CANBERRA On September 22, a group of Australian Jews released a statement in support of the rights of Palestinians and condemning the actions of the Israeli government in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip.
Rick Kuhn, a senior lecturer in political science at the Australian National University and an initiator of the statement by Jews Against Oppression and Occupation, said that the fundamental cause [of the conflict in Palestine] is the dispossession of the Palestinian people and their oppression at the hands of the Israeli state.
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict will not be resolved unless there is an immediate withdrawal of Israel's military forces from the West Bank and Gaza and a total Israeli withdrawal including all Israeli settlements from the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem, Kuhn said.
Award-winning journalist David Liebhold, a former Time magazine correspondent and another initiator of the statement, pointed to the countless historical atrocities against Jews that were perpetrated by relatively small groups. They were made possible by the failure of the majority to speak up. We don't want to make the same mistake. Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and his supporters claim that if you criticise the actions of the Israeli state, you are an anti-Semite. This is bullshit. In fact, Sharon's actions are about oppressing and killing people. Jews with a conscience cannot remain silent.
View the statement at <http://www.geocities.com/jewsaoo/>.
From Green Left Weekly, October 16, 2002.
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