Partners For Progressive Israel: Recent Episodes
Partners For Progressive Israel
July 31, 2026
by Mark Gold
Last weekend’s West Bank violence was depressingly familiar. Settlers burned two mosques in separate villages and attacked a family whose land settlers had grabbed near the West Bank village of Tell. When family members met the armed settler group, a fight ensued in which one settler attacker, and four family members were killed. An Israeli soldier also died in connection with the incident. The army, which had aided the settlers, then cancelled leave and sent reinforcements into the West Bank sweeping into towns to make arrests.
The Israeli Security Service (Shin Bet) and hundreds of retired army officers have warned that the ongoing program of settler violence risks igniting another Intifada, but this has made no impression on either the government or the army which operates in complicitly with the informal settler gangs who have hastened their activity to grab as much as they can before October’s election and a likely transfer of power.
Settler violence has been the leading tool of a government policy of Palestinian marginalization and displacement actively pursued by Minister of National Security Itamar Ben Gvir, in control of the police, Border Patrol, and his newly created National Guard militia, and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich. The army has permitted itself to be absorbed into these activities as an accessory. Army soldiers have been filmed moving together with settlers, standing by while the settlers harass local Palestinians and attack them. Where settlers act without army escorts, Palestinian calls for army protection go unanswered. Civilian “protective presence” observers can temporarily prevent assaults but often are removed by the army which declares the neighborhood where the observers are watching a “closed military area.” In the wake of the deaths at Tell, the army complained there was no “civilian address” to support restraint of settlers. But this is an excuse. The army is the legal authority in area C of the West Bank with the responsibility to maintain order there; it also has the power to prevent the movement of armed settler marauders as they assault Palestinians in areas A and B.
To be fair, however, the army does have a problem. In the wake of October 7, the government spread thousands of weapons among settler communities in the West Bank.
The corruption of the army and its cooptation into the Netanyahu government’s program of illicit terror on the West Bank is an extension of the corruption of the army’s role in Gaza. Initially, the army had a legitimate self defense role to protect Israeli citizens and degrade Hamas capacities to harm the country. The Netanyahu government, however, transformed the war into one in which the explicit goal was Palestinian displacement, and used the army to advance that program, which included the widespread destruction of civilian infrastructure and the use of food as a control tool.
Nor is the corruption of institutions restricted to areas outside of Israel’s borders. To make existence unpalatable within Israel, the Netanyahu government has effectively withdrawn police operations in Palestinian Israeli communities, allowing organized crime and violence to fester.
Following well-worn historical paths, the extreme right wing Netanyahu government has sought to corrupt the judiciary by attempting to transform the judicial appointment process into a political one it could dominate. Until now, however, the government has been stymied by massive public protests. The courts have been a barrier to Haredi draft evasion, the appointment to government office of convicted fraudsters, and the politicization of legal and prosecution offices including the office of the Attorney General. The current Attorney General, Gali Baharav-Miara, has had responsibility for overseeing the prosecution of corruption cases against government officials including the Prime Minister. The Supreme Court blocked a 2025 government effort to remove Baharav-Miara. Unable to dislodge an honest and competent official, in July, the governing coalition passed a law to increase the political role in future Attorney General appointments and to allow Cabinet officers to reject the legal advice of the Attorney General.
The government, in 2025, also sought to remove the head of the Israel Security Service, Ronen Barr who, at the time, was conducting a corruption investigation into government officials. The Supreme Court blocked Ronen’s dismissal. In a compromise, Ronen stepped down to allow the appointment of retired IDF Maj. Gen. David Zini. In a subsequent leak, it was revealed that Zini took the appointment to promote loyalty to the political leadership instead of providing objective service. Zini has sidelined the Shin Bet’s internal legal department.
Democratic rule depends on the rule of law and the existence of independent institutions that limit government power by enforcing conformity with law in the public interest. The degradation of the rule of law and the corruption of state institutions designed to ensure conformity with law and the protection of citizens reflects the current Israeli government’s contempt for democracy and the rule of law. It also reflects the fact that the government sees existing law as a barrier to its program of displacement of non-Jews from the West Bank and Gaza and also from inside the borders of the Israel. Unfortunately, the government actions also rest on a broader moral decay, a self-feeding process generated, in part, by decades of Occupation and ideologies of entitlement.
Elections will likely bring an end to the current extremist government, and the political opposition has expressed the desire to reenforce public institutions and the rule of law. Long-term success, however, will require a commitment to confront not only banal corruption but also the ideologies of entitlement and the culture of lawless violence those ideologies have promoted.
Partners for Progressive Israel Condemns Current Settler Violence Campaign; Calls for ActionThe organized program of settler violence that has plagued the West Bank for more than two years must be ignored no longer. It is long past time for Jewish Americans and their organizations to raise their voices in protest and demand that both their congressional and communal representatives address the unbearable situation.
The settler violence campaign, to which members of Israeli security forces regularly turn a blind eye and often actively support, generally includes incursions onto private land designed to intimidate and show “who’s boss”, wanton destruction of Palestinian property and agriculture, desecration of Muslim religious sites, threatening graffiti messaging (e.g., “Death to Arabs”), and frequent attacks on Palestinian noncombatants, causing serious injury and even death.
This campaign is a “feature, not a bug”, Israeli journalist, Itay Rom, explained earlier this year, citing the words of a prominent representative of the “hilltop youth” settlers and former spokesman of a far-right Knesset Member, who boasted: “Without question, we are initiating friction” on the West Bank, “and we’re also proud of that.” The ultimate goal is permanent Palestinian displacement.
The deadly results of the settler campaign were manifested again on Friday, when settlers burned two mosques in separate villages and attacked a family whose land settlers had appropriated, near the West Bank village of Tell. When family members tried to block the armed settler group, a confrontation ensued in which four family members, one Israeli soldier, and the settler invader were killed. This was used as justification by the Israeli government to launch mass security sweeps in Palestinian refugee camps, villages, towns, and cities, which are continuing. Independent journalists concur that the Palestinians are the victims, not the aggressors, as the government claims.
While we hope that Israel’s October elections will sweep away the current extremist government, the urgency of the current situation precludes such patience. Israeli civil society groups are calling for immediate international pressure on the Israeli government. Some demand creation of an international protection force for West Bank Palestinians.
While immediate measures to protect Palestinian communities and hold perpetrators accountable are essential, Partners for Progressive Israel believes that they must be accompanied by a deeper reckoning with the underlying dynamics driving this violence. Ultimately, these responses cannot be limited to cosmetic changes while ignoring the sources of hatred and mistrust between Israelis and Palestinians, including the profound asymmetries in access to resources, security, and political power that continue to shape daily life.
“As American Jews and as people who care deeply about the future of Israel and Palestine,” said Professor Paul Scham, President of Partners for Progressive Israel, “we must speak out when pogrom-like violence is happening on a daily basis and the government is openly enabling the perpetrators. We call on Jewish Americans to reach out to their elected officials to inform them and demand a response; and we call on the establishment American Jewish organizations and leadership to acknowledge honestly the extent of the problem, inform their constituents, and spur action and awareness in and by the American Jewish community.”
Blog Post: Building a Worldwide Progressive Zionist CoalitionJune 19, 2026
by Rabbi Ariel Naveh
In the interest of full disclosure, as an American, hope is in short supply right now. As an American Reform rabbi, and a queer Jew, I could rattle off a list of reasons why so many of us feel like we are scrambling for hope. I also realize that starting an essay about the weeklong international UPZ (World Union of Progressive Zionists) seminar in Budapest I had the honor of attending last month with a note about my own despondency may seem counterintuitive and not just a little bit soporific, but such is the reality for many progressive Zionist Jews here these days.
However, if I gleaned anything from the seminar, it is that our comrades all over the world share that struggle, but even more importantly, they share the sense that this is not insurmountable. Against the backdrop of the very real concerns of democratic backsliding worldwide, and the heartbreaking political loneliness so many of us in the progressive Zionist community face, the overarching message was less that things are tough all over, although they are, and more that our solidarity is our strength.
As a proud board member of Partners for Progressive Israel, I came to the seminar with the intention of solidifying our longstanding relationship with the UPZ, and came away certain that our movement can and will succeed. This is not delusional optimism. Rather, this is an understanding that if indeed, as the Talmud tells us, כל ישראל ערבים זה בזה, all of Israel is responsible for one another, then the progressive, pro-democracy movement, led predominantly by young people and students, to rebuild their country in the wake of 16 years of Viktor Orban, is our movement as well.
It is the understanding that Viennese Jewish students who formed a literal human shield around their Holocaust Memorial in order to prevent a far-right member of parliament from using the Memorial and the Viennese Jewish community as a prop can be an inspiration to Jewish students here and all over the world as they advocate for a democracy that is wide enough and strong enough to fit everyone in.
At each program we attended throughout the seminar, whether it was a conversation about Hungary post-Orban, a presentation about the collaborations between Women Wage Peace נשים עושות שלום in Israel, Palestine, and Uruguay, or even the discussion about the upcoming Israeli elections, we learned that power never succeeds in the long run when it is imposed upon people. Real power works only in collaboration and solidarity.
This message can be hard to fully internalize right now, as authoritarians, and wannabe authoritarians, are trying their hardest to wield their power over their citizens, because they are terrified of what could happen when their citizenry pushes back. And invariably, it will. It may sound trite, but the seminar reminded me that we truly are stronger together. Our Jewish community in specific and democracy in general thrive when we are able to move beyond fighting about the definition and utility of words and start building the coalitions we will need for the real fight against those who seek to divide us needlessly.
It was an honor to represent both the USA and Partners for Progressive Israel at this remarkable seminar. I know that I did so with real pride and real optimism in the future, a trait that seemed confounding to a lot of the other participants, especially considering the precarious state of our own democracy here in the US. But Partners for Progressive Israel is in a unique position to bolster that optimism exactly because we are a part of this incredible network of fellow progressive Zionists all over the world who are committed to working towards a more perfect democracy everywhere.
Ariel Naveh is a progressive Rabbi, educator, and political organizer, and is on the board of Partners for Progressive Israel. He currently lives and works on Long Island.
Blog Post: Sexual Torture in Israel and Palestine — Credible Sources, and Our Responses to ThemMay 14, 2026
by Rabbi Margo Hughes-Robinson
We’ve received two genres of response to our statement yesterday, and in conversation with the wider discourse surrounding this week’s op-ed by Nicholas Kristof in the New York Times ,and the publication of the comprehensive Israeli report of Hamas’ terror attack on October 7th. As this piece was drafted, Israel also announced its intention to sue the New York Times over the publication of Kristof’s column. I’ve been asked by colleagues I know and trust whether the widespread sexual torture outlined in Kristof’s article could possibly be true. I’ve also answered polite but painful questions about the use of rape as a weapon of terror on October 7th: did it really happen? Hasn’t this been debunked?
These exchanges make my stomach turn. And I know, as someone who travels in circles of commitment to the humanity of both Israelis and Palestinians, we must engage with them.
Across these responses, the emotions have been similar: disgust, denial, disbelief, shame, fear, anger, sadness, denial again.
There’s also a bifurcated discourse I’ve observed amongst the responses to both the Times piece and the Civil Commission’s findings. One level is about sources and their veracity, which I’m including below with the warning to please take great care in reviewing these materials.
Another is far more psychological, and painful: that of a reckoning. Few people, I’ve found, are willing to sit in this second place of conversation, and we must take account of the way in which a back and forth about sources actually serves as an opportunity to avoid it altogether. This larger conversation will emerge again and again unless we confront it directly: the way in which our emotional investments in tribalism and a desire for the ease of a binary worldview makes a comprehensive recognition of these crimes and their effects incredibly difficult, or even unbearable.
Sexual Assault and Rape on October 7th:
A back and forth about the veracity of the sources documenting the events of October 7th, 2023 has raged since the day itself, even in the face of extensive real-time video recording that was transmitted across social media as the attacks occurred.
There is a real issue of documenting the scale of these attacks, one that has been acknowledged since at least January 2024: a lack of forensic evidence available from the bodies of victims who were found deceased at sites of Hamas attacks. Nevertheless, we draw on reports by ARCCI in in February 2024, and the Israeli-led report issued this week. Additionally, testimony is available from a number of former hostages including Roni Gonen, Alon Ohel, Guy Gilboa-Dalal. There is also a review of available sources that was issued by Physicians for Human Rights- Israel, the December 2025 report issued by Amnesty International, and a February 2024 report from the United Nations’ special envoy on sexual violence.
There is widespread sexual torture and rape occurring in Israeli military prisons and as part of West Bank pogroms.
An independent legal investigation will be necessary to determine whether these assaults are being allowed to happen or are (as journalist Yehuda Schlesinger infamously stated, then and recanted in August 2024) reflective of an implicit or official policy. Legally, this matters a great deal, and must be subject to an independent investigation. For the survivors of this torture, the experience is the same: a violent abuse of power, with the intent to humiliate and harm.
A common critique used to dismiss the larger story in Kristof’s piece is his citations from the organization Euro-Med, which are often critiqued as forensically unverifiable at best.
At the same time, there are widespread reports of sexual torture and rape occuring in Israeli military prisons and as part of ongoing violence in the West Bank from credible sources, including organizations and individuals with whom Partners works, and who we’ve platformed in our webinars and symposiums. These include a November 2025 joint report to the United Nations from Physicians for Human Rights – Israel (PHRI), Adalah: the Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel, Hamoked, the Committee Against Torture- Israel, and Parents Against Child Detention; the May 2024 report of the UN’s Independent International Commission of Inquiry, B’tselem’s January 2026 report of conditions in Israeli military prisons and the Guardian’s investigatory interviews following that report; PHRI’s February 2024 report on the conditions of those same prisons; and the same organization’s 2025 report and collection of full testimonies regarding the treatment of Gazan medical staff detained in Israeli custody.
I have no doubt that any attempt to collate these sources in one place, about abuse endured by either Palestinians or Israelis, will be subject to criticism and careful combing-through. Some of this will be done by journalists and field experts, and it must be done — it’s this attention to detail and commitment to truth that allows any of this conversation to take place with veracity. It’s also necessary for local and international courts of law to ensure that the perpetrators of sexual torture and rape as a weapon of war are brought to justice.
But a far greater group of readers and respondents will (perhaps even unconsciously) return to a re-litigation of sources and form in order to discount the larger story they tell, and to preclude the emotional and moral reckoning they demand of us all. There’s real panic here, a desire to discount the stories survivors are sharing, because the depth of pain and degradation they tell can feel impossible to sit with. It’s a very human impulse to intellectualize or pick at the threads of these reports, but each of us seriously engaged in this work owes it to ourselves and to the survivors to be honest about when we are doing this in the pursuit of specificity, and when we are using it as a form of psychological deflection or distraction.
Others might push back against form, timing, or presentation: the Kristof piece in the Times came out one day before the comprehensive Israeli investigation’s report. The conversation about abuses at Sde Teiman quickly shifted to a discussion of the Israeli Military Advocate General’s leakage of the footage. The role and practices of ZAKA in the days after October 7th become debated again and again. There is sometimes a feeling that the very discussion of both October 7th and military prison torture is somehow deeply improper, a form of equivocation or inversion of one’s community’s pain, that any attempt to discuss the two in conversation is immediately discounted.
We are all so desperate to avoid direct discussion of torture, to sit with the reality that Palestinian and Israeli societies can contain both perpetrators and victims of atrocities. This is not a competition of pain, and cannot be a weaponization of harm in order to portray one community or the other in having a moral superiority. This is about the acknowledgement of systems of abuse.
As I’ve written before about this topic, the perpetration of rape and sexual torture is a violent expression of power. It reflects a desire to humiliate and reinforce or establish a violent hierarchy, and perpetrators are often emboldened by a culture of dehumanization and objectification: I am a person, you are less.
There is no excuse or justification for these acts, and we can also not claim ignorance about the environmental and social factors that enable the perpetration of sexual torture. If there is a call to reckon with the experiences of Israeli and Palestinian survivors in concert, it is not from a place of equivocation or a flattening of the circumstances of power and consequence in which they occurred. These patterns of torture, humiliation, and violence have occurred and are happening in concert with one another. I don’t think that someone like Yehuda Schlesinger represents by any means a normative viewpoint, but his vitriol makes explicit the cycle of revenge and humiliation that enflames and often justifies a cycle of sexual violence.
We must seriously confront the disparate international response to these reports and alleged crimes. Hamas was an internationally sanctioned organization and recognized as a terror group long before October 7th. Its leadership rightly faces international condemnation and continued legal proscription: just this week, the EU announced further sanctions on Hamas alongside those placed on specific individuals and settler organizations on the West Bank.
The blood of our brothers and sisters — men, women, and children, Jewish and Christian and Muslim — is crying out from the ground. Are we brave enough to hear their cries in concert, and reject the weaponization of their pain?
Partners for Progressive Israel Responds to Reports of Rape and Sexual Torture of Palestinians
May 13th, 2026 – We are appalled — but not surprised — at the new reporting in American media that echoes what a number of Israeli and Palestinian human rights organizations have been fighting to uncover: widespread sexual torture of Palestinian men, women, and even children who are detained in Israeli military prisons and who are subject to state-sponsored violence in the West Bank.
Rape and sexual torture are all too commonplace in conflict and militarized environments accompanied by intense and long-term dehumanization. We applaud the courage of these survivors, who face not only social stigma but documented campaigns of intimidation from perpetrators, and who have shared their stories at great personal risk. We also want to recognize the the organizations committed to documenting these abuses, including the West Bank Protection Consortium, B’tselem, the Public Committee Against Torture-Israel, and more.
The practices that are described in these reports are in violation of Israeli law and international law, and we demand that this abuse is subject to an independent investigation, repudiated, and prosecuted with the same rigor that so many have rightly demanded in response to the documented rape of Israeli civilians by Hamas on October 7th, 2023 and the subsequent sexual torture of Israeli hostages in Gaza.
People in detention — and young people particularly so — have the right to be free from torture or inhumane treatment, the right to medical care and visits from groups including the Red Cross, and to their legal representation. These reports of the use rape and sexual torture by both members of the Israeli military and vigilantes in the West Bank must be immediately subject to an independent investigation, and treated with utmost seriousness and care.
Resources for this difficult conversation:
We know that conversations about sexual assault can be particularly painful, and that our communities are not immune to these violent abuses of power. If you or someone you love needs support, please reach out to organizations including RAINN (who operate the National Sexual Assault Hotline), ARCCI: the Association of Rape Crisis Centers in Israel, or the* Women’s Centre for Legal Aid and Counseling* in Jerusalem and the West Bank.
INSIGHTS
For Such A Time As This:J Street Convention 2026 Amidst Escalating War and Waning Democracyby Rabbi Ariel Naveh
The holiday of Purim is a strange one. While broadly it adheres to the colloquial heuristic of Jewish holidays – “they tried to kill us, we won, let’s eat” – the holiday’s celebratory joy stands in contrast with the near-obsessive final verses of the Megillah, focused on the downfall not only of Haman but of his entire lineage. No doubt it’s always been one of my favorite holidays to celebrate, but the question must be raised: when does conquest over an imminent threat to your livelihood and your people turn into outright bloodlust? At what point is vengeance sanctioned, and what happens when it is driven to excess?
I had the opportunity to grapple with these big questions at this year’s February 28-March 2 J Street Convention. Just the evening before the Convention was to start, President Trump, in concert with Bibi Netanyahu, launched an all-out military assault on Iran. They claimed, with little evidence, that an attack on Israel was imminent and it was in the interest of Americans and Israelis alike to annihilate the country and its leadership.
The Convention’s theme of “Regional Peace and Resilient Democracy” took on even greater meaning, and became even more fraught as the first thing one saw on the Convention app was J Street’s full-throated statement opposing the war in Iran. Partners for Progressive Israel released its statement soon thereafter. J Street’s statement called the war “reckless,” and condemned the Trump and Netanyahu administrations for forgoing numerous attempts at diplomatic strategies and resolutions, including abandoning the JCPOA, the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, signed by Iran, the European Union, and the five permanent members of the UN Security Council. Sadly, three weeks into this needless war, we are witnessing exactly how reckless this war has become, with Iranian families fleeing constant bombardment, Israelis attempting to recreate normalcy in bomb shelters, and Palestinians facing even further elevated levels of state-sanctioned violence by settlers.
Yet I knew that representing Partners for Progressive Israel at our table in the exhibition hall, engaging in so many holy conversations with so many participants about our work and our mission, while listening to their own stories about and struggles with Israel and Palestine, was all the more necessary because of this war, and the damage it would inflict throughout the entire region. This was also the first opportunity we had to hand out palm cards with a QR code that links to Partners’ recent publication, “Discussing Genocide: A Guide for Reflection and Discernment.” This was – perhaps counterintuitively – probably the best conversation starter I’ve ever had in all my years of tabling. It was clear that people really do want to talk about genocide, whether they agree with the usage of the term in this particular context or not. But more importantly, people – rabbis, educators, lay leaders – want the opportunity to ask the big questions they are struggling with right now about what it means to be a Jew who has a relationship of any kind with Israel and Palestine.
As we have seen, the war in Iran has only given further cover for the heinous actions the Israeli government has taken against Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza, and now in Lebanon as well. Speaking on these issues as a rabbi, lay leader, or educator can be challenging, especially as antisemitic rhetoric attempting to conflate these actions with the entirety of the Jewish people is on the rise. The fact that these conversations came with a discussion guide and free chocolate meant that the PPI table was buzzing throughout the Convention.
That, to me, is what made the Convention space feel so vital. To listen to, engage with, and be in relationship with so many of the smartest and most empathetic leaders in our community and beyond meant that we were equipped with frameworks for these difficult questions about how we advocate for democracy here and in Israel/Palestine, especially when we are witnessing its calculated demolition in real time.
The message we heard from so many at the Convention about maintaining democracy was to keep being in relationship with each other. Over and over, through plenary discussions like the incredible conversation between Rabbi/Ambassador David Saperstein, Maya Wiley, Amy Spitalnick, and Reverend Malcolm Byrd, we were reminded how our struggles for democracy and safety in the Jewish community have for generations been bound up in the safety of the Black diaspora here in America. Leaders from Standing Together and New Israel Fund, and activists like Maoz Inon and Aziz Abu Sarah, showed us that the only way forward for Israelis and Palestinians is together. While these sentiments were echoed by Israeli politicians like Yair Golan and Ehud Olmert, it’s very clear that real change will continue to come from the ground up. Standing Together in particular has been at the vanguard of mobilizing, educating, and training Israelis and Palestinians on a supremely local, grassroots level, often surpassing the efforts of the opposition leaders. That they have managed to gain municipal electoral success is a significant testament to this hyperlocal work.
Everyone present at the Convention understood that a democracy can only function when the people living within it see themselves as equally responsible for maintaining it, while also reckoning with what happens when the ties that bind us fray. We must ensure that the last verses of the story of Purim are used as a bulwark, a warning about the dangers of weaponizing our own victory over persecution, and not as a call for overwhelming violence towards future generations of our enemies, real or imagined.
One of the real highlights of the Convention was watching “Coexistence My Ass!”, comedian and activist Noam Schuster-Eliasi’s hilarious and deeply moving documentary, which grapples with exactly those questions. Noam was raised on an Israeli kibbutz devoted entirely to coexistence between Israelis and Palestinians, and she describes her struggles with how the values she was taught stand up to the trauma of October 7th, and the continued onslaught of terror and pain that Palestinians have faced since. There are no easy answers from this film, and at times, Noam looks on the verge of despair, as she navigates her relationships with Israeli and Palestinian friends and family. She is also very, very funny, and is able to show how mordant humor is necessary in advocating for real structural change. And while Noam was unable to join us in person as she just had her very first child, the film’s distributor, Libby Lenkinski, and one of Noam’s friends and fellow comedians, Yossi Zabari, described how necessary and how revolutionary art is in standing up against fascist governments.
It was a strange and surreal coincidence that this war in Iran happened upon the holiday of Purim. Unfortunately, this coincidental timing has been used by many both to justify the war, and to dehumanize the Iranian people by linking them to the Biblical Amalek, the perpetual enemy of the Jewish people. This is an intentionally despicable misinterpretation of the text and its themes. In the Megillah, Mordecai tells Esther that perhaps for such a time as this she was put into a position to influence the men in power against the destruction of the Jews of Persia. But, unlike the Purim story, this war was in no way inevitable, and the people who are caught in its crosshairs are not our enemy. I see Mordecai’s words, rather, as a call to action, telling us that, especially in times as fraught and troubling as now, we have a responsibility to speak truth to power. The J Street Convention reminded us that none of us are exempt from keeping democracy afloat here and in Israel/Palestine.
Rabbi Ariel Naveh is a rabbi, educator, and organizer living on Long Island. He’s currently working as the Field Director for the Town of North Hempstead Democratic Committee, and serves on the board of Partners for Progressive Israel.
INSIGHTS
Jackie Robinson and the Jewish Question
By Peter Eisenstadt
I was recently chatting, via email, with Hillel Schenker, longtime Israeli peace activist and longtime friend of Partners for Progressive Israel. The conversation came around, as they often do for me nowadays, to the topic of Jackie Robinson. Hillel told me that he was once interviewed and asked who was his inspiration for his decades of work on Israel-Palestine peace efforts. A Jewish peace activist perhaps, like Martin Buber or Judah Magnes? No. Growing up in Brooklyn in the 1950s, his childhood role model and inspiration for a life dedicated to Jewish-Palestinian understanding and rapprochement was Jackie Robinson. Hillel was not alone. I have collected other stories of young men, primarily young Jewish men, growing up in the baseball-mad, half-Jewish borough that was Brooklyn in the early 1950s who cited Jackie Robinson as the inspiration for a life dedicated to the pursuit of social justice.
Why Jackie Robinson? Jackie Robinson was the first African American to play major league baseball in the twentieth century when he joined the Brooklyn Dodgers on April 15, 1947. (And let me point out that exactly one month later on May 15, 1947, in a building in Flushing Meadows Park, in Queens, not far from where the New York Mets have played baseball since 1964, and in the area where Robert Moses offered to build a stadium for Walter O’Malley, the president of the eager-to-relocate Brooklyn Dodgers, though O’Malley, seeking his fortune elsewhere, spurned Moses’s offer, the General Assembly of the United Nations formed the United Nations Special Committee on Palestine, i.e. UNSCOP.) Jackie Robinson’s career would track the birth and early years of Israel. He played his last major league baseball game on October 10, 1956, about two weeks before Israel invaded the Sinai Peninsula to start the Suez War.
There were many reasons for the specific Jewish identification with Jackie Robinson. (The only film Hillel remembers his grandfather taking him to see, at his insistence, was The Jackie Robinson Story, a 1950 potboiler in which the role of Jackie Robinson was played, fairly creditably, by Jackie Robinson.) Jackie Robinson cracked the color line in baseball with a superabundance of athletic talent, along with matchless courage. He was an outspoken advocate for civil rights and other political causes during his years with the Dodgers, and after his retirement until his much-too-early death in 1972.
For Robinson, the fight against racism and the fight against antisemitism were deeply entangled. As early as 1949 he supported Jewish causes, when a “food train” of 80 trucks with a million pounds of foodstuffs intended for Israel motorcaded before City Hall in Manhattan with a reviewing stand that included Robinson and master of ceremonies Ed Sullivan. More substantially, he became a spokesman for the Anti-Defamation League, an organization whose savvy and smarts he much admired. He continued to call out antisemitism, particularly Black antisemitism, his entire life. Besides which, many of Jackie Robinson’s most supportive sportswriters and most ardent fans (such as Hillel) were Jewish. And as they say, many of his best friends were Jewish, including many of his most welcoming neighbors. The Robinson family’s favorite vacation spot was Grossinger’s, in the heart of the Borscht Belt. Many of his business partners were Jewish, such as the Lithuanian-born William Black, né Schwartz, president of the Chock Full o’ Nuts coffee and luncheonette chain, where Robinson was a VP from 1957 to 1964. One of the foundations of his politics was his oft-stated belief that “very frankly the Jew has been our [Black folks’] greatest ally. We go back even before the Negro started pressure in civil rights, and the Jew was there working with their organizations.”
The literature on (or exposing the myth of) this supposed golden age of Black-Jewish political harmony is voluminous. To the extent this era existed, Jackie Robinson was perhaps its avatar. He appreciated Jewish power and Jewish economic success, and Jewish organizations always liked his claims that anti-Black racism and antisemitism were deeply entangled. He approached racism and antisemitism as most liberal Jews wished to cast the issue, not as parochial grievances, but as the expression of a universal cause. In 1957 he told a Chicago audience that “in our struggle for civil rights we must not be motivated by color but by our love of God and for freedom. I would resign as head of the campaign [for the Freedom Fund of the NAACP] if I thought the NAACP was fighting for the rights for Negroes alone.” He exploded the dilemma of mixed or dual loyalties, maintaining that there was no conflict needing resolution. Black first or American first? He answered in 1964 that “I am a Negro first, because down through the centuries, we have proven that we are the most loyal Americans.” Many American Jews felt the same way about their Jewishness, that they were proud to be Jewish precisely because it was uncontaminated by ethnic or religious particularism, and in that way they were the purest Americans, believers in an America where, as King put it at the March on Washington, every person shall be judged not by any extraneous criterion, but “by the content of their character.” In early 1960, in a column about antisemitism in Europe and the specter of the “revival of Hitlerism,” Robinson penned as eloquent a statement of civil rights universalism as one could imagine: “Since every last one of us is a member of some vulnerable minority—whether it be by race, religion, national origin, political party, education, occupation or other differences—none of us is safe once group-hate is unleashed against any other.”
But by the 1960s the Black-Jewish alliance was foundering on the basis of class differences, Jewish shopkeepers and business people in Black neighborhoods, Jewish suburbanization, and Black ghettoization. (Israel, before 1967, was only a minor irritant.) Black people had concluded, to greatly simplify, that the Jewish model for advancement in American society was not working for them. And Jews became afraid that the different paths that Black communities were pursuing would endanger Jewish success. And despite Robinson’s deep support for Jews and Jewish causes, in that great parting of the ways between Black and Jewish organizing that was the New York City Teachers Strike of 1968, Robinson’s sympathies were with the Black decentralizers, not with the largely Jewish teachers’ union. Still, even in its aftermath he continued to support Jewish causes, writing in 1970 that “Blacks should be just like ‘the Jews who support Israel strongly…Whenever any other ethnic group is threatened they protest. That is what Blacks must do.” However, it is true that Robinson really never had much to say or do about Israel and the Middle East. (Unlike his close friend, fellow supporter of integration, fellow athletic star at UCLA [basketball in the 1920s], and fellow and often twinned exemplar of ultra-high African American achievement, Ralph Bunche, but that is another story.)
However, the question remains. Could or should Jackie Robinson inspire peace activists in 2026, the way he inspired Hillel Schenker in the 1950s? I think his breaking of the color line in major league baseball and his all-around athletic excellence are too far in the past to inspire similar adulation. But his post- Dodgers career as a civil rights advocate just might.
He was always outspoken, never afraid to speak his mind, never afraid to offend. He knew what he wanted: full citizenship for African Americans and all racial minorities and all minorities. But he was unsure about the best way to achieve it. He would work with the powerful, presidents and would-be presidents, and rally and inspire the powerless, and he was someone who knew the necessity, the advantages, and the pitfalls of both. He was always willing to call out Black leaders, including those he usually agreed with. There was no organization he was more associated with than the NAACP, though he regularly criticized it and its head, Roy Wilkins, for their standpattism. In general, as a civil rights activist, he often found the Black liberals too accommodating, too willing to be satisfied with what amounted to superficial changes, and the Black radicals too impractical, too demanding of what he deemed impossible.
He was not perfect. His political judgment was sometimes off. I can understand why he was an anti-Communist in the 1940s and 1950s. He thought that unless white people thought supporting civil rights would help defeat the Soviet Union they wouldn’t be interested, and he was probably correct. And there were of course plenty of legitimate criticisms to be made of the Soviet Union and American Communism. Still, that did not justify his testimony against Paul Robeson before the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1949, or his support for Richard Nixon’s presidential bid in 1960, a misstep for which he subsequently repented. But political perfection is neither possible nor desirable. Fight the Mt. Rushmore-ization of our heroes. We do not need to measure ourselves against an impossible-to-meet standard. We must take our stands on controversial issues amid the fray.
He was combative, but usually generous to his allies in disagreement. He believed in Black unity, but not at any cost or price. He defended the War in
Vietnam much longer than he should have. When Martin Luther King Jr in 1967 sharply criticized the war in Vietnam, Robinson thought King was “utterly wrong” but he insisted that King was “still my leader… because I would not want bigots and those who secretly disagree with him to find comfort in my disagreeing with him.” But by the fall of 1968, with King in a freshly dug grave, he sounded more like Black radicals such as Stokely Carmichael than King: “Black people are not afraid to die and there are hundreds of thousands of young Black people who would rather make a last- ditch stand for freedom in the ghettoes of their cities than in the jungles of Vietnam.”
He knew what it felt like to become bitterly disillusioned with something he had formerly deeply believed in. Always a patriot, by 1971 he could tell the New York Times that he “wouldn’t fly the flag on the Fourth of July or any other day. When I see a car with a flag pasted on it, I figure the guy behind the wheel isn’t my friend.” He hoped that the pendulum would swing back to a better America. I hear you Jackie. And I feel the same way about the American flag. And the Israeli flag, too. And about the desperate hope that the American and Israeli pendulums will once again swing in our direction.
Whatever else he was or was not, Jackie Robinson was definitely a philosemite. There has been a lot of talk recently about defining antisemitism. But philosemitism is probably even more difficult to define. If antisemitism is on the rise, philosemitism definitely is not. Jews are a tough people to love these days. But if, as Jews, we must love the Jews, let us love our fellow Jews in the way Jackie Robinson loved his fellow African Americans, with a scorching, lacerating love, while seeking the largest possible community of support for what we believe in. I have never cared for the phrase, “two Jews, three opinions,” since Jews are as susceptible to group-think as any other people, and when it comes to Israel, until recently, the attitude of American Jews has often been “three Jews, one opinion,” with anything beyond the mildest criticism of Israel likely to get one exiled to the Pale of Forbidden Sentiments. I love the way many too-long suppressed Jewish voices are now loudly being heard, and that many American Jews are undergoing long overdue agonizing reappraisals of their former unswerving support for Israel.
What will happen next in Israel and Palestine ? Only God knows. As often is the case, practical ways forward seem insufficient and unlikely to solve the underlying problems, while directly addressing those underlying problems seems impossibly utopian and quixotic. And as we go forward, those of us on the Jewish left will err, make mistakes, miscalculate, be too suspicious or too gullible.
If Jackie Robinson was around today, what advice would he give American Jews? Keep your eyes on the prize. Ally yourself with people who broadly share your goals, knowing that there are many potential paths to get there. Be outspoken. And he might say that the lesson of Black history is that to love your own people, to be really true to them, you have to be willing, sometimes, to loathe them as well.
Peter Eisenstadt is a member of the board of Partners for Progressive Israel and the author of Against the Hounds of Hell: A Biography of Howard Thurman (University of Virginia, 2021).
KOLOT – Voices of Hope, Post-October 7 SeriesZazim: Mobilizing Hundreds of Thousands Israeli ProgressivesBy Raluca GaneaIn the first days of Israel’s war with Iran, a missile hit the Tel Aviv building where Zazim’s small office is located. The office was completely destroyed. Since then, we have been working from home — meeting online every morning, and, in between rushes to bomb shelters, searching for new ways to turn despair into action.
One of our first initiatives was a webinar bringing together Israelis and Iranian diaspora members — to show that the two peoples are not born enemies, to refuse the logic of war, and to rehumanize. We also joined a coalition of organizations calling to end Israel’s “forever war” and reach an immediate ceasefire.
Zazim is the largest political campaigning community in Israel, promoting active civic engagement in issues across the progressive spectrum: from peace and democracy to gender rights and the environment. Recent years have taught us that, even at times of national emergency, our work mustn’t stop.
The morning of September 11, 2023, offers a glimpse into where we come from. That day, our members stood at the forefront of a massive protest outside the Supreme Court, joining tens of thousands gathered to stop the “judicial overhaul” (the Netanyahu government’s effort to expand political control over courts and limit their ability to check executive power). An incredible 175,000 people—nearly two percent of Israel’s entire population—had signed Zazim’s petition in support of the court, calling for the reversal of legislation that threatened to strip away its powers.
It was a day that felt like the ultimate expression of civic energy. But just one year later, the world had changed completely. We found ourselves navigating a much darker, fractured landscape. Against the backdrop of the October 7th trauma and then a war of annihilation in Gaza, we initiated campaigns that challenged even our own community. Zazim members spoke out against the policy of starvation, demanded accountability for war crimes, fought settler violence, and helped sustain the ongoing protest to end the war and secure a hostage deal.
This work represented the core of Zazim’s identity: a movement built around mobilizing the masses while simultaneously leading and challenging the Israeli political discourse.
Zazim (“moving” in Hebrew) is not your typical social change NGO. While traditional organizations often rely on the specialized work of a small professional staff, Zazim, at its heart, is a mobilization operation. Our strength lies in being an inclusive home for anyone—not just “professional activists”—who want to reclaim their agency during times of crisis. Our unique value lies in our ability to turn the passive concern of individuals into active, collective power. We do this by blending advanced digital campaigning with traditional “boots-on-the-ground” activism.
Our community now exceeds 400,000 members, Jews and Arabs,and some supporters from abroad. They sign petitions, write to elected officials, take to the streets, and fund our work. Because 90 percent of our budget comes from micro-donations, a campaign only takes off if enough members are willing to chip in. This simple fact alone makes our agenda a direct reflection of our members’ will.
Zazim’s model is inspired by MoveOn.org, and we are part of an international network of similar movements, called NODE, the Network of Democratic Entities. The battle against right-wing populism is global; we often find ourselves facing the same authoritarian tendencies as our counterparts in Serbia or Hungary, while our friends in Germany look to our experience in fighting the rise of openly racist parties.
The past year alone can demonstrate the scope of our work. As 2025 brought some of the darkest moments of the Gaza war, we hung posters across Israel protesting the government’s policy of starvation and distributed half a million leaflets urging reservists to refuse war crimes and disobey illegal orders. When diplomacy finally took center stage, we supported the international initiative to recognize a Palestinian State. Our members funded a massive billboard in support of the initiative on a central Tel Aviv highway, and we hand-delivered 10,000 signatures to French President Macron during the UN General Assembly last fall. If you were in New York City, you might have even seen our mobile billboards calling for peace and recognition.
It was later reported that this Saudi-French-led initiative played a role in nudging the Trump administration to unveil its own peace plan, fearing that international forces would otherwise take the lead. Grassroots Israeli support is crucial for legitimizing such efforts, and we take pride in doing our share to bring about a lasting ceasefire. Still, this was only a first step, and the humanitarian crisis in Gaza remains dire. As I write these words, millions are freezing in tents; so, our latest petition is demanding a humanitarian corridor to allow those in Gaza seeking urgent medical treatment to receive it abroad.
Zazim is also a leading member of “It’s Time”, a coalition of over 60 peacebuilding and shared society organizations, working together to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict through a political agreement that will ensure both peoples’ right to self-determination and secure lives.
There are other urgent fronts, too. Each month, a busload of Zazim members travels to the West Bank to support Palestinian farmers facing IDF restrictions and settler violence. Early this year, we planted 200 olive saplings in Nahalin, the West Bank. Beyond supporting communities on the ground, such activities expose more Israelis to the reality of the occupation, often turning first-time volunteers into lifelong activists.
The fight for Israeli democracy remains our bedrock. Following President Trump’s interference in the Israeli legal system—demanding a pardon for the currently-on-trial Prime Minister Netanyahu, and even threatening retribution—we collected 20,000 formal objections, which we submitted to the Israeli President’s Office in Jerusalem. Under Israeli law, President Herzog must consider these statements by Israeli citizens before making a decision on pardoning the prime minister. Meanwhile, our most successful petition this year called for a State Commission of Inquiry into the events of October 7th, joining the families of victims and hostages in demanding real accountability.
Netanyahu’s government is also engaged in a systematic pushback against women’s rights, and in suppressing the political rights of Palestinian citizens. We recently launched a campaign against legislation that would allow gender segregation in academia and public spaces, such as libraries—a move that threatened to unravel decades of progress toward equality. (The public outcry led the government to scale down some of the most outrageous aspects of the new law.) Additionally, we are supporting Israel’s Attorney General, Gali Baharav-Miara, in demanding Itamar Ben-Gvir, Minister of National Security, be fired from the government immediately for abusing the powers of his post.
Amidst the heavy news cycle of 2025, there were also real moments of joy. We saw heartwarming successes against inhumane anti-immigration efforts: A petition for 15-year-old Louie, born to Filipino migrant workers in Israel, succeeded in reversing her deportation and granting her permanent residency. Even more incredible was our campaign for the African Hebrew Israelites. After decades of living in Israel, this community faced the threat of immediate expulsion. Zazim members supported the Israelites in public rallies, signed petitions for their cause, and even financed legal proceedings. Just recently we learned that the collective mobilization won the Hebrew Israelites the right to stay.
The coming year will demand even more from us. With the Israeli elections approaching, we anticipate a political climate unlike anything we have ever experienced. Prime Minister Netanyahu’s fight for political survival, compounded by his ongoing trial and the hard-right’s tightening grip on law enforcement under Minister Ben-Gvir, sets the stage for a high-stakes battle over the very soul of our country. We are anticipating government efforts to disqualify Palestinian-Israeli candidates and systemic attempts at voter suppression. Already we are strategizing on the most effective ways to push back, for example through physical presence at polling stations, or by pressuring the Jewish opposition to stand by the Palestinian-led parties.
Yet we are under no illusions: our work won’t end even if the current government falls. In a post-Netanyahu era, the voices of progressives in Israel must be louder than ever to ensure that a change in leadership translates into a change in reality. We will continue to stand with disenfranchised communities, combat the deep-seated authoritarian tendencies that have taken root, and remain the most consistent advocates for peace and an immediate end to the Occupation.
We will soon reopen our office. Despite the headwinds we are facing, we feel incredibly lucky to have the opportunity to do this work. When the news cycle feels designed to paralyze us with despair, at Zazim we reach out to our community, organize, and do something about it.
To learn more about Zazim, please follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter, or visit our website, where you can also support any of the campaigns mentioned in this piece.
Raluca Ganea is the co-founder and executive director of Zazim.
INSIGHTS
Ralph Bunche, the UN’s Forgotten ChampionBy Joseph Hillyard
In January of this year, the United Nations celebrated a major milestone: Eighty years earlier, in Blitz-scarred London, representatives of 51 nations had gathered for the first ever United Nations General Assembly to discuss plans for the postwar world. Advocates hoped that the UNGA could be a forum for diplomacy between nations, and prevent future conflict. The United States was an active participant in the gathering, with former First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, a member of the US delegation, addressing the assembly and appealing for gender equality.
Over the eight decades since, the UN has expanded in both membership and mandates – yet the future of the organization’s role in international affairs seems more unclear than ever. The inability of the UN to diplomatically resolve conflicts in Ukraine, Israel-Palestine, Haiti, Sudan, and now Iran has increased skepticism of the organization’s efficacy. And the US under Donald Trump has embraced a transactional approach to foreign policy, eschewing international law and institutions, and possibly even angling to replace the UN entirely with a “Board of Peace”. These mounting crises have led human rights advocates to fear a “new age of impunity”, in which political and military leaders are no longer held accountable for the atrocities they commit.
But while the UN, since its inception, has become a household name, the individuals who have contributed to the institution are lesser known.
Kal Raustiala, director of the Ronald W. Burkle Center for International Relations at UCLA, aims to correct this oversight with his biography of UN diplomat and civil rights activist, Ralph Bunche. Bunche, the first Black man to win the Nobel Peace Prize for negotiating the end of the first Arab-Israeli war, has long been treated as a historical footnote. Published in 2022 by Oxford University Press, The Absolutely Indispensable Man: Ralph Bunche, the United Nations, and the Fight to End Empire rectifies this, tracing the life of the man and of the organization he helped shape.
Born at the start of the Great Migration, Bunche would grow up amidst a time of significant transition for African Americans, as many left the Jim Crow South for economic opportunities in Northern cities. Born in Detroit, he would primarily grow up in Los Angeles, raised by his maternal grandmother, Lucy Taylor Johnson, after his mother died; his father had deserted the family years earlier. Bunche would credit his grandmother with encouraging his academic pursuits and instilling him with a strong sense of racial pride.
Recognized for his academic prowess at a young age, Bunche would graduate valedictorian of his high school and at UCLA. He would later become the first African American to get a PhD in political science from Harvard. He received his masters from Howard University, where he taught for many years. Through his education, Bunche would become drawn to international affairs, emerging as a major scholar on colonialism.
In his 1934 dissertation, “French Administration in Togoland and Dahomey,” Bunche criticized the Mandate system of the League of Nations as indistinguishable from formal colonial rule. He would get to develop his ideas further during the Second World War, when his knowledge of African and colonial affairs was sought out by the federal government. In the later stages of the war, he would find himself working alongside Eleanor Roosevelt, who became a lifelong friend and ally, developing plans for what would become the United Nations. Raustiala notes that Bunche pushed for Black civil rights groups to take an active role in the UN, drawing connections between the struggle against Jim Crow and the struggle against empire.
To replace the Mandate system, Bunche developed the idea of UN trusteeship, which aimed to promote self-determination and weaken the hold of colonial powers. It was this role that would bring him to the Middle East, where the UN-backed partition of the British Mandate for Palestine had resulted in the first Arab-Israeli war.
Bunche was not supposed to be the UN’s chief mediator in the Middle East. Sweden’s Count Folke Bernadotte was appointed to that role. Bunche served as his chief aide and supported Bernadotte in his tense negotiations with Israeli and Arab leaders. When Bernadotte was assassinated by the Jewish terrorist group, Lehi (led by future prime minister Yitzhak Shamir), which opposed the negotiations, Bunche was immediately appointed in his stead.
Bunche regarded these negotiations as among the hardest of his diplomatic career, and many of his observations about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict would prove prophetic. While he would be chastised by Arab leaders as too close to the Jewish community during negotiations, Bunche was vocal about the plight of Palestinian refugees and later supported the 1949 creation of UNRWA, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East. Although his longtime professional foe, W.E.B Dubois – a passionate supporter of Israel’s establishment – publicly suggested that he was antisemitic, Bunche in practice was outspoken against antisemitism throughout his life and never disputed the right of Jews to a homeland after the horrors of the Holocaust.
Bunche believed that a solution to the Palestinian refugee question and granting self-determination to both Jews and Palestinians were necessary to achieve a lasting peace. For the rest of his life, he would not shrink from criticizing all parties for actions that undermined this vision. Despite the criticisms, when the armistice was reached in 1949 there was almost unanimous praise for his efforts, on account of which Bunche would become the first Black person to be awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace.
This achievement would grant Bunche a rare status within a segregated society. In the 1950s, he would be held up as a symbol of Black patriotism and success despite the indignities of Jim Crow. Like his friend and contemporary Jackie Robinson, this would later make Bunche seem out of touch to sixties radicals, who eschewed respectability politics. Yet he would also embrace the new generation, joining Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. at the March on Washington and in Selma.
In 1957, Bunche would be appointed United Nations Under-Secretary for Special Political Affairs and would oversee UN peacekeeping missions in Africa, Asia, and the Middle East. Conscious of the UN being a relatively new institution, he would work to build up credibility and emphasized partnership with member states. In this role, Bunche would put his longtime advocacy for decolonialism into action, navigating often fraught political dynamics. The Congo crisis, where the UN struggled to mediate between the warring factions, would be an especially harrowing episode for the aging diplomat.
Decolonization would also heighten tensions between the UN General Assembly and the Security Council, dominated, as it was and is, by former colonial powers. Despite this, Bunche would remain a firm believer in the UN and ending colonialism, rebuking critics like Richard Nixon, who had accused the organization of anti-American sentiment due to growing opposition to the war in Vietnam. Mounting health problems would force Bunche to step back from the UN, and he would pass away on December 9, 1971, from complications related to heart disease and diabetes.
The strength of Raustiala‘s biography lies not just in its ability to rehabilitate Bunche after years of neglect, but in capturing the world he occupied. He came of age during Jim Crow and empire, joining an institution that represented a potential path to democratization. The book imparts the reader with warnings about the risk of now returning to an age of impunity. As Bunche’s colleague, UN Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld, said in 1954: “The United Nations was not created in order to bring us to heaven, but in order to save us from hell.” Eight decades after its founding, that mission remains more essential than ever.
Joseph Hillyard is a Dramatic Writing Major and History Minor studying at NYU (2026). He is currently serving as VP for the Mid-Atlantic on the national board of J Street U, and was proud to be a member of the Hatikvah Slate for the 2025 World Zionist Congress Elections.
Sari Bashi, Upside-Down Love: A Memoir in Two Voices. (Blackstone, 2026)
By Rabbi Margo Hughes-Robinson
“Could you write me a sign in Arabic that says, ‘My name is Sari Bashi, and I’m an Israeli-American Jewish woman in love with a Palestinian man named Osama Fahed. The two of us are just people, and I would be grateful if you could please respect that.’”
This line comes near the end of “Upside-Down Love: A Memoir in Two Voices,” recently published in English translation by Sari Bashi and her husband Osama Fahed (a pseudonym), but it serves as a wonderful introduction to the relationship at the center of the book. Alternating chapters written by Bashi and Fahed over the course of their relationship track the evolution of their unlikely connection: first as lawyer and client, then as friends, lovers, and eventually building a family together.
Bashi founded Gisha, an Israeli non-profit dedicated to protecting the freedom of movement of Palestinians, and initially met Gaza-born Fahed when he was living and working in the West Bank. He was attempting to travel to London to pursue his doctoral studies when he connected with Gisha to legally represent him in his case. Four years later, the two met again in Ramallah and began to fall in love, subsequently drafting early chapters of the book that would be published ten years later in Hebrew, in 2020 (originally titled “Maqluba,” a nod to the overturned pan in the traditional Palestinian dish).
In many ways, their relationship is like that of so many other couples around the world: Sari and Osama meet, experience attraction, decide to pursue a relationship. They navigate their work commitments, their hobbies, go on vacation together, consider getting to know each other’s families. They break up and reunite, sharpen their mutual understanding, make space for each other and move in together, and exchange doubt and determination about whether to have children. What is unique is not their trajectory, but the circumstances under which it evolves.
Perhaps Bashi and Fahed’s strongest suit as a literary couple is their sense of ironic contrast, which is woven throughout the book. Bashi is a competitive long-distance runner, and especially after she moves in with Fahed in the West Bank, her on-foot travels through different areas of Palestinian civil and Israeli military administration provide a kind of punctuation to her growing intimacy with her partner. As she runs and alternately processes the relationship’s ups and downs (or immerses herself in running so completely as to momentarily ignore them) she encounters – or rather, is encountered by Palestinian villagers and city-dwellers, Jewish settlers, and Israeli soldiers, all of whom alternately call out the irregularity of encountering her on roads between checkpoints and unmarked towns, or who see whoever is most convenient for them. Depending on the interaction, Bashi is observed as a Jewish Tel Avivian, a Palestinian, a secular settlement-dweller, or an American tourist. Fahed, by contrast, is always Palestinian– and often not able to accompany his partner as she transgresses boundaries both cartographically and socially.
Often, the two authors deftly weave together the moments where their personal life, Sari’s professional work, and Osama’s legal status overlap acutely. It is these flashpoints where the impact of the Occupation feels sharpest: no longer the background against which they fall in love, but almost a third party in their relationship. When Sari and Osama decide to move in together, Sari reviews all of the Israeli laws that impact their lives: the 1954 legal decisions that keep Osama’s mother in Gaza, despite the fact that she was born in a Palestinian village near what is today Ashkelon in Israel; the 1967 law that kept Osama’s father in Egypt, apart from his family in the Jabaliya refugee camp in Gaza; the host of post-Oslo statues that forbid Osama to live in Tel Aviv with Sari, and Sari to move to Ramallah with Osama.
Years later, when their daughter Forat is born in an Israeli hospital and requires a NICU stay, a Jewish family friend registers as Forat’s father in order to visit a convalescing Sari and Forat, and Osama must wait a month until his partner and daughter can come home. Poignantly, this is not the first time Osama has experienced this kind of delay: his ex-wife and his teenage son are also Israeli citizens (although as Palestinians, they could move to Ramallah legally), and Osama could not be present at his birth, either.
As Bashi and Fahed narrate the building of their Jewish-Muslim-Israeli-Palestinian family in the West Bank, they also turn their narrative gaze back to their own family histories, encouraging the reader to reckon with the historical instability of their identities. Less than a century before they met, both the Bashi and Fahed families were subjects of the Ottoman Empire, in Iraq and in Palestine. Both families spoke Arabic, albeit in different dialects. Bashi and Fahed explore how the legal designations and papers that complicate their family’s existence in the present are recent inventions, not immutable categories of existence and identity in the ways the Occupation attempts to concretize. Bashi notes the tensions present at her family’s own mixed Ashkenazi and Iraqi gatherings with new eyes, seeing her family through Osama’s label of “Arab Jews;” while Osama observes his own family’s increasing religiosity and social conservatism in Gaza (alongside, he notes, a growing penchant for lewd humor as a distraction throughout the enclave as conditions degrade).
While Maqluba was published in Hebrew in 2020, this English edition arrives two years after the devastating Hamas terror attacks of October 7th, 2023, and the subsequent Israeli war of retaliation and destruction – even annihilation – in Gaza. The book is dedicated in part “to the beloved people of Gaza, with hope and apology,” and the new English language epilogue ends with an emotional insistence that, “there are good, loving people here [in Israel-Palestine] who are working for a better future.” Throughout the war, Bashi has published op-eds in the New York Times about her Gazan mother-in-law’s forced displacement, and how it informs her own thinking about the Palestinian right of return. Ahead of the publication of “Upside-Down Love,” she retold the story of her relationship with Osama in another Times piece, sharing how their now-family of four had navigated the destruction of Gaza, fearful for their relatives.
In my own conversation with Bashi last February, I drew a connection between her partner’s practice of wearing a ribbon on his lapel that counts the days since the war in Gaza began, and the practice of many Israeli hostage family members and their supporters of wearing a piece of tape on their shirts with the same count, innovated by Rachel Goldberg-Polin. Under very different circumstances, but at the same time, I had realized, these practices were an outward manifestation of fear and hope for one’s beloved family members, trapped in the enclave. “I’m so glad that you see them as similar,” Bashi replied, “empathy and love cannot be selective”.
It’s tempting to read “Upside Down Love,” through a kind of “love conquers all” lens, but to do so would be a disservice to the lived reality of its authors and to the very necessary work that they do professionally. Instead, to quote Bashi’s op-ed last summer, we have to acknowledge, “Love isn’t enough to protect us — or anyone — but we plan to use it as a shield for as long as we can.”
Rabbi Margo Hughes-Robinson is the Executive Director of Partners for Progressive Israel.
