{"id":4897,"date":"2006-08-10T08:32:00","date_gmt":"2006-08-10T05:32:00","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2024-12-14T19:12:57","modified_gmt":"2024-12-14T17:12:57","slug":"epalestine-petition-for-us-jewish","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/epalestine.ps\/sambahour\/2006\/08\/epalestine-petition-for-us-jewish\/","title":{"rendered":"Petition for U.S. Jewish Solidarity with Muslim and Arab Peoples of the Middle East"},"content":{"rendered":"<p align=\"left\"><font face=\"Arial\" size=\"2\"><span style=\"font-size:10pt\"><em>This statement was drafted by U.S. Jews committed to stopping and holding accountable  Israel for its destructive policies and practices&#8211;<\/em><strong><em>most immediately for a halt to the current  attacks on Lebanon and Gaza.&#160; <\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/font><\/p>\n<p align=\"left\"><font face=\"Arial\" size=\"2\"><span style=\"font-size:10pt\"><em><br \/>\n <\/em><\/span><\/font><\/p>\n<p align=\"left\"><font face=\"Arial\" size=\"2\"><span style=\"font-size:10pt\"><em>We are gathering signatures from Jews committed to this. Our goal is to then publish this  statement in the New York Times and other publications.&#160; <\/em><\/span><\/font><\/p>\n<p align=\"left\"><font face=\"Arial\" size=\"2\"><span style=\"font-size:10pt\"><em><br \/>\n <\/em><\/span><\/font><\/p>\n<p align=\"left\"><font face=\"Arial\" size=\"2\"><span style=\"font-size:10pt\"><strong>Please add your name below as an American Jew of conscience &#8211; only if you agree  with all 5 points.<\/strong>&#160; <\/span><\/font><a href=\"http:\/\/www.jewishsolidarity.info\/petition.php\"><font face=\"Arial\" size=\"2\"><span style=\"font-size:10pt\">http:\/\/www.jewishsolidarity.info\/petition.php<\/span><\/font><\/a><\/p>\n<p align=\"left\"><font face=\"Arial\" size=\"2\"><\/font><\/p>\n<p align=\"left\"><font face=\"Arial\" size=\"2\"><\/font><\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><font face=\"Arial\" size=\"2\"><span style=\"font-size:10pt\">August 8, 2006&#160; <\/span><\/font><\/p>\n<p align=\"left\"><font face=\"Arial\" size=\"2\"><\/font><\/p>\n<p align=\"left\"><font face=\"Arial\" size=\"4\"><span style=\"font-size:14pt\"><strong>Petition for U.S. Jewish Solidarity with Muslim and Arab  Peoples of the Middle East&#160; <\/strong><\/span><\/font><\/p>\n<p align=\"left\"><font face=\"Arial\" size=\"2\"><\/font><\/p>\n<p align=\"left\"><font face=\"Arial\" size=\"2\"><span style=\"font-size:10pt\">As Jews of conscience living in the United States, we are outraged by the violence being  perpetrated in our name both as Jews and as U.S. citizens. We, the undersigned, represent  Jews across the United States who are choosing to stand in solidarity with the peoples of  Gaza and Lebanon.&#160; <\/span><\/font><\/p>\n<p align=\"left\"><font face=\"Arial\" size=\"2\"><\/font><\/p>\n<p align=\"left\"><font face=\"Arial\" size=\"2\"><span style=\"font-size:10pt\">We are appalled by the blatant self-interest revealed in the U.S.&#8217;s leveraging of Israel&#8217;s  actions towards a &quot;New Middle East&quot; agenda, which it has advanced in Afghanistan and Iraq  in order to serve an increasingly unilateral economic and political program enforced through  military aggression. With Israel as its military proxy, this destructive U.S. foreign policy  agenda seeks to establish puppet governments across the Middle East, in a grand effort to  ensure continued oil supplies to the West at devastating cost to civilian lives and democracy  across the Middle East and beyond.