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Policy and Survey Research - Palestine 6 May 2025

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Policy and Survey Research - Palestine 6 May 2025

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Favorability of the October 7 attack, the belief that Hamas will win the war, and support for Hamas continue to decline, but the overwhelming majority is opposed to Hamas disarmament and does not believe that release of the hostages will bring an end to the war. Nonetheless, about half of Gazans support the anti-Hamas demonstrations and almost half want to leave the Gaza Strip if they could. Support for the two-state solution remains unchanged but support for armed struggle drop

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The interviews for this poll included 44 census "counting areas" in all areas of the Gaza Strip, with the exception of some areas whose residents were displaced in the Rafah governorate and some other specific areas of Gaza City, Khan Younis, and the northern Gaza Strip, so that the number of areas that were not accessible stood at 13 counting areas (five in the Rafah governorate, five in Gaza Governorate, two in Khan the Yunis governorate, and one in the northern Gaza Strip). Residents of these 13 displaced counting areas were interviewed in shelters and refugee camps in the same governorate from which they were displaced. These were randomly selected from an updated list of shelters and refugee camps located in their governorates, with the exception of the Rafah governorate, whose residents were displaced to areas in the Khan Younis governorate.

As in our previous four polls since October 7, most of the questions in this poll, covering the first four months of 2025, revolve around the events of that day and the subsequent Israel-Hamas war and the Israeli ground invasion of the Gaza Strip, the unprecedented human suffering of the Gaza Strip's residents, the debate regarding the future of the Gaza Strip after the war, public satisfaction with the performance of the various parties during the war, and West Bankers' fears of the probability of the war spilling over from Gaza to the West Bank. The current poll, as in the previous three polls, covers the consequences of the war on the internal balance of power, support for the Palestinian leadership, Palestinian-Israeli relations, and the political process.

Only half of the Palestinians in the current poll view Hamas' decision to carry out the October 7 attack as "correct." In the Gaza Strip, is less than that. The fears of the war finally reaching the West Bank, the worsening conditions in the Gaza Strip, with declining hopes for a quick ceasefire might have contributed to this and similar findings in this poll, many of which were evident in our previous poll seven months ago.

Despite the declining favorability of October 7, most of the public continue to believe the attack and the following war have placed the Palestinian issue at the center of global attention. Unlike previous polls, today's findings show that the majority of the public does not believe Hamas will win the current war. Still, a plurality of the public believes that Hamas will continue to control the Gaza Strip after the war. Gazans are split in the middle regarding the anti-Hamas demonstrations in the Gaza Strip even though most Gazans think these demonstrations are driven by outsiders. Gazans are also split regarding emigrating from the Gaza Strip after the war ends. On the domestic balance of power, Marwan Barghouti remains the most popular Palestinian leader. Demand for Abbas' resignation remains overwhelming even as it drops slightly. Hamas' popularity drops a little while Fatah's remain unchanged. Findings show support for the two-state solution remaining unchanged. Support for armed struggle declines and support for negotiations rises.

Support for the attack on October 7: Once again, findings show decline in the overall support for the October 7 Hamas offensive. The decline is seen in both the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. It is important to note that support for this attack does not necessarily mean support for Hamas and does not mean support for any killings or atrocities committed against civilians. Indeed, almost 90% of the public believes Hamas men did not commit the atrocities depicted in videos taken on that day.

Anti-Hamas demonstrations in the Gaza Strip: Gazans are split almost in the middle for and against the recent anti-Hamas demonstrations in the Gaza Strip. Nonetheless, most Gazans think the demonstrations are driven and motivated by outside hands.

Demands for the release of the hostages and the disarmament of Hamas: The overwhelming majority of Palestinians believes that the war will not end and Israel will not withdraw from the Gaza Strip if Hamas agrees to disarm. Similarly, the overwhelming majority disagree with the view that if Hamas releases the hostages, Israel will end the war and withdraw from the Gaza Strip. Perhaps this is why the overwhelming majority is opposed to a Hamas disarmament or the departure of its military leadership from the Gaza Strip.

Trump's and Israeli calls for displacing Gazans: While the majority says it does not want to leave the Gaza Strip after the war ends, a large minority wants to do that. Similarly, about half of Gazans are willing to apply to Israel to help them emigrate to other countries via Israeli ports and airports.

Satisfaction with the performance of various parties during the war: As we did in our previous polls, we asked in the current one about public satisfaction with the role played during the war by various Palestinian, Arab/regional, and international actors. On the Palestinian side, satisfaction with Hamas' performance continues to drop but it is higher than satisfaction with the PA, Fatah, and President Abbas. As for satisfaction with Arab/regional actors, the highest satisfaction rate continues to go to the Houthis in Yemen. followed by Qatar and Hezbollah. Satisfaction with Iran comes last as the majority views negatively Iran's role since October 7. For the international actors, China received the highest satisfaction followed by Russia and the US receives the lowest level of satisfaction.

What should the PA do now? When asked about the measures the PA leadership should take today to help address the effects of the current war in the Gaza Strip, "the formation of a national unity government to negotiate with Israel and the international community to end the war and rebuild the Gaza Strip in the future," came first.

Fear in the West Bank of the spread of war from the Gaza Strip to the West Bank: Three quarters of West Bankers say they fear the spread of war from the Gaza Strip to the West Bank. If the Gaza war comes to the West Bank, the overwhelming majority says it will not leave home to go to Jordan.

7. The release of Israeli hostages, the disarmament of Hamas, the expulsion of its military leadership, and the end of the war on Gaza:

On the Palestinian side, satisfaction with Hamas' performance drops to 57% (67% in the West Bank and 43% in the Gaza Strip), followed by Fateh (24%; 19% in the West Bank and 31% in the Gaza Strip), the PA (23%; 28% in the Gaza Strip and 19% in the West Bank), president Abbas (15%; 13% in the West Bank and 19% in the Gaza Strip).

As for satisfaction with Arab/regional actors, the highest satisfaction rate went to Houthis in Yemen, as we found in our previous polls, today at 74% (84% in the West Bank and 61% in the Gaza Strip), followed by Qatar (45%), Hezbollah (43%), and Iran (31%). The following figure shows the distribution of satisfaction in the current and previous polls in the West Bank and Gaza. The findings show that a rise in satisfaction with Yemen and Qatar.

For the international actors, China received the highest satisfaction (26%), followed by Russia (21%), and the United States (3%).

We asked the public about its assessment of Iran's role in Palestine in light of what has been happening since October the 7th, is it a useful role or harmful to the Palestinian cause? A majority of 54% believes Iran's role is harmful while only 32% believe it is beneficial.

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Press Release: Public Opinion Poll No (95)

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The interviews for this poll included 44 census "counting areas" in all areas of the Gaza Strip, with the exception of some areas whose residents were displaced in the Rafah governorate and some other specific areas of Gaza City, Khan Younis, and the northern Gaza Strip, so that the number of areas that were not accessible stood at 13 counting areas (five in the Rafah governorate, five in Gaza Governorate, two in Khan the Yunis governorate, and one in the northern Gaza Strip).

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if you are able to support efforts to get food aid into Gaza, go here to donate: https://secure.nif.org/k9Q2aD1WXkilSofBco-UIw2

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With over 70,000 children hospitalized for malnutrition, Israel's blockade on the Strip has left parents to watch helplessly as their children waste away.

Twelve-year-old Rahaf Ayad is so malnourished she can barely speak. Her hair is falling out. Her ribs protrude. She can hardly move her limbs. She blinks slowly, her eyelids heavy.

Originally from Al-Shuja'iya in eastern Gaza City, Rahaf now lives with her seven family members in a single room in a relative's house in the city's Al-Rimal neighborhood.

Shurooq, Rahaf's mother, explained that her daughter's health began deteriorating rapidly due to the lack of food. "If anyone touches her, or she tries to move her arms or legs, she just cries out in pain," she told +972. "She says it feels like her body is burning from the inside. She asks for chicken, meat, or eggs - but there's nothing in the markets."

Rahaf's siblings help with her care: feeding her, bathing her, taking her to the bathroom, and changing her clothes. When food is available, the family puts her needs first. "We eat only after she's eaten," said Shurooq. "When we have money, we buy whatever [food] she asks for. But now, there's nothing - and when we do find something, we can't afford it."

Even when Shurooq manages to find and prepare some of the few staples still available in Gaza, like rice, lentils, or pasta, Rahaf cries for chicken, meat or eggs - anything with the protein her body so desperately needs. Eventually, hunger wins out and she eats whatever is available.

"I tell her the border will open soon, and I'll bring her whatever she wants," Shurooq said, holding back tears. "Rahaf's health is collapsing every day. She's dying in front of my eyes, and we can't do anything."

Rahaf loves the English language. She once dreamed of studying English in university and becoming a teacher. But her life - like those of hundreds of thousands of children in Gaza - has been shattered beyond recognition by Israel's ongoing war.

"I wish my hair would come back," Rahaf whispered. "I want to walk and play with my siblings like I used to."

The silent killer

"Over the past two weeks, the famine intensified significantly," Dr. Ahmed Al Faraa, director of the maternity and pediatrics department at Nasser Hospital, told +972. "In that period, we have treated approximately 10 children suffering from very serious malnutrition."

Shortly after Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz on April 16 that "no one is currently planning to allow any humanitarian aid into Gaza," local and international food distributors, once a lifeline for hundreds of thousands, started shutting down one by one. On April 25, the World Food Program announced it had run out of its remaining food stocks . On May 7, World Central Kitchen announced that it "no longer has the supplies to cook meals or bake bread in Gaza."

'Everyone I know is broke'

Ibrahim Badawi, 38, needs at least four kilos of flour a day to feed his family of nine. These days, he struggles to find even one kilo. "I feel helpless when my children ask for bread and I have nothing to give them," he told +972. "Sometimes, I wish my children and I would die in an airstrike together - to be spared the pain of starvation and this continuous agony."

Badawi and his wife, along with their eldest son Mustafa, 15, have grown accustomed to going to bed hungry so the younger children can eat the small portions of rice or lentils they occasionally receive from the community kitchen. "My youngest, Abdullah, who is four years old, cries from hunger, saying his stomach hurts. I lie and tell him I'll bring flour soon just so he can sleep," Badawi lamented.

"I've borrowed money from neighbors and friends many times to buy flour," Badawi said. "But now everyone I know is broke. My children suffer from colic and indigestion. If this famine continues, we will all die from starvation."

'Neither Israel, Hamas, nor the world cares about us'

Hadia Radi, a 42-year-old mother of six, lives with her family in a makeshift tent on Gaza City's Al-Wihda Street. Like countless other families in the enclave, they've been dealing with both hunger and bombardment for months. On April 15, an Israeli airstrike hit just meters from their tent, injuring several family members, including Hadia's 7-year-old son Yamen, whose leg was broken when it was hit by shrapnel.

Now being treated at the Red Crescent's Al-Saraya field hospital, Yamen's recovery is complicated by severe malnutrition. "He's lost 10 kilos in two months," Radi told +972. "We've eaten nothing but rice since the blockade began. Without proper nutrition, our wounds won't heal."

Food is now so scarce that even small acts of kindness can be risky. Recently, a neighbor heard Yamen crying on the phone from his hospital tent, begging his mother for bread. The next morning, he brought the family ten pieces of bread, smuggled in a black bag to avoid attracting hungry eyes. Radi hid the bread in their tent like treasure. "Every day, I'd send one piece with my husband for Yamen. His siblings cried for some too, but I told them that the most injured must come first."

Hannan was hit by shrapnel that took one of her eyes and left her unable to walk. The lack of food has made recovery extremely difficult. "She needs vegetables, healthy food, and special care to heal," Radi explained. "But there's no access to any of that here."

Radi believes Israel is starving Gaza to pressure Hamas, but says it's regular families paying the price. "We're watching our children wither away, and neither Israel, Hamas, nor the world cares," she lamented. "Why should my kids starve to death? What did we do to deserve this? If you can't stop the war, at least open the borders. Don't let us die from starvation."

'Netanyahu punishes us just for existing'

Heba Malahi, 41, has also lived in a makeshift tent on Gaza City's Al-Wihda Street since an Israeli airstrike destroyed her home in Juhor ad-Dik in 2023. Now she and her 45-year-old husband Ribhi regularly skip meals so their seven children can eat.

Mahmoud, the couple's six-year-old son, suffers from severe malnutrition. "He's tired all the time. He doesn't eat, his bones hurt, and his teeth are starting to fall out," Heba told +972. "Last week he begged for tomatoes. We sold our last canned food just to buy a single kilo - we all shared that one meal."

Their 17-year-old daughter Ruba desperately craves simple foods like potatoes, but at NIS 60 per kilo, they're virtually unattainable. "Netanyahu punishes us just for existing," Heba said. "Maybe someone like Trump could force him to open the borders before we all starve.

"If people imagined their own children in this state, perhaps they'd act," she added.

Further south, In Khan Younis, Mona Al-Raqab has been sitting with her five-year-old son Osama for over a week in the Nasser Medical Complex. He currently weighs just nine kilograms (20 pounds). Displaced multiple times since the war began with little food or clean water, his digestive system has almost failed. "Doctors try feeding him nutrients," Al-Raqab said, "but a growing child needs real food of different types."

A few rooms over, 30-year-old Nagia Al-Najjar watches over her severely malnourished five-month-old baby Yousef in his crib. Her four other children remain with their father in their tent in the village of Abasan, after their home in Khan Younis' Bani Suhaila neighborhood was destroyed. The hospital struggles to provide formula amid border closures. "I can't breastfeed because I barely eat myself," Al-Najjar told +972. "I can't find the words to express how this feels as a mother."

