. Channel 4 TV production “Because I Sing”) (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sophie_Fiennes ).
Sophie Fiennes advocating a cultural boycott of Apartheid Israel in a letter to the UK Guardian signed by 95 creative writers and artists (2006): “There is a fragile ceasefire in Lebanon, albeit daily violated by Israeli overflights. Meanwhile the day-to-day brutality of the Israeli army in Gaza and the West Bank continues. Ten Palestinians are killed for every Israeli death; more than 200, many of them children, have been killed since the summer. UN resolutions are flouted, human rights violated as Palestinian land is stolen, houses demolished and crops destroyed. For archbishop Desmond Tutu, as for the Jewish former ANC military commander now South African minister of security, Ronnie Kasrils, the situation of the Palestinians is worse than that of black South Africans under apartheid.
Meanwhile, western governments refer to Israel's legitimate right of self-defence, and continue to supply weaponry. The challenge of apartheid was fought better. The non-violent international response to apartheid was a campaign of boycott, divestment and UN-imposed sanctions which enabled the regime to change without bloodshed.
Today, Palestinians teachers, writers, film-makers and non-governmental organisations have called for a comparable academic and cultural boycott of Israel as offering another path to a just peace. This call has been endorsed internationally by university teachers in many European countries, by film-makers and architects, and by some brave Israeli dissidents. It is now time for others to join the campaign - as Primo Levi asked: "If not now, when?" We call on creative writers and artists to support our Palestinian and Israeli colleagues by endorsing the boycott call. Read the Palestinian call pacbi.org.
John Berger
Brian Eno
Sophie Fiennes
Eduardo Galeano
Reem Kelani
Leon Rosselson
Steven Rose
Arundhati Roy
Ahdaf Soueif
Elia Suleiman
and 85 others." [1].
[1]. Letter to the Guardian signed by 95 creative writers and artists, “Israel boycott may be the way to peace”, Guardian, 15 December 2006: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2006/dec/15/israel.guardianletters .
Professor William Fletcher (former assistant to President John Sweeney of the AFL-CIO, former -CEO of the TransAfrica Forum and Belle Zeller Visiting Professor at Brooklyn College, City University of New York.) in 1 December 2006 talk at the Palestine Center, entitled, "Two Walled Cities: Jerusalem and Johannesburg, Apartheid and Palestine": “The logic of both Israel and Apartheid-era South Africa can be found in their common origins as settler states. In both cases the settlers created myths, semi-religious or explicitly religious, including that God had provided the land for them and that the land was unoccupied upon arrival...In both cases, the settlers portrayed themselves to be victims against the natives, who were described as semi-barbaric and/or intolerant. Given the permanent state of siege, every settler state's aggression came to be described as a defensive act" (quoted in William Hughes, “Israel is a rabid state”, Rense, 9 December 2006: http://rense.com/general74/isss.htm ).
Richard Ford (American writer, author of “Independence Day”, Pulitzer Prize winner, and PEN Member) was signatory to American writers’ anti-apartheid Israel letter to PEN America and signed by 11 organizations, 61 individuals and 148 additional signatories) (2016): “To PEN American Center: We, the undersigned, including participants at PEN World Voices Festival, ask the Festival to reject support from the Embassy of Israel. The Embassy of Israel is listed among the “Champions” of the World Voices Festival, and as a sponsor of a panel. Given PEN American Center’s mission of supporting freedom of expression, it is deeply regrettable that the Festival has chosen to accept sponsorship from the Israeli government, even as it intensifies its decades-long denial of basic rights to the Palestinian people, including the frequent targeting of Palestinian writers and journalists… Since 2005, Palestinian civil society has called on people of conscience around the world to engage in a peaceful campaign of boycotting, divesting from, and sanctioning (BDS) Israel in order to force it to comply with international law and respect the rights of Palestinians now living under Israeli military occupation, as unequal citizens within Israel, or as refugees, denied their right to return to their homeland. The union representing Palestinian writers, the General Union of Palestinian Writers, actively supports this boycott call. We appeal to PEN American Center to honor this boycott call and refuse sponsorship by the Israeli embassy or any complicit Israeli institution for the 2016 World Voices Festival and for future PEN American Center activities… As with South Africa, where an international boycott played a crucial role in bringing an end to apartheid, we call on PEN American Center not to partner with the Israeli government or other complicit institutions until Israel fulfills its obligations under international law and fully recognizes the Palestinian people’s right to live in full equality and freedom in their homeland [signed by 11 organizations, 61 individuals and 148 additional signatories] (“Letter to PEN American Center: don’t partner with Israeli Government”, Adalah-NY: Campaign for the Boycott of Israel, 2016: https://adalahny.org/web-action/1376/letter-pen-american-center-don-t-partner-israeli-government ).
