AJV remarks to the October 6 Pōneke / Wellington event: Past, Present, Future
co-founders Fred and Marilyn, October 6 2024
Kia ora koutou,
I whakakaupapa māua ko Fred Albert i te rōpū Alternative Jewish Voices
Ko Marilyn Garson taku ingoa.
A year ago today, four generations of Palestinians had lived under an illegal occupation. The population of Gaza had grown 29 times in the same space. How would Pōneke / Wellington feel with 6.1 million people behind a blockade wall?
Young Jews were still being told that we could live a pioneering Jewish life right next to that wall. As if confining two million Palestinians would bring their humanity into question, rather than ours.
I lived in Gaza through four of its 17 blockaded years. Driving along the back road, I could see that the land on the other side of the wall was irrigated. There were lights at night.
I used to wonder, what happens to children who grow up seeing rubble every day? How do you relate to the world, when every horizon of your world is armed? What do you dream, when an air force bombs from the sky? Who do you reach for when an army has always prevented you from driving one hour to meet your West Bank whānau?
Israeli opinion surveys approved of what they called conflict management. They no longer thought that they had a Gaza problem, but Gaza never stopped having a blockade problem. Diplomacy hadn’t had an idea for decades.
Two years ago, Israel elected a proudly fascist government. Itamar Ben Gvir was no conflict manager. He called for attack and expulsion. We heard his genocidal intentions. In the West Bank pogroms we saw them. One year ago, 2023 was the deadliest year for West Bank Palestinians.
But the world had gone numb. Palestinians knew it; Israel’s Cabinet was counting on it. Genocide always glides past the indifference.
Then the clock struck midnight. The illegal billion-dollar barrier that held the world’s greatest power disparity in place, turned out to be just a fence. The horror and the violence became a shared reality for one day. For 365 days since then, we have seen the genocidal violence of Israel’s government and military. We see the US arming and participating. Today we see them reaching into Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, Iran.
We, AJV, acknowledge the history of Palestine’s pain. We hold people accountable for the illegality. These days we struggle to hold our outrage and our horror, without conceding to hatred and despair. We cling to the vision of a dignified future for all who live between the river and the sea. Our protest is our demand that we must all be loved and safe and self-determining – and free.
The International Court of Justice has instructed us, Palestine must be free.
As we approach the Jewish New Year and as we come upon almost a year of Israel’s genocide against the Palestinian people, Global Jews for Palestine–a coalition of organizations from 16 countries across the globe–releases (see link below) a 5.5 minute collective video speaking to the moment we are in as well as a statement attached (Al Het: confession of sins recited during Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement).
October 1, 2024
“Ashamnu” – We are culpable”
On Yom Kippur, Jews traditionally confess our sins in public. We confess in the plural, and we do so not only for our own sins, but for those of the community we live in and for those of the Jewish people as whole – for even if we did not personally commit each and every sin listed, we are responsible for stopping our fellow Jews, and the Jewish communal institutions that act in our name, from committing these sins. According to the great medieval Sephardic Jewish philosopher and Torah scholar Maimonides, the person in whose power it is to prevent sin and does not undertake to prevent it is ultimately responsible for the sin since it was possible for them to prevent it.
This year as Jews worldwide recite the Al Het (list of sins) and the Vidui (confessional) under the shadow of a genocide being carried out in Gaza in which nearly 50,000 Palestinians have been killed let us consider some of the sins that have been committed in our name by people and institutions claiming to act on our behalf – namely by supporting and defending the oppression, historical erasure, degradation, dispossession, and killing of Palestinians in the name of Jewish self-determination.
Every day during the ten days of repentance, we will post one sin that our community must rectify in the quest for justice and moral accountability- heshbon nefesh.
אָשַֽׁמְנוּ
“Ashamnu” (we are all culpable for the transgressions of our community). “Jewish communities must make a choice. We cannot continue to deny the injustices committed in our name against Palestinians. We must engage in the work of teshuva (repentance) by facing the truth about Palestinian suffering and by recognizing our complicity and ending our silence.
בָּגַֽדְנוּ
“Bagadnu” (betrayal) We have betrayed Jewish tradition by failing to acknowledge the humanity and rights of the Palestinians and by supporting the state of Israel as it carries out a genocide.
גָּזַֽלְנוּ
“Gazalnu” (robbery) We have participated in the theft of Palestinian land by supporting the Jewish National Fund and the ever-expanding Israeli settlement project.
דִּבַּֽרְנוּ דֹּֽפִי
“Dibarnu Dofi” (slander) We have slandered and defamed those with whom we don’t agree including Jews who oppose Israel’s violence and human rights abuse
חָמַֽסְנוּ
“Chamasnu” (acting zealously)
In our zeal to protect Jews and Israel we have distorted, misused and weaponized charges of antisemitism.
טָפַֽלְנוּ שֶֽׁקֶר
“Tafalnu Sheker” (lying) We have distorted and denied the truth about Israeli crimes against humanity and justified policies such as the withholding of water, medicine and basic necessities to the people of Gaza.
פָּשַֽׁעְנוּ
“Pashanu” (perverting justice) We have wrongfully exerted influence on institutions so as to prevent legitimate criticism of Israel’s treatment of Palestinians.