Blog Post: Where We Are, and Where We Need To Beby Paul Scham
It is just over a week after President Trump’s off-the-wall statement that the US will take control of Gaza after Israel has subdued Hamas. While historians have a notoriously poor track record as prophets, I predict, although Trump has doubled down on the statement and insisted he meant it, that neither Israel nor the US will ever succeed in removing a hundred thousand Palestinians from Gaza, let alone all of them, who number more than two million. Although Trump does appear to be succeeding in driving down the international standing of the US to perhaps its lowest point in history and eviscerating our institutions, but neither he nor Israel will succeed in evicting large numbers (i.e., hundreds of thousands) of Palestinians from either the West Bank or Gaza.
Why am I so sure? For the same reason I am convinced that no one will evict Israelis from the internationally recognized borders of Israel. It is their national home, and they will not leave it. Moreover, I am confident that neither Israeli nor American public opinion, nor their soldiers, would countenance the much immense and Nazi-like brutality that would be required to perpetrate a second Nakba on the Palestinians. That is in addition, of course, to the fact that the Arab states, who, unlike Trump and his yes-men, realize the political effect a second Nakba would have, and have united against it.
Yesterday it was the turn of Jordan’s King Abdullah II to meet with and stand up to the new American autocrat in person. Jordan is one of the US’s most dependable allies in the regions, and is also the country that would suffer the worst internal disruption were Trump’s plan to bear fruit. The king, to his credit, reiterated the Arab world’s vociferous opposition to the plan, with predictably little effect on Trump.
The main effect, and probable intention, of Trump’s announcement has been to bolster the standing and governmental strength of Bibi Netanyahu. His government had lost the support of the “Jewish Power” party of Itamar Ben-Gvir when it agreed to the January 19 ceasefire negotiated by President Biden and enforced by President Trump, and would collapse if the “Religious Zionism” Party of Bezalel Smotrich were to make good on its threat to leave if the cease fire were to enter its second phase. Now Hamas, asserting Israeli violations of the terms of the cease fire, has paused negotiations for the second phase, cancelled the hostage release for this Saturday, and saved thus Bibi’s government. The winners are Bibi and Hamas. The losers are the Israeli and Palestinian peoples, who will start killing each other again if the cease-fire expires without a second phase, as seems to be happening. Trump, with his usual finesse, has threatened that “all hell is going to break out” if the hostages are not released Saturday. He may be right about that.
Israelis have, perhaps understandably, been primarily focused on the released hostages – and those whose release has now been postponed, perhaps permanently. This is the time to commend the head of the new “Democratim” party, retired Major General Yair Golan, whose recent statement, published Sunday in Ha’aretz and now on Partners’ website, is a breath of fresh air within Israeli political discourse. He condemns Trump’s “preposterous” transfer plan and rallies “Jews and Zionists to ensure it is not normalized in the Israeli discourse.” He calls for “the release of the hostages, a stable cease-fire, the establishment of an alternative government to Hamas and the formation of a regional front against Iran …. Only such measures will lead to a Middle East that is safer, guided by a realistic, sustainable vision.”
Golan does not call outright for a two-state solution, recognizing that its status is at an all-time low among Israelis. However, he offers an alternative vision for an Israel that recognizes that “with the Palestinians we will need to live in security,” that is, neither will ever contemplate leaving or being evicted. He recognizes that the only way the hostages will return is for the war to end NOW.
Yair Golan deserves credit for his forthright statement that Israel must now take a new path and reject Trump’s seductive and ridiculous promise that the Palestinians can be siphoned off. Let’s hope that this truth will be recognized in time to save the remaining hostages and begin the task of rebuilding and regeneration, with new elections in Israel, a new government in Gaza, and a comprehensive and impartial investigation into the circumstances that permitted October 7, 2023 to take place and unnecessarily and brutally prolonged the war in Gaza.
Paul Scham is president of Partners for Progressive Israel and a professor of Israel Studies at the University of Maryland.
Our Zionism Is Not One of Mass Displacement and Eternal War, It’s of Equality and Freedom(This op-ed originally appeared in the English language version of Haaretz on February 9th, 2025)
It’s best to say this directly: It is understandable, especially after October 7, that there are people who neither belong to nor support the Jewish messianic movement, or Israel’s extremist government, and still have listened to Donald Trump’s transfer plan and said to themselves that they would not object to a scenario where they could go to sleep and wake up the next day to find that the Palestinian people had disappeared overnight.
But pain is not a work plan, and the sort of wishful thinking that vanishes adversity at the snap of a wizard’s fingers has never been the way of Zionism. We are a movement of dreamers, but always with our feet on the ground and a viable, concrete plan to make our vision a reality.
Where today is that daring, proactive Israel, which owns of its future and acts decisively on behalf of its security?
The transfer of Palestinian residents of Gaza to a third country is an idea that is antithetical to Judaism and to Zionism. The American president is neither Jewish nor Zionist, but those of us who are must stand against it and ensure that it is not normalized in the Israeli discourse.
This is not the first time Trump has proposed something that stuns everyone, and it will not be the first time an idea that he has thrown out is quietly tucked back in the drawer, where it belongs.
The talk of population transfer distracts from urgent, critical matters: The war in the Gaza Strip continues, our soldiers continue to sacrifice their lives, dozens of hostages and their families are waiting for the state to fulfill its most fundamental contract with its citizens and bring them home – alive, or at least for a dignified burial. Every additional day without an alternative to Hamas is a day we give Hamas a strategic reward.
And why does all of this continue? Because for 16 months the government was busy covering its tracks and dragging its feet instead of drawing up a genuine plan for the future of the Strip and guaranteeing the security of Israelis.
The solution lies not in the provocations of mass expulsion or in dangerous messianic settlement in Gaza, but in thought-out and realistic political action. Hand in hand with the United States and the moderate Arab countries, Israel must build a future in which the Strip recovers while at the same time our security is guaranteed.
The necessary steps are clear: the release of the hostages, a stable cease-fire, the establishment of an alternative government to Hamas and the formation of a regional front against Iran which takes advantage of the achievements of the war. Only such measures will lead to a Middle East that is safer, guided by a realistic, sustainable vision.
True vision calls for the creation of an alliance of moderate countries against the radical Shi’ite or Sunni Muslim axis. True vision demands the preservation of Israel as a state with a clear Jewish majority, as required by it being a national home for the entire Jewish people and, at the same time, a free, egalitarian and democratic state – a thriving state its citizens wish to live in, not emigrate from.
True vision means addressing the real problems, not fleeing from them. With the Palestinians, we will need to live in security; with the radical axis, we will need to confront it while building a military strike force; regarding Israel’s domestic challenges, we will need to confront them while battling the populists and anarchists staffing our government.
The true test of a statesman lies not in slogans, but in shaping historical processes. Let’s assume for a moment that Trump’s preposterous scenario is realized, and between 200,000 and 500,000 Palestinians would prefer to emigrate, rather than live in what remains of the Strip during its reconstruction. Where would they go? Europe has its own immigration crises and will not rush to absorb additional refugees. Muslim countries are turning their backs. There is no destination, no solution, only more chaos.
And chaos is the most comfortable environment for Benjamin Netanyahu, the best chance for him to continue consolidating his rule. The residents of Gaza will not disappear, not tomorrow and not in a decade, and those who seek a solution that will allow us to live alongside them in security will not find it in the ideological workshops of Bezalel Smotrich and veteran settler Daniella Weiss.
But while we engage in futile discussions, the government continues to dismantle Israeli democracy, abandon the hostages and the sacrifice the lives of the soldiers who are bogged down in a war that should have already ended.
Tens of thousands of Israelis have already left the country for fear that there is no future here, not for them and especially not for their children. Anyone searching for a genuine solution for Israelis must act to ensure that Israel remains a country where people can and want to live.
Thus, the most important task now is to ensure that all the hostages return, immediately. Then we must build a real future for the current and future generations of Israelis whose home is here, whose identity is Jewish and democratic, and who proudly bear the values of equality and freedom. Population transfer will never be part of their vocabulary, nor will eternal war. Because this is our Zionism.
Maj. Gen. (res.) Yair Golan is chair of the Democrats party.
Feb 5th, 2025 –
A Response to President Trump’s Remarks Regarding the Gaza Strip
We resoundingly condemn the plans shared by President Donald Trump yesterday to forcibly transfer two million people out of the Gaza Strip, and to assert US control over the enclave. These statements were nothing less than an explicit call for ethnic cleansing, and exhibit a fundamental disrespect for the humanity of everyone in the region, as well as a gross flouting of international law. Trump’s plans are illegal, inhumane, and must not be allowed to come to fruition in any form.
It also must be noted that while the president’s remarks were a new low in their explicit nature, the call for forced expulsion of Gaza civilians has been taken up for months by members of the Israeli government using the euphemistic language of “humanitarian population solutions…beyond the borders of Eretz Yisrael,” including by Cabinet Ministers Betzalel Smotrich, Miki Zohar, May Golan, Amichai Chikli, and many others – as recently as this week.
Last night, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu himself embraced this expulsion proposal, saying that Trump’s plan could “change history,” and was “worthwhile really pursuing.” We are saddened but not surprised to see that the Israeli far right is celebrating Trump’s statement: Netanyahu’s primary aim, to keep his coalition together, has been fulfilled. Even more concerning is the response from key centrist Israeli electeds and thought leaders, who appear to be also tacitly endorsing Trump’s remarks.
It is incumbent upon American and Israeli elected officials, as well as the wider international community, to prevent any further war crimes or atrocities in the region, and to prevent the enactment of any of these stated plans. Lasting security and a just peace for Israelis and Palestinians can only be achieved with the acknowledgement of the right to self-determination for both peoples in the land between the Mediterranean and the Jordan River, and Partners has long called for the establishment of a democratic Palestinian state alongside the State of Israel. There cannot be any sort of lasting peace through ethnic cleansing and self-serving real estate deals.
Rabbi Margo Hughes-Robinson
Executive Director, Partners for Progressive Israel
KOLOT – Voices of Hope, Post-October 7 Series
The Road to Recovery: Humanizing the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict through Patient TransportA Conversation with Yael Noy, CEO of The Road to Recovery
This interview, which took place prior to the recent Israel-Hamas ceasefire deal, has been edited for length and clarity.
Partners for Progressive Israel (PPI): Thanks for chatting with us, Ya’el. Could you tell us about The Road to Recovery?
Yael Noy (YN): We’re an Israeli association of volunteers who drive Palestinian patients from checkpoints in the West Bank to hospitals in Israel, and back again. In the past, we also did this with Gaza.
Most of the patients are children, and the patients in general need to meet a few criteria to enter Israel: Usually they require life-saving treatment that isn’t provided in the Palestinian Authority. That includes a lot of kids with oncological or nephrological issues because there’s no pediatric dialysis in the Palestinian Authority. And kids who need organ transplants or suffer from chronic, genetic illnesses that can’t be treated in the Palestinian Authority.
Officially we’ve been operating as a nonprofit since 2010. But the first request came 19 years ago.
PPI: How did that come about?
YN: The Road to Recovery was initiated by Yuval Roth. Yuval’s brother, Udi, was abducted and killed by Hamas in 1993 while returning home from reserve duty in Gaza; it was a month after the signing of the first Oslo Accord. Yuval subsequently joined the Israeli-Palestinian “Parents Circle – Bereaved Families Forum”.
One day in 2005, Yuval got a call from a Palestinian friend, Muhammed Kabeh, also a member of the Parents Circle group. Muhammed had a request: His brother was ill and had to be taken to the hospital. Of course, Yuval took Muhammed’s brother. After that, word spread through word of mouth, to family and neighbors, and more and more requests came in. That’s how it got started.
PPI: So, what happened in 2010?
YN: Leonard Cohen, the late singer-songwriter, heard about the work we were doing and wanted to make a donation. That spurred the creation of an official registered nonprofit.
I should mention that The Road to Recovery isn’t connected organizationally to the Parents Circle. Our founder is a member of the Forum, but the organizations are completely separate entities.
PPI: How many drivers are involved in The Road to Recovery?
YN: We actually don’t call them “drivers”. We refer to “volunteers” who do the driving. We don’t see ourselves as a transport operation. If that’s what we were about, we’d rent a minibus and send it to the Israel-West Bank crossing point every morning and that’d be that. But for us, the main thing is the motivation of the volunteers to help and the encounters that these rides can create between Israelis and Palestinians.
PPI: Could you tell us about these encounters?
YN: Israelis and Palestinians don’t have much of an opportunity to meet. Palestinians aren’t acquainted with Israelis, except soldiers, through the sites of a rifle, or interactions with settlers moving about in the territories. So, Palestinians perceive Israelis generally as enemies. And so we’re reaching out to become acquainted and not asking for anything in return. It doesn’t cost the patients a thing.
Beyond the humanitarian aspect of transporting patients, our story is about Israeli volunteers inviting Palestinians into their private vehicles. They then have about an hour’s ride to be together.
We provide about 50 to 60 such rides a day, by the way. And the patient is always accompanied by an escort, who’s a family member.
We provide the platform; we plant these seeds. We want Israelis and Palestinians to meet and perhaps for something to grow from that. Of course, sometimes nothing comes of it. Occasionally the patient and escort don’t even say thanks, and the volunteer can feel a bit miffed, as if they were just a cab driver. But don’t forget that the Palestinian passengers are preoccupied with their own illness, or the illness of their loved-one, and aren’t available emotionally.
But other times amazing things happen, miracles really, and friendships get formed. After October 7, for example, there were volunteers who wanted to take a break from this activity. But they’ve made an exception for someone they’ve formed a friendship with and continue driving them. These people now have a name, a face, and that’s where it all begins.
PPI: How do the two sides communicate? In English?
YN: There can be a language barrier. And significant cultural gaps, too. Sometimes they can communicate in English, or if the Palestinian passengers know a bit of Hebrew, or the Israeli volunteer has some broken Arabic. But sometimes this can be overcome with a smile, or a gesture, or someone offering the other water or some fruit. What we might call “the language of the heart”!
PPI: How does the operation work in practice?
YN: Patients still hear about us via word of mouth, especially at the Israelis hospitals. There are three Palestinian coordinators who take in requests – one in the Hebron area, one in the Qalqilya-Nablus area, and one in the Jenin area. The coordinators are responsible for contact with the patients. And each day they send us a list of the patients who need to be driven the next day. They communicate with the Israeli coordination center, which sends out the volunteers.
The volunteers drop them off at the hospital entrance, but they don’t wait there for them. So, when patients are done with their appointment or treatment, they notify the Palestinian coordinators and then we look for another volunteer to take them back to the checkpoint.
On paper we have 1,300 volunteers. Each year, about 600-700 will volunteer in practice.
We use a computerized system with the details of the patients and the volunteers. And there’s an app where volunteers can sign themselves up in advance, and that lets us know who’s available to drive. If that’s not enough, we have a WhatsApp group for communication. We also sometimes need to respond to nighttime emergencies. And, sadly, there are terminal cases, and we bring the family members to part from the patient.
Our work is all from home, by the way – decentralized. We don’t have a central office.
PPI: Is The Road to Recovery involved in getting entry permits to Israel for the Palestinians?
YN: We don’t deal with that. We simply take them from the Israeli side of the crossing point after they’ve obtained the necessary humanitarian permits. These permits continue to be given out.
All the permits are arranged in communication with the Israeli hospitals, and the hospitals arrange the permits once the Palestinian Authority approves the treatment and commits to coverage. Israeli hospitals, in fact, want the Palestinians to come. When they’re treated in Israel, it’s under the heading of “medical tourism” and it’s very expensive – the Palestinian Authority is charged at the highest rate, more than the rate for Israeli patients, so it pays for Israeli hospitals to accept them. For the same reason, the Palestinian Authority prefers to provide treatment in the territories, where it’s less expensive. And not every Palestinian that wants such care gets it. It has to be approved by a committee in Ramallah.
PPI: Is taking rides from The Road to Recovery ever considered collaboration with the Occupation? Is it ever opposed by those who view it as “normalization”?
YN: To the best of my understanding, I think what we do is make an exception, since it involves ailing people who are going to a hospital, to receive medical care.
PPI: Certainly, October 7 impacted your organization’s work. Could you tell us how?
YN: Since October 7, the volume of our activity has gone down because thirty percent of our patients were from Gaza and they can’t currently enter Israel. But from the West Bank, the work continues.
The Road to Recovery, in fact, is the only organization engaged in Israel-Palestine that didn’t stop its activity even for a moment due to October 7. On October 8, we were transporting patients. All the other Israeli-Palestinian coexistence organizations had to suspend joint activity due to Palestinians being barred entry into Israel. But we carried on.
For the first few weeks after October 7, our activity was more limited: Israel’s hospitals were full with the Israeli war wounded; plus, the Palestinians were more scared to enter Israel. But since then, we’ve returned to the regular numbers.
We did have some volunteers who asked to stop after October 7. And others who wanted to continue, but their family members asked them to stop – because they’re scared. And we had volunteers who decided to focus instead on the work that needs to be done inside Israeli society. But there have also been new volunteers joining, people looking for a way to help. Still, right now is not an easy time for any of the volunteers.
Sadly, we lost a lot of volunteers from the communities on the border with Gaza, the kibbutzim there. Some were murdered, or were kidnapped or their homes were destroyed and they were displaced. We have one hostage still in Gaza.
October 7 was a harsh blow, and to continue doing this work now in Israeli society is not something to be taken for granted.
Six volunteers for The Road to Recovery were murdered on October 7, 2023. They are:Vivian SilverTammy SuchmanEli OrgadHayim KatsmanAdi DaganChaim PeriOded Lifshitz, an 84-year-old volunteer at The Road to Recovery, was taken hostage on October 7, and is still in captivity as of this writing. His wife, Yocheved Lifshitz, also a volunteer for The Road to Recovery, was taken hostage on October 7 and was subsequently released.
PPI: Could you explain what you mean by that?
YN: Israeli society has become more extreme, and what we do isn’t representative of our society. I’ve been part of this NGO since 2016. I’ve always been very proud of what we do and talked about it and gotten good feedback. But today I’m much more cautious when I’m asked what I do – I think twice what to say and how to say it. Mostly I don’t want to cause anyone pain. Just lending a hand to Palestinians is painful to many Israelis. There are people who were hurt on October 7, or whose kids are serving in Gaza or who’ve been hurt or killed there. Or people evacuated from Israel’s North. We’re in a painful war. So, I need to be careful how I say things. But I won’t stop my activity. I don’t feel like I’m “aiding the enemy”, but that’s how it’s perceived by many.
PPI: Does The Road to Recovery advocate for a “solution” or use a broader human rights framing?
YN: We try to keep it simple. Our volunteers come from all parts of Israeli society, including Arab citizens of Israel, leftists from kibbutz communities, but also settlers from what are considered extreme settlements in the territories. We want to remain a home in which all the volunteers can feel comfortable, so we avoid issuing political statements. And we don’t go rallies and raise banners there.
But I feel the work we do is itself a kind of political statement.
PPI: Where do you get your support from? From Israelis? From the international community?
YN: Before October 7, most of the donations we received came from within Israel – including from private entities and from kibbutzim. Kibbutz Be’eri, near Gaza, which was invaded and attacked on October 7, was once a big donor; now we need to help them. After October 7, though, all the donations from within Israel dried up at once, almost completely.
During the month after October 7, we experienced a huge amount of interest from international media – CNN, BBC, EU newspapers, Christiane Amanpour – and that helped generate lots of donations from around the world. We need that now because we’re still receiving almost nothing from Israel – and that includes from individuals who’d contributed to us for years, but now feel the priorities and needs are different.
It’s important to say to Americans: One day the war will be over and both sides will remain, and it’s vital to have these bridges if we want neighborly relations – even if not yet peace. So right now, we need the support of the world. Before the war started, we were about to do mass fundraising in Israel, but right now we can’t ask Israeli society since there are so many needs, and it’s difficult for many to help Palestinian citizens when so many Israelis are hurting. So, we’re appealing to the Jewish Diaspora and whoever wants us to do well.
PPI: Is there anything else you’d like to share with our readers?
YN: My passion is to get as many Israelis as possible involved. I’m doing what I do in order to rescue us, the Israeli side, so that we can remain humane, within the violent, racist society we live in.
I also believe that when we do something positive, it reaches people on the other side and has an impact, even if we don’t always know where or when. Occasionally, though, we do get feedback from Palestinians. A man named Haled, for example, wrote us that we’d saved him twice – once from his cancer, and once from his brainwashing. “I was raised to hate Jews,” he said, “and suddenly I met something different”.
From a patient: “Hey Yuval, I’ve never had a good chance to talk to you openly. I think you’ve doing the most amazing thing ever in regards of the conflict in this area. Personally speaking, you, all your friends, and all the beautiful people in Rambam [Hospital] saved my life twice. First from cancer. The second time is from being close minded fanatic… I think I was brainwashed to hate everyone. Especially jews. What you are doing is one of the reasons why I now hope for peace, and do whatever I can from my place as an English teacher to make more people hope and seek peace too. Thank you so much.”— Haled Zeyud, Silat a Hartia
And there was a Palestinian Authority police officer about a decade ago who saved an Israeli soldier who’d entered Ramallah, in the Occupied Territories, by mistake. The policeman contacted our founder, Yuval, and said, “I did this for you, because last year you took my brother to the hospital”.
These things do happen. I believe what we do creates a little light.
Yael Noy is the CEO of The Road to Recovery
To learn more about The Road to Recovery, visit their website, or follow them on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter (X), or YouTube.
Partners’ Statement on Trump’s Executive Order “Additional Measures to Combat Anti-Semitism”
January 31st, 2025 –
In response to President Trump’s executive order this week entitled “Additional Measures to Combat Anti-Semitism,” Partners for Progressive Israel issued the following statement:
Jewish life in the United States is generally safe, but this security has been marred by increasing incidents of antisemitic violence which cannot and must not be either downplayed or ignored. We are particularly concerned that the rise in antisemitism is connected with the legitimization of violence in both deed and word, against individuals and groups that appear to be vulnerable, and more generally in today’s political and social discourse.
The struggle against antisemitism is a vitally important task which must be conducted effectively. Partners for Progressive Israel is very concerned that President Trump’s recent executive order is misdirected and will impede rather than help the struggle against antisemitism which, at its core, is a particular part of the larger struggle for civil rights and equal security for all who live and work in the USA.
The narrow scope of this order, with its laser-focus on campuses and institutions of higher learning, belies its stated intent to uplift the safety of Jewish students on campus. Instead, its effect would be to intimidate students and instructors amidst a larger backdrop of unconstitutional crackdowns on the civil and human rights of immigrants in the United States by this same administration.
The order’s focus on “post-October 7th, 2023 campus anti-semitism,” in conjunction with the recent executive order banning comprehensive education about race and racism, religious discrimination, and American history flattens the experience of Jewish communities in the United States, and grossly appropriates our desire for safety and liberty in this country while obscuring essential educational conversations about how America has at times met the needs of some in the Jewish community while gravely failing others. Rather than embracing the complexity of the American Jewish experience, this administration is tokenizing the real fears and violence faced by our community to create a repressive environment on campuses across the country.
Additionally, the order’s use of the language “the people of Israel” as the target of the terror attacks perpetrated by Hamas on October 7th, 2023 further blurs the line between the identities of Jewish Americans and citizens of Israel, both erasing the experiences of non-Jewish Israelis victimized by Hamas and Islamic Jihad, and also trafficking in antisemitic tropes that equate all Jewish people with the State of Israel and presume a “dual loyalty” to both the United States and Israel.
We join the wider American Jewish community to express our deep concern at rising rates of antisemitic threats and violence across the United States. This order does not serve to adequately address the roots or flashpoints of antisemitic violence in this country, particularly when accompanied by President Trump’s other executive orders this week, which not only threatened the federal funding many Jewish communities receive to keep their community centers and houses of worship safe and secure, but has also placed Jewish immigrants and LGBTQIA+ Jewish youth and adults at particular risk.
Partners’ Executive Director Rabbi Margo Hughes-Robinson said, “The Jewish community deserves a thoughtful, comprehensive approach to combating rising antisemitism and the violence it can bring to our schools, synagogues, and communities. This executive order does not meet the needs of the American Jewish community, and instead will only add additional fear and intensity to the environments of university campuses, as well as fueling Trump’s Islamophobic and anti-immigrant agenda. American Jews, like all minority groups in the United States, are entitled to elected officials that take seriously our needs for safety and the responsibility to combat historic and current structural biases and hatred. What this administration has done instead is to weaponize the experiences of Jewish students on campus while simultaneously promoting individuals who traffic in Nazi imagery and gestures or conspiracy theories about Jewish ethnic and cultural groups.”
Partners’ Statement on Announced Ceasefire Deal
January 15th, 2025 –
Partners for Progressive Israel welcomes the announcement of a ceasefire agreement reached between Israel and Hamas. We extend our gratitude and admiration to the negotiators who have worked tirelessly to secure this deal, and to the hostage families who have been the moral heart of this painful fifteen-month war.
It is our sincere hope that this multiphase deal is the beginning of a permanent ceasefire, one that is accompanied by relief for the hundreds of thousands of civilians facing an urgent humanitarian disaster in Gaza, alongside the desperately-needed security for Israelis and the wider region. Additionally, we assert that a permanent ceasefire is an important step in creating a just future for all Israelis and Palestinians, including the end of the Occupation, and a secure and democratic Israel alongside a future secure and democratic Palestinian state.
We echo the urgent cries of so many Israelis in the streets, as well as the hostage families who insist that a comprehensive deal must be reached and followed through that will bring every remaining hostage home. We are also deeply disturbed by the assertions by MK Ben Gvir and others that previous deals have been rejected by Israel due to their personal interventions, delaying the State of Israel’s fundamental responsibility to ensure the safe return of its hostage citizens. To be clear: we believe it is deeply irresponsible for any member of the Knesset to attempt to derail an ongoing deal to bring the hostages home.
While the stages of this accepted deal are still likely to change, we also look with caution to the long-term issues of Israeli military presence in Gaza. Hamas’ attacks on October 7th were acts of terror, and included war crimes, as noted by the international community. The deep security concerns of the healing and still-displaced communities in the Gaza envelope are one of our greatest concerns as we look with hope to a peaceful future and an end to this war. The proposed creation of an IDF “buffer zone” between the civilian population and the Gaza envelope communities within Israel’s borders is also a welcome, temporary protection for the Israeli communities who are still recovering from the devastating attacks of October 7th. However, we also caution Israel’s political and military leaders to not allow this temporary zone to become a long-term occupation of Palestinian land, nor an opportunity for the Jewish settlements within Gaza that its ultranationalist supporters have previously called for.
We also call for clarity, as the deal progresses, about the location and wellbeing of Palestinian detainees from Gaza and the West Bank held in Israeli prisons within Israel and in the occupied territory, and transparency about the process through which Palestinian detainees will be returned to their homes and communities under the conditions of this deal.
PPI Executive Director Rabbi Margo Hughes-Robinson said, “It is with an admixture of relief, gratitude, and grief that we greet the news of this deal. A comprehensive and lasting ceasefire centered on a hostage exchange deal has been our utmost priority for nearly a year.
“G-d willing, soon we will reach the time to both sit in relief at the end of this terrible war, and to grieve all who have been unnecessarily lost or who have suffered unimaginably as this deal has been delayed. A military solution was never going to conclude this war. We hope that this ceasefire and hostage return deal soon leads to a permanent end to the war. We look forward to supporting and partnering with Israelis and Palestinians in their next steps towards a just and permanent peace, with dignity, human rights, and self-determination for all.”
Jimmy Carter’s LegacyBlog Post by Peter Eisenstadt, PPI Board Member
Partners for Progressive Israel mourns the passing of Jimmy Carter, z”l. At the same time, we acknowledge, with sadness and trepidation, that just over a week from now, there will be a transition of power in Washington from President Joe Biden to his lamentable successor. Jimmy Carter and Joe Biden have much in common. They were both good presidents and good people. They are the first one-term Democratic presidents since the Civil War. They both were presidents in challenging times, and their successes and failures will long be debated by historians, including their interactions with Israel, central to both presidencies.
When Jimmy Carter became president, he started from a position of general ignorance about the Middle East, and made some initial blunders, notably the firing of UN Ambassador Andrew Young for meeting with the UN representative of the PLO; but the Camp David accords are perhaps the signal achievement of his presidency. Later, in his post-presidency, Carter was a stalwart defender of the Palestinian right to self-determination, and was courageous in challenging the American foreign policy consensus on Israel. He was widely anathematized in 2006 for suggesting that Israel, without a radical course correction, was on the road to “apartheid” in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. Perhaps if his warning had been heeded by American policy and opinion makers, we would as a nation have been able to assert more effective pressure against it. Carter and Biden were both serious and devout Christians. Israel’s most strident supporters in the US are not Jews, most of whom remain firmly liberal and Netanyahu-skeptical, but evangelical Christians, many nourished on anti-Islamic prejudices and curdled fantasies out of the Book of Revelation. Carter imbibed southern evangelical Protestantism with his mother’s milk, but he forged a deeper understanding of his faith tradition, in part through his identification with the Jesus of the Beatitudes, and aided by his exposure to the Black Christianity of Andrew Young, Martin Luther King, Howard Thurman, and many others. Let Jimmy Carter’s memory be a blessing for Christians, Jews, and Muslims and all who wish to see the Jewish people and the Palestinian people living as equals in the land they must forever share.
Peter Eisenstadt is an independent historian and the author of several books including Rochdale Village, Encyclopedia of African American Culture and History, and Black Conservatism.
INSIGHTS
Rebuilding Israeli DemocracyBy Margo Hughes-Robinson
On November 21st, the International Criminal Court announced that it was issuing warrants of arrest for Prime Minister Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Gallant alongside a warrant for (the reportedly late) Hamas leader Mohammed Deif. The basis of the Netanyahu/Gallant warrants was highly specific, focused on the Israeli leaders’ alleged limiting of humanitarian aid and basic supplies like water and electricity from reaching Gazan civilians during the war. The resultant humanitarian crisis in Gaza has led to ever-increasing civilian deaths, not only as a result of military violence, but also due to the near-famine that has plagued the entire area for nearly a year.
The horrific ongoing conditions in Gaza are likely to only worsen now that Israel has banned UNRWA from operating in Gaza, the West Bank, and East Jerusalem. While the organization has long been deeply controversial in Israeli society – and we are heartened to see the thoughtful recommendations from the United Nations’ recent independent investigation of the agency – there is simply no practical replacement at present for its established and reliable infrastructure for distributing humanitarian aid.
As we continue to seek a future for Israelis and Palestinians based on human rights and equity, I meet this inflection point with grave concern. The involvement of the international community in this issue is reflective of the deep breakdowns in democratic norms in Israel, where the internal system of checks on executive power is being overridden: Reports released last month, for example, confirm that Netanyahu is seeking to prevent the establishment of an independent state commission of inquiry into the events of October 7th, and thus prevent any accountability to the Israeli people, who overwhelmingly support an end to this war.
Had Israel taken the advice of its Attorney General, Gali Baharav-Miara (who Netanyahu has made it clear he wishes to fire), a few months ago, regarding beginning a formal investigation into the events of Oct. 7 and their aftermath, it would likely not be at this juncture. The ICC takes over if there is no reputable national investigation mechanism. Israel has such a mechanism – and it has worked well in the past. However, with the Prime Minister moving heaven and earth to prevent an investigation, the ICC is now involved. The arrest warrants are a stain on Israel that will remain for years, whether or not they are ever served.
Within Israel, pathways back to a functional internal democracy remain, but will require drastic steps. Many experts on healthy democracy indicate a number of factors and national institutions that reflect a thriving government responsive to the needs of its citizens, among them a functioning rule of law, civil rights protections, free and fair elections, responsive governing bodies, robust civil society organizations and civic participation, as well as free press and media. A number of these appear to be crumbling in the wake of Netanyahu’s past several years in power, even prior to October 7th. The attempted (and ongoing) judicial coup and prolonged weakening of the Israeli justice system, the attacks on foreign news organizations and Israeli liberal media outlets, and the decade-plus erosion of support for liberal NGOs leaves many of these national indicators in grave peril. For example, the new official suspension of due process for Israeli citizens of all ethnic backgrounds under the guise of “addressing organized crime.” This is a real issue, but one that many Palestinian citizens of Israel feel that National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir has actually purposely ignored or underprosecuted, putting their communities further at risk – and something that this new legislation does not actually address.
In the short term, there are immediate steps that can be taken towards restoring Israeli democracy. Some of these are bureaucratic: an actual appointment to the role of Supreme Court president, a post that the Likudnik Justice Minister Yariv Levin has neglected to fill for a historic number of months; not just allowing, but supporting internal probes into war crimes in Gaza as well as a state commission of inquiry into the Israeli government’s failures on and around October 7th; an end to the war with Hamas, accomplished through a bilateral ceasefire and a comprehensive hostage return deal. There are, in fact, a number of Israeli politicians calling for these steps, including seeking to directly prevent the increase in police violence that Israelis citizens protesting for change have been met with on the streets of Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, and elsewhere.
But beyond these, a more fundamental reconsideration is required. As Hadash MK Aida Touma-Souleiman remarked recently in the Knesset, it is impossible to keep one’s eyes only on the day-to-day bureaucratic issues of functioning within Israel’s national bodies while children are dying every day in Gaza. An effective democracy in Israel cannot coexist alongside the ongoing occupation of the West Bank, the administration for which has been from a military command to a civil Israeli body under Betzalel Smotrich, who also loudly and frequently announces his plans for annexation. Nor can it exist alongside the current war and seventeen year blockade of Gaza, or in a country where the Nation-State Law remains on the books and in practice, now supplemented by what legal watchdogs have pointed to as increasing legalized segregation under July 2023’s expansion of the Admission Committees Law, already used in the Negev to create new Jewish-only towns overtop the ruins of destroyed Bedouin villages. In the long-term, a secure and functional Israeli democracy will also require a healthy and democratic Palestinian state.
In this moment of great political darkness, it remains the role of Partners and so many of our associated organizations to continue to provide American support and connection to the voices within Israel’s government, in grassroots movements, and in the streets who are building the collective political energy to make these necessary changes. And we cannot abandon their vision, even when the challenges are this dire. The path forward towards a multiethnic, enfranchised democracy is possible, but it will require a frank reckoning with the facts on the ground, not the facts as we wish them to be.
Rabbi Margo Hughes-Robinson is the Executive Director of Partners for Progressive Israel.
INSIGHTS
Forever WarBy Mark Gold
The first anniversary of the October 7 assault has come and gone. What has changed in that time is that now, Israelis are fighting actively on three fronts instead of just one. For all the tactical successes, security still eludes Israel. Bibi’s government has yet to articulate a program to end the war.
Yes, the Government says its war aims are to defeat Hamas and to bring home the hostages. These, however, are political slogans, not an actual program. For all the crushing blows, Hamas still fights. The IDF is currently engaged in intense combat in the north of Gaza, which the army had cleared of Hamas fighters early in the war. The IDF has no permanent control in the south either. Its forces raid various areas, shuffling Gazan refugees hither and yon with evacuation orders. To assert real control would require an occupation and Benny Gantz, the former IDF Chief of Staff and current opposition Knesset member and party leader, no longer with the government but close to army thinking, declared recently the army would need to have a presence in Gaza for years. Military reoccupation of Gaza, however, is not politically popular. Been there, done that. Still, Bibi’s government permitted a conference to be held in a field near the wreckage of kibbutz Be’eri on the Gaza border, where Netanyahu’s extreme right partners publicly planned a resettlement of Gaza. All this while the residents of the ruined communities along Israel’s southern border continue to be displaced. For them, there are no concrete plans. As for the hostages, the government has prepared no conference. It still has no plan to return them home. They hold a low position, at best, in the government’s muddled agenda.
To say that Hamas is an Iranian proxy is to be somewhat misleading. True, it was armed by Iran as part of a joint program of war with Israel. But Hamas has an independent agenda. It would perhaps be more accurate to say that Hamas is allied with Iran, and in its decision to wage war with Israel, it believed it would not act alone. With its attack, Hamas wanted to ignite a total war with Israel. In that, it has not yet succeeded. But Hamas’ allies have not been completely silent either. Hezbollah, the powerful Iranian-allied Shiite military force and social movement in Lebanon has been waging a low scale war with Israel since the start of the Gaza war, lobbing rockets into Israel’s northern communities nearly every day. Roughly a hundred thousand Israelis have been displaced from their homes. To end this low-level war decisively, Israel launched a series of well-planned attacks, including a ground invasion. It killed Hezbollah’s senior leadership and many of its mid-level commanders and occupied a small strip, several miles wide along the border, destroying tunnels and seizing weapons. At the beginning of the campaign, the IDF said it would need several weeks to bring security to Israel’s northern communities. Finally a cease-fire has been concluded but very few have returned home. . Southern Lebanon is a patchwork of Christian, Druze, Sunni, and Shiite communities. Forty years ago, Israel developed relationships within Christian villages during its futile occupation of Lebanon’s south. In the mainly Christian village of Aitou, an Israeli air attack targeted a building housing displaced persons, killing 21. With the burning of these victims, and countless other innocent civilians, Israel has burned relationships.
It is not an accident that the violence has not abated. A cease-fire in Gaza would bring considerable political risks to Bibi and his government. While fighting continues, there will be no IDF investigation into the security failures leading to the October 7 calamity. Moreover, Bibi’s extremist partners are using the war in Gaza to cover for a campaign of terror and displacement within the West Bank, and a program of political repression against critics, initially targeting Israeli-Palestinian citizens but lately expanding to include Jewish citizens as well. Bibi’s extremist partners will oppose efforts to end the war. Playing for time, Bibi hopes that the fortunes of a forever war will improve personal political fortunes as well. In this, Bibi has been assisted by Hamas which, despite the incredible suffering of Gaza residents, also remains intransigent, hoping that a wider war will yet erupt, with attendant global political pressures to isolate and weaken Israel.
Already, Hamas has achieved an important strategic goal. Sunni Arab states, upset by the Iranian program of arming Shiite proxies, until recently viewed Iran as their primary security threat and were willing to enter into security arrangements with Israel, which clearly had the military strength to counter Iran in the event of a wider war. Hamas’sOctober 7 attack was timed to disrupt a formal security agreement, nearly completed, between Israel and neighboring Sunni states, brokered, in part, by the US. The thousands of civilian deaths in Gaza have compelled a political and strategic rethinking among the Sunni states, which have recently revived diplomatic dialogues with Iran.
War may be politics by other means but ultimately, the politics of diplomacy are required to reclaim stability from the chaos and destruction of war. The US has been working tirelessly, but so far fruitlessly, to construct a diplomatic solution to address not only an immediate end to the violence but to construct a broader program to generate stability and security. A cease fire agreement would necessarily include a return of the remaining hostages. Then the US and Israel could try to use their leverage to introduce a Sunni armed security force to curb Hamas and provide the environment in which Gaza reconstruction could begin. Reconstruction will require enormous resources which only will be mobilized within a framework of security and peace. Properly crafted, a process paved by diplomacy could create the environment in which everyone sees their interests advanced by peace and mutual security arrangements.
The alternative is a forever war. If the result of this war is just a new generation of aggrieved and angry populations, for all the tactical IDF successes, the Gaza war will have been an enormous security failure.
Mark Gold is the treasurer of Partners for Progressive Israel.
INSIGHTS
For Two-Staters, Even a “Bite-Sized” AnnexationWill Require a Wholesale ReappraisalBy Ron Skolnik
Six days after U.S. Election Day, Bezalel Smotrich, the influential far-right Israeli finance minister, celebrated the victory of Donald Trump by publicly declaring 2025 to be “the year of [Israeli] sovereignty in Judea and Samaria,” the Biblical term for the Occupied West Bank. In our complex geopolitical world, there’s no certainty that Smotrich’s prophecy of annexation will be fulfilled. But his pronouncement also needs to be treated as more than idle bravado or a screwball rant that can safely be dismissed out of hand.
Not that long ago, Smotrich’s brand of Orthodox Zionism – not just expansionist, but supremacist, segregationist, and homophobic, too – kept him a junior partner in Binyamin Netanyahu’s government, a rankly illiberal figure whom the prime minister preferred to keep at arm’s length. But with his coalition options dwindling, and his corruption trials reaching a critical stage, Netanyahu embraced Smotrich and his associate, the Meir Kahane disciple Itamar Ben-Gvir, as his main allies during the 2022 election campaign.
Smotrich has long advocated for Eretz Yisrael HaShlema, the idea that the Jewish people holds exclusive God-given title to the “Complete Land of Israel”, from the River Jordan to the Sea Mediterranean; and that Israel’s Knesset must translate that into statute through the “application of sovereignty”, i.e. annexation. To advance that goal, Smotrich capitalized on Netanyahu’s limited alternatives during the post-election coalition bargaining season and extracted a major concession: In addition to the powerful Finance Ministry, he would also be given control of the Defense Ministry’s authority over all nonmilitary affairs (land management, planning and construction, home demolitions, trade and economy, and more) in the Occupied Territory.
For the last two years, as the de facto “Governor of the West Bank”, Smotrich has been using his expanded powers to extract IDF command from the area’s day-to-day administration – a process he refers to as the “normalization” of Israeli rule. Now, he is instructing the Defense Ministry’s “Settlement Directorate” and the IDF’s “Civil Administration” to “prepare the necessary [bureaucratic] infrastructure” for full-blown annexation. Smotrich has indicated that he seeks to shut down these bodies so that Israeli government ministries can start to run the West Bank directly (while keeping the Palestinians there disenfranchised), just as they do within the Green Line, in Ashkelon, Beersheva, or Tel Aviv.
We should pause here to note that, while Smotrich’s goal is full Israeli sovereignty, not just over the entire West Bank, but all of Gaza, too, his short-term plan is a more limited annexation, taking in “only” Israel’s West Bank settlements. A believer in Divine promise, Smotrich clearly can’t abandon his “Complete Land” dream; but he is clever and experienced enough to realize that he’ll need American support to move the ball forward at all. Trump’s 2020 plan (“Peace to Prosperity”), let’s recall, involved an Israeli annexation of roughly 30 percent of the West Bank (but reportedly more were the Palestinians to reject his so-called “Deal of the Century”). So Smotrich’s willingness not to go “whole hog” right away seems designed to avoid overstepping the good graces of the incoming president.
Smotrich, it must be pointed out, is not leading some rogue operation. His initiative is grounded in the coalition agreement itself, in which Netanyahu consented to “the formulation and implementation of policy [through which] sovereignty will be applied to Judea and Samaria”. And the government’s very first policy guideline states that the Jewish people has an “exclusive and indisputable right to all parts of the Land of Israel.” In principle, in other words, Netanyahu is on board.
What would an annexation of settlements mean from the standpoint of land mass? That depends on what source you consult. The right-of-center “Jewish Virtual Library” claims that the “built-up settlement area is less than two percent of the disputed [sic] territories”. The Israeli human rights NGO, B’Tselem, dismisses that data point, however, reporting in 2010 that, while technically true, “the municipal jurisdiction of the settlements and their regional councils” – i.e., the area demarcated for settlement – “cover more than 42 percent of the West Bank”. Not so, countered then-chair of the “Yesha” (Judea/Samaria/Gaza) Settlers Council, Dani Dayan: That number is really 9.2 percent. More recently, the Carnegie Endowment reported that Israel’s 199 authorized settlements and 220 supposedly unauthorized outposts take in about 201 square kilometers, “representing 3.6 percent of the total area”.
Clearly, the quantitative dimension matters in practical terms. But it is really only a secondary concern, compared to the immense challenge of principle posed by the annexation plan’s blatant unilateralism, which violates the most fundamental premise of the last three decades of on-but-mostly-off Israel-PLO diplomacy. Indeed, once the precedent has been set that Israel can annex land outside a bilateral framework, it will collapse the entire edifice of “negotiated peace”. In that sense, any act of unilateral annexation, even if it were just a single settlement, should be viewed as no different than if the entire West Bank was coming under Israel’s sovereignty.
(While it is true that sections of Occupied Territory were annexed by Israel in 1967 under the heading of Jerusalem reunification, that lengthily preceded Israel’s 1993 commitment to resolve the conflict with the Palestinians through a “peace process”. That process, Israel promised, would be based on “the implementation of Security Council resolutions 242 and 338” which stressed “the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war”.)
It is incumbent on supporters of a two-state solution, therefore, not to be lulled into inaction by “just a small annexation”, should that come about. Here are some perilously soothing reassurances we’re liable to hear: “Well, it’s only the settlements, not the whole territory.” Or, “It’s only the Ma’aleh Adumim” – for example – “bloc, and that was going to be part of Israel under a deal in any event”. Or even, “well, this can always be reversed in the future”. (While outside the scope of this column, it’s important to note that Israel’s Knesset has, over the years, imposed much greater obstacles on ceding territory where the “law, jurisdiction, and administration of the State of Israel” prevails. The Law Library of Congress provides details.)
The danger, of course, is that, because the Israeli right’s overarching end goal remains unaltered, accommodating even the smallest legal change is a prescription for what might be called “full de jure annexation by a thousand cuts”. (By contrast, de facto annexation by a thousand cuts has been going on for decades.)
In response, therefore, an alternative path must be conceptualized. Rather than allow the annexationist movement to statutorily cement its gains, piece by piece, over the years to come, supporters of a two-state solution must regard even the most minute annexation as a trigger for adopting a new strategic orientation.
One theoretical path could be the idea of reaching two states through consensual partition by the Land’s populace, with both Israelis and Occupied Palestinians having voting and representational rights in such a process. This would not, to be clear, mean adopting the rather problematic idea of permanently packing two peoples, each seeking its own unique national self-determination, into one political unit. Nor would this involve asking the two peoples to suddenly become “post-national” in outlook and identity.
It would mean accepting, however, that, once any unilateral annexation takes place, the idea of achieving two states through the internationally accepted, Oslo-oriented, third party-brokered “land for peace” negotiating route might be irrevocably impaired.
In 2020, Israeli law professor Itamar Mann and sociology professor Yael Berda argued that, in a situation of “indeterminate occupation”, such as Israel maintains, the granting of the franchise to Palestinians under occupation is a human right, necessary for them to have “a voice in choosing the government that has effective control over them”. Holding such rights, though, would not amount to “forfeit[ing] their right to self-determination, nor the path to independent statehood” since they could be utilized to “help establish any political framework they want, including one state, two or a confederation”. (Mann and Berda later published a more academic treatment of their idea in the Texas Law Review.)
Perhaps, therefore, the proper response to partial annexation should not be “we mustn’t allow this to proceed any further”, but instead a call for the full democratization of the area under Israel’s control, from the river to the sea, so that all the people who live there can decide its future. The goal for two-staters, of course, would not be a transition into a single state, which would be unlikely to provide for both peoples’ national ambitions, nor produce outcomes of equality, balanced power-sharing, or interethnic tranquility. Instead, enfranchising all residents of the Land could serve as a transitional stage, a bridge to a “final-status” two-state arrangement – either “side by side” or in a confederative framework.
Clearly, the idea raised above sounds terribly fanciful. The same power imbalance that would enable Israeli annexation (even if piecemeal) in the first place will not quickly change; Israel will not rush to proffer any such voting rights to those under occupation. On the other hand, might it not appear even feebler and more Pollyanna-ish to adhere to the same-old call for the same-old process (U.S.-brokered Israeli-Palestinian talks) once Israel’s government, with American permission, had kicked the old rules to the curb?
If supporters of two states wish to avoid having their target goal look obsolete, even frivolous, in this new reality; if they wish to restore gravitas to the two-state vision, it might be necessary, once partial legal annexation gets underway, to consider a fairly radical reorientation: Acknowledging that the Oslo mindset needs to finally be put to rest and that the search for alternate routes to the same destination must begin apace.
RonSkolnikis an American-Israeli politicalcolumnist and public speaker, whose articles haveappeared in a variety of publications, includingHaaretz, Al- Monitor, Tikkun, the Forward,Jewish Currents, & the Palestine-Israel Journal.
Joint Statement on Stand Together EventNovember 8, 2024The following statement was issued by Ameinu, Americans for Peace Now, Habonim Dror North America, J Street, New Israel Fund, New York Jewish Agenda, Partners for Progressive Israel, and T’ruah.
Last week our organizations sent a letter to the heads of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations and Jewish Federations of North America expressing our unease regarding the upcoming Stand Together event taking place on November 10, in Washington, DC. We appreciated that the executives of these organizations took the time to meet with us and hear our concerns directly as to why we, unfortunately, cannot comfortably participate in this event. At a time of such divisiveness in our public discourse, it was incredibly important that we were able to discuss our differences with civility while also acknowledging our shared commitment to the Jewish people.
We continue to be committed to the safety and security of Israelis and believe that Israel – like all countries – has the right to self-defense. We demand the release of all hostages still in captivity in Gaza, and we unequivocally reject and combat antisemitism in all forms.
This is a critical moment in history for Jewish unity. But unity should not be misconstrued as uniformity – as there are multiple ways to advocate for these policies.
Standing with Israel can and should include solidarity with the hundreds of thousands of Israelis who have protested in the streets over the past many months, calling for their government to end the war, to prioritize the redemption of captives, and to choose democracy over a messianic settler agenda.
Support for Israeli security can and should include calls for advancing diplomacy and political means to reach comprehensive arrangements that marginalize extremists, ensure that Israel remains a secure and democratic state and promote Palestinian self-determination.
Support for the hostages can and should include calls for the Netanyahu government to prioritize pidyon shevuiim (releasing the captured) over other war goals and to make every effort possible to sign a deal that will bring home the hostages and end the war.
Combating antisemitism can and should include pressure on university administrations to strengthen and enforce anti-hate policies to protect both Jews and other minorities, along with a clear articulation that not all criticism of Israel is antisemitic, and that students and others have a first amendment right to criticize or protest Israel – even if we ourselves may disagree with their messages.
A rally for Jewish unity and a demonstration of strength within our community should showcase the diversity of those committed to the safety of Israelis and of Jews around the world and the various approaches to achieving those goals, instead of papering over such differences by promoting a noncritical perspective at the expense of others.
We look forward to the day when our views, representative of so many within our community, are also featured prominently at such events.
Partners’ Statement on US Weapons Sales to Israel, Investment in Peacebuilding
October 30, 2024 –
Dear President Biden,
Partners for Progressive Israel is an American 501(c)(3) and Zionist organization that has supported Israeli organizations in their quest for equality and peace for over 30 years. We write to express our grave concern over the humanitarian crises that mark the ever-worsening conflict in Gaza, and to reiterate our call for a bilateral ceasefire and immediate hostage release arrangement between Israel and Hamas.
We deeply appreciate the Biden Administration’s work and continued effort to advance a plan to achieve these outcomes. At the same time we maintain deep concerns about continued violations of international humanitarian laws perpetrated by both Hamas and the Israeli government in this war, including the documented deaths of thousands of civilians in Gaza through the use of American-provided offensive weapons.
For the wellbeing of all civilians in the region, and to swiftly and efficaciously ensure an end to this war, as well as to take the next steps towards stability and self-determination for Israelis and Palestians – including an end to the Occupation – we ask this administration to suspend the sale to Israel of Joint Direct Attack Munitions (JDAMS) and 120mm tank rounds for use in Gaza.
Alongside such a suspension, we assert the need for the United States to invest in the long term stability of the region and in the flourishing of the state of Israel and a future democratic Palestinian state. Instead of supplying the weapons identified above, the US should direct the focus of its aid in this moment toward building a just, secure, and durable peace. In this time of great pain, moving aid towards an investment in peace-making and diplomatic support alongside defensive military aid would be a powerful step towards the future that everyone in the region deserves.
We recognize the State of Israel’s right and need to defend itself. At the same time, we fully recognize the massive humanitarian disaster of death, destruction, and infrastructure collapse wreaked on the people of Gaza. This situation constitutes not only a humanitarian crisis but also is fuel for future instability which, in the absence of a political strategy and agenda to end the fighting, return all the hostages, and create viable enduring security arrangements with international partners, inevitably will combust in future recurring cycles of violence. Thus, we advocate that the United States suspend the supply of the above-detailed weapons, along with making significant investments in long term peace-building initiatives, as a means to strengthen its diplomatic efforts to curb the current conflict and reorient conditions in support of a more stable and constructive future for both Palestinians and Israelis.
This call is made out of our deep love for and connection to Israelis and Palestinians, and in making it we stand in solidarity with Palestinian and Israeli peacemakers who view this call as a responsibility of the United States as this catastrophic war continues, and who are joining with us in this appeal:
Peace activist Yonatan Zeigen, son of the late activist Vivian Silver, of blessed memory, who was murdered on October 7, 2023, shared, “The American role in the Israeli Palestinian conflict and in the continuing occupation is not one of a worried passive bystander, but a matter of accountability. The status quo leading up to October 7th was actively enabled by the United States and it has been sponsoring the war ever since. This is done by minimal resources being invested in civil society/peace politics outlets and by investing vast resources in unconditional military aid and diplomatic support. If Israel wants to continue to exist, if Palestine wants to progress from a refugee nation to a nation state and if America wants to assert its global influence successfully, then this paradigm has to change. We must end the occupation and the conflict, and in order to do that we need the international community to stop accepting and supporting reality as it is and to start investing in the shaping of a new sustainable and shared future for Israelis and Palestinians.”
Israeli peacemaker and entrepreneur Maoz Inon stated, “I lost both of my parents on October 7th. Peace is possible.The U.S. was able to make peace with Germany, Japan, and Italy in the wake of World War II to form the G7 only eight years later, leading the world in values of equality, of dignity, and security and safety and reconciliation. It’s time to bring these values to our region. We need the United States to send these values here, and to stop sending weapons. The extremist government of Israel has betrayed and forgotten the hostages taken on October 7th, and seems not to care for the lives of the people it represents. It’s time to stop the war, to force a peaceful reconciliation and peace talks in place of weapons. It’s time to bring the hostages back. The only way to do this is to push the Israeli government to negotiate, and in order to negotiate we must force an end to the war in Gaza. The U.S. has played this role before, bringing Israeli and Palestinian leadership to the table at the Madrid peace summit in 1991. It’s time to start supporting the Israeli people, who want security, safety, and to bring the hostages back.”
Palestinian Co-Director of Combatants for Peace Rana Salman echoed, “There are Palestinians and Israelis dedicated to achieving peace and justice, striving to find a shared path forward. However, we are being overshadowed and underfunded by those who prioritize the flow of weapons and support of continuous war. Silence in the face of new settlements, ignoring extremist rhetoric, and overlooking arms sales all empower those who seek to escalate conflict and oppression, hindering our efforts. We call for investment in our initiatives for peace, not in the machinery of war.”
Her Combatants for Peace Israeli co-Director Eszther Koranyi added, “In a recent demonstration, the aunt of two hostages who are kept by Hamas for nearly a year, said: ‘military pressure will not free hostages, will not bring peace, will bring only more death and sorrow.’ I am adding to her desperate call, the care we, Israeli peace activists, hold for all innocent people in Gaza who are killed by the Israeli army. Only a political solution will bring real security and peace for everyone on the Land. Israel has the right to self-defend, but killing and violently displacing innocent people has nothing to do with that.”
