If Not Now Rallies Against Annexation

Posted on July 26, 2020 by Admin

American Jews playing klezmer in front of House Speaker, Nancy Pelosi’s home in San Francisco to demand she take action against annexation.

Over the past few weeks, IfNotNow has organized a series of coordinated, powerful actions to tell our elected officials at both the local and national levels that words alone cannot stop annexation. We are tired of the blank check that the US gives to the Israeli government every year and we are ready to ramp up the fight.

IfNotNow members gathered together and held rallies in front of the homes of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, the President’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, and Congressman Brad Sherman. We showed the Jewish community’s support for bold action on annexation, like the letter put forward on June 30th by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Pramila Jayapal and nearly a dozen others that advocates for conditioning military funding should the Israeli government move forward with annexation. We did so with shofars, homemade instruments; with stirring, emotional speeches, and with, of course, lots of singing and chutzpah.

See below for some of our favorite photos from these actions!

Young Jews rallying in front of Jared Kushner’s home in Washington, DC to hold him accountable for giving a green light to Netanyahu to move forward with annexation without regard for Palestinian rights.

Jewish IfNotNow leaders marching towards Rep. Brad Sherman’s home in Los Angeles to demand that he support conditioning US military funding to the Israeli government.

American Jews in Detroit making their way to their local Jewish Federation to demand that it stop upholding the occupation and support real action against annexation.

This is just the beginning. We know that getting our government to take real political action to end the occupation will require a movement of American Jews raising our voices for the freedom of both Palestinians and Israelis. In order to do that, we need your help so that we can give more support to the volunteers who made these protests happen and pay for all the materials we use at these rallies.

I am so proud of these actions. I am so proud of our community. I’m so hopeful about what we can do together. Please consider joining me in sustaining our push for justice.

L’chaim,
Naftali
IfNotNow

‘It’s a war crime’: Thousands rally in Tel Aviv against Netanyahu annexation bid

Posted on June 8, 2020 by Admin

Meretz MK, Joint List leader says move would create ‘apartheid’; Sanders sends video message; police forcefully detain photojournalist covering event, arrest 4 demonstrators

JACOB MAGID, The Times of Israel, 6 June 2020

Thousands of Israelis attend a protest against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s plans to annex parts of the West Bank, at Rabin Square in Tel Aviv, June 6, 2020. (Avshalom Sassoni/Flash90)

Protesters gather in Tel Aviv's Rabin Square on June 6, 2020, to denounce Israel's plan to annex parts of the West Bank. (JACK GUEZ / AFP)
Protesters gather in Tel Aviv’s Rabin Square on June 6, 2020, to denounce Israel’s plan to annex parts of the West Bank. (JACK GUEZ / AFP)

Protesters carry a placard which reads in Hebrew “no to annexation” as they gather in Tel Aviv’s Rabin Square on June 6, 2020, to denounce Israel’s plan to annex parts of the West Bank. (JACK GUEZ / AFP)

A protester carries the Israeli flag during a protest in Tel Aviv’s Rabin Square on June 6, 2020, to denounce Israel’s plan to annex parts of the West Bank. (JACK GUEZ / AFP)

Thousands attend a protest against Israel’s plan to annex parts of the West Bank, at Rabin Square in Tel Aviv on June 6, 2020. (Avshalom Sassoni/Flash90

Thousands of Israelis gathered in Tel Aviv Saturday evening to protest Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s pledge to begin annexing parts of the West Bank next month.

Police initially sought to block the rally but backtracked Friday after meeting with organizers, who urged participants to wear masks and adhere to social distancing guidelines.

Dozens of officers were securing the demonstration after police said attendance would be capped at 2,000, though the Haaretz daily put turnout at 6,000 people in what appeared to be the largest protest in the country since the start of the coronavirus pandemic.

The demonstration was organized by the left-wing Meretz party and the communist Hadash faction of the majority-Arab Joint List, along with several other left-wing rights groups.

MK Nitzan Horowitz, the head of Meretz, told the crowd that annexation would be a “war crime” and would cost Israel millions as the economy is already reeling due to the pandemic.

“We cannot replace an occupation of dozens of years with an apartheid that will last forever,” shouted a hoarse Horowitz. “Yes to two states for two peoples, no to violence and bloodshed,” he continued. “No to annexation, yes to peace.”

Horowitz said “annexation is a war crime, a crime against peace, a crime against humanity, a crime that will result in bloodshed.”

He called out Defense Minister Benny Gantz, Foreign Minister Gabi Ashkenazi and Economy Minister Amir Peretz, accusing them of “raising their hands and crawling to the other side.”

The three center-left lawmakers had pledged not to sit in a government with Netanyahu, citing the premier’s indictment on graft charges, but after Israel’s third inconclusive election in March agreed to join him in a coalition.

The coalition deal signed between Netanyahu’s Likud party and Gantz’s Blue and White allows the prime minister to begin moving forward with annexation on July 1. The parts of the West Bank that Israel will extend sovereignty over are those earmarked for it under US President Donald Trump’s peace plan.

“You have no mandate to approve this apartheid. You have no mandate to bury peace,” Horowitz yelled. The Meretz head claimed Netanyahu was being pushed to carry out the controversial move by the “messianic” Trump administration.

“Make some noise so no one thinks that we’re a bunch of nerds,” the emcee shouted at the crowd after Horowitz’s speech.

Israelis attend a protest against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s plans to annex parts of the West Bank, at Rabin Square in Tel Aviv, June 6, 2020. (Avshalom Sassoni/Flash90)

Fellow Meretz MK Tamar Zandberg savaged Trump’s peace plan as “a cursed deal between one man who’s trying to win an election and another who’s trying to escape a corruption trial,” referring respectively to the US president and Netanyahu.

“Trump is not a friend of Israel. Bibi [Netanyahu] is not good for Israel,” she said, ironically
echoing settler leaders
who oppose the US plan due to its backing for a Palestinian state. “This [peace] deal has nothing to do with what is good for us, Israelis and Palestinians who live here in the Middle East.”

She said the agreement would “officially make Israel an apartheid state… [Enacting] sovereignty [in the West Bank] without [granting] citizenship [to Palestinians] is apartheid,” she asserted.

Also addressing the rally was Joint List leader Ayman Odeh, who spoke from quarantine by video link after a member of his party contracted COVID-19. Odeh said all Jews and Arabs who support peace and justice must oppose Netanyahu’s plan to enact Israeli sovereignty over some 30 percent of the West Bank.

“Annexation is apartheid,” Odeh told the cheering protesters.

Odeh compared the protest against annexation to the Four Mothers protest movement in the late 1990s, which pressed the government to withdraw Israeli troops from southern Lebanon.