10 Days of Action in solidarity with resistance to Zionism and imperialism in Palestine, the broader region and the global South

Rosh Hashana to Yom Kippur

September 30 through October 8, 2008

As the fifth anniversary of attacks on Iraq passes, and the 60th anniversary of the founding of the State of Israel is marked, the International Jewish Solidarity Network is calling for 10 days of anti-Zionist Jewish action in cities across the globe.

The purpose of the 10 Days of Action campaign is to publicly announce the launch of the International Jewish Solidarity Network whose actions and targets demonstrate our anti-Zionist politics within a commitment to broader anti-imperialist struggles.

The 10 Days of Action will reflect our opposition to Zionism and Israel, rooted first and foremost in its impact on the people of Palestine and the broader region. It will call for accountability from the governments, political leaders, institutions and organizations that have facilitated Israel’s historic and ongoing ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people and the confiscation of their land. It will condemn international complicity with the brutal siege on Gaza. It will make connections between this support and complicity and the US/Western Allied agenda for political, economic and military dominance in the broader region.

It will denounce the hijacking of Jewish histories of resistance. It will decry the dishonoring of the persecution, displacement and genocide of European Jews by using their memory to justify and perpetuate the on-going colonization of Palestine. It will name the role of Zionism in the extensive displacement and alienation of Mizrahi Jews (Jews of Arab, Persian and African descent) from indigenous identities, languages, histories, cultures and homelands.

It will reflect our dissent from the claim of a Zionist consensus within Jewish communities across the globe that implicates us in the oppression of the Palestinian people and in the debasement of our own heritages, struggles for justice and alliances with our fellow human beings.

In the next few weeks a listserv will be available to discuss ideas for the 10 Days of Action. Please click here to complete an IJSN contact form, post your ideas for the campaign in the message section, and be added to the listserv to subscribe.

One proposal for the 10 Days of Action campaign is the organizing of popular tribunals that call for this accountability. Popular tribunals have been used by movements across the globe from The National Water Tribunals of Brazil and the Central American Water Court in San Jose to the Women’s Sexual Slavery Tribunal in Japan and the Russell Tribunal on Vietnam. Popular tribunals provide public forums for hearing testimony by those most impacted by the issue at hand toward securing specific demands.

If such a tribunal was to be organized by IJSN, the international focus could be on US and Israeli war criminals. The demands could support existing international, national or regional boycott, divestment, and sanction campaigns. The goal would be to create a space to hear testimony from those most impacted by the intersection of Zionism and US/European imperialism—activists from Palestine, Lebanon, Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, people facing Islamophobia within our own States, and anti-Zionist Jews, particularly Mizrahi activists.

We look forward to working with you to build a movement of anti-Zionist Jews who are part of a growing Palestine solidarity movement that is part of a growing anti-imperialist, anti-globalization struggle rising from the global south from Palestine to Chiapas, from Venezuela to the US/Mexico border. Join us as we participate in the vibrant popular resistance movements of our time—the struggles for indigenous land rights, immigrant and refugee rights, economic and racial justice, the rights of women and children, labor rights and environmental justice and sustainability that imperialism, colonialism and capitalism threaten everyday, everywhere.