קִשִּֽׁינוּ עֹֽרֶף
“Kishinu Oref” (stubbornness) Even when confronted with the deaths of nearly 17,000 children, Israel supporters continue to claim that there are “no innocents in Gaza”.תָּעִֽינו
“Tainu” (straying from a righteous path) We have abandoned the fight for justice by refusing to acknowledge the Nakba – the ongoing Palestinian experience of violence, expulsion and dispossession’
תִּעְתָּֽעְנוּ
“Titanu” (causing others to stray from righteousness) We have caused others to stray from righteousness by miseducating our community and our children about Israel’s role in the Nakba and Palestinian suffering alongside the history of Jewish suffering.
• • •
May the spirit of justice guide us in the new year so that we may open our ears to truth, open our hearts to the oppressed, and speak our minds courageously in order to begin to stop our community’s complicity in the, oppression, suffering and attempted destruction of the Palestinian people.
In this season of atonement Jews must take an ethical stand:
*Demand an immediate end to the genocide in Gaza.
*Demand that our religious, educational and cultural institutions acknowledge and speak truthfully about the Palestinian Nakba.
*Demand that Jewish institutions stop attacking, maligning and punishing those who speak their conscience about Israel’s genocidal violence and dispossession of the Palestinian people.
*Demand an end to the malicious vilification of fellow Jews who name and oppose Israel’s violations of Palestinian human rights.
*Demand an end to Jewish communal funding for organizations that promote Islamophobia, anti-Arab and anti-Palestinian racism.
*Demand an end to Jewish communal funding for organizations that support and enable illegal Jewish settlements on occupied Palestinian land and which defend settler violence in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
Written by Sheryl Nestel, Independent Jewish Voices Canada; Global Jews for Palestine
Leo Sayer, Thunder in my Heart, Warner Brothers 1977
The world’s major news outlets now carry video of Israeli soldiers raping prisoners, kicking bodies off rooftops, decimating Gaza’s centres of learning and culture, and bombing humanitarian ‘safe’ spaces. Israeli government ministers do not hide their desire to starve civilians. Lebanon reels from thousands of bomblets set to explode indiscriminately in civilian homes and shops. In January, the International Court of Justice declared Israel’s actions in Gaza ‘plausibly’ genocidal. In July, the highest court in the United Nations system declared Israel’s presence in occupied Palestine unlawful and instructed governments to act—together and individually—to bring this illegal occupation to an end ‘as rapidly as possible’.
People, particularly young people, and a growing number of states are refusing the world that Israel’s conduct shows them: a world entirely without civilian protections, where power does whatever comes into its warmongering head. A world where nothing is safe. This week 124 UN member states, including Aotearoa, chose the law over that abysmal vision. They voted to require Israel to leave the territories where its presence is unlawful.
Four pro-occupation responses to the UN vote show us what has and has not changed at the Zionist intersection of Aotearoa. A statement of 65 Christian church ministers reminds us that most Zionists are Christian. These church ministers ‘support the right of the Jewish State of Israel to protect its homeland’, without according any rights to Palestinians. Their stance explicitly contradicts the ICJ’s opinion that Israel’s self-declared security ambitions do not justify its illegal actions.
Explaining Aotearoa’s vote to uphold that ICJ opinion, Foreign Minister Winston Peters declared, ‘That advisory opinion aligns with New Zealand’s long-standing view that Israel’s presence in the occupied Palestinian Territory is unlawful.’
The Israel Institute, a majority-Christian business entity, knows better. They claim that we and 124 UN member states are practising ‘diplomatic terrorism’.
The ‘Indigenous Embassy’, led by a Christian former director of the Israel Institute (and partner of a current director) is racially incendiary. It condemns the United Nations’ ‘expulsion of the Jewish people’, an evocative and wholly inappropriate phrase. Rather than upholding international law and the right of Indigenous Palestinians to self-determination, the statement claims that the UN is ‘affirming Islamic imperialism’.
The Christian statements strain to imagine Israel’s occupation as a religious conflict between Jews and Muslims. It is not religious; it never was. We must not allow people like this to make it so.
After the firestarters, it’s almost nostalgic to read the NZ Jewish Council recycle its retro claims to other people’s land in terms that have not changed since the 1970s.
The NZ Jewish Council worries that nothing is required of Palestinians in exchange for upholding the law. They fret that telling Israel to remove its army, settlers and settlements from illegally occupied Palestine ‘removes any incentive for Palestinians to negotiate, end violence and seek peace’.
They either haven’t read, or they haven’t understood the ICJ. Illegal occupation is not an incentive. When your home is invaded, you are not required to negotiate with the invaders to kindly let you have the use of the garden shed.
The ICJ, and this action to uphold it, are not a negotiating ploy. Israel’s occupation needs to end. Its genocidal violence on illegally occupied land needs to end. That is not the end goal; it is the starting point. Withdrawal will not constitute peace; it constitutes the first step.
Then come the hard questions of a just co-existence. The hard questions follow—they do not precede—the cessation of Israel’s unlawful acts of occupation, apartheid, and withholding of Palestinian self-determination. When those have ended, two self-determining parties will face the future questions.