Eduardo Galeano (Eduardo Hughes Galeano; born September 3, 1940) is a Uruguayan journalist, writer, novelist and author of “ Memoria del fuego” (“Memory of Fire Trilogy”, 1986) and “Las venas abiertas de América Latina” (“Open Veins of Latin America”, 1971) which have been translated into twenty languages (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eduardo_Galeano ).
Eduardo Galeano advocating a cultural boycott of Apartheid Israel in a letter to the UK Guardian signed by 95 creative writers and artists (2006): “There is a fragile ceasefire in Lebanon, albeit daily violated by Israeli overflights. Meanwhile the day-to-day brutality of the Israeli army in Gaza and the West Bank continues. Ten Palestinians are killed for every Israeli death; more than 200, many of them children, have been killed since the summer. UN resolutions are flouted, human rights violated as Palestinian land is stolen, houses demolished and crops destroyed. For archbishop Desmond Tutu, as for the Jewish former ANC military commander now South African minister of security, Ronnie Kasrils, the situation of the Palestinians is worse than that of black South Africans under apartheid.
Meanwhile, western governments refer to Israel's legitimate right of self-defence, and continue to supply weaponry. The challenge of apartheid was fought better. The non-violent international response to apartheid was a campaign of boycott, divestment and UN-imposed sanctions which enabled the regime to change without bloodshed.
Today, Palestinians teachers, writers, film-makers and non-governmental organisations have called for a comparable academic and cultural boycott of Israel as offering another path to a just peace. This call has been endorsed internationally by university teachers in many European countries, by film-makers and architects, and by some brave Israeli dissidents. It is now time for others to join the campaign - as Primo Levi asked: "If not now, when?" We call on creative writers and artists to support our Palestinian and Israeli colleagues by endorsing the boycott call. Read the Palestinian call pacbi.org.
John Berger
Brian Eno
Sophie Fiennes
Eduardo Galeano
Reem Kelani
Leon Rosselson
Steven Rose
Arundhati Roy
Ahdaf Soueif
Elia Suleiman
and 85 others." [1].
[1]. Letter to the Guardian signed by 95 creative writers and artists, “Israel boycott may be the way to peace”, Guardian, 15 December 2006: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2006/dec/15/israel.guardianletters .
George Galloway (born 16 August 1954) is a UK politician, author, broadcaster, anti-war activist and human rights activists who has been a British MP since 1987. He was formerly a Labour MP for Glasgow Hillhead and then for Glasgow Kelvin, before his expulsion from the Labour Party in October 2003. He became a founding member of RESPECT and since 2005 has represented Bethnal Green and Bow. He has been courageous and outspoken in his opposition to the violent occupation of Muslim countries, notably Occupied Palestine, Occupied Iraq and Occupied Afghanistan. in March 2012 he was elected as the Respect MP for Bradford West in a by-election in which he trounced his Labour opponent (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Galloway and http://www.georgegalloway.com/ ).
