US Jews to Hollywood stars: Boycott Israel celebration!

The following has been sent as an open letter to Jason Alexander, Heidi Klum, Debi Mazar, Kevin Spacey, Oliver Stone, Kiefer Sutherland, and all other confirmed attendees of the September 18 celebration of Israel at Paramount Studios.

It has also been sent to unconfirmed guests Angelina Jolie, Brad Pitt, Julia Roberts, and Adam Sandler.

Stay tuned for any updates or action announcements!

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Update: We received an email from Ixtlan Productions — Oliver Stone’s management — who confirmed that Oliver Stone did not, and was not planning to, attend the September 18 event.  The email did not state a reason or respond to the call for boycott.

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September 12, 2008

We write to you with sadness and outrage as we learn that you plan to attend the September 18 event “From Vision to Reality,” a Hollywood celebration of sixty years since the establishment of the state of
Israel. The vision that led to the reality of the Israeli state is one of systematic and ongoing ethnic and religious discrimination against the Palestinian people. This does not deserve to be celebrated.

Sixty years ago, Zionist groups destroyed over 500 Palestinian villages and made more than 800,000 Palestinian people refugees in order to create a Jewish state in a land where the majority was not Jewish. This has come to be known by Palestinians as the Nakba, or “catastrophe,” and this Nakba continues today. Inside of the 1948 borders of Israel, Palestinian citizens are denied equal rights to Jews under the law. Palestinians in Gaza, the West Bank, and East Jerusalem are denied access to land,  water, healthcare, and other basic resources. Today there are more than 7 million Palestinian refugees throughout the world, all of whom are denied their internationally recognized right to return to their homes and land simply because they are not Jewish.

As Jewish North Americans, we are outraged at the policies the state of Israel has implemented in our names and with our government’s financial support for more than sixty years.  At the same time, we are inspired by the ongoing creative resistance of the Palestinian people, and most recently the unified civil society call for boycott, divestment, and sanctions against Israel until it complies with international law.  We ask you to heed this call.  Boycott is a nonviolent tool that has been used by ordinary people  countless times to hold countries responsible for atrocities when our governments fail to do so.  In South Africa, the boycott movement helped bring about an end to the apartheid system.  In the case of Israel/Palestine, it can do the same.

Whether you attend or not, you are making a statement.  If you attend, you indicate that you support the displacement of hundreds of thousands of people (now millions) and ongoing policies of ethnic cleansing of an indigenous population from their land.  If you cancel your attendance, you indicate that you will not turn a blind eye to both the suffering and the call to action of millions of Palestinian people.

With stature comes responsibility, and we hope you do not take yours lightly.

Sincerely,

The No Time To Celebrate Campaign
a campaign organized and implemented by thousands of Jewish people in the US and Canada this year to protest Israeli Independence Day activities, to commemorate the Nakba, and to honor the Palestinian
call for boycott against Israel

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Philadelphia Jews Say Israel’s 60th is No Time to Celebrate

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4sCRmASPfis&hl=en

Organizers Commemorate Palestinian Displacement at “Israel 60″ Parade and Festival

PHILADELPHIA, PA — On Sunday, May 18, 2008, anti-zionist Jews from across the Philadelphia area protested the Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia’s “Israel 60 Parade and Festival” under the banner of “No Time to Celebrate.” Activists wore all black and held signs reading “60 years of Ethnic Cleansing – No Time to Celebrate” and “Philadelphia’s Jews Remember the Nakba.”

Activists lined the Israel 60 parade route and demonstrated their position of dissent from within the Jewish community. In addition to holding signs and chanting, the activists also held the image of Handala – the character created by Palestinian artist Naji Al-Ali who represents the struggle of Palestinian refugees. Protester Hannah Mermelstein explained, “The Nakba that began in 1948 continues today. Even thought the Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia claims “one city, one celebration”, we are here to let participants and organizers of the Israel 60 Parade and Festival know that there has never been Jewish consensus around Israel. We support Palestinian people’s right to return, individually and collectively, to the homes they lost in 1948 and in the violent decades since then.”

The protestors brought attention to the history of Palestinian dispossession. While many in the world celebrate Israel 60, Palestinians around the world mourn 60 years since the Nakba – Arabic for “catastrophe” – of 1948. Sixty years ago, Zionist militias destroyed over 500 Palestinian villages and made more than 800,000 Palestinian people refugees in order to create a Jewish state in a land where the majority was not Jewish.

According to Israeli Human Rights organization B’Tselem, Palestinians in Gaza, the West Bank, and East Jerusalem are denied access to land, water, healthcare, and other basic resources. Palestinians throughout historic Palestine experience international isolation, economic devastation aided by the erection of a 730-kilometer wall, and continued closures and invasions including the siege of Gaza.

Another protester Adam Horowitz noted, “The Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia does not speak for the entire Jewish community. We imagine “independence” and “freedom” outside the bounds of a state based on ethnic exclusivity and dispossession. This is no time to celebrate.

Letter Published in Guardian (UK): “We’re not celebrating Israel’s anniversary”

“We’re not celebrating Israel’s anniversary”

Published April 30, 2008 in the UK Guardian
View full letter and list of signatories at the Guardian online

In May, Jewish organisations will be celebrating the 60th anniversary of the founding of the state of Israel. This is understandable in the context of centuries of persecution culminating in the Holocaust. Nevertheless, we are Jews who will not be celebrating. Surely it is now time to acknowledge the narrative of the other, the price paid by another people for European anti-semitism and Hitler’s genocidal policies. As Edward Said emphasised, what the Holocaust is to the Jews, the Naqba is to the Palestinians.

In April 1948, the same month as the infamous massacre at Deir Yassin and the mortar attack on Palestinian civilians in Haifa’s market square, Plan Dalet was put into operation. This authorised the destruction of Palestinian villages and the expulsion of the indigenous population outside the borders of the state. We will not be celebrating.