Jewish
International Opposition Statement Against Attack on Iran
12/08/08
"ICH" -- - Efforts to beat the drums of war for an
attack on Iran’s nuclear reactor facilities are promoted in
both the USA and Israel scenes. The recent New York Times
opinion piece of July 18th, written by the
Israeli historian Benny Morris, serves to consolidate those
political forces. The Jewish opposition here expresses our
outrage in order to forestall this horrendous proposal.
That clamour
for war with Iran has met not only popular opposition but
also runs counter to the quiet diplomacy that has engaged
Iran in ongoing relations with the UN nuclear agency, as
well as economic trade talks with the USA itself. Israel is
also committed to a cease-fire that has held now for a
month’s time, to the relief of both the populations of
Israel and Gaza. In light of the developing political
atmosphere of reason and negotiations, the militarist
mindset has pumped up its rationale for war attempting to
create the preconditions for a further war. Morris seeks to
fabricate such prior conditions arguing,
“They are likely to use any bomb they build, both because of
ideology and because of fear of Israeli nuclear pre-emption.
Thus an Israeli nuclear strike to prevent the Iranians from
taking the final steps toward getting the bomb is probable.
The alternative is letting Tehran have its bomb. In either
case, a Middle Eastern nuclear holocaust would be in the
cards.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/18/opinion/18morris.html
This
promotion of inevitability plays on Jewish and Israeli
memory of the Nazi Holocaust in order to garner any and
every source of support for an Israel military strike
against Iran, provoking a reaction and leading to a further
war by drawing in the USA. This is particularly deplorable
in view of the fact that 16 US intelligence agencies
concluded that Iran does not have a nuclear weapons program
and has not had one for five years.
We
extol the heroic courage of Israel's nuclear whistle-blower
Mordechai Vanunu, joining our voices to his in condemnation
of Israel's illegal stockpile of nuclear warheads and
support the call for a nuclear-free Middle East.
The mindset
calling for a war of mutual annihilation as a solution to
security is astoundingly self-contradictory. Only the
fabrication of a Nazi-like threat seeks to provide any
credibility to such a call to war, much like the rationale
for occupation that perceives a Palestinian plot to drive
Jews into the sea. The reference to Iranian ideology (Islam)
as the source of confrontation does not stand up to
scrutiny, since the political challenge to Israel by Iranian
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is not a call for
extermination, despite any mistranslation.
We seek
security for all concerned by affirming the right of all to
security. While we lend no credibility to the prospect of an
inevitable conflict, we nonetheless object to the hysteria
promoted by the Iran-bashers who are now desperate in their
repeated false starts to create another unnecessary war.
The attempt to oblige Iran to
comply with Security Council resolutions loses its legal,
diplomatic and political force as the United States and
Israel consistently ignore UN diplomacy
and World Court decisions,
relevant to the question of Palestine.
We call upon all opposed to a military
confrontation with Iran to write their governmental
representatives demanding
that the State of Israel subject its nuclear facilities to
international inspection and sign the nuclear
non-proliferation treaty (NPT) as has Iran, rather than
issue threats of war.
Further
endorsements may be added by sending in a message to
saalaha@fokus.name
Initiators:
For further information;
Stanley Heller
www.TheStruggle.org
mail@TheStruggle.org
New York
Prof. Dr. Fanny-Michaela Reisin
Jewish Voice for a Just Peace in Middle East - EJJP
www.juedische-stimme.de
mailto:mail@juedische-stimme.de
Germany
Abraham Weizfeld
saalaha@fokus.name 514.284.66.42
Interim Administrative Secretary,
Alliance of Concerned Jewish Canadians
Loze mir alle leiben mit
shytvis un shulim
Montréal
Organizational Co-signers :
Alliance of Concerned Jewish Canadians
jewish.alliance@yahoo.ca
Colorado Jews for a Just Peace
Granny Peace Brigade Philadelphia
Germantown Friends Meeting, Peace &
Social Concerns
Independent Jewish Voices Montreal
Jewish Voice for a Just Peace,
Switzerland
Jews for Boycotting Israeli Goods
New Profile
a feminist,
pluralist Israeli movement of males and females who wish to
transform Israel from a militaristic society to a civil-ized
one.
www.newprofile.org
Women in Black
San Francisco Bay Area in Oakland,
California
Women in Black (Vienna)
Co-signers :
Paula Abrams-Hourani
Women in Black (Vienna) and
Jewish Voice for a Just Peace in the
Middle East (EJJP-Austria)
Miriam Adams
New Mexico
Prof. Ammiel Alcalay
CUNY Graduate Center & Queens College
Henry Ascher, MD, PhD, Assoc. Professor
Gothenburg, Sweden
Tsela Barr
Madison
Chapter of Jewish Voice for Peace
Abigail B. Bakan, Ph.D., Queen’s
University
Canada
Judith Bernstein
Jewish-Palestinian Dialogue Group Munich
Murray &
Marcia Bernstein
Brooklyn,
NY
Rudolf
Bkouche
vice-président,
l'Union Juive Française pour la Paix
Mark Robert Brill
As a Jewish
Canadian (and inhabitant of the same planet as any and all
who may read this), I
Wholeheartedly
endorse the statement in opposition to the Benny Morris
article which appeared in the New York Times urging an
attack on Iran.
