Here are some of the press articles & letters arising out of the Never Again - For Anyone tour, beginning with a major piece on Dr Hajo Meyer in the prestigious Huffington Post An Ethical Tradition Betrayed. 

The tour began in Scotland - the Glasgow Herald published Auschwitz survivor: ‘Israel acts like Nazis’ but not IJAN's letter in response. The Jewish Chronicle, in one of a number of attacks on the meeting in the House of Commons on Holocaust Memorial Day, wrote Gaza ethnic cleansing talk attacked as ‘an appalling offence’, and did not publish our letter, nor would the Independent on Sunday publish Yael Kahn's letter.

The Camden New Journal wrote a very positive article Auschwitz survivor, 86, takes on the protesters, as did Press TV Auschwitz survivor sees Nazi acts in Israel.  The letters column of the Camden New Journal has carried more attacks, and more letters defending Dr Meyer.  And finally East London Lines reported on the "controversial" Goldsmiths meeting Auschwitz survivor sees Nazi acts in Israel.

For a video of Dr Meyer's speech on the tour, please click here.  And for three of Dr Eid's speeches, made especially for this tour, please click here & here & here.  See more on the Never Again website.

Following the House of Commons meeting, a number of people who had offered testimony on the genocide of their communities, are continuing to work together.  We met at a full-day meeting (no Zionists allowed!). From this came a collective process to challenge the exclusivity of Holocaust Memorial Day in the UK, and instead speak of genocide rather than holocaust; to make explicit the genocides and ethnic cleansings historically and today; and to confront Zionism and the many forms of racism we all face.  We will soon be giving you a report of this effort, and asking for your input.

We were among the hundreds and sometimes thousands who protested every night at the Israeli Embassy in December 2008/January 2009, and who marched with 100,000 others on 10th January.

While young Muslim men and women were the first, the most numerous and the most consistent protestors, this was a popular cause - many Jewish people and people from other backgrounds participated.  All of us shared a desperate outrage at Israel's use of F-16s, drones, white phosphorous and depleted uranium; its murder of 1,400 people and the wounding and maiming of thousands more, including hundreds of children, women, people who were unarmed or holding white flags; its bombing of schools and hospitals; its decimation of animal and bird life; and its poisoning of water and air. 

Our distress and anger reflected the widespread horror in the UK at what we had heard (and been prevented from witnessing by Israel's refusal to allow reporters into Gaza), and at the devastation we were only afterwards allowed to see.¹

IJAN and the Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign just completed a ten-day, nine-city "Never Again for Anyone" tour in England, Scotland and Ireland with Hajo Meyer, an 85-year old survivor of Auschwitz, and with Haidar Eid, from Gaza via video and telephone. The tour reached over 1200 people with most events attended by 100-150 people. Eid and Meyer received a standing ovation at each.

Click here to watch additional videos of the presentations and to read speaker bios.  

On January 27^th, Holocaust Memorial Day, the event was held at the House of Commons in London with two Members of Parliament chairing. In addition to Eid and Meyer, there was testimony given by representatives from nine different communities impacted by genocide and ethnic cleansing-from the Roma and Armenian communities to the Sri Lankan resistance movement to those organizing for disability rights and for reparations for the African slave trade in the UK.

The tour now continues on to continental Europe with events planned for Paris, Lyon, Strausberg, Vienna, Geneva and possibly Berlin.

Click here for a European tour schedule.

Visit the Never Again For Anyone tour online for analysis of and commentary.  

On January 27, Holocaust Remembrance Day, leading politicians from the U.S. and Europe will join in honoring the memory ofJews killed in the Nazi genocide. Yet the immensity of that tragedy is dishonored by the hypocrisy of the ceremonies: those who pay homage to the victims of yesterday's silence are silent about today's inhumanity. We say, "Never again!" For anyone. Never again for the people of Gaza. Never again for all those struggling against dehumanization, racism andgenocide everywhere, every day.

SOAS Palestine Society &

the International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network

Present

Jewish National Fund:
an NGO charity or para-statal instrument of apartheid?

A meeting with

Dr. Salman Abu Sitta

Chair of the Palestine Land Society, historian, author of Atlas of Palestine, former member of the Palestinian National Council, and General Co-ordinator of al-Awda – the Palestinian Right of Return Coalition.

and

Selma James

a co-ordinator of the International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network

7pm.  Wednesday, 16 December 2009

Khalili Lecture Theatre, SOAS

( School of African and Oriental Studies)

Thornhaugh Street, Russell Square,

London WC1H 0XG

IJAN, one of the organisers of the protest, was asked by.Al-Jazeera for an article – some of which is quoted in their report (in Arabic) . See article below for original.

And below that, a Guardian report of the arrest warrant for Livni!! There are also reports in Ha’aretz and the Jewish Chronicle.

Tzipi Livni, current leader of Israel ’s Kadima party, will be a star of the JNF 13 December conference, Creating A New Future For Israel in the Negev.  Livni was constantly on our screens during last year’s bombing of Gaza , a chief apologist of the slaughter.  Shamelessly, she had said: “There is no humanitarian crisis in Gaza .”[1]

Livni’s brutality has a tradition.  Her parents were prominent members of the terrorist organisation Irgun – responsible for the 1946 bombing of the King David Hotel in Jerusalem . Ninety-one people were killed: including 41 Arabs, 28 British, and 17 Jews. The Irgun announced that it would mourn Jewish victims, not, British ones [2]; there was not even mention of the Arab dead.