Times and technologies have changed. At last, belatedly, the instrument of law is being applied and 124 UN member states—including ours—are calling for it to be observed. Israel’s presence in occupied Palestinian space is unlawful and that illegality must end.
Aotearoa’s Jewish groups ask, “How many flashing lights does it take for our government to notice?”
Members of Alternative Jewish Voices and Dayenu fear that our government is heightening Muslim vulnerability.
“Government actions are actively exposing Muslim New Zealanders—among others—to risk and danger,” says Marilyn Garson, co-founder of Alternative Jewish Voices. “Aotearoa failed its Muslim citizens once, with shattering consequences. People warned government and agencies of impending danger in 2019. They were not heard. This government is setting up another avoidable failure, and we join our Muslim whānau in calling for something better.”
Under Judith Collins, the coordinating minister, the government has abandoned major recommendations of the enquiry into the Christchurch murders. There will be no further wraparound support services for those who survived and those who lost whānau.
A speaking tour by Candace Owens of the American far right has been advertised. The Christchurch shooter claimed that Owens ‘influenced [him] above all.’ While antisemitism and Holocaust denial are her levers, her product is division, confusion and hate. Aotearoa has enough of those, without issuing invitations for more.
Associate Justice Minister Nicole McKee—a former gun lobbyist now in charge of the guns—is rushing to pare back gun regulations without public consultation, without time to assess the impact on public safety, and without involving her public service advisors in case they tell her the obvious. The police association, also denied their input, has called for the portfolio to be taken from her.
Muslim schools in Tāmaki Makaurau / Auckland were closed yesterday because of threats. An emailed video displayed a shooter. How re-traumatising that must be.
“The temperature is rising,” warns Fred Albert, Alternative Jewish Voices co-founder. “The government is just letting it rise. Warning lights are flashing and we need government to notice. They’re asleep when we need action to protect vulnerable communities—and to limit unnecessary firearms.”
Alternative Jewish Voices and Dayenu send arohanui to our Muslim neighbours and we join them in demanding vision and action from our institutions of politics, security and civil society.
Background information supporting this media release
Alternative Jewish Voices is a collective of anti-Zionist Jews, working on Jewish pluralism, antiracism and justice for Palestine. Dayenu is a group of New Zealand Jews opposed to racism and the illegal occupation of Palestinian land. More information can be found at https://ajv.org.nz/ and https://www.instagram.com/dayenunz/
Jewish Groups Call on the NZ Jewish Council to Withdraw its Misleading Survey of Antisemitism
Alternative Jewish Voices and Dayenu are calling on the NZ Jewish Council to withdraw its 2021 national survey of antisemitism. It alleges that 63% of New Zealanders hold at least one antisemitic attitude. However, fully one-third of the attitudes it calls antisemitic are simply agreements with the finding of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) that Israel’s occupation of Palestine is illegal.
Alternative Jewish Voices (AJV) co-founder Fred Albert explains, “The survey was always misleading. New Zealanders who knew ethically what the ICJ has ruled legally have been called antisemitic. 21% of respondents understood, as the ICJ has ruled, that Israel’s regime is apartheid. 20% knew that Israel’s occupation is not democratic, and so on. Half a dozen of the questions elicited replies consistent with the findings of the United Nations’ highest court. It is slanderous to call those respondents antisemitic. It grossly distorts our understanding of real antisemitism.”
AJV filed an Official Information Act request to parse the Jewish Council’s funding submission claim that it had “widespread Jewish community support, across multiple organisations.” Documents show a small number of interrelated and majority-Christian Zionist entities (whose directors overlap with the Taxpayers’ and Free Speech Unions) manufactured the appearance of Jewish community consent. The Ministry of Ethnic Communities gave $15,000 for a survey which AJV’s co-founder Marilyn Garson calls “an exercise in misdirection.”
She continues, “It tells the Jewish community, government, and all of New Zealand to look away from the very real threats that emerge mostly from the far right and its networks of disinformation. We’re being told to condemn protest instead—protest that is entirely consistent with the ICJ ruling. This survey divides us. Take it off the table. It’s time for all these false accusations to end. We need to be standing together now: Jews, Muslims, Tangata Whenua and tau iwi, faith and immigrant communities, Palestinians and all their allies. We need to be demanding action on the ICJ ruling and we need to be working together against racism.”
Background information supporting this media release
Alternative Jewish Voices is a collective of anti-Zionist Jews. It stands for Jewish pluralism, antiracism and it supports Palestinians in the pursuit of justice. Dayenu is a group of New Zealand Jews opposed to racism and the illegal occupation of Palestinian land. AJV and Dayenu are in the process of merging. More information can be found at https://ajv.org.nz/ and https://www.instagram.com/dayenunz/
The NZ Jewish Council calls itself the representative body of Aotearoa’s Jewish community. It is neither elected by, nor accountable to, the community and it chooses not to represent the community’s breadth.
The International Court of Justice (ICJ) released a decision on 19 July 2024, after the United Nations General Assembly adopted a resolution in 2022 asking the ICJ for an advisory opinion about the legal consequences from Israel’s ongoing violation of the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination from Israel’s prolonged occupation, settlement and annexation of the Palestinian Occupied Territories since 1967, the legal status of Israel’s occupation, and the legal consequences for other States and the UN. This case is separate from South Africa’s case to the ICJ alleging that Israel is committing genocide against the people of Gaza. More information can be found here: https://www.icj-cij.org/case/186
Rick Sahar burns his Israeli passport 250724. Image by Samira Zeitoun
AJV’s statement:
We are anti-Zionist Jews. Got that – we are anti-Zionist.
Zionists, Christian and Jewish, have been trying to convince you that Zionist really means Jewish, or that Jewish must mean Israel, or that anti-Zionist means you’re a bad person.
Let’s try that again, with help from the International Court of Justice. Zionism is Israel’s regime of power, not a religion. Zionism is Israel’s nationalist, settler-colonial, genocidal and now formally criminal project. It is represented in Aotearoa by this embassy. The Zionist project has been found guilty of apartheid. Apartheid is a crime against humanity, and we are anti-apartheid. Zionism illegally took Palestinian land by force. It occupies and racially segregates and prevents self-determination and we are anti all of that. The international court of justice has found that Zionism steals resources and dispossesses families, and we are anti those crimes, too. We are against all the crimes of which Zionism has finally been convicted.
Anti-Zionism is our positive statement of values, our love of humanity, and our commitment to Palestinians who have been the victims of four generations of Zionism’s crimes.
We are pro-truth, pro-justice, pro-human dignity and pro-civilian protections. We call on our government to be that, too. Take the side of civilians. Stand up for the return of refugees to their homes, as the court has decided. Call for reparations as the court does. Act as we are instructed by the court to act on the scene of such unbearable crimes. The court has instructed us to cease diplomatic relations, treaty relations, economic and trade and investment relations with Israel. BDS, anyone?
Ambassador, you are the lookout man for criminals and they have been caught. Go home and stop using our name as your shield. Around here, we do not call Israel the Jewish state. We call it the convicted state. We are anti your illegal Zionist project. We do not want you here. The International Court has instructed us to send you packing.
We anti-Zionist Jews stand side by side with our Palestinian whanau awaiting action on the court’s findings. We will raise their voices until the crimes of Zionism have ended. Think of us as officers of the court. The highest court of the United Nations has ruled that we must do everything in our power to end Israel’s illegal occupation. Palestine must be free.
Food is not a weapon: Jewish groups congratulate Winston Peters for re-committing to lifesaving aid
“Alternative Jewish Voices and Dayenu congratulate Foreign Minister Peters for maintaining NZ’s funding to UNRWA for humanitarian aid to the people of Gaza. In the midst of a humanitarian catastrophe, we cannot abandon people who are being starved. In the wake of the recent Israeli attack on the UNRWA school in Nuseirat refugee camp, New Zealand should increase its support of UNRWA.” says Justine Sachs, co-founder of Dayenu and a member of Alternative Jewish Voices (AJV).
“UNRWA provides vital aid to the besieged population of Gaza. No other agency can replicate their logistics and infrastructure. Their ongoing operations are critical to saving lives in the humanitarian emergency in Gaza. UNRWA employs over 13,000 people in Gaza. New Zealand suspended its donations to UNRWA after Israel made unsubstantiated allegations about a few UNRWA employees. The Israeli government was unable to provide any evidence to an independent investigation, which has since cleared UNRWA of wrongdoing.” says Sachs.
“The International Court of Justice recently ruled that continuing the ongoing Rafah offensive would constitute a violation of the Palestinians’ right for safety and therefore must cease immediately. The Court has also determined that Israel must ensure the delivery of basic services and essential humanitarian aid to civilians in Gaza. Suspending funding to UNRWA could make states complicit in Israeli war crimes. New Zealand claims to have a principled foreign policy. On principle, we need to act against genocide and help save lives.” says Justine Sachs.
Background information supporting this media release
Alternative Jewish Voices is a collective of non-Zionist Jews. Dayenu is a group of New Zealand Jews opposed to racism and the illegal occupation of Palestinian land. AJV and Dayenu are in the process of merging. More information can be found at https://ajv.org.nz/ and https://www.instagram.com/dayenunz/
The United Nations Refugee and Words Agency (UNRWA) is mandated to serve Palestinian refugees in Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, Syria and Jordan until there is a just solution to their dispossession. By funding UNRWA, donor states refuse to normalise that dispossession.
In blockaded Gaza, UNRWA provides health, education, housing and services to 1.7 million refugees, 70% of the population. It is also a critical provider of employment, liquidity, population records, and essential humanitarian aid. It is especially vital in emergencies. No other agency has a fraction of UNRWA’s skilled staff, logistics or infrastructure for shelter and distribution – whatever fraction of that capacity remains intact.
The Colonna report was not provided with any evidence to verify Israel’s unsubstantiated allegations that a small number of UNRWA staff somehow supported Hamas’s actions on 7 October.
UNRWA is entirely dependent on voluntary funding. It is not funded through UN contributions. National voluntary contributions were committed some time ago. Budgets and plans have been made on the assumption that those promises would be kept. Winston Peter’s announcement was made on the platform formerly known as Twitter.
Pro-Palestinian Jewish Groups from 16 Countries Hold First Ever International Congress in London
WHAT: After almost four years of meeting monthly on-line,leaders and long-time organisers representing 20 Jewish groups from 16 countries across the globe supporting justice for the Palestinian people are meeting in person in London for the first ever congress of the International Jewish Collective for Justice in Palestine (IJCJP).
Participants will also be joining the Jewish Bloc on the National Demonstration for Gaza in London on Saturday June 8, expressing our conviction that justice for the Palestinian people is a precondition for justice for us all.
WHEN: June 8th – 9th, 2024
WHY: While Israel claims to speak for the Jewish people, growing numbers of Jews around the world are declaring that Israel does not speak in our name. Our organisations are partners in the global movement for Palestinian justice. We have come together to learn from one another and maximise the impact of our work. We stand in strong opposition to Israel’s genocide of the Palestinian people in Gaza and are active participants in global organising demanding a cease-fire now and full justice and dignity for the Palestinian people.
WHO: Social justice organisers, educators, writers, and others representing Jewish groups from 16 countries across the globe: New Zealand, Belgium, France, Israel, United States, Canada, South Africa, Australia, Luxembourg, Spain, Ireland, Belgium, UK, Germany, Catalonia and Netherlands. (See below the full list of organisations and details of our spokespeople.)
“Around the world progressive Jewish groups have taken strong stands against the ongoing genocide of Palestinians in Gaza, staging eye-catching public protests. The gathering of representatives of many of those groups in London from 8-9 June aimed at maximising impact through closer international cooperation is a natural and significant initiative spearheaded by the International Jewish Collective for Justice in Palestine (IJCJP). It constitutes a major challenge to Jewish establishment bodies giving carte blanche to Israel to continue flouting international law.”
Antony Lerman, author, Whatever Happened to Antisemitism: Redefinition and Myth of the ‘Collective Jew’, former Director, Institute for Jewish Policy Research.
For further information, or to arrange interviews with our international representatives at the protests on Friday or Saturday or at any other time, please contact:
Marilyn Garson, Alternative Jewish Voices, Aotearoa (New Zealand)
“I made this trip to represent AJV because we see genocide being done in our names. We came to throw our weight on the side of life, peace and justice. We will not let our friends – our world – be harmed without making our voices heard. Jewish people are not endangered by protest; all people are endangered by silence in the face of genocide.
IJCJP has let us learn from worldwide experience, while we brought the wisdom of small communities. This conference is very bittersweet. We’ll finally meet in person, but every one of us is heartbroken. It will be quite a mix of emotion and purpose.”
Stefanie Fox, Executive Director, Jewish Voice for Peace, United States
“As we witness the daily horrifying devastation of Israel’s genocide against the Palestinian people, we know that groups and communities across the globe are organizing and protesting–with tremendous power and deep conviction–in solidarity with Palestinians. As a US based organization, Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) is proud to join Jewish groups from 16 countries across the globe this week in London to strengthen and deepen our work as a collective Jewish voice outraged by Israel’s actions and standing strong with Palestine. As partners in the movement for Palestinian justice, we say loud and clear, ‘Not in our Name’ and ‘Never again means never again for anyone.’”
“As the unprecedented horror in Palestine continues to unfold, the global solidarity movement has reached an equally unprecedented intensity. This activism is more important than it’s ever been, and that context makes it especially timely for a group that has existed in a digital diaspora for four years to finally meet in person. While the possibilities for online communication and coordination have enabled countless actions that would have been impossible not so long ago, gathering in one place is always a different experience that stimulates different forms of exchange and creativity, and these are more urgently needed than ever.
The situation for Palestine solidarity activists, Jewish and otherwise, is different in each country, and in Germany the movement is faced with particularly repressive methods by the state as well as hostility in the political, cultural and academic mainstream. This makes it especially important to have allies, and it also puts German-based groups like Jüdische Stimme in a position to give other activists information that may help them to deal with their own challenges.”
Sheryl Nestel, Independent Jewish Voices, Canada
“This gathering is enormously significant. IJCJP represents the flourishing Jewish opposition to Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza. We are challenging the moral certainty of those legacy Jewish organizations whose policies and utterances represent unmistakable complicity with Israel’s actions. We call on our fellow Jews around the world to courageously break ranks, embrace Jewish traditions of social justice, and stand up for Palestinian human rights.”
Leah Levane, Jewish Voice for Labour UK
“It is crucial that we link with Jewish organisations across the world and stand up in opposition to the genocide being committed in Gaza, the brutal occupation in the West Bank and the decades long dispossession of Palestinians from their land and, indeed, their human rights. Throughout the world, Jewish people are warmly welcomed to the protests in support of Palestinians, not least in London. Being part of this international network means we can learn from each other, exploring the similarities as well as the differences we face in our very different circumstances. After more than four years of meeting via zoom, I am looking forward to meeting in person but when we originally planned this congress, we could not imagine that it would be while Israel seems bent on destroying Gaza – actions which Israel claims is to protect us as Jews; nothing could be further from the truth.”