PPI Executive Director Rabbi Margo Hughes-Robinson shared, “We are committed to the wellbeing and flourishing of a state of Israel alongside a future Palestinian state. It is clear that Hamas’s horrific attack on October 7th, mass kidnapping, and their recent execution of six hostages, are gross violations not only of international law but of human dignity, and the leadership must be held accountable for these war crimes.
“This current war, which has led to the deaths of so many civilians and has created a crisis of infrastructure and care that limits even the delivery of humanitarian aid and medical care, has also failed to safely return the hostages kidnapped on October 7th, nor succeeded in providing meaningful long term security for Israelis or Palestinians. Prime Minister Netanyahu and his government have alienated both the Israeli public and the wider international community, and we stand in support of the hundreds of thousands of Israelis who continue to demonstrate for an end to this war, and a return of both the living hostages in Gaza and the bodies of those who have been killed.
“We stand for a safe, equitable, and just future for all people in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories, Gaza and the West Bank. We ask that the Biden administration take this step of suspending the sale and transfer of offensive weapons and investing instead in peacebuilding efforts to make this vision a reality, before it’s too late.”
KOLOT – Voices of Hope, Post-October 7 Series
The Jerusalem Youth Chorus: Voices of Peace in Times of War
By *Micah Hendler*
Dear Readers,
My name is Micah Hendler and I am the Founder and Artistic Director of the Jerusalem Youth Chorus (JYC), a choral and dialogue program for Palestinian and Israeli youth in Jerusalem. Founded in 2012, and with nonprofit status in both Israel and the US, JYC’s mission is to provide a space for these young people from East and West Jerusalem to grow together in song and dialogue. Through the co-creation of music and the sharing of stories, we empower youth in Jerusalem with the responsibility to speak and sing their truths, as they become leaders in their communities and inspire singers and listeners around the world to work for peace, justice, inclusion, and equality.
We envision a Jerusalem—and a broader Israel-Palestine—defined not by hatred, division, and injustice, not by occupation, terror, and violence, but by acknowledgement of a shared connection to place, celebration of individual and collective belonging to that place, and systems that allow that belonging to be equally realized by Jews, Christians, and Muslims, Palestinians and Israelis alike. We reject attempts to pit Arabs and Jews, Israelis and Palestinians, against one another in service of systemic violence that robs all of their agency to even imagine, let alone choose, a different way. Instead, as we create a home for all in the chorus, we seek to show what Jerusalem could be – and use our songs and stories, within a broad ecosystem of change, as a catalyst to bring that future about.
JYC’s high school program includes kids between the ages of 13 and 18 years old who meet weekly. These music and dialogue sessions are facilitated in Hebrew and Arabic by professional music and programming staff. We often refer to these weekly sessions as a “music and dialogue sandwich”: we begin with singing as a group, which is scientifically proven to release oxytocin, our trust hormone. The singers then meet for professionally structured and translated dialogue sessions, with opportunities to gather separately across Israeli and Palestinian identities and as a full group. The sessions close with songwriting, music workshops, and rehearsals.
Our recruitment efforts begin in August and consist of bilingual promotion of the program on our various social media platforms and in e-newsletters, and through partnerships with local schools and other peace-building organizations. Because many students often do not wish to graduate from JYC, we have expanded to include an alumni program for young adults through their 20s.
The Jerusalem Youth Chorus is unique in its combination of music and dialogue programming, providing a transformative experience for our singers that yields both friendship and understanding on an individual and collective level across lines of religion, nationality, language, and culture. We go beyond simply singing together, delving deeper through dialogue into one another’s identities, life experiences, communal narratives, religious traditions, and national histories, all within the safe space of the musical ensemble and the strong personal bonds and community it creates.
Our work has been even more crucial and challenging since this most recent war began over one year ago. After October 7, 2023, we thought JYC would have to cease operations, at least temporarily, and perhaps forever. How could we continue to ask that these young people continue to meet and discuss their experiences in a world that wants them to be enemies? How could we ask their families to keep sending their kids to rehearsal after they had lost friends and family members? After a unanimous vote from our singers as well as their parents, we decided to keep meeting every week without pause. We were told that JYC’s music and dialogue sessions were, for many, the only space where these youth felt completely safe to have the tough conversations, and that we provide a catharsis and action steps against the fear and violence of their daily lives.
JYC has received a lot of international attention in recent months, from auditioning for America’s Got Talent, to giving a talk and performance at the annual TED conference in Vancouver. One of the most common questions we hear is: “is this for real? There’s no way these kids from across dividing lines are actually friends.” But the true beauty of our work is that they really are. Many of JYC’s singers are tightly bonded and consider themselves to be as close as family. During a tour of the US in April 2024, our singers landed in Boston and turned on their phones to headlines of Iran carrying out direct strikes against targets in Israel. The next day, two friends, one Israeli and one Palestinian, shared this at a performance:
“We were never supposed to be friends. We were always told to hate the other side and that they wanted to harm us. Yesterday was not an easy day. We felt really unsafe and our families were unsafe. Even choosing to continue to sing was a hard decision. Last night, I called my parents and I was so worried about them that I started crying. Then [my friend] came to help me, and she didn’t leave my side until she saw that I was okay. I am so grateful for her, and I don’t know what I would do without her.”
And so we continue to sing, talk, and share our stories. We don’t all share the same opinions—and we have hard conversations about them every week—but we do share the same future, no matter what the politicians say. In JYC we have a rare chance to truly hear each other, and that’s what makes the chorus a home for all of us. Every kid deserves to grow up with that same safety and dignity. We know we don’t have the power to single-handedly stop war, but we also know that the reason war continues is because people think there is no alternative. We are the alternative.
View the Jerusalem Youth Chorus in action:
- America’s Got Talent
- TED Talk
- A Different Way
To learn more about the Jerusalem Youth Chorus, please visit our website, and follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter/X, and YouTube.
Micah Hendler is the Founder and Artistic Director of the Jerusalem Youth Chorus.
A Message from Our Executive Director: October 15th, 2024
Just hours after the conclusion of Yom Kippur, we watched in horror as the news and images from the most recent bombings in Central Gaza filtered out to the wider world. The scenes from both the tent fire near the bombed Al Aqsa Hospital, and the later strikes on a school-turned-shelter in Nuseirat are among the most devastating to emerge from Gaza since this war began just over a year ago.
In addition to the ongoing horror of mass civilian death, we are extremely concerned about the news that Netanyahu has reportedly considered halting any renewal of ceasefire negotiations through the end of the month, and is now considering implementation of the Generals’ Plan, also known as the Eiland Plan, in northern Gaza. This plan would entail the forced transfer of the hundreds of thousands of people in Gaza still reportedly living in the north of the Gaza Strip, giving them a week to evacuate the area before cutting off all aid, and treating all remaining inhabitants of Gaza’s North as combatants.
As we have asserted for our thirty-plus years as an organization, we believe that Israel has a right to defend itself. At the same time, the clear lack of leadership at Israel’s head, ongoing disregard for civilian life in Gaza, and now the reported use of human shields and ongoing mass death have all strengthened our call for an immediate ceasefire and hostage deal.
This war must be brought to an end, and Israel must abide by international law and do its part to stop the unprecedented turmoil now engulfing the Middle East. To be clear: the forced transfer of a civilian population, cutting off aid, and consequent starvation to the remaining population in Gaza’s north as outlined in the Eiland plan would constitute a war crime. This plan must not be implemented, and we are calling on our own US government and the international community to join us in sounding an urgent alarm.
Rabbi Margo Hughes-Robinson
Rabbi Margo Hughes-Robinson is the Executive Director of Partners for Progressive Israel
Joshua Leifer, Tablets Shattered: The End of an American Jewish Century and the Future of Jewish Life (New York, Dutton, 2024)
Review by Paul Scham
In case anyone hasn’t already realized it, Joshua Leifer’s Tablets Shattered makes absolutely clear that there is a massive generational chasm between Jewish millennials and their baby boomer parents (or grandparents). Leifer, born in 1993, is on one side while I, on the other, am tottering off into the twilight. While I thought I knew something about today’s Jewish world, Leifer has persuaded me that I’ve been looking in all the wrong places.
Leifer is a leftwing activist and journalist, with a Conservative day school upbringing and a current tendency towards aspects of the Haredi (ultra-Orthodox) lifestyle. Those are familiar enough categories, but Leifer views them in a context where the Jewish establishment is irrevocably sundered from the mass of American Jews and the traditional verities regarding Israel are revealed as bubbemeises. Meanwhile, both comprehensive protest against current Israeli reality (i.e. the occupation and all that flows from it) as well as a new sprouting of traditional Jewish learning and practices are expanding among his generation, the millennials. He refers to the last 100 years, since the 1924 U.S. immigration act effectively ended the great Jewish immigration of the previous four decades, as “The Jewish Century”. While he has no doubt that the apex of American Jewish life has now passed, he is cautiously optimistic that a new version may be arising – hence the metaphor of “Tablets Shattered,” after which God provided a new set.
The book’s first few chapters read like a home movie of American Jewish life from the late ‘60s till around 9/11, which years I actually experienced and participated in (I started college in 1967). While they are portrayed a bit on the idyllic side, Leifer makes an important distinction between the more secular and political protest generation of the late ‘60s (mine) and those who led the Soviet Jewry movement of the 1970s and ‘80s, who were slightly younger, more traditional, and more Jewishly-educated. However, along with the concurrent Ba’al T’shuvah (return to traditional Judaism) movement, the real change he identifies was the “Zionification” of most American Jewish communal life in the decades after the Six Day War of 1967. This included synagogues, where the prayer for the State of Israel became ubiquitous, as did displaying the Israeli flag across from the American one; the “defense” organizations (American Jewish Congress, American Jewish Committee, and ADL), where Israel-related matters came to dominate their agendas; and the communal organizations, which either withered or became likewise Israel-centered. AIPAC, founded in 1963, stayed mostly below most American Jews’ radar till the 1980s, after which it quickly became a focal point, assumed to represent some sort of community consensus.
Indeed, my generation’s Judaism was inextricably intertwined with Israel. Even as some of us became first apprehensive about and then fiercely opposed to the occupation and the hawkish Israeli governments after 1977, we clung to the economically egalitarian, embattled, and optimistic view of Israel we had grown up with – and tried to return to that vision. We failed.
Leifer’s generation began to come of age during the Second Intifada (2000-2005), as our failure started to become apparent and the Israeli peace movement and center-left began to disintegrate. Enforcement of the occupation was millennials’ first – and ever-increasing – lens for viewing Israel, and they saw little to admire or extol. Leifer uncannily describes the arc of my own life ,from fairly Jewishly oblivious in 1967 to setting up the first office of the Israeli peace movement in Washington D.C. in 1989. Meanwhile, some of my contemporaries, including a college roommate, made defending Israeli policy an equally integral part of their worldview. Whatever our politics, those of us who chose to make Judaism a significant part of our lives had by the turn of the century, comfortably embedded ourselves in our own organizations, shuls, and chavurot. We often didn’t recognize how thoroughly these institutions were generationally-based, and that our children’s generation was forming its own groups that fit their own life choices.
Leifer calls attention to another change that I, for one, insufficiently focused on. With the rise of the billionaire class in the 21st century, a disproportionate share of which is Jewish, communal organizations, formerly dependent on contributions from their members, found they could get along with far fewer – and much wealthier – donors. That helps explain the disparity between polls that show dovish American Jewish views predominating, while “Jewish leaders” heading national organizations rarely criticize anything Israel does, their views increasingly divergent from those of their remaining “members,” especially younger ones, if they have any.
Israel’s biggest war with Hamas and Gaza – before the current one of course – was the 2014 Operation Protective Edge. By then, organizations like Jewish Voice for Peace and IfNotNow, the latter explicitly recruiting only younger Jews, were fundamentally criticizing Zionism and Israel in terms that few of my generation could abide. Moreover, they connected Israel with issues like Black Lives Matter and, later, George Floyd’s murder, as different elements of the same fight. Leifer seems to have spent most of the 2010s protesting around the country at innumerable demonstrations co-organized by Jewish groups “as Jews”, few of which I was even aware of. Leifer also contends that many of these groups are dipping into Jewish learning in a serious way, something else I was oblivious to.
Up to this point, Leifer’s Jewish experiences coincide with that of many – though certainly not a majority of – Jews of his generation. He sketchily describes his own partial wakening to ultra-Orthodoxy – while maintaining his leftist principles and activities – apparently because of his fiancée, who came from such a family in Israel. This is the least satisfying part of the book, though it does include a fascinating inside look at the huge Lakewood, New Jersey yeshiva, which has revived traditional Lithuanian-style Yiddishkeit to an extent that would surprise most American Jews. Leifer finds an authenticity in their Judaism that I can respect, but his attempt to reconcile it with his leftism is incomplete and somewhat disappointing.
Leifer also includes more satisfying critiques of Reform and Conservative Judaism – and their inability to retain the membership and support they had a few decades ago. These are serious critiques, but he inexplicably avoids dealing with the large and still-expanding Modern Orthodox movement, which appears to provide spiritual fulfillment to perhaps 10 percent of American Jews, along with a heavy dose of pro-settler, rightwing Zionism. Modern Orthodoxy represents the epitome of the remaining “Zionification” of American Jewish life, and its absence from serious discussion in the book makes Leifer’s larger critique somewhat unbalanced.
The book was completed just before the October 7, 2023 attacks, and includes a short Afterword showing how badly it jolted him, as it did so many of us. As someone who so identified with the Left, his bitterness at so much of the leftist reaction is palpable, as is his anger at the American Jewish establishment.
Since the book’s publication, Leifer himself has become something of a celebrity for a) having a public discussion of his book abruptly canceled by a Brooklyn bookstore because his rabbinical interlocutor was a “Zionist.” The bookstore apologized, rescheduled, and blamed a disgruntled employee; b) Planning to move to Israel, according to Ha’aretz, where, Leifer explained, “the struggle over the Jewish future is happening.” Needless to say, these developments have jacked up interest in the book.
I strongly recommend the book to those of my generation who may be as oblivious as I am to what is going on with his, as well as to Leifer’s own contemporaries, who I think will appreciate his experiences and critiques. He brings an insider’s knowledge of American Jewish life, as well as insight into the somewhat occluded one of Jewish American leftism. As a professor who reads unsteady student papers all the time, I can confirm that his prose is a pleasure to read. He writes as a seasoned journalist, participant, and observer – and the result is a book as satisfying to read as it is thoughtful and informed.
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Paul Scham is president of Partners for Progressive Israel and Director of the Gildenhorn Institute for Israel Studies at the University of Maryland, where he is a Professor of Israel Studies.
Mikhael Manekin, End of Days: Ethics, Tradition, and Power in Israel (Boston, Academic Studies Press, 2023)
Review by Rabbi Margo Hughes-Robinson
In a recent interview in Haaretz, the rabbi and activist Avidan Friedman explored the tension that lies at the heart of the Religious-Zionist project in Israel. Rabbi Friedman lives in the West Bank settlement of Efrat, and runs an NGO called Yanshuf, dedicated to the sales of Israeli arms to human rights violations, including countries like South Sudan and Myanmar. (In the interest of full disclosure, I should add that Rabbi Friedman was also my teacher a number of years ago.) Through the interview, he shared his opposition to not only arms sales to “genocidal governments,” but also his staunch support for a hostage deal, American sanctions on violent settlers in the West Bank, insisting that “the secret of our [Jewish] existence… is morality.” Yet in the same conversation, Rabbi Friedman equates Jewish sovereignty in Tel Aviv with that of the settlement on which he lives, and professes a deep commitment to the Zionist project, noting that his children will likely serve in the IDF when they reach maturity.
While Rabbi Friedman’s public life and work seem dedicated to living in the unresolved paradox of his national and spiritual commitments, many have observed a widening split between the religious obligations outlined in contemporary religious Jewish practice, and the ultra-nationalist rhetoric and practices now adopted by many members of these same communities. Nowhere has this been more visible in recent weeks than in the public repudiation of Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir’s repeated attempts to ascend and worship at the Temple Mount near Al Aqsa mosque. No fewer than five prominent Israeli rabbis – among them Sepharadi, chassidish, and misnagdish leaders – vocally condemned Ben Gvir’s new policy to allow Jewish worship at the holy site. With the Dome of the Rock visible in publicity shots released to the Israeli media, Ben Gvir brought a contingent of worshippers and staff to the Temple Mount this past August on Tisha B’Av, the very holiday marking the destruction of both the First and Second Temples in Jerusalem.
Ascension of the Temple Mount has long been considered verboten in Jewish religious circles, and Netanyahu’s office has more than once issued public denials that Ben Gvir’s policy announcements reflect the actual security protocols of the Israelis government. Combined with voices leading broad segments of both the Haredi and Religious-Zionist community, a queasy back-and-forth has emerged between the stated values of both the state and the religious world. From amidst this dialectic, the Israeli ultra-nationalist community in Israel has emerged to assert its desire to incorporate both camps, espousing a new national theology which extends beyond the prescribed boundaries of either ideology.
This tension is at the heart of Mikhael Manekin’s brief but incisive work, Achalta, published in English late last year as “End of Days: Ethics, Tradition, and Power in Israel.” A longtime activist in Israel – he is the former director of both Breaking the Silence and the progressive Molad think tank – Manekin takes on the theological and historical developments within his own Israeli National-Religious Jewish community, weaving scholarly analysis amidst anecdotes of his own experiences in the Israeli Defense Forces, quotidian social interactions in his community, and family memoir, to explore the growing chasm between “Jewish values” and the Israeli national “civic values” that define public life.
Among a host of political developments and issues, from the status of the West Bank settlements to ethical combat in war, Manekin tracks the evolution of the aforementioned Temple Mount fight, among many others within religious Zionist discourse. Deftly, he guides readers through the evolution of the dati le’umi call to ascend the Mount over the last few decades, locating the increased nationalist activism at the site within a larger phenomenon of increased religious identification with secular Zionist activity; at the cost, Manekin asserts, of redefining “redemption” as the increased control of the Land through “brute force,” and replacing God with political activism to the point of a “negation of religion.”
Part historical analysis, part theological manifesto, “End of Days” traces the symbiotic evolution of Israeli military and political history and the religious Zionist theology that evolved to support them. Interspersed among his arguments, Manekin includes the letters and diary entries of his Yiddish-speaking maternal grandfather, who survived the Holocaust and made aliyah in the early days of the State.
Manekin divides his argument into six sections, each named for a middah, a character trait that he views as a contradiction. While traits like “Remembrance,” “Patience,” “Submission,” and “Devotion” are valued and celebrated as positive virtues in traditional Jewish life, they are considered negative practices, in his estimation, for “good Israelis.” Manekin, who last year helped to found the small-but-growing Smol Emuni (“Faithful Left”) movement in Israel, relates in the book’s introduction that he is frequently asked about a perceived “gap” between his religiosity and his anti-Occupation politics. But, he asserts, “Jewish ethics inform my politics. If anything, the gap lies elsewhere – between the Israeli understanding of legitimate force and my Jewish upbringing.”
What is perhaps most striking about “End of Days” is Manekin’s choice to wed his analysis to form. Rather than laying down a thunderous, sermonized, condemnation of the ideological frameworks that define religious Jewish nationalism, he editorializes deftly while presenting his readers with excerpts of theological works, analysis of the historical events that inform them, and voices that are not his own: most strikingly, the greatest explicit censure of the Dati Leumi community in the book comes not from Manekin’s writing, but through the voice of his Druze colleague and friend Samer Swaid in the final chapter. In a work of less than a hundred and fifty pages, genres and realms of experience – the personal and the familial, the national, and even the metaphysical – are woven together in conversation. Rather than pointing his audience down a single path forward, Manekin’s voice instead functions throughout the book as a kind of Talmudic redactor traversing between the lines of his gathered texts, encouraging his readers to hold these sources in tension without directly pointing them towards an alternative theological conclusion.
Still, Manekin’s message is clear. The overwhelming spiritual posture of the Jewish sources quoted demands an ethical opposition to the Occupation, and he offers a new and thoughtful synthesis of Jewish ethics and observance to demand a deeper reckoning with the reality of Jewish political and state power. Reading the book almost a year after the devastating attacks of October 7th, and the beginning of Israel’s still-ongoing military response, it’s painful to hear the author’s imperatives reaching out from a time only months before this cycle started. Since then, a reported two percent of Gaza’s total population has been killed; over a hundred Israeli hostages still desperately wait to be rescued; and the West Bank is embroiled in a crisis that escalates by the day.
Having analyzed the slow but purposeful marriage of Jewish theology to Israeli state power within the National-Religious community, one can only hope that Manekin’s work serves not as merely a reconsideration, but as the opening salvo of a new fight via redemptive ethical literature for the continuing Jewish soul of a Jewish and democratic state.
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Rabbi Margo Hughes-Robinson is the Executive Director of Partners for Progressive Israel.
Freedom Is Not a Zero-sum Game: Americans Must Heed the Call of Israeli-Palestinian Solidarity
By Jonathan Taubes
I shudder to think that it was almost a year ago now that I realized just how much my commitment to self-determination for both Israelis and Palestinians was quickly leaving me without a political home.
In the immediate aftermath of October 7th, I found myself, like many American Jews, craving outlets for activism around the crisis in Israel/Palestine. I’m a former day school kid and current Jewish non-profit professional with tons of close family in Israel. The truth is, of course, I feel a particularly Jewish sense of obligation to support Israelis in this moment of prolonged crisis. But it’s this same obligation that compels me toward solidarity with Palestinians, which was, suffice it to say, not something that was easy to act on or even talk about while working for a Jewish non-profit in late 2023.
Further compounding the challenge was the fact that leftwing organizations I’d worked with – my entry into politics came through Jewish labor history and unionism – seemed willing either to defend Hamas’ crimes on October 7th, or else excuse them. Whereas to Israeli friends and relatives, I might have seemed like a privileged, liberal diaspora Jew, to some on the Left, I was increasingly perceived as a reactionary Zionist.
Holding the humanity of both Israelis and Palestinians in the earliest weeks of this war felt politically isolating to the point of questioning my own sanity. Even from Brooklyn, thousands of miles from the bombs and bloodshed, I was deeply shaken not just by the October 7th attacks and the Israeli response to them. I was dismayed by how many in my Jewish and progressive worlds seemed to accept the Manichean divide of Israelis versus Palestinians, a divide which extremists on both sides only seek to reinforce.
Shouldn’t our job, as progressives anyway, be to build solidarity across those lines? Was our job as progressives the same as our job as Jews? What did it mean that I wasn’t really able to separate those identities, but so many groups demanded that I do? Am I being narcissistic and self-absorbed in even asking these questions? Such were my thoughts in the early days of the war, as I balanced a full-time job at a Jewish non-profit with my academic pursuits in Judaic Studies, while doing my very best not to get sucked into hours of doomscrolling, or pointless debates with any number of friends or family who felt that, in one way or another, I’d betrayed them.
In my anger and anguish, I was able to connect with others who felt similarly alienated. I linked up with other progressive American Jews who know that Palestinian and Israeli fates are intertwined, that as American Jews we do have a responsibility both to our siblings and cousins on the ground, and also to ourselves – our own government, after all, has provided the weapons and diplomatic support for this war that now approaches one harrowing year.
I’m fortunate to have found outlets to help build some solidarity in the months that followed. In December, I co-wrote a Jewish Professionals for Ceasefire letter that got almost 900 signatures and more national attention than I was used to as a grassroots activist-educator. The letter emphasized a framework of Israeli-Palestinian interdependence that was lacking in so many other spaces, and it struck a chord with Jewish professionals across the country.
Around the same time, Standing Together emerged across Jewish progressive spaces as a clear, on-the-ground alternative that American Jews could support and get excited about. When Alon-Lee Green and Sally Abed from Standing Together told a packed room at Congregation B’nai Jeshurun on the Upper West Side that there is no military solution, they were met with rapturous applause. Also in the early days of the war, I got arrested doing civil disobedience at a ceasefire protest in New York. Each of these moments required strategic navigation of my own values as they pushed up against the existing groups and coalitions that reflected them to varying degrees.
As a Jewish non-profit professional and member of more “mainstream” groups, I weighed the consequences to my career in literally every activist decision I made. I’m not sure I always made the right decision – in some instances I maybe played it too safe, in others maybe went too far. But I know that through this activist work, I’ve connected with many inspiring people who share my commitments as well as my constraints, and I’ve realized that I’m far from alone in facing them. I’ve grown to appreciate organizations like Partners for Progressive Israel (PPI), which have been doing this for years, even decades, and which allow for activists like me to plug into their work.
Now, as we approach a year of this unprecedented crisis in Israel and Palestine, I believe we are also witnessing a moment of unprecedented opportunity. I sensed it most acutely when six hostages, among them Hersh Goldberg-Polin, were confirmed to have been murdered by Hamas. This crushing revelation spurred an ongoing wave of Israeli protests for a ceasefire/hostage deal, and against Netanyahu’s government, which has made blatant its disregard for the hostages and their families. The protests and Histadrut general strike that followed caught the attention of the entire world; American unions like the UAW and Randi Weingarten’s American Federation of Teachers expressed immediate solidarity with Israeli protests. This, I thought, could be a defining moment, given how the hostage and ceasefire protests in the U.S. had been so separate prior to the summer. Now, in the last several weeks and months, there seems to be a growing recognition, both in Israel and the United States, that solidarity with Israeli protests for a hostage deal demands solidarity with Palestinians suffering months of devastation in Gaza, in the form of a ceasefire. That’s not a contradiction in terms – if anything, it’s the bifurcation of those movements that hasn’t made sense.
There is a growing recognition of the need for broad-based coalitions toward a ceasefire-hostage deal, and peace and dignity for both peoples between the River and the Sea. When Congresswoman Ilhan Omar, one of many Democrats who refused to attend Netanyahu’s speech to Congress this summer, decided instead to meet with a delegation of hostage families and Palestinians, I knew that this moment could be a tipping point.
In earlier months, I was able to connect with American Jewish activists who shared my sense of alienation and my determination to support peace and dignity for both peoples. Now, it’s become undeniable that this commitment entails taking cues from Palestinians and Israelis who are building shared solidarity out of their grief, in ways that too many in both the pro-Israeli and pro-Palestinian worlds have thought impossible. Hostage family groups like We Are All Hostages – the families from the Begin Gate protests, who met with Omar – and many other inspiring groups, are laying groundwork for profound political shifts. Groups like PPI and New Israel Fund play crucial roles in connecting Americans like me with activists on the ground. And as activists on the ground lead the way, it seems like more and more people are waking up to the potential for the enduring transnational solidarity that this represents.
These developments leave me more hopeful than I can remember, certainly since October 7th. Of course, the situation on the ground is more dire than ever in my lifetime, maybe than ever in Israel’s history. And I know the political challenges are immense. Many Jewish legacy organizations, for example, have remained silent at best when it comes to criticizing Netanyahu’s far-right government, even as more Israelis than ever take to the streets against it.
But: I detect within networks of pro-Israel, pro-Palestine groups a shared single-mindedness toward ending this war. It is this single-mindedness that led ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt, in recent days, to finally call for a hostage deal, under direct pressure from We Are All Hostages and other hostage families. On the Left, activists are increasingly ready to embrace difficult conversations within the framework of Palestinian-Israeli-Jewish solidarity for a ceasefire-hostage deal, an end to the occupation, and equal rights for all between the River and the Sea. The Uncommitted movement is another positive development, in my view – as some activists in their orbit, like Georgia State Representative Ruwa Romman, have formed explicit connections with hostage families.
“Where is the Palestinian J Street,” some critics ask? Well, we see some of those changes unfolding right now. Precisely for that reason, we must embrace conversation and coalition with those who are willing to work with us toward shared goals. Emerging connections between hostage families and Palestinian activists signify that Palestinian freedom and Israeli security are not only compatible, they are deeply intertwined. This is the message that’s been lacking in too many mainstream Jewish spaces, and in too many pro-Palestine spaces here in the U.S. But the fact that that message is gaining support among unprecedented numbers of Palestinians and Israelis, among American Jewry, and even among the Left and Labor movements here, should be a major cause for hope. For me, it’s been the source of renewed enthusiasm and commitment toward ending this war. For organizations like PPI, which have devoted themselves for years to self-determination for both peoples, these developments should be vindicating.
Americans, and American Jews in particular, must heed the call from these veteran networks of shared society organizations – and from emerging ones as well. It is our duty to support the groups and movements articulating political alternatives to endless war and perpetual domination of one people over another. Could it be that the tipping point is now? As Israelis take to the streets by the hundreds of thousands against their government; as extremists on both sides make clear their disregard for their own people and their support for endless war; as clear buds of Israeli-Palestinian solidarity emerge from the wreckage and destruction.
Americans have an unprecedented opportunity, and I hope our communities will seize it. Palestinians and Israelis working together for true peace and justice are opening up new potential for genuine political transformation. The war has devastated – continues to devastate – communities on the ground. But extremists on both sides in Israel and Palestine are being discredited. Though they remain formally in power, to devastating consequences for both peoples, they have already ceded the future. Netanyahu and Hamas have demonstrated that their political survivals depend on each other. Now, on-the-ground movements and their global networks of supporters are showing that the Palestinian and Israeli peoples, not their governments, are mutually dependent as well.
Let’s echo that affirmative vision, with no illusions about the difficulty of the current moment, but with a clear understanding of the strategic opportunities that it presents. In building transnational networks with activists on the ground, we will, together, be enabled to help end this war, bring the hostages home, and ultimately transform politics in Israel/Palestine. In taking part in that transformative work, we can help enact profound changes here in the United States, as well.
Jonathan Taubes is an activist-educator from Brooklyn who works at the intersections of Judaism, social justice, and the labor movement. Taubes has worked as a political organizer at the Workers Circle and a service corps manager at Repair the World. He is active as a lay-leader with New Israel Fund’s NewGen community, and with a range of Jewish social justice groups.
PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE Yet Another War?By Paul SchamAs I rewrite this article on October 6th, the day before the first anniversary of Hamas’s attack on Israel, the long-expected war between Israel and Hezbollah appears to be underway. Sixty thousand Israelis have now spent a year away from their homes in northern Israel due to Hezbollah rockets – and a larger number of southern Lebanese have fled northwards to presumed safety. Hezbollah, the dominant political and military power in the failed state of Lebanon, has been increasing the number of its daily salvos– as has the IDF. Every few weeks, seemingly, Israel comes up with a nifty, new, and deadly means of attack, while Hezbollah can only launch the same old missiles. Israel stunned the world and threw Hezbollah into chaos with its unprecedented pager attack, but humiliating reverses are unlikely to force Hamas to cease its missile assaults.
This conflict is not about disputed land, nor about nationalism, nor about any of the things that nations usually fight about. Hezbollah (“Party of God”), of course, is not a nation-state, though its power dwarfs that of the official Lebanese army. Sectarian militias dwarfing Lebanon’s official army has a long tradition in Lebanon; until Israel’s withdrawal from its occupied “security zone” in 2000, Lebanon’s south was controlled by the IDF-supplied, Christian-dominated South Lebanese Army.
In fact, Hezbollah’s existence is only an artifact of what Israel calls the First Lebanon War in 1982. The Shi’a Muslims in the south first welcomed the IDF with flowers; but when Israel’s army showed a marked reluctance to leave, they formed Hezbollah, with considerable help and encouragement from the then-new Islamic Republic of Iran. Its declared aim was the expulsion of the IDF from Lebanon – and the IDF’s gift to Hezbollah was that it stayed in its security zone until 2000, thus allowing Hezbollah to justify its existence when all other sectarian militias were disbanded with the end of the Lebanese Civil War in 1989.
When Israel finally did withdraw in 2000, Hezbollah literally faced an existential crisis; what now justified its existence? Although the UN, not generally a fan of Israel’s, had certified the IDF’s complete withdrawal, Hezbollah seized on the patch of disputed ground called Shebaa farms to claim that Israel still occupied Lebanon. With no force willing or able to evict it, Hezbollah hung on as a relic of the Lebanese civil war and invasions of the last quarter of the 20th century. It had had plenty of time to stoke its hatred of Israel during the previous 18 years, including for the 1992 assassination of its founding leader, Sheikh Abbas Musawi, succeeded by Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah who turned out far more capable.
After Israel’s withdrawal, the border generally remained quiet, with a few exceptions, until Nasrallah, taking advantage of Israel’s distraction by the abduction of Corporal Gilad Shalit by Hamas in June of 2006, tried a similar caper in the north. They killed 8 Israeli soldiers and kidnapped 2, hoping, presumably, to extract a humiliating price for them. Instead they got what Israel calls its Second Lebanon War, launched impetuously by a new and unseasoned prime minister, Ehud Olmert. While Lebanon and Hezbollah were unquestionably battered, so was the IDF. No victor was ever declared, but Nasrallah became the most popular man in the Arab world for inflicting what many considered a defeat on the hitherto seemingly invincible IDF. Olmert, ironically, went on to draw up a peace deal with Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas which both men left on the table, in large part because Olmert’s popularity and political effectiveness had been blown away by the Lebanon fiasco.
The 2006 war seemingly reminded Iran of its Shi’a ally in Lebanon. While Hezbollah’s mission remained unclear, its strategic location led Tehran to shower it with warfighting materiel, especially rockets to be aimed at its southern neighbor. Within a decade, it was generally known (or rumored) that 150,000 missiles of widely varying capabilities were aimed at Israel, all under Hezbollah’s control, courtesy of Iran. Hezbollah repaid Iran during the Syrian civil war, which began in 2011, supplying thousands of fighters who helped keep Bashar Assad in power. They returned battle-hardened, and the arms continued to flow, with Hezbollah now major force, whose allegiance was divided between its Lebanese nationality and its presumed subordination to Iranian policy.
Fast forward to the present, when Iran, Hamas, Hezbollah, the victorious Houthi rebels in Yemen, as well as the largely destroyed state of Syria, are united in a loose “Axis of Resistance”; largely Shi’a or adjacent, fiercely anti-Israel and anti-American. No one really knows the extent of Iran’s control or the degree of autonomy they have. For example, it seems fairly clear that Iran did not order, or even know about, Hamas’s Operation Al-Aqsa Flood last October 7.
To this day, Hezbollah’s raison d’etre remains unclear, though it is undoubtedly committed to the illegitimacy of Israel (as were all Arab states from 1948 to the 1970s, and many beyond). It certainly acts as an extension of Iranian power, and presumably the balance of terror over Israel’s northern border has helped deter Israel from fantasies of attacking Iran. When Israel responded to Hamas’s October 7 attacks on Israel’s southern “envelope”, Hezbollah promised to keep attacking Israel until it withdrew from Gaza, likely little suspecting that Israel would still be there a year later.
Would Hezbollah stop launching Israel-bound rockets if Israel signed a cease-fire with Hamas? Certainly, but Israel has now apparently taken that off the table. However, it steadfastly refuses to pull its forces back to the Litani River, 28 kilometers from the border, as specified in 2006 by UN Security Council resolution 1701 and demanded by Israel. 1701 also foresaw the disarmament of Hezbollah and its replacement by the Lebanese Army, but that is the stuff of fantasy. As of October 6, the strategic position seems to some completely changed from that of a few weeks earlier. Nasrallah is dead, Hezbollah is decapitated and in disarray, and Iran launched 180 ballistic missiles at Israel, of which few if any hit their targets, and the only fatality, ironically, was a West Bank Palestinian killed by falling debris. Two thousand Lebanese reportedly have been killed and a million are fleeing their homes. Some are even crossing over to Syria to seek refuge. Israel has announced a fifth division is entering Lebanon for the “limited operation,” which means 40,000-60,000 soldiers. Israel has also sent planes 1000 miles to respond to Houthi drones fired at Israel. While this may not yet be a “fullscale war,” on the level of, say, the Yom Kippur War of October 1973, there can be no doubt that Israel is engaged in a deadly serious attempt to change the strategic situation in the Middle East, and perhaps hopes to eliminate Hezbollah as a serious military force, thus depriving Iran of its most important Arab ally and humiliating it further.
This is the second time Israel has tried to upend the geopolitics of the Middle East with a “limited” invasion of Lebanon. The first, in 1982, did not end well for Israel. It entered Lebanon in the midst of a multi-sided civil war ostensibly to evict the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), and succeeded in dispatching them to Tunisia, where they remained until the Oslo Accords of 1993. In addition, apparently unbeknownst to the rest of the Israeli government, Defense Minister Ariel Sharon had made a deal with the Maronite Christians to help control the Lebanese parliament so the Christian leader, Amin Gemayel, would be elected president-upon which he would sign a peace treaty with Israel. Israel did its part – and Gemayel was duly elected.
He never took office, however as he was blown up by a massive car bomb before inauguration. His bereft soldiers, bent on revenge, entered the Sabra and Shatilla refugee camps in Beirut, which were under Israeli control, and massacred an estimated 2500 Palestinian women and children. This was over Rosh Hashanah in 1982, exactly 42 years ago. The peace treaty never took effect, Hezbollah become Iran’s most important ally, and Lebanon changed from a nominal enemy to a real and active one. Israel remained in Lebanon until 2000, leaving bitter memories on both sides of the border.
I have no idea whether the IDF can put an end to Hezbollah this time, or how successful it may be in changing its deterrence equation with Iran. You may have a better idea by the time you read this. I do expect, sadly, that the war in Gaza will keep going, though Israel could likely put an immediate end to Hezbollah‘s missile attacks and free the remaining hostages by agreeing to the long-sought ceasefire with Hamas.
Nevertheless, please accept my best wishes for a sweet, happy, and, most of all, peaceful New Year’s season to all, wherever they are or what religion they practice. Thanks to you, dear readers, for your interest in and support of Partners for Progressive Israel.
Sincerely,
Paul
Paul Scham is President of Partners for Progressive Israel and Director of the Gildenhorn Institute for Israel Studies at the University of Maryland, where he is a Professor of Israel Studies. The views expressed here are his own.
Death as a ParadigmBlog Post by Mark Gold
On Friday September 6, a Turkish born American, Aysenur Ezgi Eygi was shot and killed by an Israeli sniper while protesting against the Occupation in the West Bank town of Beita near Nablus. Eygi, a human rights activist, had arrived in the West Bank to join in non-violent demonstrations against illegal settlements. On Friday, Israeli and Palestinians gathered to protest the hilltop post of Evyatar. Established illegally in 2013 by militants of the Nachala Movement, Israeli security forces evacuated and destroyed the compound several times, but after each occasion, settlers returned and were not prevented from rebuilding. Nightly protests against the illegal settlement have been held for years, with a larger protest conducted every Friday, typically involving many hundreds of people. In May 2021, settlers reoccupied the site and the following month, a Palestinian protester was shot and killed. The settlement is built partially on private Palestinian property; additionally, Palestinian farmers have been denied access to hundreds of hectares of adjacent land. In July 2021, Evyatar was evacuated under an agreement with the new Bennett administration, which permitted the structures to remain while its status was studied. Later that year, a yeshiva was allowed to move to Evyatar, providing a cover for settler return. In June of this year, the Netanyahu government acted to legalize the settlement along with four others.
The Friday protests typically begin with a prayer service after which some of the protesters march toward the outpost which often brings clashes between stone throwing demonstrators and soldiers firing rubber bullets and tear gas. To suppress the demonstrations, the military closed the entrance to Beita for a month and a half and dug up agricultural roads in the rough terrain leading to the protest site, destroying many hundreds of trees. To increase pressure, roughly 150 Beita resident work permits have been canceled and Israeli supporters have been arrested on trumped up charges.
The protest on September 6 began according to the usual pattern. After prayers, demonstrators moved out toward the settlement and clashed with soldiers. Eygi and the group she was with moved away. Later, during a period of quiet, an Israeli eyewitness saw two soldiers on the rooftop of a house roughly an eighth of a mile away from Eygi take aim and shoot. Eygi fell with a bullet to the head while a nearby teen was wounded.
What made September 6th tragedy unusual was not the death, but that it was an American who died. More than half a dozen Beita residents have been killed and about 180 wounded over the last several years. The area south of Nablus is spotted with hilltop settlements, often begun illegally, and typically established through the confiscation of local village, or privately owned land. These include Itamar, Yitzhar, Kfar Tapuach, Rechilim, Givat Harel, Shiloh, Shvut Rahel, Ma’aleh Levona, Migdalim, Neve Shir, Neot Khen, Amichai and Adei Ad, Neve Shoham, the recently “legalized” settlements of Nof Harim, Hayovel, and Palgei Mayim. The string of settlements, running from west to east, is designed to separate Arab population centers of the northern part of the West Bank from population centers in the southern part, below Jerusalem. Further aggravating land issues, the IDF refuses to permit Palestinian farmers access to property close to settler outposts. Shootings of Palestinian farmers working property near settlements are a regular occurrence.
These events have accelerated since the election of the latest and most extreme Netanyahu government. The infamous settler pogrom that occurred in February 2023 at the West Bank town of Huwara was but a short distance from Evyatar. Last year within one week in July, over 85 settler attacks against West Bank Palestinians were recorded. As violence increased, senior Army officers warned of a deteriorating security situation. It was to protect these settlers that the IDF, in 2023, relocated soldiers, leaving the Gaza border unguarded.
Itamar ben Gvir, Israel’s extremist Security Minister, has accelerated West Bank displacements since the Gaza War began, often through the use of settler violence. The independent, non-profit, Armed Conflict Location and Event Data (ACLED) has gathered data on violent events in the West Bank since 2016. Incidents of settler violence against Palestinians doubled in the last quarter of 2023 from the previous quarter, running at roughly 5 times the level of incidents in the second quarter of 2020. Coincident with the extensive distribution of guns to settlers after October 7, the last quarter of 2023 saw a seven-fold jump in settler gun violence from the previous quarter. Displacement activity has been particularly intense in the South Hebron Hills. The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reported between October 7, 2023 and the end of January 2024, almost 200 Palestinian families, nearly 1200 people, had been expelled from their homes by settler violence and army restrictions.
Between October 2023 and July 2024, 553 Palestinians had been killed in the West Bank by settlers and the IDF. The Israeli Army radio reported 340 settler attacks in the first half of 2024.
The extremist Netanyahu regime sees accelerated West Bank settlement through violence as a kind of victory. In July, General Yehuda Fox, the outgoing head of Israel’s central command, condemned West Bank settler violence, calling it “nationalist crime,” which “sowed chaos and fear in Palestinian residents who do not pose a threat.”
These acts of violence are a moral failing. They are also a security failing, fomenting hatred, and increasing international isolation, alienating not only Israel’s international allies but increasingly, Diaspora Jewish communities and particularly Jewish youth.
In place of this toxic mix of religious messianism and chauvinism, a different vision for Israel must be projected: one of peace, mutual security, and cooperation which can be the foundation for a creative future for both Jews and Palestinians, each realizing self determination in their own respective states.
Mark Gold is the Board Treasurer of Partners for Progressive Israel
Partners’ Statement on the Recent ICJ Ruling
July 31st, 2024 – Partners for Progressive Israel supports the Advisory Opinion by the International Court of Justice that the 57-year Israeli occupation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem is illegal under international law. However, we have no illusions that this – or any – Israeli government would comply with a decision couched in these terms. Rather, an effective and realistic political/diplomatic strategy is necessary in order to launch any such process – and it must begin with the United States, which has been the enabler of Israel’s ability to flout an overwhelming international consensus, and which has repeatedly vetoed binding Security Council resolutions ordering Israel to leave.
We expect nothing from the current Israeli government, which has arguably already annexed the West Bank in fact and function, if not in law, according to a recent article by the distinguished attorney Michael Sfard This is emphasized by the Knesset vote on July 18, by a majority of 68 to 9, purporting to permanently reject any Palestinian state. Thus we turn to our own United States government in order to recognize that Israel has no intention of leaving the West Bank, and to act accordingly with regard to aid and arms shipments until Israel complies with international law.
The ruling comes in the context of the savage and pointless Gaza War, a possible new and unnecessary war with Hezbollah, and unprecedented divisions within Israeli society. We hope that the ICJ ruling will add increased urgency to the efforts of the international community to induce Israel to comply with the clear judgment that it has no rights of possession in the West Bank or East Jerusalem, and that it may no longer claim that its occupation is “temporary.”
Paul Scham
President of Partners for Progressive Israel
KOLOT – Voices of Hope, Post-October 7 Series
Every Crisis Offers an Opportunity for a Better Future: The Post-October 7 Work of the Givat Haviva Centerfor a Shared Society
By Mohammad Darawshe
We all know what happened in Israel on October 7, 2023. In an organized operation, Hamas broke through the fence separating the Gaza Strip from Israel, surprising and paralyzing Israel’s security forces. Some 1,200 people, male and female, including infants and seniors, were murdered that day. Another 252 people of all ages were taken into Gaza. The war that broke out in the wake of October 7 continues to claim Israeli and Gazan Palestinian lives. Amid all these developments, we at Givat Haviva – the largest and most veteran organization in Israel promoting Jewish-Arab shared society in Israel – knew we had to respond.
All of Israel’s ethnic groups were impacted. The Jewish majority experienced indescribable fear that day. With the news channels broadcasting nonstop the trauma mixed with uncertainty, every viewer was readying for the worst. Social media was filled with those searching for relatives and friends from the Gaza-border communities, or who were attending the festivals, after contact with them had been lost.
The day also took a toll on the Arab minority community, which makes up roughly one fifth of Israel’s citizenry. Distraught community members of all political and religious stripes could barely believe the atrocities they were witnessing. Afraid that the Jewish community was about to rise up against them, they mostly chose silence and seclusion in order to avoid becoming the target of Jewish rage. The fear that Jewish Israelis would not differentiate between Arab citizens and Hamas terrorists was widespread in every Arab city, town, and village.
After the Shock: Back to Our Work
So, we arrived at the Givat Haviva offices on October 8 ready to get down to work – but also, as a team made up of both Jews and Arabs, in order to air and share our emotions with one another.
As a nonprofit organization that has been working for Jewish-Arab shared society for 75 years, we knew we needed to do our share. We wanted to provide the petrified Arab community, scared to express its legitimate viewpoint and avoiding direct encounters with Jews, with a space where it could unpack the confusion and fear it had been experiencing ever since October 7. We wanted to enable both communities to reach a place emotionally where they could display empathy toward the other and primarily listen and show respect. That is the only way it will be possible to arise from this catastrophe and begin to generate a better future.
We turned our campus into a center for evacuees, with over 300 people coming to us to find refuge and staying for three months until they were able to return home, while at the same time, our teams were working together to change programs and projects set to begin the next day.
October 8 was supposed to be the opening day of our programming cycle; we had a record number of registrants. But of course, none of the programs began that day. Instead, the team looked at each one of our programs, discussing what adjustments we would now need to make.
A safe place at Givat Haviva for evacuated families (youtube.com)
Jews and Arabs Continue to Meet at Givat Haviva
“Children Teaching Children” (CTC) is a program that we have been running for nearly four decades. The CTC program brings together junior high school students from the Arab community and the Jewish community, who study identity together for two years. These studies focus on examining the teenagers’ personal and group identities, breaking stigmas, and looking critically at the various narratives prevailing in Israel’s complex society.
We knew that in the post-October 7 atmosphere, it would be difficult to continue bringing these youths together. We decided to initiate conversations with those students already a year into the program, together with their parents, so that as many stakeholders as possible would be involved in our decision-making. Much to our delight, everyone felt the need to carry on, now of all times, with the identity studies, even if at first the sessions would be held in non-mixed frameworks for Jews and Arabs.
A few weeks ago, the first in-person encounter since October 7 of students from nearby Jewish schools and Arab schools took place on the Givat Haviva campus. Although there had been concerns, the students were happy to get to know one another, focus on their similarities rather than on areas of disagreement, and they departed with a taste for more. We left this session hopeful, determined to continue our work so that, in time, we will be able to hold such encounters with greater frequency and a larger number of participants.
Jewish Teachers Come to Arab Schools
Another program whose success since October 7 has been a pleasant surprise is “Shared Language”, which was designed to improve Hebrew proficiency among Arab students in Israel via the instruction of spoken Hebrew at Arab schools. Through this program, Jewish teachers come to Arab schools and are joined by an Arab teacher who serves as their liaison and mentor, to help them navigate both the school and the cultural differences between the two peoples. The teacher provides spoken Hebrew instruction to the pupils and, as a bonus, learns about the Arab community and Arab culture with the help of their Arab mentor, who provides support and also functions as a go-between, given the different worlds from which they come.
In the current reality, with the war continuing and the security situation unsettled, a Jewish teacher coming into an Arab school in an Arab community is no trivial matter. Nonetheless, no teachers have withdrawn from the program (aside from evacuees who were forced to relocate) and no school has asked to stop its participation. When, in December, schools resumed in-person teaching, we were very worried about what might happen. We were delighted to discover, though, how much the students had missed the program and their Jewish teachers.
At one school, a Jewish Hebrew teacher was drafted into army reserve duty because of the war. Amazingly, this complex circumstance actually generated a wonderful educational moment. The students were extremely disconcerted due to the contradiction they felt: On one hand, they love, appreciate, and respect that teacher. On the other hand, he was going to fight in the Gaza Strip, where some of the students have family; and even those who have no relatives there see the residents of Gaza as members of their Palestinian nation. They raised these conflicted feelings with the Arab mentor.
The mentor and the program coordinator identified the incredible potential for fruitful conversation. They sat down with the students and tried to unpack together what they were feeling about the teacher who had been called up. Ultimately, at the end of the process, the students concluded that their teacher is the same person they appreciate, respect, and love, and they trusted him to do the right thing. When the teacher returned from many months in reserves, he went straight to the school to visit his students – who welcomed him back with open arms. Stories of this kind not only provide Givat Haviva’s staff a tailwind to continue our work, but also demonstrate that our efforts allow bridges to be built in places where others believe the chasm is too wide.
New Programs for a New Reality
After October 7, we realized that, alongside the continuity that our programs required, we also needed to build new programs. The war and the security situation brought to the surface various challenges that Israeli society has been facing for many years. Now, however, the intensity of these challenges has grown significantly, and the urgency of offering an appropriate response has risen many times over. This stands out in particular when it comes to the various gaps between Jews and Arabs, and thanks to Givat Haviva’s decades of experience, we are prepared for this moment.
A number of academic institutions turned to us, for example, seeking guidance and support as they readied for a return to in-person classes. The academic world, it is important to note, is often the first official setting where Jews and Arabs cross paths on a daily basis, and in order to bridge social and cultural gaps, it is vital that this initial interaction be as positive as possible.
Almost all of Israel’s higher education institutions feature a sizeable majority of Jewish staff. As a result, many Arab students feel less emotionally attached to their school and regard their path to a bachelor’s degree as something to be gotten through as quickly and quietly as possible. Now, due to the wartime atmosphere, many Arab students have decided to pause their studies, or defer their admission, or transfer to an Arab university abroad, such as in the West Bank and Jordan.
Many Israeli academic universities seeking to reverse this trend have come to us for help. In response, Givat Haviva has put together a holistic academic intervention program that can be employed for the broad spectrum of challenges that the universities are facing – with students, faculty, administrative staff, and other workers; we are continuing to fine-tune the program so that as many schools as possible in need of our support can receive it and deliver to their academic community the most useful and high-quality student experience possible – even at a time of crisis.
The situation in Israel is super-complex, almost incomprehensible. But we realize the world is not binary: There is no black versus white, single right versus wrong; there is more than one solitary “true” narrative. Therefore, we must continue to move Israeli society forward by creating more opportunities to meet together, by urging Israel’s Jewish and Arab communities toward one another. We must not allow them to entrench themselves ever deeper in their separate realities, but instead must familiarize them with the other community – to converse, understand, show respect, and stop being scared.
Givat Haviva’s many years of experience have taught us that, out of every calamity, it is possible to extract points of light and hope for a better future. Even the dreadful October 7 can serve as a source of opportunity. Every crisis sharpens our understanding of the issues, teaches us where we could do better or contribute more from our knowhow and resources. That, in turn, increases our optimism as to the progress we can make in improving the Israeli reality so that the future can be a better one for every woman and man, irrespective of religion, nationality, gender, or sex.
The amount of support we have been receiving, both in Israel and abroad, shows us that we are headed in the right direction.
Givat Haviva 2023 Recap (youtube.com)
To learn more about Givat Haviva, visit our English-language website, follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter (X), or subscribe to our YouTube channel.
Mohammad Darawshe is the Director of Strategy at the Center for Shared Society at Givat Haviva
The Abraham Initiatives’ Personal Security Courses: Deepening Community Safety, Empowering YouthBy Ron Skolnik and Rabbi Margo Hughes-Robinson
As we continue our monthlong focus on the impacts of the ongoing war on youth in Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza, we are honored to uplift the work of our longtime partners do to the better future that young people in Israel and Palestine so richly deserve, and so desperately need.
We’re delighted, therefore, to shine a light today on our longtime friends at The Abraham Initiatives (TAI). Longtime champions at the forefront of shared society work between Palestinian-Israelis and Jewish-Israelis, TAI launched a program last year in cooperation with local philanthropic and governmental partners aimed at empowering youth in the Negev, equipping young people to become agents of community change in the face of structural marginalization.
Due to long-term Israeli government neglect, Arab and Bedouin residents of the Negev have been victims of dangerously increasing levels of crime and violence. With little sense of hope and opportunity, and amid daunting economic pressures – Palestinian-Israeli youth face particularly high rates of unemployment and lack of access to education compared to their Jewish-Israeli peers – many Arab and Bedouin youth are at high risk for becoming both potential victims and/or perpetrators of violence.
Through TIA’s Personal Security Course initiative, Bedouin and Arab youth are able to gain essential safety and self-advocacy skills. In the wake of October 7th, program leaders alumni have been at the forefront, connecting their communities to rescue and community support organizations — essential work in villages and towns that do not have access to bomb shelters or other security structures.
As Program Coordinator Fayroz Alatayka wrote, “volunteering together and mobilizing women and young people gives me hope that we will soon live together in peace and equality. The shared hours are yet another reminder of what it means that we are all human beings whose lives intertwine, with dreams and the right to live in peace.”
TIA recently spotlit one Personal Security Course alum named Taysir. Pressured into gang membership after an interrupted education in eighth grade, Taysir was arrested as a teenager but was diverted out of the Israeli justice system to a psychological support and rehabilitation initiative. After graduating this program and TIA’s Personal Security Course, Taysir today serves as a community liaison in the Negev, bridging informational and relationship gaps between the IDF and his local community about local emergency procedures and safety advisories as the war continues.
The Personal Security Course team has also worked to mobilize women and youth groups in the city of Rahat and the surrounding communities to engage in volunteer work together in recent months, creating opportunities for the many diverse communities of the Negev to work together in shared initiatives and push back against the siloing of Jewish-Israeli, Palestinian-Israeli, and Bedouin communities in the wake of October 7th.