In this one action the Zionists had killed more Jewish people than all the rockets ever fired from Gaza to Sderot.  But during last year’s onslaught Livni’s concern was for Sderot: “It is unbearable. Children cannot go to school, and the residents cannot live their lives” [3]

The JNF conference that Livni will grace is part and parcel of the ethnic cleansing of the Negev Bedouin people.  Discriminatory laws and practices have forced tens of thousands to live under constant threat of seeing their homes demolished and their communities torn apart.[4]  Hundreds of Bedouin and Israeli Jews have protested the state’s refusal to recognise Bedouin villages, depriving them of water, and the JNF’s theft of Bedouin land. [5]

 In response to a divisive representation of the counter demonstration at a rally in support of Israel, the following joint statement was submitted to the London Guardian.

Dear Letters’ Editor,

Neither your report (Thousands of Jews rally against Hamas, 12 January) nor the subsequent letters (We Jews cannot be silent bystanders while this terror goes on, Letters, 13 January) mention the crucial fact that the counter-demonstration opposing the pro-Israel rally was called and responded to by Palestinians, Jews, Muslims and other people of conscience.

The police had divided the counter-demonstration by placing Muslim and Jewish people behind separate metal barriers.  United by our outrage and grief over the siege on the Palestinian people in Gaza, many of us refused to be divided; we moved the barriers aside and chanted together: “Judaism Yes, Zionism No”; the Palestinian flag which the Islamic Human Rights Commission had brought was attached to the banner of the International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network, and alongside Neturei Karta’s placards.

When Palestinians, Jews and Muslims organise together, taking our direction from the Palestinian resistance, we undermine apartheid, ethnic cleansing and the divisions among us which are used to justify war.  For all of us there is only one side – the side of justice.

Yours,

Representatives of the

Islamic Human Rights Commission

International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network

Efforts to separate Arab and Jewish counterdemonstrators from each other were overcome by IJAN organizers in the Jewish ‘pen’ and Arab organizers in the Arab ‘pen.’  The police barricades between them were removed, the Palestinian flag and IJAN’s banner were attached to one another, and the megaphone and choice of chants were shared.   Despite the pavement between the barriers to the two counter-demos filling up, the Jewish banners and most of the Jewish demonstrators stayed where they were.  Popular chants (with some) were “Judaism, yes; Zionism, no: the state of Israel must go” and “1 2 3 4, occupation no more, 5 6 7 8, Israel is not a Jewish state”!!

 Some photos from Thursday, 8 January rally in London (written synopsis of IJAN participation in ongoing demonstrations and pickets below):

Demonstrations outside the Israeli Embassy – always noisy and demonstrative – have ranged from a few hundred to five thousand; the march and rally on Saturday was, the organisers say, 60,000 people, the biggest rally in support of Palestine that we’ve seen in this country.

On Sunday 28^th – the first of the pickets -- there were at least 2,000 people.  We were behind the barrier on one side of the street while the Israeli embassy side was lined with people.  There was a scuffle of some kind on the embassy side (we found out later it was an arrest of a Palestinian), and we all burst out of the barrier, hundreds blocking the road.

Later, people again claiming to be the organisers called people to march and most went.  When asked to where, we were told, just march.  But some of us stayed at the embassy gate, and when the march could not go further because they police blocked the road further on, the marchers, mostly young people, came back and again filled the road, blocking the traffic.  

From Monday 29^th onwards we brought the IJAN banner – we were always very warmly welcomed as Jewish people standing unequivocally with Palestinian people against Zionism.  IJAN was one of the sponsors of the Embassy pickets that continued outside the Israeli Embassy all week, except for Friday when we moved to the Egyptian Embassy. 

Saturday’s demonstration was huge, perhaps 60,000 people: as we passed 10 Downing Street, a thousand shoes were thrown in front of its gates; the march rallied in to a completely packed Trafalgar Square where prominent people had their say – Tony Benn, Bianca Jagger, Annie Lennox (singer), Ken Livingstone (former mayor of London) who said that the silence of the British government, and most Western governments is “obscene”.

Later that evening 5,000 of us picketed the Israeli Embassy, which was heavily policed – too many police and police helicopters had been at every demonstration.  Roads were closed and police in riot gear used barriers to contain us and keep us away from the embassy itself. 

We will be part of the continuing pickets each evening next week, leading up to another national demonstration on Saturday outside the Israeli Embassy: the demand will be Stop Israel's crime against humanity.

IJAN UK

Press launch:

Founding Charter of the International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network

Thursday, 2 October, 11am

Crossroads Women’s Centre , 230a Kentish Town Road, NW5 2AB
(Entrance on Caversham Rd ,   Kentish Town , wheelchair accessible)

The UK IJAN will hold a press conference for October 2^nd at 11am Greenwich Standard Time to announce the network and its founding Charter. On October 24^th there will be a public meeting to hear responses to the Charter and to begin a discussion of regional strategy. A press release will be out shortly.

If you are interested in either of these events, please contact us at .