SLEZAK, Peter. Philosophy professor condemns racist Zionist defamation of anti-racist Jews for opposing Zionist violation of Indigenous Palestinians
Dr Peter Slezak is an Associate Professor in philosophy in the School of History and Philosophy, University of New South Wales and is involved with Independent Australian Jewish Voices (see: http://hist-phil.arts.unsw.edu.au/staff/peter-slezak-160.html and http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/encounter/voices-of-dissent/3135248 ).
Dr Peter Slezak on false Zionist defamation of decent anti-racist Jews (2009): “We've all been brought up with terrible lies and myths about the whole history of Israel, and increasingly they're becoming exposed for what they are, and I'm finding with a lot of Jewish people, coming to face that is very difficult. One of the problems they express is that they don't know how to reconcile being a Jew, and a loyal Jew, so to speak, or a loyal supporter of Israel, with the criticism that they now feel they must make. That's the awkwardness. And there is a model for that, there are lots of Jews around the world now have come out - admirable people of all walks of life - who are able to show that it's possible to be Jewish and even committed to Israel, and yet be critical. Within Israel itself there's an enormous amount… Well as a Jew, the usual phrase is 'self-hating Jew', it's a version of anti-Semitism, it would be too paradoxical to be anti-Semitic as such, but there's this bizarre psychological category that's standardly used now, and it's meant to stop people thinking about what you're saying. It's to dismiss you as some kind of deranged human being that has some kind of self-hatred, as if that explains anything, and of course it's such a well-known slogan, but it's used seriously, and it's effective. People then think we don't have to listen to what these people say, as if the content of their criticisms ought not to be addressed seriously. the idea is somehow is that you're only a real Jew if you are supporting the State of Israel. That's bizarre, and really ought not to be tolerated… The slogan 'Never again' unfortunately has come to mean for Jews 'Never again to Jews'. That's very sad to have to say that. They haven't been sensitive to the idea that one should stand up for oppressed and under-privileged people whose rights are being violated, they are too obsessed in a way, with their own suffering. So that's the other side to it, and this is a complicated psychological problem, certainly one can't in any way minimise the horror of that, but in fact I think that the way in which the Holocaust has been turned into a justification for creating a state that somehow asserts its rights over the indigenous people, can't be warranted.” [1].
Dr Peter Slezak as a signatory on the "Petition Against the Right of Return to Israel on Behalf of Australian Jews” (March 2010): “We are Jews from Australia, who, like Jewish people throughout the world, have an automatic right to Israeli citizenship under Israel’s “law of return.” While this law may seem intended to enable a Jewish homeland, we submit that it is in fact a form of racist privilege that abets the colonial oppression of the Palestinians.
Today there are more than seven million Palestinian refugees around the world. Israel denies their right to return to their homes and land—a right recognized and undisputed by UN Resolution 194, the Geneva Convention, and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Meanwhile, we are invited to live on that same land simply because we are Jewish, thereby potentially taking the place of Palestinians who would dearly love to return to their ancestral lands.
We renounce this “right” to “return” offered to us by Israeli law. It is not right that we may “return” to a state that is not ours while Palestinians are excluded and continuously dispossessed.’ [2].
Professor Peter Slezak on the Jewish Holocaust and the Zionist crimes against Palestinians (2012): “I am a secular, atheist, assimilated, non-Zionist Jew… Both my parents survived the Holocaust … My eighty-three year-old mother is a survivor of the Nazi concentration camp at Auschwitz. I grew up with her questions: Why didn’t anyone help the Jews? Why didn’t anyone else care? Why did the world allow it to happen? These are the same questions we must ask today about the crimes against the Palestinians. So I’m here because the State if Israel does not represent all Jews. If we have learned the real meaning of the slogan “never again”, we can’t remain silent when the crimes are being committed in our name. We must universalize the lessons of our own tragedy to include others in our moral universe… right now we are all Palestinians.” [3, 4].
[1]. Dr Peter Slezak interviewed by Gary Bryson in “Voices of Dissent” , ABC Radio National, “Encounter”, 22 March 2009: http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/encounter/voices-of-dissent/3135248 .
[2]. Antony Loewenstein, "Prominent Australian Jews reject the Israeli "right of return", Media release, 3 March 2010:
[3]. Peter Slezak, “A troublemaker in exile” in “Beyond Tribal Loyalties. Personal Stories of Jewish Peace Activists”, edited by Avigail Abarbanel (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2012) (pp 65 & 83).
[4]. Peter Slezak quoted in Gideon Polya, “Book Review: “Beyond Tribal Loyalties”. Stories of anti-racist Jews”, MWC News, 18 January 2012: http://mwcnews.net/focus/analysis/24184-gideonpolya-beyond-tribal-loyalties.html .