Neither as a
Jew, nor a human being living in this age of myriad pressing
concerns which threaten the existence of our species, can I
condone the insanity of the current policy of the present
United States & Israeli administrations which at least
states as its belief that the Iranian nuclear program is a
threat to world security. (Though I must credit the authors
of those policies to be intelligent enough to know full well
the dishonesty of such a stated belief so therefore must
further condemn them for such cynical manipulation).
In fact, the
by far greater threat to world security is and has been for
some time now the actions of those above-named states.
Shelley Berlowitz
Jewish Voice for a Just Peace
Switzerland
Judith Butler
Berkeley, California
Paola Canarutto, physician
Chiacchiera con i tuoi amici in tempo
reale!
http://it.yahoo.com/mail_it/foot/*http://it.messenger.yahoo.com
Italy
Lorenzo A. Canizares
Harrisburg, PA
Union Organizer
Smadar Carmon
Toronto, Canada
Prof. Noam Chomsky
James Cohen
Dept. of Political Science
Université
de Paris VIII (France)
Viviane Cohen
Woman in Black, Paris France
secretaire nationale of the UJFP.
I endorse your statement
against war on Iran . Definitively.
Stephen Conroy, B. Com.
Montreal, Canada
Mark Cramer
Professor Université Paris-Jussieu and
Sciences-Po (Paris)
Mike Cushman
Secretary LSE University and Colleges
Union Branch (personal capacity)
Uri Davis (Dr)
MAIAP: Movement
Against Israeli Apartheid in Palestine
Richard Lee Deaton, Ph.D., LL.B.
Ottawa, Canada
James Deutsch, M.D., Ph.D.
Judith Deutsch, M.S.W.
Jean M. Entine
Interim Chair Jewish Voice for Peace
USA
Dror Feiler
Composer, musician, artist
Chairman,
European Jews for a Just Peace (www.ejjp.org)
Stockholm,
Sweden
Pnina Feiler
Reg. nurse, Israel
Deborah Fink
Jews for Boycotting Israeli Goods
Joel Frangquist
San Francisco, CA
Member of Jewish Voice for Peace, Bay
Area chapter
Racheli Gai
Tucson Women in Black
Miriam Garfinkle M.D.
Sheila Goldmacher,
Member, Bay Area Women in Black Study
Group
Sherna Berger Gluck
Professor Emerita, California State
University Long Beach USA
Sue Goldstein
Toronto
Women in Solidarity with Palestine
Julius Gordon
Tucson, AZ
Please add my
name to the list of violent dissenters with Benny Morris,
who proposes the start of a nuclear war in the Middle East.
Based on his NY times article it appears that Prof. Morris,
who at one time was considered a valuable scholar in Middle
East history, has suffered a dissociative disorder. How
else to explain the patent lies (no intelligence service in
the world..) that a rational historian would never allow to
be printed under his name.
Tony Greenstein
Robert B. Gross
Suffern N.Y.
Batja P. Guggenheim- Ami
St.Gallen Switzerland&
Chanan H. Guggenheim-Ami
St. Gallen Switzerland
Members of the Israel- Palestinian
Dialogue Group ‘Olivenzweig’ St. Gall CH
Evelyn Haas [
oldleft@hotmail.com ]
Abe Hayeem
Architects and Planners for Justice in
Palestine
Dr. Annette Herskovits
Writer, California, USA
Fred Hirsch
Executive Board Member Plumbers and
Fitters Local 393, Delegate to the South Bay AFL-CIO Labor
Council, Delegate to the Santa Clara and San Benito Counties
Building and Construction Trades Council
I endorse the
statement wholeheartedly.
Benny Morris
thinks the unthinkable. His article justifying a nuclear
strike against Iran speaks the unspeakable. Such an action
could and probably would open humanity's door to the abyss
- a monstrous step toward the end of human viability on
Earth.
Shame on the
New York Times for admitting such barbarity into the public
discussion as normal discourse.
Israel's
unchecked development of nuclear weapons, with the help of
apartheid South Africa, was an affront our legacy as Jews -
a sharp stick in the eye to the population of the planet.
Weapons of mass destruction indeed!
Any nuclear
threat today is despicable.
Louis Hirsch
Chicago, Illinois
Dr. Tikva Honig-Parnass
Jerusalem
Tamzin Jans
Brussels, Belgium (in Libya)
Jake Javanshir
I endorse your
stand of no attack on Iran. I am an Iranian Jew, living in
Canada. If anyone should be stoped of aggression, it's
Israel not Iran.