We are Jews from diverse countries, part of local, national, international networks and organizations. We are connected by our involvement in the struggle for Palestinian rights, and by our determination to work for justice. We oppose Zionism and all forms of racism. We came together to share our experiences of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) Working Definition of Antisemitism. Although it claims to protect Jews, the IHRA Working Definition is in fact being used to shield Israel from valid political challenge, silence Palestinians, and suppress any mention of Palestinian rights. The IHRA’s weaponization of antisemitism sets a dangerous precedent for limiting speech on many issues. We take this as our immediate priority, but it is only a starting point for our collective commitment to build a more just world.
IJCJP SPOKESPEOPLE
Marilyn Garson, Alternative Jewish Voices, Aotearoa (New Zealand), lived and worked in Gaza 2011 – 2015. She was a member of UNRWA’s emergency response team through the 2014 war. Returning to New Zealand, she wrote Still Lives, a memoir of her years in Gaza. She co-founded Alternative Jewish Voices (AJV) with Fred Albert in 2020. AJV preserves Jewish pluralism, because there have always been many ways to be a Jew. AJV regards antiracism as a shared task, including antisemitism. And AJV works alongside Palestinian partners who seek freedom and justice based on international legal principles and our equal human rights.
Wieland Hoban, Jewish Voice for a Just Peace in the Middle East/Jüdische Stimme für gerechten Frieden, Nahost, Germany, is a composer and academic translator in the fields of philosophy, art, music, and literature as well as an author of academic and journalistic articles. He is chairman of Jewish Voice for a Just Peace in the Middle East, which he represents both in IJCJP and EJJP ( European Jews for a Just Peace).
Leah Levane, Jewish voice for Labour, UK, is a retired Community Development Worker and Town Centre Manager. She served as an elected member of Hastings Borough Council in southeast England from 2018 to 2021. She is co-chair of Jewish Voice for Labour and heads up its antiracism work. In 2012 she spent three months in the South Hebron Hills as a Human Rights Witness and accompanier providing protective presence. Khirbet Zanuta, one of the hamlets that she supported then has been emptied as settler attacks post October 7th became intolerable. In 2017 she participated in the largest ever Jewish delegation to Palestine (with Centre for Jewish Non Violence) spending time with a community in Silwan, East Jerusalem and revisiting the South Hebron Hills. Leah’s story is one of those featured in JVL’s “Jewish Journeys from Zionism” series.
Sheryl Nestel, Independent Jewish Voices, Canada, holds a PhD from the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education of the University of Toronto where she taught sociology and equity studies from 2000-2012 and was the coordinator of the Office of Teaching Support. She is the author of numerous refereed journal articles, book chapters and reports on race and racism in the health professions and the author of Obstructed Labour: Race and Gender in the Re-emergence of Midwifery (UBC Press, 2007), winner of the Canadian Women’s Studies Annual Book Prize for 2007. She recently completed a ground- breaking research project, Unveilling the Chilly Climate: The Suppression of Speech on Palestine in Canada written with Rowan Gaudet, which surveys the impact of harassment, intimidation and the suppression of speech on Palestine on faculty, students and activists in Canada. She serves on the steering committees of the Jewish Faculty Network and the International Jewish Collective for Justice in Palestine. She is an Affiliated Scholar at New College, University of Toronto.
Te Kaunihera Wāhine o Aotearoa National Council of Women of New Zealand (NCWNZ) has joined in an Aotearoa intercommunity partnership – which includes Alternative Jewish Voices, the Federation of Islamic Associations (FIANZ), and Palestinian-led advocacy group Justice for Palestine – to recognise and respond to the escalating needs of women in Gaza.
“The hunger and famine in Gaza are unprecedented and horrifying. Working alongside one another is the strongest way we can support the women and children who are so disproportionately affected. So, as the conflict in Gaza passes the six-month mark, we are joining the voices of the partnership in asking for your help,” NCWNZ President Dr Suzanne Manning said.
Laura Agel from Justice for Palestine added, “We stand with NCWNZ in recognising and responding to the escalating needs of women in Gaza. The hunger and violence they face is horrifying. We at Justice for Palestine urge everyone to do what they can to help and support the women and children who are disproportionately affected by this humanitarian crisis.”
Marilyn Garson, co-founder of Alternative Jewish Voices, agreed. “Just as health workers and journalists have organised to draw attention to the devastating toll on their Gazan counterparts, we are so glad to see the National Council of Women responding to the dire needs of women and children this way.”
There is global evidence showing the disproportionate effects on women and children, including:
The latest statistics from 15 May show that at least 35,233 Palestinians have been killed in the Gaza Strip since 7 October 2023, the majority of these are women and children.
The UN body dedicated to gender equality and the empowerment of women, UN WOMEN, notes that among those killed are an estimated 6,000 women who left 19,000 children behind. Women who have survived have been displaced, widowed and are facing starvation. More than 1 million women and girls in Gaza have almost no food, no access to safe water, latrines, washrooms, or sanitary pads, with diseases spreading amid inhumane living conditions.
Tufts University World Peace Foundation reports ”a ‘great’ famine, with 100,000 or more excess deaths, may be in prospect if the current level of hostilities and destruction continues.”
