This very welcome letter marks out the significantly worsening alienation between world Jewry and the Zionists’ defacement of the Judaic tradition.
Jewish Bloc for Palestine at the Palestine solidarity rally in London, June 8, 2024. (Alisdaire Hickson, Flickr, CC BY-SA 2.0)
By Patrick Lawrence
Special to Consortium News
At last, at last, Jews with powerful voices have gathered en masse — a critical mass, I would say — to condemn Israel and the savage spree of murder, starvation and terror it inflicts as we speak upon the Palestinians of Gaza and the Occupied Territories of the West Bank.
You may by now be aware of the open letter signed by 450–plus American, European and Israeli Jews and made public this week. In it, this sprawling group of distinguished personages denounces the criminality of the Zionist regime and asserts “the universality of justice and the fair and equal application of international law.” The signatories also call for the international community to impose immediate sanctions on apartheid Israel.
This is very big, in my read. I say this not because of what is in this document — calls for justice of this kind are by now many — but, straight to my point, for whose names are on it.
You may know of this letter and you may not, I ought to add: The Guardian reported it in its Oct. 22 editions. Anadolu Ajansi, the Turkish wire service, also had the story right away. Arab News had it, too. So did Middle East Monitor, The New Indian Express, and, stateside, Common Dreams. In Britain, Jewish Voice for Liberation, J.V.L., picked it up.
But the British daily is at writing alone among major Western media to report on this momentous call for worldwide action against the Zionist state. We read nothing of it in major Western media and hear nothing from the mainstream broadcasters. I will return to this important point shortly.
“Join the Worldwide Jewish Call,” as the letter is titled, was organized and put out by an apparently ad hoc “coalition” called Jews Demand Action. The document and various appendages explaining it are here. As the Jews Demand Action website makes clear, the intent is to announce a continually engaged movement in the cause of justice — justice for Palestinians, justice for the Zionist fanatics guilty of perpetrating a genocide, a term the group uses with obvious conviction and also with obvious anger. Among much else, the letter features a form by way of which Jews can sign the petition and receive updates on actions to come.
“At last, a serious global Jewish call for sanctions on Israel,” J.V.L., the British version of Jewish Voice for Peace in the United States, proclaimed in the above-noted report.
Yes, at last.
Lots of other Jews have stood publicly against the apartheid state, many for a long time. There is Rabbi Yaakov Shapiro, the wonderfully outspoken rabbi and author of The Empty Wagon: Zionism’s Journey from Identity Crisis to Identity Theft (Bais Medrash and Primedia eLaunch, 2020), there is the aforementioned Jewish Voice for Peace, and the Jewish organizations and students active on university campuses and in the streets of major cities. Unqualified praise to them and the many like them I cannot list in full.
I have no certain idea why it took these hundreds of influential people with self-evident consciences so long to join these others against the entity that insists on calling itself “the Jewish state.” To hazard a surmise, the past two years of Israel’s unspeakable barbarism have surely been a torment for the signatories of this letter, as for countless Jews the world over, as they have sought to distinguish their faith and their traditions from the conduct of the ultra-nationalist regime that is supposed to merit their allegiance but has emphatically lost it.
Stop Starving Gaza Shabbat action with Jewish Voice for Peace, Washington, D.C., on June 27. (Diane Krauthamer, Flickr, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)
If I had to choose one sentence in this letter above all others for its significance and power — I would rather not but I will — it would be this: “Our solidarity with Palestinians is not a betrayal of Judaism, then, but a fulfillment of it.”
After this truth comes these:
“When our sages taught that to destroy one life is to destroy an entire world, they did not carve exceptions for Palestinians. We shall not rest until this ceasefire carries forward into an end of occupation and apartheid.”
This is the conceptual frame within which the signatories address António Guterres, the U.N. secretary-general, as well as “presidents, prime ministers, heads of state, [and] permanent representatives to the United Nations.” While approving of the ceasefire, or what remains of it at this point, the letter states,
“And yet there should be no doubt that this ceasefire is fragile: Israeli forces remain in Gaza, the agreement makes no reference to the West Bank, the underlying conditions of occupation, apartheid, and the denial of Palestinian rights remain unaddressed.”
