A Look At ‘The Elephant In The Room’ Petition & Who Signed It Thus Far
When the Arabs and Muslims of the world condemn Israel’s settler occupation accusing it of ethnic cleansing, it is easy to claim that their accusations are porous. But what is there to claim when Jewish Israelis themselves side with the Palestinians and condemn the actions of the Israeli regime?
In 2014, Hank Zanoli, a Dutch man who was awarded The Righteous Among the Nations, for hiding a Jewish man in his house for two years during WWII, after Israel bombed the house of his family in Gaza, killing six of his relatives.
Zanoli gave back his award and said: “Over more than six decades I have however slowly come to realize that the Zionist project had from its beginning a racist element in it in aspiring to build a state exclusively for Jews.”
Zanoli’s story has touched many people, the sudden disillusionment with Israeli ambition to build their own state has hit countless Jewish Israeli people.
Right now, 1158 Jewish Israeli academics and public figures are signing the “Response to 7 October” petition to end the violence in the Gaza Strip.
The petition that is now signed by prestigious academics reads:
“End the violent oppression of the Palestinian people. Apartheid, the West Bank’s decades-long Occupation, keeping Gaza’s two million Palestinians under siege for 16 years, erasing the memory of the Nakba, now all contribute to the brutalization and violence. They must be urgently brought to an end. There is no other way out.”
Earlier this year, before the current events, they issued another petition called “The Elephant in the Room” that was signed by 2848 academics and public figures clearly acknowledging Israel as an illegal state, demanding equal rights for Palestinians and Israelis as “There cannot be a democracy for Jews in Israel as long as Palestinians live under a regime of apartheid.”
WE SAID THIS: Don’t Miss…German Grassroots Group ‘Voices In Europe For Peace’ Calls For Petition Signing & Ceasefire