.jpg){kind=small}
mini.jpg)
Jerry Haber and I, along with Verso Books, the publishers of A Time to Speak Out, have prepared the following statement from American Jews condemning the Gaza assault and Israeli policy toward the Palestinians. We hope that you will sign it and encourage others you know to do so as well. Roane Carey of The Nation has expressed some interest in publishing it there, if we succeed in getting a significant number of signatories. We hope you will help start a viral campaign by promoting this statement as widely as you can via e mail, websites and general word of mouth.
To sign, please send your full name, title (if you wish), & affiliation (if you wish) to this address. It is only for signatures and not for regular correspondence. For that, please e mail me or this site directly.
“We Shall Not Be a Party to Their Counsel!”
As human beings, we are shocked and appalled at the mass destruction unleashed by the State of Israel against the people of Gaza in its current military operation, following years of Israeli occupation, siege, and deprivation.
As Americans, we protest the carte blanche given Israel by the US government to pursue a war of “national honor,” “restoring deterrence,” “destroying Hamas,” and “searing Israel’s military might into the consciousness of the Gazans.”
As progressives, we reject the same justifications for the carnage that we heard ad nauseam from the supporters of the Second Iraq War: the so-called “war on terror,” the “clash of civilizations,” the “need to re-establish deterrence” – all of which served to justify a misguided and unnecessary war, with disastrous consequences for America and Iraq.
But as Jews of different religious persuasions, from Orthodox to secular atheist, we are especially horrified that a state that purports to speak in our name wages a military campaign that has killed over 1,000 people, a large percentage of them civilians, children, and non-combatants, with little or no consideration for human rights or the laws of war.
While the moral and legal issue concerning Israel’s right to respond militarily in these circumstance can be debated, there is near-universal agreement that its conduct of the military operation has been unjust and even criminal – with only the usual apologists for the Jewish state disagreeing.
As Jews, we stand united with another Israel, the patriarch Jacob, who cursed his sons Simeon and Levi for massacring the people of Shechem in revenge for the rape of their sister Dinah. Like Jacob, “we shall not be a party to the counsel of zealots. We shall not be counted in their assembly. (See Genesis 34. 49: 5-7).
As Jews, we stand united with the Jewish sages who rejected the zealotry of the Jewish “terrorists” at Masada, those who masked ethnic tribalism in the cloak of “self-defense” and “national honor.”
As Jews, we listen not only when the sage Hillel says, “If I am not for myself, who will be for me?” but also when he says, “If I am only for myself, what am I?” Hillel’s closing words also ring true in this hour of decision when a ceasefire is demanded of both sides: “If not now, when?”
Finally, as American Jewish progressives, and as human beings, we condemn Hamas and Israel for violating the human rights of civilians on both sides, although we do not necessarily declare these violations to be morally or legally equivalent. We affirm the rights of both Israeli and the Palestinian peoples to self-determination and self-defense, as we affirm the rights of both Israelis and Palestinians to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
As powerful /vehement clear a statement as ever from Warschawski ! (see titles – amazon.com)/miriam
http://www.alternativenews.org/content/view/1545/389/
Written by Michael Warschawski,
Alternative Information Center (AIC)
18 January 2009 (see photo)
*ABSOLUTELY NOT! NOT IN THEIR NAME, NOT IN OURS*
Ehud Barak, Tzipi Livni, Gabi Ashkenazi and Ehud Olmert–don’t you dare show your faces at any memorial ceremony for the heroes of the Warsaw Ghetto,
Lublin, Vilna or Kishinev.
And you too, “leaders of Peace Now”, for whom peace means a pacification of the Palestinian resistance by any means, including the destruction of a people.
Whenever I will be there, I shall personally do my best to expel each of you from these events, for your very presence would be an immense sacrilege.
*Not in Their Names*
You have no right to speak in the name of the martyrs of our people. You are not Anne Frank of the Bergen Belsen concentration camp but Hans Frank, the German general who acted to starve and destroy the Jews of Poland.
You are not representing any continuity with the Warsaw Ghetto, because today the Warsaw Ghetto is right in front of you, targeted by your own tanks and artillery, and its name is Gaza.
Gaza that you have decided to eliminate from the map, as General Frank Intended to eliminate the Ghetto. But, unlike the Ghettos of Poland and Belorussia, in which the Jews were left almost alone, Gaza will not be eliminated because
Millions of men and women from the four corners of our world are building a Powerful human shield carrying two words: Never Again!
*Not in Our Name!*
Together with tens of thousands of other Jews, from Canada to Great Britain, from Australia to Germany, we are warning you: DON’T DARE TO SPEAK in OUR NAMES , because we will run after you, even, if needed, to the hell of War-criminals, and stuff your words down your throat until you ask for Forgiveness for having mixed us up with your crimes.
We, and not you, are the children of Mala Zimetbaum and Marek Edelman, of Mordechai Anilevicz and Stephane Hessel, and we are conveying their message to humankind for custody in the hands of the Gaza resistance fighters:
“We are fighting for Our freedom and yours, for our pride and yours, for our human, social and national dignity and yours.”
(Appeal of the Ghetto to the world, Passover 1943)
But for you, the leaders of Israel, “freedom” is a dirty word.
You have no pride and you do not understand the meaning of human dignity.
We are not “Another Jewish voice,” but the sole Jewish voice able to speak in the names of the tortured saints of the Jewish people.
Your voice is nothing other than the old bestial vociferations of the killers of our ancestors.
I agree; Zionist government does need to be stopped. American government, also, needs to STOP funding this holocaust of the people of Palestine. It IS disheartening to see a people who came through such horrors do to another group what was done to them.
When America and the United Nations said, along with Israel, “never again”, I don’t believer we were ONLY speaking of ONLY the Jews/Zionists. WE meant never again; NO group of people should EVER have to suffer these atrocities, EVER AGAIN.
Yet, somehow, we have allowed the Zionists to do exactly this. It’s wrong. Israel needs to be stopped NOW.
Hi,
I’m a script writer and I have wrote a film showing the war through the eyes of a Jewish girl and a Palestinian boy. i believe the film would educate the world on this terrible war and breach of human rights. Do you know anyone who would be interested in getting involved in my film?
Thanks
Assh
[...] Silverstein, of Seattle, along with others, has put together a “public statement”, “We Shall Not Be a Party to Their Counsel!”, condemning the state of Israel’s Gaza [...]
[...] Join dweller Jews in Condemning Gaza War | Tikun Olam-???? ???? … [...]
[...] Join dweller Jews in Condemning Gaza War | Tikun Olam-???? ???? … [...]
[...] Join dweller Jews in Condemning Gaza War | Tikun Olam-???? ???? … [...]
[...] Join dweller Jews in Condemning Gaza War | Tikun Olam-???? ???? … [...]
Hey,
does anyone else think doing a film showing the war in Gaza from both the Palestinian and Israeli side is a good idea? I’ve wrote a fantastic film, does anyone want to read it?