Jews Speak Out Against the Occupation

Jewish people are opening their hearts and minds to the reality of what has become our most distressing issue - Israel and the Palestinian people.

Jewish people should resist the pressure to unconditionally support the Israeli State's side in the conflict against the Palestinian people. It has been depicted as an "Us vs. Them" battle, so that criticism of the Israeli status quo, or support for the rights of the Palestinians to regain their occupied territory - is attacked as an act of betrayal against our own people. But is it really? In all likelihood, defending a status-quo that perpetuates war, pain, anger, resistance and perhaps ultimately anti-Semitism, is more an act of betrayal. 52 years of bloodshed since the founding of modern Israel is not a reason for pride - rather it indicates a major policy failure that must be changed

Jewish people must amplify our dissident voices to escape this trap of silence. During the Vietnam war U.S. militarists unsuccessfully tried to bully opposition with slogans like "My Country - Right or Wrong". We now say "My People - Right the Wrongs". Can we open up our hearts, and our minds to the principles of what is just and practical? Do we have the courage to oppose the dogma that has governed Jewish and Western relations with the Israeli State?

Jewish people have the power and we have the ability to ensure the same rights, the same treatment and the same respect for the Palestinian people in Israel as we expect for ourselves. We must no longer abandon our Palestinian sisters and brothers to a similar fate that our Jewish elders and ancestors righteously fought or escaped throughout our history.

We who are Jewish must demand an end to the war on the Palestinians, a proper respect for the UN resolutions recognizing the rights of Palestinians, end Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, a guarantee for Palestinian self-determination, and the dismantlement of the Israel-style apartheid system. It is not in our interests that we continue enforcing unjust conditions that perpetuate resistance and bloodshed. Solidarity with the Palestinian people is also in effect, solidarity with the Jewish people.

Jewish Alliance Against the Occupation
Jewish_alliance@hotmail.com

Signers

Noam Chomsky, professor, Massachusetts Institute Of Technology*, Boston MA

Lillian S. Robinson, Principal/Directrice, Simone de Beauvoir Institute, Concordia University*, Montreal

Norman Kalant MD, Montreal

Ilana Bereskin, Montreal

Robin Diner, Concordia University *, Montreal

Sabine Friesinger, Concordia Students Union*, Montreal

David Kalant, Beaconsfield

Dylan Maxwell, Green Party* candidate Laurier St-Marie, Montreal

Walter Miale, director-producer of the film in progress, Democracy is Coming to the USA, Sutton, Quebec

Diana Miale, Sutton, Quebec

Robert Silverman, Montreal

Zev Tiefenbach, Concordia University*, Montreal

Scott Weinstein, Jewish Alliance Against the Occupation, Montreal

Abraham Weizfeld, Montreal, Jewish People's Liberation Organization/Reconciliation Conference LIST, Montreal

Carl Rosenberg, editor Outlook Magazine*, Vancouver

Stephen Aberle, Jews for a Just Peace, Vancouver

Grace Paley, writer, Vermont

Janice Hayden, Boston Coalition for Palestinian Rights*, Concord, MA

Susan Rivo, Arlington, MA

Hilda Bernstein Silverman, Cambridge, MA

Iftach Shavit, Somerville, MA

Yifat Susskind, Associate Director, MADRE*, an international women's human rights organization, New York, NY

Jeffrey Sacks, Columbia University*, New York, NY

Moshe Adler, University of Columbia, NY

Roger Normand Executive Director Center for Economic and Social Rights*, New York, NY

Daniel Boyarin, University of California at Berkeley*

Mitchell Plitnick, University of California at Berkeley*

Stephen Rosenbaum, Lecturer, University of California Berkeley School of Law*

Sarah Frances Levin, Berkeley, CA

Tsela Barr, Madison, Wisconsin

Ruchama Marton MD, founder and first chairwomen of Physician for Human Rights*, Tel Aviv

Yitzhak Laor, Israel

Baruch Kimmerling, Department of Sociology, The Hebrew University, Jerusalem

Moshe Behar

Saul Slapikoff

* institutional affiliation and title are given for identification only

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Published in the Montreal Gazette, edition 4th of november 2000.

Written in collaboration by Robert Silverman, Eibie Weizfeld and Scott Weinstein.

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