We are excited to announce the formation of a new IJANchapter in Atlanta, Georgia!  Fivemembers attended the recent US Assembly of Jews and have returned eager to growand strengthen the presence of anti-Zionist Jewish activism in the A-T-L!  If you are in the Atlanta area and areinterested in getting involved, please email us at atlanta@ijsn.net.

An 86-year-old Holocaust survivor was heckled by pro-Israelis whilegiving a controversial talk on Wednesday night at Goldsmiths Universityin Lewisham.

Dr. Hajo Meyer delivered his talk, ‘The Misuse of the Holocaust for Political Purposes’, on the eve of Holocaust Memorial Day .Hiscriticisms of the Israeli government were met with aggression by twoaudience members, who shouted interruptions during talks by both Dr.Meyer and fellow speaker, Palestinian Journalist, Haidar Eid. They alsoheld up signs with the word ‘lies’ written on them.

In 1944 Dr. Meyer spent 10 months in Auschwitz;the largest of the World War II concentration camps. He is now apublished essayist based in the Netherlands, and is involved incampaigning for ending, what he views as, the occupation of Palestine.He is delivering a series of talks as part of a tour organised by the International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network.

The Network’s Founder, Sarah Kershnar, claimed they had not been  allowed to list any of the talks on the official Holocaust Memorial Trustwebsite due to their position on the Israel-Palestine conflict.Ms.Kershnar said: “We tried three times and it wouldn’t go through.”

She has launched a petition in response to the banning, but whenEastLondonLines approached The Holocaust Memorial Day Trust, theydenied having received the submission from IJAN.

James Haywood, the Goldsmiths College student who organized thehosting of the talk for IJAN, said he believed it contributed animportant perspective to the Memorial Day; “The talk we’re holdingtonight is not conventional but its important to remember that racismin all its forms is bad.”

Other East London line boroughs, Croydon and Hackney, hosted moretraditional ‘Candle Lighting Events’ yesterday to commemorate HolocaustMemorial Day.

2011 US Tour

{image_5}

Incommemoration of international Holocaust Remembrance Day, please join Dr. HajoMeyer in sharing the lesson of his experience in Auschwitz: Never Again forAnyone. Dr. Meyer will be joined in several locations by UC Berkeley professor,Dr. Hatem Bazian, chairman of the American Muslims for Palestine, and othersocial justice and Palestinian activists to discuss the urgency of this messagein the United States and Canada today.

In the faceof the on-going ethnic cleansing of Palestine, attacks and persecution ofMuslim and Arab communities in the U.S. and Canada, and on-going attacksagainst the rights of other communities and immigrants, we assert a commitmentto uphold the rights inherent to all people against the application of “never again” to only a few.  

"Thememory of the Jewish Holocaust should not be kept isolated from otheratrocities in history. To remember what happened to the six million Jews ...serves no important purpose unless it arouses indignation, anger, actionagainst all atrocities, anywhere in the world."  ~ Howard Zinn

DR. HAJOMEYER + DR. HATEM BAZIAN

 Otherspeakers included in this tour are Osama Abu-Irshaid, Hedy Epstein, and more.Please visit ampalestine.org to find out in which events Dr. Bazian will beparticipating.

TOUR SCHEDULE

Washington DC: Jan 25, 2011
New York: Jan 27, 2011
New Jersey: Jan 29, 2011
Toronto, Canada: Jan 31, 2011
Toronto, Canada: Feb 1, 2011
Milwaukee: Feb 3, 2011
Chicago: Feb 4 & 5, 2011
Twin Cities: Feb 8, 2011
Atlanta: Feb 10, 2011
New Orleans: Feb 13, 2011
Sacramento: Feb 16, 2011
SF Bay Area: Feb 17, 2011
Los Angeles: Feb 19, 2011

 2010 Europe Tour

{image_3}

InJanuary 2010, IJAN launched its Never Again for Anyone Tour with events infourteen cities across Europe.  Dr. Hajo Meyer, an 86-year old survivor of Auschwitz and member of IJAN Netherlands, spoke to hisperspective on the Zionist "Misuse of the Holocaust for PoliticalPurposes."  For most of the tour his talkwas accompanied by a video presentation or live discussion with Dr. Haidar Eid,professor and activist with the One Democratic State Group in Gaza. Drawing on his experience in NaziGermany, Dr. Meyer identifies many parallels in the role of dehumanization anddiscrimination in the preparation of the German citizens to participate in theNazi genocide of many and the preparation of Israeli society to accept and participatein the ethnic cleaning of Palestinians.

OnJanuary 27, Holocaust Memorial Day, IJAN UK organized an event in the Houseof Parliament with Dr. Meyer. Dr. Eid joined us via teleconference andrepresentatives from historic and current day struggles - from the PotatoFamine to the Armenian genocide and the Roma to the Atlantic Slave Trade - againstgenocide shared their stories and resistance. Then, in France, IJAN France brought together activiststo challenge the exceptionalizing of the Nazi genocide through sharinghistories of colonization and resistance from Algeriaand the Americas.In addition to London and France, the tour included three cities in Scotland, Dublin,Belfast, Liverpool, Sheffield, three cities in France, Vienna, Geneva, and Berlin.