We have been delighted to partner closely with The Abraham Initiatives over the last several years. To learn more about the organization, check out our December 2023 “Kolot: Voices of Hope” feature, “The Abraham Initiatives: Working for a Shared and Fully Equal Israel”, which describes TAI’s various programs and activities – including their Shared Learning project for Arab and Jewish schoolchildren. In addition, you can watch a recording of our February 2024 webinar, “Keeping the Peace During the Gaza War: Preventing Jewish-Arab Violence within the Green Line”, with senior leaders of The Abraham Initiatives, Shahira Shalaby and Ruth Lewin-Chen.
PA Tax Money, Smotrich, and SettlementsBlog Post by Lev Cohen
In the 90s, the region was closer to peace than ever, and the Israeli government, led by Yitzhak Rabin, entered negotiations with the Palestine Liberation Organization, headed by Yasser Arafat. These talks resulted in the Oslo Accords, to which Israel made several commitments.
One section of the accords was the Paris Protocol, which allowed the newly created PA to collect taxes as a precursor to building itself as a state. However, Israel collects import and VAT taxes on behalf of the PA, which accounts for about 60% of the PA’s funding.
After the events of October 7th, citing the PA’s “family payouts for terror acts” policy, Israel withheld substantial amounts of tax money. For instance, in May alone, over $46 million was withheld, and as the PA struggled to pay its employees and maintain order in the West Bank, Israel’s Finance Ministry, led by extremist Betzalel Smotrich, blocked payroll to the PA’s civil servants for months. This jeopardized the PA’s control over the West Bank and, combined with restrictions on Palestinian workers entering Israel, caused severe economic hardship in the region.
In light of the economic stranglehold on the West Bank, concerns quickly arose about the potential collapse of the Palestinian Authority. In response, the Israeli government reversed its initial policy of withholding funds, only for Smotrich to announce the legalization of 5 West Bank outposts in retaliation. This is just one of many examples of Israel’s far-right government continuing to entrench the occupation of the West Bank, impacting daily life and stability in the area; and while the PA’s family payouts for terror acts policy must end, Israel’s continued settlement expansion only threatens its own security.
Follow Partners for Progressive Israel for more updates and insights on the region’s complexities.
https://www.progressiveisrael.org/wp-content/uploads/PPI-Reel-1-PA-Tax-Money-v2.mp4Sources:
(1) For background on the Oslo Accords and the Paris Protocol:
B’tselem. “The Paris Protocol.” B’Tselem, 1 Jan. 2011,
www.btselem.org/freedom_of_movement/paris_protocol.
Watson, Geoffrey R. Passages, Ports, and Economic Issues. 24 Aug. 2000, pp. 143–167, https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198298 915.003.0008. Accessed 28 Jan. 2024.
(2) For information on Israel’s recent withholdings:
TOI Staff. Pa Says It Can Only Pay 50% of Civil Sector Salaries This Month as Tax Funds Withheld | The Times of Israel,
www.timesofisrael.com/pa-says-it-can-only-pay-50-of-civil-sector-salaries-this-month-as-tax-funds-withheld/. Accessed 26 June 2024.
(3) Jacob Magid. Norway, PA Still Weighing Israel-Approved Plan for Transferring Palestinian Tax Revenues | The Times of Israel,
www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/norway-pa-still-weighing-israel-approved-plan-for-transfe rring-palestinian-tax-revenues/. Accessed 26 June 2024.
(4) Boxerman, Aaron, and Adam Rasgon. “Israeli Minister Will Release Palestinian Funds If Settlements Are Legalized, Officials Say.” The New York Times, 28 June 2024, www.nytimes.com/2024/06/29/world/middleeast/israel-funds-palestinian-authority-smotrich.html . Accessed 3 July 2024.
(5) Lis, Jonathan. “Smotrich to Cancel Decision to Freeze Palestinian Authority Tax Funds over Fears of Its Collapse.” Haaretz.com, Haaretz, 28 June 2024,
www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2024-06-28/ty-article/.premium/smotrich-to-cancel-decision-to-fre eze-palestinian-authority-tax-funds-fearing-collapse/00000190-5dab-de5e-abd0-fffb6de10000. Accessed 3 July 2024.
PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE Existential!By Paul SchamAfter the beginning of the current war, I wrote several times that this crisis was not “existential” for Israel. I didn’t expect that to be a controversial statement; it seemed obvious to me that October 7 happened because of major and unforgivable misjudgments by both the IDF and Israel‘s current political echelon, which could and would be fixed. This seems to happen on a national level once a generation or so (think the outbreak of the Yom Kippur war in 1973 and that of the first Intifada in 1987); and those mistakes were dealt with. As terrible as the events of October 7 were, Israel’s serious misjudgments of Hamas’s capabilities would be swiftly rectified.
I was completely wrong about that. I have watched with growing horror the Israeli government’s reiteration – both verbal and kinetic – of the necessity to “destroy” Hamas, an impossible task, even if one is willing to kill (to date) perhaps 27,000 Palestinian non-combatants and injure close to 60,000 1 and then dismiss them as collateral damage. While “progress” is being made, Minister of Defense Gallant estimates the war will go on till the end of the year. And, I would add, it has now become existential for Israel, primarily because Israel has made it so.
By existential, I do not mean in a military sense. Neither Hamas nor any other hostile militia or country (including Iran) can possibly overrun Israel. Iran has neither the will for self-destruction it would entail nor the nuclear or delivery capability to seriously damage Israel. Nor does Hezbollah, though a war with it would likely entail serious destruction and perhaps thousands of casualties, and Israel should not seem so cavalier about it.
By existential I mean that Israel jumped willingly and enthusiastically into the trap Hamas set for it and is digging itself deeper every day. Instead of using the attack to rally the support it received in the days after October 7 (remember Britain and France lighting national monuments in blue and white?), it announced and proceeded on a course that was guaranteed to alienate virtually every friend in the world – and succeed in doing what the Palestinians have failed at since 2000; raising the problem of Palestine to a must-solve international issue.
That latter consequence need not – but almost certainly will – be existential. Half of Israeli seem to believe that any form of genuinely autonomous Palestinian state is an unacceptable (i.e. existential) threat to Israel’s survival. Instead of realizing that such a state is the only means of channeling Palestinian energies away from attacking Israel and towards their own national project, they believe, contrary to all historical experience,2 that an independent Palestine would use its limited resources to attack an Israel that would be infinitely stronger. That internal conflict is part of the existential crisis I am referring to.
The other part that this war has called into question is Israel’s membership in the loosely defined group I call the “Global Democratic Club.” This is not an official grouping and its workings are largely informal. But it is important because it treats its members well in economic, political, and public opinion terms, and punishes those who stray too far from its norms. Israel has indeed strayed and will have to find its way back in the coming years. The proposed International Court of Justice warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant are simply the first salvo. Another – likely to be far more consequential in the long run – is the worldwide campus protest demanding everything from a ceasefire to the death of “Zionists.” Israel has heedlessly squandered decades of good will – or even just acceptance – and alienated most of the coming generation. Its counter-measures boil down mostly to repeated accusations of “antisemitism.” The fact that antisemitism is indeed on the rise will not, however, give Israel a pass when its own actions are so clearly disproportionate and injudicious.
Thus, Israel has succeeded in transforming an undoubtedly serious and genuinely traumatic crisis into both an internal and external existential threat. I emphasize that the threat is not kinetic, i.e., military. Spain, Ireland, and Norway, which recently recognized Palestine as a state, are not about to attack Israel or even break diplomatic relations. Boycotts of Israel, though, are skyrocketing. Businesses will prefer not to deal with Israeli businesses or products. The scientific cooperation and largesse from the EU that Israel has for decades enjoyed is likely to diminish, and probably much more. In addition, of course, the world will now have to somehow solve the “Palestine issue,” with Israel’s cooperation or perhaps without it, or in the face of its active opposition, which will not be pretty.
Meanwhile, when the war ends, the real fight for Israel’s soul will begin. Most Israelis now realize that Bibi is keeping the war going principally to stay in power. Gantz and Eisenkot have left the War Cabinet, which is now no more. Differences between the IDF and Bibi are now surfacing and inescapable. Though most Israelis seem to want the war to continue (to me inexplicably), they are now forcefully demanding new elections, preferably by October 7, 2024.
Bibi‘s Knesset majority of 64 seems secure, but it is being attacked on so many fronts that defections may well appear and, as the previous government showed, once they start, they tend to cascade. Eleven military funerals in one day is not something Israelis will be willing to stand for long, since no one can articulate what they died for. Biden cleverly put Israel’s name on a ceasefire proposal and Ben-Gvir keeps erupting, issuing ever more frequent (and credible!) threats to bring down the government. Something has to give.
No one knows what the next elections will be like. However, that will perhaps begin the existential crisis in earnest, trying to decide what is the Israel project about, and where should it go, given that neither the Palestinians nor the Jews are moving.
Sincerely,
Paul
Paul Scham is President of Partners for Progressive Israel and Director of the Gildenhorn Institute for Israel Studies at the University of Maryland, where he is a Professor of Israel Studies. The views expressed here are his own.
1These figures are inherently rough and unverifiable. I subtracted the latest IDF estimate of the number of Hamas fighters it claims to have killed (10,000) from the total number of those killed provided by the (Hamas-run) Gaza Ministry of Health (over 37,0000 as of June 16) and used a similar proportion for those reported injured. No one knows how accurate these figures may be; however, my argument would stand if the figures were halved.
2 I can think of no example in history where a powerful country, forced to divest itself of part of its claimed territory (homeland or colony), had to defend itself from an attack by the new state. Can you?
An Open Letter to Palestinians: You Can Break This Cycle
By Gershon Baskin
(Originally published in the Times of Israel. Reprinted here with permission of the author)
This is an open letter to Palestinian readers. I already know I will be passionately attacked and criticized by many Palestinians for what I am writing. I have been engaged in bridging between Israelis and Palestinians for 46 years and believe me I have heard it all. I remain dedicated to the basic principle that peace can be made between the two peoples who live on the land between the River and the Sea.
Throughout all of these years, Israelis have spoken mostly about peace, while Palestinians have spoken mostly about ending the occupation and achieving freedom, equality, and dignity. Israelis and Palestinians don’t speak on the same frequencies and, of course, there is no symmetry between them. Israel is a strong state in existence for 76 years that is recognized by 165 countries and that maintains economic and security ties with even more. Israel is a challenged democracy but, at least so far, it is still a democracy.
Palestine, which Israel occupies with a harsh military occupation, is not a fully recognized state and has had a divided political leadership for 17 years. Palestine has a weak economy largely limited by Israeli restrictions. Palestinian lands are confiscated by Israel to build illegal settlements. Thousands of Palestinians are imprisoned in Israeli jails. Palestine lacks democracy and has no accountable government. To put it bluntly, Israel is strong, Palestine is weak.
Throughout the 46 years that I have been working across the conflict lines, I have heard from Palestinians that because Israel is the occupier and because Israel is strong, it needs to take the first step toward the Palestinians. This argument would be valid in a world where everything that happens is based on what is just. But that’s not how the world has ever worked and I would wager that it will never work that way – especially after October 7.
The Gaza War is the worst of all of the Israeli-Palestinian wars: More people have suffered, been killed, and had their homes destroyed than ever before. This war must be the last Israeli-Palestinian war. We cannot allow this conflict to continue. I fully recognize that there are now more justified reasons to hate the other side than ever before. Supporters of peace on both sides are at a new low point and there are almost no leaders in Israel or Palestine who dare to speak about peace, or ending the occupation or any kind of positive future. In fact, there are almost no people on both sides that I would even call leaders.
Change happens when new voices appear and break the sound barrier by saying things that have not been said in the past. Nelson Mandela cracked the core of Apartheid by stating that he was not seeking revenge, that in the new South Africa whites and blacks would live together with security and dignity. Mandela was victorious because he did not see the white South Africans as his enemy. He understood that the fear inside of white South Africans was the enemy and that to beat that fear he had to speak to the inner heart of white South Africans.
The same is true here in Palestine/Israel. Israelis know there are 7 million Palestinians living on the land. They know the Palestinian people are not going to leave (notwithstanding Jewish Israeli extremists, some of them in the government, who have plans for this to happen). The overwhelming number of Israelis feel trapped in a reality that they do not want. Israelis don’t want to live in fear of their Palestinian neighbors. But October 7 increased their fear, with good reason, to heights that make the notion of ever living in peace seem like science fiction.
Any reasonable Israeli knows that Palestinians have hard lives. Many of them know that Israel is a major cause of the hard lives that Palestinians live. Many may even recognize that the root cause of our terrible reality is the occupation. But very few Israelis believe that Palestinians are truly prepared to live in peace next to Israel. Most Israelis truly believe that the ultimate goal of all Palestinians, not only Hamas, is to destroy Israel. When Israelis are willing to listen to Palestinians, what they hear more often than not is the narrative of victimhood. They also hear from Palestinians that Israel is the victimizer. At the same time, Israelis feel themselves to be the victims and that Palestinians who sanctify death, not life, are the victimizers. The victimhood competition is fierce and ongoing. This common narrative has been in play for more than 76 years and its only achievement has been to maintain and escalate the conflict.
How are we going to break this horrible cycle? I believe the breakthrough will be made by coherent, rational, and compelling Palestinian voices speaking peace. Again, in an ideal world, it should come from the stronger side, but we don’t live in such a world. I know some Palestinians who speak out unreservedly, accepting a measure of responsibility for Hamas’s atrocities on October 7, which were done in their name too, and denouncing the death and destruction Hamas perpetrated on that horrible day. They speak about moral red lines that have been crossed and they remind Israelis that Israel has also crossed too many moral red lines in this conflict.
They say to Israelis that they as Muslims have to recognize that Jews have always been in this land and that Jewish history, memory, and religion are attached to this land between the River and the Sea. But they also remind the Israelis that Jews were never here alone – there were always others living in the land and today those others are the Palestinians. With courage and honesty, these people say that Palestinians have never had the leadership they need, that for the past 100 years, they’ve had three unworthy leaders, Hajj Amin al Husseini, Yasser Arafat, and Mahmoud Abbas, all of whom failed to bring independence, peace and dignity. They say they need new, younger leadership that is not corrupt, believes in democracy and freedom, and speaks the language of peace.
I know these voices exist in Palestine. I have heard people who understand that Israel will never have security unless Palestinians have freedom and dignity and that Palestine will never have freedom and dignity unless Israel has security. These people speak to the hearts of Israelis and say we recognize the suffering of the Jewish people. We understand the traumas that Jews have experienced throughout the ages, including and especially during the Holocaust. We do not seek to kill the Jews or to destroy Israel. We seek to be free from Israel’s occupation and to build our own country with honor and dignity – next to Israel, not in place of Israel.
These Palestinian voices would be wise to declare that ousting Hamas is necessary not only for Israel and Jews, but for the sake of Palestinian aspirations for freedom and dignity. They would be wise to say that in a Palestinian state, there can be only one political authority with a monopoly on the use of force, the legitimate government. In fact, they could simply restate what appears in the Palestinian Declaration of Independence (November 15, 1988):
“The State of Palestine is to be a peace-loving state, in adherence to the principles of peaceful co-existence. It will join with all states and peoples in order to assure a permanent peace based upon justice and the respect of rights so that humanity’s potential for wellbeing may be assured, an earnest competition for excellence be maintained, and in which confidence in the future will eliminate fear for those who are just and for whom justice is the only recourse.”
Those inspiring words of Mahmoud Darwish should be the north star for Palestinians representing a new generation that will not forget the past, but will have one eye focused on the future with clarity of purpose, a moral code of justice, and a keen sense of reality. These Palestinians know that in order to achieve the goal of freedom and dignity, it is not enough to be right, you also have to be smart, and that being smart means defeating Israeli fear, not Israel.
Gershon Baskin is the Middle East Director of ICO – International Communities Organization – a UK based NGO working in Conflict zones with failed peace processes. Baskin is a political and social entrepreneur who has dedicated his life to peace between Israel and her neighbors. He is also a founding member of “Kol Ezraheiha – Kol Muwanteneiha” (All of the Citizens) political party in Israel.
The “Zionism/Anti-Zionism” Debate: Bad for Israel, Bad for Palestine
By Ron Skolnik
“Those who do not know are misled themselves and mislead others. For this reason, [Socrates] never gave up considering with his companions what any given thing is.” Xenophon, Memorabilia
For as long as I can recall, a feverish debate has been waged about the merits and demerits of something called “Zionism” and another something called “Anti-Zionism”. For many years, I’ll confess, I was an active participant. Now, though, I find the argument to be not only aimless drudgery, but a framing that primarily serves the most extreme viewpoints on either side of the Israel-Palestine question and that entrenches a binary zero-sum game mentality.
Where to start? Any productive discussion, of any topic, must rest on a foundation in which the various sides speak a common language. It would be pointless, for example, for a debate to take place in which one participant spoke German and the other Cantonese, with neither able to make out the argument the other was presenting.
The Zionism/Anti-Zionism debate is not all that different. While ostensibly it is being conducted in a common tongue, e.g. English in the English speaking world, it most often involves various participants not really understanding the others’ terms of reference and therefore not speaking to or with one another, but “at” or past them. The Stoic philosopher Epictetus, drawing on Socrates’ teachings, wrote that “The beginning of education is the examination of terms”. Conversely, how could a debate possibly be edifying when terminology goes unexamined?
So perhaps we should begin with what it means when someone refers to “Zionism”. Supporters of Zionism will say that Zionism represents the belief that Jews have a right to national self-determination in (or somewhere within) their ancestral homeland. Even this group features subdivisions, however. Most Zionists today believe that such self-determination needs to be expressed in the form of a separate state. A minority, however, has always insisted that Zionist self-determination can be practiced within the framework of a binational Jewish-Arab entity.
Yet, what are we to make of the word “Zionism” when senior Israeli cabinet ministers draw a direct line between Zionism and unchecked expansionism and Jewish supremacy? For decades, rightwing figures advocating a “Greater Land of Israel” have demanded increased West Bank settlement growth as the “appropriate Zionist reaction” or (“response”) to any number of developments, from acts of terror to rulings by the International Criminal Court, unfavorable resolutions by the UN, or nations recognizing a State of Palestine. Sometimes the “Zionist response” called for involves full West Bank annexation. These figures, such as Bezalel Smotrich, Minister of Finance and Minister in charge of West Bank administration, now help mold government policy.
While lots of folks who consider themselves Zionists abhor the far-right political agenda and sometimes even define its one-state ambitions as anti-Zionist, the fact is that it’s easy for those less well-versed to be confused as to what the Zionist goal “really” is.
Now on to Anti-Zionism: Here, too, we see a range of differing orientations that somehow manage to group together under a single moniker. On the extreme wing are those Anti-Zionists who make lots of noise by relating to Israel as solely a product of European colonialism, and to Jewish Israelis as trespassers and thieves who must “go back where they came from” – even if their ancestors had never set foot in Europe.
And yet, some self-styled Anti-Zionists have a much less belligerent take. They regard, not without reason, the Israeli government as the most accurate and up-to-date expression of Zionism, arguing that more liberal and historical variants of Zionism are not pertinent to the actual reality. Since the Israeli government is seen as the “spokesperson” of Zionism, their staunch opposition to its policies and practices – the occupation, settler and military violence, de facto annexation, the war in Gaza and its devastating impact on Palestinian civilians, as well as laws that prioritize the interests of Jewish citizens over Palestinian-Arab citizens – is naturally defined as “Anti-Zionism”.
Clearly, the Zionism/Anti-Zionism debate is a modern-day Tower of Babel.
Most individuals, of course, don’t have the time, energy, or disposition to wade through the terminological and conceptual morass. They prefer a sharp, clear picture to a muddle of shades; an exclamation point to a question mark. Drawn to the simplicity and clarity of “good guys versus bad guys”, many seek out a conceptual world in which the most noxious version of either the so-called “Zionist” or “Anti-Zionist” crowd is seen as the truest, most authentic version of that ideology.
And this is where the Zionism/Anti-Zionism debate becomes not just tedious and unproductive but dangerous, as we create a schema in which the most ill-meaning poles of a movement become the embodiment of that movement, at least in the eyes of the “other side”. Smotrich and the Minister of National Security, Itamar Ben-Gvir, a disciple of the racist Meir Kahane, have become the poster children of Zionism for many of those supporting the Palestinian struggle for freedom. Likewise, groups such as Within Our Lifetime – whose recent rally in New York notoriously included a banner reading “Zionists are not Jews and not human” – have become the essence of all Anti-Zionism for many of those protective of Israel and Israelis. In similar manner, the term “Hamas” is cognitively deployed (erroneously, of course) as a synonymous stand-in for all Palestinians.
Encouraged by the algorithms of the social media corporations, and the clickbait orientation of modern journalism, we tend to be exposed to and promote the most objectionable behaviors on the “other side” in order to prove how right we are, how bad they are. And since we are disinclined to criticize or cast out members of our “team”, many Zionists and Anti-Zionists, who otherwise might not be on diametrically opposite poles, end up accommodating their most extreme representatives. Hamas flags are flown in support of Palestine; extremist Israeli cabinet ministers are invited to the Israel Parade.
In the end, “Zionism” vs. “Anti-Zionism” becomes not so much a debate as an exercise in name-calling, a shorthand tool for dismissing the other side as inherently evil and therefore unworthy of further consideration.
What would our discourse look like if the terms “Zionist” and “Anti-Zionist” were to magically be stricken from our lexicon? If we didn’t have those words with which to simplistically sum up our and our interlocutors’ identity and belief systems?
Without these words, we might have an easier time reorienting our debate of Israel-Palestine to the particulars of real-world problem-solving. We might be more inclined to speak about matters like rights, injustices, policies, solutions, principles, and, yes, compromises. With less of an ability to apply single-word labels to others, we’d be encouraged to examine with richer detail what future we could be for, not just against.
Ridding the world of “Zionism” and “Anti-Zionism” is not a panacea. Real disagreements will continue to exist. Obviously, the Israel-Palestine conflict involves two peoples whose interests don’t and won’t perfectly match.
But the biggest benefit we will reap in dispensing with “Zionism” and “Anti-Zionism” is eliminating the veil of legitimacy that the extremists take advantage of. If someone seeks to expel Palestinians from the Land, they will have to say so and not hide behind the cloak of “Zionism”. Similarly, those who would remove Jews from the Land would no longer be able to make common cause with the many whose Anti-Zionism is more a rejection of Israel’s doings than its being
There are roughly seven million Jewish people living between the Mediterranean Sea and Jordan River. And roughly seven million Palestinian Arab people as well. Neither side is going away and political arrangements are desperately needed to allow both sides to live and prosper. But with “Zionism” and “Anti-Zionism” having become loaded, disputatious terms, their continued use will surely promote only antagonism, not progress. On the other hand, a discourse that eschews these terms could help us recenter our discussion – away from the extremes and toward the creation of a future in which neither side wins at the expense of the other.
RonSkolnikis an American-Israeli politicalcolumnist and public speaker, whose articles haveappeared in a variety of publications, includingHaaretz, Al- Monitor, Tikkun, the Forward,Jewish Currents, & the Palestine-Israel Journal.
Geoffrey Philip Levin, Our Palestine Question: Israel and American Jewish Dissent, 1948–1978 (Yale, 2024) and Marjorie N. Feld, The Threshold of Dissent: A History of American Jewish Critics of Zionism (NYU, 2024)
Review by Peter Eisenstadt
There is a paradox central to the history of American Zionism. If Zionism promised Jews a safe haven from antisemitism, why did it become central to American Jewish life only after World War II, when most American Jews were increasingly confident that the only safe haven they needed was in the United States. These were the years when antisemitism, certainly overt antisemitism, was being pushed to the borders of respectability. African American civil rights leaders looked at the ability of Jews to address anti-Jewish prejudice with a combination of admiration and envy.
One answer to this paradox is that, of course, it was only in 1948 that the Jewish settlement in Palestine became Israel, and it was the very existence of Israel that fostered the ties between American Jews and Israel, despite the fact that, contrary to Zionist theory, the United States was a much safer place for Jews than Israel itself. But there was nothing automatic about the emerging Zionist consensus. It was consciously created, enforced, and policed. It was underlined in 1950 in the so-called “Blaustein and Ben–Gurion Agreement” between Jacob Blaustein, president of the American Jewish Committee (AJC), and David Ben-Gurion, prime minister of Israel. Israel and official Zionism would stop insisting that American Jews who failed to make Aliyah were deficient in their Zionism–it wasn’t as if many American Jews were moving to Israel anyway. In return for this dispensation to live in galut, American Jews would raise scads of money for Israel, with the understanding that their influence on Israeli policies ended with their checkbooks and would not butt in or interfere with (or better yet, try to really understand) internal Israeli politics. They would “support Israel” and leave it to Israelis to figure out what this meant. There were some Jews that fell outside this consensus, but they were, cranky relics of a bygone era of Jewish assimilation, sad Bundists pining for a world that no longer existed, religious fanatics, or communists or other far-leftists.
For the most part, this is how the history of postwar Zionism and postwar American Jewish life has been told, of an enveloping and increasingly intolerant Zionist consensus. And with every crisis in Israel, the unconditional and ask-no-questions embrace became more uncritical and suffocating. But it is only part of the story. From within the bowels of the organized Jewish community there were always brave souls asking the pertinent and pressing questions that needed to be asked. If this dissent was not more widespread, or better remembered, it is in part because some organized Jewish organizations, often with a crucial assist from Israeli officials, did all in their power to crush and marginalize this dissent. It is in this context that two sterling recent histories by Geoffrey Levin and Marjorie Feld provide necessary background on the history of Jewish dissent over Israel and Zionism, and the efforts to make the dissenters go away. (Full disclosure: Marjorie is an old friend; I read several chapters of her book in manuscript, and I am mentioned in her acknowledgements.)
Both books concern themselves with what Feld describes as believers in “mainstream American Jewish ideas.” They have overlapping concerns, but they have different timespans and focuses. Levin’s book is concerned with Jewish attitudes toward the Palestinians over a thirty year period, while Feld has a somewhat wider concern with Zionism as such, and over a somewhat wider time period. The two books complement one another, and both are very much worth reading.
Both Levin and Feld discuss the best-known Jewish anti-Zionist organization, the American Council for Judaism (ACJ), formed from the dissenting remnant left in the 1930s and 1940 when the Reform movement moved away from its negative attitudes to Zionism. It was founded in 1943 and often dismissed as a mere nuisance, a minor irritation to American Jewry’s growing Zionist consensus, but Feld shows that the ACJ was a major participant in debates about the future of Palestine/Israel in the 1940s and 1950s. Although at first the AJC was primarily concerned with a critique of Zionism as an ideology of Jewish nationalism, by the 1950s its leaders, such as Rabbi Elmer Berger, were visiting Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon and writing about their experiences. Both Levin and Feld write about the efforts of prominent American Jewish organizations and the Israeli government to marginalize the ACJ, increase internal dissent in the organization, and seek its isolation. In this they were largely successful.
The period from 1948 to 1967, as Levin says, is the “lost generation” of American Jewish involvement with the Palestinian cause. But scratch the surface, and the critics emerge. Both Levin and Feld write about William Zukerman, a veteran journalist primarily in Yiddish publications, who, from 1948 until his death in 1961, published his Englishlanguage Jewish Newsletter. It provided a steady critique of Israel’s policies, including matters of separation of synagogue and state, its campaign against the Yiddish language, and its treatment of the Palestinians. Zukerman has been largely written out of the history of American Jewish life—for what it’s worth, I never heard of him before reading Levin and Feld. And although the Jewish Newsletter was a “little magazine” with a circulation of no more than 5,000, its supporters and sometime contributors—though Zukerman wrote most of the copy—included Hannah Arendt, illustrious New York intellectuals Alfred Kazin and Dwight Macdonald, psychologists and sociologists Erich Fromm and David Reisman, Roger Baldwin, head of the ACLU, and Socialist Party leader Norman Thomas, who in 1952 called Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians “Hitlerism in reverse.” Zukerman often made the point that liberal American Jews, outraged by McCarthyism and racial segregation, frequently looked the other way when it came to civil rights and human rights abuses by Israel. But after Zukerman’s death, the Jewish Newsletter ceased publication, and he had no successor. Also supporting Zukerman was Hans Kohn, a preeminent historian of nationalism who was a former Zionist official in Palestine who became disillusioned with Zionism, supported Brit Shalom and bi-nationalism in the 1940s, and taught for many years at City College of New York. His views on Zionism are explored in Noam Pianko’s Zionism and the Road Not Taken (2010), along with other dissenters from the Zionist consensus, among them Simon Rawidowicz. He was an eminent Jewish scholar who taught for many years at Brandeis, and who called for, in the late 1940s, a substantial return of Palestinian refugees to Israel. (He is featured in David N. Myers, Between Jew and Arab: The Lost Voice of Simon Rawidowicz, published in 2008.)
One of the key figures in Levin’s book is Don Peretz (1922–-2017), an American Jew whose father was a Sephardi born in Palestine, who in the 1950s completed –what was probably the first dissertation on Palestinian refugees. In the mid-1950s he was employed as the first Middle East expert by the officially non-Zionist but -Zionist- friendly American Jewish Committee (AJC), probably the best politically connected American Jewish organization during the Eisenhower years. The AJC, when confronting the increasing prominence of pro-Palestinian voices in the US (notably that of Fayez Sayegh (1922–1980), a Palestinian academic rescued from obscurity by Levin) rather than just reject the criticism as anti-Semitic, tried to look seriously at the problem. In 1956 a pamphlet written by Peretz, “Steps for Middle East Peace,” issued by the AJC, while hardly radical by contemporary standards—it favored resettlement of Palestinian refugees in Arab countries, but did not rule out some return of refugees to Israel– set off the alarm bells in the Israeli government, from foreign minister Golda Meir on down, and Levin details the successful efforts to persuade the AJC to part ways with Peretz. Though Peretz went on to a distinguished career as a Middle East expert, he no longer was in a position to influence policy.
Levin details other efforts by AJC officials, such as James Marshall (1896–1981), son of AJC founder Louis Marshall, to respond to the refugee question, and he discusses the continuing efforts by Israeli authorities to limit the moderate but serious efforts questioning Israel’s policy toward the Palestinians by leaders of the AJC until they eventually disappeared. Levin also discusses the efforts in the mid-1950s of the Israeli government and mainstream Jewish organizations, such as the Anti-Defamation League, to blunt the efforts of the American Friends of the Middle East (AFME), an organization backed by the CIA, to provide a perspective sympathetic to the Palestinians to Americans. (The Eisenhower administration, until the turn of Nasser and other Arab nationalists toward the Soviets in the late 1950s, was probably the most even-handed post-war administration on Israel-Palestinian matters.) Despite this, and the support of prominent journalists such as Dorothy Thompson, the AFME faltered. The CIA could overthrow Mossadegh in Iran in 1953, but it met its match in the growing Zionist consensus.
And so, because of the silencing of dissent, when the Six-Day War happened, American Jews were ill-equipped to understand the complexities of the pre-1967 relations between Israel and the Palestinians, and nonplussed in its aftermath, when Palestinian organizations, with tough antiZionist talk and armed resistance, emerged as major players in the Middle East. And as Feld notes, when many Black organizations, after 1967, became less supportive of Israel, it was another nail in the coffin of the so-called “golden age” of the Black-Jewish alliance. But after 1967 there was an increasingly prominent Jewish left that the Jewish mainstream tried to neuter, crush, or ignore. Although the Palestinian issue was not as central to this Jewish left as some of its successors—it was more concerned with the problems of American Jewish assimilation and recasting Zionism as the “national liberation movement of the Jewish people”—the question of the Palestinians and the occupation was an important issue. It was in part this left-Zionist spirit that led to the formation of Breira, which in the early 1970s became the largest and most influential left-Jewish organization of its time. When in 1976 some leaders of Breira met with moderate members of the PLO, and this was disclosed by the useful idiot of the Israeli hasbara effort, Wolf Blitzer, then working for the Jerusalem Post —it suffered a torrent of abuse from established Jewish organizations, its funding dried up, and by 1979 it ceased to be. A somewhat similar left-Jewish organization, New Jewish Agenda, was founded in 1980, and shut down operations, also primarily for financial reasons, in 1992.
Levin’s narrative ends with the end of Breira, while Feld’s goes through the early 1980s and Israel’s first invasion of Lebanon in 1982, though she discusses more recent events briefly. Perhaps one reason to end where they did was that the basic pattern of American Jewish attitudes toward Israel and Palestine have wavered perhaps, but the underlying realities have budged very little. There have been a few left-Zionist organizations with more staying power than their predecessors, such as Americans for Peace Now, founded in 1980, and J Street, founded in 2007. But Feld would argue that both fall within the “Threshold of Dissent” of her title. In order to be accepted as critics of Israel, Jewish organizations apparently first have to establish their “pro-Israel” bona fides, which muddies their critique and makes it difficult to ask fundamental questions about the nature of Zionism, and of Israel’s past and future.
And then, out of nowhere but foretold by a century of Jewish-Palestinian violence, came October 7th and the Gaza War. Levin’s book was published before October 7th. Feld’s book, appearing several months later, was able to make reference to it, but of course no one knows the long term impact on American Jewish attitudes to Israel, except that the debates have become and are likely to remain more contentious and bitter than ever. In some ways it is a changed world. For the first time since the early 20th century, anti-Zionism, has become a central part of American Jewish debate over Israel. The Jewish organization that has probably received the most attention since October 7th is the stridently anti-Zionist Jewish Voice for Peace. Israel is no longer able to squelch strong criticism from the political mainstream, Jewish or non-Jewish. The question of whether or not Israel has committed genocide in the Gaza War is, whatever your opinion, no longer a wild, rhetorical accusation, but something that has to be seriously debated. Senator and Democratic Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said recently that he had “clear and profound disagreements with the prime minister [Netanyahu], which I have voiced both privately and publicly, and will continue to do,” an astonishing statement from the “most powerful Jew in American politics.” On the other hand, the Israeli government and many American Jewish organizations are trying, with increasing desperation, to insist that nothing has changed. Schumer’s statement quoted above was a lame attempt to explain why he agreed to allow Netanyahu to address a joint session of Congress. The Jewish/Zionist establishment (which more and more relies on Christian Zionists) has pushed back on this new discourse in the only way it knows how; dismissing critics of being enemies of Israel and antisemites.
In this new and still evolving situation, what lessons can we draw from the work of Levin and Feld? Is there a new threshold of dissent? I hope, no doubt in vain, that the shopworn categories of Zionist/non-Zionist/anti-Zionist can finally be retired. There are only two positions on Israeli and Palestinian realities; there are people who are working toward a solution of the IsraelPalestine problem in which both peoples, in some arrangement, can live in dignity and a measure of equality, and there are those who are not. There are Zionists and contra-Zionists on both sides. The basic division is between people who are seriously trying to solve problems and fools who only seek to exacerbate them; between those who are helpful and those who are not.
Perhaps more than any other history, that of Israel and Palestine is one of counterfactual alternatives. We study it less to understand what actually happened, but what might have happened, of the paths not taken. The current crisis, and the work of Levin and Feld, ask us to retrace our footsteps. What if the suggestions of the critics of the 1950s had been taken seriously? What if there had been some sizable return of Palestinian refugees? What if more attention had been paid to the status of the Palestinians in Israel? What if the territorial gains of the Six-Day War had not been celebrated as a great victory but seen, from the outset, as deeply problematic?
Time has never been on the side of IsraeliPalestinian peace, though proverbial wisdom often can be found on both sides of this (and almost any other) issue. On the one hand, it is perhaps true that “time heals old wounds” but this works much better for minor cuts and abrasions than it does for the wounds of history, where there is little healing and no immune system. On the other hand, it is also true that “a stitch in time saves nine.” Generally, the sooner a problem is addressed, the easier it is to try to fix. The time to address the problems of the Israeli wars of 1948 was in 1949. The best time to think through the consequences of the Six Day War was in 1967 and 1968. As for what comes after the Gaza War, there is no time like the present. As monumentally difficult as positive steps forward seem in 2024, they will be that much more difficult in 2034 or 2044 if the underlying causes of the war are allowed to fester. The deep and profound changes needed in both Jewish and Palestinian society and politics won’t be found on any conventional Zionist or antiZionist to-do list. The persons and organizations Levin and Feld write about knew this. They were not always right, but we can learn from their clear thinking. And we can admire and emulate their bravery, their refusal to be cowed or intimidated by their many dismissive critics, and their political and intellectual courage.
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Peter Eisenstadt is a member of the board of Partners for Progressive Israel and the author of Against the Hounds of Hell: A Biography of Howard Thurman (University of Virginia, 2021).
Dear Senators Durbin, Merkley, Warren, Welch, Van Hollen, Warnock, Murray, and Sanders, and Representatives Adams, Bowman, Bush, Carson, Casar, Frost, García, Jackson, Jayapal, Lee, Lee, Ocasio-Cortez, Omar, Pressley, Ramirez, Tlaib, Velázquez, Watson Coleman, Johnson, Pocan, Castro, Escobar, McCollum, McGovern, Waters, Mfume, Green, Beyer, Scanlon, Grijalva, Balint, Vasquez, DeSaulnier, Garamendi, Garcia, Raskin, Phillips, Jacobs, Cleaver, Khanna, Carter, Doggett, Schakowsky, Dingell, Underwood, Kildee, Cárdenas, Thompson, Williams, Foushee, Bishop, Payne, Sewell, Wexton, DeGette, Takano, McGarvey Pingree, Stansburg, Lynch, Lofgren, Houlahan, Chu, Connolly, Dean, Trahan, Kelly, Bonamici, Tonko, Rochester, Crow, Sánchez, Sherrill, Smith, Gomez, Clark, Kim, Leger Fernández, Barragan, Blumenauer, Courtney, Crockett, Garcia, Holmes Norton, Thompson, and Tokuda –
We, the undersigned, join Partners for Progressive Israel in thanking you for the leadership and moral and strategic clarity you have displayed in calling for a ceasefire in the ongoing Israel-Hamas war.
Since February, Partners for Progressive Israel has been calling on Members of Congress as well as the U.S. administration to publicly support an immediate bilateral ceasefire. All Israeli hostages held by Hamas must be allowed to return home. All necessary food and humanitarian aid must be allowed to enter Gaza to support Gaza’s civilians and allow the area’s reconstruction.
A ceasefire deal must also be the prelude to unrelenting diplomatic efforts so that the Middle East can transition to a new reality in which all living in the region enjoy security, human rights, and national self-determination. This will include the revitalization of the Palestinian Authority, Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza, and U.S. and European recognition of a State of Palestine alongside the State of Israel.
We see that President Biden’s red line – an incursion into Rafah – has been crossed, with catastrophic results. We are heartened to see this administration’s calls to end this violence and the war, but these statements must be met with meaningful action. Our partners in the Land are asking us as Americans to stand up and amplify their call to the US government to make good on its promises to stop providing offensive weapons to the Israeli military.
Partners for Progressive Israel has always stood behind the legitimacy of the State of Israel to exist as a sovereign home where the Jewish people expresses its national identity, right to self-determination, and right to security. We see this position as axiomatic, while believing that the Palestinian people have no lesser rights to the same.
Israel’s fundamental legitimacy, however, does not, must not, mean that the specific policies crafted and conducted by a government of Israel should enjoy unquestioned, carte-blanche American support. Now, with Israel being led by the most extreme government in its history, a government whose members unabashedly flaunt their racism, militarism, and supremacism, we believe we must now cast away the norm that says Israel’s government deserves a blank American check, no matter what actions it takes or decisions it makes.
For more than three decades, our organization has, when necessary, criticized specific Israeli government policies based on our unwavering commitment to human rights and equality, as promised in Israel’s own Declaration of Independence, and as expressed in the writings of the Jewish prophets and sages. We regard this call to set conditions on offensive military aid to be an extension of our tradition as well as a reflection of the urgent demands being made by our partner organizations in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territory.
We likewise take note as Americans that U.S. foreign aid is a tool expressly designed to promote American policies around the world, the stated objectives of which include peace and security, democratic governance, and unimpeded humanitarian assistance.
Israel is the largest recipient of American largesse, and its government’s willingness to accept offensive military aid must oblige a parallel acceptance of these American aims. We urge you, therefore, for the good of the region, including of Israel itself, to support an end to the blank-check approach, which is allowing Israel’s government to accept U.S. offensive aid while flouting American interests, Jewish values, and human rights, as well as explicit U.S. statutory requirements.
In this crucial moment, we sign this letter to urge you to listen to the voices of the courageous Israelis and Palestinians who are demanding peace and take the next vital step: tell this administration to end the blank check providing offensive weapons to Israel.
We thank you again for your leadership on these issues.
Sincerely,
| Name – First Name | Name – Last Name | City | State | | Tammy | Bullock | Ramona | CA | | Judith | Ackerman | New York | NY | | Charles | Arian | Montgomery | MD | | Martin | Horwitz | San Francisco | CA | | Martha | Kransdorf | Ann Arbor | MI | | Stephanie | Schlaifer | University City | MO | | Moshe | Granit | New York | NY | | Leonard | Grob | Nyack | NY | | Lauren | Murdock | Santa Barbara | CA | | David | Gill | Canton | OH | | Paul | Scham | Washington | DC | | Russ | Ziegler | Downers Grove | IL | | Lenore | Pritt | Reston | VA | | Michael | Dover | Bratenahl | OH | | Rose | Levinson | Albany | CA | | Harlan | Baker | Portland | ME | | Leslie | Spoon | Baywood-Los Osos | CA | | John | Sondheim | Baltimore | MD | | Sarah | Burns | Valley Glen | CA | | Ted | Hochstadt | Falls Church | VA | | David | Abraham | Monroe | NJ | | Sheila | Geist | New York | NY | | Richard | Hyman | Port Chester | NY | | Syed | Ahmad | Rochester | NY | | Carole | Fabricant | Venice | CA | | Jonathan | 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| JL | Angell | Rescue | CA | | Karen | Lull | Claremont | CA | | Andrea | Levy | New York | NY | | Joseph | Hillyard | New York | NY | | Judith | Eisenberg | Williston | VT | | James | Kawamura | Fontana | CA | | Ruth | Ben-Artzi | Providence | RI | | Saab | Lofton | Seattle | WA | | YngVe | Davidsson | Uddevalla | NY | | Nancy | Mueller | Longmeadow | MA | | Arthur | Schurr | New York | NY | | Harold | Hodes | Ithaca | NY | | Alan | Saunders | Sacramento | CA | | Gloria | Donohue | Larkspur | CA | | Jeffrey | Warner | Los Angeles | CA | | Robert | McFarland | Hollywood | FL | | Karen | Shapiro | Los Angeles | CA | | Jacob | Picheny | Berkeley | CA | | Diana | Ordin | Silver Spring | MD | | Steven | Lowenthal | Brooklyn | NY | | Carl | Offner | Sudbury | MA | | Marcelle | Grant | Santa Fe | NM | | Marilyn | Mick | San Antonio | TX | | Lisa | Lieberman | Bainbridge Island | WA | | Daniel | Halperin | Cambridge | MA | | Marjorie | Hanft | Charleston | IL | | Leslie | Lomas | Boulder | 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| CA | | Randy | Lopez | League City | TX | | Fred | Granlund | North Hollywood | CA | | Harold | Watson | Springfield | MO | | Greta Vicki | Dodick | Thunder Bay | ON | | Jonathan | Tholl | Needham | MA | | Steven | Millan | Las Vegas | NV | | Katherine | Kohrman | Newtown | CT | | Judy | Kaye | Providence | RI | | John | Lucas | Montreal | QC | | Jane | Rubin | Berkeley | CA | | Dr. Allen | Schwab | Chesterfield | MO | | Gregg | Manoff | Santa Fe | NM | | Karen | Stickney | Lewiston | ME | | Virginia | Jastromb | Northampton | MA | | Ruth | Potts | Edgewater | MD | | Michael | Sarabia | Stockton | CA | | Nina | Bernstein | New York | NY | | Paul | Afek | Albuquerque | NM | | Leslie | Neustadt | Schenectady | NY | | Richard | Alan | Richland | WA | | Tania | Malven | Tucson | AZ | | Adam | Levine | Seattle | WA | | Maryellen | Redish | Palm Springs | CA | | Lynn C. | Lang | St. Cloud | MN | | Lynn | Weisberg | San Diego | CA | | R M | Selya | Cincinnati | OH | | Steven | Kranowski | Blacksburg | VA | | Dominique | Mazeaud | Santa Fe | NM | | Joseph | Favale | Green Island | NY | | Leslie J | Yerman | Stamford | CT | | Ben | Sharif | Brooklyn | NY | | Eliezer | Margolis | Mill Valley | CA | | Philip | Wilcox | Bethesda | Md | | Michael | Jacobson | Bridgeport | CT | | June | Fait | New York | NY | | Carolyn | Haupt | Alexandria | VA | | Art | Hanson | Lansing | MI | | Susan | Trivisonno | San Jose | CA | | Christopher | Macdonald-Dennis | Salem | MA | | Rene | Mueller | Isle of Palms | SC | | Robin | Van Tassell | Summerland | CA | | William | Hochhausen | Pomona | NY | | Joe | Newman-Getzler | New York | NY | | Patricia | Dion | Strongsville | OH | | Esther | Nelson | Lake Oswego | OR | | Batya | Billinkoff | Rochester | NY | | Irit | Ben Moshe | Hertzliya | Israel | | Martha Schwartz | Bragin | Brooklyn | NY | | Greg | Perkins | Long Beach | CA | | Lynne | Jacobs | Philadelphia | PA | | Michael | Iltis | Madison | WI | | Adam | Chaikof | Arlington | VA | | Guadalupe | Yanez | El Paso | TX | | Edward | Blumenthal | St. Louis | MO | | Jessica | Chaikof | Waltham | MA | | Sanford | Goldfless | Brookline | MA | | Jessica | Kaz | Chicago | IL | | Ian | Chesir-Teran | South Orange | NJ | | Gili | Nir | Astoria | NY | | Miriam | Landman | Corvallis | OR | | Chris | Macdonald-Dennis | Salem | MA | | Steve | Kutay | Santa Fe | NM | | Claire | Lichtenstein | Santa Fe | NM | | Janine | Baer | El Cerrito | CA | | Janet | Kolodner | Brookline | MA | | Hila | Ratzabi | Oak Park | IL | | Lauren | Tuchman | Bethesda | MD | | Sally | Blazar | Jamaica Plain | MA | | Lenny | Obolsky | Centennial | CO | | Allen | Schwab | Chesterfield | MO | | Judy | Kaye | Providence | RI | | Ted | Hochstadt | Falls Church | VA | | Leslie | Neustadt | Schenectady | NY | | Jessica | Haney | Washington | DC | | Randy | Lopez | League City | TX | | Abigail | Cobb | Yellow Springs | OH | | Yoni | Slater | Brighton | MA | | Naomi | Traub | Brooklyn | NY | | Lev | Cohen | Raleigh | NC | | Shira | Kogan | New York | NY | | Barbara | Wien | Arlington | VA | | Emily | Umansky | New York | NY | | Nicholas | Geballe | Washington | DC | | Judah | Altman | Philadelphia | PA | | Paula | Weiss | Boght Corners | NY | | Lee | Margulies | Stony Brook | NY | | Jean | Oppenheimer | San Antonio | TX | | Fred | Granlund | North Hollywood | CA | | Sirina | Sucklal | Savage | MD | | JL | Angell | Rescue | CA | | Steven | Nasir | Ashburn | VA | | Harold | Hodes | Ithaca | NY | | Richard | Nochimson | Bronx | NY | | Laura | Doliner | Los Alamitos | CA | | Philip | Barry | Evanston | IL | | Eric | Cohen | Flemington | NJ | | Martin | Horwitz | San Francisco | CA | | David | Abraham | Monroe | NJ | | Andrea | Levy | New York | NY | | Jesse | Kleinman | Seattle | WA | | Belita | Leal | Houston | TX | | Anne | Craig | Asheville | NC | | Laurie | Pollack | Lansdowne | PA | | Bernardo | Zylberberg | Kfar Saba | Israel | | Tammy | Bullock | Ramona | CA | | Janet | Kolodner | Brookline | MA | | Ellen | Kaye | Philadelphia | PA | | Moshe | Granit | New York | NY | | Brad | Jolly | Brighton | CO | | Sheila | Weinberg | Philadelphia | PA | | Bruce | Ross | Katy | TX | | Christopher | Clarke | Rochester | NY | | Myra | Shapiro | New York | NY | | Lois | Jordan | Tucson | AZ | | Alex | Madonik | Berkeley | CA | | Stephen | Russell | La Canada | CA | | Maggie | Weisberg | Bellingham | Wa | | Lenny | Obolsky | Centennial | CO | | Roslyn | Jones | North Palm Springs | CA | | Marci | Gerston | Los Altos | CA | | Jeff | Warner | Los Angeles | CA | | Farley | Cates | Victoria | BC | | Maria | Rudzinski | Pittsford | NY | | Julie | Seltzer | Beacon | NY | | Leslie | Spoon | Baywood-Los Osos | CA | | Jenny Amanda | Hurwitz | New York | NY | | Sandi | Hebley | Dallas | TX | | William | Welkowitz | Arlington | VA | | John | Torpey | Montclair | NJ | | Michael | Dover | Cleveland | OH | | Anthony | Warshaw | London | UK | | J | Cypis | Otho | IA | | Alan | Saunders | Sacramento | CA | | Noa | Bornstein | Brooklyn | NY | | Susan | Miller | Philadelphia | PA | | Arthur | Schurr | New York | NY | | Carl | Offner | Sudbury | MA | | Bennett | Simon | Jamaica Plain | MA | | Chris | Scholl | Neptune City | NJ | | Susan | Trivisonno | San Jose | CA | | Marty | Jaye | San Francisco | CA | | Rabbi Binyamin | Biber | Silver Spring | MD | | Sam | Fleischacker | Evanston | IL | | Marcelle | Grant | Santa Fe | NM | | James | Sliger | Houston | TX | | Jim | Berger | Rochester | NY | | Zeva | Shapiro | New York | NY | | Dallas | Windham | Fort Worth | TX | | Kevin | Walsh | Madison | CT | | Nathan | Fuchs | Lathrup Village | MI | | Michael | Iltis | Madison | WI | | Rafi | Siegel | Potomac | MD | | Annette | Gottlieb | Los Angeles | CA | | Harold | Watson | Springfield | MO | | Barbara | Epstein | Berkeley | CA | | Thomas | Walsh | Tucson | AZ | | Patricia | Dion | Strongsville | OH | | Nancy | Woolley | Stoughton | MA | | John | Anderson | Vienna | VA | | Maryellen | Redish | Palm Springs | CA | | Nina | Bernstein | New York | NY | | Rainer | Waldman Adkins | Seattle | WA | | Leo | Kucewicz | Bryn Mawr | PA | | Vicki | Dodick | Thunder Bay | ON | | Richard | Alan | Richland | WA | | Oded | Borowski | Decatur | GA | | Michael | Sarabia | Stockton | CA | | Virginia | Jastromb | Northampton | MA | | Rachael | Resch | Ashland | OR | | Leslie | Neustadt | Schenectady | NY | | Ellen | Stone | Somerville | MA | | Ceevah | Sobel | Menlo Park | CA | | Nancy | Fleischer | Sacramento | CA | | Marion | Malcolm | Eugene | OR | | Robert | Romero | Houston | TX | | Adam | Levine | Seattle | WA | | LAcey | Hicks | Fremont | CA | | Joel S | Grantz | Cherry Hill | NJ | | Tessa | Fischer | Deerfied | IL | | Lew | Weiss | Indianapolis | IN | | Gili | Getz | New York | NY | | Sonia | Alland | New York | NY | | Ruth | Potts | Edgewater | MD | | Judith | Shapiro | New York | NY | | Linda | Rhine | Oakland | CA | | Jon | Kaufman | Oakland | CA | | Michael | Keren | Jerusalem | IL | | Paul | Eisenberg | Baltimore | MD | | Lauren | Murdock | Santa Barbara | CA | | Paul | Beck | Sherman Oaks | CA | | Art | Hanson | Lansing | MI | | Helen | Greer | Tucson | AZ | | Michael | Jacobson | Bridgeport | CT | | Anat | Meiri | Brooklyn | NY | | Sally | Blazar | Jamaica Plain | MA | | Gretchen | Graves | Hagerstown | MD | | Kimberly | Wiley | Rochester | NY | | Tania | Malven | Tucson | AZ | | Edward | Blumenthal | St. Louis | MO |
May 24th, 2024 – Partners for Progressive Israel wishes to express our support of the nations of Ireland, Spain, and Norway in their commitment to recognize a Palestinian state as of May 28th, 2024. These nations join over 140 countries – two thirds of the United Nations – including several of their European neighbors. PPI has long supported the recognition of a Palestinian state alongside a secure and democratic Israel – indeed, as we have called for over 30 years for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, we have always understood that this necessitates an end to the Occupation of the Palestinian Territories and international support for and recognition of Palestinian self-determination.
Furthermore, we encourage the Biden Administration and our American Jewish community to express their support for this positive political movement in the long-term pursuit for a two-state solution in the region, one that allows for freedom, self-determination, and security for both Israelis and Palestinians.
“Recognition of a Palestinian state is neither a condemnation of Israel, nor a ‘reward’ for Hamas after the terror attacks of October 7th,” said Rabbi Margo Hughes-Robinson, PPI’s Executive Director. “Rather, this is a recognition of the Palestinian people’s right to self-determination, and a historic step towards a political solution for peace for all Israelis and Palestinians: one marked by diplomacy and lasting security instead of an ongoing war that has been characterized by mass death and human rights abuses. We continue to seek an immediate bilateral ceasefire, a return of the hostages, and a real peace for all people living in the region.”
KOLOT – Voices of Hope, Post-October 7 Series
Physicians for Human Rights – IsraelPartners for Progressive Israel launched our “Kolot: Voices of Hope” series in 2018. We realized at the time that, while those “in the know” were aware of the remarkable Israelis and Palestinians, Jews and Arabs, standing up, in a hostile political environment, for values of peace, social justice, human and civil rights, and democracy, their activities were rarely being noticed or covered by American mainstream media outlets. “Kolot” seeks to help remedy that situation.
In recent weeks, we’ve been sharing updates on the important efforts being made since the horrific events of October 7 by many of the organizations featured in “Kolot”. We’ve checked in with Women Wage Peace, Combatants for Peace, and the Hagar multicultural/bilingual school. Today we look at the recent activity of Physicians for Human Rights Israel (PHRI), an organization we first featured in September 2020, during the height of the pandemic.
In the immediate aftermath of October 7, PHRI launched an Emergency Response, which included providing medical aid for the Israeli communities and their survivors that were evacuated away from the Gaza border, as well as for Thai workers similarly evacuated.
Utilizing their communication channels with Gazan health officials, PHRI also lent support to the Israeli hostages by providing a list of the medications they required as well as information about those believed to have been seriously injured and in need of medical care. PHRI has made clear that hostage taking is prohibited as a war crime, that the hostages should be unconditionally released, and that, at minimum, there was an obligation to make sure of their well-being during captivity.
