An 86-year-old Holocaust survivor was heckled by pro-Israelis while giving a controversial talk on Wednesday night at Goldsmiths University in Lewisham.

Dr. Hajo Meyer delivered his talk, ‘The Misuse of the Holocaust for Political Purposes’, on the eve of Holocaust Memorial Day .His criticisms of the Israeli government were met with aggression by two audience members, who shouted interruptions during talks by both Dr. Meyer and fellow speaker, Palestinian Journalist, Haidar Eid. They also held up signs with the word ‘lies’ written on them.

In 1944 Dr. Meyer spent 10 months in Auschwitz; the largest of the World War II concentration camps. He is now a published essayist based in the Netherlands, and is involved in campaigning for ending, what he views as, the occupation of Palestine. He is delivering a series of talks as part of a tour organised by the International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network.

The Network’s Founder, Sarah Kershnar, claimed they had not been  allowed to list any of the talks on the official Holocaust Memorial Trust website due to their position on the Israel-Palestine conflict. Ms.Kershnar said: “We tried three times and it wouldn’t go through.”

She has launched a petition in response to the banning, but when EastLondonLines approached The Holocaust Memorial Day Trust, they denied having received the submission from IJAN.

James Haywood, the Goldsmiths College student who organized the hosting of the talk for IJAN, said he believed it contributed an important perspective to the Memorial Day; “The talk we’re holding tonight is not conventional but its important to remember that racism in all its forms is bad.”

Other East London line boroughs, Croydon and Hackney, hosted more traditional ‘Candle Lighting Events’ yesterday to commemorate Holocaust Memorial Day.

I was 20 years old when Auschwitz was liberated by the Soviet army 55 years ago. This occurred just in time because 10 months imprisonment in Auschwitz-Gleiwitz-1 had weakened me considerably. One needed a hell of a lot of luck in order to survive that long under the circumstances in that camp.

Two important components of luck were on my side. First, during my first years as a refugee kid in the Netherlands I had learned to be a locksmith. So during the very strong winter of '44-'45 I worked in the warmth of a factory. Second, I had acquired a very good and completely trustworthy friend, called Jos. We helped each other as much as possible. The two of us did indeed survive.

Another aspect of my friendship with Jos was that in spite of -- or better, due to -- the extremely high number of people per square foot in such a camp, one felt extremely lonely. Because of our friendship, mutual help and absolute mutual trust we were not lonely. This was vital to our psychological survival.

Psychological survival is at least as important as physical survival. In fact, the Nazi concentration camps were their attempt to dehumanize us Jews. If a prisoner became part of the oppression system by being Kapo, the dehumanization would be successful. Obviously, the non-Jewish members of the oppression system were also no longer fully human. I realized there that anybody from a dominating group who tries to dehumanize people from a minority group, can only do so if by education, indoctrination and propaganda he has already been dehumanized himself, independent of the uniform he wears.

It is a deep tragedy that in Israel this is not what one concludes from the experiences in Auschwitz. To the contrary, Auschwitz is elevated there into a new religion.      (read more...)

In his blog, Jonathan Hoffman, co-vice-chair of the Zionist Federation in the U.K., described survivor of the Nazi genocide Hajo Meyer thus:

This week – deliberately timed to coincide with Holocaust Memorial Day on Wednesday – a small group of such Jewish hypercritics is teaming up with the usual suspects to parade their performing trophy Israel-hating Holocaust survivor, Hajo Meyer, the length and breadth of the UK and Ireland. He started in Scotland and the first newspaper report has come out, including a quote from me.

Like some grotesque, ungainly performing bear in the circus, Meyer is dancing willingly to his ringmaster's tune, saying that Israel’s actions are the same as those of the Nazis, that Israel causes antisemitism and that “an anti-Semite is somebody who is hated by Jews.” (The Jc.com)

According to Hoffman, Meyer, author of three books about the subject, cannot possibly have formed his own opinions in light of his own personal experience, including his time in Auschwitz. He must be manipulated by his "ringmasters." We are unforunately not shocked by Hoffman's disrespect of a holocaust survivor's right to his own experience. This is what we'd come to expect from the apparatchiks of Zionism. 

 

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By Aaron Lakoff

The Israel/Palestine debate has been a controversial topic at Concordia in recent years. However, there is a point when discussion on a controversial issue can be used as a pretext for censorship and repression. With recent political manoeuvring within and beyond Concordia around this issue, I fear that we may be moving in that direction.

The presidents of some 25 Canadian universities were invited to Ottawa this week to testify at the Canadian Parliamentary Inquiry Into anti-Semitism, an initiative of the Canadian Parliamentary Coalition to Combat anti-Semitism. Frederick Lowy, who was Concordia's president until 2005, testified on Nov. 24.

As a Jewish student at Concordia myself, some might find it odd that I would oppose such a forum and the participation of personalities from my university.