Below are videos of two of the presentations made on the tour, one by Haidar Eid, one by Hajo Meyer.  There bios are below. Meyer presented at each of the locations on the tour.  Eid is in Gaza and was unable to travel or to join the tour in person. His presentation was taped because video conferencing was also not feasible.  The video below is one of four that were pre-taped and shown on the tour - despite power outages and disruption to internet access. The other videos will be available soon.  

The tour reached over 1200 people-most audiences were100-150 per a night. Eid and Meyer received a standing ovation at each.

Hajo Meyer

{image_1} Dr. Hajo G. Meyer wasborn in 1924 in Bielefeld, Germany.Not allowed to attend school there after November 1938, he fled to the Netherlands,alone. In I944, after a year in the underground, he was caught and subsequentlysurvived 10 months at Auschwitz.He lives in the Netherlands,where he works as publicist and essayist. A member of IJAN, Hajo Meyer is onthe board of the Dutch group "A Different Jewish Voice", part of thecoalition of European Jews for Just Peace. He is the author of three books, onJudaism, Holocaust and Zionism.

"My great lesson from Auschwitz is: whoever wants to dehumanise any other, must first be dehumanisedhimself. The oppressors are no longer really human whatever uniform they wear."

{image_2} Dr. Haidar Eid is a refugee whose parents were expelled from the Zarnouqavillage in 1948. Dr. Eid is a member of the PACBI Steering Committee and aco-founder of the One Democratic State Group.  He currently lives in Gaza,where he is an Associate Professor of Cultural Studies at Al-Aqsa University.

"Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa said, "If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor.' The UN, EU, Arab League and the international community by and large remained silent in the face of the atrocities committed by Apartheid Israel. & nbsp;They are therefore on the side of Israel." 

Remembrance and Responsibility

Acampaign to rejoin the Jewish history of resistance to genocide with those currentlystruggling for survival, self-determination, emancipationand liberation

TheInternationalJewish Anti-Zionist Network's Remembrance Campaign aims tochallenge thepresentation of the Nazi Genocide in which the history of thedecimationof Jews is disconnected from the millions of other victims whoperished in the same war, even in the same camps. It also challenges theexceptionalizing, falsifying and exploiting of this memory in an effort tojustify and dismiss the colonization, ethnic cleansing and apartheid inPalestine.  Such exceptionalizing, along with the violence committed by asanctified Israel in the name of all Jews, isolates the Jewish experiences ofracism, displacement and mass murder, and separatesEurope's history of Jewishpersecution from other peoples' experiences with-and strugglesagainst-persecution, racism and genocide. In opposition to this separatism, forus the history of the Nazi genocide demands that we never stand aside as anypeople faces such violence. And,far from an exception, the racism, sadism anddehumanization that facilitated the Nazi genocide, and governments'collaboration with it, has long roots in Europe's history of imperial conquest,slavery, genocide and Christian supremacy.

 Click here to read the rationale for IJAN's Remembrance Campaign, which the Never Again UK/Ireland tour is kicking off.

D'abord quelques remarques terminologiques.

Pour éviter toute discussion juridique inopportune, nous proposons de parler de massacres de masse au XXème siècle plutôt que de génocides ou decrimes contre l'humanité. Ces deux derniers termes ont été l'objet de définitions juridiques après la seconde guerre mondiale, le terme "crimecontre l'humanité" ayant été défini dans le cadre du procès de Nuremberg . S'il peut être intéressant d'avoir une intervention sur les aspects juridiques, cela ne nous semble pas ici le point le plus important.

 Cliquez ici pour lire la logique derrière le IJAN France Never Again tour.

 Dates pour Paris, Lyon, et Strasbourg qui sera annoncée bientôt.

Mass murders of the 20th century

First off, some remarks on terminology.

To avoid unnecessary juridical debate, we propose to speak of mass murders of the 20th century rather than genocide or crimesagainst humanity. These two last terms have been the object of judicialdefinitions since after the Second World War; the term "crime against humanity" was defined during the Nuremberg Trials. While it might be interesting to intervene on these judicial debates, this seems to us to not be the most important point for the moment.

The use of the terms "genocides" and "crimes against humanity" leads to interminable debates between those who support the legal definitions in place and those who want to rely on the facts, the latter group divided between those who try to stick to the facts and those who would add their political or ideological interpretation, hoping that the use of a particular term would reinforce the political condemnation.

The Armenian Genocide of 1915 is an example. Speaking of "genocide" means for some that the Turks had planned this massacre, while for others it means less a planned massacre than a consequence of adeportation that the Turkish government had organized for security reasons, Armenians being considered potential allies of the Russian enemy. The question, then, is less to find the best term than to focus on the fact that there was a massacre. 

  Read the rest of the IJAN France rationale for the Never again tour