Guided by a universal concern for all civilians, medical personnel, and health facilities, PHRI has also been a leading voice warning against the impact of Israeli military operations. PHRI saw the unfolding humanitarian crisis in Gaza early on, and has been endorsing a ceasefire and release of hostages since November while condemning indiscriminate Israeli bombing.
PHRI has been a regular part of other ceasefire calls issued jointly by Israel-based civil society and human rights organizations (many of which have been featured in the Kolot series), which have also included a demand for the “unfettered entry and delivery of humanitarian aid throughout Gaza”.
PHRI has consistently stated that deliberate harm to innocent civilians is illegal and immoral. This, of course, applies to Hamas’ actions on October 7, which PHRI described as a war crime that included incidents of sexual and gender-based violence, as well as to Israel’s policy of keeping aid crossings into Gaza closed, since this amounts to a policy of promoting starvation among Gaza’s inhabitants.
In its advocacy work, PHRI has also been paying particular attention to and highlighting the dangers to Gaza’s healthcare system. In November, it issued an important position paper on “The Harming of Medical Personnel and Facilities” and in February on “The Destruction of Gaza’s Healthcare Infrastructure During Israel’s Military Offensive“. In November, after dozens of Israeli physicians had published a letter calling on Israel’s army to completely destroy hospitals in Gaza, calling them “hornet nests” for terrorism, PHRI quickly organized a counter-letter undersigned by a wide array of doctors and healthcare professionals, which read in part: “The citizens of Israel can and must be protected through various means. Annihilating civilians in Gaza is not one of them.”
While maintaining a focus on Gaza, PHRI has also kept its eyes on the deteriorating situation on the West Bank, where escalating expulsions, land expropriations, and settler and army violence since October 7 constitute a clear detriment to both physical and psychological health. To document these developments, PHRI issued a report in late March, “The Consequences of Settler Violence and Forced Displacement on the Health and Wellbeing of Palestinian Communities in Area C”.
This past Sunday, May 5, we were honored to host Lee Caspi, Director of Resource Development at PHRI, as a panelist at the opening session of our virtual Israel-Palestine Symposium. The Symposium continues on May 19, June 2, and June 23 (full details here.)
A Message from Our Executive Director: April 15th, 2024
Partners for Progressive Israel is deeply alarmed by the events of this weekend, firstly the unprecedented attack on Israel by Iran. This vast majority of this bombardment of rockets and drones were thankfully intercepted and neutralized, and we are grateful for the international coalition of regional and international partners — including Jordan, the US, France, and Britain — whose cooperation made this possible.
We recognize that this attack arrived in the context of ongoing decades of tension and low-grade proxy conflict between Israel and Iran, and that the Iranian government has framed their decision to attack in response to the recent Israeli bombing of the Iranian consulate in Damascus. Nevertheless, this weekend’s bombardment represents a serious escalation on the part of the Iranian government.
Our hearts are with the family and community of the seven year old Bedouin girl who is recovering from severe wounds after this attack, the first direct attack on Israel by a state in over thirty years.
We also witnessed with fear the events of this weekend in the West Bank where, concurrent to the anxiety of Iran’s missile and drone attack, residents mourned the death of a fourteen year old Jewish settler who had been reported missing. Investigations into his disappearance and death are ongoing, but many settlers responded through attempts to terrorize the Palestinian community across several villages through setting fires, property and infrastructure damage, and physically injuring multiple people.
In Gaza, the humanitarian crisis continues to escalate with over 33,000 Palestinians killed —two thirds of whom are understood to be women and children — and the lack of sufficient aid continues to push the population towards famine.
In this moment of crisis, we urge regional deescalation, and continue to seek a hostage deal and bilateral ceasefire. Occupation and further ideological investment in supremacy and chauvinism by the Netanyahu government will deliver only isolation and additional destruction. The regional coordination demonstrated in response to Iran’s attack provides a window into a vision for broader regional cooperation between Israel and its Arab state neighbors, the fruition of decades of peacebuilding agreements pursued by Israel and its partners. In this moment we feel it is clear that peace and diplomacy are what bring security, not the other way around.
Rabbi Margo Hughes-Robinson
Rabbi Margo Hughes-Robinson is the Executive Director of Partners for Progressive Israel
Partners for Progressive Israel has always stood behind the legitimacy of the State of Israel to exist as a sovereign home where the Jewish people expresses its national identity, its right to self-determination, and its right to security. We continue to do so and see this position as axiomatic, and regard the Palestinian people as having no lesser rights to the same.
Israel’s fundamental legitimacy, however, does not, and must not, mean that the specific policies crafted and conducted by a government of Israel should enjoy our unquestioned, carte-blanche support. For more than three decades, we have regularly criticized a variety of Israeli policies based on an unwavering commitment to human rights and equality, as promised in Israel’s own Declaration of Independence, as well as in the writings of our prophets and sages.
Sadly, recent months have seen the Israeli government and its members veer radically further from the norms we hold dear, both as Jews and as Americans. Israel had a complete and legitimate right to respond to Hamas’ unspeakable barbarism of October 7. That right to self-defense, however, cannot justify the dehumanization and ongoing mass, collective punishment of the Palestinian people, which constitute a violation of international law.
In Gaza, more than two-thirds of the over 32,000 Palestinian fatalities are credibly estimated to be women and children. Israel, now the undeniable occupier of almost the entire Strip, is the power legally accountable for the spread of starvation and disease and the collapse of Gaza’s health and hospital infrastructure. Israel’s government, as President Biden indicated in his State of the Union speech, appallingly regards the humanitarian disaster in Gaza as a “secondary consideration” and aid as a “bargaining chip,” attitudes that undoubtedly led to the horrific killing of seven World Central Kitchen aid workers on April 1, on top of those of many thousands of Palestinian civilians over the past six months. Meanwhile, the Netanyahu government has resisted international demands to produce any semblance of a reasonable plan for the “day after”. The dismal “horizon” that Netanyahu offers is one in which Palestinians, in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, will live under unending Israeli military domination.
The situation as it stands is untenable.There must be a bilateral ceasefire which includes a deal for all the hostages to return home. All necessary food and aid must be allowed into Gaza to support the Gazan civilians. The ceasefire must be the prelude to intensive diplomatic efforts to begin a transition to a new reality in the Middle East. Our position stems from valuing human rights, social justice, security and self-determination for all living in the region; We encourage the Biden administration to take significant steps to achieve these goals, including, if deemed necessary, the conditioning of offensive military aid in order for this horrible nightmare to end.
U.S foreign aid is a tool to promote American policy around the world, the stated objectives of which include peace and security, democratic governance, and humanitarian assistance. Indeed, the U.S. Foreign Assistance Act stipulates that military aid may not be provided to a country that prevents U.S. humanitarian aid from reaching its intended recipients. Israel is the largest recipient of American largesse, and its willingness to accept offensive military aid must imply an acceptance of American objectives. We appreciate the Biden administration’s call for Israel to take concrete and measurable action to mitigate any further civilian death, to allow for the delivery of humanitarian aid, and to take immediate steps towards a bilateral ceasefire agreement.
Yet Israeli prime minister Netanyahu has continued to thumb his nose at President Biden, including repeatedly vowing to expand Israel’s offensive into Rafah, despite repeated American warnings about the absence of a coherent civilian evacuation plan. Senator Schumer’s March 13 speech, which we have wholeheartedly applauded, made exactly this point.
We should note that conditioning aid to Israel has a long history. In 1991, for example, President George H.W. Bush, to his credit, refused to support loan guarantees to Israel unless Israel halted settlement construction and agreed to participate in the international peace conference in Madrid. He maintained this opposition until the next year, when a newly-elected prime minister, Yitzhak Rabin, provided the linkage he sought. In 2024, Israel cannot accept continued offensive military materials and funding while making it impossible for Gazan civilians to access humanitarian aid that ensures the basic necessities of life, including food, water, medical supplies, and electricity.
Netanyahu’s Israel has repeatedly failed to behave as an American ally, refusing to acknowledge that the provision of humanitarian aid is Israel’s legal obligation. In these circumstances, a U.S. administration would be justified in making its delivery of offensive military aid conditional on adherence to its foreign aid goals.
Dahlia Scheindlin, The Crooked Timber of Democracy in Israel: Promise Unfulfilled (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2023)Review by Peter Eisenstadt
The year 2023 will certainly go down as the strangest year in Israel’s history, and the most consequential since at least 1967. (We now, in March 2024, are still living what might be called the “long 2023.”) It was a year of two monumental events, at first glance not closely connected. The year 2023 actually began a little early, on 29 December 2022, when Benjamin Netanyahu began his 6th term as prime minister, after his coalition won the fifth election held in Israel over a four year span. There was much talk during the “time of the five elections” of the instability of Israeli democracy, and the coalition that took power at the end of 2022 indeed seemed more politically stable than its four predecessors. But it immediately plunged Israel into its greatest period of domestic politically instability, perhaps since the days of the S.S. Altalena. In 2023 the massive weekly demonstrations against the Netanyahu government was not about a single administration and its judicial agenda. The fight was for Israeli democracy, and a debate about what it means, how to preserve and protect it, how to defend it against its enemies, foreign and domestic, and how to strengthen it. And what led the government to pause the push for their un-democratic, so-called “judicial reform” was not the nine months of weekly protests, involving hundreds of thousands of Israeli citizens, but Hamas.
The unprecedented barbarities and atrocities of October 7th were followed by the still-ongoing devastation of the Gaza war that began that afternoon. Although on 1 January 2024 the Israeli Supreme Court struck down the Knesset’s recent change to the “reasonableness” clause that had been the catalyst for the democracy demonstrations, this was, as important a story as it was, basically a one-day coda, and then back to news of the war. But our political task now, as will be the task of future historians and scholars, is to connect the two parts of 2023. What is the link between Israeli democracy and Israeli and Palestinian security and insecurity? Can a truly democratic society be in a perpetual state of war with its neighbors? Is Israel the “only democracy in the Middle East” or rather is it that “only in the Middle East would Israel be considered a democracy?”
Dahlia Scheindlin has been for a number of years been one of the most penetrating commentators on Israeli politics, and those questions and many others are explored in her timely and deeply insightful new book, TheCrookedTimberofDemocracyinIsrael, an exploration of Israeli democracy from Ben-Gurion to Ben-Gvir, both in theory and practice. When I think of the strengths and weaknesses of Israeli democracy, what first comes to mind first is the unique Israeli obsession with not being a “freier,” best translated as a sucker or patsy. A freier is one who hasn’t yet realized that rules such as traffic laws or queuing on lines exist only for those too stupid to follow them, and that life with all of its complexities grants a permanent exemption from rule-obedience to those with the chutzpah to take it. For secular Israelis, perhaps one reason that not following rules achieved such cultural significance was to make as sharp a division as possible with the Haredim, for whom, to outsiders, the whole point of their lives can seem to be to submit themselves to the yoke of rules, as many as possible, the more onerous and binding the better. Israelis have never decided whether the essence of democracy is the freedom to follow rules or the freedom to not follow rules.
David Ben-Gurion was definitely not a freier. Scheindlin quotes David Ben-Gurion, in the 1930s, sparring with the Revisionist Zionists for control of the Jewish Agency, as saying “we have a principle more dear to us than democracy, and it is the building of Palestine by Jews.” The new Zionist man and woman, thought Ben-Gurion, were creating a society of non-freiers, Jews tired of being diaspora patsies, people who would knew when to follow rules (the rules Ben-Gurion liked) and when not to do so. And so for Ben- Gurion, argues Scheindlin, democracy was a nice idea, as long as it didn’t curtail his power too much.
As for Ben-Gurion’s great rival, Vladimir Jabotinsky, his views on democracy were at once more liberal and more illiberal than Ben-Gurion’s, leaving a “complex legacy” that, as Scheindlin argues, “sometimes seems irreconcilable with itself.” Jabotinsky, much more directly than Ben-Gurion, wrote of the importance of democracy as a Zionist ideal, and even of power sharing with an Arab minority. But that was always premised on first creating a Jewish majority. One problem with democracy is that the principle of “one person, one vote” always works better if you are confident that you have more persons and votes on your side. Until 1948, it was not clear where this Jewish majority would come from or, as Scheindlin says, that among the Zionist leaders of the Yishuv, “democracy in a robust sense was compromised, secondary, and subordinate in the overriding aim of creating a Jewish majority.” (Israel solved the problem of democratic representativeness in 1967 by adopting a “one person, no vote” policy for Palestinians in the newly-conquered territories.)
In 1948 Israel promulgated a Declaration of Independence – one that, as Scheindlin notes, does not include the word “democracy.” And Israel remains one of the very few democratic countries without a constitution. There were many reasons for this, including that defining the limits of established religion in a country in which shul and state were promiscuously co-mingled would have been politically difficult, and perhaps especially, not wanting to spell out the minimum rights afforded to Palestinians in a country in which they were viewed as a hostile and unwanted minority. In 1949 Ben-Gurion opposed the idea of a citizenship law because civil rights for Arabs “undermine our moral right to this country.” (And when a citizenship law was finally passed in 1952 a majority of Palestinians did not qualify.) Most fundamentally, Ben-Gurion opposed a constitution because he came to “oppose the very principle of limiting the power of the state and the legislature, of hindering the rule of the majority.” The opposition to the principle of judicial review did not begin with Netanyahu. In 1948 Ben-Gurion stated that “the American constitution has turned into a conservative, reactionary institution that stands against the will of the people,” and he well might have been largely correct in that assessment of the American constitutionalism, pre-Brownv.BoardofEducation, but at least the US Constitution grapples with the problems of eliminating all anti-majoritarian safeguards in governance. To address this, in 1950 Israel adopted the notion of “Basic Laws,” providing a sort of quasi-constitutional patina to a non-constitutional legal system, though they only require a parliamentary majority to be adopted, amended, or repealed. And until 1992, most Basic Laws concerned governmental structures and had nothing to say about human rights.
In any event, Israel was no in rush to promulgate Basic Laws. It was not until 1958 that Israel approved its first one, so laws as fundamental, as basic, to the structures of Israeli governance and society as the Law of Return (1950), the Abandoned Property Act (also 1950), and the Law of Rabbinic Courts (1953) are not Basic Laws. It was not until 1969 that Bergmanv.MinistryofFinance,established something like the principle of judicial review by the Supreme Court, though it was a far weaker version than that found in American jurisprudence. It was not until 1992 that Israel adopted a Basic Law, the Human Dignity and Liberty Act, that addressed human rights, and this was eroded and modified by the Nation- State Basic Law of 2018.
Scheindlin concludes that “the least democratic decades” in Israel’s history were the first, from 1948 to 1966, when Israel’s Palestinian residents were under a military regime that attempted to control every aspect of their lives. And it was during these years that the Labor Zionist hegemony, and its institutions such as the Histadrut, were at their most ubiquitous and overbearing. This began to crack thereafter, and perhaps the deepest irony Scheindlin’s book is her contention that the decades after 1967 saw a real expansion of internal Israel democracy, at the same that the conquests of 1967 gave a profound new impetus to Israel’s anti-democratic forces. The debate over the Israel’s future, with the decline of Labor Zionism and the rise of Likud in the 1980s and 1990s, created, for the only time in Israel’s history, some real competition between the center-left and center-right coalitions, and as Scheindlin notes, “Israel looked briefly like a two-party system.” Dovish political parties, like Dash, Ratz, Shinui, Hadash, and Meretz seemed to be proliferating and gathering momentum, while in 1988 the Knesset banned Kach, the party of Meir Kahane, from running in the next election,
calling out its “incitement to racism.” As noted above, the push for civil rights finally resulted in a Basic Law passed in 1992, as piecemeal and inadequate as it was. In the 1990s gender equality, LGBTQ rights, even somewhat loosening the grip of the ultra-Orthodox rabbinate over civil society seemed to be progressing. And most importantly, there was a peace process that might actually address Israel’s most basic problem was underway.
But we know happened next, or what didn’t happen next, the so-called “turning point in Israel’s history that didn’t turn.” After 1996, with the first election of Benjamin Netanyahu as prime minister, the parabola of democracy in Israel had reached its apex, and then began its slow but steady vertiginous descent. In retrospect, certainly from a post- October 7th perspective, the single most significant event in this decline was the 2005 unilateral disengagement from Gaza, which revitalized the Israeli far right. The disengagement violated their assumption that all Israeli governments would, in the end, defend their liberty to settle, in Scheindlin words, “in all parts of the land,” and certainly that no Israeli government would ever forcibly remove them from Gaza. And they couldn’t believe that Ariel Sharon, as prime minister, as head of Likud, their party and the representative of their side, had done this. There needed to be a party to the right of Likud and Likud needed to be pushed to the right. The Gaza disengagement sparked the rise of the fascist right, and breathed new life into the fading embers of Kahanism.
For everyone else, the need for the disengagement should have been evidence that the settlement enterprise was dangerously overextended, that Israel could not indefinitely juggle Gaza, the West Bank, and East Jerusalem, while ignoring legitimate Palestinian aspirations for self-determination. On October 7th the juggling ended. The barbarities of that day will forever be seared into Jewish memories. Everything fell down. All of the forces of the IDF will not be able to put things back together again. And a purely military solution is the only thing that the current Israeli government knows how to do, striking back against Gaza in what amounts to a barely controlled rage, largely indifferent to the fate of civilian Gazans. Many wars have no winning side, only losers. There will be no winner of the Gaza War.
Scheindlin’s book had the misfortune to be published in September 2023, sort of like publishing a book about Israel in May 1967. Certainly, many of the old October 6th realities of Israeli and Palestinian life are gone forever. The question of democracy, that so dominated Israeli debate in 2023 until October 7th, seems insignificant, a second-order internal Israeli matter in comparison to the horrors and the global implications of the Gaza War. However, the question of the future of democracy in Israel, and the relevance of her book, has only grown more significant since its publication.
When it comes to democracy in Israel, as Scheindlin shows, there never has been a golden age, and there can be, or should be, no nostalgia for a past that never was. Israel was built, as the book’s title emphasizes, on crooked timber, the title borrowed from a quote from the German philosopher Immanuel Kant, that “out of the crooked timber of humanity no straight thing was ever made.” Anything that Israel builds is likely to be somewhat off-kilter, especially anything having to do with Palestinians. Everything that Israel has tried, for a century, has failed. Palestinians have their own failures, but neither side can take comfort or exculpation from the failures of their counterparts. Israel can take another lesson from Kant, one of our great moral philosophers. He insisted that a law is not a valid law unless you try to make it apply to everybody, and make it universal. A country with two of sets of laws for two different groups of people is not a country with twice as much law but a country with no laws at all. Lawlessness begins when people can choose what set of laws they wish to follow. Lawlessness happens when people think there are no negative consequences for not following rules or laws, or when a nation tries to maintain its own sense of security by enforcing the insecurity of others. That will end, perhaps, in the needed post-war reckoning.
There was, after October 7th, an initial outpouring of sympathy for Israel and for those murdered in the Hamas atrocities. Much of that goodwill for Israel has since been eroded. I am not sure how much of a rise in antisemitism there has been since, but there certainly has been a vast increase in what is being called “anti- Israelism;” those who look at Israel and see nothing but a sordid history of a murderous colonial settler state. This is just a caricature of a very complex history, but it will only be effectively refuted if Israel can summon the best aspects of its democratic past. This was on display during the democracy protests of 2023, with its out-of-doors vigor, its inchoate freshness, its egalitarian skepticism of leaders, and the recognition that democracy in Israel means more than minatory rule of narrow Knesset majorities. The democracy movement had difficulties attracting Palestinian Israelis. That was a problem. Those who thought the democracy movement could finesse the occupation clearly were wrong. Let us hope these problems are corrected because the democracy movement will have to be a big part of what happens next. Scheindlin’s book provides needed instruction on the way forward. When, recently, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said in a startling speech, that “at this critical juncture, I believe a new election is the only way to allow for a healthy and open decision- making process about the future of Israel, at a time when so many Israelis have lost their confidence in the vision and direction of their government,” he was placing his faith in his assumption that Israeli democracy can rescue Israel. At the least, the contrast between the authoritarian majoritarianism of the current Israeli government and the true forces of democracy has never been clearer.
The great historian Nathan I. Huggins, in TheAfricanAmericanOrdealinSlavery, concluded his book by quoting the final, haunting line of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s TheGreatGatsby. It applies to all peoples struggling against a past from they are both drawing upon and struggling to escape. “And so we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.” Somewhere upstream, let us hope, a more democratic Israel and a democratic Palestine await.
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Peter Eisenstadt is a member of the board of Partners for Progressive Israel and the author of Against the Hounds of Hell: A Biography of Howard Thurman (University of Virginia, 2021).
Can a Labor-Meretz Merger Reinvigorate the Israeli Left?By Ron Skolnik
A merger between Labor and Meretz, the t wo predominantly-Jewish parties that constitute Israel’s center-left, seems to be fast approaching. What is far less certain is whether this combination can provide the reenergized leftwing alternative that Israeli society badly needs.
Let’s start with a flashback: When the official results of Israel’s June 1992 elections were announced, the country seemed to finally be turning a political corner. After fifteen long years, the pro-settlement, anti-compromise Likud party was no longer going to lead (or co-lead) the governing coalition. With the First Palestinian Intifada grinding into its fifth year, and the First Gulf War having generated the beginnings of a regional diplomatic initiative (the “Madrid Process”), voters chose the Labor Party, winner of 44 seats, to be Israel’s foremost political force. Labor’s junior coalition partner and main ally was Meretz, the new, politically rambunctious, left-Zionist alliance, which had won 12, making it Israel’s third largest party. Israel’s liberal and progressive forces seemed to be ascendant.
Three decades later, both components of the once powerful political tandem are now in tatters. After years of gradual, stop-and-start electoral decline, Meretz failed to enter the Knesset in the November 2022 elections, gaining only 3.16 percent of the vote – below the 3.25 percent minimum threshold (and two-thirds less than its 1992 showing). The blow was not only political, but financial as well: The State of Israel provides funding only to those political parties who actually make it into Knesset, meaning that Meretz ended the 2022 campaign saddled with significant debt. Meanwhile, since chair Zehava Galon’s resignation in late 2022, no senior party figure has stepped up to take over, rendering Meretz politically rudderless.
Labor’s fortunes have arguably been even grimmer. While Israel’s “founding party” managed to enter the Knesset in 2022, it did so only barely, garnering a measly 3.7 percent and becoming Israel’s smallest parliamentary faction. Indeed, its most recent result represents a greater than 90 percent loss of its 1992 vote share.
Since the election, Labor’s poll numbers have sunk even further, and consistently fall well below the threshold line. Many of those who supported it in the past harbor a lingering resentment toward Chair Merav Michaeli, who firmly rejected Meretz’s pre- election proposal to pool the parties’ votes as a joint electoral slate. At very least, such an arrangement (in which each party would remain independent) would have ensured Meretz’s continued Knesset representation alongside Labor – and might even have added enough anti-Netanyahu seats to prevent the formation of the current far-right government.
With both parties continuing to lack luster, the idea of combining forces has remained on the political agenda. Nearly a year ago, for example, Labor MK, Rabbi (Reform) Gilad Kariv, demanded a full merger, arguing that the differences between the two parties had become “microscopic”.
Now the moment of truth is arriving. Last December, a deeply unpopular Michaeli announced that she would be stepping down from her party chair role. Labor has scheduled a May 28 leadership primary, and the results of that race will likely determine the merger’s fate. Meretz’s interim leadership group has already endorsed the idea of an amalgamated party in principle; all that’s left is for Labor to agree.
Enter Yair Golan, former IDF Deputy Chief of Staff and former Knesset Member and Deputy Minister, who has emerged as the leading candidate to succeed Michaeli. (While rumors are circulating of possible other candidates, no one has yet put their name forward at the time of this writing.) Announcing his candidacy in late February, Golan made clear that his aim in running was to bring Labor and Meretz into a political union under a new name and fresh brand. Golan’s March 18 campaign video suggests that the party might be called “The Democrats”. Meanwhile, he has already received the endorsement of half of Labor’s Knesset faction, MKs Kariv and Naama Lazimi.
Golan first drew media attention in 2016, while still in uniform. Addressing a Holocaust Remembrance Day ceremony, he compared the fascistic trends in modern-day Israel to those that had plagued Europe in the 1930s. Golan was bitterly attacked by rightwing political leaders, and some believe that the speech caused him to be passed over when the next Chief of Staff was appointed.
Retiring from the army, Golan entered politics in 2019. He first joined the center-left political party created by former prime minister Ehud Barak, “Democratic Israel”, which ended up running together with Meretz and the Green Movement. When Barak soon disbanded the initiative, Golan was left without a framework, and eventually joined Meretz. There he continued to be overshadowed by more veteran political figures, including Zehava Galon (by whom he was roundly defeated in a leadership contest) and Mossi Raz.
After the 2022 elections, however, Golan’s reputation began to soar. With Meretz out of Knesset and its senior representatives dropping out of political life, Golan became a leading figure in the protest movement, calling for nonviolent “civil rebellion” against the Netanyahu government’s anti-democratic “reforms”. Then, on October 7, he became something of a national hero: Upon hearing the awful news, Golan donned his old uniform, grabbed a weapon, and drove his car to the border with Gaza, where he rescued Israelis under Hamas assault at the ill-fated Nova music festival.
A man with significant military “cred” in a country at war, Golan might indeed be the best electoral bet for Israel’s center-left in the near term. Initial polls show a Golan-led merger garnering a respectable, if not spectacular, seven to nine seats.
But, it must be asked honestly, does Golan offer the sort of compelling vision around which the Israeli left can build itself anew in the years ahead?
Golan revealed his electoral approach and basic philosophy in the primary campaign he waged to become Meretz’s chair in 2022. As opposed to a burgeoning trend on the left to promote joint Jewish-Arab political work, Golan sought to steer Meretz headlong toward the political center so that it would become less “purist”, in his words, and more palatable to more Jewish Israelis – especially those who vote for Yair Lapid’s centrist Yesh Atid and Benny Gantz’s center-right National Unity. Golan railed against those in Meretz urging it to become a party with Jewish-Arab co-leadership, saying such voices should be “silenced and suppressed”.
Golan’s terminology also shows how far he was from Meretz’s traditional role as pusher of the political envelope: He generally eschews the word “occupation”, he explained in 2022, since his broader, more centrist target constituency finds such language off-putting, and it prefers not to think about Palestinian suffering. Golan has also openly questioned whether a Palestinian partner exists and he uses the term “separation” from the Palestinians, rather than “peace”, another word increasingly avoided by the mainstream. Based on his numerous media interviews, there is no indication that Golan has meaningfully changed his approach.
Golan’s aim, then, seems to be the formation of a new center-left party that manages to grow by being similar enough to the centrist parties to peel away a share of their voters. In the absence of any bigger or unique ideas, however, would such an accomplishment really be much of a game-changer? And would it not make more sense for this kind of liberal party to band together with Yesh Atid?
Since the collapse of any real peace process in 2008, after Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s fall from power (Netanyahu’s participation in John Kerry’s 2013-2014 peace initiative being more posture than substance), Israel has been in need of a counternarrative that presents a bold alternative to the paths put forward by the mainstream right (eternal occupation and creeping annexation) and the far-right (expulsion). Golan, on the other hand, seems to be offering something more akin to a pallid rearguard action of a fading Labor Zionism, and it is fair to question whether his party would infuse the left with the energy it so desperately requires.
New upstart political frameworks are being created, however, even if they currently occupy the political fringe. “All Its Citizens”, for example, recently founded by Avrum Burg and Faisal Azaiza, is a party dedicated to the principle of absolute, constitutionally-guaranteed equality between all Israeli citizens, Jewish, Arab, or other. The party models this pursuit via its joint leadership structure. All Its Citizens embraces words like “occupation” and “peace” that have fallen out of favor, and it rejects the idea of a frosty “separation”. Instead, the party believes that peace will need to be based on “partnership” between the two national peoples who share the same homeland between the Mediterranean and the Jordan.
While All Its Citizens still lacks any mass appeal, it has already begun the type of “subversive” work that Meretz once took pride in by challenging stale political and societal norms – work that sometimes requires years of effort before coming to fruition.
Israel’s February 27 municipal elections showed that such efforts might already have some ballot box viability. Election day saw several local Jewish- Arab election slates competing for city council spots, and though not all managed to gain seats, a few did. These included the “We Are All the City” slate in Tel Aviv-Jaffa, which picked up three councilors with 7.6 percent of the vote, and “The City Majority” slate in Haifa, with three percent, enough to elect one. That one was Sally Abed, one of the prominent leaders of the Arab-Jewish “Standing Together” movement; and while, as a nonprofit, “Standing Together” itself was not legally or financially involved in either of these electoral efforts, as private citizens, its dynamic activists were a driving force in both.
It is still not clear what role, if any, Standing Together or its members will seek to play in national politics once new elections are called. But for the many leftwing Israelis who feel uninspired by the current choices, the movement offers an attractive option and the 2024 municipal elections could be seen as a promising test-run.
Deep societal transformation is slow and takes much more time to accomplish than the several months of a single Knesset election campaign. Political groups working for a truly shared Jewish-Arab society, or a shared Israeli-Palestinian homeland, are therefore unlikely to be rewarded with major electoral victories any time soon. But for fundamental change to be made, there must be always be those who “go ahead of the camp”, take political risks, and point the way forward. A merged Labor/Meretz party, be it called “The Democrats” or anything else, will soon need to decide what it wants to achieve and what role in Israel’s future it wishes to play.
RonSkolnikis an American-Israeli politicalcolumnist and public speaker, whose articles haveappeared in a variety of publications, includingHaaretz, Al- Monitor, Tikkun, the Forward,Jewish Currents, & the Palestine-Israel Journal.
“Shooting and Crying” vs. Mutual AccountabilityBy Margo Hughes-Robinson
As an undergraduate on a campus that typified the polarization that has become endemic to American universities (a Jewish student union which at the time offered a kind of right wing Zionism; bagel brunch, and Taglit trips more than deep engagement with Jewish tradition; an active SJP chapter that built a mock “apartheid wall” across the quad each year; student leaders discouraged from meeting across lines of disagreement by Hillel staff), an introduction to S. Yizhar’s “Khirbet Khizeh,” was revelatory. The professor who assigned the novella was a visiting Israeli academic, who laid mimeographed slides on the ancient projector by way of introducing the book.
“These are copies of maps that my father-in-law kept from 1948,” he explained. He showed us, laying one map over the other, the names of Palestinian villages that had been liquidated or abandoned, renamed and resettled in Hebrew by the nascent Israeli state. As a twenty-year old, this was nothing short of revelatory: here was an Israeli intellectual, someone brought in by my campus to be an authority on history and literature, speaking calmly about the realities of 1948, both as it was experienced by the citizens of the fledgling state and by Palestinians who lived through the Nakba. Although the text was a fictionalized account of the war, I was opened up to a much more nuanced understanding of Israel that was tied not only to hasbara, but to history.
It was only several years later, living in Jerusalem and more deeply steeped in Israeli literature and culture, that I learned how “Khirbet Khizeh” functioned as a foundation stone of the “shooting and crying,” genre of Israeli literature, a dynamic described by scholar Gil Hochberg as one of “remorse and hesitation” in the psyche of both the IDF soldier and the nation at large, that evolved over decades to one that included, “self justification,” and “a way of maintaining the nation’s self-image as youthful and innocent, along with its sense of vocation against the reality of war, growing military violence, occupation, invasion, and an overall sense that things were going wrong.” It was commonly used in mockery of the anguished Israeli liberal during the First Intifada.
As Israel has reeled from the shock of Hamas-perpetrated terror on October 7th and the subsequent hostage crisis – and blown headlong into an assault on Gaza that has included mass civilian death, growing starvation, and apparent abdication of the responsibilities that the Israeli Supreme Court has concluded Israeli bears towards Palestinians living in Gaza – it appears that more and more American Jews have taken up the mantle of “shooting and crying.” As the war continues, I see many of my colleagues clinging to a model of self reflection and hand-wringing only to the point that it enables our own passivity – or even permissiveness – in the face of Israeli war crimes. This is a master story that allows the American center-Zionist camp to busy themselves not with the graphic realities of conflict in Gaza or the West Bank, but instead with an internal wrestling: the tension of one’s self-image as a “liberal” in the classical sense juxtaposed with an apathetic resignation to military domination as the only assurance of Jewish safety between the river and the sea.
To express deep pain at the rising death toll, starvation, and violence in Gaza while wringing our hands and asking a version of “but what can be done?!,” or to pray for peace without taking material steps to call for an end to this war, is to ultimately engage in a kind of closed psychological loop. A generative conversation happens between Jewish communities in Israel and the Diaspora about grief, the uses and abuses of military and state power, the waste of civilian life, and even the political narcissism at the helm of Israel’s government – but it remains a Jewish conversation. Engaging in the emotional maelstrom of shooting and crying from across oceans allows American Jews to express nuanced empathy and solidarity with Jewish Israelis, but the end result is that of a continued conversation that ignores the voices – the reality– of half of the people engaged in this war; of Palestinians.
As many Palestinian and Israeli activists remind us: no one is going anywhere. Regardless of the shape of any future political arrangement, the land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean sea is home to Israeli Jews, Palestinians, Druzim, Bedouin communities, and more, all with deep ties to the Land and its history. What could be possible, then, if American Jews saw our role not only to be in conversation with our Israeli family and coreligionists, but with all those who call it home?
What may be most needed in this moment is not only a political shift but a spiritual and psycho-social transformation. What steps might be possible to take under the mantle of “no one is going anywhere?” What kind of shared society – not normalization of a “status quo” built on human rights violations or euphemistic military exercises of “mowing the grass” – but instead rooted in the acknowledgement that Palestinians and Israelis must be free and enjoying equal rights, and that the safety and flourishing of each community is bound up in each other? What could grow in a Land where there is a basic acknowledgement that both communities are not just accountable to themselves, but to one another?
We call for a “day after” plan, but it must be said: We are already living one kind of day-after, rooted in Netanyahu’s political narcissism and marked by a refusal to recognize either the humanity of the Palestinians or their right to self determination and statehood. We must insist on and make real a very different vision of tomorrow, of next week, of the days and months and years ahead.
We know: No one is going anywhere. What does this mean in practice? We cannot continue in war if we are to live together. It means that when I see images of Kfir Bibas, who turned one year old in captivity, I think of my own child. When I see ten-year old Amr Mohamed Najjar, who was shot and killed by the IDF outside of Nablus last month, I see my own child. If no one is going anywhere, it means that every new parent in Ein Kerem hospital in Jerusalem is accountable to the starving pregnant women of Khan Younis and Rafah. It means that I seek a flourishing Palestinian government that shirks extremism, bloodshed, and corruption, alongside an Israeli government that disavows Kahanism and refuses to continue a brutal war that puts civilian safety in the back seat behind one man’s desperate attempt to avoid criminal accountability and jail time. It means that we demand an end to the occupation. It is important – essential – to note that this model of mutual accountability is not a fantasy, the dream of another naive American staring at a phone screen an ocean away from the events in Gaza. It is a practice that is already being lived out by organizations and individuals in the Land: from the political organizing of Standing Together and Women Wage Peace; to the community building of groups like the Imbala Cafe, the Sulha Peace Project, and the Bereaved Families Forum; from media outlets like +972 and Local Call as well as activist-artists like Yuval Avraham and Basel Adra, and Hadar Cohen. These entities and individuals are midwifing a new model of what is possible in Israel and Palestine – not based in normalization of a deadly and stagnant status quo, or sharing an inequitable society – but another vision altogether, rooted in mutual liberation: it is upon us as American Jews to decide to be part of this new model of family, and mutuality. Will we, in the midst of our own grief, be brave enough to partake?
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Rabbi Margo Hughes-Robinson is the new Executive Director of Partners for Progressive Israel.
Abyss AdviceBy Paul SchamOn March 1, the New York Times published a Guest Essay, by David Grossman, Israel’s greatest living writer, entitled “Israel Is Falling Into an Abyss”. For those who may not have access to the link above, Grossman, after depicting the horrors of October 7 and the nearly unanimous wave of solidarity by Israelis in response, noted that they “will always have to stand guard over this penetrable, fragile home”; and he asked why, “Only when it comes to Israel is it acceptable to publicly demand the elimination of a state”? He continues with a meditation on what the war might do to Israel, including, almost incidentally, that “the recognition that this war cannot be won and, furthermore, that we cannot sustain the occupation indefinitely, will force both sides to accept a two-state solution.” He concludes on a note of “exhaustion and despair”. I admire and agree with the essay and recognize that we, American Jews (and others) who care deeply about Israel but are geographically and culturally distant (to varying degrees), must seize on reports and essays such as Grossman’s in order to better understand why this war drags on, soon to mark its six-month anniversary. The palpable sense of perennial and existential danger that Israelis live with must be taken into account when we try to understand that although 85% of Israelis want Bibi Netanyahu gone as Prime Minister, a majority nevertheless continues to support the war. As noted, Grossman himself believes the war cannot be won; obviously that view is by no means the majority opinion. What I do not understand, having followed Grossman’s views and the principled stands he has taken for decades (and the loss of his son in the Second Lebanon War), is why he did not include a paragraph something like the following, which I take the liberty of composing:
Since we cannot destroy Hamas, no matter how many of its fighters we kill, we must recognize that every day that the war goes on and hundreds more ‘uninvolved’ Palestinians are killed, we are digging ourselves yet further into the ditch that Hamas invited us to jump into. Israelis need to accept that a bilateral ceasefire that frees our hostages and necessarily includes releasing many hundreds of Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli prisons must be the overarching and immediate priority of Israeli policy, belated as it may be. Only with that first step concluded will it be possible for us and the Palestinians to begin to pick up the shattered pieces of our individual and national lives. Every day without it plunges us yet deeper into the abyss.
It goes without saying that it is impossible to believe that a government headed by Benjamin Netanyahu would conclude such an agreement. Nevertheless, such a call, coming from a writer with Grossman’s prestige and gravitas, might have some effect in slowing Israel’s precipitous and accelerating slide towards the bleak future he evokes.
It appears that something has changed in the Israeli “moderate left” (once known as the “peace camp”) that we at Partners – and presumably our readers and supporters – continue to identify with. If we care about Israel, we have to take into account what interpreters like David Grossman are saying to us. While, as a historian and political analyst, I do not see Israel in a situation of “existential danger,” I am not there on the ground. I continue to believe that Israel must end the assault on Gaza now; that continuing it places Israel in more danger than ending it would. It is not simply bowing to foreign pressure; Israel needs the rest of the world and, unfortunately, has trouble accepting that opposition to its actions does not automatically imply hostility. However we – and Senator Schumer – are in complete agreement that Bibi Netanyahu as Prime Minister, with his multiple conflicts of interest, has helped intensify the conflict to an unbearable degree.
Sincerely,
Paul
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Paul Scham is president of Partners for Progressive Israel and a Professor of Israel Studies at the University of Maryland, where he teaches courses this semester on the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and on the Israeli Right.
KOLOT – Voices of Hope, Post-October 7 Series
Combatants for PeaceIn 2018, Partners for Progressive Israel launched our “Kolot: Voices of Hope” series. We realized that, while those “in the know” were aware of the remarkable Israelis and Palestinians, Jews and Arabs, standing up, in a hostile political environment, for values of peace, social justice, human and civil rights, and democracy, these activities were rarely being noticed or covered in the mainstream media.
We are pleased to now be sharing updates on the important efforts being made since the horrific events of October 7 by many of the organizations we’ve featured in “Kolot”. After checking in with Women Wage Peace and the multicultural/bilingual school in Beersheba, Hagar, we look this week at Combatants for Peace (CfP), an organization we first featured in June 2019.
Despite the shock produced by October 7, CfP has never wavered in its struggle to protect noncombatants on both sides of the conflict. On October 12, it issued a joint statement, together with more than two dozen anti-occupation and human rights organizations in Israel, calling for the immediate release of all hostages, an end to the bombardment of Israeli and Palestinian civilians, and the guaranteeing of humanitarian assistance for affected populations. Two weeks later, the organization issued its own statement in which it reiterated its belief that “there is no military solution” and that “violence breeds violence”. While most Israelis were focused squarely on retaliation, Combatants for Peace bravely called for “an end to the occupation, which perpetuates this conflict, and a real political solution”.
CfP has been working on the ground in Israel, driving turnout to protests demanding a ceasefire, a deal to release the Israeli hostages, new elections in Israel, and a political solution for Israel and Palestine. Some of these rallies have been held outside the U.S. Embassy and have included a call for the Biden administration to recognize a State of Palestine in order to advance a solution. Elsewhere, CfP has continued its educational work via participation in various seminars and events.
We are pleased to report that Combatants for Peace has finally been receiving the international media attention it deserves! This has included CNN, where journalist Christiane Amanpour recently interviewed CfP co-director, Rana Salman, who was also featured in the New York Times. The New York Times also published an essay written by two co-founders of CfP, Sulaiman Khatib and Avner Wishnitzer, who stressed the need for a “comprehensive project of rehumanization” in Israel and Palestine; this would involve the creation of a “network of peace centers” designed to “reverse the effects of oppression, violence and dehumanization of the other, which have been fueling one another for decades”.
Last month, Combatants for Peace leaders shared their vision of nonviolence and a shared future with American audiences when they conducted a two-week tour of the U.S., which they entitled, “Partnering for Peace”. We look forward to continuing to partner with the organization in the crucial period that lies ahead.
Will Israel’s ultra-Orthodox be joining the IDF?
Paul Scham and Ron SkolnikIsrael’s comprehensive draft requires military service by almost all Jewish citizens, male and female, and by men in some other groups such as Druze and Circassians (most Palestinian citizens are not drafted). The largest — and most controversial — exemption affecting Jewish men applies to “ultra-Orthodox” (Haredi, pl. Haredim) yeshiva students. When first introduced in 1948, this policy covered 400 students; but in the last year, 66,000 received such deferments, reflecting the increase of Haredim in the Israeli population from less than 1% to the current 13% (many ultra-Orthodox families have eight children or more). Meanwhile, a whole Haredi culture has developed to ensure that their men won’t be drafted. Community leaders claim that studying holy texts all day serves to protect Israel as much as do the Israel Defense Forces; others say the real reason is so that Haredi youth, who are strictly segregated from the rest of Israeli society, do not come into contact with the secular world and might be tempted to flee the restrictive Haredi lifestyle.
The growing number of Haredi exemptions — combined with ever-increasing financial demands for Haredi institutions supported by skyrocketing numbers of Haredi voters — has created a backlash in Israeli society. In 1998, the Supreme Court ruled that the government must produce a more equitable draft law. Since then, the issue has been kicked back and forth between the government, the courts, civil society organizations demanding fairness, and Haredi institutions and parties insisting the status quo be retained. Most recently, the Supreme Court ordered the government to show cause for why it should not begin drafting yeshiva students as of April 1.
It is worth noting that the IDF has no desire to see Haredim drafted. Besides their negative attitude toward service, it is assumed that most would not meet the basic educational or fitness standards of the army. Haredim have their own independent educational “stream,” which accepts government funding but not government control. Thus, male Haredi students take little or no math beyond arithmetic; they spend virtually all their time studying holy texts, preparing them for a life of religious scholarship and little else. While the IDF, given the Gaza war, could use a few thousand more soldiers and is currently increasing service requirements slightly, it would take significant resources to prepare thousands of Haredim for military service. The lawsuits come from outraged citizen groups, not the military.
However, this is by no means an arcane dispute affecting solely yeshiva students. If the government starts drafting them, it is assumed that the two Haredi parties will immediately exit the ruling coalition, in which they hold 18 Knesset seats out of 64. Without a supporting majority in the 120-member legislature, the government would almost certainly fall, leading to new elections within three to six months. Given that Prime Minister Netanyahu currently has a favorability rate of about 19% — and his Likud party, according to current polls, would receive about 18 seats compared to the 32 it now holds — there seems little chance he would remain as prime minister after a new election.
Meanwhile, some figures are presenting creative third-way approaches. Uri Zaki, chair of the Meretz executive, and Rabbi David Stav of the relatively liberal Tzohar association of Modern Orthodox rabbis, are lobbying to amend the conscription law so that exemptions are requested and granted individually on religious grounds. The current system is based on the alleged need for haredi men to make Torah study their vocation (the “Torah is their craft” principle). The change would allow Israel to integrate Haredi men into the workforce since they would no longer be chained to a yeshiva to justify not serving. There would also be additional State incentives to encourage IDF service.
The second outcome of the Zaki-Stav proposal would be to weaken Haredi power brokers who currently control the process. The present law requires exemptions to be requested collectively by yeshiva heads on behalf of the young men. This practice would end. Zaki and Stav acknowledge that their initiative therefore challenges vested interests in the Haredi world and could alter the very structure of ultra-orthodox society. But they continue to advocate for their idea within the Haredi community where they have been engaging with figures outside the traditional power structure – even if their chances for success seem low.
There is increasing clamor for a new national election, and some members of the special War Cabinet are growing restive. Nevertheless, if the past 28 years are any guide, the draft issue is unlikely to precipitate an end to the current government in the coming weeks; some workaround will be found. Rather, it will just add to the government’s tensions and unpopularity — and its fury at the Supreme Court.
A version of this article was originally published on the website of the Middle East Institute.
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Paul Scham is president of Partners for Progressive Israel and a Professor of Israel Studies at the University of Maryland.
Ron Skolnik is an American-Israeli political columnist and public speaker, whose articles have appeared in a variety of publications, including Haaretz, Al- Monitor, Tikkun, the Forward, Jewish Currents, & the Palestine-Israel Journal.
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Below is the letter which Partners for Progressive Israel, Americans for Peace Now, and several like-minded organizations sent to Members of Congress last week. It expresses our opposition to the codification into legislation of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) Working Definition of Antisemitism. While we have no doubt that antisemitism is a real and growing problem in the US and abroad, we strongly believe that some of the broad language of IHRA’s characterizations of antisemitism will actually hinder the fight against it, for reasons explained in the letter.Dear Representative,
We, the undersigned Jewish organizations, write to express our opposition to the codification International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) Working Definition of Antisemitism and to any legislation that would encourage its adoption.
We are deeply concerned about the escalating antisemitism here in the United States and globally, particularly following the horrific October 7th terrorist attacks. We strongly condemn Hamas’s brutal attacks. We alsorecognize the urgent need to address the rising antisemitic incidents against Jewish communities.
Antisemitism is a serious and growing problem in the United States and around the world. The need for a robust response to combat genuine instances of antisemitism is unquestionable. However, we oppose efforts to adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) Working Definition of Antisemitism.
We agree with the urgent need to combat antisemitism and call for actions that will do just that. However, we are concerned that the IHRA definition and its examples, with its broad characterization of criticism of Israel, undermines the fight against antisemitism. Equating criticism of the Israeli government with antisemitism risks stifling important discussions on Israeli policies and actions, thereby hindering the broader effort to combat true instances of hatred and discrimination against Jewish communities. There is no need for the codification of a formal definition to combat antisemitism any more than for racism, sexism, or other forms of discrimination as the facts of each individual situation must be assessed.
The IHRA definition, with its broad and problematic characterization, poses a significant threat to free speech and open discourse. We reject any definition that can be misappropriated to suppress criticism of the Israeli government or stifle legitimate discussions about Israeli policies. Such misuse of the IHRA definition has been noted by its lead drafter, Kenneth Stern, who has cautioned against its weaponization to suppress free speech.
128 leading scholars specializing in antisemitism, Holocaust studies, modern Jewish history and related fields have also cautioned against the definition, describing it as “deeply problematic,” “vague” and “incoherent.” Leading civil and human rights groups including the ACLU, the Center for Constitutional Right and the Civil Liberties Defense Center have warned that “any embrace of the IHRA definition… would legitimize and encourage this undermining of core democratic rights.”
In 2023, over 100 civil society organizations wrote to the UN in opposition to the adoption of the IHRA definition and there have been several Congressional letters expressing similar concerns about the IHRA definition and the problematic uses of its examples.
The Jewish community itself has yet to reach a consensus on the definition of antisemitism or what constitutes antisemitic speech. We believe it is not suitable for Congress to codify a specific definition, as this issue continues to be a matter of internal discussion within the community.
The US National Strategy to Counter Antisemitism also set an important precedent by not adopting the IHRA definition. This strategic decision highlights the need for a more inclusive and nuanced approach that balances the fight against antisemitism with the protection of free speech rights.
In our shared commitment to combatting antisemitism, we oppose the codification of IHRA and urge careful consideration of alternative definitions that do not risk stifling legitimate criticism and dissent. It is imperative to address the rise in antisemitism effectively while upholding the principles of free speech and open dialogue.
Thank you for your attention to this matter, and we look forward to engaging in further discussions to ensure a comprehensive and fair approach in combating antisemitism.
Sincerely,
Americans for Peace Now
ALEPH: Alliance for Jewish Renewal
New Israel Fund
Partners for Progressive Israel
T’ruah: The Rabbinic Call for Human Rights
Partners Applauds Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer’s
Speech on Israel and PalestinePartners for Progressive Israel applauds the brave and balanced speech delivered yesterday by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer. Senator Schumer outlined with devastating clarity what lies ahead for Israel if it continues to be led by Benjamin Netanyahu and controlled by a band of political zealots who seek river-to-sea domination and prefer ruling over, rather than living peacefully alongside, the Palestinian people in a state of its own. Like Senator Schumer, we believe that the horrors of October 7 require Israelis to hold a “fresh debate”, go to elections, and change course at once – difficult as that might be for a traumatized nation. We agree, as well, that the U.S. must use its “leverage” with Israel so that American support doesn’t contradict the goal of achieving long-term peace and stability.Senator Schumer correctly began his speech by noting that he expresses the sentiment of the mainstream of Jewish Americans. Indeed, like the Senator, the majority of American Jews regard Hamas as a major obstacle to peace, but also understand that Israel has its own extremist wing, which has been consistently aided and abetted by Mr. Netanyahu.We also thank Senator Schumer for rejecting the term “colonizers” as increasingly applied to the Jewish people in Israel and for his acknowledgement of the legitimate, longstanding ties to the land of both Jews and Palestinians. The Senator is to be applauded for carefully dissecting why a democratic one-state future offers no true solution, and why a nondemocratic Israel-controlled one-state reality is a guarantee of forever war.
Finally, we share the Senator’s plea for “courageous leadership” and an “all-out push to bring about peace”. Ultimately, only a cessation of violence can bring back the hostages, and only a peace agreement can bring lasting security for both peoples and prevent another October 7. There is no military solution.
Ayala Emmet, After the Disappearance (2023), review and interview with the author By Peter Eisenstadt Benny Sasson was missing. His mother Malka, wife Rena, and thirteen-year old daughter, Zohara, were frantic with worry. One day in 1955, Benny took the bus from his home town of Shomriya (a fictional town in central Israel) for his [...]
Points of Light in Dark Times: Israeli-Palestinian Dialogue Endures! Partners’ 4th Annual Digital Israel-Palestine Symposium Fall 2023 For those of us who yearn for a just resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the current situation on the ground gives much reason for despair. The occupation deepens; a shared society between Israeli Jews and Palestinians seems but [...]
“Arab Blood is Equal to Jewish Blood:” Marching with Arabs and Jews in Tel Aviv-Jaffa by Avraham Spraragen Khalas! Dai! The mixed crowd of Arabs and Jews chanted the Arabic and Hebrew words for “stop” as we marched from Habima Square to the Tel Aviv Museum. On the night of August 8th, 2023, thousands of [...]
The Protests - and the Occupation By Paul Scham Those who have been closely following the protests in Israel against the judicial overhaul attempted by the current government that have roiled the country since early January, are acutely aware that there is a tension among the protesters, between the majority whose goal is primarily to [...]
5 September 2023
Last week, the mayor of Beit Shemesh had to be rescued by police from a mob of dozens of Haredi extremists who blockaded the mayor while visiting a Haredi school.
The story could easily be cast in simplistic terms, particularly as the mayor is one of only 4% of Israel’s municipal leaders who is female. But the story is much more complex.
At the end of 2018, Aliza Bloch, a mathematician and educator with a doctorate from Bar Ilan University won a surprise victory over the 10 year incumbent in the mayoral election in Beit Shemesh, by slightly more than 500 votes.
Beit Shemesh began as a “development town” whose early residents were mainly from North Africa, very much like Aliza Bloch’s parents who came from Morocco. Today, the city population is greater than 120,000, including a sizeable Haredi segment as well as modern religious and secular residents. The town’s numbers are expected to double in the next decade. With an underinvestment in urban infrastructure and such a diverse population, there are a lot of tensions.
Bloch ran as a candidate to get communities to work together instead of walling themselves off. She wanted better planning and services instead of unplanned growth. Speaking in an interview with Shlomit Tzur, Bloch explained, “The reason why so many people in Israel got excited about the elections in Beit Shemesh is that Beit Shemesh was thought to be a lost cause. What happened here was upside-down logic; it was something unusual. No political party led me. My campaign cost almost no money. The change came entirely from below – from the residents.”
As mayor, she took responsibility for leading the Local Planning and Building Commission, an intensely sensitive position. It meant issuing demolition orders for unlicensed synagogues, including one built on Israel Lands Authority property. She also stopped the intensive residential construction in Haredi sections of the city. But it was not for reasons of hostility to the Haredi community. “They were busy here with high-density construction for Haredim with big planning problems. Today, I have to deal with a shortage of public buildings, infrastructure problems, and crowding…Our goal is to live in the long term. Haredim also deserve quality of life…I first of all have to minimize damage caused by past concessions that led to construction violations because of planning negligence, difficulty in obtaining construction permits, and lack of enforcement…The goal is for people to obey the law because it’s in their interest to do so, not because they’re afraid of the municipality. I’m sure that Haredim also don’t want to live in a place with collapsing infrastructure.”
The town’s issues extend far beyond the Haredi community. “Many of the city’s problems are due to decisions by the government, which sent large numbers of people here with no solutions for infrastructure or employment.” But she sees advantages given the location of Beit Shemesh, which is near Tel Aviv but far enough away for costs still to be inexpensive. She is working, along with the central government, to bring a mixed set of industries, including even tourism, to the town–employment opportunities for the broad range of people who live in the community.
As last week’s violence showed, in addition to the historical and immediate challenges, there are extremists. Says Bloch, “Living together is what I ran on in the elections, and I’ll go on waving that flag. This whole rift here results from fighting over who is stronger, under the assumption that the stronger people will win and set the tone. That prevailed because the city leaders came from the extremes. Those days are gone.”
A religiously observant woman is a rarity in Israel’s municipal leadership. Reflecting on it, Bloch said, “I didn’t want people to vote for me because I’m a woman, just as I didn’t want people to vote for me because I’m Sephardi or any other irrelevant reason. I’m a person with my own way of looking at the world, and as a woman, I think I have other skills. What can’t be disputed is that my being elected broke through walls that haven’t even been penetrated in Tel Aviv.”
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1 September 2023
On Monday, Israel’s ambassador to Romania, Reuven Azar, met with George Simeon, leader of the fringe Alliance of the Union of Romanians party. AUR has been criticized previously for its statements minimizing the Holocaust. Also attending the meeting was Yossi Dagan, the chairman of the Samaria Regional Council.