Dr. Al Faraa explained that the lack of food has been causing miscarriages and dangerously underweight newborns with severe deformities. Families now grind pasta - or even rice and lentils - into makeshift flour. "I don't care if I starve," Al-Najjar said. "But what did my children do to deserve this?"

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The Gazan children starving under Israeli siege

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With over 70,000 children hospitalized for malnutrition, Israel's blockade on the Strip has left parents to watch helplessly as their children waste away.

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Following the Hamas October 7, 2023, terrorist attack on Israel, in which that group murdered approximately 1,200 people and took 251 more hostage, Israel began a military campaign of " total victory" against the group-a terrorist organization it has previously promoted by facilitating Qatari funding for the group in order to weaken the Palestinian Authority and thereby lessen pressure on Israel to allow the creation of a genuine Palestinian state. That campaign has since killed well over 50,000 Gazans, a majority of whom were women or children.

During the course of its attacks, Israel has seen fit to cut off water, electricity, and food supplies to Gaza's population, destroyed much of its physical infrastructure, and left its residents enduring what the British Red Cross called a "desperate humanitarian crisis." As if that weren't enough, in addition to the war on Gaza, the Israel Defense Forces have recently launched multiple attacks in the West Bank, Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, and Iran, with the strong possibility of a much larger attack on Iran's nuclear facilities later this year.

At the same time, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's deeply unpopular, scandal- plagued extremist right-wing government-one that features an avowed racist and homophobe and a longtime supporter of Jewish anti-Arab terrorism-is in the process of attempting to destroy the nation's democracy from within as it prioritizes military attacks over the lives of its remaining hostages in Gaza.

The war has exacerbated a burgeoning conflict between the country that Israel is becoming and the values of the majority of American Jews. To put it in familiar terms, Israel has grown politically bright red while American Jews, alone among ethnicities that code as "white," remain proudly deep blue. Two-thirds of Israelis questioned told pollsters they preferred Donald Trump over Kamala Harris; the exact opposite held true among American Jews. ("Trump gets nothing but praise here," the Tel Aviv-based pollster and political analyst Dahlia Scheindlin told me.)

Legacy Jewish organizations are throwing in with a president and political movement that seek to destroy the democratic pillars and educational institutions that have helped to make Jews secure and successful in the United States and are shot through with neo-Nazis.

Despite this, the leaders of the large "legacy" American Jewish organizations, without exception, have chosen to side with Netanyahu, defending Israel against all critics and demonizing as "antisemitic" anyone-especially other Jews-who they believe threatens it. In doing so, however, they face the problem not only of opposing the views of the vast majority of American Jews, but also of throwing in with a U.S. president and political movement that seek to destroy the democratic pillars and educational institutions that have helped to make Jews secure and successful in the United States and are shot through with neo-Nazis and Jew-haters of all sorts.

The net result is that we are in the early stages of a Jewish civil war unmatched since the early battles over Zionism of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In essence, Trump and the forces arrayed behind him-the legacy organizations, a new and well-financed right-wing Jewish media, and the Christian evangelical world that blindly supports Israel and Benjamin Netanyahu-have offered American Jews a kind of devil's bargain: throw in with us against the antisemitic universities and campus rabble-rousers, but pay no attention as we dismantle the traditions and institutions that Jews value and that have provided the foundation for all they have been able to accomplish as Americans. Who's in?

Donald Trump's "Pro-Israel Antisemitism"

Back in September, Donald Trump appeared at an event about antisemitism together with mega-pro-Israel donor Miriam Adelson and promised the crowd: "I will be your defender, your protector, and I will be the best friend Jewish Americans have ever had in the White House." Shocker: This was a lie. Trump's antisemitism is no secret to anyone who cares to look. We know from his former chief of staff that he believes " Hitler did a lot of good things." We know that according to his ex-wife Ivana, he kept a book of Hitler's speeches by his bed. No less worrisome is the sympathy he has consistently shown toward contemporary neo-Nazis. This was most obvious when he referred to the Charlottesville protesters who chanted "Jews will not replace us" as " very fine people." Then came the high-profile dinner he had at Mar-a-Lago with Holocaust denier Nick Fuentes and the Hitler-loving rapper Ye (formerly Kanye West).

Equally offensive is Trump's idiotic claim that Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer is " not Jewish anymore" and has instead become "a Palestinian." In assuming the right to decide who is and isn't legitimately Jewish, Trump is emulating both his hero, Vladimir Putin, who says much the same thing about Volodymyr Zelenskiy and other "ethnic Jews," as well as the virulently antisemitic mayor of Vienna, Karl Lueger, who in the late nineteenth century famously asserted, "I decide who is a Jew"; a claim later picked up by Hermann Göring.

Perhaps most worrisome of all, however, is Trump's eagerness to blame the Jews when things don't go his way. At the same Adelson event mentioned above, he warned, "If I don't win this election ... the Jewish people would have a lot to do with a loss." He was preparing his followers for an old-fashioned, antisemitic "stab-in-the-back" attack on liberal Jews. This is no idle threat, given the fact that Trump leads a movement whose members are not averse to political violence and that includes actual neo-Nazis.

Such threats should be ringing alarm bells among Jews. After all, the vast majority of violent attacks on Jews in the United States since Trump came on the political scene have come from the right. These include synagogue murders in Pittsburgh and Poway, California, and the planting of an explosive device at George Soros's house. Like the neo-Nazi marchers in Charlottesville, many Trump supporters expound the racist, antisemitic " great replacement " theory that appears to inspire these attacks.

Finally, there is the administration's embrace of Europe's and Latin America's extreme right wing. Rabbi Rick Jacobs, who heads the Union for Reform Judaism, told me, "To see the vice president at the Munich conference saying that we should give a break to the AfD [the Alternative for Germany party] and not talk about this Nazi past, it's just incredible that an administration would think such a thing, much less say it." One AfD leader has been fined twice for repeatedly using a Nazi slogan that's banned in his country. (JD Vance's February speech, not coincidentally, came a day after his visit to Dachau.)

The apparent contradiction between fealty to Israel's government and hostility to diaspora Jews is evidence of a phenomenon that Georgia State University political scientist Jelena Subotić has named "pro-Israel antisemitism." It can be seen today in the ruling parties in Russia, Hungary, and Poland, and in the ideologies of Germany's AfD and France's National Rally. Their parties make up what is often termed the " Illiberal International " and attract support with antisemitic memes and themes thereby laying the groundwork to blame Jews when things go sour. But they support Israel because they appreciate its model of ethno-nationalist statehood and because they despise Muslims even more than they do Jews.

Back in 2022, when Musk decided to reinstate Trump on the site, the Anti-Defamation League co-led a campaign for an advertising boycott. (ADL chief executive Jonathan Greenblatt was initially a great fan of Musk's purchase of the site, calling him "an amazing entrepreneur and extraordinary innovator" and "the Henry Ford of our time," apparently unaware that Ford was one of the most prominent antisemites in American history; he quickly reconsidered after an intense backlash.) Meanwhile, toxic antisemitism continues to flow freely on X.

And of course there was the astonishing sight of Musk, on Inauguration Day, thrusting his arm into the air at Trump's inauguration in what pretty much every educated, intelligent person in the Western world would have recognized as a Nazi salute. (Musk has vehemently denied the charge.) Almost immediately, Musk was gifted with a get-out-of-jail-free card from the two people who, at least in theory, perhaps should have been the last people on Earth to offer one: the prime minister of Israel and the head of the ADL. Netanyahu rushed to X to proclaim Musk "a great friend of Israel" who was "being falsely smeared" by these Nazi accusations. No less incredibly, the ADL-whose CEO, Greenblatt, is the scourge of every college student who has ever chanted "Free Palestine"-called the salute, which the group's own website defines as "the most common white supremacist hand sign in the world," merely an " awkward gesture," and said the man who made it "should be given the benefit of the doubt." The Jewish actor Josh Malina was inspired to "report the ADL to the ADL."

The Legacy Groups and the New Media Landscape

The political world of American Jews is so simultaneously large and chaotic that it can be hard even for its participants to imagine it in full. While Jews number barely more than 2 percent of the U.S. population, there are 54 organizations that make up what's called the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations, as well as numerous groups outside the conference. These groups can be divided into roughly three classifications. First, there are the "legacy" groups, which are the best known and best funded, and inarguably the most influential. It's fair to say that they see themselves as the contemporary manifestation of the historic shtadlanim (intercessors), those Jews appointed to represent the entire community to whatever ruling powers happened to control the region in which they found themselves. The most famous of these are the ADL; the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, or AIPAC; the American Jewish Committee, or AJC; and the office of the CEO of the conference itself. In recent years, all have moved closer to the traditional position of the Orthodox Union, or OU, which represents the faction of Jewish voters who went heavily for Trump and accounts for approximately 10 percent of American Jews today.

A second set of organizations seeks instead to speak for the Jewish majority that consistently votes Democratic and remains committed to defending democracy in both Israel and the United States. Working with far fewer resources than the legacy groups, they walk a political tightrope, balancing their simultaneous commitments to both Zionism and the traditional Jewish liberal agenda and constantly finding themselves fending off attacks from both their right and left-especially when these attacks involve attempts by the right to weaponize antisemitism and by the left to ignore it. These groups include the "pro-peace, pro-Israel" J Street; the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism; T'ruah, a group of liberal rabbis and cantors; the Nexus Project, an antisemitism watchdog group; New Jewish Narrative, a product of a merger between Americans for Peace Now and Ameinu; the New Israel Fund, which supports civil society and Arab-Israeli cooperation in Israel; Bend the Arc, a group dedicated to fighting white supremacy, antisemitism, and racism; Jewish Democratic Council of America, which mobilizes Jews to support Democratic candidates; and the recently revitalized Jewish Council for Public Affairs, or JCPA, under the leadership of Amy Spitalnick. Call these the "Next Generation" Jewish organizations.

In the space beyond both groups are those on the far right and left. The far right's influence has rocketed skyward of late, owing to what former U.S. diplomat Aaron David Miller calls "the Vulcan mind meld between Trump and Netanyahu on undermining the independence of the courts and fighting the 'woke left.'" These groups promote Israel's annexation of both the West Bank and Gaza and thrilled to Trump's lunatic notion that the United States and Israel could create a second " nakba"-Arabic for the "catastrophe" of the Palestinians' 1948 expulsion-in the service of turning Gaza into a sort of Middle Eastern Mar-a-Largo (" brilliant and courageous," as judged by the Zionist Organization of America's Morton Klein). The anonymously funded Canary Mission, which spies on students and faculty, and Betar, which specializes in violent threats against Jews whom the group doesn't like, have staked out similar ideological territory. Together with stopantisemitism.com, which exists almost exclusively for this purpose, they take credit for reporting foreign-born students and faculty to ICE in the hopes of getting them deported.

On the opposite side of the spectrum are the youth-dominated, protest-oriented groups like Jewish Voice for Peace, or JVP, IfNotNow, and Jews for Racial and Economic Justice. Popular in college towns and a few cities where young Jews congregate, these groups insist that it is their commitment to Jewish values and religious teachings that underlies their anti-Israel politics. Their membership has grown in recent years to the point where JVP can credibly claim to be the largest progressive Jewish anti-Zionist organization in the world. The most eloquent expounder of this viewpoint is likely Peter Beinart, an observant Jew and former editor of this magazine in its obsessively Zionist days who now calls himself a "cultural Zionist" and supports the creation of a single binational state in what is today Israel, the occupied West Bank, and Gaza. To the degree they enjoy any influence in Washington, it is exclusively with the "Squad" members who make up the Democratic Party's left flank.

The legacy groups have two massive advantages over their opponents. The first is that Republican politicians are happy to march in lockstep on behalf of Israeli government demands. According to a recent Gallup poll, 83 percent of registered Republicans say they have a favorable opinion of Israel. And while most Democratic members of Congress remain committed to supporting Israel, the percentage of Democrats surveyed by Gallup with a favorable view of that country has fallen to just 33 percent. Fifty-nine percent expressed greater sympathy for Palestinians, and just 21 percent for Israelis.

Second, and hardly less important given that this is America, is the power of money. The ADL alone enjoys assets of nearly $250 million. (It recently launched what it called the " first ever Jewish advocacy" investment fund. With comically terrible timing, among its top recommendations was Musk's Tesla, whose stock, at this writing, is down over 40 percent on the year.) The Republican Jewish Coalition, which carries out what political pros term the "Adelson primaries," worth tens or even hundreds of millions to the right candidate, also plays on this team. (Miriam Adelson alone contributed over $148 million to Trump and the Republicans in 2024.) By contrast, J Street, the best funded of the politically minded Next Generation groups, enjoyed assets of roughly $4.45 million, with another $4.6 million sitting in its "education fund," according to its most recent filings.

AIPAC, the traditional 800-pound gorilla of Jewish politics, is influential for many reasons besides money. It recruits congressional candidates and helps to staff their offices if they win. It writes legislation, arranges junkets, and smears the reputations of those with whom it disagrees. Its power and influence created an atmosphere on Capitol Hill where its staffers did not even have to act in order to get what it wanted, since it enjoyed what William Quandt, the Middle East expert and former White House adviser who worked on the Camp David accords, termed "the law of anticipated reaction," under which certain policy options "are frequently rejected because of the expectation of negative reaction" from AIPAC and its allies.