George Galloway on the Aid Convoy to Gaza (2009): “Yes, fifty-five [Aid convoy members] , in fact, were injured, some of them quite severely. Ten of them had to go to hospital. All of them entered Gaza with us, but we have a collection of broken heads and plaster casts and bloodied faces and clothes. It’s quite a testimony to the role that the government of Egypt is playing in this siege that you have just admirably described. It was entirely unprovoked. It was an attack on unarmed civilian people. And it was very frightening and brutal. And, of course, it was of a piece with the way that the Gaza Freedom Marchers were treated in the center of Cairo in the middle of the tourist season just days before… Well, the good news is that nobody watches the Egyptian media in Egypt. All of them watch the pan-Arabic stations like Al Jazeera, satellite stations, which have broken the censorship walls of the dictatorships in the Arab world. And so, everybody in Egypt knows what happened in that little port of Al-Arish, and the vast majority of them, I’m sure, completely disapprove of it, indeed denounce it. The Egyptian people are entirely behind the Palestinians under siege. Unfortunately, they are ill-served by a government that is playing a quite despicable role, actually, just few yards from where I am now. The Egyptians are building what we call the wall of shame, which is being done in conjunction with the United States military, to try and choke off the tunnels, which are the only other means of bringing life into Gaza, in which sheep and chickens and petrol and gas and the other means of staying alive, other than medicine—because if I may correct something you did say in the introduction, you said we were bringing food and medicine, but we were only bringing medicine, because food is actually not allowed to come through the Rafah gate from Egypt into Gaza. Food must pass through the Israeli lines, because, of course, they say they are concerned about the safety of the food. They don’t want to cause any food poisoning in Gaza, you understand… It’s desperate. If I give you a tiny example only to give you an example, I’m here in quite a nice hotel, except there is no food in the hotel. There’s no food for breakfast, there’s no food for lunch. Now I make that point only to illustrate that if there’s no food in the best hotel in Gaza, imagine what the people are suffering. I’ve watched with my own eyes Palestinian women and girls in the early morning mists on top of garbage heaps, combing through the garbage heaps looking for food. In an Arab Muslim country in 2009 and ’10, it’s a absolutely scandalous situation. And, Amy, remember why and how it came about. It’s been imposed by men. It’s not a natural disaster. It’s been imposed by men to punish the people of Palestine for voting for a party in a free election that the big powers, including yours and mine and Israel, don’t like. Now, I myself would not have voted for them; I’m not a Hamas supporter. But the only people entitled to choose the leadership of the Palestinians are the Palestinians themselves… Well, I’m glad to say that at every stage we insisted on all of our convoy entering Gaza, and we refused to leave Al-Arish without our prisoners, six people who were being held prisoner by the Egyptian government’s forces. And we refused to accept the exclusion from Egypt of some of our convoy members, all of whom were initially excluded, but all, in the end, were let in and are with me in Gaza. So, in terms of solidarity, I’m proud of what we have achieved. No, there’s no explanation from the Egyptian regime at all. How could there be, in a way? How do you explain to anyone that Egypt, once the heart of the Arab world, is now playing a part in building an iron wall of shame around a suffering people who are being effectively starved, they hope, into surrender, but if not into surrender, then into death?” [1].
[1]. George Galloway interviews by Amy Goodman, “Viva Palestina Aid Convoy arrives in Gaza, George Galloway describes “desperate” situation”, Democracy Now, 7 January 2010: http://www.democracynow.org/2010/1/7/viva_palestina_aid_convoy_arrives_in .
George Galloway (anti-racist UK Labour MP): “The British gave the land of one people (Palestinians) to another people (Zionist Jews) to compensate for the fault of a third people (Nazi Germany)” ( quoted in Anthony Mathew Jacob, “Palestine, to whom does it belong?”, Countercurrents, 20 May 2021: https://countercurrents.org/2021/05/palestine-to-whom-does-it-belong/ ).
Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (Mahatma Gandhi) (2 October 1869 – 30 January 1948), a Gujarati lawyer, was the pre-eminent political and spiritual leader of India during the Indian Independence movement. He was the pioneer of satyagraha (“truth insistence”, “satya” meaning "truth" and “agraha” meaning "insistence", or "holding firmly to") which was launched on 11 September 1906 in Johannesburg, South Africa. Satyagraha involved resistance to tyranny through mass civil disobedience, a philosophy based upon “ahisma” or total non-violence and led India to independence and inspired movements for civil rights and freedom across the world (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohandas_Karamchand_Gandhi ).
For a recent article on Gandhi’s opposition to Zionism see Professor A. K. Ramakrishnan, “Mahatma Gandhi rejected Zionims”, The Wisdom Fund, 15 August 2001: http://www.twf.org/News/Y2001/0815-GandhiZionism.html .
Gandhi on the Jews, Palestine and Zionism (Harijan, 26 November 1938): “Several letters have been received by me asking me to declare my views about the Arab-Jew question in Palestine and the persecution of the Jews in Germany. It is not without hesitation that I venture to offer my views on this very difficult question.
