An open letter from Jewish students: We will not leave our Palestinian cousins ​​alone

Students answered seven questions, and the original English version was published in The Brown Daily Herald.The letter also stressed the existence of anti-Semitism and that the security of Jews must be guaranteed. However, he stated that this security is not based on a Jewish nation-state, and that the Palestinians’ right to live freely must be defended.

The letter stated that pro-Palestinian activism does not threaten Jewish students, but rather is a way to show solidarity with Palestinians.

In the letter, he stressed that the letter from the Anti-Defamation League and the Brandeis Center targeting Palestinian defenders was an attempt to silence the struggle of the Palestinian people.

The letter also stated that the Hamas attack was horrific and caused pain to Israeli families. But he stressed that this attack does not justify genocide against the Palestinian people.

The letter stated that Palestinians and Jews had mourned and used this mourning as an incentive to take action to prevent further losses.

The letter stressed that the struggle of the Jewish and Palestinian peoples is inseparable and that in order to ensure the security of Jews, it is necessary to defend the right of Palestinians to live freely.

The Jewish students who signed the letter stated that they wanted to show their interest in the Palestinian struggle and support pro-Palestinian activism.

The letter, in which students answered seven questions and whose original English version was published in the Brown Daily Herald, was translated into Turkish by Avlarimoz. A noteworthy portion of the message is as follows:

“Zionist institutions, which claim to represent all Jews, often use us as a rhetorical shield to support the unconscionable actions of the State of Israel. We feel special pain as Jews who are constantly forced to justify our position against genocide. We are here to express ourselves clearly: to liberate the Palestinian people. We stand in solidarity with Brown Students for Justice in Palestine and the Palestine Solidarity Group.

We know very well that Jewish struggles are necessarily linked to global struggles for freedom. We are a group of Jewish students united around our shared vision of justice, anti-occupation, liberation, and community. We ask you to listen to us now:

What do we mean when we say “from the river to the sea”?

The phrase “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” is not a call to forcibly remove the Jews from Palestine, or to “throw the Jews into the sea” as it is widely misunderstood. Rather, it is a call to end the persecution of all Palestinians. Those living in Gaza, the West Bank and within the Green Line The liberation of all of Palestine requires revolutionary change: not the extermination of the Jews in these lands, but the complete dismantling of the apartheid regime that occupies these lands. The manifesto is genocidal in nature and wrongly conflates liberation with the destruction of every citizen of the oppressive state and ignores its libertarian intent.

Within this confusion, we hear a racist assumption that Palestinians are cruel “animals,” a deliberate concealment of the violent intentions of a new fascist government. This is a common description even among writers in the Israeli newspaper. While Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, funded by billions of dollars in American taxes, describing the call for liberation and justice as genocide is not only blatantly wrong, it is shameful. If the call for a future in which Palestinians can live without restrictions in their homeland amounts to an existential threat to Zionist ideology, then it is this ideology that should be questioned, not the call for freedom.

Conclusion

(…) We will not hesitate to express injustice in the world; We will not allow our Jewish identity to be exploited. Our Judaism forces us to oppose the State of Israel. Our Torah commands:

“Do not oppress a stranger, for you know what a stranger is, because you are a stranger in the land of Egypt.” – Exodus 23:9

We must listen to this. Palestinians are our cousins, our peers at Brown, they are the original inhabitants of this land, and they are people whose lives matter. You won’t hit on a stranger.

We write these words from the diaspora and from here we want to change our world for the better. As we grapple with thousands of years of Jewish struggle and survival, we will not abandon our Palestinian cousins ​​and peers or allow them to remain alone. This genocide cannot continue.

Not on our behalf. With or without our name: never.”

It was noted that many students signed their names to the article.

On the other hand, the number of people who lost their lives in the Israeli attacks that began on October 7 on Gaza rose to 11,500 people.