I would be in favour of the CPCCA if its purpose were to fight real anti-Semitism, but a closer examination shows us that this is definitely not the case. The CPCCA is merely a tool to stifle debate on Israeli apartheid at Canadian university campuses and elsewhere.

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This is an appeal to Hugo Chavez and Evo Morales to close the offices of the Jewish National Fund (JNF) in Venezuela and Bolivia and demand the removal of the names of their states and heroes of liberation from colonialism from JNF sites.  (read more...)

On June 5, 2009, Reuven Abergel, gave an eye-opening lecture at Neve Shalom/Wahat al-Salam (a cooperative village of Jews and Palestinian Arabs of Israeli citizenship) to a group of North American university students from Caldwell, Idaho.

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PEOPLE UNITED AGAINST RACISM

Civil Society Forum 2009 for the Durban Review Conference
17-19 April 2009, Geneva, Switzerland

 Geneva 2009 Declaration Against Racism
FROM THE PARTICIPANTS IN THE GENEVA CIVIL SOCIETY FORUM 2009

A Time to Speak Out

We participants of the Civil Society Forum for the Durban Review Conference 2009 held in Geneva 17 to 19 April strongly welcome the holding of the Durban Review Conference and reaffirm our full and dedicated support for the Durban Declaration and Plan of Action (DDPA) adopted by the 2001 World Conference Against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance.

We commit ourselves to renew our efforts and intensify our work for the implementation of the 2001 landmark programme which constitute a solid foundation in the struggle of humankind against racism and racial discrimination.

We express our deep concern over the decision by some powerful countries to boycott this important conference which falls short of their Charter obligations to combat racism and promote human rights for all.

We are appalled by the many obstacles that have been put in the way of preparing and holding of the Durban Review Conference as a result of lack of political will resulting in the erosion of support for the Durban Declaration and Programme of Action among some member states which also has been reflected in the lack of United Nations support and encouragement for Civil Society preparations for the Review Conference.

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>> Click here to read the original in Spanish.

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Background:  IJAN Toronto members, working with other local Jewish activists in Toronto, put together and op-ed piece and collected 161 names of Jewish Canadians within a week, debunking the myth that criticism of the Israeli state is anti-Semitic, or that Israel acts out of self-defense. It also decries recent attacks on Israeli Apartheid week at several Canadian Universities. The statement, “Jewish Canadians Concerned About Suppression of Criticism of Israel.” speaks about the current climate as analogous to the Red Scare of the 1950s. Both the Toronto Star and the national Globe and Mail refused to publish it. The piece was then placed as an “advertisement” in one of the free weekly papers in Toronto, NOW Magazine. It is currently circulating on various lists and websites on the Internet, and may eventually be placed as an advertisement in either the Globe and Mail or the Ottawa Citizen, if more money can be raised. And names keep coming in.

 

We are Jewish Canadians concerned about all expressions of racism, anti-Semitism, and social injustice. We believe that the Holocaust legacy “Never again” means never again for all peoples. It is a tragic turn of history that the State of Israel, with its ideals of democracy and its dream of being a safe haven for Jewish people, causes immeasurable suffering and injustice to the Palestinian people.

We are appalled by recent attempts of prominent Jewish organizations and leading Canadian politicians to silence protest against the State of Israel. We are alarmed by the escalation of fear tactics. Charges that those organizing Israel Apartheid Week or supporting an academic boycott of Israel are anti-Semites promoting hatred bring the anti-Communist terror of the 1950s vividly to mind. We believe this serves to deflect attention from Israel’s flagrant violations of international humanitarian law.

B’nai Brith and the Canadian Jewish Congress have pressured university presidents and
administrations to silence debate and discussion specifically regarding Palestine/Israel. In a full-page ad in a national newspaper, B’nai Brith urged donors to withhold funds from universities because “anti-Semitic hate fests” were being allowed on campuses. Immigration Minister Jason Kenney and Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff have echoed these arguments. While university administrators have resisted demands to shut down Israel Apartheid week, some Ontario university presidents have bowed to this disinformation campaign by suspending and fining students, confiscating posters, and infringing on free speech.

We do not believe that Israel acts in self-defense. Israel is the largest recipient of US foreign aid, receiving $3 million/day. It has the fourth strongest army in the world. Before the invasion of Gaza on 27 December 2008, Israel’s siege had already created a humanitarian catastrophe there, with severe impoverishment, malnutrition, and destroyed infrastructure. It is crucial that forums for discussion of Israel’s accountability to the international community for what many have called war crimes be allowed to proceed unrestricted by specious claims of anti-Semitism.

We recognize that anti-Semitism is a reality in Canada as elsewhere, and we are fully committed to resisting any act of hatred against Jews. At the same time, we condemn false charges of anti-Semitism against student organizations, unions, and other groups and people exercising their democratic right to freedom of speech and association regarding legitimate criticism of the State of Israel.

Click to read the original list of signatories.