AUR ideology represents a fusion of Romanian nationalism, conservative Christian identity, and populism. It seeks the absorption of Moldova, a Romanian neighbor, and the advancement of the interests of Romanian minorities in other European countries, while favoring the suppression of ethnic minorities, particularly ethnic Hungarians, within Romania. Last year, after Holocaust studies were introduced into public education, the AUR issued a statement calling the Holocaust “a minor topic.” The immediate previous AUR party leader, Claudiu Tarziu, has expressed admiration for the 1930s Romanian nationalist, Corneliu Codreanu, and the Iron Guard, both militantly antisemitic and pro-Nazi.
Azar said he agreed to meet with Simeon on the condition that Simeon admit to Romanian state responsibility for the murder of Romanian Jews during the Holocaust and agree to support Holocaust education. Simeon issued a statement touching on those matters but not agreeing to the conditions explicitly.
Simeon has spoken appreciatively of the illiberal ruling parties of Hungary and Poland. What seems to unite the current Israeli administration with AUR is a common ideological approach involving territorially ambitious religiously infused ethnic chauvinism. That union is bought by closing eyes to the cost to the Jewish People of precisely that kind of fusion in the past. Strange bedfellows but bedfellows indeed. The AUR and the current Israeli administration also seem to be bound by a common view regarding political control of courts and the suppression of civil society. That is a conflict far more explosive in Israel only because the far right has government power in Israel while the AUR remains a small minority party in Romania.
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29 August 2023 Last month, Partners for Progressive Israel endorsed the introduction of a joint House/Senate resolution to “stand with all Israelis seeking to defend liberal democracy”. We’re delighted to now inform you that this concurrent resolution, “H. CON. RES. 61 Supporting Israeli democracy”, is gaining serious momentum: The resolution has been referred to the [...]
25 August 2023 This summer, as the opposition boycotted Knesset action which undid the reasonableness doctrine in Israeli law, the ruling coalition snuck through another piece of legislation, on a vote of 39-7, increasing penalties for sexual assault when committed for nationalist or racist motivations. Previously, in debate about the bill, opposition Knesset members had [...]
22 August 2023 Last Wednesday, police arrested Arwah Sheikh Ali of the Shuafat camp in East Jerusalem on drug charges. Now authorities must explain how a Star of David became branded to the left side of his face. Police have said the suspect resisted arrest and that the marks resulted from bootlaces worn by officers [...]
18 August 2023 While the Israeli right claims that the country’s courts are too liberal and discriminate against Jews, a recent case has, sadly, made clear how ridiculous that charge really is. In July, the Sub Laban family was evicted from their home in the Muslim quarter of Jerusalem’s Old City that they had lived [...]
16 August 2023 Two Jewish-Israeli West Bank settlers accused by police of murdering a 19-year-old Palestinian on August 4 have now been released by an Israeli civil court to house arrest. Make no mistake: If the suspects had been Palestinians, subject to military law, they’d still be behind bars. Elisha Yered and Yehiel Indore were [...]
The Abraham Initiatives: Working for a Shared and Fully Equal Israel by Amnon Be’eri-Sulitzeanu and Dr. Thabet Abu Rass This essay is the latest in our series of 'Kolot: Voices of Hope' profiles of Israelis and Palestinians furthering the cause of peace and equality. Find all the profiles in this series here. The [...]
9 August 2023 Two days ago, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich of the extremist right “Religious Zionism” party unilaterally suspended $55 million in budget money that had been approved by the previous government and earmarked for developing the economy and improving the infrastructure of Arab communities inside Israel’s Green Line borders, while combating rampant crime there. [...]
6 August 2023 We were outraged, but frankly not surprised, last week to learn that Israel’s Ministry of Education has decided to ban the Parents Circle - Bereaved Families for Peace from Israeli schools after twenty years in which the organization has run its curriculum enrichment programs there. The far-right Netanyahu government, however, has now [...]
4 August 2023 With the Knesset entering its long recess until the Jewish holidays end on Oct. 8, it is probable that Israel’s political temperature somewhat will decrease until then. Protest leaders have issued numerous appeals for the US government and American Jews to make their voices heard in opposition to the “judicial overhaul.” In [...]
2 August 2023 Democracy is lost not only through official acts, such as laws and regulations, but also – perhaps especially so – by fueling a public atmosphere in which democratic institutions and processes are tarnished and delegitimized. Over the past few days, we have seen Part Two of this one-two antidemocratic punch coming from [...]
28 July 2023 Partners for Progressive Israel has endorsed and welcomes the introduction of a congressional resolution to “stand with all Israelis seeking to defend liberal democracy and opposing any steps that undermine Israel’s future as a Jewish, democratic state.” This resolution, authored by Representatives Jan Schakowsky (IL-09) and Annie Kuster (NH-02), focuses on three critical issues: [...]
Today, Tisha B’Av, we mark the destruction of the two Temples, the first by the Babylonians, the second by the Romans. Each represented the end of a Jewish Commonwealth and the uprooting of Jewish settlement in Israel. It is said the fall of the Second Temple was due to “sinat chinam,” a baseless hatred bred [...]
Partners for Progressive Israel condemns in the strongest possible terms the Knesset’s vote today purporting to eliminate the “reasonableness” criteria for Supreme Court decisions. Justice Minister Levin has made clear this is simply the first step in remaking Israel into what could only be called an illiberal majoritarian democracy, organized for the purpose of trampling [...]
MUCH ADO IN WASHINGTON As was widely reported, Israel‘s President, Isaac Herzog, spoke before a joint session of Congress Wednesday to rapturous applause. Loud as the applause was, the background political tumult – both Israeli and American – clearly drowned out the message of a firm and unshakable American-Israeli alliance that he attempted to convey. Herzog, [...]
The Summer of Discontent by Paul Scham We have seen the massive protests in Israel since January, furiously protesting the judicial coup being attempted by the far–right governing coalition. The protests surged in March and April, when it appeared the coalition would force its “reform” bill through the Knesset. However, the temperature subsided somewhat just [...]
Israel Gave Us the Finger; We Did Not Turn a Blind Eye by Avraham Spraragen American Jewish youth are overwhelmingly progressive in their political orientation, politically conscientious, and committed to universal human rights protections in accordance with their Jewish values. PEP, or “Progressive except for Palestine,” is increasingly becoming anathema to young Jews in the [...]
We would like to share with you some of the ongoing activities that our World Union of Meretz representatives are working on in the framework of the World Zionist Organization. Pro-Democracy Activism at the World Zionist Congress This past April, a special session of the World Zionist Congress (WZC) was held at the Jerusalem International [...]
Barak Ravid, Trump’s Peace: The Abraham Accords and the Reshaping of the Middle East, trans. Sahar Zivan (Independently Published, 2023) Daniel Bar-Tal, Sinking Into the Honey Pot: The Case of the Israel-Palestine Conflict, trans. Barbara Doron (Washington, DC, 2023) By Peter Eisenstadt There’s Fraktur. On 3 January, 1941 the Nazi government banned the use of [...]
Itach Ma’aki – Jewish and Arab Women Lawyers for Social Justice By Oshrat Ben Shimshon This essay is the latest in our series of 'Kolot: Voices of Hope' profiles of Israelis and Palestinians furthering the cause of peace and equality. Find all the profiles in this series here. The current Israeli government’s antidemocratic [...]
Extremist MKs Threaten Youth Village Hosting Parents Circle Summer Camp We at Partners for Progressive Israel stand by members of the Parents Circle-Families Forum—an NGO composed of bereaved Israelis and Palestinians -- as they fight to preserve their summer dialogue program for more than 50 youths from both peoples. During a recent meeting of the [...]
The Honorable Linda Thomas-Greenfield United States Ambassador to the United Nations United States Mission to the United Nations 799 United Nations Plaza New York, NY 10017 Dear Ambassador Thomas-Greenfield, We write to thank you and the entire Biden Administration for your dedication to combating antisemitism, both globally and here in the United States. We commend [...]
Progressive Israel Network letter to Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas on Israel’s application to join the U.S. Visa Waiver Program Download the letter June 5, 2023 The Honorable Antony Blinken United States Secretary of State The State Department 2201 C Street Northwest Washington, DC 20520 The Honorable Alejandro [...]
New developments on the Israeli left – a periodic update (5 June 2023) Israel’s November 2022 elections created a literally existential challenge for the Israeli left. After a mooted electoral alliance between Labor and Meretz was rejected by the former and failed to materialize, Meretz fell just short of clearing the electoral threshold. This meant [...]
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| Partners Applauds Biden White House Strategy to Counter AntisemitismPartners for Progressive Israel applauds the Administration of President Joe Biden for its carefully constructed plan to confront the growing scourge of antisemitism in America – “The U.S. National Strategy to Counter Antisemitism”. Please find below the statement issued in reaction to the plan by the Progressive Israel Network, of which we are a founding member.Although much of the media talk leading up to the strategy’s publication concerned the definition of antisemitism as it pertains to Israel, the White House plan itself mentions Israel only sparingly and does not use the word “Zionism” at all. While the main concern of our organization is Israel, the White House approach is undeniably the correct one, its strategy rightly focusing on the greatest danger to Jewish Americans, that of white supremacy and neo-Nazism. President Biden’s appropriate decision to frame the issue around the 2017 “Unite the Right” torch event in Charlottesville, VA, signaled his Administration’s main concern.The White House strategy document nonetheless did wade into the Israel debate and we are delighted that, when it did so, it chose an attitude of inclusivity and acceptance of the broad range of opinion on Israel within the Jewish American community. The strategy expresses support for “several definitions of antisemitism”, including the Nexus Document and “other such efforts”. In doing so, it rejects granting monopoly status to the IHRA (International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance) definition, whose “examples” have too often been exploited to suppress legitimate criticism of Israeli government actions. In addition to the Nexus definition, we also wish to cite the important Jerusalem Declaration on Antisemitism, as both have strong support in communities concerned with the issue of antisemitism.Partners for Progressive Israel is proud to have played an important role in facilitating the dialogue around antisemitism in recent years, especially as it pertains to the Israel-Palestine question. We hosted the webinar “Anti-Semitism – What It Is, What It Isn’t” and a follow-up discussion, “IHRA and its Critics: Breaking Down the Establishment’s Favorite Definition of Antisemitism”, featuring a variety of opinions, from Jewish and Palestinian speakers. We, of course, will continue to remain highly engaged with this issue. |
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| Progressive Israel Network Statement onBiden Administration’s Strategy Regarding AntisemitismThe U.S. National Strategy to Counter Antisemitism |
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Another Week, Another War: A Bleak Appraisal
If you missed last week’s “war” between Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) and Israel, don’t worry; you’re not out of touch. It lasted less than 5 days and killed “only” 35 people (33 in Gaza; 2 in Israel, one of whom was a Gazan Palestinian). The usual Egyptian-brokered cease-fire settled nothing but did stop the fighting for now. Nobody deludes themselves into thinking the truce will last long, since it is somewhere between the 11th and 17th such war since 2006 (even discounting the more minor skirmishes). Israel and Hamas (the latter skillfully avoiding both fighting and losses) have been adjudged the winners, and PIJ, which lost 4 top commanders, was the loser. This is what Israelis used to call ‘mowing the grass’; the expression has largely fallen out of use but not the practice.
Why did it happen? There are various theories; all have at least a grain of truth. Israel said it was reacting to rocket fire from Gaza the previous week, when there had been anger there over the death of a PIJ leader in Israeli custody in the 87th day of his hunger strike. Israel, PIJ, and Hamas all have policies stipulating the importance of retaliation, lest neither their friends nor their enemies think they have gone soft. Many opine that Itamar Ben-Gvir, the high-profile far-right demagogue who is now Israel’s “Minister of National Security” (a title previously unknown), pressured PM Netanyahu for a stronger response to last week’s rocket firings. Others think that the impetus came from Bibi himself, who sought to pre-empt such complaints. Or, it might have been Bibi’s attempt to “busy giddy minds with foreign quarrels” (Henry IV, Pt. 2); an attempt to arrest his own and his government’s precipitous decline in the polls, an effort that seems to have borne fruit, at least for the time being. Or, the purpose might have been Israel’s attempt was to strengthen the position of Hamas, which is, of course, Israel’s mortal enemy, but one that generally keeps the situation quiet and that doesn’t appreciate provocation from PIJ, its rival for the support of the more militant Gazans as well as for Iranian cash. Iran is itself strapped for money, but can always spare some change to help keep Gaza on fire.
The violence was another blow to the Abraham accords, the 2020 scheme for Israel to make peace with the Arab world while bypassing the Palestinians. Bibi came into office last December promising that Saudi Arabia, the biggest prize of all, would soon join the AA. With the continuous unrest among Israelis and seemingly nightly raids in the West Bank as well as geopolitical shifts, that promise is unlikely to be fulfilled any time soon. Arab leaders may have long since forgotten the Palestinians but their populations haven’t, and videos of Israeli planes bombing Gaza make ordinary Arabs angry and their leaders edgy and disinclined to develop warmer relations with Israel.
Nothing has been changed by this mini-war except in the lives of the civilians and PIJ members killed – and their families – and the 137 wounded. The current general unwillingness by all parties to deal with the larger issues, first and foremost the occupation, in a fundamental way, ensures that this cycle of rockets, bombing, and killing will repeat itself for the indefinite and unforeseeable future.
I should note two other atrocities, one at the very heart of the conflict. I write this on May 15, 2023, the date that commemorates the Nakba of 1948. “Nakba” as most know by now, is the Arabic word for “catastrophe; it has become the expression used to denote the flight and expulsion of around 700,000 Palestinians as part of the war around the establishment of the Israeli state. Those who critically support Israel, as I do, have to take continuing notice of Palestinian suffering for the last 80 years and continuing today. The State of Israel must recognize that it cannot and never will be free and safe until it gives up the occupation.
I also note the brutal demolition last week of the elementary school of Jubbet ad-Dhib on the outskirts of Bethlehem. This is part of the longstanding occupation practice of almost never approving Palestinian building permit applications and then demolishing anything Palestinians dare to build. It is also reminiscent of another practice in East Jerusalem that was the focus of Partners’ “Stop the Evictions “campaign; evicting Palestinians from homes they have lived in for decades under the claim that it was “Jewish land” before 1948. Partners will continue to fight against evictions and other brutalities of the occupation. These continuing practices explain why Palestinians claim that the Nakba is still ongoing.
We’re grateful for the contributions of our supporters, which keep Partners going and enable us to maintain American contact with and awareness of those Israelis and Palestinians who continue struggling to bring an end to the cycle of hate, violence, and despair. Your help is invaluable and we hope it continues. Donate now.
Paul Scham
President, Partners for Progressive Israel
Statement on the American Anthropological Association (AAA)
Resolution to Boycott Israeli Academic Institutions
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The Alliance for Academic Freedom (AAF) and the Academic Engagement Network (AEN), jointly representing nearly 1,000 U.S. faculty across all ranks, including many anthropologists and longtime members of the American Anthropological Association (AAA), urge the AAA’s membership to unequivocally reject a “Resolution to Boycott Israeli Academic Institutions” which will be put to an electronic membership vote on June 15-30, 2023.
This membership-wide vote will be the second time that the AAA has considered whether the organization and its members should sever ties with Israeli academic institutions. Back in 2016, the AAA’s full membership was also asked to endorse a similarly deeply divisive measure and voted against a boycott. Seven years later, the principles at stake are unchanged and cutting off relationships with Israeli universities is more ill-advised than ever. We dispute the reasoning that has been put forward to once again justify an academic boycott of Israel and encourage AAA members to consider the following four points:
- The Resolution claims to support a “full embrace” of the AAA’s “deep commitment to academic freedom and open debate” despite the fact that academic boycotts are antithetical to these values.
When the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) distributed its policy statement opposing academic boycotts in 2006, it made clear that the free exchange of ideas and research results among faculty members and their universities worldwide is fundamental to the academy’s core mission of pursuing the truth. At the time, the AAUP cited the contentious debate over relations with Israel’s academia as a key contemporary test of the principle. Its conclusion was unambiguous: the premier values at issue—freedom of communication and relationships among scholars, students, and academic institutions—should prevail despite differences, however intense, over politics and government policies (for AAUP’s 2013 reiteration of its opposition to the academic boycott effort aimed at Israel, see here).
Hundreds of university leaders have also maintained that academic boycotts are detrimental to the core principles that define the academy, namely the unfettered communication of ideas and the freedom to conduct research without fear of retaliation (see, for example, here, here, and here).
- The Resolution will inevitably – and inequitably – result in the exclusion and isolation of Israeli academics.
The Resolution’s claim that an academic boycott “pertains to Israeli academic institutions only and not to individual scholars” is untenable and has proven inadequate in preventing discrimination against Israeli academics. Indeed, the boycott of Israel’s universities cannot be meaningfully separated from the faculty and students who work, teach, and study in them. The boycott thus functions as a blacklist that punishes individual academics on the basis of their nationality, political views, and the policies and actions of their employers and government.
The distinction between institutions and individuals, however attractive in theory, collapses when put into practice. Matters have only become worse since 2016, when the AAA first considered an academic boycott against Israel. In the intervening years, Israeli academics have been disinvited from university conferences and thrown off the editorial boards of scholarly journals and Israeli students have been denied graduate and postdoctoral admission opportunities. Students and scholars in the U.S. have also been negatively affected. U.S.-based academics have seen their Israel-themed events disrupted and students have been refused letters of recommendation for study abroad programs at Israeli universities. The Resolution guarantees this nowfamiliar chaos of personally crafted boycotts, resolving that “individual anthropologists who are members of the AAA are free to determine whether and how they will apply the boycott in their own professional practice.”
- The Resolution paints a picture of a monolithic Israeli academy malevolently hostile to Palestinians when the reality is that there is a wide range of opinions and many Israeli academics object to the Israeli government’s policies and actions.
While the Resolution asserts that Israeli academic institutions are “complicit” in the oppression of Palestinians, the reality is that Israeli university leaders and faculty work hard to foster Arab-Jewish coexistence and ensure a diversity of opinion on their campuses, including support for Palestinian voices (for recent examples, see here, here and here). Moreover, Israel’s academics have long been among the most vocal critics of the Israeli state and its society. An academic boycott would undercut the important work for peace and social justice being undertaken by many Israeli academics, as well as constructive and potentially transformative efforts to bring Israeli and Palestinian scholars together on joint projects.
As in the U.S. and many other countries, Israel’s academic institutions commendably rarely take formal political stands nor do they routinely weigh in on government policy. Recently, however, when the heads of Israel’s research universities perceived a threat to the democratic character of the state they did not hesitate to act, collectively deciding to shutter their schools in protest. Last month’s announcement of this general strike underscores just how wrong the supporters of the AAA boycott Resolution are when it comes to Israel’s academia. Indeed, punishing Israeli universities now of all times is nonsensical when the schools have shown themselves to be fierce champions of democracy and democratic principles.
• The Resolution denies legitimacy to and respect for the valid and widely shared perspectives of most Israelis and turns the complexities of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict into a caricature. It singles out one side for blame and establishes a false binary of oppressor vs. oppressed.
In both the academy and public discourse, Israel and its actions are subjects of considerable debate. Many scholars and practitioners who are highly critical of Israel’s policies toward the Palestinians, including members of our own organizations, will take issue with assertions that the Resolution treats as uncontested truths. For example, the Resolution’s claims that the Israeli state “operates an apartheid regime from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea” and that it institutionalizes “systematic racial oppression and discrimination” and has “enshrined the principle of Jewish supremacy” are not consensus positions in the fields of Jewish and Israel Studies. Moreover, even if not intended to do so, such depictions of Israel are likely to be perceived as deeply offensive and alienating to many Jewish members of the AAA, including nonwhite Jews.
We call on the AAA membership to inform themselves about the serious issues at stake and to assess and evaluate the points we have raised above, which represent a non-exhaustive list of the flaws and shortcomings of the academic boycott Resolution that will come before all AAA members in June.
We believe that should this Resolution pass, it will be profoundly destructive to the AAA’s reputation and credibility. We hope that come June a sufficient number of AAA members will reject turning their professional association from one committed to academic freedom and open intellectual inquiry into an advocacy organization mandating absolute positions and ideological orthodoxies. Toward that end, we encourage the membership to revisit the archived website and statement by Anthropologists Against the Boycott of Israeli Academic Institutions and the persuasive past remarks of Anthropologists for Academic Freedom:
“The politicized execution of an academic boycott would rather prevent the advancement of archaeological, cultural, physical, and linguistic anthropology, thereby hindering the dissemination of anthropological research [and] events including conferences, symposia, workshops, book and museum exhibits, would be forbidden if co-sponsored by Israeli institutions, as would study-abroad programs in Israel.”
Much has stayed the same yet much has also changed since the AAA considered an academic boycott proposal back in 2016. The Israel-Palestinian conflict has accumulated more tragic suffering and loss of innocent life. Monstrous violence across the MENA region has resulted in even higher casualties. And some Arab nations have reached accommodations with Israel, generating a greater potential for new academic exchanges and partnerships as well as opportunities for fostering mutual understanding across religious and cultural divides. Despite these transformations, however, the Resolution’s proponents clearly believe that they now have a chance of prevailing.
It remains to be seen whether AAA members will decide to express their anger and frustration at Israel by penalizing their Israeli university colleagues. The Resolution does not explicitly exploit widespread opposition to the current Israeli government in order to encourage votes in favor of an academic boycott, but we are concerned that AAA members will be so motivated regardless. Whatever the circumstances behind the timing of the decision to resurrect the call for an academic boycott against Israel, we fear that at least some AAA members, and perhaps a majority, will be influenced by the tumultuous current political situation.
We therefore encourage a thoughtful consideration of the present moment. Cutting off relationships with Israeli universities now, and collectively punishing Israeli academics and those who work with them, is exceptionally irresponsible, foolhardy, and detrimental.
==========
ENDORSEMENTS
This statement has been endorsed by the following organizations:
Academic Council for Israel
ALEPH: Alliance for Jewish Renewal
Association for Israel Studies (AIS)
Alpha Epsilon Pi (AEPi)
Alums for Campus Fairness
AMCHA Initiative
Ameinu
American Association of Jewish Lawyers and Jurists (AAJLJ)
American Council of Trustees and Alumni (ACTA)
American Friends of Tel Aviv University
American Jewish Committee (AJC)
American Russian-Speaking Jews Alliance (ARSJA)
American-Israeli Cooperative Enterprise (AICE)
Americans for Ben Gurion University
Americans for Peace Now (APN)
Anthropologists for Academic Freedom
Anti-Defamation League (ADL)
ARZA—Association of Reform Zionists of America
Atlanta Israel Coalition (AIC)
B’nai B’rith International
Boston Israel Action Committee (BIAC)
California Association of Scholars (CAS)
Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting and Analysis (CAMERA)
Canadian Antisemitism Education Foundation (CAEF)
The Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA)
Club Z
Combat Antisemitism Movement (CAM)
Democratic Majority for Israel (DMFI)
Endowment for Middle East Truth (EMET)
European Association of Israel Studies (EAIS)
European Sociological Association’s Research Network—Ethnic Relations, Racism and
Antisemitism
Habonim Dror North America (HDNA)
Institute for the Study of Contemporary Antisemitism (ISCA)
Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy (ISGAP)
Iranian American Jewish Federation (IAJF)
Iranian Jewish Women’s Organization (IJWO)
Israel on Campus Coalition (ICC)
Israeli-American Civic Action Network (ICAN)
Israeli-American Civic Education Institute
Israeli-American Council (IAC)
Israeli Anthropological Association (IAA)
Ithaca Area United Jewish Community (IAUJC)
J Street
Jewish American Affairs Committee of Indiana (JAACI)
Jewish Awareness Movement (JAM)
Jewish Federations of North America (JFNA)
Jewish Labor Committee (JLC)
Jewish Student Coalition of New York (JSCNY)
Jewish Studies Zionist Network
Jewish United Fund (JUF)/Jewish Federation of Chicago
Jewish War Veterans of the USA (JWV)
Jews Indigenous to the Middle East and North Africa (JIMENA)
Journal of Contemporary Antisemitism (JCA)
Legal Insurrection Foundation (LIF)
London Centre for the Study of Contemporary Antisemitism (LCSCA)
Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law
Mercaz USA—The Zionist Organization of the Conservative Movement
Michigan Jewish Action Council
Middle East Forum (MEF)
MLA Members for Scholars’ Rights (MLAMFSR)
National Association of Scholars (NAS)
National Council of Jewish Women (NCJW)
Network of Engaged Canadian Academics (NECA)
New York Jewish Agenda
New Zionist Congress
North Carolina Coalition for Israel (NCCI)
Partners for Progressive Israel (PPI)
Psychologists Against Antisemitism
Rabbinical Alliance of America (RAA)
The Rabbinical Assembly (RA)
Rhode Island Coalition for Israel (RICI)
Russian Jewish Community Foundation (RJCF)
Scholars for Peace in the Middle East (SPME)
Simon Wiesenthal Center
StandWithUs
StopAntisemitism
Students Supporting Israel Movement (SSI)
Union for Reform Judaism (URJ)
A Wider Bridge
World Jewish Congress North America
Zionist Organization of America (ZOA)
ADDITIONAL ENDORSEMENTS WILL BE ADDED AS THEY ARRIVE.
The Alliance for Academic Freedom is a national organization of scholars and academics who believe in empathy for the suffering and aspirations of both Israelis and Palestinians, and respect for their national narratives. Its members insist on the importance of academic freedom and open intellectual exchange, and so reject calls for academic boycotts and blacklists, as well as efforts to punish academics for their political speech, including those who support the academic boycotts that we oppose.
The Academic Engagement Network is a national organization that mobilizes networks of university faculty and administrators to counter antisemitism, oppose the denigration of Jewish and Zionist identities, promote academic freedom, and advance education about Israel.
Read the statement on website
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Support the Representatives Anna Eshoo and Jamie Raskin Letter!
Contact Your Member of Congress to Sign on to It!
To the Protestors Defending Israeli Democracy:
As Members of Congress and friends of Israel, we write to voice our support and admiration for the groundswell of pro-democracy activism in Israel in recent months. Through peaceful protests and strikes, you have delayed the advancement of Prime Minister Netanyahu’s extreme plan to eviscerate the independence of the Israeli judiciary, and we’re hopeful that through continued activism, you will stop it once and for all.
Along with so many of you and with our own constituents, we’ve watched with dismay as the governing coalition has forged ahead with judicial overhaul legislation that would do profound harm to Israel’s democratic institutions. The legislation gives the governing coalition control over critical judicial appointments, enables the Knesset to overturn Supreme Court decisions with a simple majority vote, ends judicial review of Israel’s Basic Laws by the Supreme Court, and sharply curtails the Court’s ability to review other laws. If enacted, this proposal would virtually eliminate the checks and balances that are crucial to maintaining a healthy democracy.
We’re deeply concerned that this legislation will corrode Israel’s democratic character and, in doing so, strain the critical relationship between Israel and the United States. Since Israel’s founding in 1948, the American people have consistently embraced Israel as the only democracy in the Middle East and supported close cooperation between our two countries. This cooperation has been rooted in our shared democratic values such as individual freedoms, human rights, and the rule of law. The judicial overhaul legislation will undermine these shared principles that form the foundation of our strong economic, diplomatic, and security partnerships.
An independent judiciary is a key element of democracy, and one that is essential to protecting the rights of minorities and marginalized communities. The undermining of the Israeli judiciary’s independence is likely to threaten the civil liberties of Israel’s Palestinian Arab citizens. Additionally, weakening the Supreme Court will render it unable to constrain further entrenchment of the occupation of the West Bank, and in particular, the confiscation of Palestinian property and “regularization” of settlement outposts that are illegal under both Israeli and international law. Not only will this lead to devastating consequences for Palestinian civilians, it is also likely to exacerbate tensions in the region, further undermine the viability of a two-state solution, and jeopardize the progress made by the Abraham Accords.
As Israel celebrates the 75th anniversary of its founding, we proudly stand with you, the Israeli non-violent, pro-democracy movement, as you fight to preserve Israel’s democratic character and ensure that the rule of law prevails. While we confront challenges to our democracy at home, we admire the fortitude you have shown in facing down efforts to erode Israeli democracy. We share your belief that a strong, vibrant democracy with an independent judiciary is essential to Israel’s future success and the success of the U.S.-Israel relationship. We also share your hope that the Netanyahu government will listen to the concerns of its citizens, the military, and the international community, and abandon this dangerous legislation.
download the letter
Find your representative
Dear friend,
Passover, as we all know, is the holiday of freedom, a striving that has taken many different forms over the years, both for us, as the Jewish people, and universally, for the world. This year, although issues of freedom abound, including some here in the US, many of us are focused on the meaning of freedom for Israelis, both Palestinian and Jewish, exemplified by the hundreds of thousands of Israelis who have demonstrated weekly, sometimes daily, against the judicial overhaul being proposed by the new far-right government, that would eliminate many of the freedoms Israelis enjoy. If you’re interested in an analysis of the protests that I recently published online, you can find it here.
To be clear, I am not equating Bibi Netanyahu with Pharaoh nor am I trying to imply that the new bill, if implemented, would reduce Israelis to slavery (though I suspect many of my Israeli friends might see things that way). However, just before the holiday I received an online Freedom Hagggadah which very specifically tries to understand the traditional text’s messages for Israelis and Jews in light of the attempted “reforms” and the uprising against them. Though it’s not in time for the seder(s), the short essays are very much worth reading and pondering. I hope you enjoy them as much as I did.
Just before the holiday I also received word that the Israeli Supreme Court (the same one Bibi is trying to neuter) decisively rejected settlers’ decades-long attempt to evict them from their home in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of Jerusalem. We have supported them for years and share their joy during this Ramadan/Passover/ Easter season.
As I write this, on Friday morning, April 7, however, our fears about the conjunction of these holidays seem to be coming true. After the two Israeli raids on the Al Aqsa mosque earlier this week, rocket fire from Lebanon and Gaza has hit Israel, to which Israel has responded. We have seen this scenario of mutual escalation many times before but it comes now with Israel in the throes of its political crisis and religious feelings inflamed with the coinciding holidays. We urgently call on all sides to show restraint, as we absolutely know that however this escalates, it will solve nothing.
Partners for Progressive Israel tries to serve as bridge, connecting progressive Israelis to their American supporters, and amplifying American support for their strivings and achievements through our webinars, Israel Horizons, our digital Symposium, and much more. Please help us in our ongoing Passover campaign as we build support for our Israeli sisters and brothers.
Wishing to all
חג חירות שמח A joyous and meaningful Passover
رمضان مبارك مسالم A peaceful Ramadan Mubarak
A happy and fulfilling Easter
Paul Scham
President, Partners for Progressive Israel
Rep. Bowman and Sen. Sanders’ Letter to President Biden and Secretary BlinkenDear President Biden and Secretary Blinken,
We write to you with deep concern regarding the rapidly escalating violence in the occupied Palestinian West Bank and the alarming actions of the new extreme right-wing Israeli government. We urge immediate action to prevent the further loss of Israeli and Palestinian lives. At this inflection point, we ask your administration to undertake a shift in U.S. policy in recognition of the worsening violence, further annexation of land, and denial of Palestinian rights. Only by protecting democracy, human rights, and self-determination for all Palestinians and Israelis can we achieve a lasting peace.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government includes far-right, anti-Palestinian individuals and parties. Minister of National Security Itamar Ben Gvir openly encourages and praises violence against Palestinians. Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich responded to the recent Israeli settler attacks on the Palestinian town of Huwara in the occupied West Bank by declaring that the whole town should be “wiped out.”[1] Their presence in the government has made this the most far-right, illiberal government in Israel’s history. True to their records, these figures are pushing repressive, anti-democratic policies and escalating violence towards the Palestinian population.
Shocking violence in late February encapsulated the bloody reality in the occupied West Bank. On February 22, a daytime raid by the Israeli army into the crowded Palestinian city of Nablus killed 11 Palestinians, among them a 72 year-old-man and a 16-year-old child.[2] On February 26, a Palestinian gunman shot dead two Israeli settlers outside of Nablus. Subsequently, hundreds of Israeli settlers attacked the Palestinian town of Huwara. The settlers, accompanied by the Israeli army, set fire to homes, schools, vehicles, and businesses, killing one Palestinian and injuring over 300 Palestinians.[3] The local Israeli military commander called the attack a “pogrom.”[4] The attack was not an isolated incident, with the State Department reporting that Israeli settler attacks have expanded in severity and scale.[5] The day after the Huwara attack, an Israeli-American citizen Elan Ganeles was killed by a Palestinian gunman on a highway in the occupied West Bank.
This comes amid an already violent year. Israeli forces and settlers have killed over 85 Palestinians[6] in 2023, including 16 children.[7] At least 14 Israelis have been killed,[8] including two children.[9] The previous year was the deadliest for Palestinians in the occupied West Bank since 2004 and included the Israeli military’s killings of two American citizens, Shireen Abu Akleh and Omar Assad.[10]
This Israeli government’s anti-democratic mission to dismantle the rule of law is a threat to Israelis and Palestinians alike. In addition to explicitly hateful, anti-Palestinian policies, this government is attempting to destroy the independent Israeli judiciary. This move would threaten the rights of all citizens of Israel, enable more corruption by Prime Ministers, and open the path towards further annexation of Palestinian lands.
We are deeply concerned by Israeli government moves that demonstrate that illegal de facto and de jure annexation of the occupied West Bank is well underway. For example, on February 12, the Israeli government, over U.S. objections, authorized nine settlement outposts in the occupied West Bank in violation of international law.[11] A little over a week later, following a U.N. Security Council statement criticizing Israeli settlement expansion, the government announced the approval of over 7,000 new settlement homes.[12] Furthermore, Israeli legal experts deem the government’s decision to transfer most governing authority in the occupied West Bank from the military to a civilian minister, Finance Minister Smotrich, to be a form of annexation – a move your administration has warned against.[13] [14]
Many of us have previously written to your administration with deep concern regarding the entrenched Israeli military occupation of the Palestinian Territories, including the occupation and military siege of Gaza, and the Israeli government’s worsening systemic violations of Palestinian human rights. Those concerns have only deepened and grown more urgent under the new Israeli government.
We know your administration has met repeatedly with Israeli officials to reiterate U.S. support for “equal measures of freedom, dignity, security and prosperity” for both Israelis and Palestinians. Unfortunately, these good faith entreaties have had no effect. Furthermore, despite massive street protests and a general strike, the Israeli government has merely delayed its judicial overhaul for a short time, and none of the agreements reached this week will lessen the systemic violence against Palestinians, including annexation of Palestinian land. The Israeli government’s actions are in clear violation of international law and commitments made to the U.S.; its agenda will further devastate Palestinian communities and heighten tension with violent consequences for both Palestinians and Israelis. Only clear steps to change political conditions will pave the way for peace.
As such, we call on your administration to promptly:
- Ensure U.S. taxpayer funds do not support projects in illegal settlements;
- Determine whether U.S.-origin defense articles have been used in violation of existing U.S. laws, including for a purpose not authorized by Section 4 of the Arms Export Control Act (22 U.S.C. § 2754) or to commit or support gross violations of human rights by the Israeli government in violation of Section 502B(a)(2) of the Foreign Assistance Act (22 U.S.C. § 2304(a)(2)) and the U.S. “Leahy Laws,” Section 620M of the Foreign Assistance Act (22 U.S.C. § 2378d and 10 U.S.C. § 362).
Furthermore, we call on your administration to ensure that all future foreign assistance to Israel, including weapons and equipment, is not used in support of gross violations of human rights, including by strengthening end-use monitoring and financial tracking. We ask that you respond with a detailed plan as to how the administration plans to achieve that goal.
—
[1] Axios, March 1, 2023: U.S. says Israeli minister’s call to wipe out Palestinian town is “disgusting”. Available at https://www.axios.com/2023/03/01/hawara-israeli-smotrich-wipe-out-west-bank-settlers
[2] See for example: Washington Post, March 10, 2023: 3D analysis shows how Israeli troops fired into group of civilians. Available at: https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/interactive/2023/palestine-shooting-nablus-videos/. See also: New York Times, March 1, 2023: How an Israeli Raid on A Safe House Ended with Civilians Killed. Available at: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/01/world/middleeast/israel-palestinian-safe-house-raid.html
[3] The Guardian, February 27, 2023: ‘Never like this before’: settler violence in West Bank escalates. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/feb/27/israeli-settler-violence-in-west-bank-escalates-huwara
[4] Reuters, March 1, 2023: Israel arrests suspects in settler rampage described by general as ‘pogrom’. Available at: https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/israel-arrests-suspects-settler-rampage-described-by-general-pogrom-2023-03-01/
[5] Last month, the Department of State released its 2021 Country Reports on Terrorism, noting that Israeli settler attacks had expanded in severity and scale. The State Department also noted that “Israeli security personnel often did not prevent settler attacks and rarely detained or charged perpetrators of settler violence.” Department of State, February 2023: Country Reports on Terrorism 2021: Israel, West Bank, and Gaza. Available at: https://www.state.gov/reports/country-reports-on-terrorism-2021/israel
[6] ABC News, March 23, 2023: Palestinian killed in Israeli military raid in West Bank. Available at: https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/palestinian-killed-israeli-military-raid-west-bank-98065983
[7] Defense for Children International – Palestine, March 16, 2023: Israeli special forces shoot, kill Palestinian boy riding his bike in Jenin. Available at: https://www.dci-palestine.org/israeli_special_forces_shoot_kill_palestinian_boy_riding_his_bike_in_jenin
[8] Washington Post, March 12, 2023: 3 Palestinian militants killed in attack on Israeli troops. Available at: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/03/12/israel-palestinians-shooting-violence-west-bank/67ed3a10-c0a1-11ed-9350-7c5fccd598ad_story.html
[9] CNN, February 12, 2023: Second child dies in car ramming attack in Jerusalem. Available at: https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/10/middleeast/jerusalem-car-ramming-intl/index.html.
[10] B’Tselem, January 8, 2023. The Occupied Territories in 2022: largest number of Palestinians killed by Israel in West Bank since 2004. Available at: https://www.btselem.org/press_releases/20230108_the_occupied_territories_in_2022_largest_number_of_palestinians_killed_by_israel_in_the_west_bank_since_2004
[11] Reuters, February 12, 2023: Israel authorizes West Bank outposts, despite U.S. admonition. Available at: https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/israel-authorises-west-bank-outposts-despite-us-admonition-2023-02-12
[12] PBS News Hour, February 23, 2023: Israel approves over 7,000 settlement homes in West Bank, groups say. Available at: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/israel-approves-over-7000-settlement-homes-in-west-bank-groups-say
[13] Ha’aretz, January 26, 2023: Granting West Bank Authority to Smotrich is De Facto Annexation, Legal Experts Say. Available at: https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2023-01-26/ty-article/.premium/granting-west-bank-authority-to-smotrich-is-de-facto-annexation-legal-experts-say/00000185-ed38-d532-abdd-edbc1b220000
[14] Association for Civil Rights in Israel, February 23, 2023: https://twitter.com/acri_online/status/1628835829199110147
President’s Message
Israel is currently in an unprecedented crisis, demonstrated by the many establishment figures calling on American Jews, in their capacities both as Jews and as Americans, to make clear that we will not accept Israel going down the path that nations such as Hungary, Poland, and Turkey have trodden during the last decade.
Below is an article I published recently in Ha’aretz making that same argument, that now is precisely the time for American Jews who care about Israel but are deeply critical of many of its policies to do whatever we can to prevent this “judicial coup” from going through the Knesset. It is very much our business.
We at Partners do not seek simply a return to the status quo ante. We seek a change of direction of Israel’s 55-year-old policy of holding on to the West Bank as, in effect, a colonial possession, where the inhabitants are forbidden from choosing their government. This stain on Israeli democracy will remain even if the “judicial reforms” being pushed by the rightwing bloc are defeated.
The “reforms” now being strong-armed through the Knesset are all about removing the checks and balances that every democracy must maintain in order to guard against the seemingly opposite dangers of undue power being exercised on behalf of a minority, on the one hand; or, just as bad, a majoritarian democracy in which a simple majority can dictate fundamental changes or ride roughshod over the rights that every liberal democracy, by definition, must grant its minorities, be they political, ethnic, gender-based, or any other. Every democratic nation has developed these “antibody institutions” to protect itself. Most countries embed them in a constitution or bill of rights, as the US does, where the federal system and three independent branches of government are among the main protectors against anti-democratic initiatives.
Israel, lacking a constitution, has developed different mechanisms to protect itself, including a committee system for judicial appointees comprising judges, lawyers, and politicians; an attorney general empowered to constrain the government in some instances; independent legal advisors in cabinet ministries; and a judicially-created right to annul laws deemed “unreasonable.” The latter is rarely employed but essential in a system where a narrow Knesset majority combines both the executive and legislative powers that our own system divides. Without these checks, even a duly elected government can game the system to keep itself in power or suppress minorities, a process currently being played out around the world.
The current crisis was made politically possible by a coalition of three distinct minorities with varying political goals or grievances, in combination with PM Netanyahu’s desperate attempts to end his ongoing trial for corruption. 1) The Haredi (“ultra-Orthodox”) parties want to block the Supreme Court’s repeated rejection of their blanket exemption from military service, as well as excepting their schools from minimum secular education requirements; (2) Extremist settlers want to remove any legal obstacles to increased settlement or annexation of part or all of the West Bank, and prevent punishment for atrocities like the recent settler pogrom in the West Bank village of Huwara; and (3) Groups like the Kohelet Forum, a well-financed and influential think tank, are pushing for the removal of legal norms preventing adoption of American libertarian principles foreign to Israel.
This unholy coalition has seized on the seeming opportunity to entrench itself and its political goals after narrowly winning the last election. Partners hopes you will work with us as we and our allies fight against it.
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Fight for Democracy – End the Occupation!
Sincerely,
Paul Scham
The Aguda – Justice, Equality, and Inclusion for the LGBTQ Community
by Nurit Shein
This essay is the latest in our series of ‘Kolot: Voices of Hope’ profiles of Israelis and Palestinians furthering the cause of peace and equality. Find all the profiles in this series here.Israel’s 75th birthday is around the corner, and the country is facing what well might be its greatest challenge – the definition of its democracy. The demonstrations that fill the streets every week with tens of thousands of blue-and-white flags convey the message of shared concern for the future of the country we all care about. As the Knesset – the Israeli parliament – inches closer to curbing the role of the Supreme Court and redefining the process of appointing judges, the LGBTQ community is extremely concerned about the hard-fought rights it has gained over recent years and highly engaged in the pro-democracy protests.
Israel does not have a constitution to ensure basic civil rights, and religion and state are not fully separated. Many of the rights and freedoms of the LGBTQ community were achieved through the courts and these might now be repealed. In the absence of judicial oversight, most of the budget money allotted to the organizations serving the community could now be diverted by a simple change in regulations.
Since its establishment in 1975, the Association for LGBTQ Equality in Israel – The Aguda, has been the leading human rights organization in Israel with a mission to achieve justice, equality, and inclusion for the LGBTQ community and to ensure LGBTQ visibility and affirmation. The Aguda has spearheaded large-scale public struggles for the community, and achieved social and legislative changes, both nationally and in local communities across Israel.
Israeli and Rainbow flags
As the voice of the LGBTQ community, the Aguda heads a coalition of 18 LGBTQ organizations, strengthening bonds and coordinating shared strategy and action, while providing guidance to alliance members to assist their capacity-building efforts. One such collaboration is the interagency support between the Aguda and the religious LGBTQ organizations, which work together to combat the issue of so-called “conversion therapy.” The Aguda’s clinic provides mental health support to individuals who have suffered from such therapy, while the legal department helps sister organizations with their public struggle.
Coupled with the organization’s efforts to bring forth social change, the Aguda also provides extensive assistance to individuals and specific community groups. This includes a range of professional services such as mental health support, legal counseling, family mediation, assistance to refugees and immigrants, and support to victims of discrimination or hatred on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity.
Get to know Beit el-Meem – the home of the gay Arab community
From its inception, the Aguda’s long and impressive list of achievements has been positively impacting the lives of community members. Some of these successes include:
- With the objective of promoting a strong Arab LGBTQ community and providing vital support tailored to its needs, language, and unique community characteristics, the Aguda operates an Arabic hotline, which provides anonymous support and resources. In addition, it opened the only center, Beit el-Meem, which offers social activities, and provides legal assistance and leadership training in order to bring about policy reform.
- In an effort to create an egalitarian society where everyone belongs, the Aguda engages in lobbying the Knesset, the government, and local authorities, to promote gay rights. Through direct collaboration with elected officials at the national and local levels, the Aguda has been successful in advancing legislation, defining regulations, and securing budget allocations for the community.
- The Aguda has opened the only comprehensive Trans Center in Israel, in collaboration with the Gila Project. The center provides accessibility to social services and combines mentoring and coaching with legal and health assistance, along with social activities.
- The Aguda launched the Israeli Institute for Gender and LGBTQ Studies – an independent and professional division, providing up-to-date data on core issues affecting the lives of LGBTQ individuals in Israel, while adhering to superior research and academic standards. Among its numerous projects are: Research on promoting social reform for the Arab LGBTQ community in Israel; defining the characteristics and needs of LGBTQ individuals in Israel’s geographic and social periphery; examining anti-LGBTQ conduct; and a national pilot study on the Israeli public’s perceptions of and attitudes towards transgender people.
- The organization has also created a smooth ‘runway’ for individuals seeking to immigrate to Israel: The Department for LGBTQ Immigrants and Diaspora Jewry, in partnership with the Department for Social Activism and Tikkun Olam at the World Zionist Organization, provides information, support, and connections to the local LGBTQ community. Moving to a new country and starting a new life is daunting, all the more so for LGBTQ individuals. By providing personal guidance and linkage to support networks, this program mitigates much of the anxiety and allows for easier integration for those who choose to become part of our community.
The Aguda’s hotline. There’s someone to turn to.
Combating homophobia remains one of the central struggles of Israel’s LGBTQ community. So, the Aguda also publishes an annual Current Homophobia Report, which details homophobic incidents across different areas of life —the workplace, accessing healthcare, the legal system, social media, and the public arena.
Most significant has been a 50 percent increase in the number of reported incidents from the trans community in 2021. Like the story of A, a young trans man from Jerusalem, who was humiliated at a well-known clothing store where the sales person would not let him try on clothes in the men’s fitting room, and forced him to leave. Or the story of B, who was told by an examining doctor not to engage in sex with men.
The services provided by the organization also contain the stories of struggle and personal resilience. Such is the story of N, a 25-year-old from Nablus, in the West Bank, who came to Israel when he was 16, but went back home to help with his ailing father. When his sexual orientation was discovered, he suffered life-threatening abuse and finally fled back to Israel. The Aguda helped him obtain legal permits, housing, and financial and emotional support. Such are the stories of the Aguda’s Asylum Seekers and Refugees department. Its program provides support to LGBTQ members seeking asylum, the vast majority of whom have no legal status in Israel and have fled persecution due to their sexual orientation; most of those turning to this department are Palestinians from the Occupied Territories, who are at a high physical and mental risk.
With the formation of the new government, the LGBTQ community faces fresh challenges. The ultra-religious and ultra-nationalistic parties that are part of the new coalition, with representatives such as Avi Maoz, a self-described “proud homophobe,” and the proposed judicial “reform” all pose a serious threat to individual rights. The Knesset will potentially be able to overturn any ruling by the Supreme Court, such as the ability of same-sex couples to adopt. Against such threats, the Aguda, along with the rest of the LGBTQ organizations, is determined to continue to operate as a cohesive community and, in partnership with Israeli society generally, create a liberal culture, accepting of everyone. Our plan is to augment services, build new mechanisms, and function as a coalition against hatred. The LGBTQ community is at a crossroads: We must fight, and are fighting, for our position in the State of Israel.
To learn more about the Aguda, please visit their English-language website, follow them on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, and visit their YouTube channel.
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Nurit* Shein* is a member of the board of the Aguda and its immediate past Chair..
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Friends,
I, like many of us, have had calls from friends and family in Israel asking American Jews to stand with them in their fight for a Democratic and Jewish Israel; faithful to Israel’s Declaration of Independence.
“…will foster the development of the country for the benefit of all its inhabitants; it will be based on freedom, justice and peace as envisaged by the prophets of Israel; it will ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex; it will guarantee freedom of religion, conscience, language, education and culture…”
On the occasion of International Women’s Day, I share two open letters I recently received from Israeli women who are asking American Jews to join their fight.
Partners for Progressive Israel is committed to supporting those who stand up for democracy, as here in the U.S., democracy is a foundational frame work, not perfect, even fragile, yet an abiding commitment to human rights for all. Over the coming weeks and months, Partners will continue to bring more messages sharing what we, as Americans, can and must do, in support of our Israeli friends and partners, to help FIGHT FOR DEMOCRACY & END THE OCCUPATION!
Ayala Emmett
Partners for Progressive Israel Board Member
March 8, 2023
Open Letter from Israel #1
Our Brothers and Sisters in the United States,
Our Partners in the Jewish Destiny and the Values of the State of Israel:
Please join us in the decisive struggle to preserve the Jewish and democratic character of the state, which was established 75 years ago and inspired by the prophets and with the aim of shaping a Jewish state based on the values of justice and ethics, which are the foundation of our existence: “Zion in judgment will be redeemed and those who return to her – in justice” (Isaiah 1:27).
And in the spirit of Abraham, “to do what is just and right” (Genesis18:19).
I am drawing on the Bible because it is the source of Jewish justice and ethics and our very foundation. We are a nation of laws.
We are grateful for Partners for Progressive Israel who are standing with us in our struggle. Thank you on behalf of the troubled and concerned citizens of Israel, regardless of their political or identity affiliation, across religions and ethnicity.
Matia Kam
Israeli writer and commentator and lives in Givatayim.
Open Letter from Israel #2
These are particularly difficult times in Israel. It is not a disease or an enemy threatening the State of Israel, but an official leadership of the State of Israel that intimidates and seeks to put an end to Israeli democracy. There is no way to overestimate the severity of the problem; corrupt leaders, or those accused of committing serious offenses, are breaking down the delicate checks and balances of Israeli society and plunging us into an abyss from which there will be no turning back.
The fear is great, but the event has not yet occurred, so we don’t have the right to remain silent. This is the time to act, to work hard and fast to remove the dark cloud hovering over Israeli society. My friends, my colleagues, and I run as fast as we can from one demonstration to next, we write Facebook posts and use every possible platform to influence public opinion and prevent this disaster. The difficulty we now face is that we are struggling against a political leadership that has a frightening combination of messianic ideology and leaders who have been involved in criminal activity and have nothing to lose. Zealots and criminals do not believe in compromises.
One of our greatest fears these days is that we will lose you, Diaspora Jews and especially American Jews. You, who supported the State of Israel in its struggles in the past. If you say that you are tired of the State of Israel, we understand. Still, we want to urge you not to lose faith in us and not to abandon us. We need you more than ever.
And what exactly do we need? Not your money. We are not asking for donations. What we need now is a covenant of destiny (as defined by Rabbi Soloveitchik). Last Saturday night, while we were demonstrating in front of the President’s Residence in Jerusalem, we heard that you, too, in different parts of the world, have demonstrated for us. I have no words to describe the joy and excitement that gripped me.
The uniqueness of the Jewish people lies in the fact that it is made up of communities scattered all over the world. This time the Israeli community is in trouble, this time the danger is from within. We, here in Israel need your determined demonstrations. Please, raise your voice, and without delay. Write on social media, take to the streets, and use your professional and social networks to influence what is happening in Israel.
Please come to Israel; if you come to celebrate a bat or a bar mitzvah – celebrate it with the Women of the Wall. Incorporate in your trip a tour of the Occupied Territories (various NGOs such as Combatants for Peace and Breaking the Silence conduct tours in English), have conversations with Palestinians and peacemakers from Israel. Talk to people on the street. Visit Israeli Palestinian towns. Come and pray in the liberal egalitarian synagogues.
The time is short and the work for democracy is sacred. The struggle is tough but I am optimistic that together with you we will win. Our hearts are full of gratitude for standing with us.
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Ruhama Weiss is a professor at HUC in Jerusalem, a published poet and writer.
J Street Bashers Back Off: AIPAC Backs America
and Israel’s Most Dangerous Right-wingers
By Paul Scham
Feb 13, 2023
Danny Ayalon and my friend Chuck Freilich, both pillars of the Israeli security establishment, have strongly criticized J Street and its supporters and praised AIPAC in in Haaretz (In Israel’s Current Crisis, AIPAC Is Vital and J Street Is Dangerous.)
While I am not now nor ever have been a spokesman for J Street, I strongly support its activities, electoral and otherwise. My own organization, Partners for Progressive Israel, works closely with J Street in the Progressive Israel Network, comprised of more than a dozen American Jewish organizations that are both pro-Israel and pro-peace. That stance necessitates taking public positions critical of many Israeli policies; especially, of course, the continuation of the occupation.
Freilich and Ayalon’s arguments are deeply flawed and misconceive the relationship between American Jews and Israel in today’s context. They begin with the usual assertion that “the only place to change Israel’s policies is in Israel.” That old saw is simply incorrect. Israel – like all countries – responds to events everywhere that affect it; that is largely what international relations is about.
However, they are also wrong in a more fundamental and normative sense. American Jews who choose to care about Israel are affected by Israel’s policies both as Jews and as Americans. As Jews, we care deeply about Israel’s future, and we would not be involved in this work if we didn‘t believe passionately in the need for an Israel that is both secure and democratic.
As Israelis frequently proclaim, Israel is inseparably connected with the Jewish people. With that connection comes responsibility, not merely the role of cash cow. We have both the right and the positive duty to express ourselves about Israel’s policies in every lawful and moral way, especially in concert and cooperation with our Israeli partners. Those of us who are dual citizens (including the leaders of many Progressive Israel Network organizations) also vote in Israeli elections when we are able to travel there (Israel doesn’t allow absentee voting).
However, we are also American citizens, and the relationship between the US and Israel is a major geopolitical factor as well as, in recent years, a virulent domestic political issue. US taxpayers subsidize Israel‘s military to the tune of at least $3.8 billion annually, as well as providing indispensable political and diplomatic support. As Americans we are entitled to a say in how the US support for Israel is manifested, financially and otherwise.
Freilich and Ayalon, however, apparently think that, as American Jews, we have no moral or other right to express ourselves, even when, as Chuck Freilich certainly knows, Israel’s government’s policies are disastrous. Instead, they contend we should close our eyes to what we know is true and support AIPAC, even when AIPAC throws its hefty financial clout behind candidates who not only support the Jan. 6 insurrection in Washington and Trump’s election denialism, but also the most dangerous rightwing forces in Israel.
Although AIPAC is in lockstep with Israeli government policies we abhor, we are supposed to leave our brains outside and vote just as AIPAC tells us to.
A particularly egregious example in 2022 was AIPAC’s successful primary campaign against Andy Levin, a former synagogue president and staunch supporter of Israel, largely because he had the temerity to support the Two-State Solution Bill in Congress, a policy which also happens to be the position of the US government, but not the current Israeli one. He was outspent 5 to 1, largely by “pro-Israel” PACs supporting his opponent.
