Juergen Plieninger

This piece by Ayman Odeh, the most admirable Israeli politician of our generation, is so good and so important that I am copying the whole thing here. Pease read and share: * * * * * * * Today, my voice, my party, and my very presence in the Israeli parliament are under attack. But this is not just an attack: It's an attempt to erase me, and all those who oppose the Netanyahu government, the occupation and war in Gaza. Members of both the ruling coalition as well as members of the opposition are trying to impeach me over a tweet I posted on X nearly six months ago, in which I wrote: "I am happy about the release of the hostages and the prisoners. We must now free both peoples from the yoke of occupation. Because we were all born free." A tweet that endorses a humane and just position, based on the universal recognition that no one's freedom can survive at the cost of another's, shouldn't trigger such controversy. But here, in Israel, words like these are twisted to mean "support for terrorism." Let me be clear: those who support terror are not, like me, advocates for peace. Those who support terror actually sit in this Israeli government. They are the extremists, not me. But instead of taking responsibility for their own words and deeds, they are now judging me for what I feel, for what I wrote. Many of those extremists, some ministers in this government, have declared, since the very first days of this war: "Gaza should be burned to the ground." Others said, without shame: "The children of Gaza brought this upon themselves." Some went even further, proclaiming: "There are no innocents in Gaza" and even: "Men should be separated from women and children – and then executed." These are the words of sitting members of the Knesset, some from the Netanyahu coalition, some from the opposition. And yet they want to impeach me and to silence all of us who speak out against the war. Like Émile Zola, who cried out in defense of human conscience during the Dreyfus Affair, I too feel a moral duty to cry out. I accuse. I accuse the Israeli government, led by Benjamin Netanyahu, Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, of waging a war of annihilation against the Palestinian people. This is a government that has abandoned even the faintest pretense of morality. Its goal is not security, it is vengeance, destruction, domination and occupation. I accuse those who are supporting this disgraceful, dangerous, and profoundly anti-democratic impeachment process. This is not an isolated event. It is yet another painful step in a systematic campaign to erase the political representation of Arab citizens of Israel and to silence every moral voice that dares to speak about equality, justice, democracy and peace. I accuse the mainstream Israeli media, which has largely failed to cover this impeachment process with the gravity it demands. The same media that obscures the horrors of war – the suffering of children, the starvation, the destruction. Much of the Israeli media chose, from the very beginning of this war, to serve the government, and to hide reality from the public. This is not journalism: It is complicity. I accuse the leaders of the opposition who have failed to offer a real alternative to this criminal path. They chose to play by the rules written by a system sliding toward fascism. A democracy without a moral opposition is no democracy at all. I accuse those who support Jewish supremacy, who refuse to see us as equals, who deny our humanity and who fail to recognize even a single nonviolent freedom fighter among the Palestinian people. The Palestinian people have the right to exist, the right to resist injustice, and the right to seek freedom, through dignity, through persistence, and through the justice of our cause. I accuse the leadership of the settler movement – the ideological vanguard of apartheid and Israel's shadow government. They preach ethnic cleansing, glorify Jewish supremacy, and work daily to expel and erase the Palestinian people, in the West Bank, Gaza, and the Negev, in the name of Judaism but against its values. I accuse those leading the campaign of destruction in Gaza. They have crossed every red line. They have lost all restraint. They act with a cruelty that history will shudder to remember. I accuse those who demolish cities, erase lives and perpetuate an illegal occupation, all in the name of Israel's "security." I accuse those responsible for the horrifying massacre of October 7. This is an unforgivable crime. Killing innocents – elderly people, women, men, young people, including those dancing at a music festival – is an appalling crime. I have condemned these horrific crimes hundreds of times. I visited the families of the hostages and the victims. I carry their pain. I recognize their pain. The murder of innocent people must always be condemned. This is a moral principle I will never abandon. The crimes of Israel's occupation can never justify the killing of even a single innocent Israeli civilian on October 7. And nothing that happened on October 7 can ever justify the killing of even one innocent Palestinian civilian in Gaza. I accuse the international community. Yes, I accuse U.S. President Donald Trump and his predecessors, who legitimized the war of annihilation in Gaza and the rise of fascism in Israel. Trump spoke about annexation and apartheid without a trace of empathy or any recognition of the price that would be paid for it. And I accuse us, too. Yes, I accuse myself. We have not done enough. We have not been strong enough, loud enough, to stop this catastrophe. We have not worked hard enough to empower the Arab vote in Israel. But we are here. We are still standing. And we will not stop. We will not be silent. We will not falter. But I do not accuse the families of the hostages and the victims of October 7. They deserve every embrace, even when their own government abandoned them. I do not accuse the Arab public in Israel, who once again have proven to be a moral compass, a voice of reconciliation in a sea of hatred. And I certainly do not accuse the Palestinian people in Gaza or the West Bank. Gaza is the most devastated place on earth since World War II. The West Bank's over 1,300 military checkpoints make daily life for Palestinians living under occupation nearly impossible. I see their suffering. I hear their cries. I see the destruction. I know the impossible choices they face every day under siege, under occupation, under bombardment. I see people who simply want to live – who simply want to raise their children in dignity and peace, and to realize their right to self-determination through the establishment of a Palestinian state. I see people who have been stripped of their freedom and their humanity, trapped between the walls of oppression and the fires of war. I do not accuse those who oppose this war: Jews and Arabs who declared in a clear, unwavering voice: not in our name. Our destiny is shared. We are not enemies. We are partners. And I accuse Israel's occupation, which fuels the pain, destruction, and endless cycle of violence. This is why I believe we must liberate both peoples, because we were all born free. The path of Israel's right wing has failed. This war of annihilation has achieved nothing and will achieve nothing. In the end, Palestinians and Israelis will rise together. Only a political solution can bring justice, safety, and peace from the river to the sea. History will judge those who stayed silent, and honor those who resisted and believed. We choose to believe. We choose to resist. Only together can we build something else: a different future. A better future. Because my children, just like every child, are so desperately thirsty for life. They are thirsty for joy. They are thirsty for the simple, stubborn hope that refuses to die. They are thirsty for security, for peace, for the right simply to be. And who among us is not? This week, when I face impeachment for my principles, I will stand in the Knesset with my head held high. Every word I said represents me fully – and I take nothing back. Not a sentence, not a word, not a letter, not a comma, not even a single dot. My positions are moral positions. They offer an alternative, an alternative of democracy, equality, and peace for both the Jewish and Palestinian peoples. Because history will judge them. And history will vindicate me. * * * * * * * * Ayman Odeh is a Palestinian citizen of Israel, a member of the Israeli Knesset and the leader of the Hadash-Ta'al party.