NOVANEWS
Jews for Palestinian Right of Return, July 21, 2014
On July 12, 2014, Gaza civil society issued an urgent appeal for solidarity, asking: “How many of our lives are dispensable enough until the world takes action? How much of our blood is sufficient?”
As Jews of conscience, we answer by unequivocally condemning Israel’s ongoing massacre in Gaza, whose victims include hundreds of civilians, children, entire families, the elderly, and the disabled. This latest toll adds to the thousands Israel has killed and maimed since its supposed withdrawal from the Gaza Strip in 2006.
In response to this crisis, we urgently reaffirm our support for a ban on all military and other aid to Israel.
In 1967, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. opposed the Vietnam War with his famous declaration: “For the sake of the hundreds of thousands trembling under our violence, I cannot be silent.”
Today, *we* cannot be silent as the “Jewish state” — armed to the teeth by the U.S. and its allies — wages yet another brutal war on the Palestinian people. Apartheid Israel does not speak for us, and we stand with Gaza as we stand with all of Palestine.
In the face of incessant pro-Israel propaganda, we heed Malcolm X’s warning: “If you’re not careful, the newspapers will have you hating the people who are being oppressed, and loving the people who are doing the oppressing.”
For Israel’s relentless war on Gaza is no more an act of “self-defense” than such infamous massacres as Wounded Knee (1890), Guernica (1937), the Warsaw Ghetto (1942), Deir Yassin (1948), My Lai (1968), Soweto (1976), Sabra and Shatila (1982), or Lebanon (2006).
Rather, it is but the latest chapter in more than a century of Zionist colonialism, dispossession, ethnic cleaning, racism, and genocide — including Israel’s very establishment through the uprooting and displacement of over 750,000 Palestinians during the 1947-1948 Nakba. Indeed, eighty percent of the 1.8 million people sealed into Gaza are refugees.
Like any colonial regime, Israel uses resistance to such policies as an excuse to terrorize and collectively punish the indigenous population for its very existence. But scattered rockets, fired from Gaza into land stolen from Palestinians in the first place, are merely a response to this systemic injustice.
To confront the root cause of this violence, we call for the complete dismantling of Israel’s apartheid regime, throughout historic Palestine — from the River to the Sea. With that in mind, we embrace the 2005 Palestinian call for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign, which demands:
* An end to Israeli military occupation of the 1967 territories
* Full equality for Palestinian citizens of Israel
* Right of return for Palestinian refugees, as affirmed by UN resolution 194
Initial Signers (list in formation, affiliations shown for identification only; *Co-founder, Jews for Palestinian Right of Return)
Noa Abend, Boycott From Within
Avigail Abarbanel, Psychotherapist; editor, Beyond Tribal Loyalties: Personal Stories of Jewish Peace Activists (2012, Cambridge Scholars), Inverness, Scotland
Gabriel Ash, International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network, Switzerland
Anna Baltzer, author and organizer
Nora Barrows-Friedman, journalist; Oakland
Prof. Jonathan Beller, Humanities and Media Studies Graduate Program in Media Studies, Pratt Institute, Brooklyn
Rica Bird, Joint Founder, Merseyside Jews for Peace and Justice
Audrey Bomse, National Lawyers Guild, Free Gaza
Prof. Daniel Boyarin, Taubman Professor of Talmudic Culture, UC Berkeley
Lenni Brenner, Author – Zionism In The Age Of The Dictators
Max Blumenthal, Author, Goliath: Life and Loathing in Greater Israel and Senior Writer for Alternet.org
Estee Chandler, Jewish Voice for Peace, Los Angeles
Ruben Rosenberg Colorni, Youth for Palestine, Netherlands
Mike Cushman, Convenor, Jews for Boycotting Israeli Goods (UK)
Margaretta D’arcy, Irish actress, writer, playwright, and peace-activist
Warren Davis, labor and political activist, Philadelphia, PA
Hedy Epstein, Nazi Holocaust survivor and human rights activist; St. Louis, MO