&#160; <\/span><\/font><\/p>\n<p align=\"left\"><font face=\"Arial\" size=\"2\"><\/font><\/p>\n<p align=\"left\"><font face=\"Arial\" size=\"2\"><span style=\"font-size:10pt\">Focusing upon Lebanon, the West Bank, and Gaza as well as Iraq and Afghanistan, this  vision for a &quot;New Middle East&quot; has facilitated hundreds of Lebanese and Palestinian civilian  deaths, over a third of whom are children, and hundreds of thousands of Iraqi and Afghani  deaths. We Jews of conscience know that no justice, no democracy, and no peace can result  from such brutality.&#160; <\/span><\/font><\/p>\n<p align=\"left\"><font face=\"Arial\" size=\"2\"><\/font><\/p>\n<p align=\"left\"><font face=\"Arial\" size=\"2\"><span style=\"font-size:10pt\">We call upon Jews everywhere to hold the U.S. government accountable for its 58-year role  in facilitating and benefiting from Israel&#8217;s long-standing, military occupation of Palestine, its  repeated acts of collective punishment against both the Palestinian and Lebanese peoples,  and its military dominance over Lebanon and other countries in the region.&#160; <\/span><\/font><\/p>\n<p align=\"left\"><font face=\"Arial\" size=\"2\"><\/font><\/p>\n<p align=\"left\"><font face=\"Arial\" size=\"2\"><span style=\"font-size:10pt\">We are outraged, but by no means surprised, by Israel&#8217;s brutality-and consistent support for it  by the U.S. government. We are not surprised because Israel was founded through a  process of colonization. It is well documented that Israel&#8217;s founders knew then that their role  in this colonizing process would require an ongoing military strategy to continue to &quot;cleanse&quot;  the Palestinian population in the name of a &quot;Jewish&quot; state. They also knew that military  dominance of neighboring Arab countries would be necessary in the name of Jewish &quot;self- defense.&quot; Israel&#8217;s current attacks on Gaza and Lebanon are consistent with this history and  Israel&#8217;s founding vision.&#160; <\/span><\/font><\/p>\n<p align=\"left\"><font face=\"Arial\" size=\"2\"><\/font><\/p>\n<p align=\"left\"><font face=\"Arial\" size=\"2\"><span style=\"font-size:10pt\">Over and above its betrayal of Jewish ethical claims to justice, reason, and equity, Israel, the  &quot;Jewish&quot; state, has failed to realize its stated goal to provide sanctuary for persecuted Jews.  Israel&#8217;s tactics of fueling hatred and inciting fear, not least where tolerance and co-existence  were once longstanding rules, cannot ensure Jewish safety but will endanger the lives of  Israeli citizens and residents and of Jews around the globe.&#160; <\/span><\/font><\/p>\n<p align=\"left\"><font face=\"Arial\" size=\"2\"><\/font><\/p>\n<p align=\"left\"><font face=\"Arial\" size=\"2\"><span style=\"font-size:10pt\">There is no Jewish safety in a country that rehearses the violence and persecution which  Ashkenazi Jews experienced for centuries through the annihilation of the Palestinian people  and their homeland.&#160; <\/span><\/font><\/p>\n<p align=\"left\"><font face=\"Arial\" size=\"2\"><\/font><\/p>\n<p align=\"left\"><font face=\"Arial\" size=\"2\"><span style=\"font-size:10pt\">There is no Jewish safety in alignment with the current Christian fundamentalist attack on  Islam, used historically not only to justify persecuting Ashkenazi and Mizrahi Jews but to rain  terror upon Arabs and Muslims since the time of the earliest Crusades.&#160; <\/span><\/font><\/p>\n<p align=\"left\"><font face=\"Arial\" size=\"2\"><\/font><\/p>\n<p align=\"left\"><font face=\"Arial\" size=\"2\"><span style=\"font-size:10pt\">There is no Jewish safety in allowing the history of Jewish persecution to be leveraged in  support of U.S. political and economic interests as these entail amassing funding for Israel&#8217;s  military industry.&#160; <\/span><\/font><\/p>\n<p align=\"left\"><font face=\"Arial\" size=\"2\"><\/font><\/p>\n<p align=\"left\"><font face=\"Arial\" size=\"2\"><span style=\"font-size:10pt\">Finally, there is no Jewish safety, nor Jewish claims to justice, reason, or equity, beyond  Jewish commitment to the unconditional safety and liberation of the peoples of Palestine,  Lebanon and the other Arab and Muslim countries currently under assault by Israel, the U.S.  and its allies.