Dr Manning is urging New Zealanders to act. “We can raise money to help women and children who are disproportionately affected. It is easy to feel helpless being so far away but there is a very practical step that New Zealanders can take to help those most affected. We are asking supporters to donate to FIANZ’s Humanitarian Aid to Gaza Palestine Appeal Account: 02-0500-0737236-006.
“This will make a real difference and we need your help,” Dr Manning said. “Throughout history, women have worked together, and we are asking you to continue to do so today. We must continue to show solidarity and share our strength with those women and children affected by this humanitarian crisis now and for future generations.”
FIANZ Chairperson, Abdur Razzaq also acknowledged the partnership and its aims. “FIANZ is grateful for the help of the National Council of Women and Alternative Jewish Voices of Aotearoa for their support to raise funds for humanitarian aid for Gaza, particularly the women, children and the elderly who are suffering from starvation.”
For more information, or to interview Dr Suzanne Manning please contact 022 655 6512 or email us.
World Socialist Web Site reporters in New Zealand recently spoke with Rick Sahar, the son of two Holocaust survivors, about his decision to speak out publicly against Israel’s genocidal war against the people of Gaza.
Rick Sahar
Sahar lived in Israel as a young man and since moving to New Zealand in 1981 has had a long career as an entertainer and performer. For several years he worked as a volunteer for the Holocaust Centre of New Zealand, helping to educate people about the genocide of the Jewish people during World War II.
He is one of many Jewish people across the world who have spoken out against the actions of the Netanyahu regime and joined protests against Israel’s ethnic cleansing and mass murder of Palestinians. The prominent participation of Jews in protests against the war exposes the lie, repeated incessantly in the media and by politicians, that the Israeli state represents the Jewish people and that any opposition to it constitutes antisemitism.
In January, Sahar addressed a protest in Wellington—one of dozens held across New Zealand since Israel’s bombardment of Gaza began—where he said: “I condemn the intentional murdering and maiming of innocent people by Israel in Gaza and in the West Bank. Collective punishment was used by the Nazis and was condemned after the Holocaust amid cries of ‘never again,’ and yet it is happening again.”
Born in the US city of Detroit, Sahar was one of four children of two survivors of the Holocaust in Poland. “At home we didn’t speak at all about the Holocaust. My mother was still very distressed by it all, she was traumatised,” he said. Many years later, his father told him that he had a first wife and twin boys in Oświęcim, Poland, all of whom were killed at Auschwitz in 1944.
Because his father had some medical skills as a barber, he was sent to work in the adjacent Birkenau camp, where “he would treat cuts and bruises, breaks and things like that, and that kept him alive because he was able to speak German as well.”
It was only later in life, after moving to New Zealand, that Sahar began to research his parents’ history. “I became more involved in my own heritage of how my people were impacted by the Nazis, and that’s when, after I put together a bit of research, I was asked to present it at the Holocaust Centre as one of their speakers for adult education. That was really hard to do the first time, to present my parents’ survival story. I learnt how to deal with that and I went presenting it at high schools around the country and other adult groups.”
Sahar was elected to the board of the Holocaust Centre, an institution founded in 2007 in Wellington to promote awareness and education about the Holocaust. In 2020, Sahar was recognised for his work bringing together Polish and Jewish people through shared events with the Centre and the Polish Embassy by being awarded the Gold Cross of Merit from the Republic of Poland.
He told the WSWS that he initially felt that Israel had a place in the work of the Centre, but his views changed over time. “I started realising how it was limiting our choices and decisions, impacting on who we can see that human rights are being taken away from, because Israel has a different idea on that. Certain instances there led to me resigning from the board and getting more involved now in the Palestinian cause.
“I feel it’s important for me to speak out about Palestinian rights and the atrocities that I see are being perpetrated by Israel in Gaza and the West Bank,” he said.
“There are so many war crimes in Gaza being perpetrated by Israeli armed forces. It’s all detailed there in the media how the Gazans are being impacted by the siege. I see it as a genocide that’s being committed. And, you know, you can’t wait to the end and then call it a genocide. It’s in the process of happening, it definitely qualifies as a genocide.”
Asked what he thought was motivating Israel’s actions, he said: “It’s in retaliation for the 7th of October. It’s anger, revenge against all Palestinians, who they see as below them, as the perpetrators.”
He added that Netanyahu had “selected people with similar views to be part of his war cabinet, especially those right-wing religious representatives, who to me are not Jewish, they don’t represent the beauty of beliefs that exist in Judaism as they do in other religions. They don’t represent Judaism to me.”
He criticised the United States-led bombing of the Houthis in Yemen, which New Zealand military personnel are actively assisting. He said the Houthi militias were attacking shipping in the Red Sea in response to the bombardment of Gaza. “If the US was really interested in trade they would make sure that the bombing stops, they wouldn’t supply the armaments for Israel.”
Sahar said he recently wrote to Foreign Minister Winston Peters opposing the decision to stop funding for the United Nations agency UNRWA, which provides food and aid for starving people in Gaza.