Richard Falk, Professor of International Law, Emeritus, Princeton University; Former UN Special Rapporteur on Occupied Palestine, 2008-2014
Malkah B. Feldman, Jewish Voice for Peace and recent delegate to Palestine with American Jews For A Just Peace
Joel Finkel, Jewish Voice for Peace-Chicago
Prof. Cynthia Franklin, Co-Editor, Biography: An Interdisciplinary Quarterly, University of Hawai’i
Lee Gargagliano, International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network
Prof. Terri Ginsberg, film and media scholar, New York
Tsilli Goldenberg, teacher, Jerusalem, Israel
Marty Goodman, former Executive Board member, Transport Workers Union Local 100
Sherna Berger Gluck, Emerita Professor, CSULB; Israel Divestment Campaign
Hector Grad, International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network, Spain
Ira Grupper, Bellarmine University, Louisville, KY
Jeff Halper, The Israeli Committee Against House demolitions (ICAHD)
Stanley Heller, The Struggle Video News TSVN
Shir Hever, Jewish Voice for Just Peace, Germany
Dr. Tikva Honig-Parass, Jews for Palestinian Right of Return
Adam Horowitz, Co-Editor, Mondoweiss
Selma James, International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network
Jake Javanshir, Independent Jewish Voices, Toronto
Yael Kahn, Israeli anti-apartheid activist
Michael Kalmanovitz, International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network (UK)
Danny Katch, activist and author
Prof. David Klein, California State University, Northridge; USACBI
Sara Kershnar, International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network
Toby Kramer, International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network
Michael Letwin,* former President, Association of Legal Aid Attorneys/UAW Local 2325; USACBI; Al-Awda NY
David Letwin,* activist and teacher, Al-Awda NY
Les Levidow, Jews for Boycotting Israeli Goods (J-BIG), UK
Antony Loewenstein, journalist, author and Guardian columnist
Mike Marqusee, author of If I Am Not for Myself: Journey of an Anti-Zionist Jew
Linda Milazzo, Writer/Activist/Educator, Los Angeles
Dr. Judith Norman, San Antonio, TX
Michael Novick, Anti-Racist Action-Los Angeles/People Against Racist Terror
Prof. Bertell Ollman, NYU
Prof. Ilan Pappé, Israeli historian and socialist activist
Miko Peled, writer, activist, author of The General’s Son: Journey of an Israeli in Palestine
Prof. Gabriel Piterberg, UCLA
Karen Pomer,* granddaughter of Henri B. van Leeuwen, Dutch anti-Zionist leader and Bergen-Belsen survivor
Roland Rance, Jews Against Zionism, London
Karen Ranucci, Independent Journalist, Democracy Now!
Michael Ratner, President Emeritus, Center for Constitutional Rights
Prof. Bruce Robbins, Old Dominon Foundation Professor in the Humanities, Columbia University
Stewart M. Robinson, retired Prof of Mathematics
Lillian Rosengarten, author, “From The Shadows Of Nazi Germany To The Jewish Boat To Gaza”
Prof. Jonathan Rosenhead, British Committee for the Universities of Palestine (BRICUP)
Ilana Rossoff, International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network
Cheryl A. Rubenberg, Middle East Scholar; author; Editor “Encyclopedia of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict” and author “The Palestinians in Search of a Just Peace”
Josh Ruebner, Author of Shattered Hopes: Obama’s Failure to Broker Israeli-Palestinian Peace
Sylvia Schwarz, International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network
Yom Shamash, Independent Jewish Voices, Vancouver, Canada
Tali Shapiro, Boycott from Within; Israel
Sid Shniad, National Steering Committee, Independent Jewish Voices Canada
Kobi Snitz, Tel Aviv
Marsha Steinberg, BDS-LA for Justice in Palestine, Los Angeles
Miriam (Cherkes-Julkowski) Swenson, Ph.D.
Dr. Abraham Weizfeld, JPLO
Sam Weinstein, International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network-Labor; former President, UWUA Local 132
Marcy Winograd, public school teacher, former congressional peace candidate
Bekah Wolf, UC Hastings College of Law Student; Co-founder, Palestine Solidarity Project
Sherry Wolf, International Socialist Organization
Sammi Ibrahem, www.shoah.org.uk
