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A coalition of Jews living in the East Bay has launched an online petition against the Berkeley Daily Planet, striking out at the newspaper’s inclusion of “shrill and venomous anti-Israel diatribes” in its pages.

Backers of the campaign are the Israel Action Committee of the East Bay, directed by Berkeley resident Sanne DeWitt, and dpwatchdog.com, which is overseen by John Gertz, also of Berkeley. 

The petition, which had garnered more than 200 signatures as of last week, claims its signers “stand with the free-speech rights of those who would criticize the Berkeley Daily Planet for its obsessive and one-sided campaign against the state of Israel,” according to campaign organizers.

The petition also calls on the publisher and editor of the Daily Planet to “display integrity and responsibility” in order to ensure its pages are “devoid of irresponsible misstatements of facts” meant to “besmirch Jews at large, Israel and citizens who decry the Daily Planet’s practices.”

The campaign was prompted in part by a full-page ad in the July 9 edition of the Daily Planet, which is actually a weekly, signed by more than 125 local Jews who support the Daily Planet and “repudiate the continuing blockade and siege of Gaza.”

To view the petition or learn more about the campaign, visit www.gopetition.com/online/29508.html.