How to support the Jewish community without being anti-Palestinian
JVL Introduction
Nat Sims (Natalie Stecker), from the “sleepy” Channel Island of Jersey works against racism and injustice. She abhors antisemitism, racism towards Black people, Islamophobia and the injustice that Palestinians suffer at the hands of the state of Israel.
She helped to set up and spoke at the Black Lives Matter rally on the island. When she set up a Palestine Solidarity Campaign branch on the Island, she reached out to the Jewish community, tried to engage with the synagogue. Yet (non-Jewish) pro-Israel opponents even called for her to be sacked. (Thankfully she was not).
She is clear that “(t)here is no room in the anti-racist movement for anti-Palestinian sentiments, nor apathy towards their plight. So as anti-racists we must commit ourselves both to protecting Jewish communities and also to ensure that we stand against Israel’s and its supporters’ racist oppression, in all forms, against the Palestinian people.”
[This article was amended on 01/07/2020 in order to include an article by pro-Israeli Propaganda medium: ‘Honest Reporting’ in which the author features alongside Dr Ghada Karmi.]
This article was originally published by Medium on Mon 29 Jun 2020. Read the original here.
How to support the Jewish community without being anti-Palestinian
And my experiences of the weaponization of antisemitism in Jersey
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Good stuff..The plight of the Palestinians needs to be heard. Their lives matter.
Thank you for this excellent account. You are so right about our (non-Zionist Jews) voices being silenced.
You refer to a “brilliant and nuanced article by Jewish writer, Barnaby Raine, in Novara Media, I … attach his article. ” — but I couldn’t find the attachment. I’d like to read this too, on your recommendation.
We reposted the Barnaby Raine article on this website here: Long-Bailey’s Sacking Shows How Antisemitism Has Been Dangerously Redefined
Well said Nat, very well said. Thank you
Excellent article.
That is why I joined the JVL!!!
That’s a really good, brave piece, all the better for being down to earth and about real life and real campaigning. And I am lost in admiration for the author’s bravery and commitment. So it is a measure of my respect that I am going to argue with her use of one word – when the author talks of ‘seven decades of incremental genocide in all its forms, including the attempted erasure of (the Palestinians’) history and very existence’. What Israel is doing is bad enough – it doesnt help to accuse Israel of something it isnt going anywhere near doing.The 1948 United Nations Genocide Convention, defines genocide as “acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group, as such” including the killing of its members, causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group, deliberately imposing living conditions that seek to “bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part”, preventing births, or forcibly transferring children out of the group to another group. The focus is clearly on killing and destruction. Even the category of ‘causing serious bodily or mental harm’ has been applied to cover situations of rape, sexual violence, sexual slavery, torture, and being forced to watch any of these. The vast majority of Palestinians have not been killed or even wounded since 1948 . They have been treated abominably, having their national identity and right to self determination destroyed, being driven from their homes, having their land stolen, being subject to dreadful contraints on their lives – in fact, the author herself provides a list. But genocide: for acknowledged examples look to Rwanda, Darfur, the Rohingya, the Yazidi, Armenia, and the treatment of Jews and Roma during the Holocaust. The Palestinian experience is of that order.
The next step will be the same as America where you can lose your job for criticising the Israeli government for illegal practices towards Palestinians. I believe that the Tory government along with Starmer’s Labour want to bring this in. If this happens then this country is finished.
“The 1948 United Nations Genocide Convention, defines genocide as “acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group, as such”
Indeed. Just study the core of this statement; it isn’t just about physically destroying a group.
I suspect that most users of this site, like RH, would not agree with Naomi Wayne’s view. Indeed, it seems her own fingers disagree. Her last sentence was clearly intended to read: “The Palestinian experience is NOT of that order”.
Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians is not a single policy of event but an evolving situation that approaches closer to genocide with every passing decade. Netanyahu’s rise to power saw a significant escalation of the process, as did Donald Trump’s election and the involvement of the US evangelical Christians. The proposed US-led annexation of the West Bank is a further escalation, whereby Palestinian land will be absorbed into Israel without any compensating conferring of citizenship. In this way the Palestinians are being herded into an ever-shrinking parcel of land, subject to brutal occupation by the Israeli military. It only needs one further step to make the Palestinian genocide into a fact that no-one can ignore or deny.
I am not an expert on this. However we need to be careful not to give any ammunition to the Israeli lobby. They could twist this to suggest we are accusing them of being like the nazis. Claims of ethnic cleansing and apartheid are undeniable.
Excellent article.Thank you, particularly for this:
“We must be wise enough to understand that although we can appreciate why Zionism came into existence; following Jews suffering centuries of persecution in Europe, and that it meant different things at different times to different people, today in practice for the Palestinians it ALWAYS means racist segregation and oppression.”
Seeing and understanding that perspective is absolutely vital.