A Different Jewish Voice (Een Ander Joods Geluid)
Marius van Bouwdijk Bastiaansestraat 40
1054 SP Amsterdam
Netherlands
- Human rights
- International/Cultural relations
- Research
As A Different Jewish Voice we wish to:
- Contribute to the public debate and critical opinion making on Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories;
- Break the taboo among Jews that they cannot utter criticism on the state of Israel and do not either accept this from other people;
- Support peace initiatives based on a felt connection with the fate and survival of Israel. Starting point here are the generally accepted principles of equality, tolerance and humanity as anchored in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and aiming at a sustainable peace in the Middle East that must be reached without oppression and/or discrimination from either side in any form whatsoever.
- Perform any further action that relates to the items mentioned in the broadest sense or that might be conducive to them.
A Different Jewish Voice stands for:
- Dialogue and mutual respect instead of violence and abuse of power.
- Equal opportunities and rights for all people.
- Complete withdrawal of settlers and the military from the occupied territories, according to UN resolutions 242 and 338, in exchange for peace and security.
- Realizing a viable Palestinian state next to Israel; Jerusalem as the capital of two states.
- A balanced solution to the problem of Palestinian refugees. A condition is that Israels recognizes its co-responsibility of the emerging of this problem. Only then negotiations can be started on the question how Israel can contribute to repairing this injustice without endangering its own existence.
We aim to reach politics, the public and the media. We try to do so by organizing the following activities and implementing the following projects:
- We publish factsheets and position papers on issues relating to Israeli-Palestinian conflict, aimed at politicians and policy makers.
- We organize campaigns and conferences to get the public involved in promoting for instance Dutch support for a Palestinian UN membership or in promoting a different Dutch foreign policy, aimed at building a strong support for a two-state solution and an end to the Occupation.
- We try to influence the debate within the Jewish community on Israel by organizing debates and lectures, writing op-eds and by bringing progressive Israeli voices to a Jewish audience.
- We cooperate with European Jewish and Israeli groups in promoting an alternative Jewish view on the conflict among EU policy makers and the European public.
A Different Jewish Voice (Een Ander Joods Geluid) promotes a more thorough and balanced knowledge of and debate on Israel and Palestine in the Netherlands: in the Jewish community but also in the Netherlands as a whole. We believe that by giving Israelis and Palestinians, who are striving for a peaceful and just solution of the conflict, a platform in the Netherlands and Europe, we can end the current status quo. As a Jewish organization of whom many members and supporters have family and friends in Israel and who feel a deep connection (historically, culturally or religiously) to the region, we have a personal stake in letting Israeli and Palestinian voices being heard. We also wish to contribute to a peaceful and lasting dialogue that will close an artificial gap between being 'pro-Israel' and being 'pro-Palestine'. Because we wish to bridge these differences and support an honest debate that will hopefully bring peace a little bit closer, we believe we can contribute to the overall goals of the Anna Lindh Foundation and its pan-European Network.
We believe that there is a real need to foster more understanding of the Middle East in Europe - and not only when it comes to Israel and Palestine -, now that the region has seen tremendous turmoil and strife in the last couple of years. We also believe that civil society organizations are the ones who can promote this understanding - but for that, we need to cooperate.
For the last couple of years A Different Jewish Voice has cooperated closely with activists and organizations in Israel and Palestine, as well as NGOs in the Netherlands - consisting of Dutch Israelis, Dutch Palestinians, organizations within the Jewish community, but also Christian groups and others. Over the years, we've also learned that contributing to a lasting change will mean that we will have to go 'European' and expand our work so that our voice and the voice of pro-peace Israelis and Palestinians can be heard in Brussels and other places. For this, we are looking for partners across Europe - and we believe the ALF Network can help us forge new alliances across Europe and Israel/Palestine. We believe that by joining the ALF Network, we become part of a growing alliance to bring peace, mutual understanding and dialogue to the doorsteps of ordinary Europeans, and as a Jewish organization committed to this, we wish to become part of the ALF Network.