(JTA) — Some 40 people identifying as Jewish Holocaust survivors and more than 200 direct descendants of survivors signed a public letter condemning Israel’s military operation in Gaza and accusing it of “ongoing genocide.”
The letter, which was published Saturday in The New York Times as a half-page advertisement, also condemns the “ongoing occupation and colonization of historic Palestine” and the United States “for providing Israel with the funding to carry out the attack.”
The signatories come from 26 countries representing four generations.
About 50 other relatives of survivors also signed the letter, which was sponsored by the International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network. Founded in 2008, the network calls for the “liberation of the Palestinian people and land,” as well as “an end to U.S. economic and military dominance in the region, in which Israel plays a crucial part.”
In a statement, the network said the letter was written in response to an ad campaign in which Elie Wiesel, a Holocaust survivor and Nobel Prize laureate, compares the murder of children during the Holocaust to Hamas’ actions in Gaza.
“We are disgusted and outraged by Elie Wiesel’s abuse of our history in these pages to justify the unjustifiable: Israel’s wholesale effort to destroy Gaza and the murder of more than 2,000 Palestinians, including many hundreds of children. Nothing can justify bombing UN shelters, homes, hospitals and universities. Nothing can justify depriving people of electricity and water,” the letter reads.
