Press Release
Freedom Flotilla Italy, 17 October 2012
Marco Ramazzotti Stockel – 65, Italian, is married and has two children. His second surname is very important for him: “Write it, please, so they understand I am Jewish and that if I fight against the occupation it is for the Jews themselves, because the occupation harms them and not only the Palestinians”.
“I grew up in a Muslim country. I have lived and worked in twelve Muslim countries. The Muslim world is close to my heart. Arab people are my brothers. It is unconceivable for me that a Jew could ever imagine that her or his safety – from persecution, Shoah, pogroms – could ever come from using violence against another people. The Palestinian people are victims of violence”.
Marco Ramazzotti has over 35 years of experience in development aid, as a legal anthropologist and socio-economist, and project manager and NGO representative. He has worked in twenty-six developing countries for Italian and international NGOs, international consulting companies, the EU and several UN agencies (FAO, IFAD, UNICEF, WFP), and Italian Development Cooperation. He has been advisor to an African government and, most recently, has organised and taught in security courses for NGOs, religious missions and companies working abroad. He holds a degree in international law and is a Fellow of Churchill College Cambridge, UK.
“Israel follows only the rules made by itself, it does not respect international law, nor does it abide by international moral standards, because it has imposed upon the Palestinians a regime of apartheid” – Marco says - “So other Jews need to say: ‘Government of Israel, you have undertaken a political course of action that is extremely dangerous (…….) but if we struggle and try to work with the Arabs, with Muslims, we will in fact be protecting and defending the Jewish people - we protect them because we remember, as Jews, that we also have been persecuted. The only way we can prevent persecution is to extend our hand to our enemy: it will not be weapons that protect us’.
He has a political past in the Italian Communist Party and was a member of the major Italian trade union, CGIL. Since the year 2000, he has been a member of ECO (Ebrei contro l’Ocupazione, Jews against Occupation) and of EJSP, European Jews for a Just Peace. He joined the Freedom Flottilla for Gaza in Athens in 2010, with the French group.
A life of diverse interests and a life-long commitment to fighting poverty and under-development, an unswerving dedication to justice and peace.
“As a Jew, it is my dream to go to Gaza to testify that we are brothers, and that Israel needs to find other means – which are not military means – to solve the conflict between the two people”.
Marco represents Italy on board the Estelle, Freedom Flotilla, en route for Gaza.
Video interview recorded before departure http://youtu.be/E3ZF0o4mY1g
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