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UNESCO, a specialized agency of the United Nations, has as its stated goal to "contribute to peace and security by promoting collaboration among nations through education, science, and culture in order to further universal respect for justice, for the rule of law and for the human rights and the fundamental freedoms" proclaimed in the UN Charter. UNESCO, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, is politically accountable to the international community.  When schools under the UN flag are targeted, when children are targeted, when a whole population is systematically deprived of food and water, sanitation and electricity, UNRWA, UNICEF and UNESCO, are not to be content with protest; they should live up to their responsibility by taking action. Below are appeals to UNESCO to fulfill its role in the maintenance of justice through cultural preservation and respect by a) revoking Israel's membership in UNESCO, and b) joining the cultural and academic boycott of Israel.

To read the Arabic version, click here.

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It's hard to imagine now, but in 1944, six years after Kristallnacht, Lessing J. Rosenwald, president of the American Council for Judaism, felt comfortable equating the Zionist ideal of Jewish statehood with "the concept of a racial state -- the Hitlerian concept." For most of the last century, a principled opposition to Zionism was a mainstream stance within American Judaism.

Even after the foundation of Israel, anti-Zionism was not a particularly heretical position. Assimilated Reform Jews like Rosenwald believed that Judaism should remain a matter of religious rather than political allegiance; the ultra-Orthodox saw Jewish statehood as an impious attempt to "push the hand of God"; and Marxist Jews -- my grandparents among them -- tended to see Zionism, and all nationalisms, as a distraction from the more essential struggle between classes.

To be Jewish, I was raised to believe, meant understanding oneself as a member of a tribe that over and over had been cast out, mistreated, slaughtered. Millenniums of oppression that preceded it did not entitle us to a homeland or a right to self-defense that superseded anyone else's. If they offered us anything exceptional, it was a perspective on oppression and an obligation born of the prophetic tradition: to act on behalf of the oppressed and to cry out at the oppressor.

For the last several decades, though, it has been all but impossible to cry out against the Israeli state without being smeared as an anti-Semite, or worse. To question not just Israel's actions, but the Zionist tenets on which the state is founded, has for too long been regarded an almost unspeakable blasphemy.  (read more...)

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This article was sent to Debbie Ducro, an American-Jewish journalist with the Kansas City Jewish Chronicle. She published it, and was fired the next day.

Quest for justice

By Judith Stone

I am a Jew. I was a participant in the Rally for the Right of Return to Palestine . It was the right thing to do.

I've heard about the European holocaust against the Jews since I was a small child. I've visited the memorials in Washington , DC and Jerusalem dedicated to Jewish lives lost and I've cried at the recognition to what level of atrocity mankind is capable of sinking.

Where are the Jews of conscience? No righteous malice can be held against the survivors of Hitler's holocaust. These fragments of humanity were in no position to make choices beyond that of personal survival. We must not forget that being a survivor or a co-religionist of the victims of the European Holocaust does not grant dispensation from abiding by the rules of humanity.

"Never again" as a motto, rings hollow when it means "never again to us alone." My generation was raised being led to believe that the biblical land was a vast desert inhabited by a handful of impoverished Palestinians living with their camels and eking out a living in the sand. The arrival of the Jews was touted as a tremendous benefit to these desert dwellers. Golda Meir even assured us that there "is no Palestinian problem".

We know now this picture wasn't as it was painted. Palestine was a land filled with people who called it home. There were thriving towns and villages, schools and hospitals. There were Jews, Christians and Muslims.

In fact, prior to the occupation, Jews represented a mere seven per cent of the population and owned three per cent of the land.

Taking the blinders off for a moment, I see a second atrocity perpetuated by the very people who should be exquisitely sensitive to the suffering of others. These people knew what it felt like to be ordered out of your home at gun point and forced to march into the night to unknown destinations or face execution on the spot. The people who displaced the Palestinians knew first hand what it means to watch your home in flames, to surrender everything dear to your heart at a moment's notice. Bulldozers levelled hundreds of villages, along with the remains of the village inhabitants, the old and the young. This was nothing new to the world.

Poland is a vast graveyard of the Jews of Europe. Israel is the final resting place of the massacred Palestinian people. A short distance from the memorial to the Jewish children lost to the holocaust in Europe there is a levelled parking lot. Under this parking lot is what's left of a once flourishing village and the bodies of men, women and children whose only crime was taking up needed space and not leaving graciously. This particular burial marker reads: "Public Parking".

I've talked with Palestinians. I have yet to meet a Palestinian who hasn't lost a member of their family to the Israeli Shoah, nor a Palestinian who cannot name a relative or friend languishing under inhumane conditions in an Israeli prison. Time and time again, Israel is cited for human rights violations to no avail. On a recent trip to Israel , I visited the refugee camps inhabited by a people who have waited 52 years in these ‘temporary' camps to go home. Every Palestinian grandparent can tell you the name of their village, their street, and where the olive trees were planted. Their grandchildren may never have been home, but they can tell you where their great-grandfather lies buried and where the village well stood. The press has fostered the portrait of the Palestinian terrorist. But the victims who rose up against human indignity in the Warsaw Ghetto are called heroes. Those who lost their lives are called martyrs. The Palestinian who tosses a rock in desperation is a terrorist.

