Category: Palestine

How To Really Fight Anti-Semitism

This article is adapted from a talk given to 90 participants in a “train the trainers workshop” organized by Palestine Freedom of Expression on August 26.

We often hear the charge that taking a firm stand for Palestinian rights is somehow anti-Semitic. What is anti-Semitism? Here are some common definitions:

  • “Belief or behavior hostile toward Jews just because they are Jewish.” (Anti-Defamation League)
  • “Anti-Jewish racism,” which emphasizes the “innate hostility of Jews to the interests of non-Jews.” (Political Dictionary)
  • “Hostility toward or discrimination against Jews as a religious group or ‘race.’” (Britannica Concise Encyclopedia)

Continue reading How To Really Fight Anti-Semitism

Worldwide Protests Condemn Israel’s Assault on Gaza

6 January 2009 – One of the most important protests against the murderous Israeli assault on Gaza took place on January 5 in Kandahar, the Afghan province under occupation by the Canadian army. About 800 Afghan protesters converged in Kandahar city, carrying banners reading “Death to Israel” and chanting anti-Israeli slogans.

According to the Ottawa Citizen, the protesters also demanded the immediate withdrawal from Afghanistan of NATO troops, including the 2,700 Canadians stationed in their region. Bismalla Afghanmal, a member of Kandahar’s provincial council, reportedly denounced bombing, whether it takes place in Afghanistan or Palestine. Continue reading Worldwide Protests Condemn Israel’s Assault on Gaza

The Siege of Gaza: Israel Uses Hitler’s Methods Against Palestinians

The following is the text of a talk to a joint meeting of Muslim and Jewish supporters of Palestinian rights at the Taric Islamic Centre in Toronto, on June 14, 2008.

[This article is also available in Spanish. See Rebelión, August 17, 2008]

This inspiring meeting seeks to reach out to Jewish and Muslim communities, to build understanding of the conflict in the Middle East. Thank you for the honour of inviting me to participate.

My life has been shaped by the Jewish Holocaust under Hitler. My mother died in Auschwitz, and I barely escaped the same fate. Like many others, I have sought to resist the forces of war and oppression that we saw in Nazism and that still live on. We have won victories, such as the destruction of apartheid in South Africa. Continue reading The Siege of Gaza: Israel Uses Hitler’s Methods Against Palestinians

Two Ghettos: Warsaw and Gaza

Given to a public meeting initiating our organization, Not in Our Name (NION), Jew Opposing Zionism. Israel’s treatment of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip was viewed in contrast to the Nazis’ creation of the Warsaw ghetto.

Let’s begin in Warsaw

On October 16, 1940,  the authorities in Warsaw in Nazi-occupied Poland, ordered the city’s 440,000 Jews to leave their homes and move into a tiny area, the Jewish ghetto. Four weeks later, the Nazi sealed off the Ghetto with a 10-foot wall.

Food rations in the Ghetto were a small fraction of the minimum for survival. The inhabitants improvised smuggling food in the Ghetto. Still, by 1942, more than 100,000 in the Ghetto had died of starvation and disease. Continue reading Two Ghettos: Warsaw and Gaza

The Holocaust and Defense of the Palestinians

Forces responsible for slaughter of Jews now oppress the Palestinian people

This article is based on a talk given to a meeting of Muslim Unity of Toronto on December 23, 2006.

Sixty years ago, a mass slaughter – a holocaust – was carried out against European Jews. Today its memory is being misused to build support for Zionism and to oppress and murder the Palestinians.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper says that Canada must not talk with Hezbollah or Hamas, organizations that defend the Palestinians, because they “advocate wiping Israel off the face of the Earth” — an objective that he says is “ultimately genocidal,” that is, another holocaust. (Globe & Mail, Dec. 21, 2006) He uses this excuse to justify punishing Palestinians for electing Hamas by cutting off aid to their government. Continue reading The Holocaust and Defense of the Palestinians

Venezuela Rallies International Resistance to U.S./Israeli War

18 September 2006 – While Israel invaded and brutally bombarded Lebanon in July, most of the world’s governments nodded in approval or folded their arms. Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez, by contrast, roundly denounced Israel’s aggression against the Lebanese people.

“It really causes indignation to see how the state of Israel continues bombing, killing … with all the power they have, with the support of the United States,” Chavez said August 21 after a military parade in Venezuela’s northwestern state of Falcon. “It’s hard to explain to oneself how nobody does anything to stop this horror.” Continue reading Venezuela Rallies International Resistance to U.S./Israeli War

Anti-Jewish Prejudice Yesterday and Today

Editors’ note: “Anti-Semitism” is a much misused and much misunderstood concept. This epithet is often wrongly applied to opposition to the Israeli state’s apartheid-like policies—such as the statement in defense of Palestinians adopted by the Canadian Union of Public Employees’ Ontario convention in May. Yet anti-Jewish prejudice remains deeply rooted in capitalist society and continues to pose a deadly threat to all working people. Suzanne Weiss explained its origins and present character in a talk given to the Socialism 2006 conference, organized by Socialist Action in Toronto, on April 29, 2006. This article is based on that talk.

In 1919, V.I. Lenin, the great leader of the Russian Revolution, gave a brief talk on anti-Semitism that was recorded for use among the Russian peasantry. Continue reading Anti-Jewish Prejudice Yesterday and Today