My sympathies are all with the Jews. I have known them intimately in South Africa. Some of them became life-long companions. Through these friends I came to learn much of their age-long persecution. They have been the untouchables of Christianity. The parallel between their treatment by Christians and the treatment of untouchables by Hindus is very close. Religious sanction has been invoked in both cases for the justification of the inhuman treatment meted out to them. Apart from the friendships, therefore, there is the more common universal reason for my sympathy for the Jews.
But my sympathy does not blind me to the requirements of justice. The cry for the national home for the Jews does not make much appeal to me. The sanction for it is sought in the Bible and the tenacity with which the Jews have hankered after return to Palestine. Why should they not, like other peoples of the earth, make that country their home where they are born and where they earn their livelihood?
Palestine belongs to the Arabs in the same sense that England belongs to the English or France to the French. It is wrong and inhuman to impose the Jews on the Arabs. What is going on in Palestine today cannot be justified by any moral code of conduct. The mandates have no sanction but that of the last war. Surely it would be a crime against humanity to reduce the proud Arabs so that Palestine can be restored to the Jews partly or wholly as their national home.
The nobler course would be to insist on a just treatment of the Jews wherever they are born and bred. The Jews born in France are French. If the Jews have no home but Palestine, will they relish the idea of being forced to leave the other parts of the world in which they are settled? Or do they want a double home where they can remain at will? This cry for the national home affords a colourable justification for the German expulsion of the Jews.
But the German persecution of the Jews seems to have no parallel in history. The tyrants of old never went so mad as Hitler seems to have gone. And he is doing it with religious zeal. For he is propounding a new religion of exclusive and militant nationalism in the name of which any inhumanity becomes an act of humanity to be rewarded here and hereafter. The crime of an obviously mad but intrepid youth is being visited upon his whole race with unbelievable ferocity. If there ever could be a justifiable war in the name of and for humanity, a war against Germany, to prevent the wanton persecution of a whole race, would be completely justified. But I do not believe in any war. A discussion of the pros and cons of such a war is therefore outside my horizon or province.
But if there can be no war against Germany, even for such a crime as is being committed against the Jews, surely there can be no alliance with Germany. How can there be alliance between a nation which claims to stand for justice and democracy and one which is the declared enemy of both? Or is England drifting towards armed dictatorship and all it means?
Germany is showing to the world how efficiently violence can be worked when it is not hampered by any hypocrisy or weakness masquerading as humanitarianism. It is also showing how hideous, terrible and terrifying it looks in its nakedness.
Can the Jews resist this organised and shameless persecution? Is there a way to preserve their self-respect, and not to feel helpless, neglected and forlorn? I submit there is. No person who has faith in a living God need feel helpless or forlorn. Jehovah of the Jews is a God more personal than the God of the Christians, the Mussalmans or the Hindus, though as a matter of fact in essence, He is common to all and one without a second and beyond description. But as the Jews attribute personality to God and believe that He rules every action of theirs, they ought not to feel helpless. If I were a Jew and were born in Germany and earned my livelihood there, I would claim Germany as my home even as the tallest gentile German may, and challenge him to shoot me or cast me in the dungeon; I would refuse to be expelled or to submit to discriminating treatment. And for doing this, I should not wait for the fellow Jews to join me in civil resistance but would have confidence that in the end the rest are bound to follow my example. If one Jew or all the Jews were to accept the prescription here offered, he or they cannot be worse off than now. And suffering voluntarily undergone will bring them an inner strength and joy which no number of resolutions of sympathy passed in the world outside Germany can. Indeed, even if Britain, France and America were to declare hostilities against Germany, they can bring no inner joy, no inner strength. The calculated violence of Hitler may even result in a general massacre of the Jews by way of his first answer to the declaration of such hostilities. But if the Jewish mind could be prepared for voluntary suffering, even the massacre I have imagined could be turned into a day of thanksgiving and joy that Jehovah had wrought deliverance of the race even at the hands of the tyrant. For to the godfearing, death has no terror. It is a joyful sleep to be followed by a waking that would be all the more refreshing for the long sleep.