In recent times, the ADL's relentless attacks on Israel's critics led to the perception among insiders that it had overtaken AIPAC as the most influential member of the presidents' conference. Once identified with civil rights struggles and the fight to maintain a separation of church and state, it has downgraded virtually all efforts save those involving attacking Israel's critics wherever they may appear. ("Anti-Zionism is antisemitism, full stop," Greenblatt insists.) In the past, it was AIPAC's job to root out those unfriendly to Israel anywhere in the presidential bureaucracy. But in March, when Tulsi Gabbard, Trump's director of national intelligence, felt forced to deny the Israel critic Daniel Davis an important post that would have put him in charge of managing briefings for the president, The New York Times ' account of the internecine fight credited the ADL, which had called the appointment "extremely dangerous." (Davis had called U.S. support for Israel's Gaza war a "stain on our character as a nation.")

As enormous as the imbalance of power is inside the Jewish lobbying groups, it's even greater within the Jewish media. The right dominates here as well. Obama deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes said he found "striking" during his time in the White House the degree to which "the drivers of opinion on foreign policy come almost entirely from the right." Right-wing Jewish billionaires and multimillionaires have invested heavily in websites, daily email blasts, and thick policy journals. It would take a lot of space to list all of them, but among the most important are Jewish Insider, which acts as a tribal drum for right-wing Jews, often pounding the same targets as Rupert Murdoch's New York Post but with greater depth and fewer fireworks. Bret Stephens uses his New York Times column to defend whatever Israel does and is also blessed with his very own Jewish policy journal, Sapir, funded by a dark-money foundation called the Maimonides Fund, which refuses to identify its donors. It's a remarkable state of affairs for a newspaper that seeks to avoid even "the appearance of conflict of interest." The Free Press, founded by Stephens's former mentee, Bari Weiss, is obviously all in for Israel. Tablet is another extremely well-funded right-wing outlet that frequently traffics in Trump-style conspiracy theories and personal attacks on those Jews who resist them. Ditto The Algemeiner, a New York newspaper widely read by Hasidic Jews.

More: Miriam and Sheldon Adelson started their own news service explicitly for this purpose, called Jewish News Syndicate, and it is edited by a former Commentary magazine blogger Jonathan S. Tobin. The Jewish Review of Books publishes transparent hatchet jobs on dovish-sounding writers on issues relating to Israel alongside otherwise respectable intellectual inquiry (much like this magazine in the days when Martin Peretz was the owner and editor in chief). It competes in this category with the equally right-wing Mosaic, published by the far-right Tikvah Fund. Commentary, edited by nepo-baby John Podhoretz, has doubled down on its poisonous rancor directed toward anyone and everything that does not hew to the far-right Israeli line in the style of his father, Norman Podhoretz, though with less élan than it had under the old man. For instance, among his barrage of tweets that followed this year's Oscar victory for the Israeli/Palestinian film No Other Land in the best documentary feature category were these: "Congratulations to HAMAS for its Oscar win. Now let's see them destroyed," together with, "Fuck you, anti-Semitic anti-Israel Hollywood filth."

The Jewish media's middle ground is occupied primarily by The Forward and the English edition of the Israeli newspaper Haaretz. Both lean left editorially but are open to almost all (non-Nazi) viewpoints in their respective opinion sections. The Jewish Telegraphic Agency, which has ably served as an analogue to the Associated Press ever since 1917, is also dependable journalistically and open to all sides. The Jewish media far left belongs to Jewish Currents, where Beinart frequently publishes. While it can be depended upon for sophisticated, well-documented journalism, its views-like those of other anti-Zionist publications-are considered too extreme to affect mainstream politics. In a shock to this reader at least, its editors could not even bring themselves to condemn the horrific attacks of October 7.

Columbia: Ground Zero of the Backlash

In today's Jewish political world, there is a single word that will likely dominate almost any conversation: "antisemitism." Expressions of Jew-hatred are, we can all agree, to be resisted whenever possible and condemned whenever necessary as with all forms of ignorance and prejudice. The problem with antisemitism is that we lack any remotely consensual understanding of how to define it; even less so on how to successfully combat it.

Most of the members of the mainstream media, and therefore many of the people who consume its product, rely on the ADL to tell them what's going on in this arena, as it is understood to be this legacy stalwart's bread and butter. But the ADL's statistics are corrupted by its ideology. For instance, the group defines virtually every single pro-Palestinian demonstration on any campus anywhere, including those in which Jews are significant participants, as antisemitic. (The ADL contends that in 2024, it tracked more than 5,000 anti-Israel protests and identified antisemitic content in roughly half of them.) Almost every weekday, noted Jodi Rudoren, until recently the editor of The Forward, the ADL blasts what she calls an "exhausting and confusing" Campus Crisis Alert email to roughly 200,000 subscribers (featuring a red siren emoji). These enjoy the highest "open rate," according to the ADL, of any of its constant stream of email blasts. Campus conflicts have calmed down across the country; emergency ADL email blasts have not.

Whatever antisemitism may or may not be, it obviously is not manifested in every single student demonstration for Palestinian rights. As the venerable Rabbi Chaim Seidler-Feller, who spent four decades as executive director of the Yitzhak Rabin Hillel Center for Jewish Life at UCLA, put it to me in conversation: "One is a political issue that has to do with the politics of Israel, and one involves hatred of Jews."

A considerable number of student protesters are themselves Jewish and insist that it is their religious commitments that lead them to protest Israel's treatment of the Palestinians. Last year at Columbia University, for instance, encampment participants held a " solidarity Seder." Are they antisemites? We can also agree that there are obviously plenty of reasons to object to Israel's actions in Gaza, its now-multiple military occupations, and its treatment of Palestinians inside and outside its borders without, say, also hating the people on line at the lox counters at Zabar's and Barney Greengrass. The growing number of anti-Zionist rabbis and especially rabbinical students offers further evidence of the lie of this simple equation.

As evidenced by the choice of Mike Huckabee to be U.S. ambassador to Israel, when it comes to Israel and the Trump administration, however, it's the right-wing Christians who are driving the bus. While the Heritage Foundation's " Project Esther" has received far less attention than its " Project 2025," it appears to be no less accurate in presaging the Trump administration's attack plan. Its almost exclusively conservative Christian authors live in a world where what they call a " Hamas Support Network" is funded by liberal billionaires, especially Jewish ones like Soros. According to a pitch deck that accompanied the report obtained by The Forward, the first necessary step to save mankind from this fate was to locate "foreign [network] members vulnerable to deportation" and deploy law enforcement to "generate uncomfortable conditions" for U.S. citizens similarly engaged. The pitch deck suggested designating certain groups and organizations to be "TSEs," for "terrorism support entities," in order to allow ICE agents to arrest and to seek to deport foreign-born pro-Palestine protesters on campus. Trump began putting Project Esther into practice almost immediately when, on January 29, he issued an executive order that promised to deport noncitizens who have joined in "pro-jihadist protests" and to cancel student visas of all sympathizers of Hamas. The order was accompanied by the cheers of most of the legacy groups.

Columbia has the largest contingent of Jews in the Ivy League-nearly 23 percent of its undergraduates-and is located in the city where the 12 percent of citizens who identify as Jewish make it second only to Tel Aviv as the largest Jewish city in the world.

As the Jewish journalist Ron Kampeas recently reported, a confrontation recently erupted between the legacy groups and the Next Generation. It began when Spitalnick and the JCPA initiated a letter that was eventually signed by the leaders of 10 organizations, including the leaders of all three non-Orthodox denominations, stating, "escalating federal actions have used the guise of fighting antisemitism to justify stripping students of due process rights when they face arrest and/or deportation, as well as to threaten billions in academic research and education funding." The signatories categorically "reject[ed] any policies or actions" designed to exploit Jewish concern about antisemitism "to undermine democratic norms and rights, including the rule of law, the right of due process, and/or the freedoms of speech, press, and peaceful protest."

Eric Fingerhut, a former congressman who heads the Jewish Federations of North America, an umbrella organization boasting assets of nearly $300 million and 146 member groups, urged his members to reject the JCPA letter. He claims, somehow, that ICE's targets were "receiving due process and are represented by able legal counsel." (Fingerhut earlier provided Trump administration officials a forum to promote their campus crackdown.)

All Roads Lead to ... Resistance

During the course of writing and researching this article, I had occasion to speak to dozens of liberal Jewish leaders and noted scholars of American Jewish history. Among them, the only difference I could discern in their views was their degree of concern-a better word in many cases would be "panic"-over what constitutes the greater threat to American Jews: Trump's attack on universities and his apparently unconstitutional treatment of pro-Palestinian protesters in the name of combating "antisemitism," or the threats to the survival of U.S. democracy inherent in these actions.

Both of these, however, are tied up with the problem of the transformation of Israel into a country to which millions of liberal American Jews remain profoundly emotionally committed, but whose government consistently violates their most deeply held values. Taken together, these challenges combine to present American Jews with what J Street president Jeremy Ben-Ami described as the fundamental question: "What does it mean to be Jewish in the U.S. in the middle of the twenty-first century?" The conflict he described is "partially related to Trump but also related to Israel and over who gets to define what it means to be Jewish in the U.S." On the one side is "fealty to domination," a particularist Jewish vision that is "tribal, nationalist, and territorialist." On the other are the "liberal universalist values" that have historically defined the politics and culture of (non-Orthodox) American Jewish life.

The Israel problem is complicated enough. As Rabbi Jill Jacobs, an eloquent progressive Zionist who heads up T'ruah (formerly Rabbis for Human Rights), explained: "Judaism is not just a religion, it is also a peoplehood, and it is a connection and responsibility for other Jews. And half the Jews in the world live in the state of Israel. We are not in some café in Vienna." Ben-Ami predicted that "if Israel moves back toward the center and normalizes relations with the neighboring states while assisting in the emergence of a stable, viable state of Palestine-then I can see a long-term reconnection of the Jewish community with the state of Israel, even for those younger Jews who today feel so distant from it." Evidence, alas, for even the hint of such a transformation anytime soon would be microscopic, were it to exist at all. Far more likely is Israel's continued embrace of illiberalism, corruption, and the same general disdain for what Thomas Jefferson called "the good opinion of mankind" that one sees in Donald Trump.

Indeed, it is Trump who is helping to unshackle whatever boundaries Netanyahu and company had until recently respected. As a recent New York Times explainer observed, the result of America's replacement of Joe Biden with Donald Trump is "a prime minister unleashed, with fewer guardrails to constrain his actions in Gaza, Lebanon, and Syria." This is true domestically as well. The Trump-era Netanyahu is all the more likely to succeed in his campaign to destroy Israel's own fragile democratic institutions. (Others who have been unleashed include lawless West Bank settlers, who, supported by Israel's military, have increased their campaign of terror designed to force Palestinians out of their homes and pave the way for the ultimate Israeli annexation of the territory.)

According to Beinart, young American Jews outside these established institutions will need to create Jewish ones independent of what he terms "the worship of Israel" or assimilate entirely into secular American life. (Notably, a recent Gallup poll found that fully one-quarter of those Americans raised as Jews no longer identify themselves that way.) Like Beinart, the influential scholar Rabbi Shaul Magid looks forward to younger Jews "creating a new form of diasporism that draws from the proximate past but has its own originality," one that is "universal in aspiration" rather than dependent on Zionism in the manner that American Jewish identity operated for roughly the half-century that followed the 1967 Six Day War. Magid looks forward to these changes as "Israeli Jewry doesn't really care that much about the American diaspora unless it supports them. It is a transactional relationship. They are watching American Jews get thrown under the bus by being subjects of weaponizing antisemitism for a conservative agenda, and they say nothing because in effect they support it because that supports their agenda. Young Jews see that and are basically saying 'fuck you!'"

To be fair, there are many thousands of Israeli Jews who remain committed to finding a peaceful and fair-minded solution to the Palestinian issue. A small number of them are also Orthodox Jews. In March, I was present at an extremely well-attended meeting of American and Israeli religious Jews committed to peace at B'Nai Jeshurun synagogue on the Upper West Side of Manhattan organized by Smol Emuni, an organization of religious Jews that pursues peace with the Palestinians and an end to the war in Gaza . But when it comes to elections and the actual making of Israel's policies toward the Palestinians, and especially regarding the war in Gaza, they are, alas, all but invisible.

Those Jews like Jill Jacobs-who remain committed to a profound belief in Jewish "peoplehood" and its implied deep connection to Israeli Jews-worry about the impact of the current Israeli political leadership pushing away young Jews from their own religion and history as it simultaneously inspires antisemitism on the part of those who would blame Israel's actions on Jews more generally. In many respects, this latter phenomenon is exactly the problem that Jewish students have been facing on college campuses, where pro-Palestinian protesters rule the day in popularity and have sometimes verbally abused Jews who they simply assume support Israel. Now, with the harsh, anti-democratic measures being undertaken at so many universities, Jacobs worries that, if this posture becomes widespread, it will lead to a broader perception that "Jewish power" is causing all the trouble. It will start with the accusation that "it is the Jews who are behind defunding the universities" and grow into far worse attacks. Speaking from UCLA, Rabbi Seidler-Feller told me, "I already hear the resentment against Jews based on exactly these claims."

The more immediate crisis, however, is the one identified earlier by Spitalnick. Trump, with either the support or acquiescence of the legacy groups, and the enthusiastic backing of the new right-wing Jewish media infrastructure, is offering American Jews the following deal: They get a short-term win in shutting down a protest movement focused on Israel that discomfits them, just so long as they are willing to turn a blind eye to purposeful destruction of the educational and democratic institutions that have allowed them to become the safest, most secure, and most economically successful Jewish population to exist anywhere, anytime, ever.

