International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network
Encyclopedia
The International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network (IJAN) is a network of anti-Zionist
Anti-Zionism
Anti-Zionism is opposition to Zionistic views or opposition to the state of Israel. The term is used to describe various religious, moral and political points of view in opposition to these, but their diversity of motivation and expression is sufficiently different that "anti-Zionism" cannot be...

 Jews
Jews
The Jews , also known as the Jewish people, are a nation and ethnoreligious group originating in the Israelites or Hebrews of the Ancient Near East. The Jewish ethnicity, nationality, and religion are strongly interrelated, as Judaism is the traditional faith of the Jewish nation...

 pledged to "Oppose Zionism and the State of Israel".

Advocacy and activity

The IJAN views Zionism as a racist movement, and Israel as an apartheid state. The charter of the organization states "[w]e are an international network of Jews who are uncompromisingly committed to struggles for human emancipation, of which the liberation of the Palestinian people and land is an indispensable part. Our commitment is to the dismantling of Israeli apartheid, the return of Palestinian refugees, and the ending of the Israeli colonization of historic Palestine." It also calls for the unconditional freeing of all Palestinian prisoners in Israel. The group also opposes the wars in Iraq
Iraq
Iraq ; officially the Republic of Iraq is a country in Western Asia spanning most of the northwestern end of the Zagros mountain range, the eastern part of the Syrian Desert and the northern part of the Arabian Desert....

 and Afghanistan
Afghanistan
Afghanistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country located in the centre of Asia, forming South Asia, Central Asia and the Middle East. With a population of about 29 million, it has an area of , making it the 42nd most populous and 41st largest nation in the world...

, capitalism
Capitalism
Capitalism is an economic system that became dominant in the Western world following the demise of feudalism. There is no consensus on the precise definition nor on how the term should be used as a historical category...

, and Islamophobia
Islamophobia
Islamophobia describes prejudice against, hatred or irrational fear of Islam or MuslimsThe term dates back to the late 1980s or early 1990s, but came into common usage after the September 11, 2001 attacks in the United States....

. Prominent members of IJAN include feminist activist Selma James
Selma James
Selma James is a co-author of the women's movement classic The Power of Women and the Subversion of the Community, founder of the International Wages for Housework Campaign and coordinator of the Global Women's Strike.-Socialist activist:...

 and holocaust survivor Hajo Meyer
Hajo Meyer
Hajo Meyer is a German-Dutch physicist and Jewish political activist.Born in Bielefeld, in 1938 Meyer fled from Nazi Germany to the Netherlands alone, without his parents. He went into hiding in 1943, but was arrested after a year and spent ten months in Auschwitz...

. It comprises groups in the USA, Canada, India, Argentina, and several European countries.

Irish academic David Landy describes IJAN as one of the few Jewish organizations not to "sideline" anti-Zionism, "believing Zionism to be the underlying problem that must be tackled in order to achieve Palestinian liberation and incidentally reclaim the Jewish commitment to liberation."

The Anti-Defamation League
Anti-Defamation League
The Anti-Defamation League is an international non-governmental organization based in the United States. Describing itself as "the nation's premier civil rights/human relations agency", the ADL states that it "fights anti-Semitism and all forms of bigotry, defends democratic ideals and protects...

 (ADL) has said that whilst the International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network does not organise "a significant number of events", it has an important role "in creating policy and setting anti-Israel agendas".

History

Sara Kershnar and others founded the International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network in 2008.

During the Gaza War (2008-2009) six members chained themselves to the Israeli consulate in Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...

, while around 40 others protested in front, shutting it down for two hours. Members of IJAN have taken part in many protests in London and elsewhere.

In 2010 Ireland’s national trade-union federation invited the International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network to a conference in Dublin on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

IJAN member and Auschwitz survivor Hajo Meyer author of The End of Judaism: An Ethical Tradition Betrayed, was a key speaker in IJAN's 2010–2011 "Never Again – For Anyone" tour, with talks in the UK and Ireland.

In 2011 IJAN was one of a number of organizations that organized a 13-city speaking tour of the USA, which according to the Jerusalem Post "compares Israel’s relations with the Palestinians to the Nazis’ treatment of Jews during the Holocaust".

Criticism

Next to the expected criticism by supporters of the policies of the State of Israel in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict
Israeli–Palestinian conflict
The Israeli–Palestinian conflict is the ongoing conflict between Israelis and Palestinians. The conflict is wide-ranging, and the term is also used in reference to the earlier phases of the same conflict, between Jewish and Zionist yishuv and the Arab population living in Palestine under Ottoman or...

, IJAN has also been strongly criticized by Gilad Atzmon
Gilad Atzmon
Gilad Atzmon is an Israeli-born British jazz saxophonist, novelist, political activist and writer.Atzmon's album Exile was BBC jazz album of the year in 2003. Playing over 100 dates a year, he has been called "surely the hardest-gigging man in British jazz." His albums, of which he has recorded...

, himself an anti-Zionist political activist, advocate of the one-state solution and author of the book The Wandering Who? A Study Of Jewish Identity Politics, for operating as a "Jews only" political cell, thereby not being "part of a solution but just another aspect of the problem", calling them "'anti' Zionist stooges". IJAN rejected Atzmon's accusations in a statement that described him as a "an antisemitic ideologue and promoter of holocaust denial."

Jonny Paul has characterised the International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network in The Jerusalem Post
The Jerusalem Post
The Jerusalem Post is an Israeli daily English-language broadsheet newspaper, founded on December 1, 1932 by Gershon Agron as The Palestine Post. The daily readership numbers do not approach those of the major Hebrew newspapers....

as a "small radical fringe group".

The Anti-Defamation League
Anti-Defamation League
The Anti-Defamation League is an international non-governmental organization based in the United States. Describing itself as "the nation's premier civil rights/human relations agency", the ADL states that it "fights anti-Semitism and all forms of bigotry, defends democratic ideals and protects...

accused IJAN of failing to remove antisemitic content from their Facebook page.
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