Two years ago I drove through Palestine and watched intricate sprinkler systems watering lush green lawns of Zionist settlers in their new condominium complexes, surrounded by armed guards and barbed wire in the midst of a Palestinian community where there was not adequate water to drink and the surrounding fields were sandy and dry. University professor Moshe Zimmerman reported in the Jerusalem Post (30 April, 1995), "The [Jewish] children of Hebron are just like Hitler's youth."

We Jews are suing for restitution, lost wages, compensation for homes, land, slave labour and back wages in Europe . Am I a traitor of a Jew for supporting the right of return of the Palestinian refugees to their birthplace and compensation for what was taken that cannot be returned?

The Jewish dead cannot be brought back to life and neither can the Palestinian massacred be resurrected. David Ben Gurion said, "Let us not ignore the truth among ourselves... politically, we are the aggressors and they defend themselves.. .The country is theirs, because they inhabit it, whereas we want to come here and settle down, and in their view we want to take away from them their country...".

Palestine is a land that has been occupied and emptied of its people. Its cultural and physical landmarks have been obliterated and replaced by tidy Hebrew signs. The history of a people was the first thing eradicated by the occupiers. The history of the indigenous people has been all but eradicated as though they never existed. And all this has been hailed by the world as a miraculous act of God. We must recognise that Israel 's existence is not even a question of legality so much as it is an illegal fait accompli realised through the use of force while supported by the Western powers. The UN missions directed at Israel in attempting to correct its violations of have thus far been futile.

In Hertzl's ‘The Jewish State' the father of Zionism said: "We must investigate and take possession of the new Jewish country by means of every modern expedient." I guess I agree with Ehud Barak ( 3 June 1998) when he said, "If I were a Palestinian, I'd also join a terror group." I'd go a step further perhaps. Rather than throwing little stones in desperation, I'd hurtle a boulder.

Hopefully, somewhere deep inside, every Jew of conscience knows that this was no war; that this was not G-d's restitution of the holy land to it's rightful owners. We know that a human atrocity was and continues to be perpetuated against an innocent people who couldn't come up with the arms and money to defend themselves against the western powers bent upon their demise as a people.

We cannot continue to say, "But what were we to do?" Zionism is not synonymous with Judaism. I wholly support the rally of the right of return of the Palestinian people.

Contact Independent Catholic News

Par Rudolf Bkouche

Les "petits blancs", comme on les appelle souvent avec mépris, sont les soutiers de la colonisation. Situés au bas de l'échelle des colonisateurs, ils sont d'autant plus solidaires de la colonisation qu'ils savent qu'il y a plus bas qu'eux, les colonisés. Ils pensent ainsi partager les bénéfices de la colonisation.

Ainsi ont fonctionné les colonies de peuplement, ainsi fonctionne Israël même si les conditions en sont différentes.

Israël n'est pas un Etat colonial classique au sens où il n'est pas l'émanation d'une métropole. Mouvement de conquête bien plus que mouvement colonial, le sionisme avait pour objectif moins d'exploiter les indigènes de la terre conquise que de les expulser. Mais il lui fallait, pour assurer sa politique le soutien des puissances impérialistes ce qui l'a conduit à s'allier à celles-ci, la Grande Bretagne d'abord, les Etats-Unis aujourd'hui.

Mouvement nationaliste plus que mouvement colonial, il lui fallait conquérir "son" peuple, c'est-à-dire les Juifs. Né en réaction à l'antisémitisme européen, le mouvement sioniste su aussi profiter de cet antisémitisme pour apparaître, après le grand massacre du milieu du XXème siècle, comme le seul recours contre l'antisémitisme, et faire croire que l'Etat d'Israël issu de la conquête de la Palestine était le refuge pour les Juifs. La partie était d'autant plus facile que la plupart des opposants au sionisme, juifs orthodoxes ou juifs révolutionnaires, communistes ou bundistes, avaient disparu dans le génocide. Le sionisme s'imposait ainsi comme la seule expression juive dans le monde.

L'Etat d'Israël pouvait alors regrouper en son sein la grande majorité des survivants du génocide, transformant ainsi les parias de l'Europe en un peuple conquérant. Et cela était d'autant plus facile que le jeune Etat bénéficiait du soutien de l'Occident, URSS comprise, mêlant la culpabilité européenne devant les conséquences de l'antisémitisme et les intérêts géopolitiques des puissances.
Les parias de l'Europe se retrouvaient ainsi les petits soldats de l'impérialisme, le bastion avancé de la civilisation face à la barbarie, pour reprendre une expression de Herzl ; ce qui n'était peut-être qu'un argument de circonstance pour obtenir le soutien des puissances coloniales est devenu aujourd'hui l'un des points forts du soutien de l'Occident à Israël. Il est moins question, pour l'Occident, de soutenir un Etat étranger que de soutenir une part de lui-même et la récente décision de "rehaussement" prise par l'Union Européenne nous rappelle que pour celle-ci l'Etat d'Israël fait partie de l'Europe. Cette décision qui renforce les accords d'association antérieurs marque l'entrée officieuse d'Israël dans l'Union Européenne.

