Jewish Voices Against the Israeli Attacks
‘They are doing good, but they can do more’, Avi Pilchick was photographed telling reporters (Jan 5). He was just one of the Jewish Israeli bystanders on nearby hill-tops, applauding the spectacle of bombs hurtling down upon Gaza. The official voice of Jewish opinion around the world, if less celebratory, is rallying in support of Israel.
Yet, significant numbers of Jewish people, inside and outside Israel, are devastated. Unable to halt the routine violation of human rights in Israel’s occupied territories or the prolonged and brutal siege preventing even the most urgent supplies reaching Gaza, we now face the enduring horror of military invasion. While condemning every rocket fired on civilians from Gaza, we reject as absurd the ubiquitous Israeli propaganda that bombing and terrorizing Gaza will end them.
Despite its ideological hatred of Israel, elected Hamas officials have proved willing to negotiate. Hamas largely kept its side of the ceasefire it had agreed with Israel before the ending of the truce period, while in Gazan eyes Israel’s continued siege of their territory constantly violated it, devastating civilian life. Few people seem able to change the lens through which they view this tragedy.
Few people seem able to change the lens through which they view this tragedy. Yet, like the Canadian women who occupied the Israeli embassy in Toronto, the hundreds of well-known Israeli writers, artists, musicians, academics and others, calling upon the international community to stop Israel , more Jewish voices are fighting harder than ever to force the world to pressurize Israel to accept that there is no military solution to this conflict, and to begin honest negotiations with all parties necessary for a peaceful settlement: a strategy it has rarely attempted, and never consistently pursued.
Lynne Segal (Founding Signatory IJV)