“As Jews and as human beings, we declare: Not in our name,” the letter states. It then lists the four key demands the signatories advance in their names: Respect for the authority of the International Court of Justice (Yes!), a rejection of the complicity Western governments have forced upon their citizens, a full military withdrawal, the supply of aid and everything else needed to reconstruct Gaza, and, finally, “to refute false accusations of antisemitism that abusively deploy our collective history to tarnish those with whom we stand together in the pursuit of peace and justice” (Yes again times 10!).
You find some big names among the signatories (and the open letter does not give the full list): Daniel Levy, previously a “peace” negotiator for Israel and now a prominent critic; Gabor Maté, the physician-psychotherapist; Wallace Shawn, the playwright, actor, and reliable old leftie; Amy Eilberg, an American rabbi and activist; Peter Beinart (one of the organizers of Jews Demand Action), Naomi Klein, the “progressive” Canadian writer; Yuval Abraham, who co-directed No Other Land, the documentary that took an Oscar last year.
Basel Adra and Yuval Abraham, Berlinale Documentary Award for No Other Land, Berlinale 2024. (Martin Kraft/Wikimedia Commons/ CC BY-SA 4.0)
If I do not put the point too simply, these people speak not for the destruction of Israel but for its restoration to sanity — and, so, its salvation. They do not mention the two-state solution in their letter, but one gains the impression it is this for which they hope. One may differ strenuously with them on these points (as I do, emphatically), but what I will shorthand as their moderation is part of what makes their open letter so important: These are (shorthand again) mainstream Jews.
Who can say how carefully or how many presidents, prime ministers, U.N. reps, etc. will consider this letter? But this is not the salient point. This letter marks out the significantly worsening alienation between world Jewry and the state that is supposed to represent its home. And in so doing it widens and deepens the already evident isolation of the Jewish state. This latter effect may not be the intent of the open letter’s signatories, but it will prove unmistakably to be among the document’s consequences.
A Growing Consensus
Not In Our Name demonstration, Washington, D.C., Nov. 4, 2023. (Diane Krauthamer, Flickr, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)
“We represent the growing consensus of world Jews, not the Israeli government,” the letter declares in one of its subheads. Exactly so. And as The Guardian piece cited above points out, the open letter should be read alongside some stunning numbers coming out of the most recent opinion polls. In a recent Washington Post survey, 61 percent of American Jews asked think Israel has committed war crimes in Gaza; just under 40 percent stand with the open letter’s signatories: We witness a genocide.
In a poll that does not distinguish between Jews and non–Jews, The Brookings Institution finds that 45 percent of those surveyed think Israel is committing genocide. A recent poll conducted by Quinnipiac University indicates 50 percent of register voters agree; among Democratic voters the number is 77 percent. On Thursday Reuters published a survey indicating that 59 percent of the Jews and non–Jews polled think the United States should recognize Palestine as a sovereign state.
I see a highly significant conflict growing ever sharper between the increasing number of outspoken Jews of conscience and those many — and they remain very many — who continue to defend the righteousness of the Israeli terror machine. Things are getting especially awkward for mainstream media such as the Zionist-supervised New York Times, wherein we find no mention of Jews Demand Action and its forthright open letter. This cannot end well for the Times and all the pilot fish that follow it.
However long the Times stays silent, however many media billionaire Zionists take over and corrupt, however many Bari Weisses they put in high places, this will do nothing other than discredit these media. They are effectively complicit in the Zionists’ defacement of the Judaic tradition. This is another way the open letter is important.
The world has long and urgently needed to hear from the “we” whose names are on this letter. Non–Jews need to learn of and make the distinction between Judaism and the frenzied Zionism that now rules Israel so they can think clearly of these questions. And as they are well aware, those Jews who reject Israel’s ultra-nationalist Zionism must make themselves heard for the sake of Judaism, too.
I do not accept that any great wave of anti–Semitism is breaking upon us — there is no “ferocious surge,” in Joe Biden’s preposterous phrase. But the potential for such a turn, given the extent of Israel’s inhumanity in combination with its claim to be “the Jewish home,” is obvious.
The Zionist hoards love the threat of anti–Semitism: How well it serves their pernicious purpose. At last this insidious ruse is countered by those whose voices count for most — the voices of Jews.
Patrick Lawrence, a correspondent abroad for many years, chiefly for the International Herald Tribune, is a columnist, essayist, lecturer and author, most recently of Journalists and Their Shadows, available from Clarity Press or via Amazon. Other books include Time No Longer: Americans After the American Century. His Twitter account, @thefloutist, has been restored after years of being permanently censored.
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Though I fully stand with their opposition to the actions of the cruel Israeli apartheid state and its ongoing genocide and ethnic cleansing, is it accurate to portray themselves as in line with Judaism and its values, and Israel as not?
As anti-Zionist Israel Jew and Holocaust survivor Israel Shahak writes in his Jewish History, Jewish Religion book:
‘The widespread misconception that Israel, even without considering its regime in the Occupied Territories, is a true democracy arises from the refusal to confront the significance of the term “a Jewish state” for non-Jews. […] The disregard of Judaism as it really is and of “Jewish ideology” makes those policies incomprehensible to foreign observers who usually know nothing about Judaism except crude apologetics. […] The meaning of the term “Jewish” and its cognates, including “Judaism,” thus becomes in the context of Israeli politics as important as the meaning of “Islamic,” when officially used by Iran, or “communist” when it was officially used by the USSR.’
Since 1985 in Israel, no party that opposes its status as a “Jewish state” is allowed to participate in the Knesset. And Israel’s laws and policy are all based on Jewish religion and law, on the Talmud in particular, and the Torah. That Jewish sages make no exception for treatment of the Palestinians seems quite contradictory to what is in the Talmud. According to Shahak, Judaism is a supremacist religion. E.g.:
‘In numerous cases general terms such as “thy fellow,” “stranger,” or even “man” are taken to have an exelusivist chauvinistic meaning. The famous verse “thou shalt love thy fellow [14] as thyself” (Leviticus, 19:18) is understood by classical (and present – day Orthodox) Judaism as an injunction to love one’s fellow Jew, not any fellow human. Similarly, the verse “neither shalt thou stand against the blood of thy fellow” (ibid., 16) is supposed to mean that one must not stand idly by when the life (“blood”) of a fellow Jew is in danger; but, as will be seen in Chapter 5, a Jew is in general forbidden to save the life of a Gentile, because “he is not thy fellow.”‘
What this letter claims Jewish sages say seems entirely false; its portrayal deceptive. How can the Jewish state ever be understood without understanding Judaism the way its most pious scholars (and most righteous critics, like Shahak) understand it?
Nonetheless I take the unusual view that practice is more important than scripture, so if they take good from the religion, good—but not many really know it.
God bless them all for their integrity, courage and unquestioning devotion to their faith. This letter is testament to the real Jewish faith as Jerry Alatalo speaks of and for mainstream Judaism as per Ewan Meigh’s insightful words regarding mainstream Judaism; ” only honest introspection, atonement, a breaking with Zionism, and a return to our better traditional values can save it.”
The zionists have been breaking any ceasefire agreement ever made so far during the past 80 years.
And they are openly outright rejecting a two state solution. In my humble eyes, there can therefore only be one state-
which is Palestine.
Including friendly jewish people as they were and are during large parts of Palestine’s history.
Those not willing to respect the people and state of Palestine can go wherever they want. And the hostile mass murdering zionists must be finally held accountable.
Glad to see this and proud of Jews who stand against zionism and refuse to be “good Germans.” As I opined in a recent editorial letter, This genocide must be brought to an end and those responsible brought to justice. As for mainstream Judaism, only honest introspection, atonement, a breaking with Zionism, and a return to our better traditional values can save it.