Le résultat des dernières élections israéliennes marque une continuité politique, moins dans la répartition des voix selon les différents partis que dans la volonté de continuer de tenir à distance les Palestiniens, de continuer l'occupation et la colonisation et d'assurer l'hégémonie israélienne sur la terre palestinienne. Quelle différence, en ce qui concerne les Palestiniens, entre un parti travailliste classé à gauche, un parti dit centriste et un parti dit de droite ? Ils ont tous contribué à renforcer l'hégémonie israélienne, ils ont tous contribué à renforcer la colonisation, ils ont tous contribué à refuser toute possibilité d'une solution reconnaissant les droits des Palestiniens. Ils n'ont su qu'exaspérer le sentiment d'insécurité des Israéliens pour mieux l'utiliser pour mener à bien leur politique.

Qu'importe alors qui sera premier ministre, cela relève de la lutte de clans entre les divers partis israéliens, mais cela ne changera pas la politique. Pour le comprendre il suffit de regarder l'histoire des divers processus de paix qui se sont déroulés ces dernières années. Un invariant marque ces divers processus, la poursuite de la colonisation de la terre. On pouvait expliquer, publiquement, que ces processus, pour aboutir à un règlement général, exigeaient, sinon le démantèlement des colonies, du moins l'arrêt de leur extension, la colonisation continuait au nom d'une croissance démographique proclamée naturelle. Et les Palestiniens voyaient se rétrécir de jour en jour le territoire dont ils disposaient.

Il faut alors comprendre que cette politique ne relève pas d'un débat politique entre les partis. Elle est inscrite dans l'idéologie qui a conduit à la création de l'Etat d'Israël en Palestine. Cet Etat est né de la volonté de conquérir la terre palestinienne et d'en expulser les habitants. La seule paix possible, pour les leaders du mouvement sioniste, ne peut venir que de l'acceptation pas les habitants de la Palestine des diktats israéliens.
La proposition d'Arafat acceptant le principe de deux Etats, l'israélien et le palestinien, proclamée en 1988, si elle marquait l'acceptation du fait accompli, était inacceptable pour l'Etat d'Israël qui n'y a jamais répondu, y compris lors des Accords d'Oslo. Et la poursuite de la colonisation montrait combien le droit des Palestiniens ne comptait pas pour les gouvernements israéliens, quelle que soit leur couleur politique.

L'Etat d'Israël est en guerre depuis sa création, guerre au nom de sa sécurité, ce maître-mot qui définit la politique israélienne. Et cela sonne d'autant plus fort qu'il n'est pas seulement question de la sécurité d'un Etat, mais de la sécurité des Juifs du monde. Car cette guerre permanente ne se contente pas de développer un chauvinisme israélien, elle conduit à un chauvinisme juif qui tend à s'imposer à tous les juifs du monde. La question n'est plus de transformer la population d'Israël en "petits blancs" au sens que nous avons dit ci-dessus, elle est de transformer l'ensemble de la population juive dans le monde en "petits blancs" solidaires de la politique israélienne. Cette solidarité proclamée par les officines sionistes que sont devenues trop souvent des organisations se proclamant les représentants des communautés juives dans le monde, permet de renforcer l'équation "juif = sioniste" et ainsi un sentiment de solidarité entre l'ensemble des Juifs et la politique israélienne, d'autant que cette volonté d'israélisation des Juifs est acceptée par les souteneurs d'Israël.

C'est le sens de la politique israélienne, c'est aussi le sens d'un vote d'enfermement des Israéliens qui ont choisi, quel que soit le parti pour lequel ils ont voté, la continuité d'une politique criminelle.

Rudolf Bkouche,
membre de l'UJFP et du mouvement IJAN
( 23 février 2009 )

Madam, - We are people in Ireland who are Jewish or of Jewish descent.

We are appalled by Israel 's slaughter in Gaza . We have seen people justifying this on the basis of Israel 's "security concerns" and attacking supporters of peace for being anti-Jewish.

In this climate we feel it important to assert that it is not anti-Semitic or anti-Jewish to oppose Israel 's action.

Nor, however, can it be part of any progressive political vision to conflate what the Israeli state has done and is doing in Gaza as being supported by Jews worldwide.

Throughout the world, Jews have opposed the invasion of Gaza .

In Israel itself, tens of thousands protested this war; they have been attacked by police and right-wing mobs and many Israelis, predominantly non-Jewish but also Jewish, have been imprisoned.

