Iran Press/ America: The statement has drawn international attention because of the prominent Israelis who have signed its forthright declaration that “Palestinians live under a regime of apartheid”, including the renowned Jewish historian Benny Morris, and the former speaker of the Keneset, Avraham Burg.
The open letter, which has gathered more than 1,500 signatories since it was released a week ago, comes amid months of mass demonstrations in the Zionist entity against Netanyahu’s legislation to weaken the power of the judiciary, widely seen as a battle for the country’s soul.
The protesters in occupied Palestine have drawn support from several major Jewish groups in the US, which have criticized the legal changes as designed to help Netanyahu evade prosecution for corruption – and for rightwing members of his government to weaken individual rights, particularly for women, Arabs, and secular or religiously liberal Jews.
But the statement said Jewish American leaders have failed to speak out on “the ultimate purpose” of the judicial overhaul to “annex more land, and ethnically cleanse all territories under the Zionist regime rule of their Palestinian population”.
“American Jews have long been at the forefront of social justice causes, from racial equality to abortion rights, but have paid insufficient attention to the elephant in the room: Tel Aviv's longstanding occupation that … has yielded a regime of apartheid,” the statement says.
The open letter urges “leaders of North American Jewry” to support the anti-Netanyahu protest movement while embracing equality for Palestinians who “lack almost all basic rights, including the right to vote and protest”.
“There cannot be a democracy for Jews in Israel as long as Palestinians live under a regime of apartheid, as Israeli legal experts have described it,” it says.
The signatories include the Jews in the occupied lands, Palestinians, Jewish American academics, religious leaders, musicians, and lawyers.
The statement in part reflects a concern among some protesters that if they are successful in blocking the judicial changes, the Zionist entity will return to the cycle of governments maintaining occupation without end and expanding annexation by stealth, including settlement expansion.
The statement notes that the controversial judicial reforms are being driven in part by “American Jewish billionaire funders” supporting the Zionist regime far right.
The statement calls on American Jewish groups to “support human rights organizations which defend Palestinians” and to back an overhaul of Tel Aviv's education system “to provide a more honest appraisal of the Zionist entity’s past and present”.
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