In truth, both crises require exactly the same response. As the head of the Union for Reform Judaism, the largest single organized group of Jews in the United States, Rabbi Rick Jacobs insisted that "in protecting Jews from antisemitism, we will find there is no Noah's Ark that will allow American Jewry to survive the resulting flood of injustice and hate." The rights and civic institutions that have allowed Jews to prosper in the United States, he said, are "imperiled by the beginning of the slide into authoritarianism we are witnessing in America and in Israel." Jacobs shares the concern with others that "Trump and the Christian right's enthusiastic support is supporting Israel on a path that will forever alienate it from the majority of American Jews, particularly those coming of age during the horrors of its war on Gaza." The Nexus Project recently released a report called "Fighting Antisemitism, Protecting Democracy: A Strategy for the Trump Era." The group's founder, Jonathan Jacoby, advises Jewish leaders and rabbis to inform Trump's supporters, "You cannot exploit our fear for your nefarious purposes. We will not let you destroy our democracy in our name. We will not let you endanger our community, and the communities of disadvantage groups and of other minorities, and ultimately, all Americans, in our name."

Whatever the future holds for American Jews, David Myers, the esteemed UCLA professor of Jewish history, insisted that whatever one's beliefs about antisemitism may be, "there is a much larger issue at hand. Jews are being instrumentalized-in the name of anti-antisemitism-as tools in a larger battle with much higher stakes. Trump and his people want to take down the university as a bastion of liberal values that poses an obstacle to their makeover of the American political order. Their larger goal is a twenty-first-century version of authoritarianism in which there is no martial law or soldiers at every street corner," but one that nevertheless strangles the institutions that constitute the lifeblood of any democracy. Myers cited the warnings of the Jewish philosopher Hannah Arendt about the dangers of the Jews' vertical alliance with the state and said: "This seems to be another moment at which Jews must seriously weigh the merits of aligning themselves with a regime whose values-anti-rights, anti-due process, anti-rule of law, anti-university-are so antithetical to those that have provided them with the most successful diaspora existence in their history."

To which all one can say is "Amen."

This article has been updated to include a response from the ADL.

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The Coming Jewish Civil War Over Donald Trump

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Trump is offering American Jews a kind of devil's bargain: throw in with us against the antisemitic universities and campus rabble-rousers, but pay no attention as we dismantle the traditions and institutions that Jews value.

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recording of joint Palestinian-Israeli Memory Ceremony 2025

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recording of joint Palestinian-Israeli Memory Ceremony 2025

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טקס יום הזיכרון המשותף ה-20 | The 20th Joint Memorial Ceremony | مراسم يوم الذكرى المشترك ال-20

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Joint Israeli-Palestinian Memorial Day 2025

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Joint Israeli-Palestinian Memorial Day 2025

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Right-wing activists riot outside Israeli-Palestinian memorial event at Reform synagogue in Israel

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A crowd of dozens mobbed and harassed a woman as she left the event.

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Joint Israel Palestinian Memorial Day 2025

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Joint Israel Palestinian Memorial Day 2025

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The ceremony was broadcast from a secret location outside Tel Aviv, and viewed at sites throughout Israel, Palestine, and the world. Not every site was peaceful.

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Right-wing activists riot outside Israeli-Palestinian memorial event at Reform synagogue in Israel

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A crowd of dozens mobbed and harassed a woman as she left the event.

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a list of resources on Israel and Palestine, Islamophobia, Antisemitism, and more

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a list of resources on Israel and Palestine, Islamophobia, Antisemitism, and more

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the more you read/watch, the more you know/question.... keep studying.

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a good analysis of the situation many Jews find themselves coping with

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In Gaza and Israel, side with the child over the gun | Naomi Klein

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Some continue to minimize massacres of Israeli civilians - this only fuels militant Zionism

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Not All Jews Longed for Jewish Supremacy in the Land of Israel

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Not All Jews Longed for Jewish Supremacy in the Land of Israel

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from the Israeli paper of record, HaAretz

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‘Not all Jews longed for a Jewish supremacist state in the Land of Israel’

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As we work for collective liberation, we enlarge our hearts. Author Cole Arthur Riley writes, “Don’t believe the lie that energy given toward one liberation cause is energy taken from another liberation cause. Every wound is connected. And we won’t settle for a partial healing.” As a joint movement, we know this well and we share our days of grief.

Yesterday, as a vital step for a peaceful and just future, CfP gathered for the Joint Nakba Remembrance Ceremony to acknowledge the painful history of displacement and erasure of thousands of Palestinians from 1948 to this day. We were honored to have the support of guest speaker Rep. Tlaib who thanked Combatants for Peace for “speaking truth to power” and bringing Palestinians and Israelis together to unite for an end to the occupation and lasting peace. Prof. Peled-Elhanan shared, “We must teach our children to say no. No to evil. No to racism. No to the idea that there are superior and inferior people, essential and non-essential, and no to the idea that some have the right to live and others must die.”

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American Friends of Combatants for Peace

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Thank you to everyone who participated in The Joint Nakba Remembrance Ceremony hosted by Combatants for Peace on May 15, 2024.

The Joint Nakba Remembrance Ceremony is a unique opportunity to commemorate the pain and tragedy of the Nakba ("catastrophe" in Arabic), when in 1948 more than 700,000 Palestinians were forcibly expelled from their homes, became refugees, and had their villages and cities destroyed. In Israel, even mentioning the Nakba is completely taboo, however, Combatants for Peace believes that peace and reconciliation involve a sincere and honest reckoning with this history that didn't end in 1948 but continues until this day.

In the aftermath of October 7th, a second Nakba has been unfolding in Gaza, with over 34,000 Palestinians killed. Of the 2.2 million Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, 1.9 million people have been forcibly displaced and many of their homes have been destroyed by Israel's brutal attacks. Roughly 1.3 million displaced Palestinians are currently sheltering in Rafah, a city built to host only 300,000, and over 1 million Palestinians in Gaza are experiencing catastrophic food insecurity and acute starvation. For Palestinians, the violence and mass displacement brings back memories of 1948 but indeed the Nakba never ended, it has continued for the past 76 years.

This year, we centered the ceremony around the theme of "liberation" - how do we liberate ourselves from occupation, oppression, and violence? What does liberation look like and how do we begin to heal from our past and present trauma?

Thank you to every Palestinian, Israeli, and global supporter who joined the event. Satellite ceremonies took place in Berlin, London, Paris, Israel, Palestine, Italy, and throughout the U.S. and UK. We are deeply grateful for the support of our international community.

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2024 Joint Nakba Remembrance Ceremony - American Friends of Combatants for Peace

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Thank you to everyone who participated in The Joint Nakba Remembrance Ceremony hosted by Combatants for Peace on May 15, 2024 . The Joint Nakba Remembrance Ceremony is a unique opportunity to commemorate the pain and tragedy of the Nakba ("catastrophe" in Arabic), when in 1948 more than 700,000 P

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It was an honor to be together online yesterday for the Israeli-Palestinian Joint Memorial Day Ceremony. We are grateful to the thousands who joined us from all over the world. There were over 200 satellite ceremonies in Israel and Palestine, approximately175 in the US, and many more in South Africa, France, Portugal, Germany, Switzerland, Afghanistan, Spain, the UK, Australia, Japan, Ireland, Canada, and more.

As many of you know, despite our efforts to safeguard the event, the Combatants for Peace YouTube channel appears to have been hacked and we are investigating what happened. Despite this, Combatants for Peace and The Parents Circle-Families Forum were able to broadcast via Facebook and regained access to YouTube.

AFCFP board president, Gili Getz, reflected on the ceremony: “Drowning in darkness and despair, we came together to mourn with the families of Israelis and Palestinians who lost members to violence. We gathered in Beit Jala because our Palestinian partners do not have permits to travel to Tel Aviv to be at the ceremony. It is clear that they are trying to keep us apart. Despite these obstacles, our faith is in each other, and our path is grounded in humanity. We all call this land home, and we believe supremacy, violence, fanaticism, occupation, and oppression are not the way. They will not keep anyone free or safe. The movement holds a sacred space for me. It gives me light, hope, and air. It is difficult for both societies to accept this path, but it’s a path that we believe in. We are a reference point to all who seek another way: the path of peace rather than separation and hate. We should all be able to thrive in this sacred land together. I’m filled with deep gratitude to all the hard work, care, and love so many Palestinians and Israelis put in to make this happen during these extremely challenging times. And to our supporters all over the world who watched the ceremony in solidarity at hundreds of events.”

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The 2024 Joint Israeli-Palestinian Memorial Day Ceremony - American Friends of the Parents Circle

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The 2024 Joint Israeli-Palestinian Memorial Day Ceremony Sunday, May 12, 2024 Attend a Satellite Ceremony About the Ceremony The Joint Memorial Day Ceremony, organized by Combatants for Peace and The Parents Circle – Families Forum, is the largest Israeli-Palestinian jointly organized peace event in history. The Joint Memorial Ceremony provides a unique opportunity for Israelis … Continue reading The 2024 Joint Israeli-Palestinian Memorial Day Ceremony

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An Israeli art exhibit at the NYC Jewish Museum

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An Israeli art exhibit at the NYC Jewish Museum

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...a small group of protesters began to disrupt the event. In waves, they rose from their seats at the sold-out event and began reading in unison from a script.

"As cultural workers, as anti-Zionist Jews of conscience, as New York City residents, we implore you to confront the reality," they chanted, calling the Kyiv-born Jewish artist's work "imperial propaganda" that serves to "manufacture consent for genocide." Cherkassky, who was sitting on the stage and holding the microphone, kept her response brief.

"Fuck you," she said.

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Israeli artist Zoya Cherkassky had a blunt response for the pro-Palestinian protesters who disrupted her talk at New York's Jewish Museum last week, calling her drawings depicting the October 7 Hamas attack 'imperial propaganda'

Get email notification for articles from Allison Kaplan Sommer Follow

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Controversy over Israel's war in Gaza continues to spread in the art world, with Zoya Cherkassky the latest Israeli artist caught in the crosshairs.

In the News

Paid by Attorney Rakefet Shfaim

Paid by Attorney Rakefet Shfaim

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Can't these privileged white people feel compassion for Israelis murdered by Hamas?

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Israeli Artist Zoya Cherkassky Had a Blunt Response for the pro-Palestinian Protesters Who Disrupted Her Talk at New York's Jewish Museum Last Week, Calling Her Drawings Depicting the October 7 Hamas Attack 'Imperial Propaganda'

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An Israeli project to assess what is wrong and what needs to be learned

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קריסת הקונספציות

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Misconception 10: In Wartime, Israel's Arab Citizens Will "Turn Against the State"

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Dangerous Delusions:The Misconceptions that Led to October 7

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Critical Assessments of the Left's Response to October 7

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Critical Assessments of the Left's Response to October 7

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lots of good stuff here

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California’s Push for Ethnic Studies Runs Into the Israel-Hamas War

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categorizing Jews as white europeans is not only racially and historically inaccurate, it supports targeting Jews as white colonizers in the Middle East.

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California’s Push for Ethnic Studies Runs Into the Israel-Hamas War

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The state’s high school students will be required to take the subject, but some object to how the discipline addresses the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

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How another side sees it

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The Biden administration is leading a push to recognize a Palestinian state that will be a danger to the security of Israel

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Israelis can't imagine how they could be accused of it.

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Faced with the charge of genocide at The Hague, Israelis are deeply defensive, pointing at the horrors committed by Hamas on October 7. But the global list of victims and perpetrators of mass atrocities is long, and neither Israelis nor Palestinians are immune to the accusation

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In that first week after October 7, when Israelis stumbled around in a daze sharing half-formed thoughts of anguish, someone said to me: "Has anything like this ever happened before - anywhere?" We had been gazing at the wrenching display in what rapidly became known as Hostage Square in Tel Aviv, struggling to comprehend the slaughter. The only truthful answer was yes.

In the News

Paid by Attorney Rakefet Shfaim

Paid by Attorney Rakefet Shfaim

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Israelis can't understand how they could be accused of genocide

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Faced With the Charge of Genocide at The Hague, Israelis Are Deeply Defensive, Pointing at the Horrors Committed by Hamas on October 7. But the Global List of Victims and Perpetrators of Mass Atrocities Is Long, and Neither Israelis nor Palestinians Are Immune to the Accusation

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Israel and Palestine: you can only judge based on what you know

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Israel and Palestine: you can only judge based on what you know

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...and you can only know what is shared with you. What the Israeli TV viewer is seeing.

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How you look at what's happening defines your response. What if you're wrong?

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On social media, the Hebron massacre of 1929 is frequently cited as evidence of the Arabs' true intentions in Palestine. Often referenced seemingly without any context, it perpetuates the notion that Arabs are inherently violent and seek to kill Jews, while Jews are always on the defensive and incapable of committing similar acts against Arabs. However, a deeper examination of the historical background reveals that the massacre was not a random act, but rather the culmination of a series of events and tensions that had been building for some time. To reduce it to a spontaneous outburst is to perpetuate a one-sided and oversimplified narrative.

The 1929 events are often seen as a symbol of Arab violence towards Jews, but a closer examination shows a more complex picture. While there were Jews who murdered innocent Arabs, others saved Arabs from being lynched, and there were also Arabs who saved Jews. The question that needs to be asked is why such violence occurred among neighbours who had lived together for many years. This is not to excuse the actions, but to seek understanding.

For example, it is possible for Islam to offer asylum to fugitives without conflicting with its principles. During the early Ottoman period, for example, Jewish fugitives from Spain were granted asylum. However, the situation was different in 1929 when Palestine had experienced almost a century of Jewish immigration, with the most recent 50 years characterized by Zionism - a movement that sought Jewish sovereignty rather than mere asylum. This led to significant changes in the social and political landscape of Palestine, with many older members of the Jewish community who had previously sought equality with their Arab neighbours now embracing Zionism and the possibility of a Jewish state. As a result, the distinction between Zionist and non-Zionist Jews began to blur in the eyes of the Palestinian Arabs, although the old lexicon still distinguished between "Arab Jews" who were culturally part of the Middle East and "Zionists" who brought foreign customs from Eastern Europe.

