The Australian Jewish Democratic Society (AJDS) unreservedly condemns Hamas for its attack on Israel. 250 young people killed at a music festival is a massacre. That action and hostage-taking of civilians are war crimes.
Justification of this violence by Palestinians and their supporters condemns the conflict to never ending acts of revenge. The attack by the Israeli airforce on Gaza and a possible ground invasion is guaranteed to increase the number of Palestinian civilians killed or injured in this combined offensive.
As Breaking the Silence, an organisation of former Israeli soldiers has said in its statement on the attacks, “Israel’s security policy, for decades now has been to “manage the conflict”. Successive Israeli governments insist on round after round of violence as if any of it will make a difference. They talk about “security”, “deterrence”, “changing the equation”. ” This has failed.
Since our inception, the AJDS has promoted a just solution to the conflict in Israel and Palestine; one that accounts for the rights of both Israelis and Palestinians in conflict resolution.
For anyone to feel some sense of satisfaction from the inexorably rising grim death toll that is the bitter fruit of this conflict, is to have lost a sense of the humanity needed to stop this barbarity.
We recognise that Israelis will never truly be free until Palestinians are also free; that for Israelis to be safe, there is no option but to achieve a robust political resolution with Palestinian that demands painful concessions on both sides, including recognising the reality of the other´s permanency.
We urge the Australian government to play a good faith role in international efforts to stop the current fighting and to look beyond this to revive conflict resolution.
Statement Released by AJDS, 9 October 2023
Larry Stillman
“Harold Zwier has had a longstanding interest in civil debate and constructive dialogue. Although he works in the computer industry as a software engineer, his real interests are in ideas, politics, the Jewish community, interfaith dialogue and writing. He is a committee member of the Australian Jewish Democratic Society (AJDS), an organisation that takes a more independent line in matters affecting the Jewish world. “