“Israel’s done an incredibly successful campaign of vilifying UNRWA,” he said. “There’s no reason for that other than their paranoia as to whether or not any assistance can be made through UNRWA to Hamas.” He said it was “ridiculous” that the alleged participation of a handful of UNRWA employees in the October 7 operation “could be the basis for stopping the aid to just over 2 million people. They’ve relied on this aid ever since the siege was implemented. Everyone relies on aid there.
“So it’s a travesty to stop funding UNRWA and things are just going to get worse and worse, even after the International Court of Justice finding that Israel is committing acts that could be considered a genocide. They didn’t call it a genocide but they said it may be leading to that. Israel is taking no notice and is increasing its bombing of Gaza, and also environmentally impacting it with the flooding of the tunnels, which is something horrible for whoever will be there again, because it’s ruining any kind of chance of there being water from wells, groundwater, pure water to drink.
“They’re destroying so much infrastructure. It also really angers me how they go into the West Bank and destroy the infrastructure there, as well. It’s just so spiteful and it’s not in my name.”
Speaking about the dehumanisation of Palestinians, Sahar described it as “a caste system within [Israel’s] borders and outside its borders against Palestinian people. Within Israel, Palestinians who live there are definitely a second-class people, and the ones in the territories that they have been exiled to are at least second- or third-class, and they really are hated.
“The sadness I have is that Israel theoretically started as, according to the tenets of Zionism, ‘a light unto the nations’ and to make peace with the other countries around them, and to accept all people. I think they confused the issue by calling it a Jewish state and a democracy. It’s not possible to do both. You have to allow for other religions and other peoples if you’re a democracy.”
He said Israel had to come to terms with its past by “accepting the wrongs that have been committed, and how they are the perpetrators in this disaster that’s happened of displacement, of persecution, of killing, murdering people.” This was the only way to have reconciliation and peace. “I think the best thing that’s happened recently is South Africa’s bringing the case [accusing Israel of genocide] to the International Court of Justice. I just wish Israelis would see that too.”
Sahar praised the small number of young Israelis, including the outspoken Tal Mitnik, who have opposed conscription and refused to fight in Gaza.
He explained how he had become disillusioned with Zionism while living in Israel during the 1970s. “I served in the Israeli army, I was conscripted because I had to be in order to stay in Israel. I was there for 11 years, and after two-and-a-half years they said: you either have to leave the country or become a citizen.”
After an incident that occurred while he was on reserve duty in the West Bank, Sahar said he felt he could no longer stay in Israel. “Our commander called me and two other soldiers into his office and he addressed me. He said: ‘Rick, here’s the name and address of a suspected PLO [Palestine Liberation Organisation] operator nearby. I want you to go to him with these two soldiers, arrest him and bring him here.’ And I didn’t think about it, I just said: ‘I’m not doing that.’ He said: ‘What?’ I said: ‘I refuse to do this.’ He said: ‘Oh, you’re refusing an order?’ I said: ‘Yes, I’m here to protect, not to go out and arrest.’”
As punishment, Sahar was confined to guard duty for three weeks, four hours on, four hours off. “That’s where I sat and thought and knew that I couldn’t serve in the army again because I was going in a different direction in my beliefs about what was going on in Palestine.”
He also described an earlier incident that led him to question the role of the military and the occupation. “I had an experience in Bethlehem on an earlier reserve duty on what happened to be Easter Sunday. I’m there in the square with other soldiers, full kit, and these beautiful families of Palestinian people were walking by in their lovely clothes on their way to church, and I said: ‘Happy Easter!’ And they couldn’t look at me, they couldn’t acknowledge me. And then I remembered who I am, what I represent. I suddenly realised: I’m the occupying force here, and it could even be seen as intimidation, me calling out and wishing them a happy Easter. That was very sad for me.
“I used to believe, when I was in Israel, for a little while, that the only way to security is through armed forces, that the only way to have a lasting peace is to fight. Ever since I’ve been here and been more objectively viewing the situation in Israel, I know for sure that peace is only possible through negotiations and showing a willingness to forgive the other, and to accept one another.”
Sahar mentioned that he had two grown-up daughters living in Israel, one of whom was among tens of thousands of people evacuated from the area near the border with Lebanon soon after 7 October, as Israel ratcheted up tensions with Hezbollah in Lebanon.
“She was able to pack her car, all the things that they needed, and to drive to a known destination, which eventually happened to be a tourist resort near the Dead Sea. So 80,000 people were removed and put into different resorts and safe places away from the fighting in sharp contrast to the ongoing forced evacuations [in Gaza] to crowded areas without proper amenities to sustain healthy life,” he said.
Sahar criticised the very limited media coverage of the anti-genocide protests in New Zealand. Many have gone completely unreported, and oppositional voices within the Jewish community have not been highlighted.
He mentioned that members of Alternative Jewish Voices, a Wellington-based group of anti-Zionist Jews, and Dayenu: New Zealand Jews Against Occupation, had written to the media and their letters had not been published in any form. “It’s disappointing,” he said. “The Israeli embassy has done a thorough job of influencing the press, I think.”
Sahar concluded by thanking the WSWS for its coverage and for interviewing him. Rick is a member of Dayenu: New Zealand Jews Against Occupation.
Sh'ma Koleinu - Alternative Jewish Voices (NZ) 