But at the height of riots, these distinctions evaporated. Jewish communities were attacked, regardless of political affiliation or length of time in the land. The disturbances made it clear that the distinctions between religious and secular; between the old established community and the newcomers; between Ashkenazim and Jews who hailed from Muslim countries; between the various currents within the labor movement and between them and the Revisionists - distinctions that divide up segments of Jewish/Israeli society - now as in before the establishment of the state, were just about meaningless for the Arabs. That wasn't because, in the eyes of Muslims, all Jews should equally be put to death - that's not the idea - but because at the end of the 1920s, the Arabs felt very strongly that what all these currents held in common was more significant than their differences. All those groups believed in the existence of the Jewish people, i.e. that Judaism is not only a religion but rather a nation. They all believed in the right of Jews to immigrate to their ancestral homeland. They all strove for a Jewish state in the Land of Israel/Palestine (whether it is established by human beings or thru the coming of the Messiah, whether it be liberal or socialist).

These beliefs were clearly counterpoised to the aspirations of the Arabs, and they turned all the Jews who subscribed to those principles into a single amorphous mass. And therefore, during the 1929 murderous riots, the Arabs in their own view were not killing their Jewish neighbours, but their Zionist foes who were trying to take over their country.

The Arab attack on Jews in 1929 hastened the process of Jewish unity under Zionism, which the Arabs had recognized as a potential threat. Jews who had previously been unenthusiastic about Zionism, or who wanted to maintain their traditional lifestyle alongside the Arabs, or who rejected politics altogether, all came to realize that they had no political home other than Zionism. The Arab perspective was that there could be no real political alternative to Zionism as they were not interested in union with the Jews who shared their land.

The preceding text provides a synopsis of an article written by Hillel Cohen, whose book "Year Zero of the Israeli-Arab conflict 1929" presents a more impartial and unbiased view of the events leading up to the massacres. In contrast, Pappé and Morris have taken positions at the extremes of the debate, which is why Cohen's perspective appears to be the most rational in this context.

Cohen argues that there are two distinct perspectives on the situation, one from the Arabs and the other from the Jews, and neither is entirely objective when discussing the opposing side. For instance, Arabs tend to overlook incidents where Jews have saved Arabs from harm or death, and vice versa. Both sides tend to highlight only the "atrocities" committed by the other.

Cohen also notes a certain partiality in the sources when examining the past. He cites an instance where a Jewish police officer killed an entire Arab family in their home. Although Cohen found references to this incident in Arab sources, he was skeptical until the same event was mentioned by Jewish or British sources. Thus, there exists evident discrimination concerning who is to be believed, and more often than not, Palestinian narratives are not given credence, and their authenticity is only validated by Jewish counterparts.

Cohen delves into the different viewpoints held by Arabs and Jews before, during, and after the massacres.

Some examples below:

For the Arabs of Palestine, the country is their homeland from before the Hebrews or Jews first reached it, and they continue to be its natural inhabitants and heirs. This is a fundamental Palestinian concept. The fact that Palestinian society is composed of families and tribes - some of which have roots in Palestine and others of which arrived in waves of immigration over the years, prior to Islam and afterward - does not, in this view, diminish this claim, because by its nature Palestine is a land that serves as a melting pot for its inhabitants and melds them into a single Palestinian people. This Palestinian perception, which frequently sees the Jews who lived in Palestine prior to the inception of Zionism as part of the Arab Palestinian people, is profoundly opposed to the common Zionist Jewish view. First, Palestinian nationalism is based on the principle of jus soli - right of land. That is, it is the land that creates the nation, and the inhabitants of a country possess the right to it, no matter what their origin. The rival Jewish perception is based on the principle of jus sanguinis - right of blood. In this view, blood descent is the central component of nationhood, and the right to the Holy Land derives from its association with the Jewish people. The practical implications are, then, that the Palestinians see the land as their homeland and the Jews as foreigners (who can, under certain conditions, merge with the Palestinian people), while the Jews see it as the homeland of the Jewish people, no matter where they may be.

And some more background on the perspectives in regards to the massacres before Hebron 1929:

Here it is important to be precise: the assaults on Jews during the revolt indicate that anti-Jewish sentiment did not begin to increase solely as a reaction to organized Zionist activity in Palestine. In 1834, that had not yet begun. Rather, it seems to have been a response to Western attempts to gain political and economic control over Palestine and the Middle East as a whole. The role that the Jews played in this process - their increased immigration to Palestine during these years, and the support they enjoyed from European governments - aroused resentment against them.

Furthermore:

It can be put this way: European penetration of the Middle East heightened awareness of the difference between the Muslim majority community on the one hand and the minority Christian and Jewish communities on the other. Christians and Jews appealed to the European powers with the goal of improving their legal and economic status and gaining full equality, and in doing so were often seen as promoters of foreign interests and non-Muslim rule. So political enmity began. The Jewish and Christian alignment with Christian powers also had religious significance; the choice Jews (and Christians) made to prefer the protection of foreign powers was interpreted, understandably, as an act of renouncing their traditional status as wards of the Muslim sovereign. For Muslims, this was a watershed in their relations with these communities. Legally and theologically, from that point onward Muslims viewed themselves as absolved of the obligation to protect the Jews and Christians of the Holy Land and elsewhere in the Middle East. Furthermore, if the Jews wished to turn Palestine into their own land, as rumors began to say they did, the Muslims were bound to fight them. Political contention between the Jews and Muslims thus commenced prior to the dawn of organized Zionist settlement, even before the arrival of the proto-Zionist settlers of the Bilu and Hovevei Zion movements in the nineteenth century's latter decades.

And Cohen also notes the relations with Palestinian Arabs and Jews and how this ecosystem got disturbed by the ascension of the European Jews:

Relations between Jaffa's long-standing Jewish population and its Arabs were not ideal, but they were smooth enough because of the groups' shared cultural background. The immigrants from Russia disturbed that harmony. They did not observe local mores. In addition, their arrival aroused fears that the Jews were trying to take over the country and push out the Arabs. The result was frequent fights between the Moscobim and the Arabs.

And the ideas brought with them caused more friction:

With the emergence of the Zionist movement and its establishment of institutions, and the growing influence of Russian socialist Zionism, the Sephardim and Maghrebis were shunted aside. For their part, they distanced themselves more and more from organized Zionist activity, which they viewed as too militant toward the Arabs.

Some comments from members of the Sephardi group:

Other members of the Sephardi elite, like Eliahu Elyashar, felt that the European Zionist leadership was largely responsible for undermining relations between Jews and Muslims. Elyashar voiced his frustrations in Lihiyot 'im Falastinim (Living with Palestinians; 1997). In an introduction to the work, Israel Bartal sums up Elyashar's views and feelings: "The leaders of the movement and of the Yishuv that ran matters from the beginning of the Mandate period were reluctant to include the Arab Jew and tended to deliberately avoid social and cultural contact between the Yishuv and the neighboring people. Not only did they disdain the customs of the Arab milieu, thus causing needless resentment and conflict, but they also displayed cultural arrogance and preferred a connection with distant Europe to connecting with their immediate surroundings" (1997, xv-xvi).

Hillel Cohen also writes that Zionism created Palestinian nationalism and vice versa:

It is a common view in Zionist discourse that Zionism created Palestinian nationalism. Gilad Sharon, son of former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, put it this way: "They are a byproduct of our Zionism" (Yediot Aharonot, March 13, 2011). But it is important to be precise here: the Zionist movement did not create Arab nationalism in Palestine but rather shaped it, since the Arab national movement in Palestine had to wrestle from the start with Zionism. Similiarly, Zionism was shaped by the Palestinian national movement. That is, through its violent opposition to Zionism, the Palestinian Arab national movement strengthened Jewish solidarity and made the value of solidarity in the face of an enemy the cornerstone of the Zionist ethos. In other words, Israeli Zionism and the Jewish community in Israel as we know them today are a product of Palestinian nationalism, and vice versa.

And a lesser know fact, that it was a Muslim policy to let Jews reside in Jerusalem:

the fact that a Jewish community could reside in Jerusalem was a Muslim innovation. Both the Byzantines, who ruled the city prior to the Muslim conquest, and the crusaders, who took it from the Muslims and ruled it for a time, forbade Jews to live in the city. A lesser-known fact is that under the British Mandate, Christians still forbade Jews from entering the Church of the Holy Sepulcher and the street leading to it.

Cohen also writes about the events at the wall prior to the riots:

In chapter 13 of One Palestine, Complete (2000), Tom Segev does an excellent job of reconstructing the events at the Wall during the year preceding the riots. He relates that, at the end of the summer of 1928, during the Jewish High Holidays, it came to the attention of the British district commissioner for Jerusalem, Edward Keith-Roach, that Jewish worshipers at the Wall had erected a divider to separate men and women. Keith-Roach notified the Muslim religious authorities. He also instructed Police Constable Douglas Duff to remove the partition. "From his memoirs, Duff emerges as a violent man, a racist, a misogynist, and a fool," Segev writes (2000, 295-96). Duff carried out his orders with brute determination. The Jews felt humiliated, and the Muslims believed they had won this small battle in an ongoing campaign. Both sides set out to defend their shrines. Both established committees to defend their holy sites. The Muslims ratcheted up their presence in the area. The Jews did the same. One side staged public prayers, and the other followed suit. One organized rallies and demonstrations, and so did the other. Both sent telegrams to King George V and his prime minister.

The importance of the wall divider:

Orthodox Jews separate men and women during prayers. Christians do not. The Muslim custom is similar to that of the Jews, which apparently is rooted in the practice at the Second Temple. In most Orthodox synagogues, the sexes are divided by a curtain or a solid divider. No such divider stood at the Western Wall, where men and women prayed side by side. Rabbi Avraham Yitzhak HaCohen Kook, the Ashkenazi chief rabbi of Palestine, told the Shaw Commission that the situation disturbed an important visitor - Rabbi Menachem Mendel Gutterman, the admor (Hasidic spiritual leader) of Radzymin in Poland. Rabbi Kook reported that Rabbi Gutterman "came to the Wailing Wall to pray; he noticed there was no partition between the men and women worshippers, and in his innocence he told the beadle [shamash, the functionary responsible for the physical arrangements at the site] to erect that screen. In all Orthodox Synagogues it is an old custom to make a partition between men and women" (quoted in Commission 1930, 2:740).

Jewish philanthropists and the Zionist movement attempted to purchase the Western Wall in Jerusalem in the late 19th and early 20th. The British assumed custodianship over Jerusalem, which made the Jewish population more self-confident. Sir Moses Montefiore and Baron Edmond de Rothschild attempted to buy the Wall, but their efforts were unsuccessful. Mordechai Ben-Hillel HaKohen reported in 1918 that Muslims in the city were coming to realize that the Western Wall would pass into Jewish hands, but negotiations led nowhere. In the months preceding the 1929 riots, the Zionist Executive in Palestine negotiated the purchase of a property to the north of the Wall, but the deal had not yet been concluded by the time of the agitation surrounding the Wall.

There were Jews that also opposed the deal:

Not only Arabs opposed the purchase. So did members of the Yishuv's radical right wing. One such person was Abba Ahimeir, who after the 1929 riots would - along with Uri Zvi Greenberg and Yehoshua Heschel Yevin - found Brit HaBiryonim, a small group of radical Jewish nationalists. On October 8, 1928, following the incident of the divider at the Wall and prior to the outbreak of violence, Ahimeir, who wrote a column in the daily newspaper Do'ar Hayom titled "On Questions of the Moment (From the Journal of a Fascist), devoted a long installment to the question of the Western Wall:

"Again a proposal has been made to redeem the Western Wall by paying a full price for it, again this Diaspora method has been placed on the agenda: "I will buy everything with gold," the Diaspora Jew always says. . . . But what is perhaps permissible with regard to the [Jezreel] Valley and the Sharon [plain] is forbidden with regard to the Wall. There are things, my friends, that it is forbidden to buy even though there are 4 million Jews in America. We need to obtain the Wall through our political power, if we still cannot get it by those same classic means by which little Serbia became great Yugoslavia. And if our political pressure is not sufficient, and if the millions of our compatriots in New York, Chicago, Warsaw, Paris, and London find that it is more urgent for them to devote themselves to business and jazz and this national insult is not their insult, then it would be best for the Wall to remain in the meantime in its current situation".

Ahimeir believed that the Wall had to be liberated with military force. Barring that, one could make do with having official title to the Wall transferred to the Jewish people via an international diplomatic decision. But purchasing it was inconceivable, as it already belonged to the Jewish people. Similarly, as we have seen, the sale of the Wall was inconceivable to most Arabs - they could not even accept placing benches and a divider in the area designated for prayer. They understood that the Jewish agenda was much broader. They did not entirely understand what the Jews were after, but they sensed that it was not good for them.

