Jewish people who stand against genocide, please read IJAN’s statement below and sign onto it here.
No Final Solution in Our Name
Never Again For Anyone.
Sometime after [1956] I heard a news item about Israelis herding Palestinians into settlement camps. I just could not believe this. Weren’t the Israelis also Jews? Hadn’t we – they – just survived the greatest pogrom of our history? Weren’t [concentration] camps – often euphemistically called ‘settlement camps’ by the Nazis – the main feature of this pogrom? How could Jews in any measure do unto others what had been done to them? How could these Israeli Jews oppress and imprison other people?I have to say to the Israeli government, which claims to speak in the name of all Jews, that it is not speaking in my name. I will not remain silent in the face of the attempted annihilation of the Palestinians; the sale of arms to repressive regimes around the world; the attempt to stifle criticism of Israel in the media worldwide… I will not allow the confounding of the terms ‘anti-Semitic’ and ‘anti-Zionist’ to go unchallenged.”~ Dr. Marika Sherwood is a survivor of the Budapest ghetto.
The International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network calls on all Jews of Conscience to stand and act against Netanyahu’s goal of a “final solution” for “the Palestinian problem.” We are a diversity of Jewish people who carry the intergenerational trauma of genocide, ethnic cleansing, forced displacement, political persecution, ghettoization, colonization, and ethnic and religious persecution and discrimination.We will not allow these histories to be used for the massacre of Palestinians. We say never again for anyone.This latest assault on Gaza is consistent with the violent colonization of Palestine that imposed the State of Israel on the Palestinians and has maintained it for over 75 years: its ongoing apartheid policies, military occupation and siege, ethnic cleansing, ghettoization, and forced displacement.
After the 2006 siege on Gaza, Auschwitz survivor Hajo Meyer warned:
“What is happening in Gaza is a slow-motion genocide. At first the Nazis put us in ghettos, then they moved us to work camps and concentration camps. The final solution came later in their efforts. It is painful to witness the parallels I observe between my own experience in Germany and those suffered by Palestinians today.”“The various forms of collective punishment visited upon the Palestinian people – coerced ghettoization behind a ‘security wall’; the bulldozing of homes and destruction of fields; the bombing of schools, mosques, and government buildings; an economic blockade that deprives people of the water, food, medicine, education and the basic necessities for dignified survival – force me to recall the deprivations and humiliations that I experienced in my youth. This century-long process of oppression means unimaginable suffering for Palestinians.”
Gaza is a concentration camp and rapidly becoming a death camp. Gas chambers and firing lines have been replaced with bombs, tanks, and white phosphorous. We say never again for anyone.Talli Gotliv, an Israeli lawmaker, demanded that Israel “Shoot powerful missiles without limit. Not flattening a neighborhood. Crushing and flattening Gaza,” she continued… “Otherwise, we would have done nothing. Not with passwords, with penetrating bombs. Without mercy! Without mercy!” A wish Netanyahu is fulfilling. Israel is bombing neighborhoods, hospitals, schools, places of worship, tunnels through which people are trying to escape, without regard for civilian life. Half of Gaza is children. The intention is clear. The intention is genocide. Depriving people of food, water, electricity and basic needs, is not just collective punishment, it is an act of genocide.As we offer solidarity with Palestinian resistance, we are reminded of the Warsaw and Vilna Ghetto and concentration camp uprisings against the Nazis. Both are acts of resistance against fascist regimes. In both cases, there is a struggle for freedom from genocide and ethnic cleansing and the right to exist as a free people.
Since 1948, Palestinians have had to flee while resisting so that they could stay as much as possible in their own homes on their own land, and for their own self-determination.Dr Meyer called for a return of Palestine to Palestinians and a return of Judaism to the ethics of “do unto others.” We stand on the history of Jewish participation in struggles for our collective liberation. We stand with the right of Palestinians to their collective self-defense. We stand against genocide, whether the genocide that killed many of our families, or the genocide we are witnessing. The majority of the world is against this genocide. Internationally, many are showing up and protesting, calling out the US, UK, and EU, who are backing Israel’s genocidal plan with their arms, propaganda, and censorship. We stand with the majority. No genocide in our name.We say never again for anyone.We invite other Jews of Conscience to join us in demanding an immediate end to the escalating genocide in Palestine.
To show your support for this statement, please sign here.
