On this historic day of the International Court of Justice hearing of South Africa v. Israel, Israelis Against Apartheid would like to express our gratitude and support for South Africa’s appeal to stop the genocide in Gaza.
In recent months we have witnessed and alerted about the genocidal intent and genocidal actions of our government. We have in the past, and recently, called for international intervention in defense of the Palestinian population and are hopeful this is a first step to achieve that. We are also greatly concerned about other ongoing war crimes that are being carried out against the Palestinian population, not only in Gaza but also in the West Bank.
Israel, like perpetrators of other historic genocides, has developed a culture of a dehumanizing discourse to rationalize and justify their genocidal actions alongside calls to ethnically cleanse and recolonize Gaza.
Furthermore, Israeli citizens who are opposing the current genocidal war on Gaza are suffering unprecedented political persecution, such as severe limitations of their right to protest, violent arrests, loss of jobs and death threats from right wing militants. The situation is critical. The Israeli Apartheid state is transforming to a full scale fascist regime. Soldiers and armed citizens are roaming the country, with an understanding that there is no limit to what they are permitted to do in defense of Jewish supremacy and jewish rule.
The massive use of “dumb bombs” targeting everyone in Gaza, the displacement of the Gazan population, the refusal to stop the war, no matter the price, and military practices that endanger the remaining captives, show that the two declared aims of the war – dismantling Hamas and bringing the abducted back home – are not the cabinet’s goals. We are convinced that the Israeli political and military objective is to cleanse Gaza of its Palestinian population through death and expulsion.
An immediate halt of Israel’s genocidal assault is imperative. It is also the only hope of freeing the surviving Israeli hostages held in Gaza. Palestinian hostages, political prisoners, including child prisoners and hundreds of prisoners held without charges by Israel, must also be unconditionally freed.
As Israelis of Jewish origin we insist: Never again, for anyone!
It is essential to prevent Israel from carrying out its declared plan to complete the Nakba that it began in 1948. Only then can we begin to dismantle Israeli apartheid, restore the rights of the Palestinian indigenous population, including the implementation of the right of return, recognized in UN resolution 194, and begin to co-create a decolonized Palestine where all citizens will have equal rights regardless of their faith, their ethnic group or their national identity.
Israelis Against Apartheid
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Website: https://jews4decolonization.wordpress.com
Note: The Gush Shalom Movement firmly advocated, from its inception and up to the present, the Two State Solution for the bloody conflict raging in this country. As can be readily seen, some of the positions expressed in the above statement differ substantially from those of Gush Shalom. This in no way deterred us from passing the message on to our mailing list, in solidarity with and affection for the courageous and dedicated activists of “Israelis Against Apartheid”, our staunch fellows in the difficult struggle which must be waged in these most harsh and terrible times.
Adam Keller – for the Gush Shalom Team