Further along, we have yet again the difference in perspectives of how things went, in order to create the narrative that supports each side's perspective. About the Grand Mufti:

In a PhD dissertation on the 1929 disturbances written in 2007, Rana Barakat persuasively argues that the mufti sought to position himself as protector of Islam's holy places. He fanned the flames in the conflict over al-Buraq, she argues, but from the start of the crisis he operated within the bounds of the status quo. In other words, he did all he could to pressure the British to resolve the dispute in the Muslims' favor, but he had no interest in mass Arab violence. But the Palestinian Arab public, especially the rural population, refused to put their trust in the British. The mufti lost control of events. Popular resistance to the mufti's conciliatory policy was evidenced in a number of accounts given to the Shaw Commission. For example, when Sheikh Abu Sa'ud sought, at the mufti's request, to sooth the tempers of the worshipers in al-Aqsa, some fellahin and Maghrebis shouted at him: "We absolutely do not accept these words. Except that we should go for the Holy War." Then Sheikh Ya'qub al-Jilani ascended to the platform and screamed: "Do not listen to these words. This speaker is telling lies. . . . Do not take note of what our leaders say, because they are unfaithful or traitors" (quoted in Commission 1930, 1:90, 104). A week earlier Abu Sa'ud had led a demonstration at the Wall, but now, when he tried to prevent an explosion, he was shunted aside. George Antonius, a Christian Arab of Lebanese extraction, served as one of the four assistants to the Mandate government's chief secretary. (Almost a decade later he published The Arab Awakening, which remains a classic text about Arab nationalism.) As part of his assignment, he accompanied the mufti in the early afternoon hours that Friday as he went from the Nablus Gate to Herod's Gate and to al-Aqsa. Antonius told the commission that the mufti had done everything in his power to calm the crowds, but that they did not always listen to him. Stones were even thrown at his car as it made its way between the two gates (Commission 1930, 1:399).

The side of the Haganah:

But the Haganah's official history pictures the mufti as the mastermind behind the riots. The Zionist Executive's internal correspondence shows that orders were given to collect information on incitement in the mufti's speeches (ISA/P 694/3) and present them to the Shaw Commission. In the field, the attitude toward him was more complex. When the violence broke out, Efrayim Tzur was sent at the head of an armed squad to defend the Shimon HaTzadik neighborhood, located next to the Arab neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah on the east side of Jerusalem. He related the following incident: I saw the mufti returning to his home with his entourage. I suddenly wanted to kill him. I sent one of the neighborhood kids, Shvili, a budding thief, to the Haganah command [at the offices of] the Jerusalem Jewish Committee with a note for Rachel Yana'it. I wrote that I could and wanted to get rid of the mufti. The boy equipped himself with a knife, stuck it in his mouth like a wild man, and set off. The response he brought back was in the negative: "For heaven's sake don't do it." (HHA testimony 117/12) Tzur's intense desire to kill the mufti grew out of the common wisdom - common mostly among the Jews - that the mufti was the man who had fanned the flames and set the attacks in motion.

And Arabs saving Jews and vice versa:

So, just as Arabs saved Jews in 1929 - in Mekor Hayyim, in Motza, in Hebron, and elsewhere - there were also Jews who saved Arabs. We already mentioned Shimon, the grocer in the Bukharan quarter, and now we have Mina Albert. I have not been successful in turning up any more information about Mina Albert or Shimon the grocer. No one extolled their deeds. Davar devoted a special column titled Orot MeOfel (Light from the darkness) to Arabs who saved terrified Jews from danger. No Jewish source said anything about Jews who saved Arabs. Perhaps the Jewish writers did not want to admit, even implicitly, that Jews had lynched innocent Arabs.

And an interesting tidbit about Deir Yassin and how an event in 1929 created the payback in 1948.

Deir Yasin: 1929 and 1948 A few days following the riots, Ha'aretz (September 11, 1929) called on the British to impose collective punishment on Deir Yasin, just as they had done with other villages. According to contemporary Jewish reports, several dozen inhabitants of Deir Yasin took part in 1929 in attacks on the nearby Jewish neighborhoods of Giv'at Sha'ul and Beit HaKerem: At 2:30 [on Friday, August 23], some 30-40 Arabs were seen on the descent from Deir Yasin opposite us. They went down into the valley and prepared for an assault. A group of Jewish defenders hid at a corner on the slope down from Beit HaKerem and began to shoot at them, without hitting any. . . . The exchange of gunfire continued until 8:30. In the meantime, several machine guns arrived with the English army. A machine gun was set up and opened fire in the direction of Deir Yasin. The soldiers took a local car, drove to the village, and opened fire on Arabs and then came back . . . on the Jewish side several were wounded over Friday and Saturday in Giv'at Sha'ul. One (Ya'akov Leib Dimentstein) was badly wounded and died. (Amikam 1929, 28-29) What happened in the village after Jewish forces took it in April 1948 can be seen as a response to what happened in 1929. Etzel's deputy commander of the operation in Deir Yasin, Yehuda Lapidot, wrote the entry on the 1929 riots for the online Hebrew encyclopedia Da'at. (Lapidot n.d.). In his account, Deir Yasin played a central role in the 1929 riots. The founder of the Kach movement, Meir Kahane, defended the massacre committed in the village, claiming that "Arabs from Deir Yasin led and organized the attack [on Jewish neighborhoods in western Jerusalem in 1929], but the village became world famous only twenty years later, in 1948, when it received its payback for the many Jews its inhabitants killed" (Kahane 1980).

And lastly, the topic about the massacres and the comparison:

Comparing Massacres Comparisons can offer a view of the common parameters of different events. While massacres committed by Arabs, Jews, Latin American dictators, American forces in Vietnam, or the Stalinist regime might all be different, they all have one thing in common: the slaughter of defenseless people. And in general, the slaughterers present their actions as necessary for their self-defense. For the most part, they seem to really believe this. And that is connected to the reason why the massacre in Hebron is not and cannot be a seminal event in Palestinian consciousness.

Why Not? Because, as we saw in chapter 1, people's fundamental, overarching view of the world determines how they perceive historical details. And in the Palestinian conception of history, the massacre in Hebron is a small part of a larger campaign of self-defense. This is not to say that all Palestinians see it the same way. Some completely ignore the massacre, others see it as an act of heroism, and still others are pained by the human suffering it caused. And, of course, some of Hebron's Arabs rescued Jews during the riots, an act much more important than any condemnation of or statement about the massacre. The different attitudes derive from the opposing ways in which Jews and Arabs perceive the larger arc of events in Palestine or Israel. A typical example of this can be seen in the following two passages on the riots. The first comes from Ha'aretz and the second from Filastin. Here is Ha'aretz:

It was not we who set the fire
It was not we who sought blood and loot
It was not we who set man against man, community against community.
We were attacked everywhere, city and country. (September 2, 1929)

This was a response to a week of bloodshed. It is of interest because just a week before the riots, Ha'aretz had harshly condemned "the fanners of flames in both camps" (August 18, 1929), and because the editors knew of the lynchings that Jews had committed against Arabs in Jerusalem and of the murder of the 'Awn family by Hinkis. In other words, the editors knew that it wasn't true that "we" had been attacked in all cases. But they preferred to publish a declaration that accorded with the image of the Yishuv that they sought to paint. They did so by offering their readers a picture in black and white.

I will discontinue citing the book at this point. However, it is evident that there is extensive contextual background surrounding the occurrences. It is grossly disingenuous to utilize the Hebron massacre as the incident that exposes "the authentic nature of Arabs." As previously stated, there were instances of assaults and massacres perpetrated by the Jewish faction as well.

Each group acted in accordance with their own beliefs and viewpoints.

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The missing narrative and context of the Hebron massacre 1929

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On social media, the Hebron massacre of 1929 is frequently cited as evidence of the Arabs' true intentions in Palestine. Often referenced seemingly without any context, it perpetuates the notion that...

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'Everyone and their bubbie is here': a lively Jewish Sabbath at a Palestinian restaurant in Brooklyn

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a Palestinian and an Egyptian host a Shabbat dinner at their Palestinian restaurant in Brooklyn. This is also happening. There is, also, joy.

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On Friday night in Brooklyn, the kitchen of the Palestinian restaurant Ayat brought out platter after platter of stewed lamb and piles of delicate rice for a line of people wrapped past the grocery next door.

"Everyone and their bubbie is here," a graduate student said, bumping into friends from leftist, progressive, and queer communities.

They were all there for a Jewish Sabbath meal hosted by the restaurant, which has faced a steady stream of hate since 7 October for its vocal support of the Palestinian cause. But on Friday, the mellow, dirge-like melodies of Moroccan Jewish songs filled the restaurant's second floor, where the walls were covered with hand-painted murals depicting folkloric Palestinian symbols and a vintage Arabic ad for Pepsi. A standing-room only crowd joined in with dancing and table banging.

More than 1,300 people lined up and down the block to support the restaurant's owners, Abdul Elenani and Ayat Masoud, many wearing keffiyehs and embroidered yarmulkes, others with tzitzit (Jewish ritual fringes) flowing out of shirts or in hijab.

"My only goal and my only motivation behind this concept when I created it was to speak through food and culture about the occupation of Palestine," Elenani told the Guardian.

He jumped on the controversy to find common ground between communities of different faiths seeking an end to the Gaza war. "So why don't I just throw a large Shabbat dinner during these difficult times?" he said.

Elenani and Masoud, who are married, started the restaurant in 2020 in Bay Ridge, a Brooklyn neighborhood that is home to one of the largest Arab-American populations in the US. He had always wanted to open a branch in Brooklyn's Ditmas Park, a quiet family neighborhood that he saw as the perfect spot for Jews, Christians and Muslims to gather. But when he launched the sixth outpost of Ayat in December, there was an uproar - over the seafood menu.

Headlined "From the River to the Sea", the title of the fish menu was a cheeky callout to an enduring slogan of Palestinian protest. "It didn't have any evil meaning to it whatsoever," Elenani, 31, told me. But since 7 October, it struck a different chord for people who view it as a call to violence against Israeli Jews. He added a disclaimer to make clear the label was not inciting violence, but "signifies peace, and freedom".

The disclaimer did not work. The New York Post ran a story about the menu last month. A neighborhood Facebook group was up in arms. Some posters called the restaurant "openly genocidal", and bomb threats and bogus one-star Yelp reviews poured in.

They also received plenty of support, including from a growing movement of progressive Jews. Elenani, who is Egyptian American, and Masoud, who is Palestinian, reached out to friends, who connected him with Jewish groups organizing against the war, to bring communities together at a time of profound division.

On Friday, as hundreds stood in line for a free meal, a band played klezmer music. Local politicians greeted constituents. They chatted in English and French, Arabic and Hebrew, about Elenani's generosity and warmth. A six-foot long challah bread waited for them inside.

Elenani wanted observant Jews to feel welcome and, even after three caterers turned him down, arranged for kosher food. A sign in the restaurant window said: "Down With the Occupation". A dozen or so volunteers from Jews For Racial & Economic Justice, in neon vests, directed the queue and made sure everything went smoothly.

After sundown, a white tent set up outside became a sacred space for a service led by Jewish people from the Middle East and North Africa - Arab Jews, as some consider themselves. Musician Laura Elkeslassy began leading the service with an invocation focusing on the atrocities of 7 October, the plight of hostages, displaced people and political prisoners, and Israel's ongoing destruction of Gaza.

She spoke of how the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948 led to a rupture between Arab Jews and their countries. "May this Shabbat bear the hope of a free Palestine and a collective liberation for all of us," she said, as the worshippers ululated. The service concludes with the Mourner's Kaddish, a prayer the bereaved chant to grieve close family members. A community leader invited the whole tent to stand up and say it together for those who have no one to remember them, a tradition that dates to the years after the Holocaust and has taken on new salience, as Israel has wiped out whole Palestinian family trees in Gaza. "Each one of us feels a huge loss," she said.

Then came warm shouts of "Shabbat Shalom" and applause for Ayat's owners, and the worshippers headed toward the buffet of slow-cooked chicken and lamb, yellow rice, garlicky baba ganouj, creamy hummus, and of course, herb-covered fish.

And what about the lightning-rod menu? "'From the River to the Sea' doesn't frighten me," Maya Herman, an Israeli anti-occupation activist, said, as she lingered near the kitchen. "I would also not spend many hours fighting over one sentence."

Neighbors who stopped by for dinner agreed. "The restaurant reaching out to the Jewish community and saying we want to give back, and inviting Jewish people: I think it's tremendous," Howard Edelbaum said, over a plate of fish and rice.

Elenani, in a long tangerine parka, stood at the entrance downstairs and spoke with Shahana Hanif, the councilwoman for nearby Brooklyn districts and daughter of Bangladeshi immigrants, who wore a keffiyeh. "I know what our communities are capable of, and our long history of organizing, and eating together," she told me. "This, for me, is the Brooklyn I grew up in."

"It's always been a dream of mine to have a kosher/halal restaurant with two kitchens," Elenani said, and tonight was a first step.

As midnight approached, the kitchen kept sending out more aluminum trays. The enormous challah looked ripped by a thousand hands from the community who broke bread together.

Two Brooklyn rabbis sat together near the stairs, talking about how so much of their flock feels ostracized from their families and from synagogues openly supporting Israel.

Rabbi Abby Stein imagined a new Jewish life "in partnership with Palestinians, not just to stop killing, but also to truly build community". Rabbi Miriam Grossman nodded. "The majority of the people here have been at actions to free Gaza," she said, holding a tote-bag for the group Rabbis for Ceasefire.

A tray passed by heaped with baklava to share. "Shabbat is a time to rest and renew," Grossman said, "and when Shabbat ends, we're back at it."

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'Everyone and their bubbie is here': a lively Jewish Sabbath at a Palestinian restaurant in Brooklyn

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Ayat, which has faced hate since 7 October, fed a packed room of people dancing, praying and breaking challah bread

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Webinar: Before and after October 7. Hear from four activists who are part of Breaking the Silence, an anti-occupation group of former Israeli soldiers who give testimony about what they saw and did while in army service.

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Breaking the Silence Before and After October 7th

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‘Don’t we have a good counterargument other than ‘double standard’ and ‘antisemitism’?′

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The film "Israelism" has come under attack since October 7 - which is the best reason to watch it.

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‘Don’t we have a good counterargument other than ‘double standard’ and ‘antisemitism’?′

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the hostages taken by Hamas are still there.. or are they dead? The psychological warfare takes its toll.

