Jews for Justice for Palestinians
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Jews for Justice for Palestinians (JfJfP) is an interest group based in Britain that describes itself as advocating for human and civil rights, and economic and political freedom, for the Palestinian people. It opposes the current policy of Israel towards the Palestinian territories, particularly the occupied territories of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, and seeks a change in their political status. The membership of JfJfP is primarily made up of British Jews.
Background
The organisation was founded in February 2002. It describes itself as welcoming all Jews, practising and secular Jews, Zionist and not, who oppose Israeli policies that could be seen as threatening Palestinian rights.
It extends support, both moral and material, to Palestinians trapped in the spiral of violence and repression. It also supports a wide range of Israeli peace and human-rights groups working towards these same ends.
Its stated reasons for supporting Palestinian rights include not only the absolute moral imperatives of promoting human rights, but are also based on the view that this is the best means of securing peace for Israelis. It supports the right of Israelis to live in freedom and security within Israel's 1967 borders.
It organises to give voice to the many strands of Israeli peace activism and to ensure that Jewish opinions critical of Israeli policy are heard in Britain. It believes that such opposition is important in countering anti-semitism and the claim that opposition to Israel’s policies is itself anti-semitic.
It cooperates with other organisations on specific issues without necessarily endorsing everything they do. Together with others it calls on the British and European Union governments to suspend the preferential treatment accorded to Israel in trade agreements, to recognise the elected Palestinian Authority and to support it financially, to cease to trade arms with Israel, to push for the enforcement of international law in the region and to strive for fair and free negotiations between the parties.
It supports the British Shalom-Salaam Trust which funds a variety of humanitarian and educational projects in Israel and Palestine.
It is a founder member of European Jews for a Just Peace, a federation of Jewish groups in ten European countries; and of the Enough! Coalition in the UK in 2007.
Open letters
JfJfP has organised a number of petitions and open letters on political and human rights questions signed by distinguished British Jews from academia, the arts and other fields of activity.
A letter to the Foreign and Commonwealth Secretary David Miliband of September 2007, urging Her Majesty's Government to speak at the United Nations against Israeli sanctions in Gaza, printed in The Times, was signed among many others by: