“I was brought up to equate being a Jew with a commitment to social justice. That’s why I am signing this declaration. As a Jew, I feel a particular duty to oppose the injustice that is done to Palestinians. Despite what it might say, the Israeli government does not speak for me.”
Prof. Susie Orbach

“When Israel’s Jewish supporters abroad don’t speak out against disastrous policies that neither guarantee safety for her citizens nor produce the right climate in which to try and reach a just peace with the Palestinians – but seek instead to justify those policies by turning a blind eye to flagrant human rights abuses in the Occupied Territories – then they are betraying millennial Jewish values and acting against Israel’s own long-term interests. As Sholem Aleichem, the Yiddish writer who created Fiddler on the Roof, once said, ‘Better the bite of a friend than the kiss of an enemy.’”
Rabbi David Goldberg

“I’ve long been appalled by the humiliating, brutal and brutalizing occupation of the West Bank. In our current atmosphere of growing “tribalism” and the politics of identity, it is more crucial than ever that friends of Israel voice their concerns.”
Lady Ellen Dahrendorf

“The easy assumption that all Jews support Israel and its ill-treatment of Palestinians is an insidious form of racism. I for one (like many Jews in and outside Israel) am appalled and disgusted by the illegal occupation by Israel of Palestinian territory and its brutal treatment of Palestinians. I gladly add my voice to those who oppose these policies, whatever their background or origin.”
Sir Geoffrey Bindman

“I come from a proud tradition of Jews who, having fled their mother countries to escape oppression, could not then close their eyes to the oppression of others in South Africa. It is in this spirit that I sign this declaration: in the conviction that it is our moral duty to speak out against injustice when we see it.”
Gillian Slovo

“I am proud to lend my name to a free-thinking group like this.”
Stephen Fry

For more information email: press@ijv.org.uk