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Hamas says two Israeli hostages are dead, as IDF calls videos 'psychological torment' of captives' families | CNN

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Israel said Monday that Hamas is carrying out "psychological torment" as the militant group released a third video in the space of 24 hours featuring the same three hostages being held in Gaza, the last of which appears to show two of the hostages dead.

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J Street offers a progressive voice for U.S. Jews

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J Street offers a progressive voice for U.S. Jews

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In the 100 days since Hamas' horrific terror attack, J Street has supported Israel's right to respond militarily to protect its citizens, free those taken hostage, and ensure that Hamas cannot again pose a threat. We continue to support, as well, American military assistance to Israel to keep Israelis safe and protect against attacks.

We have also been clear that the Israeli government must abide by international law in its conduct of the war and that Israel, the United States and the international community should urgently address the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza. American support for Israel - and J Street's support for that matter - should not constitute a blank check financially and Israel's government should be held accountable in international fora, like any other country, if and when it does not act in accordance with international law.

Today, the United States Senate will consider a resolution introduced by Senator Bernie Sanders requesting that the State Department report on Israel's human rights practices and their adherence to US and international law. J Street agrees with the resolution's use of Section 502B(c) of the Foreign Assistance Act to require a report on Israel's human rights practices and its adherence to US law. We believe there must always be monitoring and oversight to ensure that US assistance is used in compliance with the law, particularly standards that uphold our commitment to human rights, and allied countries like Israel are no exception to that requirement.

J Street has concerns with specific provisions that have prevented us from offering our full support for this particular resolution, and we have reviewed these concerns with Senator Sanders. We look forward to working with him and others in the near future to craft a resolution that we can support to ensure US oversight and enforcement of Israel's compliance with US law in its current war in Gaza.

Oversight and accountability regarding US foreign assistance are critical Congressional tools, and J Street strongly supports other measures being proposed as part of a possible supplemental national security appropriation that would provide additional military assistance for Israel. One amendment, led by Senator Chris Van Hollen, would require that weapons received by any country under the pending supplemental be used in accordance with US law, international humanitarian law and the law of armed conflict. Another amendment drafted by Senator Tim Kaine would remove a provision from the supplemental test that waives congressional review requirements for Foreign Military Financing to Israel, bringing the aid aligning US oversight mechanisms with those for other nations.

We also believe that Israel's government should appropriately be held accountable in international fora for adherence to international law as it pursues its legitimate right of self-defense.

Last week, in arguments before the International Court of Justice (ICJ), the Republic of South Africa alleged that Israel's military actions in the Gaza Strip threaten to violate the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide.

J Street rejects the allegation of genocide. Given the stringent standard for holding a country responsible for genocide, we do not expect such a finding against Israel in this case. Yet, we do believe the Israeli government is obligated to ensure its military actions are proportionate, that Gaza's civilians are not being inappropriately targeted and that they have access to basic humanitarian necessities from food to water, medicine and fuel. These are not just legal obligations - they are moral ones and are in Israel's own strategic interest.

Over these past months, we have strongly criticized specific actions that the Israeli government has taken including indiscriminate aerial bombing and continued obstruction of humanitarian assistance. We have urged a dramatic change in the war's course to be more strategic, precise and targeted, and we continue to support further breaks in the fighting to enable hostage releases and improved flow of aid. We also have unequivocally denounced calls by some far-right Israeli officials for mass destruction of Gaza, transfer of Palestinian civilians, and re-establishment of Israeli settlements.

The Genocide Convention is an important component of the rules-based international order which arose in the aftermath of World War II, all the more important to the Jewish people because it emerges out of our own terrible historic suffering. International rules and structures, underpinned by institutions and frameworks like the ICJ and the Geneva Conventions, have led to an era of relative peace and prosperity and have provided a means of peaceful dispute resolution between states since 1946. We reject arguments that call into question the legitimacy of the Court, the Genocide Convention or South Africa's right to bring this case. We continue to support efforts by the international community and international courts to appropriately investigate, prosecute and sanction Hamas for its clear violations of international law.

We also clearly reject the claim that the Israeli government is intentionally seeking the destruction of another people, and expect the ICJ to do the same. While a deliberately high bar was rightly set by the international community in defining the singular crime of genocide, there are many critical obligations of combatants under international law that the Court has jurisdiction to review, and which the US, our partners and multilateral institutions must take concrete action to uphold. We therefore expect that, should the Court order provisional measures to enforce those obligations in the coming weeks to protect the civilian population of Gaza, both Israel and the United States would respect those rulings.

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J Street Supports Accountability for Israeli Government Actions in International Forums and in the US Congress, Rejects "Genocide" Charge - J Street

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The Israeli government is obligated to ensure its military actions are proportionate, that Gaza's civilians are not being inappropriately targeted and that they have access to basic humanitarian necessities from food to water, medicine and fuel.

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Learn from Interact: a Dual Narrative approach to Learning

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Learn from Interact: a Dual Narrative approach to Learning

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from the same brilliant activist who founded Mejdi Tours, the dual narrative tour of Israel and Palestine that Shir Tikvah will (yet!) take, rescheduled to November of 2024.

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Hijacking memory: the Holocaust and the war in Gaza

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Hijacking memory: the Holocaust and the war in Gaza

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Hijacking Memory: The Holocaust and the Siege of Gaza

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Instead of creating space for deeper conversation, these terms of “Zionist” and “anti-Zionist” have been wielded as a way of closing off any dissent, packaged into simplistic catchphrases that only make sense if you already know what the speaker understands Zionism or anti-Zionism to mean.

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Lux Alptraum January 11, 2024

As war has raged across Israel and Gaza, there's been a parallel war raging within my synagogue.

On the listserv, emails have ricocheted back and forth as members of different backgrounds, histories and relationships with Israel have clashed with one another. One fight exploded after an open letter urging the congregation to take a more forceful pro-Palestinian stance circulated on the list. Another kicked off when a member shared a Physicians for Human Rights report about the sexual violence that unfolded on Oct. 7.

For some of my fellow congregants, it feels as though they are being asked to share a sacred space with people who ignore or even justify the brutal slaughter of our fellow Jews. Others have said they're being asked to pray next to people whose concern for human rights ends when the victims are Palestinian and the perpetrators are Jews.

Predictably, labels like Zionist and anti-Zionist have been tossed back and forth: the Zionists accused of refusing to appreciate Palestinian pain and suffering; the anti-Zionists accused of doing the same to other Jews.

I am a non-Zionist - a label that I use because my feelings about Jewish history, self-determination, and the state of Israel feel far too complex to declare myself "for" or "against" Zionism. It's been troubling to see how often semantics seem to obscure shared values.

A shul divided

As I've watched arguments unfold across my synagogue listserv, I've noticed that, ironically, the synagogue's self-proclaimed "Zionists" and "anti-Zionists" aren't actually in disagreement about their ultimate hopes for Israelis and Palestinians. As weighty as these labels have become to many Jews both within and outside of my congregation, they rarely seem to illustrate as much as we've been led to believe.

The arguments that have unfolded are rarely about substantive issues like a cease-fire, hostage return or Palestinian human rights. More often than not, it feels far more like people are simply fighting over the use of the labels "Zionist" and "anti-Zionist."

The heart of the matter is that Zionism and anti-Zionism simply cannot be reduced to simple, straightforward concepts. Although Zionism is, at its core, a belief in the Jewish right to self-determination and an ancient connection between Judaism and the Holy Land, in practice, that can manifest in a variety of different desires and stated outcomes.

On the face of it, these two schools of thought should inject some clarity into the conversation around the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. There is over a century of Zionist and anti-Zionist writing and theorizing on the relationship between Jews, the Holy Land and the modern state of Israel that people could engage with today.

Yet instead of creating space for deeper conversation, these terms of "Zionist" and "anti-Zionist" have been wielded as a way of closing off any dissent, packaged into simplistic catchphrases that only make sense if you already know what the speaker understands Zionism or anti-Zionism to mean.

Throughout its decades of existence, my mid-sized, nondenominational shul in Brooklyn has been an "open tent" that offers a spiritual home for liberal Zionists, non-Zionists, and anti-Zionists alike. But after Oct. 7, that coalition has felt far more fragile.

Values over labels

Members of the synagogue leadership have taken steps to defuse the tensions: listserv posts referencing the conflict must be explicitly labeled. A task force focused on the conflict hosted processing sessions both in person and over Zoom, with congregants given the opportunity to share their complicated thoughts and feelings in a supportive, judgment-free zone. At times when things have gotten especially heated, I've personally chimed into the conversation asking people to remember that we're all hurting, that we're all suffering, that we're all traumatized.

And yet, a part of me wonders if, perhaps, there's another step that we could take. What if, instead of fixating on the labels of "Zionist" and "anti-Zionist" and ascribing negative or positive qualities to each, we abandoned those labels entirely?

What if, rather than asking Jews to sort ourselves into one of two camps, we chose instead to talk about the values and history that shape our connections to Israel and Palestine, and the hopes we have for the future of the region?

Alienating allies

Because quite frankly, the alternative hasn't been particularly helpful for anyone. When the U.S. House of Representatives adopted a resolution in early December declaring that "anti-Zionism is antisemitism," at least three Jewish members of Congress protested the resolution , arguing that it reduced the violence of antisemitism to a "political game," and defamed anti-Zionist Jews in the process.

On the other end of the equation, leftists who've refused to work with Zionists have alienated some powerful potential allies : Israel's small but vocal community of anti-occupation and anti-war activists, who advocate for Palestinian safety not in spite of, but because of, their connection to Israel and Zionism.

For the most aggressive religious Zionists, Zionism is a call for Jews to take back every bit of land between the Nile and the Euphrates , engaging in ethnic cleansing and genocide as that mission may require. On the other end of the Zionist spectrum are groups like the New Israel Fund , which advocate for a "better Israel" that is democratic, diverse and committed to human rights - not in spite of its Jewish heritage, but because of it. Liberal Zionists like NIF also vehemently oppose the religiously expansionist Zionism of the settler movement - making the attempt to encapsulate diverse worldviews of these two disparate groups under the header of "Zionism" feel both imprecise and foolish.

The Zionists within my shul are more aligned with J Street than with Jewish settlers in the West Bank, making them an odd proxy for the most violent, right-wing breed of Jewish nationalist. No one in my synagogue would openly talk of the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians as a desirable outcome. And while in-person discussions have made it clear that they often have substantive disagreements and different worldview from anti-Zionists, it rarely feels like the gap is so wide that anyone is actually the polar opposite of the other.

Different definitions of Zionism

Because the thing that is often ignored when we talk about Zionism and anti-Zionism is that by definition, anti-Zionism is in conversation with Zionism; the meaning of anti-Zionism is inherently tied to whatever form of Zionism it happens to be responding to.

For those who see Zionism as nothing more than a plea for Jews to have access to the same self-determination that many groups around the world take for granted, it is hard to see how anti-Zionism isn't antisemitic. And yet at the same time many young anti-Zionists - and especially Jewish anti-Zionists - do not see the ideology as a rejection of Jewish rights, but rather an affirmation of the Palestinian right to self-determination, freedom and basic dignity; not an opposition to Jewish self-determination, but a rejection of apartheid, military occupation, and the military strikes that have killed thousands of Palestinian civilians.

In the many conversations that I have had with a range of Zionists, anti-Zionists and non-Zionists like myself, it has become clear to me that while there are always extremist outliers, there are far more people who desire only to see Israel and Palestine form a lasting, meaningful peace. They want a political structure that grants everyone with a connection to the land the freedom to live there in safety and security, with full enfranchisement and access to all manner of rights.

Some people who hold that view insist that it is a Zionist one, as it recognizes the Jewish right to exist safely and peacefully within the boundaries of the Holy Land. Others insist that it is necessarily anti-Zionist, as any respect for Palestinian rights is incompatible with Zionism.

But perhaps instead of getting hung up on labels, we can try to pay more attention to each other's values and stated ideals. If two people can agree that they want peace and freedom for both Palestinians and Israelis, does it matter if one of them identifies as Zionist and the other anti-Zionist?

If these labels are serving to divide us and cause conflict and controversy in spite of our shared values, then perhaps they have outlived their usefulness.
To contact the author, email [email protected] .

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Why it's time to leave the labels of 'Zionist' and 'anti-Zionist' behind

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Instead of creating space for deeper conversation, these terms of "Zionist" and "anti-Zionist" are wielded to close off any dissent.

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An intimate in-person conversation about the state of Jewish-Arab relations within Israel during this time of crisis with Jimmy Taber of the Israel-based Abraham Initiatives.

Building a truly shared society remains more crucial than ever, as the threat of intercommunal violence in mixed communities looms large, Bedouin communities lack adequate protection from rocket fire, and universities, workplaces, and other shared spaces navigate the challenges of bringing people back together. The Abraham Initiatives is working hard on all of these issues and more.

I hope you will join us to discuss what needs to be done to protect past gains, prevent future violence, and envision a different future – one that is fully equal and shared. Please bring any questions you may have about the on-the-ground reality of shared living in Israel.

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972 Magazine: Where is the Palestinian Authority?

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972 Magazine: Where is the Palestinian Authority?

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972 is investigative journalism shared bt Palestinians and Israelis. Link to article includes opportunity to subscribe.

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While the PA tries to assert itself in Gaza's 'day after,' its inability to confront Israeli attacks has brought its legitimacy to an all-time low in the West Bank.

Since the Hamas-led October 7 attacks on southern Israel, the occupied West Bank has experienced a surge in violence and volatility. Over the past three months, with the world's attention on the Gaza Strip amid Israel's ongoing bombardment, Israeli soldiers and settler militias have more than 300 Palestinians in the West Bank, including over 80 children , while more than 4,000 Palestinians have been .

