Reform leader: U.S. Jews must insist Israel halt settlements
Haaretz Article: "Reform leader: U.S. Jews must insist Israel halt settlements | By Nathan Guttman, Haaretz Correspondent

NEW YORK - Rabbi Eric Yoffie, the president of the Union for Reform Judaism, has issued a call to American Jews to exert their political influence in the U.S. in order to make the American administration prompt Israel to freeze all settlements immediately, regardless of what the Palestinians are doing.

'Continuing to build settlements is to threaten the Jewish character of the state and is to undermine the Zionist dream,' Yoffie told Haaretz in an interview in his New York office.

Yoffie added that the goal of the settlement effort is to create a reality that is irreversible. 'That's what scares me most of all,' he says.
...
"My fear is that very soon, it is going to be too late," he says adding, "Israel will need to choose between a democratic state with an Arab majority, or an apartheid state, and this is not what Zionism is about. We didn't dream of Zion for 2000 years in order to be a minority in somebody else's state," Yoffie said.
- posted by Editor @ 10:16 AM

200,000 Israelis have the left the country in during the Intifada: 14% now live outside Israel
News: "Israelis leave their land, forced out by a battered economy and years of violence | By Justin Huggler in Jerusalem | 20 November 2003

Jean Max emigrated from Britain to Israel in 1970 as a committed Zionist. Her three children were born and grew up in Israel. But since they reached adulthood, all three have left for new lives in the United States.

And Ms Max, now divorced, is planning to follow them. Her American visa has arrived, she is going to Boston, where her daughter lives, to look for work. If she finds it, she is leaving Israel after 33 years.

Ms Max and her family are part of a growing phenomenon that has the Israeli political establishment worried. New figures from the Immigration and Absorption Ministry stunned the establishment. Those figures show 760,000 Israeli citizens now live abroad. The ministry says its figures are an informal estimate, based on research by Israeli embassies around the world.

Even so, for a country of just 6,600,000, it is a large number. But the big surprise was the growth in the number of Israelis living abroad: in 2000, it was 550,000. ...
- posted by Editor @ 10:30 AM

US Aid to Israel: entirely opposed
US Aid to Israel Survey Results: "

Bob, Burlington, VT

I am a Jewish American, 56 years old, related through my late grandfather Abraham Green to David Ben-Gurion [Founder of the State of Israel]. I am entirely opposed to continuation of any U.S. aid to Israel until and unless Israel:

1. Allows Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and land as required by U.N. resolution 194 and the 4th Geneva Convention;

2. Removes all illegal settlements in the West Bank and Gaza as required by the Geneva Convention and other international law;

3. Ceases its policies of ethnic cleansing, apartheid, torture, assassination and all other crimes against humanity.

4. Puts all of its war criminals, including but not limited to Ariel Sharon, on trial, either in Israel or in Belgium.
-Bob, Burlington, VT"
--------------
I am a 75 year old native San Franciscan Jewish woman, and I am also an Israeli citizen having lived and worked there for 9 years. I am totally, completely and unutterable opposed to continuing any aid to Israel, and especially military aid, until that government starts to obey, not only international law, but also the laws of this country regarding the use of military equipment bought from us.
-Zora, San Francisco, CA
- posted by Editor @ 11:03 AM

"We have no right to be an occupation power, no nation has this right." "cancer tumor of Israeli society"
The March For Justice: "Occupation is �Cancer Tumor of Israeli Society�, Says Jewish Star Pianist | 'The settlements must go' | Aug. 03, 2003 | Der Spiegel http://www.spiegel.de/spiegel/vorab/0,1518,259721,00.html

World-renowned Jewish conductor and star pianist, Daniel Barenboim called for an end to the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories, describing it as "cancer tumor of Israeli society."
Barenboim, who is a Jew of Argentine-origin, said, "We have no right to be an occupation power, no nation has this right."

"We don't have to build a wall but have to build bridges," the famous musician, a vocal critic of the Jewish state, added in reference to the Apartheid Wall Israel is building on the occupied Palestinian West Bank to separate Palestinians from Israelis. "
- posted by Editor @ 7:44 AM