I support the AIW as does my church’s Social Justice group. Jews have been out in the street for weeks with signs “JEWS SAY CEASEFIRE NOW” “JEWS SAY END THE OCCUPATION,” etc. How can we do any less? Other denominations have issued formal statements citing Israel as an apartheid state. As a member of Jewish Voice for Peace, I fear most people simply haven’t been paying attention since this mess got under way in the 19th century. You all raise many points. First, Palestinians are original inhabitants as much as Jews. They’re descended from the Canaanites (Canaan being the land into which Israelites migrated from Iraq). Many Palestinians today are likely descendants of Jews who never left the region to enter the diaspora. Anyhow, legitimate occupation is not decided by where your ancestors were 2000 years ago. This land was Palestine, it was annexed by the British empire who sponsored the transfer of Jews from Europe who were being denied entry/asylum in Western countries. The US clamped dcown on immigration and was deporting Jewish refugees at the end of WWI. It was the US and the West that decided that somehow Jews should be sent far away so the West wouldn’t have to deal with them. (Great idea: dump them on Palestine, which had nothing to do with the European pogroms and persecutions of Jews.) The US decided it was convenient to push the refugees onto someone elxe – to take their country away from Palestinians, so Palestine ended up paying for Europe’s crimes against Jews. The US brokered the partition through the newly-created UN giving 56% (of somebody else’s country!) to the new migrants, then stood by as the Israelis seized just under 80% of the land in the first year and all of it in the '67 war. This was flagrant land theft. You don’t save one people from destruction by destroying another. You could wipe out every Hamas fighter tomorrow but that wouldn’t end legitimate lawful Palestinian resistance to occupation and the other atrocities that have been going on for decades while the US shields Israel from accountabhility under int’l law. Time to step up – even with the bland language of the AIW-- and join the world in saying All Peop;le Have an Equal Right to Exist. Just niot with these borders and these policies. – Yann van Heurck
6 Likes