An ever-increasing number of American Jews are rejecting the untenable position that unconditional support for Israel’s policies, including the everlasting occupation, is the sole litmus test they should apply. Admittedly, it is much easier to create a bright line that support for Israel’s government is the only thing that matters, and that all those who don’t toe that line should be consigned to a political and communal kherem.
It is indeed a judgment call as to exactly who is “pro-Israel,” since support for far-right forces in either country is dangerous for democracy. But AIPAC – and Freilich and Ayalon – demand that American Jews leave their consciences and values at the door. Thus, they question whether J Street – and presumably its thousands of supporters – “can truly be considered a pro-Israel organization,” as if that is a title they can bestow or withhold.
Freilich and Ayalon caricature J-Street’s positions, claiming it believes American pressure for the two-state solution would ‘magically” produce a solution to the conflict. But genuinely magical, or perhaps deeply anachronistic, thinking is conveyed by their statement that “AIPAC seeks to be a home for the entire pro-Israel community, from the left to the right.”
Anyone who has the slightest knowledge of AIPAC’s Super PAC in the 2022 cycle knows that it supported 109 of 147 House Republicans who voted against certifying President Biden’s victory.” Is that really something any conscientious American (Jewish or not) should ignore? Shut our eyes and think of 1948 or 1967, when Israel’s existence was genuinely in danger? Most American Jews have rightly moved beyond that logic.
Today, it is simply impossible for supporters of Israel to ignore the issue of democracy, both in Israel and in the US. AIPAC has failed in that regard.
Harkening back to a time when American Jews were more united does not solve today’s issues. That means that defining “pro-Israel” cannot be franchised out to an organization that has clearly shown that democracy is not its concern. Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir must be opposed by American Jews as strongly as they oppose Donald Trump.
We recognize, of course, that there are genuinely anti-Israel forces in the US and in the world. But we cannot shut our eyes to the truly dangerous forces within Israel as well.
Iran is currently the only potentially existential outside threat that Israel faces – and it is beyond question that the American Jewish left has demonstrated its resolve against Iran.
American Jews have both an American and a Jewish duty to vote their consciences on Israel, not to subvert democracy by blind support of an Israeli government that does not believe in its basic tenets.
READ THE ARTICLE ON HA’ARETZ WEBSITE
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Paul Scham is president of Partners for Progressive Israel and Director of the Gildenhorn Institute for Israel Studies at the University of Maryland, where he is a Professor of Israel Studies. The views expressed here are his own.
Partners’ Statement on the Current Escalation of Violence
Partners for Progressive Israel unequivocally condemns the recent attacks on Israelis in Silwan and Neve Yaakov. We also condemn the 144 reported attacks by settlers on Palestinians over the weekend as well as the barbaric practice of demolition of the homes of uninvolved family members of the attackers.
We have seen this ongoing cycle of violence many times before, and it seems that nothing has been forgotten and nothing learned. It is in no way condoning Palestinian attacks to recognize that without a political horizon, Palestinians will never cease attacking the symbols and instrumentalities of the occupation. Each attack will lead inescapably to the next one until Israel, as the stronger power, eventually makes the fundamental decision that the occupation cannot be sustained – and moves decisively to end it.
We are under no illusions that any Israeli government in the current climate will take these necessary steps. Thus, the only way to begin to end the current impasse is for Americans, at both the grassroots level as well as at the highest positions of government, to demand that the madness end.
The US government is in the unique position of being able to demand that Israel refrain from house demolitions, building new settlements, or engaging in other retaliatory actions that are being planned. It can implement follow-on measures if Israel refuses. It can also strongly urge the Palestinian Authority to reinstate security cooperation if Israel complies. We hope that Secretary of State Blinken, on his current trip to Israel, takes note that this is not a time for business as usual.
American citizens, especially those with a historically close relationship with Israel such as American Jews, must not be silent. We need to use those tools that we can, including contacting our elected representatives, to ensure that this crisis does not proceed to a point where it results in hundreds or thousands of Israeli and Palestinian lives.
We urge everyone in the Washington, D.C. area to join us and other Progressive Israel Network (PIN) organizations at a demonstration outside the Embassy of Israel this Friday, Feb. 3, at 2 pm. The Embassy is off Van Ness St., 3514 International Dr. NW.
Partners will continue to work with its supporters and allies, in Israel, the US, and around the world, for a democratic Israel and a fair and equitable solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
“For Zion’s sake I will not be silent.” (Isaiah 62:1)
Partners for Progressive Israel’s Statement on the
Inauguration of Netanyahu’s Sixth GovernmentPartners for Progressive Israel is appalled by the new Israeli government of Benjamin Netanyahu, a would-be authoritarian ruler who has assembled a coalition of unabashed Jewish supremacists, religious fundamentalists, and advocates of illiberalism. With a policy driven by disciples of the racist Meir Kahane, by self-declared homophobes, and by supporters of theocracy, we fear that Israel might come to bear little resemblance to a democracy, even within its sovereign borders.
We stand behind the many brave citizens of Israel, Jews and Arabs, who will resist the actions of this new government and its premeditated assault on the civil and human rights of Palestinians in the occupied Palestinian territory and, within the Green Line border, of Palestinian Arab citizens, women, and the LGBTQ+ community, as well as the general population. These Israelis are already showing their resolve, with thousands gathered at the Knesset on Thursday, as the government was sworn in, to voice their vehement protest.
We applaud the active involvement in these protests of our friends in the Meretz party, who will yet help to resurrect a new left in Israel. Partners for Progressive Israel will continue to share the dissident message of the country’s progressive camp in the difficult time ahead and will continue to actively support the Israeli left in defending human and civil rights for all of the inhabitants in the region.
To help in these efforts, we encourage those in the Washington D.C. area to take part in a protest outside the Israeli embassy on Monday, January 2nd. Details can be found here.
Partners for Progressive Israel December 30th, 2022
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Haqel: Legal Defense for Occupied Palestinians
By Adena Ben-Reuven
This essay is the latest in our series of ‘Kolot: Voices of Hope’ profiles of Israelis and Palestinians furthering the cause of peace and equality. Find all the profiles in this series here.Haqel: In Defense of Human Rights is an Israeli NGO engaged in strategic litigation on behalf of Palestinian landowners and entire communities in the area of the West Bank classified as “Area C” under the Oslo Process. We maintain a specific focus on the South Hebron Hills, the Bethlehem region, and the area of the Jalud Valley in the northern West Bank. Haqel currently represents over 18,000 beneficiaries. Haqel, meaning “field” in Arabic and Aramaic, is the root of the Hebrew word for both “agriculture” and “farmer”. The field is a symbol of renewal, an essential source of income, and is integral to Palestinian life and culture. Haqel’s work presents the Palestinian narrative. The sabra plant, the organization’s logo, symbolizes resilience in the face of dire hardship.
Area C of the occupied Palestinian territories (oPt) makes up sixty percent of the West Bank and falls under full Israeli military and civil control. The indigenous Palestinian population there subsists from a traditional way of life as farmers and shepherds. These communities suffer some of the most devastating effects of human rights and international humanitarian law abuses in the oPt. Landowners struggle to eke out an existence and are faced with ongoing harassment, attack, and intimidation by settlers living in close proximity to their lands. Farming and cultivating these lands are extremely challenging. Landowners are threatened, harassed, and often attacked by marauding settlers who prevent farmers from accessing their lands. Settlers make constant attempts to take over lands that are left inaccessible to their Palestinian owners.
Adv. Quamar Mishirqi-Assad meeting with landowners from Bir Al Eid and Jinba villages regarding proposed patrol road (June 2022)
As access becomes increasingly difficult, huge financial losses are incurred by farmers due to their inability to reach their lands on a sustained basis. The ongoing presence and control of the Israeli security forces and the State’s declaration of large swaths of land as closed military zones, State lands, and nature reserves have resulted in forced displacement of families and communities and expropriation of thousands of dunams of land. In addition, as a result of discriminatory planning in the occupied territories, leaving Palestinians no choice but to build without permits, homes and essential structures are faced with the ongoing threat of demolition resulting in increased poverty and marginalization in communities and villages throughout the oPt.
In response to the deepening crisis in the Southern Hebron Hills area of Masafer Yatta, recently declared a live firing zone by Israel’s High Court of Justice (known as the 918 Firing Zone), Haqel has represented communities in Masafer Yatta regarding a military order issued to construct a patrol road between the villages of Bir Al Eid and Jinba. This road would not only expropriate 278 dunams of privately owned agricultural land, but severely restrict freedom of movement and deny residents the ability to access emergency medical care and other essential humanitarian services.
It is within the context of this difficult reality that Haqel’s legal representation is critical to Palestinian landowners and their communities to ensure their survival and sustained viability. Haqel’s legal team works to thwart displacement of Palestinians by preventing encroachment on and expropriation of privately-owned lands, protecting farmers’ rights to land access, and demanding better enforcement of the rule of law.
Damage to olive trees owned by Tzadek family, Jalud valley (October 2021). Settlers have begun using new tactic – hacking the tree trunk to cause irreparable damage, leading to tree’s ultimate demise
Haqel is co-directed by Dr. Adv. Quamar Mishirqi-Assad and Adena Ben-Reuven. Adv. Mishirqi-Assad is the director of Haqel’s legal work. She is an expert on local law, international human rights, and humanitarian rights law. Fellow NGOs, activists, and land rights scholars rely on her expertise and experience. She recently attained her doctorate from the University of Haifa. Adena Ben-Reuven, originally from South Africa, has over 25 years of experience in fundraising and financial and organizational management. She is responsible for the daily operation of Haqel. Although Haqel was established in 2016, Haqel’s Co-Directors have been working on behalf of the project beneficiaries since 2005.
Haqel’s holistic approach addresses the multiple aspects of life of the Palestinian population in the oPt, which is supposed to enjoy legal protection under the law of occupation. Legal intervention cannot be tackled in a vacuum, but has to address all aspects of socio-economic and cultural life under occupation. In this respect, Haqel’s approach is unique and is driven from the grassroots upwards. As a Palestinian, Adv. Mishirqi-Assad relies on close, personal, longstanding connections with landowners, community activists and leaders, village mayors, and heads of village councils. Haqel works synergistically in cooperation with a wide range of Israeli and Palestinian NGOs, which serves to better address the multifaceted aspects of human rights violations in the oPt.
Despite the challenges, Haqel’s work has had unprecedented and life-changing impact on hundreds of landowners and entire communities throughout the oPt over the last 17 years:
- Through ongoing coordination with the Civil Administration, the Israeli Defense Ministry’s division for civil affairs in the oPt, hundreds of families have succeeded in entering their agricultural lands to harvest olives, almonds, wheat, and barley. Families have ploughed and prepared their lands for planting. In several cases, families succeeded in entering their lands for the first time since the Second Intifada.
- Through years of relentless legal work in the Israeli courts, Haqel has helped win back lands in several cases in the last year. One of Haqel’s most prominent cases, described below, is that of the Haj Muhammad family in the Jalud Valley.
With Haqel’s coordination, landowners succeeded in plowing their lands adjacent to settler outpost, Ma’ale Rehavam, Bethlehem area
The family, from the village of Jalud, northeast of the settlement of Shiloh, owned 250 dunams (roughly 62 acres) of agricultural land. Until a little more than 20 years ago, the family patriarch cultivated the fields and planted crops of hummus, lentils, wheat, and barley. In the fall, he plowed and sowed ahead of the rains; in the spring and early summer, he brought in the sheep and harvested. The harvest helped support the large family.
It is not always easy to prove rights to land in the West Bank, but the Haj Muhammad family does have Jordanian title deeds. These have been held by them since the days when the family’s grandfather cultivated the land in the 1940s. At the beginning of this century, the family was expelled from the land, by settlers from the settlement of Shiloh who sought to expand the territories they possessed. Vineyards were planted and the “Olive Oil Land” company was established by settlers, who now sell the prestigious boutique brand, “Meshek Ahiya,” which produces and markets olive oil, wine, olives, and tahini.
Haqel has been engaged in a lengthy legal battle since 2007 to prove the family’s ownership and win back these lands through the Israeli courts. In 2007, the Civil Administration recognized that these were privately-owned lands and ordered that the vineyard be removed, but there have been multiple delays in implementing the order. The most recent delay included a postponement until February 2023 as a result of the year of shmitah, with its religious injunction to do no agricultural labor.
In an interview with Zman Israel, one of the family members said: “The whole village knew that this is our land. It was our main source of livelihood… I feel immense pain when I see the pictures of my father cultivating these lands, which were taken from us by force. My father died in 2017 at the age of 58, … we have been fighting since his passing to get the land back.”
Haqel Co-Director Adv. Quamar Mishirqi-Assad, and Nasser Nawaja, Haqel field worker (right forefront), with landowners from Jinba and Bir Al Id villages, at Israeli High Court of Justice hearing on objection to military patrol road (September 8, 2022)
Haqel will continue to work to ensure that the order is in fact implemented and the lands returned to their rightful owner.
Additional Haqel projects:
- Haqel published a joint report with the Kerem Navot NGO in 2019 involving ground-breaking research on the discriminatory implementation of evacuation orders in the West Bank. We are currently completing a second report on land confiscations which will be published in early 2023.
- In June 2022, Haqel published a booklet of personal testimonies of eight women living under occupation, entitled “I raise up my voice”. (For the booklet in Arabic, click here.) The stories presented in the booklet reflect an ongoing reality for families and communities whose lives and livelihoods are threatened with survival. Over 130 participants registered for the launch event, which included the participation of our special guest, international gender equality expert, Kavita Nandini Ramdas. (Watch our full launch event here). As part of Haqel’s women’s empowerment work, the organization has been engaged in educational initiatives aimed at promoting gender equality with the focus on breaking social norms by drawing women into legal representation as family representatives.
- Through our 24/7 Emergency Hotline, Haqel has tackled hundreds of cases of settler violence which has seen an unprecedented spike in the last two years. Haqel’s legal team serves as the essential link between Palestinian victims of attack and the duty-bearers who are responsible for their welfare. Haqel has provided legal, psychological, and emotional support to hundreds of Palestinians who have suffered from extreme incidents of violence. Haqel’s legal team submits an average of two to three letters a week to the Civil Administration, the Attorney-General’s office, and the State Comptroller demanding real action against tacitly sanctioned settler impunity. Haqel has helped put settler violence on Israel’s political agenda.
To learn more about Haqel, please visit our website at haqel.org.il and read our 2020, 2021, and 2022 end-of-year newsletters summarizing our work. To contact Haqel, write to development@haqel.org.il.
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Adena Ben-Reuven is Co-Director of Haqel. She made aliyah from South Africa in 1994. Before the establishment of Haqel, she worked at Rabbis for Human Rights for 17 years in several roles including heading up the Resource Development Department. She has a B.A. (Hons) and a CPIR from the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg and an LTCL from the Trinity College of Music, London. She lives in Jerusalem with her husband and two sons.
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The Task Before UsBy Paul Scham
Different commentators have different ways of dealing with shocking – though not particularly surprising – news, such as that of the recent Israeli election in which, as most reading this will have long since gleaned, Bibi Netanyahu has been returned to power. That would be bad enough, but this time it is with an essential part of his coalition the “Religious Zionism” party of Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben- Gvir, the former seeking to create a religious/nationalist theocracy, while the latter trails a long history of anti- Arab provocations, including a conviction for inciting to riot. Their party also contains the “Noam” faction, which regards LGBTQ+ rights as an existential danger to Israel. It would almost be funny if not tear-worthy that Netanyahu is now seen by many as the sole adult in the room, whose presumed overriding goal – making his long-running prosecution for bribery, fraud, and breach of trust just disappear – seems petty by comparison. Indeed, former US Ambassador to Israel Dan Kurtzer, now a professor at Princeton, wrote an article advocating that he should be granted his wish, in the hope that he would thus be incentivized to form a more moderate coalition. That is almost certainly not to be.
Two well-informed N.Y. Times columnists had opposite – though both equally negative – responses to the election results. Tom Friedman, representing what I think could be called the gewalt school, tells us that “the Israel we knew is gone.” Brett Stephens, whose columns I read with interest and respect – and not infrequently some grudging agreement – denies that Israel faces any imminent problem of going fascist, pointing out that in France 41% of the electorate voted for Marine Le Pen in the runoff, compared to Religious Zionism’s 11% – and France is hardly going fascist. For all my respect for Stephens, however, I think he should have noted that Le Pen and her party will not be a critical part of the France’s government and that she has not become a minister, let alone receiving the Defense portfolio, which Smotrich wants, nor Internal Security, which Ben-Gvir covets. At this point it seems likely that Ben-Gvir will get his heart’s desire while Smotrich won’t, but the ministerial shuffling is still going strong as I write this.
Michael Koplow of the Israel Policy Forum, whose insightful weekly column I invariably read with interest, paints a scenario in which Bibi hews to his usual comparatively moderate course, avoiding or shedding his radical partners, though Koplow adds the significant caveat that he doesn’t believe it himself. Between them, these four extremely well-informed commentators seem to have already covered a large part of the quick-reaction field.
I, on the other hand, temperamentally tend to take the long view, the much-abused privilege of the academic. As someone who would have voted for Meretz had I been in Israel, I am pained that it missed the minimum threshold for entering the Knesset by a few thousand votes, just over .1% of the total, and its fate is now highly uncertain. However, I do note that the left worldwide, including the moderate variety which Meretz and I identify with, as well as the more radical, often anti-Israel forces that we don’t, has lost its way since the 1990’s, including in those countries in which it has eked out some victories in recent weeks, such as Brazil and the US. In the former, it wasn‘t an ideological victory, while here at home, the greatest Democratic vote-getter was Donald Trump, without whose shambolic and threatening presence we might have done much, much worse. I am far from the only hard core Democrat who recoils from the identity politics too much in evidence on the progressive wing of the party. Neither identity politics nor “stopping the right” is desirable as a long-term strategy.
The Israeli Left suffers from this world-wide malaise, compounded by the uniquely Israeli issue of being on the cusp of being both “Zionist” and strongly advocating Arab-Jewish unity and equality. My IH colleague Ron Skolnik – for decades a close and astute observer of the Israeli left and especially Meretz – shows in his article on p. 6 – how Meretz has long straddled both worldviews, but has now fallen between them. An important inheritor of the legacy of the Israeli left is thus hors de combat just when it is needed to help rally the country against the most dangerous and powerful resurgence of the racist and theocratic right in the history of the country.
While I am absolutely supportive of the traditional mantra of the Israeli moderate left that Israel should be both a Jewish state and a state of all its citizens, it is now becoming even harder to maintain that on an ideological level. My perfect party would maintain that mantra from the rooftops, but I’m afraid it would not find a critical mass of Arab Israelis to enter on the ground floor. It is ironic and unfortunate that Mansour Abbas’s “Islamist” Ra’am party, which actually increased its Knesset representation in this election, is on the political right on many hot- button matters (notably LGBTQ+ issues), because its pragmatic acceptance of the Jewish nature of the state has been a significant ray of hope in these generally dark times. Unfortunately, I don’t see a similar pragmatism on the left among Israel’s Palestinian citizens that would enable Meretz, or a successor party, to finesse ideology and to campaign as a genuinely Arab-Jewish party against the right and for the traditional left goals of peace, equality, and social welfare.
Obviously, Israel cannot wait till the global left sorts itself out and comes up with a post-Marxist ideology that expresses its 21st century values; hopefully one that does not demonize Israel. Rather, the Israeli left now needs urgently to find a way how to organize, coalesce, and ideologically equip itself in order to become part of the urgent struggle against the far right and its new official manifestations.
Paul
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Paul Scham is the director of the Gildenhorn Institute for Israel Studies at the University of Maryland (UMD), a professor of Israel Studies at UMD, and a non-resident scholar at MEI. He is also the President of Partners for Progressive Israel.
Israeli Politics: A Time for ReflectionBy Joshua ShanesWhat is the significance of the latest Israeli election, which produced a stable coalition of extreme rightwing and Orthodox parties to rule the country, including a record fourteen seats for the neo-Kahanist “Religious Zionist” party?
Many have tried to minimize the significance of the rightwing victory by emphasizing that the vote was in fact far closer, with only slightly more than 50% of votes going to the Netanyahu bloc. The problem, they say, is that two major leftwing parties – Meretz and Balad – fell below the 3.25% threshold and their votes were thereby lost. They place the blame on Labor’s leader Merav Michaeli, who refused to join with Meretz, and Sami Abu Shechadeh of Balad, who likewise insisted on going it alone. For that matter, Yair Lapid himself refused to negotiate a merger of Meretz and Labor – the way Netanyahu deftly brought the neo-Kahanists together into the Religious Zionist party – and even undermined the Left’s chances by allegedly campaigning mostly among themselves rather than trying to peel off voters from the pro-Netanyahu bloc.
Admittedly, I don’t like blaming poor political decisions by the opposition for the election of dangerous extremists, any more than I like focusing on lazy or radical Democrats for the victory of Trump in 2016, rather than focusing on those who empowered him. But there is a more significant problem with this line of thought that we must understand if the future course of Israel is going to change.
It is certainly true that had Michaeli, Lapid and Shechadeh gotten their act together, they might have avoided the problem of lost votes and potentially even stopped Netanyahu and his neo-Kahanist allies from winning, but only for a moment. Unless they won 61 seats (not just 60) and included the Arab parties in their government, which some members of that group adamantly refuse to do, it would have simply triggered elections in the spring. A leader of Gantz’s party said outright that he preferred a sixth election to a government with “the Arabs.”
More importantly, this argument ignores the current nature of Israeli political culture – and specifically Jewish Israeli political culture – and the platforms of the parties in that anti-Netanyahu bloc. That bloc includes Avigdor Lieberman and his “Yisrael Beitenu” party, for example, which openly seeks to strip Arabs of citizenship and promotes other racist ideas that were once considered beyond the pale but now are called part of the opposition to the Right! It also includes Gideon Saar and his “New Hope” faction, a splinter group from Likud that joined with Benny Gantz for strategic reasons. Adding those two groups alone to the 64 seats in Netanyahu’s bloc shows that the rightwing earned not 64, but rather 74 seats in this Knesset.
It is worse than that. Even the rest of the so-called “leftwing” – the remaining 36 seats of anti-Netanyahu Jewish parties (the “Joint List” and Raam together won 10) – does not actually stand with the Left when it comes to the issues of the Palestinians and the occupation. For example, Lapid, Gantz, and Labor all insist that the settlements are mostly or entirely legal and part of Israel and support the continued domination of Israel between the River and the Sea (even Labor insists Israel will keep the Jordan Valley) but simultaneously oppose the extension of citizenship to occupied Palestinians. Indeed, the last government under Bennett and Lapid – including most of the so-called leftwing (even Meretz) – oversaw thousands of new housing units in the West Bank, mostly outside settlement blocs. The settlers have won, in more ways than one.
Meanwhile, millions of Palestinians ruled by Israel in the West Bank – not to mention Gaza, where Palestinian lives are still subject to Israeli control – are not eligible to become citizens and cannot vote for the government that rules their lives. This was a “democratic” election in that every adult Israeli citizen – Jewish or Arab – could vote. However, that is a circular fallacy that ignores the fact that millions of Arabs ruled by Israel cannot become citizens like their Jewish “neighbors.”
In sum: since few Arabs voted for the rightwing, these results indicate that a solid majority of Israeli Jews voted for the Kahanist right and its enablers, a supermajority of Israeli Jews voted for the rightwing overall, and nearly all of them voted for parties that supports indefinite inequality and the continuation of the settlements. Polling has demonstrated that Israeli Jews have grown more and more rightwing in their own self-identification over the past two decades, especially since 2009, while a tiny, shrinking percentage identifies as leftwing.
The most rightwing population is also much younger and more religious than its opposition, meaning that it is growing as a percentage of the overall population and quickly. According to the Pew Foundation – a gold standard of public polling – 79% of Israeli Jews say that Jews deserve preferential treatment in Israel, including 97% of Haredim, 96% of Religious Nationalists, and even 69% of secular Jews. Nearly half of Israeli Jews (48%) say that Arabs should be expelled from Israel, including 71% of religious nationalists.
In short, it seems that the problem is not simply a single election result, which perhaps with better politics could have been delayed. The problem runs deeper, and therefore the solutions are different. It requires rethinking orthodox (pun intended) ideas about Zionism and Jewish power. I read many responses by self-described “centrists” or even “leftists” with nationalist tropes about this being “our land” as a sincere lament about the election results. While I appreciate the heartfelt laments, I think they miss the point that such language helped create the problem in the first place. This is apparently nationalism’s almost inevitable denouement, particularly in a situation of colonial expansion, as is happening in the West Bank.
The answer, our hope for Israel, comes from understanding this reality and reimagining the nation itself, or at least the community that the state is supposed to serve. It comes from Israel building a new liturgy of “I have no other land” that includes Jews and Palestinians together. The lesson of this election is not about more careful campaigning in the future, or the comfort that almost half the votes didn’t want Netanyahu in charge. Rather, it is about understanding the nature of the problem and building a vision of Israel – and political parties that advocate it – that opposes rather than accepts (or even demands) indefinite Jewish hegemony and occupation. Only a widespread revolt against this so-called “status quo,” encouraged by outside states (especially the United States) and Diaspora Jews, will change this reality.
People are already getting to work. Meetings and organizations are building such visions at the grass roots level. Let’s support them in every way possible, including through open-eyed descriptions of what “status quo” truly means and what an equal future could mean instead.
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Joshua Shanes is Professor of Jewish Studies, and Director of the Arnold Center for Israel Studies, at the College of Charleston. He has published widely on modern Jewish politics and religion in both academic and popular outlets and is currently completing a history of Orthodoxy from its German origins through today.
Meretz: The Little Post-Zionist Party that Couldn’t?By Ron Skolnik
In late October 2017, the rightwing Israeli newspaper Makor Rishon issued a thunderous headline: “It’s Official: Meretz is No Longer a Zionist Party.” The headline came in the wake of a call by an activist at the Meretz party convention to “fold up the Zionist banner,” which led an intrepid reporter to the revelation that, starting in 2009, Meretz had removed all references to “Zionism” from its platform. By comparison, the party’s earlier platforms had, for example, called peace with Israel’s neighbors “a decisive chapter in the realization of the Zionist vision” and outlined a government policy on religion and state that would implement “the values of humanistic Zionism.” Now the word was gone.
The reactions issued by various senior Meretz figures were inconsistent. Here’s a sample: “Meretz is a non- Zionist Israeli party belonging to all citizens;” “Meretz is Zionist, while it has non-Zionist members;” “Meretz has never been defined as a Zionist party;” “We are an integral part of the Zionist system;” and “Meretz is a Zionist left party, an Israeli party with Jewish and Arab members.” An official party response was soon issued in an attempt to incorporate these seemingly conflicting viewpoints.
None of this is meant to mock the Meretz party, which failed to clear the minimum vote threshold in Israel’s November 1 Knesset elections and might never return. Since the days of socialist-Zionist Nachum Syrkin and Marxist-Zionist Dov Ber Borochov around the turn of the twentieth century, it has been an ongoing struggle to balance a universalist approach, which implies equality and inclusion, with the particularism inherent in even the most minimal goal of the Zionist movement – national liberation and self-determination for the Jewish people specifically. Meretz, in this sense, was just the latest in a series of attempts to square this ideological circle.
And attempt it sincerely did. Within Israel’s Jewish community, Meretz was always ahead of its time in its demand for full equality for Arab citizens. In its second election platform, in 1996, for instance, before the anti-Zionist Balad party ever entered the Knesset, it broke new ground by defining Israel as “the state of all its citizens, Jews and Arabs alike,” who are entitled to “completely equal rights and fully equal opportunities in all areas of life.” At the same time, Meretz would always define Israel as the national homeland of the Jewish people as well, and this meant that Jews would still get preferential treatment when it came to immigration. But, its platform stressed, that preference should only get Diaspora Jews “through the door” and should grant no advantage whatsoever once inside. On the contrary, Meretz also demanded a policy of affirmative action in order to rectify a history of anti-Arab inequality.
Ten years later, Meretz’s platform went further. The party had always supported the right of individual Arab citizens to “give expression” to “their language, culture, and heritage” as “part of the Palestinian-Arab people.” In 2006, however, Meretz called for the “recognition of the Arab minority as a national minority with collective rights” [emphasis added]. Symbolically, Meretz also proposed that the State’s official calendar be expanded beyond Jewish holidays to include those of Islam, Christianity, and the Druze religion in order to formally reflect “the multicultural Israeli reality.” While Meretz never went so far as to call Israel a binational state or propose scrapping the Law of Return, it recognized that Israel was home to two nations, and its platform suggested a path of expanded ethnic and cultural autonomy as a possible solution: “Every group will nurture its heritage” in “any dimension” and will be entitled to public support. Reading between the lines, while Meretz did not embrace the Palestinian narrative, it certainly regarded it as legitimate enough to coexist with the Zionist narrative in Israel’s public life.
Post-Zionism, according to one useful definition, holds that Israel, having become an established reality, must now “focus on the practical aspects of being a ‘normal’ nation for all of its citizens.” In this sense, while Meretz never actually defined itself as “post-Zionist,” its proposals did “look, walk, and quack” a bit like it. And its platforms were periodically reinforced by the public statements of its senior leadership. In a 2017 interview, for example, former MK Ilan Gilon (z”l) called for a “new version” of Zionism, saying: “We built a state, the national project is spent. Enough already.” Gilon’s new Zionism would be the universalist “socialism,” but “with a soul,” as he put it. Zehava Galon, who led Meretz in the years 2012-2018, and then again in the 2022 election campaign, stated similarly in an interview this year that the goal of Zionism had been creating Israel in 1948, and that that struggle, “is behind us.” Therefore, she said, she defined Meretz not as a Zionist party, but as an “Israeli party” that would be an “open house” to Jews and Arabs, Zionists and non-Zionists alike. Indeed, former MK Mossi Raz even suggested last year that Zionism didn’t necessarily require a State of Israel: “My Zionism [is] the right of the Jewish people to implement [our] national rights, and that might be in one state, in two states, in a binational state.”
Nonetheless, Meretz, for all its quasi-post-Zionism, remained an essentially Jewish party. And while it gradually made strides toward internal Jewish-Arab equality, it never completely got there. In 2020, Uri Zaki, chair of the Meretz executive, described approvingly what a fully integrated Jewish-Arab party would look like in practice, citing the example of the Israeli NGO Standing Together and its model of equal power “at every level of operation” including “the choice of issues, activity in Arab and Jewish communities, egalitarian publications in both languages [Hebrew and Arabic], and, of course – [joint] Jewish-Arab leadership.”
Such currents have been brewing in Meretz circles over the past few years. In 2019, Meretz’s “Forum for Jewish- Arab Partnership” urged the party to unite with the predominantly Arab Hadash and Ta’al parties – but, if that were not possible, to become a fully equal Jewish- Arab party with Jewish and Arab co-chairs “in every official party institution,” all the way up to chair. An initiative in this spirit was even brought to the party convention soon after, with Raz and then-MK Esawi Frej announcing their joint candidacy to be Jewish and Arab co-chairs, and proposing that the party amend its bylaws to allow such a run. But the proposal failed to gain sufficient traction and was defeated at the June 2019 Meretz convention.
The composition of Meretz’s leadership also embedded the notion that this was essentially a Jewish and Zionist party. The party’s three constituent elements, Ratz, Mapam, and Shinui, were all part of the Zionist milieu. And in its first twenty years of existence, through six election campaigns, Meretz never placed more than one Arab candidate in its top ten, and, with one exception, always in the ninth or tenth slot. It was only in the 2013 election that an Arab candidate (Frej) managed to crack the top five, and not until 2019 was there more than one Arab candidate among the top ten. In addition, the job of party chair, as Galon stressed earlier this year amid another public brouhaha over Meretz’s identity, was always held by a leader who considered themselves a Zionist. In other words, while Arab members were certainly welcome, it was Jewish Israelis who exercised effective control.
It is hardly surprising, therefore, that Meretz’s voter base always remained predominantly Jewish and that the party struggled to make significant inroads in the Arab community, a constituency increasingly dominated by non-Zionist parties that speak its language – literally – and expressly represent its minority interests.
It could be said, then, that Meretz’s undoing ultimately stemmed from the fact that it was both too Zionist and yet not Zionist enough, and therefore unable to root itself sufficiently in either the Arab or Jewish sectors. Though it directed itself first and foremost to Israel’s Jewish community, it expressed itself in a manner that a growing number of Jewish Israelis found foreign and threatening. As Jewish Israelis moved steadily to the right over the last two decades, Meretz in its final years was tracking the opposite way, toward greater equality and inclusivity and a more vocal rejection of the mainstream Zionist perception that Israel, by definition as a “Jewish state,” should guarantee Jewish primacy. For most Jewish Israelis, in other words, Meretz was just not sufficiently loyal to the Jewish “team.”
Israeli voting choices are largely determined by identity politics and that’s certainly true for “niche” parties like Meretz. But if, as Zehava Galon said, Meretz wished to be an “Israeli party” that went beyond being Jewish or Arab, then certainly it required a constituency that defined itself likewise. That, both the data and experience suggest, is in rather short supply.
In 2000, Prof. Uzzi Ornan requested to amend his Israeli ID card so that the section listing his nationality (“le’om”) would contain the word “Israeli” instead of “Jewish” – one of the standard designations used by the Ministry of Interior, which include “Arab” as well. The Ministry turned him down. Together with a group of co-petitioners, including Meretz co-founder, Shulamit Aloni, Ornan eventually submitted one last appeal to Israel’s Supreme Court, arguing that Israel’s creation had also given birth to a distinct “Israeli” nation with which he was entitled to officially identify. But the Supreme Court firmly rejected the claim, ruling that there was no proof that a such a nation had in fact developed and, furthermore, that such a nationality, uniting all Israeli citizens, would “run contrary to Israel’s Jewish nature.”
On November 4, 2022, three days after Israel’s election, Prof. Ornan passed away at the age of 99. As for Meretz, perhaps it will yet return and become the “Israeli party” that Galon imagined it could be – or, if not, at least have paved the way for such a political force that will one day stand on its shoulders.
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Ron Skolnik is an American-Israeli political columnist and public speaker, whose articles have appeared in a variety of publications, including Haaretz, Al- Monitor, Tikkun, the Forward, Jewish Currents, & the Palestine-Israel Journal.
Personal Reflection: Where a Jew in Jordan StandsBy Avraham Spraragen
During my six months as a lone Jew in Jordan earlier this year, I was forced to decide whether to literally step on the main symbol of Judaism, lest I refuse to stand with the Palestinian people.
The Star of David, or Magen David, which predates Zionism as a universally recognized Jewish symbol, is painted on sidewalks throughout Amman, primarily as protest of the Israeli occupation. Derived from the seal of King Solomon and later adopted in 17th-century Prague as the distinctive symbol of the Jewish people, the Magen David is also painted on garbage cans all over the capital, in front of private homes and in public spaces alike. Many Jordanians deliberately trample upon this Jewish symbol whenever they walk the streets of Amman, and associate it with taking out the trash.
Crucially, the Magen David is sometimes, but not always, depicted by Jordanians in the center of an Israeli flag, that is, between two horizontal stripes. The symbol is also not always colored blue, which may reflect a distinction between the ancient Jewish faith and the modern Zionist movement.
To step on the symbol of Judaism or to use trashcans painted with the Star of David would be a symbolic betrayal of my people. On the other hand, to step around the symbol and to use a different trashcan is perceived by certain elements of Jordanian society as a betrayal of the Palestinian people. Neither of these betrayals are necessary. I should not have to step on Judaism to stand with Palestine.
For some Jordanians who trample upon the Star of David, their intention is an exclusively anti-Israel, rather than anti-Jewish, protest. It is a routine, almost subliminal gesture of solidarity with their Palestinian brethren under occupation. For most other Jordanians, this gesture is neither anti-Israel nor anti-Jewish; it simply goes unnoticed. This majority will not step around the symbol or use a different trashcan, as I do, nor will they actively protest this desecration of Jewish symbology. Unfortunately, there also remains a subsection of Jordanian society for which stepping on the Magen David is an intentional act of protest against both Israel and Jews. This minority steps on our symbol in their daily lives, with deliberate antisemitic intent.
Regardless of these varied intentions, walking over the Star of David when entering the Roman Theater, a top Amman tourist attraction, reinforces the false conflation of Judaism and Zionism. This lack of ideological distinction, in turn, lends itself to the wrongful Jordanian associations of Jewish symbols with Zionist offenses. Even those who may mentally distinguish between them when stepping on the Magen David do so without making their distinction evident, which inadvertently plays into such wrongful association. Other Jordanians, unaware of the Judaism-Zionism distinction, when they may encounter a synagogue abroad (there are none in Jordan) emblazoned with the very symbol that they trampled upon all their lives (whether for anti-Israel or anti-Jewish reasons), will no doubt view the Jewish faith as a representation of their Israeli victimizer. Stepping on the Magen David for anti-Israel reasons also provides cover to those who step on the symbol for anti-Jewish reasons. Hence, the consequence of Jordanian desecration of Jewish symbology to protest Israeli occupation, whether intentional or not, is tantamount to fomenting antisemitism.
Not only does the act of trampling upon the Star of David, even if it is depicted in the center of an Israeli flag, run the risk of antisemitism, it is also ineffective. The tactic pits Jews against Palestinians, thereby undermining the cause of Palestinian liberation. Instead, Jews and Palestinians should avoid mutual insensitivities. We should fight the ongoing Israeli occupation and resurgent global antisemitism together.
This picture is complicated further by the global imperative to refrain from instructing victims on how to protest against their victimizer. As the victims of Israeli occupation, Palestinians are in the precarious position of having to protest against Israel using Zionist symbolism which, inconveniently, relies heavily on Jewish symbolism. Ironically, Palestinians were put in this position by the Zionist movement, which claims to operate on behalf of the Jewish people and therefore adopted its symbology. This begs the difficult question of whether the burden is on Palestinian victims to avoid using Zionist symbolism because it runs the risk of antisemitism, or whether the Zionist movement is ultimately responsible for that risk. Indeed, it is not the fault of Palestinians that the Jewish Star of David appears on the Israeli flag badges worn by IDF soldiers. Surely, if the Palestinians were victimized by any other movement, they would protest using the symbols of that movement. Then again, there must be some responsibility on the part of Palestinians to distinguish Judaism from Zionism. Understandably, many Jordanians have yet to address that challenge.
Although a fluent Hebrew speaker, the problem of unfortunate associations also prohibited me from speaking the language of my people in Jordanian public settings. Recognizing that Hebrew is the language that my Palestinian friends in Jordan associate with their victimizer, I spoke with them in English (and Arabic) instead. At the same time, I lament that I could not share with my friends the language of my heart. Like these Palestinian Jordanians raised in the rich and expressive Arabic tongue, I grew up in the Jewish diaspora imbued with the beauty of Hebrew. It is the language of my childhood bedtime stories, of the songs my family sang on Shabbat, and of my Jewish education. My two Hebrew-speaking parents gave me Hebrew first and middle names, Avraham Binyamin. Hebrew, and Judaism are unapologetically who I am.
It is therefore heartbreaking for me that the Hebrew language, the Star of David, and other Jewish symbols, which should represent justice and peace, instead trigger the worst of connotations for so many in Jordan. Only through forging a shared Jewish- Arab future, in which Hebrew and Arabic are jointly spoken, can we symbolically mend the pieces of this broken heart.
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Avraham Spraragen* is a dual JD-MA Arab Studies degree candidate at Georgetown University. He previously studied at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and Tel Aviv University.*
Israel’s election produces a clear winner — and a lurch further to the right Paul Scham (This analysis by Partners' President was first published by the Middle East Institute) On Nov. 1, Israel’s democracy was shaken, perhaps as never before. It is not so much that former Prime Minister Benjamin (Bibi) Netanyahu has been [...]
Israel’s election produces a clear winner — and a lurch further to the right Paul Scham (This analysis by Partners' President was first published by the Middle East Institute) On Nov. 1, Israel’s democracy was shaken, perhaps as never before. It is not so much that former Prime Minister Benjamin (Bibi) Netanyahu has been [...]
Rising to the Moment Dear friend, Partners for Progressive Israel is extremely dismayed by the emerging results of Israel’s November 1 elections. Barring improbable last-minute developments in the vote count, the current center-right government will soon be replaced by an extremist far-right coalition of Jewish supremacists, authoritarians, and religious fundamentalists. It is a government that [...]
Rising to the Moment Dear friend, Partners for Progressive Israel is extremely dismayed by the emerging results of Israel’s November 1 elections. Barring improbable last-minute developments in the vote count, the current center-right government will soon be replaced by an extremist far-right coalition of Jewish supremacists, authoritarians, and religious fundamentalists. It is a government that [...]
Mehazkim: Strengthening Israel’s Progressives Through Social Media by Eran Nissan This essay is the latest in our series of 'Kolot: Voices of Hope' profiles of Israelis and Palestinians furthering the cause of peace and equality. Find all the profiles in this series here. . Mehazkim is a progressive digital movement. Our platform connects [...]
Mehazkim: Strengthening Israel’s Progressives Through Social Media by Eran Nissan This essay is the latest in our series of 'Kolot: Voices of Hope' profiles of Israelis and Palestinians furthering the cause of peace and equality. Find all the profiles in this series here. . Mehazkim is a progressive digital movement. Our platform connects [...]
Looking the Occupation in the Eye: Bringing the Harsh Truth to the Israeli Public By Guy Hirschfeld and Doron Meinrath This essay is the latest in our series of 'Kolot: Voices of Hope' profiles of Israelis and Palestinians furthering the cause of peace and equality. Find all the profiles in this series here. [...]
Eyes Right! A Leftist Looks at the Israeli Right By Paul Scham We have all now recognized that, despite our best efforts, the once progressive State of Israel is currently heavily tilted towards the right. The remnant of the left is now, urgently and appropriately, asking itself “What is to be done?” I don’t claim [...]
Zehava Galon Retakes the Reins: Did Meretz Just Get its Groove Back? By Ron Skolnik When more than 15,000 Meretz members voted in Zehava Galon as their new chair in the August 23 primaries, they might well have rescued the party from electoral oblivion this fall. What is more certain, however, is that they helped [...]
Arab-Jewish Unity, Unburdened from Occupation: Lessons from a Lone Jew in Jordan By Avraham Spraragen For the past six months, I lived as a lone Jew in Jordan, studying the Arabic language, traveling the country widely, and developing lifelong friendships. Concurrent with my daily classes in Amman, I served as a remote intern at Partners [...]
Partners Signs Onto Letter to Secretary of State Blinken Urging Him to Denounce Israeli Raids of Palestinian NGOs Yesterday Partners for Progressive Israel, along with sister organizations in the Progressive Israel Network (PIN), signed the following letter that was sent to Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, urging him to publicly denounce the Israeli raids against six Palestinian NGOs and [...]
Partners for Progressive Israel Condemns the Raids of Six Palestinian NGOs Last night, Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz sent soldiers and border police to raid the Ramallah offices of seven Palestinian human rights NGOs that monitor violations of international law in the Occupied Territories. The army broke down doors, confiscated papers and other property, and [...]
Solidarity of Nations - Achvat Amim: Building Educational and Volunteer Frameworks for Young Adults By Elly Oltersdorf This essay is the latest in our series of 'Kolot: Voices of Hope' profiles of Israelis and Palestinians furthering the cause of peace and equality. Find all the profiles in this series here. Solidarity of Nations-Achvat [...]
Partners for Progressive Israel is proud to have signed this letter to President Biden as he heads to Israel this week, urging him to stop the evictions of Palestinians from their homes in Masafer Yatta. The letter, also signed by all of the other PIN organizations, as well as the Union for Reform Judaism, the [...]
Feminism Has Made Me a Peacemaker By Ruhama Weiss This essay is the latest in our series of 'Kolot: Voices of Hope' profiles of Israelis and Palestinians furthering the cause of peace and equality. Find all the profiles in this series here. I know both sides of the parade of flags in Jerusalem. As a [...]
Bitter Pills By Paul Scham Palestinians and the Israeli left, as well as their sympathizers abroad, have a choice to make – and so far I haven’t seen indications that they are handling it well. That choice is whether to support and build on the so-called “Abraham Accords,” signed on September 15, 2020, which seemed [...]
THIS IS WRONG - Reversal of Roe v. Wade We are shocked, though not surprised. The Supreme Court’s reversal of Roe v. Wade, though far from the issues we normally work on, has a strong connection to them: It is a denial of human rights. Where a line is drawn is another matter. But when rights are violated in such a basic [...]
The Olive Branch From Palestine: The Palestinian Declaration of Independence and the Path Out of the Current Impasse By Jerome M. Segal, (University of California Press, 2022) Review by Peter Eisenstadt Another book with a plan to end the Israel-Palestine conflict. Is there a less satisfying genre of reading material anywhere? I have read many, [...]
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Kerem Navot: Exposing the Israeli Land Grab in the West Bank An interview with Dror Etkes This essay is the latest in our series of 'Kolot: Voices of Hope' profiles of Israelis and Palestinians furthering the cause of peace and equality. Find all the profiles in this series here. Founded in 2012, Kerem Navot [...]
Another blow for the unsteady Israeli coalition government By Paul Scham The gyrations of Israel’s coalition government, which still hopes to survive to its first anniversary on June 13, only make sense in its unique context. On Monday, June 6 it lost an important vote, in which more than half of the Knesset members on [...]
Stuck! Why Israeli-Palestinian Peace Seems Farther Off Than Ever – And Why Not To Give Up Hope By Paul Scham May. 26, 2022 I have spent at least half my working life on Israeli-Palestinian peace, or writing about it, whether as an activist, working in NGOs, or as an academic. The general wisdom today is [...]
Not an Internal Israeli Affair: The Killing of Journalist Shireen Abu Aqleh Partners for Progressive Israel is saddened and angered by the killing today of Palestinian-American journalist, Shireen Abu Aqleh, while she was covering an IDF raid in the Jenin refugee camp, and wearing a vest that clearly identified her as “Press.” We extend our condolences [...]
In Memory of Ilan Gilon (1956-2022) Partners for Progressive Israel is grief-stricken over the loss of former MK for Meretz, Ilan Gilon. Y'hi zichro baruch. May the memory of Ilan's lifelong fight for social justice be a blessing to all. Our friends in @Meretz מרצ write: "Ilan Gilon was one of the pillars of the [...]
Partners Denounces Israeli High Court Approval of Evictions of South Hebron Hills Palestinians On the eve of Israel’s Independence Day holiday, Israel’s High Court of Justice approved the expulsion of about a thousand Palestinians from Masafer Yatta, a group of hamlets in the South Hebron Hills area of the West Bank. If implemented, the eviction would be the [...]
Bimkom: Promoting Justice for Palestinians and Israelis through Equitable Planning By Sam Stein and Bimkom staff This essay is the latest in our series of 'Kolot: Voices of Hope' profiles of Israelis and Palestinians furthering the cause of peace and equality. Find all the profiles in this series here. Bimkom - Planners for Planning Rights is an [...]
“Stop the Evictions” Update:Good News for Al Walaja! We recently informed you of the struggle by the residents of Al Walaja village to prevent the displacement of 38 families (some 300 individuals) whose homes are subject to demolition orders. These orders were issued because, since the war in 1967, Israeli authorities have failed to approve a master plan for [...]
Partners for Progressive Israel Calls for an End to Evictions and Home Demolitions in Al Walaja On March 30, Israel’s Supreme Court will hear the appeal of the residents of Al Walaja, an enclave between Jerusalem and the West Bank, north of Bethlehem. They are demanding approval of a master plan for their village that would [...]
Partners for Progressive Israel Affirms the Right of Self-Determination of the Ukrainian People—and All Peoples Button TexThis is the first piece on the current crisis in Ukraine and its relationship to Israel and Palestine, which is approved by the Board of Partners for Progressive Israel. The second piece is a commentary by Partners’ President, Prof. Paul [...]
The New World (Dis)Order By Paul Scham Like many of my readers, I suspect, I spent far more time thinking and reading during the last week about Ukraine and Russia than I did about Israel and Palestine. Obviously there are some points of overlap, which I’ll try to uncover. Putin’s invasion of Ukraine is another—probably [...]
In Memory of Rabbi Israel (“Sy”) Dresner, zt"l (1929-2022) Rabbi Israel Dresner, “Sy” to his friends and loved-ones, is best known for his indefatigable work as part of the American civil rights movement and the Black-Jewish alliance of the 1950s and 1960s, which helped propel it forward. The news media is right to recall Sy’s participation in the first group of [...]
Abridged remarks by Prof. Leonard Grob at the Shiva for Sy Dresner Sy Dresner had always appeared to me as a prophetic voice. Whether it was his work in civil rights or for a just Israel, Sy took with the upmost urgency the prophetic call “Tzedek, Tzedek Tirdof,” “Justice, justice shalt you pursue.” Sy’s pursuit [...]
**In Memory of Prof. Todd Gitlin, zt”l
(1943-2022)**
Partners for Progressive Israel mourns the loss of our board member, Prof. Todd Gitlin, who passed away on February 5th. Todd is remembered in popular culture as a president of the SDS, Students for a Democratic Society, in the 1960s and for his activism against the Vietnam War, against Apartheid in South Africa, and for civil rights in the United States. But Todd also maintained a powerful connection to his Jewish identity and to Israel, and this was reflected in his progressive activism on behalf of peace and equality for both Israelis and Palestinians.
In 1971, for example, many years before talk of Palestinian statehood was considered legitimate by the mainstream, Todd was one of a select group of signers of a public statement entitled “The Liberation of Palestine and Israel.” “Israel cannot make a just peace with the governments of Jordan or Egypt or Syria …, while she ignores the Palestinians,” the statement read. And, conversely, “the Palestinians cannot simply treat Israel as an extension of Western imperialism, for … an Israeli people exists and they will not disappear, except through genocide.” Both peoples, the letter declared, are entitled to “survival and full liberation.”
Based on this commitment to the liberation of all peoples, Todd vehemently opposed “the illegal Israeli occupation of the West Bank,” as he recently wrote, and the concomitant “violent oppression of Palestinians who live there,” which he described as “an offense to humanity.”
Understanding that Israel’s massive settlement project in the Occupied Territories was designed to cement and eternalize that occupation, in 2016 he spearheaded “A Call for an Economic Boycott and Political Nonrecognition of the Israeli Settlements in the Occupied Territories,” which demanded that the American government “exclude settlements from trade benefits accorded to Israeli enterprises” as well as deny IRS tax exemptions to American nonprofits that sent funds to Israel’s commercial and residential entities in the West Bank. The aim, wrote fellow board member, David Abraham, a co-author of the Call, was to “revive the visibility and importance of the Green Line and distinguish between a legitimate Israel and an illegitimate Occupation.”
When Ben & Jerry’s announced last year that they would be terminating their business in the Occupied Territories, therefore, Todd saw it as a validation of his path, and shared with David Abraham that learning of this development had brought “tears to my eyes.”
But Todd rejected the idea that occupation and settlements delegitimized all of Israel, and he therefore found no positive value in the BDS movement, which, he argued, “knows only one set of wrongs, not another. It proclaims that there is but one story to be told of the Middle Eastern tragedy” and therefore cannot contribute to a just settlement of an essentially ethnic conflict. Nonetheless, because he steered clear of doctrinaire politics, Todd was also willing to work with BDS advocates, when possible, in the interest of bringing an unjust occupation to an end.
While Partners for Progressive Israel is part of the World Zionist movement, Todd personally refrained from using the word “Zionist” to describe himself – not because he rejected Israel’s existence, but because he felt the term to be an anachronism: After all, he said, the aim of political Zionism, statehood, had already been achieved.
Overall, however, Todd shared the approach of Partners for Progressive Israel and decided to join our board in 2015, stepping down only recently in the wake of family illness. He was glad to moderate our 2019 webinar that discussed the BDS movement as well as the exaggerated reaction to it, and he was a willing co-signer of our 2020 letter to our friends in Meretz, encouraging them to expand the level of Jewish-Arab political partnership in the party, as befits a shared democratic society.
“He appreciated what Partners stood for,” noted fellow board member Peter Eisenstadt: “An end to the occupation, the promotion of collaboration between Israeli Jews and Palestinians, … and the continuing commitment to political activism.” Likewise, Peter wrote, Todd also “appreciated what Partners did not stand for: the dubious satisfactions of dogmatism and the Manichaeism of contending absolutes.”
We salute the life and activism of Todd Gitlin. Y’hi zichro Baruch. May his memory serve as a blessing.
The Israeli Left in a Center-Right Government: Is There a Sweet Spot between Principles & Pragmatism?
This webinar took place on Feb. 16, 2022. The transcript has been edited for length. The full recording is here. Karen Shapiro: Welcome. I’m Karen Shapiro, vice president of Partners for Progressive Israel. “The Israeli Left in the Center-Right Government: Between Principles and Pragmatism.” We are joined by member of Knesset for Meretz, Mossi Raz, political scientist and former MK, Naomi Chazan, and our Moderator, Einat Ovadia, executive director of the Israeli Human Rights NGO, Zulat.
Partners for Progressive Israel is an American not-for-profit organization dedicated to the achievement of a durable and just peace between Israel and Palestine. We further believe in the need to ensure civil rights, equality, and social justice for all of Israel’s inhabitants.
Please visit our website at progressiveisrael.org. We appreciate contributions while you’re there.
Now, for our participants. Naomi Chazan is Professor Emeritus of Political Science and African Studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and codirector of the Center for the Advancement of Women in the Public Sphere at the Van Leer Jerusalem Institute. Naomi served three terms from 1992 to 2003 as a Meretz party member of the Knesset.
Mossi Raz is a member of the Knesset for the Meretz party elected earlier this year. He previously served as a Knesset member from 2002 to 2003 and from 2017 to 2019 as well as its Secretary-General. Mossi is a lifelong political activist promoting Arab-Jewish coexistence in Israel, an end to the occupation and environmental sustainability.
Einat Ovadia is the executive director of the NGO Zulat: For Equality and Human Rights. For the past 10 years, she has served in various key positions in Israeli politics in both coalition and opposition roles. Einat has extensive management experience and is a leading left-wing social and political activist.
Einat Ovadia: Meretz had been in opposition for over 20 years until last year, when this government was formed. Meretz has always offered a clear voice against the Occupation and in favor of human rights and equality, against discrimination, in favor of religious freedom and freedom from religion, in favor of promoting equality for women, the LGBTQ community, and especially it has led a clear political voice for two-state solution. Mossi, do you think that Meretz has the same voice right now sitting in the coalition? Is it able to advance its agenda sitting with all those to its right?
Mossi Raz: The first reason for supporting the government is what it would be if we didn’t. In no way would it have been something progressive: the alternative was Bezalel Smotrich, Itamar Ben-Gvir, Avi Maoz, and Netanyahu, with Netanyahu being likely its most moderate member. There was no better alternative.