Settlers have also intensified their harassment and violence against Palestinians in a calculated attempt to seize their land, forcibly displacing at least 16 isolated communities in recent weeks. The territory remains under a strict lockdown, checkered with military checkpoints that hinder movement for Palestinians between cities and towns.

For many Palestinians, what has been just as crippling as the tightening grip of the occupation is the sense of total absence and inaction from their own leaders. The Palestinian Authority (PA), led by President Mahmoud Abbas, has mostly given shy condemnations of Israel's escalations and collective punishment, lacking any real ability to confront them.

A few days before Israel's assault on Jenin, Mustafa Sheta, the director of the city's , told +972 that the people of Jenin feel abandoned, especially when all eyes - including their own - are fixed on Gaza. "The PA is silent. It is neither reassuring us nor healing wounds," he said. Sheta was later arrested by Israeli forces during the Jenin operation, and sent to Megiddo Prison where he will spend six months in Freedom Theater administrative detention - imprisonment without charge or trial.

The sentiment Sheta expressed was echoed in a recent poll conducted by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research (PCPSR) in the West Bank and Gaza. According to the poll's findings, support for Hamas has surged to 44 percent among Palestinians in the West Bank, compared to just 12 percent in September. Support for Abbas, his Fatah party, and the PA have dropped significantly: more than 90 percent demand the president's resignation, while support for the dissolution of the PA - nearly 60 percent across the West Bank and Gaza - is the highest it's ever been in a PCPSR poll.

Mounting public discontent over the PA's deafening silence in the face of Israel's brazen bombardment of Gaza, intensifying raids into West Bank cities, and assassination of top Palestinian leaders is adding to years of frustration over persistent accusations of corruption, the PA's failure to pay its employees, and the sense that it is increasingly disconnected from the lives of its constituents. More than ever before, there is a stark perception that the PA is completely irrelevant.

As such, for many Palestinians, the current leadership is unable to represent the aspirations and concerns of the people, hindering meaningful steps toward ending the current war on Gaza and advancing their struggle as a whole. Many insist that it is imperative for a new leadership to realign its actions with the pressing needs of the public, and to assert Palestinian agency amid the cacophony of discussions for the "day after." The PA and its leaders, though, are doing all they can to remain at the center of these designs.

No more business as usual

Sheta from the Freedom Theater, describing the situation in Jenin before the two-day raid, said that "the people of the camp are completely overwhelmed by the nightly military incursions," leaving the already weary refugees even more bereaved and their infrastructure in ever-worsening conditions.

"We don't know when this will end," he lamented. "The military says the operation aims to uproot resistance from the camp, but that is not a realistic goal. They can't wipe out resistance from an oppressed people - killing leads to killing, and violence brings violence."

Living amid such turmoil, Palestinians are feeling the price of the leadership vacuum that has plagued their politics for years. Ashraf Ajrami, a political analyst and writer, criticized the PA's current approach, describing it as "incapacitated, without popular legitimacy." He noted how, at an event dedicated to Palestinian political prisoners who were released in exchange for Israeli hostages taken by Hamas on October 7, the PA minister for prisoners' affairs, Qadura Faris, was shouted down by attendees.

Despite his critiques of both Fatah and Hamas, Ajrami believes there is a potential way forward through the establishment of an independent, technocratic commission to step in for a transitional period, both to rebuild Gaza and to pave the way for elections. He underscores the current moment as a potentially unique opportunity, asserting that the world is, at last, genuinely interested in seeing a Palestinian state come to fruition.

"The two-state solution, as based on the political parameters established by the international community, is being seriously addressed for the first time since [U.S. President Bill] Clinton," Ajrami said. But seizing that opportunity, he stressed, requires a major shift in the leadership's approach.

'We need someone who can unite people'

There is popular sentiment that a widely respected political figure is needed to break this paralysis. In a small coffee shop filled with cigarette smoke in Al-Bireh, a town next to Ramallah, Abu Othman, a Palestinian customer, articulated the view of many: "We can't keep asking 'what's next?' with the current leadership. We need a figure like Abu 'Ammar," he said, referring to the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat. "Someone who can unite people despite their differences."

From behind bars, Barghouti has remained active in the prisoners' movement and wider Palestinian politics, publishing articles and statements that stress the need for national reconciliation. Often referred to as the "Mandela of Palestine," after the South African leader and political prisoner, Barghouti has retained extensive popular support as a future leader of the national movement.

Because of Barghouti's imprisonment, though, some Palestinians are also looking to established figures within the PA as potential leaders. Mahmoud Aloul, Fatah's deputy chairperson since 2018, has been regarded as one such candidate.

Imprisoned and deported from the West Bank to Jordan after the 1967 war, Aloul returned to Palestine in 1995 under the framework of the Oslo Accords as a key advisor to Arafat, who later appointed him as the governor of Nablus, a position he held for 10 years and which attained him a reputation as a man of the people. Putting his military background behind him, Aloul became an advocate for popular resistance, including demonstrations and boycotting Israeli products. He now oversees Fatah's local branches as the head of the party's Commission for Mobilization and Organization.

From a modest office open to the public, Aloul sits at the head of a long table covered with notebooks, pens, his eye glasses, and his cell phone. Recognizing the gravity of the consequences of the Israel-Gaza war, Aloul told +972: "The priority now is not to defend the PA or own it. The priority is to regain [the trust of all] the Palestinian people and their fight for freedom. This war is against the entire Palestinian nation - the genocide in Gaza and the daily killings and destructions in the West Bank."

While acknowledging the impact of the Fatah-Hamas division on the Palestinian people, Aloul said: "What I personally feel is that we are 'knitting the wrong basket' when we speak of the popularity of factions. The priority should be the vision that prevents Israel from assassinating the dreams of our people ... to overcome any threats to independent Palestinian decisions. We are exerting big efforts to end this [division]," he added, without further elaboration.

Aloul addressed the Palestinian public through recorded voice messages published on his official Facebook page on Oct. 13 and on Nov. 8, in which he stressed that the priority of the Palestinian leadership is to end the Israeli aggression on both Gaza and the West Bank. In his second recording, Aloul spelled out a way forward as seen by the Palestinian leadership: a unified PLO stance that includes Hamas and Islamic Jihad, both of which have long been excluded from the organization. Plans are reported to be taking effect toward serious talks for such a unity arrangement.

But many Palestinians want more than just another elitist deal. Fadi Quran, a 35-year-old political activist, believes that a new and inclusive Palestinian-borne initiative is needed to transcend the divided factions. "This is why we are doing our best to reconnect with the people and to create an atmosphere for elections - this is what we need," he said. "No one is pretending that the situation is rosy; there is a lot we need to rectify, especially our relationship with our people."

To complement these political shifts at the top, Quran envisions a grassroots movement, akin to the First Intifada, in which people can also partake in political work from the ground up. "The energy is there, the public support is there, and the ideas are there. They just need to be organized," he said. "There's a decentralization, where people are beginning to create their own networks of action," Quran continued. "And hopefully, that continues to grow and blossom into something."

Jostling for position in Gaza's 'day after'

In recent weeks, government figures from Arab states including the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, and Egypt, as well as the United States, United Kingdom, European Union members, and Israel have been meeting behind closed doors to contemplate various post-war scenarios for Gaza, according to diplomatic sources familiar with the discussions. Notably absent from these deliberations is any direct engagement with the PA or Hamas.

Diplomats who spoke to +972 on condition of anonymity explained that the envisioned scenarios leaned toward establishing a new administrative entity, expressly excluding Hamas, which is designated as a terrorist organization by the United States and the EU. Much criticism has also been directed at the Fatah-led PA in these discussions, branding it as corrupt and anti-democratic.

The diplomatic sources described various proposals for the "day after" that have been under discussion in these meetings, all of which are aimed at bringing about a peaceful transition toward a democratically elected leadership while allowing Gaza to be rehabilitated. There is broad appetite for a transitional period in which some kind of force would be configured to govern after the war ends and until elections can be held; this force, the sources explained, would mainly comprise figures from the Palestinian security apparatus and established community figures.

There are also discussions around reducing the size of the Gaza Strip through creating an Israeli military buffer zone along the "Philadelphi Corridor" - a territory that runs along the border between Gaza and Egypt - which Israel now insists on controlling. Egypt has not yet objected to this idea.

The initiative, supported by Qatari mediators, had proposed a gradual end to hostilities, starting with a temporary truce that would allow for the release of Israeli hostages in exchange for Palestinians held in Israeli prisons, and leading eventually to a permanent ceasefire. It also envisioned a change in leadership in Gaza, such that Hamas would no longer rule the Strip, but made no mention of the PA.

Behind the scenes, however, the PA received a lifeline: a senior Fatah official told +972 that Egypt had assured them the PA's role in the transition process was understood by all parties without needing to be made explicit.

The PA then requested an amendment to the proposal, which Egypt accepted, for a national unity government to be established through a reconciliation agreement between the Palestinian factions, rather than a technocratic body. PA officials feared that the latter scenario would enable the return of public dissidents of Abbas such as Abu Dhabi-based Mohammed Dahlan and former PLO representative Nasser al-Kidwa, the nephew of Yasser Arafat.

Seeing this initiative as a means to remaining relevant, and thus seeking to keep the Americans onside, the PA also requested additions to the proposal with regard to reforms to its governance, security, judicial, and administrative mechanisms. U.S. officials had made clear to the PA that these were its demands, along with the idea of retraining a PA security force that would be responsible for security in Gaza after the war. Egypt was thought to be amenable to these changes, prior to further talks being aborted after the assassination of al-Arouri.

In light of these discussions, the PA has publicly emphasized its commitment to democratic principles, advocating for free and fair national elections to determine representation. In his rare - and widely criticized - appearances since October 7, Abbas has reaffirmed the PA's readiness to take over governance of Gaza and stressed that a return to negotiations for a two-state solution remains a priority.

Abbas' official position centers on three key pillars: stopping the expulsion of Gaza's Palestinians out of the enclave, regaining full control of the West Bank and Gaza Strip under the PLO (to which Hamas and Islamic Jihad would be added), and initiating a comprehensive peace process. Observers argue that, under current conditions, none of these plans are realistic.

For Quran, such empty words from the Palestinian leadership, without political legitimacy or power to back them up, demonstrate the need for a more holistic approach to restoring Palestinian agency. "We have arrived at a moment where Palestinians are saying, 'We want representation. We want inclusiveness in our politics, and we want people who are competent,'" he said. "Moving toward our liberation will begin to create unity."

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Fed up with absent leadership, Palestinians yearn for political unity

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While the PA tries to assert itself in Gaza's 'day after,' its inability to confront Israeli attacks has brought its legitimacy to an all-time low in the West Bank.

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"counter Zionism" the necessity of exile

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"counter Zionism" the necessity of exile

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a new book to check out

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About the Book A timely, progressive collection of essays on the Jewish relationship to Zionism and exile.What is exile? What is diaspora? What is Zionism? Jewish identity today has been shaped by prior generations’ answers to these questions, and the future of Jewish life will depend on how we respond to them in our o

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The Annual Gus and Libby Solomon Memorial Lecture - 2024 | Portland State University

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“WILL ZION BE REDEEMED BY JUSTICE? SHIFTING ATTITUDES TOWARD ISRAEL AMONG U.S. JEWS"

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“WILL ZION BE REDEEMED BY JUSTICE? SHIFTING ATTITUDES TOWARD ISRAEL AMONG U.S. JEWS"

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FEBRUARY 15, 2024

7:30 pm - 9:00 pm PT

Join us for this free in person event held at University Place Hotel and Conference Center, 310 SW Lincoln St, Portland, OR 97201

Registration: Please preregister for this free event on our Eventbrite page

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The Annual Gus and Libby Solomon Memorial Lecture - 2024 | Portland State University

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Join us for this free in person event held at University Place Hotel and Conference Center, 310 SW Lincoln St, Portland, OR 97201

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Hamas, hasbara and the Holocaust: What left and right get wrong about the Israel-Gaza war

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"right-left tribalism about Israel and Palestine has proven to be worse than tribalism between Israelis and Palestinians, and their supporters, both in the region and everywhere else."

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Haaretz | Israel News

Analysis |

Tribal thinking about Israel and Palestine is causing both left and right to make colossal mistakes about the situation, which will perpetuate horrors upon them that will reverberate around the world

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If the maxim "in war, truth is the first casualty" sounds quaint, that's because it is attributed to the Greek playwright Aeschylus, who lived over 2,500 years ago when things were ... different.

In the News

Paid by Attorney Rakefet Shfaim

Paid by Attorney Rakefet Shfaim

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Hamas, hasbara and the Holocaust: What left and right get wrong about the Israel-Gaza war

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Tribal Thinking About Israel and Palestine Is Causing Both Left and Right to Make Colossal Mistakes About the Situation, Which Will Perpetuate Horrors Upon Them That Will Reverberate Around the World

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In addition to the three, escaped Israeli hostages, the IDF is also responsible for roughly 20% of its own casualties in the “War” in Gaza” through “friendly fire.” Such casualties are a constant of warfare: https://en.wikipedia.org/wikiList_of_friendly_fire_incidents#:~:text=There%20have%20been%20many%20thousands,does%20not%20reflect%20increasing%20frequency.

and are reason 37, 289 why 99% of wars are ill-advised (aka stupid, aka evil). Until there is a ceasefire, there will only be more of these. Until all of the hostages are brought “out from darkness,” there will be more of these.

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The Courage of the Bereaved to continue to seek peace

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The Courage of the Bereaved to continue to seek peace

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FREE webinar

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[WEBINAR] Confronting Grief: Meet the Newly Bereaved - Parents Circle Friends

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Maoz Inon is one of the newest bereaved members of the Parents Circle - