Dear Campaigners,
Greetings from Australia, where I have been meeting with the government, parliamentarians, and campaigners for the last couple of weeks.
I have been reading this email thread, including some questions from campaigners, and wanted to take this opportunity to elaborate from ICAN’s perspective about what preceded Sharon’s email about the Israel Disarmament Movement (IDM) leaving ICAN and how we hope we can all find our way forward in a mutually supportive and compassionate way.
As you of course know, ICAN’s core mission is to prohibit and eliminate nuclear weapons, in particular through the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW). And all ICAN partner organisations have agreed, through the Partnership Pledge, to raise concerns about the risks and humanitarian consequences of any use of nuclear weapons and promote the universalisation and implementation of the TPNW. It is also ICAN’s goal to speak out against any and all nuclear weapons, regardless of who owns them.
Against this background, and in the current context around the war in Gaza, ICAN needs to address the nuclear dimension that the conflict threatens to take. As a single-issue campaign focusing on global nuclear disarmament, we knew it was imperative for ICAN to say something in the context where the media is discussing Israel’s nuclear weapons, just as we seek to do on any occasion where the issue of nuclear weapons is present, such as the Russian threats to use nuclear weapons in the context of Ukraine, North Korean missile tests, the U.S. modernisation of their nuclear arsenal, the potential Chinese expansion of their arsenal, and so forth.
In this context, we began working on an Op-Ed, to be published in my name as the Executive Director of ICAN and intended for a global audience, about the Israeli nuclear weapons programme, the threat it poses to humanity, and the need to pursue nuclear disarmament, urging the Israeli government to join the TPNW and the NPT. The staff team then reached out to IDM and the Middle East Treaty Organization to consult, because we thought it was important in this case to consider specific regional viewpoints.
In a meeting to discuss the draft, IDM raised a number of points on the draft, some of which we thought would be good to take on board. However, it was apparent that IDM had overarching concerns about the Op-Ed - not merely in terms of the content of the Op-Ed itself, but also whether or not ICAN should speak about Israel’s nuclear weapons at all at the present time. Sharon also informed us that if ICAN were to proceed with the Op-Ed, IDM would be unable to remain a partner organisation.
We left the meeting with the understanding that the discussion was continuing, that METO planned to send proposed edits to the Op-Ed, and that ICAN would consider how to proceed.
And so we were surprised and saddened to read Sharon’s email to this list, a few days after the discussion, announcing that IDM would leave ICAN.
Sharon was removed from this Campaigners e-mail list upon her announcement of leaving ICAN, as that is standard practice when a partner organisation leaves ICAN. But we remain open to continuing a discussion. Relatedly, Sharon, if you intended to stay on the email list as a representative of METO, please let me know this, and we apologise for misunderstanding that intention, and would be happy to add you back here.
ICAN has always endeavoured to call out nuclear-armed states as such. And, since the beginning of the campaign, ICAN has consistently categorised Israel as a nuclear-armed state. We believe it would undermine ICAN’s work globally if we do not make the same demands on Israel as we do on all other nuclear-armed states. And that ICAN is not seen to be silent, in moments when there is a nexus for the issue in the context of current events, relevant to a particular state’s nuclear weapons. We don’t think the global campaign benefits from staying silent.
All of this being said, we are of course very sympathetic to the need for local partner organisations to determine how to conduct their own work in their country, especially in contexts when campaigners need to tread a careful line.
And thus, we fully understand and respect that Sharon may want or need to step back from ICAN right now. We realise that for IDM to call Israel a nuclear-armed state, to call for Israel to join the TPNW, or to be connected with other ICAN messaging on Israel’s nuclear weapons program, could be difficult for those who are working in a very challenging situation.
We have had close collaborations with others that are not official partner organisations for these types of reasons (for example, in Russia) but who stand in solidarity with our shared goals around nuclear disarmament. And we hope to continue to engage and work with Sharon and IDM even if they are no longer formally an ICAN partner, and to welcome IDM back should the organisation choose to re-join the campaign. Several ICAN steering group members have been directly in touch with Sharon to hear her concerns and to keep communications open, and we note that Sharon is convening a meeting on Tuesday (the “Forum”) about Israel, Gaza, and the work toward the Middle East WMD-free zone.
The challenges to the campaign are not easy for any of us to navigate right now. I think we are all trying our best to do what we can do to advance nuclear disarmament, but also to contribute to positive change toward a safer and happier world for all, in a context where many have views contrary to ours in the ICAN community. And so I hope that, even when we differ in our opinions, we can have open conversations about it, while still focusing on the work that is needed to reach our goals.
We are genuinely sorry to see IDM leave the campaign, and we also very much support the work that Sharon and her colleagues need to do in Israel to get the government to get rid of the Israeli nuclear arsenal. We will stand in solidarity with them as they continue this work, while pursuing the work of ICAN to get all states to join the TPNW, and we hope there are ways to collaborate.
In solidarity,
melissa
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