The second reason is that we have created something novel: For the first time there is cooperation between Arabs and Jews in the coalition. It’s not only the United Arab List (Ra’am) Party. Meretz has three Palestinian representatives, one as a minister and two as members of Knesset; Labor has one; Blue and White has one; even Yisrael Beiteinu has an Arab Palestinian MK. I think it extremely important that Israelis now see that Arabs are part of the game– because they were never part of the game. In the future every government will have Arab representation.
The third important reason is in spite of the fact that we are admittedly not effective on the big issues—the occupied territories, the citizenship bill, and other major issues. But, for the first time, people are starting to talk about our issues. People now talk about settlers’ violence more than ever in the history of the Occupation. People now talk about the future of settlements. On the citizenship bill [barring permanent residency in Israel for most West Bankers marrying Israelis]: people outside the small circle of Meretz activists or human rights activists never before talked about that. The discussion that we had about that is important because it lays the groundwork for the future.
The fourth and last reason is the fact that, as you said, we have the Health Minister and some deputy ministers. They are doing great work on LGTBQ, women’s, environmental, asylum seeker issues and the like. The Ministry of Health is now becoming one of the most liberal anywhere in the world. And people are starting to take environmental issues seriously.
Of course, I am fully aware that we have to vote, again and again, against things that we believe in and we have to support, again and again, things that we abhor. Of my four yea votes last week, three were against what I actually believe.
We always want to vote for what we believe in, but is being in permanent opposition effective? I myself am not certain. Quite apart from how coalition participation may affect our future electoral results.
Naomi Chazan: We are no longer in the 1990s, and we have to think somewhat differently. I want to emphasize the importance of this “change” coalition in bringing Palestinian citizens of Israel into the center of decision making. And our ministers are doing a fine job. But the central question remains, even if you make mild changes, some of them on marginal issues, what if you cannot succeed in making a dent on the critical questions—the deepening of the Occupation, the lack of commitment to a negotiated settlement, and growing inequalities within Israel? I don’t know where the tipping point is, but we can’t afford to fudge about the political decisions that are taking place. Yet politics is also about creating new alternatives as well as leveraging the existing ones. It is our job to create change in a setting where it is not at all clear that the current government is better than its predecessor on these key issues.
Einat: So what can we do—on settler violence, on outpost legalization, on demolitions?
Mossi: Many people accepted that this government would do neither annexation nor a peace agreement. But this is a false “middle way”: the Occupation becomes deeper and deeper; we face more settlement and more settlers. We accepted a right-wing policy in order to be in this government. And, it turns out, that the most problematic person is Gantz, who is usually not associated with this right-wing. For our part, we have to be down with the activists fighting the Occupation, in East Jerusalem, and elsewhere. At the same time, we exert the influence we can on the Prime Minister, on the Foreign Minister, and others. Still, we need criticism, and we need to be pushed.
Naomi: Mossi is a super parliamentarian. But, on settlers, home demolitions, settlement activity, he was most effective when he wasn’t in the Knesset. That is, organizing demonstrations, being on the front lines, speaking out, mobilizing, etc. The classic two state solution is now gone. There is too much oppression and too much intertwining of Palestinians and Jews. The position Mossi now represents is “let’s improve” the situation by blocking terrible things, but will working on the margins end the Occupation? There is something terribly wrong with the system, and we need a major course change, for which we have to mobilize. Mossi and I have been working for years to create a joint Jewish-Arab list to create a new framework. Meretz is, of course, a mixed party, but what I propose can’t happen in Meretz itself.
Einat: So where, indeed, is the red line when it comes to matters Meretz opposes: the racist citizenship law, the outposts, the settler violence?
Mossi: I ask myself this question every day. Right now, I do think it is better for us to be in the coalition, but I am not sure. I may continue to think like that, or I may change my mind next week depending on what happens on the ground.
Naomi: I’ve been inside and I’ve been outside. I’ve seen the value of trying to influence via civil society and via the Knesset, from inside the establishment and from outside, and from the academy. Each one has its advantages and disadvantages. What I think Mossi is saying in his humble way, and what I’m trying to convey as well, is very simple, and at the same time very profound. That is, we can’t continue to live in the environment that is not of our own making; we have to alter it. We have to use every tool we have –inside and outside the government—to alter the current reality.
Karen: Thank you Einat, and thank you Mossi and Naomi for this important discussion.
New Update: A Bigger Legal Victory in Sheikh Jarrah
Last week, we shared with you some positive news on the indefinite postponement of the Salem family’s eviction from their home in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of East Jerusalem. This week, we’re pleased to deliver a second, even more hopeful, update regarding evictions.
This past Tuesday, Israel’s Supreme Court accepted the petition of four Palestinian families in Sheikh Jarrah to freeze their eviction and allow them to remain in their homes pending further appeal concerning their properties’ ownership.
Just as important as the ‘stay of eviction’ itself was the unprecedented reasoning behind it: For the first time ever, the Court suggested that there are political and historical factors that should be taken into consideration, beyond the question of who owned the properties prior to the war in 1948. Such factors include the Jordanian government’s expropriation of the land in the 1950s in order to house Palestinian refugees, and the explicit guarantees provided by Jordan to the families in question—factors that give the Palestinian families legitimate claims to their homes according to the justices.
What’s more, the court’s new framing of the case is likely to have legal impact on a large number of other eviction cases in East Jerusalem—and not just in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood, but in the flashpoint neighborhood of Silwan, just outside the Old City, as well.
There is no guarantee, of course, that the Court will eventually find in favor of the Palestinian families. But, thanks to the efforts of Palestinians, Israelis, and folks around the world, the ground seems to be shifting in a positive direction.
Partners for Progressive Israel is proud to be part of the international effort to stop the evictions. We will continue to monitor this important situation and share updates with you from time to time.
Partners for Progressive Israel Affirms the Right of Self-Determination of the Ukrainian People—and All Peoples
Below are two pieces on the current crisis in Ukraine and its relationship to Israel and Palestine. The first is a statement approved by the Board of Partners for Progressive Israel and the second a commentary by Partners’ President, Prof. Paul Scham. Obviously, this is a fast-moving situation but these are our views as of Wednesday, March 2nd, 2022. In response to Russia’s brutal and unprovoked attack against Ukraine, Partners for Progressive Israel applauds the remarks delivered this week by the chair of the Meretz party, Health Minister Nitzan Horowitz, in solidarity with the Ukrainian people and in support of “the right of people to live in freedom and realize their right to self-determination.”
These rights, of course, apply not only to the Ukrainian people, but to all peoples, including the two sharing the land between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River—the Jewish people, which is implementing its right to national self-determination, and the Palestinian people, which is being denied that right.
We join with many others throughout the world in calling for the withdrawal of Russian troops and an end to the Russian invasion, which is a violation of Ukraine’s sovereignty, territorial integrity, and democracy. We particularly condemn the increasing attacks on Ukrainian citizens and civilian structures, and note the bombing of the Babi Yar memorial as bitterly ironic, given Russian claims of protecting Ukraine from “Nazis.”
We also hope that, once the violence in Ukraine has abated, the international community will be able to redirect its attention to the situation in Israel and Palestine and promote solutions there which respect the rights to self-determination and freedom that all peoples deserve.
________________________________________________________________________________________
**President’s Comment:
The New World (Dis)Order**
By Paul Scham
Like many of my readers, I suspect, I spent far more time thinking and reading during the last week about Ukraine and Russia than I did about Israel and Palestine. Obviously there are some points of overlap, which I’ll try to uncover.
Putin’s invasion of Ukraine is another—probably the last—aftershock of the earthquake that was the implosion of the Soviet Union, as World War II was arguably the final aftershock of World War I. Just as World War II created a new reality and a security architecture that both morphed into and was a product of the Cold War, Russia’s invasion will likely herald a new constellation of forces, though its shape will not become clear for months or, more likely, a few years. Whether it will be east vs. west, “democracies” (of widely varying characteristics) against autocracies, status quo powers against their challengers, something else entirely, or, most likely, some combination that political scientists will joyfully spend years naming, we can have no idea. At this point, given the world’s rapid and surprising near-consensus on condemning Russia’s invasion, Putin’s gambit, in addition to being brutal and vicious, seems likely to culminate in a disaster for Russia, whatever the outcome in Ukraine.
Israel is somewhat caught in the middle, perhaps surprising those who see it as a client of the US (or vice-versa). Israel has close ties with both Russia and China, especially the latter, since Russia is the dominant power in that unhappy space called Syria, where Israel frequently carries out bombing raids against Iranian movements, and which could easily be curtailed by Russia. Apparently Putin has accepted Israel’s somewhat stilted condemnation of the invasion and won’t change the Syrian status quo, at least for now. How much more the US will demand from Israel in support of Ukraine and in verbal and tangible opposition to Russia is unknowable. I’m personally glad that Meretz MK’s came out early and strongly for an unequivocal denunciation of the invasion. Interestingly, there are reports that Israel has offered to mediate between Kyiv and Moscow, though that seems unlikely.
We must recognize that the invasion is probably bad news for any movement to end the occupation, not that that was in the cards anyway. With American (and the world’s) attention captured by Ukraine, then the midterm elections, after which jockeying for 2024 begins in earnest, any remaining hope that the US would do anything at all in pursuit of its long-declared goal of a two state solution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict seems gone for the unforeseeable future. Countries have only so much bandwidth, and ours is already stretched pretty far. The US may conceivably snap the whip occasionally, as it did a few months ago with regard to Israeli plans to build in the E-1 area outside Jerusalem, but an Israeli-Palestinian peace process, already highly unlikely, is now seemingly unimaginable in the foreseeable future. Thus the civil society peace forces in Israel and the US are on our own. We can start, as I argue in an article in the current issue of the Palestine-Israel Journal (no paywall), by accepting the reality and probable durability of the Abraham Accords, despite how far from our traditional peace paradigm they are.
The Middle East is really uninvolved in Ukraine, except for Russian clients like Syria and American enemies like Iran, which have already stated their unsurprising allegiance. However, much as we may have wanted to believe that the importance of oil was rapidly diminishing for both political and environmental reasons, Russia’s importance as Europe’s energy supplier brings it back to front and center. The US has already asked Saudi Arabia to increase its output, but the Saudis don’t seem inclined to comply, at least at the moment, which may indicate its increasing independence from Washington, perhaps reflecting opposition to the pending new Iran nuclear deal. Unlike the case in previous oil shortages, however, this causes Israel any concerns, as the Saudis, and by extension most of the Arab world, are already, if not Israeli allies, perhaps the next step to such a status, especially given their consensus on Iran. In my PIJ article I predict (always a dangerous thing to do) that that when Saudi king Salman (now 85) dies and his son, the notorious MBS, takes over, diplomatic relations with Israel won’t be far behind.
The Middle East is really uninvolved in Ukraine, except for Russian clients like Syria and American enemies like Iran, which have already stated their unsurprising allegiance. However, much as we may have wanted to believe that the importance of oil was rapidly diminishing for both political and environmental reasons, Russia’s importance as Europe’s energy supplier brings it back to front and center. The US has already asked Saudi Arabia to increase its output, but the Saudis don’t seem inclined to comply, at least at the moment, which may indicate its increasing independence from Washington, perhaps reflecting opposition to the pending new Iran nuclear deal. Unlike the case in previous oil shortages, however, this causes Israel any concerns, as the Saudis, and by extension most of the Arab world, are already, if not Israeli allies, perhaps the next step to such a status, especially given their consensus on Iran. In my PIJ article I predict (always a dangerous thing to do) that that when Saudi king Salman (now 85) dies and his son, the notorious MBS, takes over, diplomatic relations with Israel won’t be far behind.
I will confess that I was one of those who thought that Putin would use his military buildup to extract maximum concessions from the West and from Ukraine, including recognition of Donbas and Luhansk, but that he would avoid a bloody full-scale invasion. Whether a curtailment of NATO expansion or creation of a different security architecture dating back to the 1990s, as George Kennan then argued, might have forestalled the invasion, is now an academic question. As autocratic, bloodthirsty and positively evil as Putin has shown himself to be, does not negate that Russia has legitimate security interests in Ukraine and many Russians view NATO as inherently threatening. I cautiously agree with the analogy of the current situation regarding Russia to the “diktat” of the Allied powers against Germany after World War I. That is not to in any way excuse Russia’s invasion but, rather, to try to understand it better. The lesson for Israel is that it needs to realize that mis- and overusing its current power and dominance in the region, especially vis-a-is the Palestinians, eventually will result in explosive pushback. Warnings of that imminent possibility are now being issued.
Jerusalem Magistrate’s Court Puts an Indefinite Hold on Salem Family Eviction in Sheikh Jarrah
We are pleased to share with you that, this past Tuesday, the Jerusalem Magistrate’s Court put an indefinite hold on the eviction of the Salem family from their home in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of East Jerusalem.
The Salems have been living in the home since 1951, when they leased it from the Jordanian government. After 1967, the family rented the apartment from a Jewish family, the Haddads, who were the owners before 1948. The Haddads, however, have since sold their interest in the property to a rightwing Jerusalem city council member, Yonatan Yosef, who is now pushing for their eviction.
While the court reportedly based its ruling on security considerations—the rising tensions in the city, which could boil over throughout Israel and Palestine, and the sensitive timing, as both Passover and the month of Ramadan approach—the decision itself is a victory: It affords the family time to submit an additional appeal, and allows the coalition of organizations campaigning for the Palestinians of Sheikh Jarrah an opportunity to amplify their message, domestically and internationally. Partners for Progressive Israel will continue to be part of that vital effort.
Meanwhile, in the Knesset, Meretz MK Mossi Raz has submitted a bill that would repeal the blatantly discriminatory statute which provides the legal cover for the displacement of Palestinians in East Jerusalem and the transfer of their homes to settlers. The 1950 Absentees’ Property Law allows Jews to reclaim the property they owned before 1948, but denies that same right to Palestinians. Though it is unlikely to pass, the bill serves as another vehicle to shed light on the injustice of the evictions.
HaMoked: Helping Palestinians Resist “the Bureaucracy of Occupation”
By Jessica Montell
When the media covers Israel’s occupation of the Palestinians, it usually focuses on dramatic events of death and destruction. But for most Palestinians, the dominant feature of the occupation is a crushing military bureaucracy. Palestinians require a permit from the Israeli military for the most basic features of daily life, whether it’s to travel from one place to another or even simply to live in their home. HaMoked assists Palestinians to navigate this hostile permit bureaucracy.
HaMoked: Center for the Defence of the Individual is an Israeli human rights organization with a focus on providing legal aid to Palestinians living under occupation. We receive hundreds of calls every month from people seeking our help, and this individual assistance provides HaMoked with a unique perspective on the occupation. While the organization initially was devoted to assisting victims of violence and detentions, over the years we have expanded our work into tackling “the bureaucracy of occupation.” Here are a few examples:
- Maqboul was on his way to his studies in Germany, but when he reached the Allenby Bridge crossing to Jordan, he discovered Israel had imposed a travel ban preventing him from leaving the West Bank.
- Shaban, a Jerusalem grandmother, wants to attend her granddaughter’s wedding in Gaza, but can’t get any response to her request for the military permit required.
- Nahida, who is originally from the West Bank, has lived in Jerusalem with her East Jerusalemite husband for two decades, but requires temporary military permits just to live in her home.
- Yusuf, a young man from Gaza who relocated to Ramallah, is considered an “illegal alien” in his own home, at constant risk of deportation back to Gaza.
These are just some of the people who have turned to HaMoked for assistance recently. HaMoked corresponds with the military on their behalf and turns to the courts if this correspondence does not succeed in resolving the problem. Litigation in Israeli courts is one of our primary tools to defend human rights. HaMoked is the leading provider of legal aid to Palestinians under occupation, filing hundreds of petitions in Israeli courts every year to advocate for Palestinians’ freedom of movement, residency rights, and prisoners’ rights, and to contest collective punishments.
Photo Courtesy of HaMoked
Can Palestinians get justice in Israeli courts?
Israel’s Supreme Court is held up as a beacon of democracy when it comes to the country’s citizens, but it has a poor record on the occupation. The Court has given a green light to Israeli settlements, ongoing forced displacement of Palestinians, and the exploitation of Palestinian resources for Israeli benefit. This complicity in occupation has only increased over the past decade with the appointment of rightwing, ultra-nationalist judges, both to the Supreme Court and to lower courts.
Given the hostile social and legal climate in Israel, it is challenging to advocate for Palestinian rights in Israeli courts. And, yet, a majority of HaMoked’s cases are ultimately resolved successfully—most via out-of-court settlements but also through court judgements. In spite of the challenges, litigation arguably remains the most effective tool to advance Palestinian rights. This, of course, speaks to the great weakness of all the other strategies to fight the occupation. To paraphrase what Winston Churchill said about democracy, domestic litigation is the worst strategy to defend Palestinians’ rights—except compared to all other strategies.
Beyond the individual successes, HaMoked also engages in strategic litigation to challenge the human rights violations endemic to the occupation. This requires creativity, as the Court prefers to resolve the individual case without setting any judicial precedent. We will therefore file a series of individual petitions, each one on behalf of a person who needs redress. Often the Court will just address the suffering of this one individual, but then we file another petition, and another—until the Court cannot avoid ruling on the principle. This was the case in 1999, after HaMoked and other organizations had filed over 100 real-time petitions on behalf of Palestinians undergoing torture in interrogations. The High Court finally ruled that the Shin Bet, the Israel Security Agency, cannot use physical force in interrogations of Palestinians.
In other cases, the State will undertake a policy change “in the shadow” of litigation. This was the case when HaMoked filed dozens of petitions on behalf of foreign nationals who are married to Palestinians in the West Bank, but are living there with no legal status. An entire population was considered illegal aliens in their own homes because Israel refused to allow the Palestinian Authority to update its population registry over which Israel retains ultimate control. In the wake of these petitions, in 2008, Israel granted family unification to 32,000 people.
HaMoked litigation was also instrumental in pushing back against “the Quiet Transfer” of Palestinians from annexed East Jerusalem. Over the years, Israel revoked residency status from over 14,000 East Jerusalem Palestinians because they had left the city. Some had moved abroad, but many had simply moved to West Bank neighborhoods just outside the city limits. Israel’s Ministry of Interior, however, never bothered to publicize that people who moved “abroad” would forfeit their residency status. In response to determined HaMoked litigation, in 2000, the Ministry promised that Palestinians who maintain “a connection to Israel” (i.e., visit at least once a year) would not lose their Jerusalem residency. Responses to HaMoked’s Freedom of Information requests show that this policy has indeed halted the “Quiet Transfer.” Furthermore, the Court has now recognized East Jerusalem Palestinians as an “indigenous population with a unique status,” an important step in safeguarding their rights.
In many of these cases, international advocacy supported the domestic litigation, and was a contributing factor to the positive change. This shows the importance of a partnership of those working for justice both domestically and around the world.
Photo Courtesy of HaMoked
Addressing root causes or just the symptoms?
The successes of HaMoked illustrate the importance of domestic litigation as a strategy—and also its limitations. Litigation can be life-changing for individuals who are suffering due to the occupation. It can also push back against and reverse certain occupation policies. This is very important and valuable. But there are limits to what litigation can achieve.
Litigation against what I would call the building blocks of occupation has never succeeded. Israeli courts have never ruled that settlements are illegal. They have not outlawed the idea that two populations can live side-by-side in occupied territory and be governed by two different legal systems, civil law for Israelis and repressive military law for Palestinians.
And of course, litigation is not going to end the occupation, which is the root of all the suffering HaMoked works to address. Unfortunately, given the current dismal reality regarding the Israeli political system, the Palestinian leadership, and the international community, it is not at all clear what strategies can generate the diplomatic agreement necessary to bring the occupation to an end.
Whatever the political path forward, however, it is clear that human rights must play a role. In fact, especially now, Israel must be held accountable for its human rights obligations.
Photo Courtesy of HaMoked
So what can we do?
As I indicated above, the international community can play an important role in supporting and strengthening the efforts of domestic advocates for human rights. All significant change has been the result of such a partnership, combining local advocacy and international pressure.
Still, because the essential macro political change—ending the occupation—is currently unrealistic, it can be difficult to know where best to focus our efforts, and to identify important systemic issues that are more than simply a band-aid.
For the coming year, HaMoked has decided to prioritize the dispossession created by the Separation Barrier, and this is a constructive area for international involvement as well.
Photo Courtesy of HaMoked
Creeping Dispossession: The Separation Barrier
Two decades ago, Israel chose to build the Barrier along a route inside the West Bank, rather than on the Green Line between the West Bank and Israel. As a result, the Barrier isolates nearly 10% of the West Bank, much of it agricultural lands belonging to tens of thousands of Palestinian farmers. In response to criticism from the international community, Israel promised virtually unrestricted access, with security being the only reason to deny a Palestinian entry to these areas, which Israel calls “the Seam Zone.”
Of course, the reality is far from this promise. Over the years, HaMoked has supported thousands of Palestinians in their efforts to access lands, businesses, and homes trapped behind the Separation Barrier. This individual assistance has provided a first-hand view of Israel’s increasing restrictions in these areas: gates through the Barrier that are open only a few days a week for very short times; a cumbersome bureaucracy to request the necessary permit to cross the gates; and, each year or two, new restrictions on who is eligible for these permits.
In 2017, the Israeli military decided that what they define as “tiny plots” (less than 330 square meters) do not allow for sustainable agriculture and therefore do not warrant a permit to the Seam Zone. This is an infuriating decision—what right does the military have to dictate to people what to do with their own land? People have a right to access their land just for a family picnic, not to mention to grow olives for their own consumption.
Furthermore, because the military calculates plot size by artificially subdividing a plot jointly owned by an extended family, it now defines vast portions of the Seam Zone as composed of such “tiny plots” to which access is completely denied. HaMoked has challenged each new limitation to Palestinians’ access, and we have a petition pending before Israel’s High Court against this “tiny plot” restriction as well.
While many of our petitions have been successful, Israel’s policies have resulted in a steady deterioration in Palestinians’ access overall. Data obtained through Freedom of Information requests show that last year the military rejected 73% of requests for farmer permits to the Seam Zone! Only 1% of permit applications are rejected for security reasons—in other words, the vast majority of permits are denied for failure to meet the ever-more restrictive criteria.
This is a tremendously important issue that has fallen off the international radar. Almost 10% of the West Bank is off limits to most Palestinians. Once fertile farmlands have become uncultivated and barren due to Israel’s restrictions, harming the livelihoods of thousands of families.
And I think this is an ideal issue for international advocacy to embrace. Diplomatic engagement at present is not going to end the occupation, or dismantle settlements; it is likewise frustrating to use political capital to address individual humanitarian cases.
But I believe we may be able to dismantle at least parts of the Separation Barrier, and ensure freer movement for Palestinians into these parts of the West Bank. Moving portions of the Barrier to the Green Line entails no security risk, and does not require any negotiations whatsoever with the Palestinian Authority. Israel has legal obligations to allow Palestinians free movement within the West Bank, and it must abide by those obligations. This year—the twentieth year of the Separation Barrier—is an excellent opportunity to highlight this issue, and I am confident that a combination of domestic litigation and international advocacy can bring about real change.
Photo Courtesy of HaMoked
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Jessica Montell is the Executive Director of HaMoked.
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PARTNERS FOR PROGRESSIVE ISRAEL’S STATEMENT ON THE LATEST AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL REPORT
As an organization devoted to upholding the civil and human rights of all those living under Israel’s control, Partners for Progressive Israel applauds the painstaking work of human rights organizations in Israel, Palestine, and worldwide, including that of Amnesty International.
This week, Amnesty International released a report entitled “Israel’s apartheid against Palestinians.” The report ably documents and analyzes both a pattern of discrimination within sovereign Israel that privileges the country’s Jewish citizens over its Palestinian Arab ones, as well as the daily oppression that occurs in the Occupied Territories, where Palestinians have been living for 55 years without any effective citizenship under a military regime – while the Israeli settlers living next door enjoy the freedoms granted by Israeli law.
That law, and the democratic institutions that produce it, are Israel’s greatest strengths. Within Israel, despite continuing discrimination, Palestinians are part of the governing coalition, while in the West Bank they have no control over their future. That is the essence of the Occupation and the never-ending injustices that flow from it; and we maintain it is the Occupation and its consequences on both sides of the Green Line, not anti-semitism, that give rise to the accusations of apartheid, however phrased.
Sadly, a great many establishment organizations in the American Jewish community have directed their response to that one word, “apartheid,” rather than engaging with the specifics of the report. Meanwhile, these same organizations turn a blind eye to, or even justify, the actions and inactions of the Israeli government, including mass illegal settlement, politically motivated evictions, home demolitions, a permit regime that denies Palestinians’ freedom of movement, and an astonishing refusal to protect Palestinians in the West Bank against the unabashed predations of settler terrorists. If only these groups would spend half the time protesting such Israeli policies and practices as they did castigating Amnesty.
We also take strong exception to the abuse of the term “antisemitism” in criticizing both the report and Amnesty International. In an age when true antisemitism is recurring, it is particularly egregious to apply that slur to organizations that criticize Israeli policies and practices. Such usage cheapens the impact of the term itself and helps transform it into an all-purpose usage to be regularly trotted out when convenient.
As was the case with the report by Human Rights Watch last April (and a similar report by the Israeli NGO B’Tselem before that), Amnesty employs a definition of “apartheid” that is well known within the specialized field of International Human Rights Law – but is far broader than the particulars of the South African regime that most people associate with the term. As we stated last year, our organization is not an arbiter of international law and avoids using such terminology, which is both legally rarefied and politically inflammatory. Moreover, use of the ultra-charged term “apartheid” also has the potential to actually undermine anti-occupation work by offering the right wing a path to redirect the public conversation away from genuine human rights abuses and into more convenient territory. That is precisely what has happened in this case.
Nonetheless, we would be remiss not to mention that use of the term “apartheid” is not uncommon within Israeli discourse, where figures as senior as former Prime Minister Ehud Barak have warned that Israel is on a “slippery slope toward apartheid,” and would inevitably reach that status if it continues to prevent the creation of a Palestinian state alongside it.
Ultimately, we strongly believe that the use or disuse of particular words does not alter by one iota the fundamental realities on the ground: Institutionalized discrimination unquestionably exists within sovereign Israel inside the Green Line, while beyond it much worse conditions exist for Palestinians, where the occupation (which only the most naïve or disingenuous still minimize as “temporary”) consistently denies them basic human rights.
While we therefore refrain from using the word “apartheid,” we appreciate the work of Amnesty International insofar as it directs American and international attention to the reality of ongoing injustices. Partners for Progressive Israel will continue to partner with those in Israel, Palestine, and elsewhere who seek peace and equal measures of freedom and human rights for all those, Jews and Palestinians, living between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River.
Outrage in Sheikh Jarrah
In the early hours of Wednesday, January 19, a large force of Israeli police evicted the Salhiyeh family in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah, arresting at least eighteen family members, friends, and Palestinian and Israeli activists, and razing their home to the ground. The family had lived there for many decades, since before Israel’s capture of the area in 1967. The ostensible grounds for the eviction were that a school is to be built on the site to serve the local Palestinian Arab population—though another suitable building, as well as vacant land, are available nearby.
Unlike most of the controversial evictions threatened in Sheikh Jarrah, the plaintiff in this case was the Jerusalem municipality, not a settler organization. The city and the family had been engaged in negotiations for a compromise, which were ended by the violent eviction. The Salhiyeh family had originally lived in Ein Kerem in West Jerusalem, from which they fled in 1948. Unlike Jewish families who were dispossessed in 1948, however, Arab families are unable to reclaim their property or even receive restitution.
We applaud the work of Meretz Knesset members, including Mossi Raz, Michal Rozin, and Gaby Laski, who have been active for years, protesting the evictions and trying to protect the families. On Wednesday night they demonstrated outside the home of Jerusalem Mayor Moshe Leon, where MK Raz was the victim of unacceptable police violence.
Partners for Progressive Israel has been at the forefront of publicizing and condemning the evictions in Sheikh Jarrah and elsewhere. Our Kolot partner organizations in Israel, including Ir Amim and Standing Together, are actively working against all these dispossessions.
As concerned American Jews with deep ties to Israel, including a conviction that the State of Israel can and must provide fairness and justice to ALL its inhabitants, we will continue our protests through all avenues available to us.
We will keep our supporters current on pending activities in support of the families who have been evicted and those who are still facing threats of imminent dispossession. A major focus of this will involve building support for Rep. Andy Levin’s Two State Solution Act, which was introduced last year.
**Progressive Israel Network Welcomes Indefinite
Postponement of Construction in E-1 Area**
The Progressive Israel Network (PIN) welcomes the news that the Israeli government will not be building Jewish settlements in the E-1 for the near future. We applaud the Biden Administration’s efforts to prevent such construction, and urge them to continue to push back against settlement expansion more broadly.
The vast majority of American Jews and so many Israelis oppose settlement expansion because building Jewish settlements in the West Bank simultaneously undercuts any future contiguous, viable Palestinian state and continues an illegal process of de facto annexation that will only deepen the conflict, pushing Israelis and Palestinians further towards a permanent and unequal one-state reality. The E-1 area is a particularly sensitive spot. It serves as a vital corridor for Palestinian communal life, connecting the major Palestinian cities of Ramallah north of Jerusalem to Bethlehem south of Jerusalem. As was noted by 26 House Democrats in a November letter to Secretary of State Tony Blinken, these proposed settlements are so dangerous to the prospects of a two-state solution that they have been referred to as “doomsday settlements.”
Just as past US administrations made their strong opposition to settlement construction in this strategic area clear to Israeli governments, we, members of the Progressive Israel Network, see this as a positive step even as we remain concerned by the simultaneous advancement of 3,500 settlement housing units south of Jerusalem.
You can learn more about this in our E-1 explainer here.
The Progressive Israel Network is a coalition of leading organizations representing Americans committed to pursuing democracy, equality in Israel and peace between Israelis and Palestinians. The network members signed on to this statement are Ameinu, Americans for Peace Now, Habonim Dror North America, Hashomer Hatzair USA, Jewish Labor Committee, J Street, The New Israel Fund, Partners for Progressive Israel, Reconstructing Judaism and T’ruah.
**The Arab-Israel Conflict is Over! Has Anyone Noticed?
By Paul Scham**
Pardon me, but has anyone realized that the conflict between Israel and the Arab states, which defined Israel’s life since its establishment in 1948, is over? That there is no serious threat to Israel from any or all Arab states, nor has any (important) Arab leader attacked Israel’s legitimacy for years? Not only did four new Arab states join Egypt and Jordan in establishing full relations with Israel in the last year and a half, but there’s a likelihood that Saudi Arabia will do so when King Salman (currently 85 and ailing) shuffles off this mortal coil and his son, the notorious MBS (Crown Prince and de facto ruler Mohammed bin Salman), takes over. Not only are we coming up to the 50th anniversary of the last full-scale state-to-state Arab Israel war (which began on Yom Kippur of 1973), but Arab states are now genuinely looking to Israel for protection, rather than calling for its destruction. Who would have thought…?
Of course, no one claims Israel is conflict-free. There is the matter of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which Israel only officially recognized in 1993, which drags on with no end in sight, and also of Iran and its allies, Syria and Hezbollah. And it’s true that if you took a plebiscite in the Arab world, Israel would not prove to be popular. But nothing in the Arab world is decided by popular vote, anyway; it’s the governments that count, and most of them are either actively and openly dealing with Israel, or else have no need to do so but would probably join the party if sufficiently induced.
For 45 years, until it recognized the PLO in 1993, Israel maintained that the only reason for the conflict was the Arab states’ refusal to recognize the reality of Israel’s existence. Two generation of Israelis grew up with that mantra, and many still seem to believe it. The assumption of enmity still seems to inform much Israeli discourse. Micah Goodman’s popular book Catch-67, published in English in 2018 (two years before the Abraham Accords were unveiled), takes the “fact” of absolute and perpetual Arab (and Islamic) enmity for granted, seemingly with no need to devote even a paragraph to proving the proposition.
In 1923, Vladimir Jabotinsky, the sainted father of the Israeli right wing (at least nominally, though he might well disavow his progeny if he came back to life nowadays), in his most famous essay, posited the need for an “Iron Wall” between the future Jewish State and the “Palestine Arabs.” He saw no possibility of persuading Arabs to accept Jewish hegemony but, when they eventually recognized the Jewish state was in the Middle East to stay, would accept that reality. Moreover, he wrote “And when that happens, I am convinced that we Jews will be found ready to give them satisfactory guarantees, so that both peoples can live together in peace, like good neighbours.”
Jabotinsky was gifted with remarkable prescience (he was one of the few Jewish leaders to predict the Holocaust in the 1930s), and he was absolutely right both about the wall and about the Arabs. Israel did build an effective military wall (long before the current physical security barrier was conceived) and gradually the Arab states recognized that not only was Israel not going away, but, rather, it had become a status quo power like them, and eventually many of them wanted, even needed, it to stick around and share in its military, scientific, and technological prowess. The iron wall has served its purpose, but Jabotinsky never dreamed that the inhabitants of the Jewish state in the 21st century would have trouble recognizing that things had fundamentally changed, and that they would refuse to dismantle the “wall,” with respect, at least, to the “Palestinian Arabs.”
Admittedly, much of this realization is new. Until the Abraham Accords were actually signed in August 2020 (the only act I am aware of for which we can and should thank Donald Trump), most informed observers knew that the Gulf Arab states and others were happy to engage in sub rosa trade and intelligence ties with Israel, but were sure that few, if any, Arab states would join Egypt and Jordan to openly normalize with Israel without a fair and consensual settlement of the concurrent and perpetually bloody Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Paradoxically, the only one who championed a peace without Palestine was Bibi Netanyahu, though given his worldview that Israel would always have to live by the sword, he might not have really quite believed it himself. The left, including me, dismissed that claim as a chimera. We were quite sure the Arab states would never openly and formally abandon the Palestinians. We were wrong about that. Bibi was right.
Of course, we on the left are right (i.e., correct) that “The Conflict” writ large won’t be over until there is a fair and consensual settlement with the Palestinians (which I, personally, think will have to involve at least some aspects of Confederation, but I’ll bypass that for the moment). And by no means am I denigrating the seriousness of the Iran-Israel conflict, though no one seems to agree what that war is about (most wars are really about something). So I’m not asserting that Israel can turn its drones into the modern equivalent of pruning hooks. But who can? If Israel is indeed to be a nation “like all the others,” it needs enemies and an arsenal, which almost all nations have, wherever they are located. The claim that Israel is uniquely under threat of extinction expired years ago; attempts to define BDS and anti-normalization as constituting such threats are laughable.
Obviously, recognition that the Israeli-Arab conflict is over doesn’t imply the lion lying down with the lamb or anything of the sort, but doesn’t it deserve to be acknowledged? However, it probably can’t be. The left (rightly) thinks nothing is settled until the core Palestinian basis of the conflict is dealt with, which seems further off than ever, while the right is unlikely to give up its deep-seated belief that “they” (i.e., everyone) will always hate the Jews and, like Micah Goodman, claim that Israel must therefore hang on to the West Bank, perhaps forever. Thus, the present stalemate.
The right is angry to find that that peace with the Arab states isn’t really peace, while the left can’t accept that peace with the Arab states has come (or is coming) through abandonment of the Palestinians.
So, even if the Arab-Israel conflict is over—and I maintain that it is—I don’t expect any cheers or celebrations. Rather, we see a long, hard road ahead, no matter what we call it.
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Paul Scham is President of Partners for Progressive Israel and the Director of the Gildenhorn Institute for Israel Studies at the University of Maryland.
Environmental Diplomacy Strengthens Israel-Jordan Ties & Promises Region-Wide Climate Securityby Gil Kulick
Amid the gloom in so many quarters over the stalemate that bedevils the two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, there is now underway an ambitious and visionary plan that has the potential to reinforce the still-fragile peace among Israel, Jordan, and the Palestinian Authority, bring environmental rehabilitation and economic development to the neglected Jordan Valley, and create a healthy and sustainable regional interdependence.
The author and driving force behind this plan is EcoPeace-Middle East, a tripartite NGO with offices in Tel Aviv, Amman, and Ramallah, that has pioneered environmental peacemaking in the Levant for almost three decades. The plan, dubbed the “Green Blue Deal for the Middle East” was devised and elaborated during the last year and is now being rolled out as a realistic blueprint for regional cooperation in dealing with the global climate crisis and its implications for regional security in the Middle East.
A first pillar of the plan—the Water/Energy Exchange—is designed to take advantage of a fortuitous distribution of natural resources among the three partners: Israel, Jordan, and Palestine. With its large and expanding array of desalination plants on the Mediterranean, Israel now desalinates 70 percent of its drinking water, soon to increase to 90%, with a surplus sufficient to both restore the catastrophically degraded Jordan River and sell water to parched Jordan to meet its urgent domestic needs. The Palestinian Authority is also planning to build large desalination plants in Gaza that could be incorporated into a regional desalination program.
What Israel and Palestine are deficient in is the huge amount of land needed to build the solar and wind energy infrastructure to power this operation sustainably at scale and at reasonable prices. Fortunately, Jordan, with its vast desert expanses and abundant sunshine, has the potential capacity to produce enough renewable energy to sell to both Israel and Palestine to sustainably power not only the desalination operations, but to meet Paris climate commitments at the cheapest prices as well.
The result would ultimately be a regional desalinated-water/solar-energy community among Israel, Jordan, and Palestine that would help the region achieve its carbon-reduction commitment and lead to healthy and sustainable regional interdependencies. This project would be financed by private investors, as it is expected to generate a healthy profit.
The three other pillars of the Green Blue Deal: advancing Palestinian water rights, Jordan River rehabilitation, and investment in region wide climate education are no pie-in-the-sky ideas either. All are based on extensive research and the on-the-ground experience of EcoPeace programs. Once fully implemented, GBD would be a game-changer for the entire region.
The first pillar of the Green Blue Deal got a kick-start on November 22 with the ceremonial signing in Dubai by high-ranking officials of Israel, Jordan, and the United Arab Emirates of a Declaration of Intent to conclude a formal agreement once a number of technical issues are resolved. The UAE is expected to provide a major share of the project’s financing.
The Declaration of Intent identifies that the major investment in Jordan will be a solar photovoltaic plant with a first stage capacity of 600 MW plus 300-500 MW in storage, to export green power to Israel, which in turn will sell Jordan up to 200 million cubic meters of desalinated water.
Israel’s Energy Minister Karine Elharrar said the agreement was the “most significant” since the former enemies signed a peace treaty in 1994. “The benefit of this agreement is not only in the form of green electricity or desalinated water, but also the strengthening of relations with the neighbor that has the longest border with Israel.”
Elharrar met with Jordan Water and Irrigation Minister Mohammed Al-Najjar last month for the signing of a separate agreement doubling the amount of water Israel supplies to perennially thirsty Jordan.An indication of the significant United States interest in the project was the presence at the signing of the U.S. Special Envoy for climate change diplomacy, John Kerry, whose mediation behind the scenes was crucial to the success of the negotiations. The Biden administration has also pledged to build on those agreements, while remaining adamant that they are no substitute for Israeli-Palestinian peace.
Partners for Progressive Israel enthusiastically endorses the Green Blue Deal and calls on U.S. policymakers to incorporate environmental diplomacy in their ongoing efforts to strengthen practical co-operation between Israel and its neighbors. Partners in particular sees the need for the Biden administration to prioritize advancing Palestinian water rights, a key pillar of the Green Blue Deal. We look forward to working with EcoPeace Middle East in helping to create both a physical and a political environment that can help protect the region from the worst ravages of climate change, as well as lead towards a two-state solution to the long-lasting Israel-Palestine conflict.
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Gil Kulick is a Middle East peace activist and avid environmentalist. He is a member of the PPI board.
Meretz MK Golan Endorses the Two-State Solution Act
MK Yair Golan of Meretz has spoken out in favor of the Two-State Solution Act sponsored by Congressman Andy Levin. The Two-State Solution Act, which was introduced in the U.S. Congress, is a good law that seeks to repair the scorched earth left behind by Trump and Netanyahu.
The bill promotes a distinction between the sovereign State of Israel and the illegal outposts and settlements, and includes support for aid to Israel …
Photo: IDF Spokesperson’s Unit
Prime Minister Bennett: It’s our responsibility to do all that we can not to bequeath the conflict to the next generations. Instead of letting the extremist right continue to threaten the country’s future, the time has come to make bold decisions and advance laws like the Two-State Solution Act in Israel’s Knesset as well.
To read an article by MK Yair Golan, explaining the importance to Israel and Israeli democracy of the Two-State Solution Act, go to his blog page at the Times of Israel website.
*Partners for Progressive Israel has proudly endorsed the Two-State Solution Act. To learn why you should and how you can encourage your Congressional representative to add their name to the Act’s growing list of cosponsors, click here.
**Partners for Progressive Israel Wages “Stop the Evictions” Campaign
By Mark Gold**
The year 2021 has seen new escalations in Israeli administration efforts to advance a permanent occupation and unofficial annexation of the West Bank. These escalations are being carried out through a wave of eviction efforts, some through courts and others through permitted acts of violence.
In East Jerusalem neighborhoods, settler groups have been pressing eviction cases in Israeli courts. The annexation of East Jerusalem in the aftermath of the Six Day War made those neighborhoods subject to Israeli law. A 1970 Act permits Israeli landowners to reclaim who property lost in 1948 but Palestinians who lost property in Israel do not have a reciprocal right. In Sheikh Jarrah, Palestinian refugees from 1948 were settled on land acquired in the 19th century by a Jewish Trust. The Trust rights were acquired by US based company that supports Jewish settler eviction efforts and claims were filed in court. This year, the case reached the Israeli Supreme Court which did not rule on the claims but proposed its own settlement. The Supreme Court’s unusual action is a tacit admission of the improper asymmetry of the law and the social and international tensions that arise from this condition. But these cases are a small subset of a more general situation in East Jerusalem involving hundreds of properties and nearly a thousand residents. Recent disclosures regarding changes to land registration and title by Israeli authorities imply eviction efforts in East Jerusalem areas are likely to expand to far greater levels.
Palestinian displacement is not restricted to legal means. In the South Hebron Hills, a campaign of settler violence is being waged with tacit Israeli Army complicity which has not intervened in any way to protect Palestinian residents. People have been assaulted and property destroyed in an organized effort to expel Palestinians from the region. The right-wing segment of the current government, which maintains effective control, has downplayed the violence which essentially supports it. But the recent administration statements, designed to cover up the pogroms, reveal the pressures growing on it due to wider reporting and both national and international revulsion.
Israeli Jews and Palestinians marching to the police barricade in Sheikh Jarrah protesting the occupation and threat of home demolitions and evictions in the weekly Friday protest. Photo Credit: Gili Getz
These eviction efforts are not only an injustice to the Palestinian victims, they represent parts of a program to expand Israeli settlements in the West Bank and promote a permanent occupation there. They constitute a threat to the democratic Jewish future for Israel and its international legitimacy.
Unfortunately, Palestinian citizens of Israel have been caught in a web of evictions within the borders of the State. Building permits have often been withheld in Arab communities, thwarting needed housing development. The outcome of this practice is a cycle of unauthorized construction and ordered and executed home demolitions. This has been particularly true among unrecognized Bedouin communities in the Negev, some with roots from 1948 and before.
To combat these actions, Partners for Progressive Israel initiated a campaign this autumn to promote greater public awareness of the situation. The programming included presentations and discussions with Meretz MK and human rights attorney Gaby Lasky, a recorded interview with Jerusalem expert Daniel Seidemann, first person accounts of South Hebron Hills violence from Eid Suleman and PPI Board member Gili Getz, a photo essay prepared by Gili from his recent time in Sheikh Jarrah and Silwan, an article update from Kolot: Voices of Hope designee, Ir Amim about their efforts to expose and resist Jerusalem evictions, as well as disclosures regarding the US based pro-settler group, Nahalat Shimon, behind some of the eviction In addition, the campaign covered the conditions in the Negev with a webinar interview with Aziz Al Toury, resident of Al-Araqib, just north of Beer Sheva, which has been bulldozed and rebuilt over 180 times.
Building public awareness about the legal and extra-legal efforts to expel Palestinians, promote discrimination, and advance an unofficial West Bank annexation is a critical step to stopping these processes.
To help Partners advance its Stop the Evictions campaign and to support the organization in its work, a generous donor gifted a matching grant up to $15,000 for all contributions made during the month-long period of special programming. Partners reached out to supporters who responded wonderfully and allowed PPI to obtain the full benefit of the matching gift.
As Treasurer of the organization, I personally want to thank the matching grant donor and all who gave during this “Stop the Evictions” effort.
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Mark Gold is a PHD economist and serves as Treasurer for Partners for Progressive Israel.
Meir Kahane: The Public Life and Political Thought of an American Jewish RadicalBy Peter Eisenstadt
Like a madeleine dipped in a cup of arsenic, Meir Kahane brings back many memories of things past, especially my adolescent years in the 1960s and early 1970s spent in Rochdale Village in Queens, where Meir Kahane was for a time the rabbi of the Orthodox shul. At the time, Rochdale was the largest housing cooperative in the United States, with almost 6,000 families. Rochdale was a new community, which opened in late 1963. It had been constructed by the United Housing Foundation (UHF), a remarkable organization that under the direction of Abraham Kazan, a veteran of the anarchist wing of the Jewish labor movement, who, in collaboration with the definitely non-anarchist Robert Moses, from the 1950s through the early 1970s, built over 35,000 units of cooperative housing in New York City, culminating in Co-Op City in the Pelham Bay marshes. Rochdale was located in South Jamaica, one of the largest Black communities in the city, and by the late 1960s it was probably about 75–80% white, of whom the vast majority were Jewish families, and the remainder African American. It was one of the few truly integrated neighborhoods in New York City. And for a while, Meir Kahane lived there.
When Kahane took up the bimah in the Orthodox shul, in the fall of 1968, he had, only a few months before, in May, founded the Jewish Defense League (JDL), the organization that would make Kahane famous, adored, and reviled, the self-proclaimed scourge of antisemites and self-hating Jews. (In Kahane’s worldview, everyone, except for his small sliver of the remnant of the righteous, fit into one of those two categories). His reputation as being “to the right of George Wallace” preceded him to Rochdale, and it was during his stay there that Kahane began to earn his enduring notoriety. Within a few months, the orthodox shul, supposedly in an effort to keep his enemies at bay, was adorned with a crown of razor wire, looking more like an auto parts store in a tough neighborhood than a synagogue.
These memories are occasioned by reading Shaul Magid’s important new book, Meir Kahane: The Public Life and Political Thought of an American Jewish Radical. Magid is absolutely correct that the Jewish left and the Jewish right, each for reasons of its own, have both conspired to minimize the importance of Kahane and of the long, lingering, and ugly shadow he cast on Jewish life on two continents. He was a prophet without much honor, but with many silent admirers. And Magid is absolutely correct that to understand Kahane, you have to see him as an American and New York Jew to his core. He speculates fruitfully on why, after his aliyah in 1971, he never quite fit into the Israeli political scene, perhaps because the county’s leadership didn’t need a loudmouth provocateur to convince most Israelis that they were in a perpetual war against Palestinian nationalism. But in Kahane’s wake, in the US, the “liberal Jewish establishment” became less liberal, as did, to some extent, the American Jewish community as a whole. The JDL’s slogan, “never again,” was a sign that American Jews would become comfortable in invoking the Holocaust at the drop of a hat against their domestic enemies, while, the Nazis notwithstanding, would become more attuned to their potential enemies on the left than on the right, more concerned about Black antisemitism than the frothings of latter-day Aryans. No one can argue, of course, that Kahane was in any way single-handedly responsible for these trends, but there is little doubt he helped give much initial impetus to this general rightward shift.
That said, Magid’s book was, for this reader, somewhat disappointing. It could have been more clearly and less repetitively organized. Magid is never an easy read, but his analyses of Jewish philosophy, as in his American Post-Judaism, are challenging, extraordinary, and very much worth reading. However, as a historian of New York City, I found him somewhat less surefooted. Two examples: To say that by 1968, Albert Shanker, the president of the United Federal of Teachers (UFT) was “an unlikely target of African American anger” is just wrong. The animosity had been growing for years. And my next objection is a bit pedantic, but Magid repeats it about ten times in the book. No, when the JDL was founded in May 1968, it was not “during the New York City teachers’ strike.” That hundred megaton blast took place that fall.
One of Magid’s central points, present in the title, is that Kahane was a “radical,” that his tactical inspiration was the Black Panthers, and that he shared with Jewish radicals on the left an abhorrence of stand-pat, assimilatory, mainstream Jewish liberalism. There is surely something to this; Kahane was not the only figure on the right with a bad case of Black Panther-envy, with their gun brandishing and headline-generating charismatic newsworthiness. But arguments like Magid’s that emphasize the similarity between the “far left” and the “far right” usually emphasize superficial resemblances rather than deep affinities. To argue, with Magid, that Kahane “was more a child of postwar American radicalism of the left than the maximalist Zionist Revisionism” doesn’t make much sense to me, and after reading Magid, Kahane still strikes me as more Stern Gang than Weather Underground, with visions of potential King David Hotels chockablock with anti-Semites swirling in his head like sugar plums. And, as often happens, the left fought “the establishment” to separate themselves from it, while the right fought the establishment to become part of it and assimilate it. And the right, in this case as in many others, usually had the better strategy.
And there is another tradition, one almost entirely ignored by Magid, that provides a much more important ideological context for Kahane than either the Panthers or the Jewish left; namely, the long history of racialized violence (and threats of such violence) against racial minorities. I found no mention of George Wallace in the book, despite the fact that in October 1968, as part of his third-party presidential bid, he filled Madison Square Garden. Wallace, however, when conjuring images of violence against his enemies, was not drawing from the Black Panther playbook. Wallace’s success in New York City was one example of the growing firestorm of racial resentments that was roiling New York City during these years, especially in Kahane’s prime bailiwick, the outer boroughs of Brooklyn and Queens, from the somewhat nebulous organization, SPONGE (Society for the Prevention of Negroes Getting Everything) to Mario Procaccino, the 1969 Democratic candidate for mayor, whose lasting contribution to the English language was coining the phrase “limousine liberal.” It’s not as if Kahane had to do much inciting to get a following. When, in the early 1970s, a potential housing project in Forest Hills (a middle-class neighborhood in Queens) engendered intense resistance, Kahane professed to be surprised at their virulence. “Suddenly all these Jews that used to get up in the Forest Hills Jewish Center and says the JDL uses violence and that they’re bad, come up to me and say, ‘Listen, if that housing project goes up, can you blow it up?” But Kahane said no. When the JDL marched down Fifth Avenue in the annual “Salute to Israel” parade, few groups were applauded more vigorously, or received more donations.
When it came to confronting Blacks, many Jews felt they suffered from a reputation of being insufficiently “tough.” In its early years, the JDL, not surprisingly, found many recruits in Kahane’s home base of Rochdale. I had many friends and acquaintances in Kahane’s orbit, and they all gave me the same recruiting talk, “Aren’t you tired of being pushed around by tough Blacks? Isn’t it time we Jews learned how to defend ourselves?” By that time, I was already in Hashomer Hatzair, and had nothing but disdain for the JDL and Kahane, but as an archetype of Jewish pusillanimity—unathletic, non-confrontational, very nearsighted, and very bookish—I certainly understood the JDL’s invoking an assertive brand of Jewish masculinity that I both abhorred and, on some level, envied. And for every teenage member of Kahane’s shock troops, there were ten, if not a hundred, quiet admirers.
I would argue that the appeal of the JDL, in Rochdale and elsewhere, was less about crime (or “Black crime”) itself, but a desire to defend one’s turf against encroachment, the Jets against the Sharks. A key part of the appeal, at a time of rampant “neighborhood change,” was the belief that sufficient Jewish toughness could stay the sociological and demographic forces of the day. Kahane was an outer borough Jew who repeatedly mocked the assimilated Jews from “Scarsdale” and “Great Neck,” who had presumably given up the fight to preserve Jewish communities in the city, and he lauded the Jews who had remained in the outer boroughs. Kahane had been a rabbi in Laurelton, another community in Southeastern Queens. But Laurelton was “changing.” More and more Jewish families were leaving; more and more Black families were moving in. Something very similar would follow in Rochdale. And the Jews in those neighborhoods and many others would fight fiercely, though fruitlessly, to preserve their white and Jewish character. The war to maintain Laurelton and Rochdale as Jewish neighborhoods were wars the Jews lost. There would be no six-day victory. And I believe that on some level that when Kahane moved to Israel he saw the Palestinians less as terrorists than as unwanted neighbors who would move in and force the Jews out. Israel was Laurelton and Rochdale. The West Bank was the rest of South Jamaica.
Others, I would suggest, also saw the world from the vantage point of southeastern Queens writ large. A short bus ride away from Rochdale, those living in Jamacia Estates, an exclusive subdivision for the upper middle class and beyond, could also observe the rising tide of Blackness just outside of their enclave, including a young Donald Trump. I make no claim that Kahane influenced Trump, but Trump surely knew of him as the leading local voice of racial resentment. The two men shared the same bleak worldview; if you give “them” [Blacks, Palestinians, immigrants, any “them” will do] an inch they will take a mile. If we are strident enough, outrageous enough, they will not replace us. Make of that what you will.
One final story. One reason I know so much about Rochdale is not only that I lived there, but about a decade ago, I wrote a book about it, published by Cornell University Press, telling how Jews and Blacks created an integrated community there, and how it fell apart. I interviewed a lot of people for the book, from associates of Robert Moses to fire-breathing Black revolutionaries; anyone who could help tell the story of Rochdale. I wanted to interview Kahane’s widow, Libby, a librarian at Hebrew University, and I managed to get her contact information. She proved to be very helpful and interested in my project, and at one point in our emails, she sent me an unpublished manuscript of her biography of Kahane. I was very impressed. It was, not surprisingly, sympathetic to his politics, but it was not a diatribe. It was well-written, carefully documented, and she had interviewed many of his cronies, who presumably wouldn’t have spoken to many other interviewers. I was impressed and told her that in one of my emails. (Magid is also impressed by Libby Kahane’s research). Anyway, a few years later, Libby contacted me. The book was being printed in Jerusalem by the Institute for the Publication of the Writings of Meir Kahane, and she wanted to use an excerpt from one of the emails as a blurb for the book. I blanched, but the quote she chose wasn’t really embarrassing, something like “an important and thorough study of one of the most controversial Jewish figures of our time.” And Libby had given me solid help, and I felt I needed to return the favor. And so I did. I don’t know what the moral of this story is, other than the fact that Meir Kahane, in life and death, is still with us, and those who wish to simply dismiss him as an inconsequential rabble-rouser, do so at their own peril. Shaul Magid’s book is not the last word on Meir Kahane, but it doesn’t have to be. Those interested in the vicissitudes of American Jewish life from the 1960s through 1980s, and its lingering reverberations in the US and Israel, should read this book.
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Peter Eisenstadt is a member of the board of Partners for Progressive Israel and the author of Against the Hounds of Hell: A Biography of Howard Thurman (University of Virginia, 2021).