Why Divest:
Why Jews Should Support Divestment
by Shamai K. Leibowitz
http://www.divestmentproject.org/shamai_leibowitz.shtml
Shamai Leibowitz is an Israeli human rights lawyer in
Tel Aviv who has defended cases before the High Court. He is also an Orthodox
Jew, a former tank gunner in the IDF and part of a group of 1000 soldiers who
have refused to serve in the occupied territories due to the immorality of the
Occupation.
As an Israeli citizen and former tank gunner in the Israeli army, I feel the
need to explain why I, along with many other Jews, support divestment from
Israel.
We are asking the city of Somerville, as well as other cities and civic
institutions, to divest from companies involved in selling arms, bulldozers and
military technologies that are used to by the Israeli army to commit war crimes
against Palestinians. As people committed to human rights for all, we call upon
Americans to demand that their tax-dollars are not invested in companies that
sell equipment and ammunition that fuel Israel's consistent and appalling
violations of international law and human rights.
As a young soldier serving in the Israeli army, I was ordered to commit war
crimes in the Palestinian Occupied Territories. My platoon meted out collective
punishment on whole Palestinian communities, shot live ammunition at unarmed
civilians, killed women and children, enforced prolonged curfews, creating
humanitarian disasters, arrested and detained Palestinians without charge,
demolished their homes, and arbitrarily destroyed crops and property.
Being an eyewitness to these war crimes led me eventually to announce my
refusal to serve in the Occupied Palestinian Territories in 1994. But the
Israeli government, unaffected by the growing 'refusenik' movement, has
continued the dehumanizing Occupation. More than 3.5 million Palestinians
continued to live under a military regime and were subject to bombings of
neighborhoods, extra-judicial killings, torture, home demolitions, unlawful
detentions, deportations and a myriad of human rights violations.
Dozens of Jews were among the many supporters of the divestment resolution
who gathered in the Somerville City Hall on Monday Nov. 8. I, and several
others, spoke in favor of this resolution, saying that it is precisely because
we are Jews and because we truly care about Israel that we are asking the City
of Somerville to pass this resolution. All of us present in Somerville were
profoundly hurt when accused of being "anti-Semitic" or "anti-Israeli". People
abusing the concept of "anti-Semitism" in order to support the Israeli
government's racist policy towards the Palestinians do nothing less than
desecrate the memory of those Jewish victims of real anti-Semitism.
I have heard too many times the argument that "now
is not the time to divest because Israel is involved in a peace process".
The "peace process" argument was used for dozens of years as an excuse to
continue inflicting suffering, humiliation and destruction upon the Palestinians
in the West Bank and Gaza. It is high time to do away with this myth.
It has become clear that even during the Oslo process, Israeli governments
pulled the wool over the world's eyes. Israel continued to resettle its own
citizens on confiscated Palestinian land in the Occupied Territories, in
violation of Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, while at the same time
entrenching a cruel military regime in the same areas and punishing 3.5 million
Palestinians.
It became the primary objective of Israeli propaganda to hide the brutal
reality of Occupation. To this end, Israeli governments constantly came up with
"peace plans" and built a sophisticated "we only want peace" propaganda machine.
However, over time, many of us who lived in Israel and visited or served in the
Occupied Territories, saw the reality for what it is: Israel was intensifying an
oppressive military regime over millions of Palestinians who were denied all
human, civil and political rights, while building more Jewish-only settlements
for Jews who enjoyed full civil and political rights.
As an Israeli thoroughly familiar with Israeli politics, I
believe that selective economic pressure is the most effective way to end the
brutal Occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, and bring peace and security to
Israelis and Palestinians. If the Jewish people are ever to become "a light unto
nations" (Isaiah 42:6), and return to their core values of justice and human
dignity, Israelis and Jews of conscience must call now for effective measures to
end the Occupation of millions of Palestinians. I realize how hard it is,
conceptually, for American Jews to support divestment, but they should
understand that these painful measures will eventually lead to the path of peace
and security. The call for divestment reflects true loyalty both to Israel's
peaceful existence and to the highest Jewish values. I call upon the Jewish
community, as well as other communities, in the US - if you really want to see
in your lifetime Israelis living in peace with Palestinians - unite with us
behind divestment resolutions.
SEE ALSO:
Divestment: for the Sake of Palestine and Israel
(Fayyad Sbaihat)
Badger Herald, Thursday, September 23, 2004
http://badgerherald.com/oped/2004/09/23/divestment_for_the_s.php
Archbishop Tutu on Divestment: Against Israeli Apartheid
http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20020715&s=tutu
(by Desmond Tutu & Ian Urbina)
1948 - 2005 Copyright Al-Awda (The Palestine
Right to Return Coalition) at the University of Wisconsin - Madison.
All Rights Reserved.
