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Israeli
troops just murdered 9 children
in Gaza, injured over 200 unarmed protesters,
and are moving to violently displace
1500 Palestinians from Jerusalem
and Sheikh Jarrah. Israel is now led by one of
the most brutally racist regimes on the planet
-- it's time for the world to declare that
Palestinian rights matter, and rally behind
sanctions on Israel: |
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Dear
friends, |
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This
is an emergency. Israeli warplanes
murdered 9 children in Gaza. The far-right
Israeli government is planning
to displace over 1500 Palestinians
from Jerusalem, starting this month
with families from the Sheikh Jarrah
neighborhood who are facing the worst kinds of
abuse.
Palestinians are bravely
protesting in the streets. The Israeli
government is responding with maximum cruelty.
In Jerusalem, hundreds of unarmed
protesters are being attacked,
including elderly people and
children.
This is just another
example of the racist brutality of
Israel's military occupation over
Palestinians, an injustice that has
lasted for decades.
Enough
is enough. Palestinian lives, homes, and rights
matter.
Sanctions work. In
South Africa, sanctions helped free black
citizens from Apartheid. Now it's time for the
world to rally behind sanctions on Israel to
free the Palestinians.
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Human
Rights Watch, one of the most respected human
rights organizations in the world, and B’tselem,
the most respected Israeli human rights
organization, both recently concluded that
Israel is committing crimes against
humanity of Persecution and Apartheid
against Palestinians.
Meanwhile,
extremist Israeli settlers march in the streets
chanting “Death to Arabs”, and have
burned thousands of olive trees
that many Palestinains rely on to survive. A
member of the Israeli parliament has even
demanded for Palestinian women to be
discriminated against in maternity wards, so
they don’t give birth in the same rooms as
Jewish women!
This is a vicious
downward spiral.
The
Palestinian people are not perfect. They have
made many painful mistakes in
their struggle for freedom. But there is no
question that the Israeli government, with the
fourth strongest military in the world, is the
actor with maximum power on the ground. Israel
controls the land, air, water, access to
food, and even the freedom of
movement of
ALL Palestinians. For 70 years,
it has been punishing, evicting and
discriminating against millions of Palestinians
whose lives it controls.
The Israeli
government believes it has a green light to
continue committing these crimes, and crushing
Palestinians - because it believes it can block
people around the world from organizing at scale
to push their governments to impose sanctions.
Let’s prove them wrong by turning this
petition into a massive people’s movement that
no decision maker can ignore.
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Virtually
every other tool has been tried, for decades, to
encourage the Israeli regime to treat
Palestinians better, and they just keep treating
them worse. Targeted sanctions, covering things
like Israeli blood diamonds, a boycott on arms
sales (Israel sells weapons to some of the
world's most brutal regimes) as well tech and
cultural sanctions (like banning Israel from
sporting events and the Eurovision song contest)
may finally affect the calculus of the
regime.
With hope and
determination,
Fadi, Marie, Christoph,
Mo, Nax, John, Risalat, and the entire Avaaz
team
PS: Israel’s many enablers will
knee-jerk accuse Avaaz and our many Jewish staff
and leadership of hating Jews. But our team and
our members love the Jewish people, as we love
all people. The Holocaust was real, the Jewish
community has long been horrifically oppressed
and still faces anti-Semitism worldwide. This
campaign is not about identity politics, or
about Jews versus Palestinians. It is about
protecting basic human rights and equality, to
ensure that the international community is not
complicit in the decades long systematic
oppression by the Israeli government of the
Palestinian people. The goal is to achieve
freedom and peace for ALL people in the region.
Sanctions are necessary to push for this goal
because the Israeli government continues to
profit from the status quo.
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