&#160; <\/span><\/font><\/p>\n<p align=\"left\"><font face=\"Arial\" size=\"2\"><\/font><\/p>\n<p align=\"left\"><font face=\"Arial\"><span style=\"font-size:12pt\"><strong>We, Jews of Conscience, demand that the U.S. government:&#160; <\/strong><\/span><\/font><\/p>\n<p align=\"left\"><font face=\"Arial\" size=\"2\"><\/font><\/p>\n<p align=\"left\"><font face=\"Arial\" size=\"2\"><span style=\"font-size:10pt\">1. Require Israel to stop its brutal siege on Gaza and on Lebanon and call for an  unconditional cease fire.&#160; <\/span><\/font><\/p>\n<p align=\"left\"><font face=\"Arial\" size=\"2\"><\/font><\/p>\n<p align=\"left\"><font face=\"Arial\" size=\"2\"><span style=\"font-size:10pt\">2. Require Israel to stop the expansion of the Israeli Wall of Separation, dismantle the  completed sections, and completely withdraw from Gaza, the West Bank and East  Jerusalem.&#160; <\/span><\/font><\/p>\n<p align=\"left\"><font face=\"Arial\" size=\"2\"><\/font><\/p>\n<p align=\"left\"><font face=\"Arial\" size=\"2\"><span style=\"font-size:10pt\">3. Support the United Nations resolutions demanding that Israel uphold international law and  support the sanctions against Israel necessary to enforce these resolutions.&#160; <\/span><\/font><\/p>\n<p align=\"left\"><font face=\"Arial\" size=\"2\"><\/font><\/p>\n<p align=\"left\"><font face=\"Arial\" size=\"2\"><span style=\"font-size:10pt\">4. End military and economic aid to Israel.&#160; <\/span><\/font><\/p>\n<p align=\"left\"><font face=\"Arial\" size=\"2\"><\/font><\/p>\n<p align=\"left\"><font face=\"Arial\" size=\"2\"><span style=\"font-size:10pt\">5. Support reparations for the Palestinian and Lebanese people for the death and destruction  they have suffered and for aid towards the rebuilding of their countries.&#160; <\/span><\/font><\/p>\n<p align=\"left\"><font face=\"Arial\" size=\"2\"><\/font><\/p>\n<p align=\"left\"><font face=\"Arial\" size=\"2\"><span style=\"font-size:10pt\">&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;-<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n<p align=\"left\"><font face=\"Arial\" size=\"2\"><\/font><\/p>\n<p align=\"left\"><font face=\"Arial\" size=\"2\"><span style=\"font-size:10pt\">To ADD your name to this petition visit: <\/span><\/font><a href=\"http:\/\/www.jewishsolidarity.info\/petition.php\"><font face=\"Arial\" size=\"2\"><span style=\"font-size:10pt\">http:\/\/www.jewishsolidarity.info\/petition.php<\/span><\/font><\/a><\/p>\n<p align=\"left\"><font face=\"Arial\" size=\"2\"><\/font><\/p>\n<p align=\"left\"><font face=\"Arial\" size=\"2\"><\/font><\/p>\n<p align=\"left\"><font face=\"Arial\" size=\"2\"><span style=\"font-size:10pt\">&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8211;<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n<p align=\"left\"><font face=\"Arial\" size=\"2\"><\/font><\/p>\n<p align=\"left\"><font face=\"Arial\" size=\"2\"><span style=\"font-size:10pt\">Everything about this list:<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n<p align=\"left\"><font face=\"Arial\" size=\"2\"><span style=\"font-size:10pt\">http:\/\/lists.riseup.net\/www\/info\/epalestine<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n<p align=\"left\"><font face=\"Arial\" size=\"2\"><\/font><\/p>\n<p align=\"left\"><font face=\"Arial\" size=\"2\"><span style=\"font-size:10pt\">To unsubscribe, send mail to:<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n<p align=\"left\"><font face=\"Arial\" size=\"2\"><span style=\"font-size:10pt\">epalestine-unsubscribe@lists.riseup.net<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n<p align=\"left\"><font face=\"Arial\" size=\"2\"><\/font><\/p>\n<p align=\"left\"><font face=\"Arial\" size=\"2\"><span style=\"font-size:10pt\">To subscribe, send mail to:<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n<p align=\"left\"><font face=\"Arial\" size=\"2\"><span style=\"font-size:10pt\">epalestine-subscribe@lists.riseup.net<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This statement was drafted by U.S. Jews committed to stopping and holding accountable Israel for its destructive policies and practices&#8211;most immediately for a halt to the current attacks on Lebanon and Gaza.