Jewish woman calls for peace at Palestine rally in Portsmouth

Jewish woman recalls on her past experience and calls for peace at Palestine rally outside Portsmouth Civic Office on 7th of May 2024

Transcript

00:00So I'm here today because I am horrified, as everyone else in the world is, who has

00:17a heart, at what's happening to the people in Gaza and the West Bank. I can't understand

00:24why the people who are running the world, the people in power, can allow this to happen,

00:29the horrors that are being inflicted on men, women and children in Palestine. I can't understand

00:35quite why Israel is being allowed to behave in the way it is, why Benjamin Netanyahu has

00:40not been stopped. And I can't understand why the argument that criticising Israel is anti-Semitic

00:48is still being listened to, still being given any space or time at all, because it's simply

00:53not true. I'm Jewish, I'm not anti-Semitic, I hate anti-Semitism as I hate all hate crimes,

01:01and I am passionately anti-Zionist. I'm against the whole Israel project and certainly the

01:06way that Israel is behaving towards Palestinians. I mean there's so many demonstrations that

01:12anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism are not the same thing. The American protests have got

01:18so many Jewish people passing Seder night and doing all kinds of celebrations, peacefully

01:24protesting against the actions of the Israeli government. Being Jewish has nothing to do

01:29with being Israeli. Truly religious Jewish people believe in peace, just like any truly

01:35religious person of any faith believes in peace. And they just do not represent us.

01:41So the Second World War was horrific, what was done to Jews in the Second World War was

01:46horrific, and I grew up having nightmares about what would have happened if I'd have

01:49lived earlier, what would have happened if Hitler had come. I grew up having nightmares

01:53about gas chambers, quite frankly, and it was awful. And the world stood by us, and

01:59the resistance in France, the French resistance to the Nazi occupation, were heroes after

02:04the war. In the same way that when the Jewish people escaped, some of them escaped the Holocaust,

02:09they went to Israel, the safe place, forgetting that it was actually a Palestinian place and

02:15where there were already people living, Palestinians living, and they took with them the trauma

02:20of the Second World War. I guess what I would say is please do not be afraid to raise your

02:25voice against the actions of Israel, the horrible, horrible actions of Israel, because you're

02:31not being anti-Semitic, you're being human. I'm Jewish, and I think what they're doing

02:35is awful, and I'm human. Don't be put off, don't be worried about being called anti-Semitic,

02:40it's a ridiculous idea that being against Israel is being against Jewish people. It's not true.

03:10It's not true.