We ask people to support these Israelis.

As for Israel 's security concerns, two points need to be made. Firstly nothing, but nothing, justifies the massacre of innocent people.

Secondly, peace will only come about through justice for the Palestinian people and through negotiations between Israel and elected Palestinian representatives.

One does not need to be Jewish to know this.

We ask people not to claim to speak for us when justifying Israel 's barbarity. - Yours, etc,

**If you would like to sign on to this letter, send an email to with your name and city**


Like much of the world, we have spent the last week watching in shock and disgust as Israel continues its assault on the Gaza Strip. With the body count rising and a new tragedy in full bloom, we feel that it is important to speak out as Jewish youth in Canada and to denounce what Israel is doing in our name. The Jewish diaspora is diverse and divided on its positions on the state of Israel's policies. At this juncture in history, as Israel has committed its worst massacre in Gaza since it began its illegal occupation in 1967, we feel that it is crucial that Jews speak out and denounce Israel's actions that amount to no less than war crimes committed by an apartheid state.

As Jewish youth, we are diverse, but we are unified in our solidarity with our Palestinian brothers and sisters in Gaza.

Some of us are students. We are outraged by the bombing of the Islamic University in Gaza city, as well as other civilian infrastructure such as hospitals and mosques.

Some of us are Arab-Jews and people of colour. We stand against Israel's racism, which has been enshrined in Israeli law, and privileges its Jewish citizens over its non-Jewish ones.This apartheid state views Palestinians as an expendable people, no more than collateral damage.

Some of us are queer. We reject Israel's branding of itself as the only safe place for queer people in the Middle-East while it targets gay and lesbian Palestinians and renders life unsafe for millions of others.

Some of us are Israelis living in Canada. We are calling for a solidarity that stretches beyond borders and nationalities. Israel's violent actions will only serve to further isolate the state and its citizens from the rest of the world. By calling itself a Jewish state and committing war crimes in the name of Jews everywhere, Israel makes the world even less safe for Jews, leading to an increase in animus towards Jewish people around the world.

Even though there have been approximately 100 Palestinian deaths for every Israeli killed by rocket fire, we recognize that Israeli Apartheid also leads to Israeli casualties. The blame for these deaths lies with Israel - if there were no occupation and no apartheid policies, there would be no rocket fire. If Israel, the world's fourth largest military power, is concerned about its citizens, it would abandon its apartheid policies and seek out justice for the Palestinian people.

In 2005, Palestinian civil society put out a clear call for international support through a non-violent campaign of Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) similar to that carried out against the apartheid regime of South Africa. Now, with the people of Gaza being crushed by Israeli bombs, manufactured in the USA and launched with Canada's blessing, it is more important than ever for Jewish communities throughout the world to take up this BDS campaign in order to end Israel's apartheid system, which makes life unsafe for millions of Jews and Palestinians alike.

Let us not be silent bystanders while humanity suffers. Let us raise our voices, as Jewish youth, and demand a single, democratic state, with equal rights for everyone in Israel/Palestine.

Ours is a generation that is committed to ending Middle-East violence by opposing all forms of discrimination, calling for a just peace within the entire region, and condemning Zionism to the dustbin of history.

Free Gaza, Free Palestine.

Kol Acher (A different Voice) from Sderot and the communities around Gaza calls on the Prime Minister and the Defense Minister to act urgently to restore calm in the area.

The period of calm dramatically changed the lives of the inhabitants of Sdrerot, Ashkelon and the communities around Gaza, and enabled us all to re-experience a normal and sane life. Continuing the period of calm is crucial and critical for the inhabitants of the areas from every possible angle: physical, psychological, mental and economic.

Another round of escalation could break down our psychological strength, fragile as it is, and bring all of us into another round of self destruction and pointless bloodshed. We will not necessarily survive it, and you should be aware of that, if you really care about the inhabitants of the area. We've been in this movie for too many years, and the results speak for themselves - a feeling of no way out, abandonment and a loss of hope for us and our children!!

On the other side of the border a million and a half Palestinians live in an unbearable reality, and the majority of them, like us, want quiet and a future for themselves and their families.

We feel that you wasted the period of calm, instead of using it to promote understandings and the beginning of negotiations, as well as continuing to fortify the houses of the inhabitants, as you promised.

 

We call on the Prime Minister and the Defense Minister not to lend your ears to the voices of incitement, and to do whatever you can to prevent another round of escalation, to promise the continuation of the period of calm and to work quietly for direct or indirect negotiations with the Palestinian leadership in Gaza in order to achieve a document of long term understandings.

We prefer an option of a cold war in which not a single rocket is fired to a hot war with tens of innocent victims and casualties from both sides.

We ask that you offer us an option of a settlement and political hope, and not an endless cycle of bloodshed!!!  