&#160; We are gathering signatures from Jews committed to this. Our goal is to then publish this statement in the New York Times and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","iawp_total_views":2,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"ppma_author":[936],"class_list":["post-4897","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"authors":[{"term_id":936,"user_id":4,"is_guest":0,"slug":"sambahour","display_name":"Sam Bahour","avatar_url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/bca109c333bf6d8ae807746dd512adde46265d37c923f6cd0fc4aab437f8e9aa?s=96&d=mm&r=g","author_category":"1","first_name":"Sam","last_name":"Bahour","user_url":"https:\/\/epalestine.ps\/sambahour","job_title":"","description":"Sam Bahour (\u0633\u0627\u0645 \u0628\u062d\u0648\u0631) resides in Al-Bireh\/Ramallah, Palestine. He does business consulting as <a href=\"https:\/\/aim.ps\/\" rel=\"noopener\">Applied Information Management<\/a> (AIM), specializing in business development with a niche focus on the information technology sector and start-ups.\r\n\r\nBahour was instrumental in the establishment of two publicly traded firms: the Palestine Telecommunications Company (PALTEL) and the Arab Palestinian Shopping Centers (APSC). He is Co-founder &amp; Emeritus Member of <a href=\"http:\/\/a4vpe.org\/\" rel=\"noopener\">Americans for a Vibrant Palestinian Economy<\/a> (A4VPE) and until recently served as an independent Director at the Arab Islamic Bank P.L.C. and a board member at <a href=\"https:\/\/justvision.org\/\" rel=\"noopener\">Just Vision<\/a>.\r\n\r\nHe writes frequently on Palestinian affairs and has been widely published in leading outlets. He is co-editor of <em><a href=\"https:\/\/epalestine.ps\/sambahour\/1994\/10\/homeland-oral-histories-of-palestine-and-palestinians-book-recommended\" rel=\"noopener\">HOMELAND: Oral History of Palestine and Palestinians<\/a><\/em> (Olive Branch Press, 1993), tweets at <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/SamBahour\" rel=\"noopener\">@SamBahour<\/a>, and blogs at <a href=\"http:\/\/www.epalestine.ps\/\" rel=\"noopener\">epalestine.ps.<\/a>"}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/epalestine.ps\/sambahour\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4897","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/epalestine.ps\/sambahour\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/epalestine.ps\/sambahour\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epalestine.ps\/sambahour\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epalestine.ps\/sambahour\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4897"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/epalestine.ps\/sambahour\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4897\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/epalestine.ps\/sambahour\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4897"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epalestine.ps\/sambahour\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4897"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epalestine.ps\/sambahour\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4897"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epalestine.ps\/sambahour\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=4897"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}