Zionist are at least as hysterical as the most deranged extremist cult. Those far right-wing fascists who demand the blood the other.
A demand based on no need other than to see those people dead. Death for them because it is bothersome to Zionist to have to tolerate their presence.
Notice anything similar emanating from the White House other than dust from demolition?
I see great similarity between the manner with which Gazans are treated and the treatment Trumpinstiene melds out to his detractors.
Seems we might be making some progress here with respect to getting a better handle on who are our actual enemies and who are not.
Mr. Alatalo hit it on the nose here.
Yes Steve the two State ‘solution’ is all smoke and mirrors.There can be only one Palestine and l fear the seeds of hate have been planted so deep that generations of suffering will endure.
At long last more fresh air of truth, thank you Patrick for such inspiring prose and reason. The unbearable weight of genocide presses all our heads to the ground under extremist boots of corrupt Zionism and Christian white nationalism. May we finally rid Israel and Palestine of these hundred years of British and US settler colonialism. May Zionist and Christian white nationalist perpetrators be brought to justice for their mass murder of innocents and destruction of our Mother Earth.
I had to copy and paste the article in order to share it on Facebook as, for inexplicable reasons, Facebook is prohibitting the sharing of links to Consortium News. This article strikes me as essential for the minimization of antisemitism resulting from the horrors of Zionism making it clear that Zionism and Judaism are NOT synonymous.
Sir these haters want no part of the truth. Hanging with Trump is the best that ass face can do. Patrick un messed the mess. These people must be encouraged and assisted in their fight same as we need to ensure the sanctity of our nation. It is our Constitutional duty to do so.
“…these people speak not for the destruction of Israel but for its restoration to sanity”
Which will never happen because when exactly, was this recently created land-grab called Israel ever grounded within “sanity”, for goodness’ sake?
Such a goal surely makes it impossible to hold genuine solidarity with Palestinians, as how could any Palestinian ever be safe when under occupation by those who have, since day one, made no secret about seeking to eradicate them one way or another.
A two-state solution is deliberate political hot air to avoid the harsh reality that Israel can only exist there through violence.
How can someone claim to support Palestine, while still hoping the occupiers of said country will come to their senses and…what?, give Palestine back to the Palestinians? No, that statement indicates the desire for Israel to remain in Palestine illegally.
The simple fact is, Israel has shown itself to be wholly unworthy to be given such free reign by the rest of the political world. From day one, they have acted like they are acting now, it was simply to a lesser degree but just as henious.
Israels unacceptable actions and the help they’ve had from Western governments and all of mainstream media in conducting a campaign of genocide have assured that this planet will either slide into utter ‘Dark Ages’ conflict and terror in the very near future, now that all rules have been so openly disregarded without penalty, or have doomed themselves to the destruction they wished upon the Palestinians, for they cannot expect to remain as they are after such an open display of absolute and mind-numbingly feral anti-humanism and for the world to simply forget and continue on as it did before.
Whilst I believe many Jews to be genuinely good people supportive of Palestine, any idea where Israel remains in Palestine after trying to murder off or kick out everyone but Israelis is only going to allow everything we’ve seen since Balfour that culminated in this live-streamed genocide to happen again, and again.
I am glad that more and more people, including Jews, are speaking out against the genocidal, apartheid Jewish State of Israel, as it calls itself. I am not sure I make a significant distinction between Zionism and Jewry–are Jews hiding behind Zionism or Zionism hiding behind Jewry. Or does it matter? To me, what matters is that the world watches the Jewish State of Israel genocide Palestinians and does nothing. In the USA, we allow Israel to buy the USA government which, in turn, arms Israel and buys most of the rest of the world. Going to bed at night and imaging you are picking parts of your child’s body out of the ruble to bury while you hear the cries of the soon to be dead and wanting to bring down the Jewish State of Israel is not antisemitism. It is humanitarianism.
Yes indeed. Humanitarianism. The situation is just heartbreaking.
