We need your leadership!
With the
launch of the network, we are hoping anti-Zionist Jews will take up the Charter
and Call-to-Action in ways that are relevant to their location and in
partnership with existing Palestine
solidarity work. Share your current work and support the building of
international campaigns and strategies to collectively confront Zionism.
For the past
two years, we have been building an international network of anti-Zionist Jews
to support existing and seed new Jewish anti-Zionist organizing in solidarity
with Palestinian resistance. The enemy we face is international, and what we
can do is limited unless we find ways to work together across boundaries and
regions.
We are building
an international voice which challenges Zionism and its claim to speak on
behalf of Jews worldwide. As an international force, we can contribute to the
movement to defeat Israeli colonialism. Click here to read more about the history of IJAN.
Charter of the
International Jewish anti-Zionist Network
We
are an international network of Jews who are uncompromisingly committed to
struggles for human emancipation, of which the liberation of the Palestinian
people and land is an indispensable part. Our commitment is to the dismantling
of Israeli apartheid, the return of Palestinian refugees, and the ending of the
Israeli colonization of historic Palestine.
From
Poland to Iraq, from Argentina
to South Africa, from
Brooklyn to Mississippi,
Jews have taken up their quest for justice, and their desire for a more just
world, by joining with others in collective struggles. Jews participated
prominently in the workers' struggle of the depression era, in the civil rights
movement, in the struggle against South African Apartheid, in the struggle
against fascism in Europe, and in many other
movements for social and political change. The State of Israel's historic and
ongoing ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people from their land contradicts
and betrays these long histories of Jewish participation in collective
liberation struggles.
Zionism-the founding and
current ideology that manifested in the State of Israel-took root in the era of
European colonialism and was spread in the aftermath of the Nazi genocide.
Zionism has been nourished by the most violent and oppressive histories of the
nineteenth Century, at the expense of the many strains of Jewish commitment to
liberation. To reclaim them, and a place in the vibrant popular movements of
our time, Zionism, in all its forms, must be stopped.
This is crucial, first
and foremost, because of Zionism's impact on the people of Palestine and the broader region. It also
dishonors the persecution and genocide of European Jews by using their memory
to justify and perpetuate European racism and
colonialism. It is responsible for the extensive displacement and
alienation of Mizrahi Jews (Jews of African and
Asian descent) from their diverse histories, languages, traditions and
cultures. Mizrahi Jews have a history in this region of over 2,000 years. As
Zionism took root, these Jewish histories were forced from their own course in
service of the segregation of Jews imposed by the State of Israel.
As such, Zionism
implicates us in the oppression of the Palestinian people and in the debasement
of our own heritages, struggles for justice and alliances with our fellow human
beings. (Read more)
Call-to-Action
Our pledge in the
Charter will be carried out through our commitments to: 1) solidarity with Palestinian self-determination, 2) participation in global movements to
end imperialism, and 3) the
extrication of Jewish history, politics, community, and culture from the grip
of Zionism.
To these ends, in this
historical moment, the IJAZ Network will be a clear anti-Zionist Jewish point of reference to set an ideological
pole, open space for non-Jewish anti-Zionist voices, and broaden support for
Palestinian liberation.
Towards fulfilling this
strategic role, we are calling anti-Zionist Jews to take up the following
actions in the world.
(Read more)
