Yesterday morning, Saturday 13 December, at the Palestinian Embassy in Rome, Moni Ovadia, the well-known actor and activist, received honorary Palestinian citizenship from the President of the Palestinian National Authority, Abu Mazen, in recognition of his tireless commitment to defending the rights of the Palestinian people.
Moni accepted this great honour with great happiness and emotion. Saying goodbye to Abu Mazen, Moni told him:
‘I feel deeply Palestinian even though I am Jewish, because as a Jew I know that my duty is to stand with the oppressed.’ In his acceptance speech, Moni emphasised how much his Jewishness has meant in his struggle for the freedom and self-determination of a people he described as ‘the loneliest in the world’, arguing that the true essence of Judaism is a deep respect for diversity, acceptance of others and rejection of nationalism and the idolatry of the land. Moni then specified: ‘Zionism is the suicide of Israel and the destruction of the great millennial ethical thought.’
On the sidelines of his meeting with Abbas, Moni Ovadia also stated:
“I am only a free citizen, but I believe that the liberation of the Palestinian people and their full rights are a value that concerns everyone. As a Jew, I feel profoundly Palestinian: as Marek Edelman reminded us, a Jew must stand with the oppressed. The injustice of the Palestinians is one of the gravest injustices of modernity. If we do not contribute to their full dignity and rights, we will be judged by future generations. I do not want them to spit on my grave.”
