Skip to main content

Visit to Gaza was an assault on sense of justice

By Joyce Ravitz

When I was growing up, my parents instilled in me the knowledge that Jews were hardworking people who would not stand for injustice. My Jewish education taught me that Jews were obliged to fight against discrimination and other wrongs whenever they occurred.
And we met discrimination ourselves. My parents left the Lower East Side and I grew up in a small Pennsylvania town. My uncle, brother and I were the only non-Christians in the school system. A friend asked to see my horns. It was difficult. No wonder I returned to the Lower East Side...

...I am heartbroken and appalled by what Israel, the land I loved, is doing in Gaza today. On my trip in late May of this year, I witnessed physical and psychological damage from the Israeli occupation of Gaza...

...Thirteen Israeli soldiers were killed during the December-January bombing. The number of deaths is disproportionate for Israel’s claim to be acting in self-defense...

...Israeli pressure is shrinking the actual area available to the people of the Gaza Strip further. I met fishermen who fear the Israeli gunboats because they are kidnapped and shot at while trying to make a living. These kidnapped fishermen are either taken to Israeli jails or returned to Gaza with their equipment and boats ruined. The Palestinian farmers are in a similar situation. The Israelis recently built automated (without soldiers) watchtowers along the border that open up when activated and fire machine guns toward Gaza, killing people...

...What can Americans do to change this? Encourage elected officials and others to travel to Gaza to discover what the area is really like; and be sure they talk to ordinary people who hope to lead ordinary lives but suffer attacks and privations. We must let our representatives know that we do not want our money to continue to support a government that attacks and kills civilians. We do not want our government to support a government that traumatizes and embitters the lives of survivors and a new generation. The continued hostilities directed toward Gaza undermine any hope of stability in the Middle East and the world. Read the full article here
Joyce Ravitz is a Lower East Side resident living on Grand St. and member of Community Board 3. She visited Gaza in May at the invitation of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency in Gaza with the assistance of Code Pink: Women for Peace.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

'Coronavirus-free' Gaza prepares for the worst

Until now, the besieged Gaza Strip has stayed free of  the novel coronavirus  spreading across the world. As the Gaza Strip has been under a stringent Israeli-led blockade for nearly 13 years, the spread of the coronavirus - officially known as COVID-19 - has become the topic of discussion for many Palestinians, with  some joking  that the blockade was preventing them from being exposed.But as authorities in the coastal Palestinian enclave gear up to contain any potential outbreak, serious questions have arisen about the risks and implications of such a scenario.  But given its already difficult humanitarian situation and high population density, an outbreak in the Gaza Strip could prove to be catastrophic, health officials have warned.  "If the virus enters Gaza and spreads, it will get out of hand," Gaza Ministry of Health spokesperson Majdi Thuhair told Middle East Eye, as he explained that a severe shortage of resources and personnel would make it near impossible

Boycott of New York diamond dealer launched to protest settlement construction

Members of Adalah NY call for boycott of Leviev for its crimes against Palestinians and South Africans New York, NY, May 9 – On the day before Mother’s Day, 40 New York human rights advocates gathered at the Leviev jewelry store on Madison Avenue and called on throngs of weekend Madison Avenue shoppers to boycott Israeli diamond mogul Lev Leviev over his companies’ construction of Israeli settlements on Palestinian land in West Bank villages including Bil’in and Jayyous. Mother’s Day is one of the biggest jewelry shopping periods in the US annually. The New York protest came as controversy is growing in Norway over Norwegian government investments in Leviev’s company Africa-Israel . The New York protesters also commemorated Bassem Abu Rahma from Bil’in who was shot to death by Israeli soldiers last month during a peaceful protest against the construction on Bil’in’s land of Israel’s wall and of the Mattityahu East settlement by a Leviev company. Thanks to vivapalestina.us (not co

Support striking Palestinian quarry workers demanding their rights from Israeli employer

On 16 June, 35 Palestinian workers at Salit Quarries in Mishor Adumim (in area C, east of Jerusalem, in the Occupied West Bank) began a strike. The workers, organized with the independent union WAC-Ma'an, are demanding an end to exploitation and humiliation, and insist on signing a first collective agreement. Salit Quarries’ main customer is Readymix Industries (Israel). The total reliance of Salit Quarry on Readymix as their biggest and by far the most important customer puts responsibility on Readymix to make sure that their clients abides by labour laws and safeguards elementary rights for the workers of Salit. We call upon Readymix to urge the Salit management to terminate this unnecessary strike by signing the collective agreement with the workers and WAC-Ma’an. Click this protest link to send your message. The text of the message is as follows: I write to you to express my grave concern about the failure of Salit management to sign a collective agreement with the workers of