Israel’s War Against Palestine: Documenting the Military Occupation of Palestinian and Arab Lands

Breaking the Law of Return

19 February 2010

Law of Return

Law of Return

Facebook – Feb 2010
www.facebook.com/group.php?v=info&ref=ts&gid=296967332350

U.S. Jews: TO SIGN THE “BREAKING THE LAW OF RETURN” STATEMENT: email breakingthelawofreturn@gmail.com (details below)

We welcome everyone who supports this initiative to join the fb group and invite your friends!

We are Jews from the United States, who, like Jewish people throughout the world, have an automatic right to Israeli citizenship under Israel’s “law of return.”

Today there are more than seven million Palestinian refugees around the world. Israel denies their right to return to their homes and land—a right recognized and undisputed by UN Resolution 194, the Geneva Convention, and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Meanwhile, we are invited to live on that same land simply because we are Jewish.

We renounce this “right” to “return” offered to us by Israeli law. It is not right that we may “return” to a state that is not ours while Palestinians are excluded and continuously dispossessed.

In 1947-49, Zionist militias destroyed more than 500 Palestinian villages and made more than 800,000 Palestinian people refugees in order to create a Jewish state on land where the majority was not Jewish. It is Palestinians who have the right to return to their own land.

Now in Gaza, where more than three quarters of the people are refugees, the State of Israel not only denies the population its right of return, but also incarcerates the entire Gaza Strip under illegal and inhumane siege conditions.

We reject the notion that Israel is a “safe haven” from anti-Semitism for Jews. No one is truly safe when the price of that “security” is oppression, inequality, and occupation of another people.

Today there is a growing transnational movement for boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) against Israel, called for by Palestinian civil society and supported by activists, artists, and academics around the world, including an increasing number of conscientious Israelis. As part of this campaign, we pledge to boycott the “law of return.” As an act of political and ideological divestment, we repudiate the claims the State of Israel makes on us as potential citizens.

We protest Israel’s colonial policies and discriminatory laws toward the Palestinian people, as well as the U.S. government’s political and financial support of these policies.

We hereby renounce Israel’s “law of return” and refuse to lend the state our support, resources, or passports.

——

Note: This statement specifies the United States because of the enormous funding, political support, and international legitimization the U.S. supplies to Israel. Israel’s “law of return,” however, applies to Jews throughout the world, and we hope organizers in other countries will make use of the statement and adapt it for your own use.

We are inspired by the letter by UK Jews, “We Renounce Israel Rights,” published in the Guardian: http://bit.ly/aidlq2

TO SIGN THE “BREAKING THE LAW OF RETURN” STATEMENT: email your name, city, and any institutional/organizational affiliations to breakingthelawofreturn@gmail.com (We won’t publicize institutional affiliations).

——

Ammiel Alcalay
Deborah Allen
D. Alwan
Aliea Anderson
Judy Andler
Jess Applebaum
Jonathan Auerbach
Karey Bacon
Anna Baltzer
Amy Baron
Keren Batiyov
Linda Hunt Beckman
Michael Berg
Dan Berger
Bob Berman
Hillary Blecker
Richard Blum
Ethan Blustein
Mark Braverman
Susan Braverman
Brian Brotman
Rachel Brown
Judith Butler
Ellen Cantarow
Pat Carmeli
Anne Marie Codur
Jerrold Cohen
Timothy Colman
Rita Corriel
Kelly Costello
Wendy Dannett
Lawrence Davidson
Felix de Rosen
James Deutsch
Judith Deutsch
Joan W. Drake
Mark Dubrow
Martin Eder
David Ehrens
Ariel Eisenberg
Jascha Ephraim
Nava EtShalom
Jonah EtShalom
Dave Evans
Martin Federman
Kathy Felgran
Danielle Feris
Jack Fertig
David Fertig
Gary Fields
Amie Fishman
Richard Forer
H. Bruce Franklin
Elliot Fratkin
Susan Friedman
Andrew Fulluss
Wendy Galson
Lee Gargagliano
Mneesha Gellman
Susan Gillman
Frances Gilmore
Judith Glaubman
Libbey Goldberg
Sarah Goldman
Alyosha Goldstein
Nance Goldstein
Pamela Goldstein
Lora Gordon
Yuri Gottesman
Roberta Gould
Sandra Green
Rosi Greenberg
Zoe Greenberg
Aaron Greenberg
Nancy Greene
Shaina Greiff
David Grinstein
Marilyn Hacker
Stanley Handmaker
Michael Harris
Jenny Heinz
Glenn Hendler
Edward Herman
Sally Heron
Henry Herskovitz
Pam Hinden
Anndee Hochman
Lisa Hoff
Anne Hoiberg
Adam Horowitz
Ellen Isaacs
Justine Issavi
Liz Jackson
Rachael Kamel
Amy Kaplan
Carolyn Karcher
Elinore Kaufman
David Kirshbaum
Alice Diane Kisch
Alisa Klein
Harris Kornstein
Susan Landau
Tracy Landecker
Amy Schrager Lang
Howard Lenow
Michael Levin
Alan Levin
Alan Levine
Richard Lipperman
Dave Lippman
Peter Lippman
Alex Lubin
Miriam Marton
Benjamin Marton
David Mazel
Avigail McClelland-Cohen
Hannah Mermelstein
Jules Mermelstein
Ben Mermelstein
Ruth Mermelstein
Sol Metz
Ricardo Levins Morales
Nikki Morse
Martha Nathan
Donna Nevel
Elijah Oberman
Susan Pashkoff
Haley Pollack
Lynn Pollack
Karyn L. Pomerantz
Nancy Press
Rob Prince
Emily Ratner
Flo Razowsky
Karen Redleaf
Gwen Reiman
Lawrence Rich
Stewart Robinson
Willow Ann Rose
Carrie Rosenbaum
Ellen Rosner
Mark Ross
Alice Rothchild
Sue Rouda
Emma Rubin
Lori Helene Rudolph
Ellen Sacks
Heike Schotten
David Schwartzman
Sylvia Schwarz
Hannah Schwarzschild
Chuck Scurich
Rich Siegel
Paula Silbey
Carmon Simon
Joel Simpson
Beth Slutzky
Louisa Solomon
Dennis Solt
Doris Soroko
Aaron Stark
Marsha Steinberg
Alexis Stern
Daniel Strum
Rebecca Subar
Ethel Sussman
Silvia Tennenbaum
Ethel Tobach
Katie Unger
Rebecca Vilkomerson
Beth Wacks
Donna Wallach
Darlene Wallach
Ellen Schwarz Wasfi
Edmund Weisberg
Martha Werman
Noah T. Winer
Rabbi Alissa Wise
Lenore Wolf
Bruce Wolman
Jodie Zisow

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