"I’m Renan Raz, I’m from Palestine, Tel Aviv and I’m 25 years old. Before living in Tel Aviv I was living in an Israeli kibbutz. Before the [Israeli-led] ethnic cleansing it was a Palestinian village called Huj, and it’s about 3 km from the Palestinian Gaza strip.
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When I was in school, I was around 11 years old, I asked my teacher about Palestine and I remember her reaction. She was really terrified and she said not to ever mention Palestine in school again. I then realized there was something there. As time passed by I started to research more about Palestine and its history on my own. At that point I realized that there has been an ethnic cleansing, the Nakba [Catastrophe].
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"The racist Zionist movement has nothing to do with Judaism. Being Jewish is something that belongs to your ethnicity, being Zionist is more political."
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"It’s not a conflict, it’s occupation and apartheid"
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"On the [Israeli] kibbutz after they discovered I refused [to join the Israeli army] they started discriminating against me...they asked me to pay a considerable amount of money if I wanted to stay, as indemnity. Indemnity for what? It’s not that I did something wrong, they just wanted to punish me because I was a refusenik. Of course I’m never going to pay."
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"As Arab Jews we’re discriminated by the Israeli State"
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"I'm compelled to act in solidarity with my Palestinian friends, who are living under Israeli occupation and apartheid."
-----"If you don’t fit in the category of privileged white Jew, you will always be a second class citizen in Israel."
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"But this is not about war and peace. We must start talking about occupier and occupied, oppressor and oppressed. It’s about those who have all the rights and those that have none. This is not a conflict, it’s colonialism. It’s apartheid, it’s a crime against humanity ... even so, Israel remains unpunished because of the strong ties with the US."
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"To stand shoulder to shoulder with Palestinians is another form of resistance against Zionism."
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"To stop this crime we need to call for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) against Israel and the condemn EU and USA for the funding given to Israel who continues to go unpunished for its crimes against humanity."
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"I’m a little bit uncomfortable with the thought that this is my last hours on this planet, that I be put to sleep, and some of you, my friends, will say a final goodbye, for the last time. I know I didn’t do much in my 27 years of living, but it was the best I could do, and as I look back I an proud of myself, I hope that if it is really my Last Breath I wish it can do more, to people living under a constant fear, and fighting for a better life. For them and their community…thinking of leaving this world beyond, is not a happy place to be in, I am still young, and can offer more to my few friends, and to all the activities I take part in. If it’s the struggle in Palestine, for equality, justice, Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS)…But I feel strong inside of me, just as many other times in my life so far, I am strong because I push myself to be a better man.”
Click here for an interview with Renen Raz.
