On October 16, Twin Cities IJAN organizer Sylvia Schwarzspoke on a panel for the Joint Peace with Justice Committee of the Minneapolisand St. Paul Area synods, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, entitled“Seeking Israeli/Palestinian Peace: Varied Voices from the Jewish Community.” Thediscussion featured local panelists representing four very diverse Jewishorganizations—Jewish Community Relations Council, Jewish Voice for Peace,J-Street, and the International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network. Schwarzrepresented IJAN's views, and you can download her speech in full below. Toread a follow-up article on Modoweiss, click here.

You can also watch the panel online at - Seeking Israeli /Palestinian Peace: Varied Voices from the Jewish Community. Part 1 includesprepared remarks from the panelists followed by some audience response. Part 2features a wrap up of audience response and discussion. This segment alsoincludes a post panel interview with two members of the International JewishAnti-Zionist Network. (Panel filmed Oct 16, 2011 at Central Lutheran Church,Mpls. Post panel interview filmed 10/30/11). Both parts can be found here: http://ourworldindepth.org/archives/451

Recently, Jewish anti-Zionist activists, includingorganizers of the International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network (IJAN), wereattacked in a video⁽ⁱ⁾ made by Gilad Atzmon. In this video, Atzmonaccuses us of "relentlessly putting pressure" on conference panelists, to"suppress freedom of speech" and "hijack the Palestinian solidarity movement."

Contrary to Atzmon's misrepresentations, not only has IJANnot put any pressure on any of the people allegedly "silenced" and "pressured"not to attend the conference in Freiburg, but we had no communication at all withany of them. IJAN had a discussion that included Hajo Meyer, an IJAN member. Discussingour concerns, or for that matter voicing a public opinion, censors no-one, andwe will not ourselves be censored by this absurd accusation.

Meyer and IJAN share a commitment to challenging the Zionistmisuse of the holocaust. For two years running, Meyer toured the US and Europeas part of the IJAN "Never Again for Anyone" campaign, organized with ourpartners.  This campaign exposes andchallenges the misuse of the Nazi genocide of Jews by Zionist institutions bybringing together victims of genocides, including Jewish holocaust survivors,with Muslims struggling against Islamophobia. We discussed together the possible implications for our work if heshared a platform with an antisemitic ideologue and promoter of holocaustdenial. The Never Again campaign challenges Zionism. Holocaust denial, asJoseph Massad has pointed out, is "the strongest manifestation ofanti-Semitism" in the West andhas "no position whatsoever inside the PLO nor any legitimacy among thePalestinian intelligentsia."ⁱⁱ⁾