Any of Jacques Baud’s books and interviews, especially “Al Aqsa Flood” are worth consulting for his deep understanding and experience of Israel and Zionist behaviour and suggestions for ways of changing them.
Jews who are saying that Zionism is is not representing Judaism are an example to Christians to speak up and say that our support of Israel is not representative of Christianity.
While many conscientious Jews have decried the genocide/ ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians from early on, the “new” welcomed mainstream Jewish voices against Israeli policies is most likely just an incongruent/ hypocritical attack on Orange Man Bad, whose support for the Zionists is no more in his nine-month reign than Joe “I am a Zionist!” Biden’s 15 moths of supplying the same war materiel, producing irreversible damage to Gaza. Citing the US public polls is meaningless; what percent of the 535 US Congress creatures (who get richer supporting our Israeli “allies”) are standing up for the Palestinians? DC if not America is joined at the hip with Israel. Political donors are the Power in US “democracy” and roughly 25% of America’s billionaires are Jewish, mostly Zionists.
One letter is a start, but not enough. Cleansing the temple is required. Zionism declared a Jewish heresy by those who can speak with authority for the Jewish world is required to save the reputation of Judaism. But will that happen?
I don’t think it’s going to be influential to netinyahoo at all, and therefore, not influential to our government, Europe’s, Australia’s etc., either. It’s reminiscent of Pete Buttegieg’s “strongly worded” letter to the Norfolk Southern CEO after their East Palestine train derailment and toxic contamination of the entire area. It didn’t change their plans at all.
No surprise that Jewish voice for peace scholar late Hannah Arendt
said that Zionism is kin to Nazism. And US-Israeli/West genocide
in Gaza and slow-roll genocide in West-Bank hears that voice loud
and clear.
Authentic Jews, and the Judaic tradition, see peace and justice in
the human heart, while Zionists care for neither, but want a nation-state
armed to the teeth with murderous weapons and surveillance
technology to target enemies of their own making.
Unfortunately, if people think the issues of the last two years are the problem then they haven’t fully understood. The issue is Palestine and Israel and goes back to 1948. Without addressing this simple fact there will never be a satisfactory solution and the genocide will continue. The two state solution is a political device that ensures the Palestinians are always subjugated by Israel, it must be discarded for the propaganda and lies that it surely is. A fully democratic Palestine is the ONLY viable solution.
It has become crystal clear that those who ridiculously, recklessly assert anti-Zionism is equal to Antisemitism have consciously, willingly exercised intentional deception, – for the purpose of perpetuating the pursuit of objectives sought by corrupt, degenerate, wicked individuals/groups whose illegal actions can only be accurately described as criminally insane.
Re: Exposing Israeli Lies and Other Longtime Obfuscatory Practices Hiding Truth
The modern Zionist project is a European construct.
If the Israeli Jewish identity is a composite of diverse Jewish traditions, including Ashkenazi, Sephardic, Mizrahi, and Ethiopian Jewish cultures, brought by immigrants from around the world, and therefore, has become the dominant culture of Palestine; shaped by the modern Zionist project, and the Hebrew language, then why is it so difficult for Zionist Israeli Jews to accept the fact that Iranian Judaic practices are but one of the diverse Jewish cultural traditions, dating back 2700 years unbroken in Persia – outside of the Israeli state, as but one example of difference from Ashkenazi, Sephardic, Mizrahi, and Ethiopian Jewish culture; and that all these diverse Jewish religious traditions, dating back centuries now gathered together in the state of Israel had to conform their different social customs and traditions under the one European ultra Zionist umbrella claiming to be the sole arbiter of what being Jewish actually means, globally.
Anyone disagreeing with this single-minded interpretation, preposterously being deemed either an antisemite or a self-hating Jew, by the faction running the government of Israel, currently being led by the Jewish war criminal Benjamin Netanyahu, himself an offshoot, prior to WWII of European Polish-Lithuanian Ashkenazi ancestry.
Reference:
Please see Max Blumenthal’s (The Grayzone) documentary, Uncaptured: Jews in the Islamic Republic of Iran for a little, much needed enlightenment