"Kol Acher" - A Different Voice is a group from Sderot and the communities around Gaza, which has been engaged for the past year in conversations with people from the Gaza Strip that represent "a different voice". In the conversations, the suffering and hardship on both sides of the border come up, as well as the mutual will to break the continuing cycle of violence, and to offer a political option that will give civilians on both sides of the fence a true hope for a better future.

  translated from

http://www.haokets.org/mail-message.asp?ArticleID=2902

 Gaza massacre points to urgent need for viable sanctions

 By Dan Freeman-Maloy

 

There is every reason to be outraged. But despite the severity of Israeli atrocities in Gaza, we have little right to act surprised. Whatever else can be said, Israel has made it abundantly clear that until its actions are met with credible international sanctions, it will subject Palestinians (and very likely others in the region) to massive, recurring waves of violence.

This was clear when the Obama-Biden campaign helped to lay the political foundation for this assault. It was clear when, amidst threats of such an operation and ongoing colonization in the West Bank, the European Union voted to upgrade relations with Israel earlier this month. For those of us in Canada, it has been clear as the Harper government has sharpened its alignment with Israel in the absence of any sustained parliamentary opposition.

Still, although "Operation Cast Lead" (as the Israeli regime has dubbed its latest assault) extends more or less naturally from longstanding Israeli policies, it is many ways especially despicable. The most obvious issue is its scale. Beginning on the morning of Saturday the 27th, approximately 110 Israeli Air Force (IAF) fighter jets and helicopters bombarded the densely populated Gaza Strip with more than 100 tons of explosives, initiating what may well evolve into an even broader onslaught. By the end of the day, more than 230 Palestinians had been killed, an additional 780+ wounded.

As the death toll from air strikes continues to climb, hundreds of Israel Defense Forces (IDF) infantry and armored corps troops have been deployed on the border with Gaza along with IDF artillery batteries, and several thousands reservists have been called up in preparation for a potential ground invasion.

The assault has been characterized by brazen contempt for civilian life and by crass, cynical diplomacy.

The Israeli daily Ha'aretz reports that the IDF, long planning for such an operation, received final authorization the morning of Friday the 26th. That day, Major General Amiram Levin (res.) spoke on IDF Radio and conveyed the flavour of Israeli military doctrine regarding the then impending attack: "The whole issue of fighting against and bringing down the Hamas regime is a mistake and very difficult to achieve. What we have to do is act systematically with the aim of punishing all the organizations that are firing the rockets and mortars, as well as the civilians who are enabling them to fire and hide."[1] Yoav Galant, the head of Israeli Southern Command and a key commander in the attack, has since stated that a key operational goal is pursuing "the maximum number of enemy casualties [while] keeping Israel Defense Force casualties at a minimum." Recall that Israel has designated the Gaza Strip as a whole an "enemy entity."

It can also not be emphasized enough that, bombardment or no bombardment, Israel is perpetrating a profound and ongoing crime against the hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refugees in Gaza who have been stripped of political and residency rights within what is now Israel, pushed from their homes (mostly in 1948), and concentrated in a densely populated coastal territory under effective Israeli control from the borders and the sky. Military assaults such as these, like the more sustained policies of siege and economic suffocation, aggressively build upon this fundamental crime.

As for the diplomatic component of this assault, there is little question that the timing was cynically calculated in an effort to reduce international pressure. Some are happy with the results. Ha'aretz military correspondent Amir Oren, for instance, writes that "Israel's timing of the offensive is actually pretty good: Both the paratroopers and the Golani brigade, which was going to replace them, maintained a high level of preparedness while most of the international inspectors in the region went home for Christmas -- only 15 remain in Gaza." A similar dynamic has compounded the effects of Israeli restrictions in limiting the presence of foreign media correspondents.

Still, there is no way that the international community can plead ignorance or stubborn gullibility, and responsibility for this ongoing slaughter extends far beyond Israel.

Egyptian officials, some of whom met with Israeli counterparts in the lead-up to the attack, reportedly provided explicit endorsement for Israeli military action against Gaza. Just before the assault, Egyptian forces were sent to reinforce the crossing at Rafah, the one land crossing Gaza has that does not border Israel.

The United States, whose Israeli-piloted aircraft are raining death and destruction upon Gaza (following up on the Obama campaign's dangerous rhetoric), has toed the familiar line. Bush administration officials have blamed the Israeli onslaught on the Palestinians, as the president-elect expresses "appreciation" for Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's updates regarding the unfolding crime.[2] Meanwhile, European Union officials have used their upgraded contacts with Israel to issue a toothless call for a ceasefire, persistently packaging the ongoing massacre as a symmetrical conflict.[3]

So-called "Quartet" envoy Tony Blair, for his part, had a week before the invasion already all but openly called for an Israeli assault on Gaza.

Regionally, the effective complicity of some governments and the inaction of others is at least precipitating an outpouring of organized outrage. Whether those culpable in Europe and North America face a sustained domestic backlash will reveal much about the political integrity of civil society sectors and the health of anything worth describing as progressive politics in our societies.

