Israeli citizens who support UNISON’s boycott of Israel proposal (Labournet)

Israeli citizens who support UNISON’s boycott of Israel proposal

Report by Nitza Aminov and 85 others
Published: 15/06/07

Hello

We are a group of Israeli citizens who support UNISON’s boycott of Israel proposal. We are sending you a letter we wrote in support of the proposal. We circulated the letter among our networks and in a few days gathered 86 signatures of Israeli citizens. We decided to stop gathering more signatures and to send you the letter today so that you will have time to circulate the letter among your constituents before your June 19th meeting. We wish you well in your efforts, and thank you very much for taking action to try to bring the Israeli occupation to an end. We hope to keep in touch and we would be very happy to cooperate further with you on this matter. Please find the letter below as well as in an attachment with this e-mail. We would appreciate it if you could confirm having received our letter.

Thank you very much.

Citizens of Israel in support of the proposal for a UNISON Economic and Cultural Boycott of Israel

We Palestinian and Jewish citizens of Israel strongly support the proposal for UNISON to implement an economic and cultural boycott of Israel. We commend this proposal, especially in the wake of the historic decision by the University and College Union in Britain and similar proposals by the Architects for Peace and Justice in Palestine and the Congress of South African Trade Unions. Actions such as these have an immediate impact within Israel. They receive wide coverage in the mainstream media and provide an extremely effective tool in our joint struggle to bring the occupation to a just end.

We are Israeli citizens active against our country’s occupation of Palestine. We refuse to accept the state of poverty, unemployment, oppression and violence from which our Palestinian brothers and sisters are suffering in the OPT. We stress the connections between the violent oppression of the Palestinians in the OPT, and the oppression of the working poor, women, immigrant workers, the unemployed, Arabs, and other minority groups within Israel. The ongoing conflict in the region prevents Israeli workers from effectively mobilizing against neo-liberal reforms and an accelerated process of privatization, under the guise of an ongoing state of emergency in which national security always take precedence over societal needs.

It is now evident that the so-called disengagement from the Gaza Strip in August 2005 has, in fact, kept the military occupation of the strip intact. Since the implementation of the disengagement plan in August 2005, the Israeli military has killed more than 590 Palestinians in direct conflict in the Gaza Strip, including 113 children, and injured over 1, 600, including 103 children. It is also evident that the current situation in Sderot is the direct consequence of Israel’s continuing aggression in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. Since the ruling of the ICJ court in Hague against the Separation Wall, and in blatant violation of that ruling, the Israeli government has accelerated construction of the Wall, leading to progressive violations of the human rights of residents of the West Bank. It also continues to build and expand settlements, including on land confiscated for the purpose of building the Wall, illegal according to international law.

As citizens devoted to the promotion of peace and democracy in the region, we are especially bewildered at the international community’s decision to punish the Palestinians and to withhold funds from the PA for having exercised their democratic right to elect the government of their choice. At the same time, the international community continues, through economic investments in Israel, to actively support Israel’s daily violations of international law and accelerated colonization of the occupied territories. We fear the potentially irreversible damage created by Israeli and international policy, and realize that the occupation will truly end only when its cost becomes higher that its gain for Israeli society. As Israelis, we stress that divestment and boycott actions taken by individuals or organizations against the occupation are neither Anti-Semitic nor Anti-Israel. We also recognize that boycott, divestment and sanctions constitute one of the few effective methods left to civil society in the absence of intervention by governments and official policy makers. We salute UNISON for putting the proposal for boycott of Israel up for consideration, and strongly encourage others to take similar steps.

Sincerely,

Nitza Aminov
Dr. Aharon Shabtai
Dorothy Naor
Romm Levkovitz
Talma Bar-Din
Jeannette Herzberg
Michael Warschawski
Shai Carmeli Pollack
Kerstin Sodergren
Emmanuel Farjoun
Dr. Anat Matar
Angela Goldfrey-Goldstein
Dr. Tikva Honig-Parnass
Roman Vater
Hillel Barak
Angelo Aidan
Yoav Barak
Dr. Kobi Snitz
Amit Ron
Ofer Neiman
Tsilli Goldenberg
Adam Keller
Beate Zilversmidt
Aviv Sela
David Nir
Shira Pinhas
Alissa Ben-Ari
Rann Bar-On
Neta Golan
Reuven Kaminer
Mazen Masri
Emily Schaeffer
Amit Ron
Yael Levi
Einat Podjarny
Jonatan Stanczak
Amit Perelson
Elana Wesley
Dr. Ilan Pappe
Ronit Lentin
Deb Reich
Moshe Machover
Ali Al-Azhari
Ruth Tenne
Edna Canetti
Racheli Bar-Or
Racheli Gai
Itay Greenstein
Yotam Pappo
Tamar Fleishman
Galit Hess
Racheli Merhav
Rela Mazali
Dr. Rachel Giora
Yonatan Pollack
Yfat Doron
Hanna Aviram
Juliano Mer Khamis
Matan Cohen
Dr. Hubert Law-Yone
Arie Finkelstein
Shmuel Yerushalmi
Nina Mayorek
Yosef Atia
Judith Blanc
Dafna Kaminer
Alla Nikonov
Dorit Abramovitch
Layla Tripoli Mosenson
Nadav Franckovits
Lymor Goldstein
Hanna Knaz
Dr. Hannah Safran
Hed Roth
Sergio Yahni
Ronnie Barkan
Asaf Weit
Adi Dagan
Netta van Vliet
Tamar Berger
Yael Lerer
Israel Puterman
Raja Zaatry
Aisheh Sedawi
Hagit Borer
Hisham Naffa

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