I am anti-death penalty, BUT in some cases one could turn around, and find a person worthy of the death penalty!

Dear friend and colleague,

Many thanks for your contribution to IJAN’s meeting on Holocaust Memorial Day, Never Again – For Anyone.

As you know, we had organised a speaking tour for Hajo Meyer, a survivor of Auschwitz, to commemorate this Day in a new and more appropriate way. Our organizing partner was the Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign, which is also actively organising against Zionism. Sara Kershnar, a founder of IJAN, accompanied Hajo on the tour of Scotland, England & Ireland, and is now with him on the last leg of the tour in France, Austria, Switzerland and Germany.

IJAN was determined to break with what Hajo so accurately calls the Zionist ‘religion of the Holocaust’ which treats the genocide of Jews as the only genocide. Zionism uses this tragedy to establish Jewish uniqueness and on that basis claims a unique “right” to perpetrate ethnic cleansing and other crimes against Palestinians. Hajo, based on his own experience, was full of information that exposed Zionism, its history and its brutal ideology; and he was full of the determination to win justice for all of us.

It was vital that a Palestinian speaker give a firsthand account of the consequences of this gross exploitation of Jewish suffering. We asked Professor Haidar Eid, an activist academic, to respond to Hajo, but the Israeli blockade prevented him from leaving Gaza, his home. The Blockade which is costing so many lives also helps Israel to censor that Palestinian reality. Our intention had been for Haidar to speak on a live video link into the Commons. He and technicians were to go to the community centre in Gaza which had the right equipment for this. But this centre is next to a building that had been targeted regularly by Israeli air strikes, and especially at night was unsafe. Despite 10-12 hours of power blackout every day Haidar and the Gaza technicians made videos for the tour which were shown at almost all the meetings. At the House of Commons he was able to address the meeting directly via a phone link. People were gratified to be directly in touch with Palestine, the centre of the meeting’s concern, and were grateful for the work he and others had done so we could benefit from this distinguished Gaza presence. Haidar’s powerful speech made clear that Gazans are not the defeated people that the Israeli Occupation Forces intended with their murderous attack last year.

We asked other communities who have survived and resisted genocide to speak together at the meeting. By demonstrating the suffering and resistance Jewish people have in common with others, we reaffirm our common humanity. We exposed that Zionism could not claim an ounce of the credibility it had tried to rob from Jewish victims, and we committed ourselves to working against any genocide anywhere: Never Again – For Anyone.

As many of you know, we wrote to the speakers listing the ‘questions which would make [each] talk directly pertinent to what the meeting is trying to achieve’:

1. When were you, your ancestors, and/or community in which you live or work attacked, and by whom? Besides irrational prejudice, why was the attack on your community/country/sector perpetrated – what did the powerful attackers have to gain from it?

2. What was the impact of the attack? How were the victims affected, and have those effects lasted up to now?

3. Can you give us an example or story of resistance to the attack?

4. What is the lesson any of us can draw from it?’

We also received wonderful messages of support, including from Linton Kwesi Johnson (dub poet), Yonatan Shapira (Israeli refusnik and boycott activist) and Bruce Kent (vice president CND).

Naturally, Zionists came to the meeting to disrupt, and prevent the dialogue among us (see account below from Yael Kahn). They shouted insults at Hajo because as an Auschwitz survivor he had the greatest credibility to speak the truth against them. Of course they also interrupted Haidar’s speech. The MPs were loath to toss them out until they made it impossible for the 85-year-old to continue. But by the time police escorted the disrupters out, they had stolen half an hour of our time together. The speakers were enormously good-tempered about that, as was the audience which stayed almost a half hour later, in order to hear everyone.

Each of these speeches, delivered one after the other in chronological order of the catastrophe, was extraordinary. From the first – the Native American genocide by the European conquerors of the Americas – to the current struggle for Tamil emancipation in Sri Lanka – each got committed attention and supportive applause.

Our speakers on genocide and persecution were: Sylvia Salley – Native American ; Sara Callaway – Slave Trade & Haiti; Anne Rossiter – the Irish Famine; Khatchatur Pilikian – Armenian; Elisabetta Kcerka Vjetra – Roma; Claire Glasman – people with disabilities; Ansar Ahmed Ullah – Bangladesh; Stella Mpaka – Rwandan; Pira Pusparaj – Tamil.

At the end, the audience gave a standing ovation to our very distinguished keynote speaker, to our brilliant Gaza speaker, and in fact to all the speakers. It was deserved. People were excited by the unity that these varied speeches augured. A number urged IJAN to arrange for a follow-up event, which we are now planning together. Why was the audience so enthusiastic? First of all, most felt the strength we know when we are unreservedly united. No speaker claimed a hierarchy of suffering, none blamed the audience for the painful past and present, all presented with powerful restraint. Each speaker assumed the audience’s compassion: they spoke not only to friends but to kindred spirits.

Our own criticism is that there was no speaker on Islamophobia – the community separated off and targeted for witch-hunting in order to threaten, promote and justify wars against Islamic countries, including Israel’s war and occupation of Palestine. We tried and failed, and are now trying harder.

This beginning of working together can and must become a power to all our struggles against dehumanization and for justice. The Zionist level of attack graphically reflects how dangerous this power is against them and their partners in crimes against humanity. We must continue to build on this (see below for letter to fellow activists).

We are working on posting written speeches and links to campaigns on the Never Again website. We are already discussing together the possibility of publishing the papers as an eBook or pamphlet.

We warmly thank Jeremy Corbyn MP who hosted the Holocaust Memorial Day meeting in the Commons, and Nicolette Petersen, his secretary, who did so much so willingly to facilitate the arrangements for the meeting. Thanks also to Brian Iddon MP who took over the chair when Jeremy had to leave. And we thank our sponsors for the London meetings: BRICUP (British Committee for Universities for Palestine), Goldsmiths Student Union, IHRC (Islamic Human Rights Commission) ISM (International Solidarity Movement), and J-BIG (Jews for Boycotting Israeli Goods).

Again we thank you for your speaking, for dissemination of information, for sponsorship, for attending, for contribution of funds – much needed, and still lacking to cover expenses. (Donations will be gratefully received.) Any responses, criticisms, etc., you and colleagues and friends have to this breakthrough meeting will be welcome; this feedback is invaluable to framing future work.

With every good wish,

Michael (Kalmanovitz) and Selma (James)