Meanwhile, the Israeli military assault has predictably been paralleled by a diplomatic or Hasbara (propaganda) offensive which has been publicly discussed for some time. "We won't win in the suffering stakes," Yarden Vatikay, head of the Information Directorate of Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's office, was quoted  as warning advocates on December 26, "but we have to try to move the focus to the Hamas terror attacks against our civilians."[4] Foreign minister Tzipi Livni is stepping up whitewashing efforts in precisely this spirit.

Defense minister Ehud Barak, perhaps betting that association with additional war crimes offers a boost to any candidate in the current Israeli electoral climate (parliamentary elections are slated for February), has also been chipping in on the Hasbara front. In an interview with Fox News, Barak continued to mesh the politics of Israeli aggression with the "war on terror" -- indeed, many Israeli columnists are proudly describing "Cast Lead" as Israel's very own "Shock and Awe." "For us to be asked to have a ceasefire with Hamas is like asking you to have a ceasefire with Al-Qaida," Barak declared to his US audience, adding a direct threat of ground invasion: "If boots on the ground will be needed, they will be there."[5]

The idea that any of this is "needed," that any component of this operation is necessary, is nonsense. But it is nonsense with broad Israeli parliamentary backing. At the far "dovish" end of Jewish Israeli party politics, for example, Meretz joined in calling for an assault on Gaza and was kept informed as the plans were put into effect.[6]

Still, anyone with their eyes open must see the vast gap separating Israeli objectives from the Hasbara so dutifully parrotted throughout the West.

Consider the words of Israeli Brigadier General (res.) Shmuel Zakai, former commander of the IDF's Gaza Division, speaking on IDF Radio a few days before the invasion.

"In Zakai's view," Ha'aretz reported on December 22, "Israel's central error during the tahadiyeh, the six-month period of relative truce that formally ended on Friday, was failing to take advantage of the calm to improve, rather than markedly worsen, the economic plight of the Palestinians of the Strip."

Zakai, stressing that Israel has "made every effort to separate ourselves from the Palestinians," expressed some bewilderment at the apparent Israeli determination to go beyond concentrating Palestinians in a ghettoized Gaza (the right ethnic cleansing move, from his perspective) in order to actively suffocate their economy while using military assaults as the main instrument to force them to starve in peace.

"It's just like after the disengagement," Zakai was quoted as saying. "We left Gaza and we thought that troubles were over. Did we really think that a million and a half people living in that kind of poverty were going to mount the rooftops and sing the Betar hymn? That is illogical." But instead of negotiating a truce based on the limited concessions which Hamas would accept under the circumstances (including opening crossings so that those imprisoned in Gaza can at least subsist), Israel has again opted for escalating violence.

The operative mindset was supportively presented on Saturday by Yaakov Katz, military correspondent and defense analyst for the Jerusalem Post: "The end-strategy is not completely formulated but officials said that if Hamas gets down on its knees and begs Israel to stop, the request will be considered."

This vile, depraved determination to collectively punish and humiliate defies all but effectively genocidal logic.

Such logic may play well in the Israeli electoral arena. Reports indicate that the far-right Israel Beiteinu is siphoning votes from Likud for its resolute calls for escalating violence.[7] Given his perceived role in the invasion, "Barak is back in the political ring," one Ha'aretz report suggests. Perhaps Kadima, enveloping itself in the legacy of Ariel Sharon and visibily orchestrating the invasion Hasbara, can get itself some of the credit. The Israeli military establishment will meanwhile effectively keep formulating and implementing policy.

But if these latest atrocities do not provoke the sort of rage that can be sustained, defended and directed against those European and North American officials who facilitate these crimes, those of us in the West will have less and less ground to credibly disassociate ourselves from massacres such as these.

Whether Israel escalates this massacre with ground troops or pulls back in order to merely confine and suffocate the population of Gaza for a period, it is frighteningly clear that without forceful external pressure, much worse is yet to come.


[1] "Israeli general says Hamas must not be the only target in Gaza; Text of report by IDF Radio on 26 December," December 26 2008, BBC Monitoring Middle East.
[2] "Obama, Rice discuss Israel's strikes against Hamas," December 28 2008, Xinhua News Agency.
[3] "Solana calls for immediate ceasefire in Gaza," December 27 2008, Agence France Presse.
[4] Anshel Pfeffer, "Israel prepares troops and PR offensive to counter Hamas," December 26 2008, the Jewish Chronicle.
[5] "Israel 'cannot accept' ceasefire with Hamas says Barak," December 27 2008, Reuters.
[6] Joshua Mitnick, "Israel threatens offensive in Gaza -- Government tells Hamas to stop rocket attacks, warning 'we are stronger,'" December 26 2008, The Wall Street Journal.
[7] Toni O'Loughlin, "Israeli far right gains ground as Gaza rockets fuel tension," December 27 2008, The Guardian.