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Women theworld over suffer the daily impact of the global market, of chess games playedwith our lives by the rich and powerful over who has access to political powerand resources, of military economies, and of the criminalization and otherviolences inflicted on those who stand in the way of power and profit.

The Zioniststate of Israel participates in all of these violences.  The impact on women, children and families ofbuilding an exclusive, Jewish state in Palestine takes so many forms:

Palestinianwomen visiting, defending and supporting there sons, brothers, fathers, and uncleswho are the 60 percent of Palestinian men who end up as political prisoners atsome point in their lives.  Women whomaintain the Palestinian culture that Zionism tries so hard to destroy. Womenwho confront Israeli soldiers on a daily basis who are attempting to take theirland, their houses, their families. Women who rebuild life after Israel’s assault on Gaza.

Meanwhile,Israeli families are being imbued with, implementing and inheriting nationalistmessages of racism, fear and hate, and spreading around the world is the Islamophobicdiscrimination and targeting that Zionism promotes and encourages.

In all of ourmovements for justice across the globe, including the incredible bursts of hopeand possibility spreading across North Africa and Southwest Asia now, women,queers and trans people, and moreso those of color, make movement happen.  We, all in our own and specific ways, understandso viscerally the impact of bigotry, chauvinism and racism that fuel andjustify the creation of haves and have nots. This understanding has always given us the motivation, courage andstrength to survive and resist, and to not be interested in the kind of powerthat is used against us, but to be the foundation of the mass movements thatare the power behind our collective liberation. 

The International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network (IJAN) salutes the courage and resolve of the Egyptian people and honors the martyrs of the people’s struggle. We see the increasing mobilization, determination, boldness and joy of those who every day learn more of what they want and how to get it, and are teaching all of us.

Every day we are witness to the arrogant rulers plotting against it and growing fearful of the power of the movement and what it is accomplishing against them and for all. May the Egyptian example set fire in the heart of people and may the revolution that started in Tahrir Square advance and be the mother of many revolutions all over the world.

As the Tunisians before them, the people of Egypt has risen up against the tyrannical and brutal imposed on them by the United States in conjunction with the Zionist regime of Israel and their collaborators, a larcenous rule that condemned the Egyptian people to decades of poverty, torture, and humiliation. For three decades, Egypt has been the second largest recipient of US aid after Israel, monies that were invested in oppression and corruption and generated poverty and misery for Egypt while facilitating Israel’s continuing ethnic cleansing of Palestinians. As Israeli politicians and their allies in the US flock to support Mubarak’s tattering regime, the world can see what the phrase, “the only democracy in the Middle East,” really stands for.

Whereas…the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s stated purpose is to promotetolerance and fight bigotry, hatred and discrimination:

• YET, when the Park51 Islamic Cultural Center was targeted by bigoted stereotypes and accusations, the Chair of the Board, Rabbi Hier, issued a statement equating all Muslims with the actions of extremists;

  AND

• The educational program at the NYC Simon Wiesenthal Center portrays bigoted images of Muslims almost exclusively as terrorists and extremists.

In early January 2011, Dakota activist, scholar and author Dr. Waziyatawin was called by the FBI and questioned about her beliefs and a speech she gave at Winona State University in November ’10. IJAN-TC, in our work against racism and colonialism, viewed this call from the FBI as an attempt to isolate and intimidate a member of our community for Truth Telling.

IJAN-TC and Birthright Unplugged are partnering to present a workshop titled "The Exploitation of Queers; Pinkwashing, Palestine and our Joint Struggles."

Sunday, February 6th at 9am in Minneapolishttp://creatingchange.org/

Workshop description:The language and ideology of LGBT equality and rights is currently being used by the U.S. and Israeli governments to mask racism, colonialism, and the oppression of Palestinian people, while furthering Islamophobia. In this workshop we will learn the history of this tactic, known as Pinkwashing. We will look at campaigns that challenge Pinkwashing, further Palestinian liberation and support indigenous sovereignty. We will also consider our personal stakes in this work, and explore methods of integrating international solidarity into our work for queer liberation.

The International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network (IJAN) proudly stands alongside the organizations targeted by the Anti-Defamation League’s (ADL) blacklist of "Anti-Israel Groups In America" — the ADL’s derogatory code words for supporters of Palestinian human rights.
 
Whilepresenting itself as a civil rights agency, the ADL has a long history of trying to intimidate and silence those who challenge racism and injustice.
 
In the 1950s, it collaborated with McCarthyite witch-hunts against trade unionists and social justice activists.
 
Inthe past two decades, it has participated in the surveillance of over one thousand social justice and human rights organizations, including opponents of South African apartheid, the United Farm Workers, the Vanguard Public Foundation, Labor Council/AFL-CIO, U.S. Peace Council, NAACP, MADRE, Greenpeace, and the Center for Constitutional Rights.

(NEW YORK 1/30/2011) — Yesterday, right wing counter protestors disrupted an event honoring the memory of the Nazi Holocaust, ignoring the event’s message of support for all who continue to fight for their rights and for collective humanity. Concerned with protecting speakers and audience members, police closed the event for more than one hour, with the result that a number of interested participants were unable to enter.

Rutgers Hillel, Young Americans for Freedom, the Zionist Organization of America and other Zionist organizations have falsely charged that Jews were excludedfrom the Never Again for Anyone tour stop at Rutgers University in New Brunswick on January 29. The false allegations of anti-Semitism have been made repeated by right-wing blogger David Horowitz, the Jerusalem Post, JTA, WorldNet Daily, and similar websites — none of whom requested to speak with event organizers.

"The accusation that anyone was excludedfrom this event due to his or her ethnicity or political views is a complete fabrication," said Sara Kershnar of the International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network. "Many of the organizers and participants of this event are Jewish, and anyone who paid the nominal $5 admission was welcome," she said.

The tour’s purpose is summarized as follows: ‘In the face of the on-going ethnic cleansing of Palestine, attacks and persecution of Muslim and Arab communities in the U.S. and Canada, and on-going attacksagainst the rights of other communities and immigrants, we assert a commitment to collective humanity against the application of “never again” to only a few.'[1]

The protest was organized by campus Hillel and publicized by Pamela Geller,[2] a prominent anti-Muslim and anti-Arab opponent of the Park51 Islamic Cultural Center in Lower Manhattan.

The Israelis tried to dehumanize thePalestinians, just like the Nazis tried to dehumanize me." — Dr. HajoMeyer, Holocaust Survivor
 
"My grandmother was ill in bed when the Nazis came to her home town. AGerman soldier shot her dead in her bed. My grandmother did not die to providecover for Israeli soldiers murdering Palestinian grandmothers in Gaza." –Sir Gerald Kaufman, MP
 
"The world said we would never allow that to happen again. The uprising ofthe Warsaw Ghetto — the Intifada of the Jewish prisoners in Poland in 1943 –actually inspires us here in Gaza." — Dr. Haidar Eid, Al-Aqsa University,Gaza
                                                                                                    
For more than six decades, Zionists have dominated global discussion of theNazi genocide. By their account, the Holocaust unleashed a level of sufferingunmatched by any other event in history.
 
The lesson, they claim, is that Jews require a separate state in which they area demographic majority and exercise legalized supremacy over the non-Jewishindigenous population.
 
This Zionist narrative withstands neither historical nor moral scrutiny.
 
Far from being the unique tragedy Zionists have proclaimed it, Jewish sufferingunder the Nazis has numerous historical parallels. The Holocaust itselftargeted and massacred not only Jews, but also millions of others whom Nazislikewise regarded as "subhuman," including Roma, Slavs, gay people,and people with disabilities.

In his blog, Jonathan Hoffman, co-vice-chair of the Zionist Federation in the U.K., described survivor of the Nazi genocide Hajo Meyer thus:

This week – deliberately timed to coincide with Holocaust Memorial Day on Wednesday – a small group of such Jewish hypercritics is teaming up with the usual suspects to parade their performing trophy Israel-hating Holocaust survivor, Hajo Meyer, the length and breadth of the UK and Ireland. He started in Scotland and the first newspaper report has come out, including a quote from me.

Like some grotesque, ungainly performing bear in the circus, Meyer is dancing willingly to his ringmaster’s tune, saying that Israel’s actions are the same as those of the Nazis, that Israel causes antisemitism and that “an anti-Semite is somebody who is hated by Jews.” (The Jc.com)

According to Hoffman, Meyer, author of three books about the subject, cannot possibly have formed his own opinions in light of his own personal experience, including his time in Auschwitz. He must be manipulated by his "ringmasters." We are unforunately not shocked by Hoffman’s disrespect of a holocaust survivor’s right to his own experience. This is what we’d come to expect from the apparatchiks of Zionism.