| | | Israel and Palestine are on the brink of a full-scale war. Possibly the only way to stop this horrific cycle of Israel violently displacing Palestinians from their homes, beating down unarmed protesters, Hamas firing rockets, and Israel bombing Gaza is to make the economic cost of this conflict too high to bear. Click below to sign our call to sanction Israel for committing crimes against humanity: | | | | | Dear friends, | | Israel and Palestine are on the brink of a full scale war.
16 Palestinian children have already been killed. Mothers murdered. Hundreds injured.
The tensions are escalating. Fast.
It all relates to decades of Israel's violent oppression of the Palestinian people, which Human Rights Watch just concluded is amounting to "crimes against humanity."
It's where it all began, and it's where it must end.
Possibly the only way to stop this horrific cycle of Israel violently displacing Palestinians from their homes, the daily collective punishment of innocent families, Hamas firing rockets, and Israel bombing Gaza is to make the economic cost of this conflict too high to bear.
It's what helped end apartheid in South Africa, and it can end apartheid here.
We are almost at 2 million signatures. Click below to sign our call to sanction Israel for committing crimes against humanity, and turn the calculation of the extremists profiting from this hell upside down: | | | | | Human Rights Watch, one of the most respected human rights organisations in the world, and B'tselem, the most respected Israeli human rights organisation, both recently concluded that Israel is committing crimes against humanity against Palestinian people.
Meanwhile, extremist Israeli settlers march in the streets chanting "Death to Arabs", and have burned thousands of olive trees that many Palestinians 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. Extremists and corrupt leaders benefit from the status quo. 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, 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 pushing 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. Add your voice and pass this on, now: | | | | Virtually every other tool has been tried, for decades, to encourage the Israeli government to stop denying Palestinians their rights, 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 bring down Israel's apartheid 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. Even beyond the Holocaust, 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 Muslims. 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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