It is hardly necessary for me to point out that it is easier for the Jews than for the Czechs to follow my prescription. And they have in the Indian satyagraha campaign in South Africa an exact parallel. There the Indians occupied precisely the same place that the Jews occupy in Germany. The persecution had also a religious tinge. President Kruger used to say that the white Christians were the chosen of God and Indians were inferior beings created to serve the whites. A fundamental clause in the Transvaal constitution was that there should be no equality between the whites and coloured races including Asiatics. There too the Indians were consigned to ghettos described as locations. The other disabilities were almost of the same type as those of the Jews in Germany. The Indians, a mere handful, resorted to satyagraha without any backing from the world outside or the Indian Government. Indeed the British officials tried to dissuade the satyagrahis is from their contemplated step. World opinion and the Indian Government came to their aid after eight years of fighting. And that too was by way of diplomatic pressure not of a threat of war.
But the Jews of Germany can offer satyagraha under infinitely better auspices than the Indians of South Africa. The Jews are a compact, homogeneous community in Germany. They are far more gifted than the Indians of South Africa. And they have organised world opinion behind them. I am convinced that if someone with courage and vision can arise among them to lead them in non-violent action, the winter of their despair can in the twinkling of an eye be turned into the summer of hope. And what has today become a degrading man-hunt can be turned into a calm and determined stand offered by unarmed men and women possessing the strength of suffering given to them by Jehovah. It will be then a truly religious resistance offered against the godless fury of dehumanised man. The German Jews will score a lasting victory over the German gentiles in the sense that they will have converted the latter to an appreciation of human dignity. They will have rendered service to fellow-Germans and proved their title to be the real Germans as against those who are today dragging, however unknowingly, the German name into the mire.
And now a word to the Jews in Palestine. I have no doubt that they are going about it in the wrong way. The Palestine of the Biblical conception is not a geographical tract. It is in their hearts. But if they must look to the Palestine of geography as their national home, it is wrong to enter it under the shadow of the British gun. A religious act cannot be performed with the aid of the bayonet or the bomb. They can settle in Palestine only by the goodwill of the Arabs. They should seek to convert the Arab heart. The same God rules the Arab heart who rules the Jewish heart. They can offer satyagraha in front of the Arabs and offer themselves to be shot or thrown into the Dead Sea without raising a little finger against them. They will find the world opinion in their favour in their religious aspiration. There are hundreds of ways of reasoning with the Arabs, if they will only discard the help of the British bayonet. As it is, they are co-shares with the British in despoiling a people who have done no wrong to them.
I am not defending the Arab excesses. I wish they had chosen the way of non-violence in resisting what they rightly regarded as an unwarrantable encroachment upon their country. But according to the accepted canons of right and wrong, nothing can be said against the Arab resistance in the face of overwhelming odds.
Let the Jews who claim to be the chosen race prove their title by choosing the way of non-violence for vindicating their position on earth. Every country is their home including Palestine not by aggression but by loving service. A Jewish friend has sent me a book called The Jewish Contribution to Civilisation by Cecil Roth. It gives a record of what the Jews have done to enrich the world`s literature, art, music, drama, science, medicine, agriculture, etc. Given the will, the Jew can refuse to be treated as the outcaste of the West, to be despised or patronised. He can command the attention and respect of the world by being man, the chosen creation of God, instead of being man who is fast sinking to the brute and forsaken by God. They can add to their many contributions the surpassing contribution of non-violent action.
Segaon, November 20, 1938.” [1].
[1]. Mahatma Gandhi, “The Jews”, Harijan, 26 November 1938.
Robert Bernard Andrew "Bobby" Gillespie ( Scottish musician, singer-songwriter, lead singer and founding member of the alternative rock band, Primal Scream, formerly drummer for The Jesus and Mary Chain) re 2014 Gaza Massacre (2014): “Our hearts and love are with the Palestinian people. We support their continuing fight for human rights and dignity and righteous resistance to Israeli imperialism, occupation and war crimes” (Palestine Solidarity Campaign, “MPs, actors, authors and musicians among 21,000 demanding arms embargo on Israel”, Palestine Solidarity Campaign, 23 July 2014: https://www.palestinecampaign.org/mps-actors-authors-musicians-among-21000-demanding-arms-embargo-israel/ ).