Dan Judelson
Secretary , European Jews for a Just
Peace
Gilda Katz
MSW, RSW, Toronto
Maxine Kaufman-Lacusta
citizen of Canada and Israel
Mira Khazzam
Montreal, Canada
Alisa Klein
Israeli and U.S. Citizen
Jason Kunin
Toronto
Rebekah Levin
Oak Park, IL
Joseph Levine
Dept. of Philosophy
Univ. of Mass
Amherst, MA
Abby Lippman, PhD, Professor
Montreal, Quebec
Antony Loewenstein
Sydney, Australia, journalist/author
Leslie Lomas
Colorado Jews for a Just Peace
Moshé Machover
London, UK
Dr Sabetai Matsas MD
Athens, Greece
Hilda Meers
Writer
member of Scottish Jews for a Just Peace,
Aberdeen Campaign for Nuclear
Disarmament,
Grampian Senior Citizens Forum
Peter Melvyn
Vienna, Austria
Jewish Voice for a Just Peace in Neareast
Brigitte Meyer
Jewish-Palestinian Dialogue Group
St.Gallen, Switzerland
I fully
support the content and spirit of this statement. Real
security can only come from peace.
Dorinda Moreno
Fuerza Mundial Collaborative
Dorothy Naor Ph.D.
Israel Naor
Israel
My spouse and
I both endorse the statement and fervently hope that reason
rather than emotions and war profiteering will hold sway.
Diana Neslen
United Kingdom
Joan Nestle
Alex Nissen
Senior Educator / Coordinator
Israeli/Australian
Women in Black Melbourne
Prof. Judith Norman
Jewish Peace News
Prof. Bertell Ollman
Dept. of Politics, NYU
New York, New York, USA.
Karin Pally
Women in Black-Los Angeles
Jean Pauline
Oakland, California
Daniel Pines
Karen Platt
member of Jewish Voice for Peace, Albany,
CA
Laurie Polster
Jewish Voice for Peace/Bay Area
Oakland, CA
Yakov M Rabkin
Professor of History, University of
Montreal
Israel’s elites disdain
– to their own peril - the Mishna that praises as a hero
someone who knows how to turn an enemy into a friend.
Naomi Rankin
I fully
support the content and spirit of this statement. As a
Jewish Canadian with cousins in Israel, I am interested
in real security for Israel, and that can come only from
peace.
Bruce Robbins
Columbia University
Stewart M. Robinson
retired Prof of Mathematics
Professor Jonathan Rosenhead
Secretary, British Committee for the
Universities of Palestine (BRICUP)
Prof Andrew N. Rubin
Georgetown University
Washington, DC
Molly Rush
PUSH PA. United for SinglePayer
HealthCare
Health Care for All PA
www.healthcare4allPA.org
Margot F Salom (BA Soc Work, M Phil)
Palestinian & Jewish Unity for Justice &
Peace
Stop this
madness - What has happened to Jewish ethics?
Shay Salomon
Tucson, Arizona
Marlena Santoyo
Philadelphia, PA, USA &
member of Jewish Voice for Peace
Yom Shamash
Jews for a
Just Peace
Vancouver,
Canada
Cindy Shamban
Berkeley, CA
affiliation: Jewish Voice for Peace
Avi Shlaim, FBA
Professor of International Relations
St Antony's College
Oxford
Rich Siegel
Musician, Advisory Board Deir Yassin
Remembered
Teaneck, NJ USA
http://www.deiryassin.org
Andy Silver
Cary, NC
July 27 letter
to the Raleigh News & Observer. It was not published.
America is no
place for satire. The New Yorker Obama cartoon went over
like a John Kerry joke. Now some are responding seriously
to the column by Benny Morris, “Soon, strike on Iran” (N&O,
July 20), which presented a case for another pre-emptive war
with the cogency with which Jonathan Swift proposed that
Irish poverty be relieved by devouring babies.
Morris’s
proposal is as insane and as devoid of humanity as Swift’s
“modest proposal.” It should convince any sane person of
the insanity of attacking Iran.
I doubt,
however, the sanity of all discussion of Iran’s nuclear
threat. The existing nuclear threat in the Middle East
comes from Israel. Israel’s arsenal is controlled by the
same Israeli government that dropped a million cluster bombs
in southern Lebanon only for the purpose of killing and
maiming farm families that wished to return to their land.
Israel’s bombs provide the motive for surrounding nations to
seek nuclear weapons. The only way to prevent nuclear
proliferation in the Middle East is to create a nuclear arms
free zone. In return for Israel’s dismantling its nuclear
arsenal and agreeing to strict inspections by the IAEA,
other countries in the region should make similar
commitments.
Jonatan Stanczak
The Freedom Theatre, Jenin refugee Camp
Roger Tucker
http://one-state.net
Richard Wark, PhD.
Durham, North Carolina
Dr. Samuel Wiener
Jewish Voice for a Just Peace
Switzerland
Judith Weisman,
Toronto, Canada
Suzanne Weiss
Not In Our Name (NION) Jewish Voices
Opposing Zionism
Toronto
Evan Weissman
Denver, CO USA
Playwright and Nonviolence Teacher
Célie Weizfeld Castelijn
Montréal Kébèk
Roger van Zwanenberg (Dr)
Chair & Commissioning Editor
Pluto Press
Further endorsements may be added by sending in a message to
saalaha@fokus.name
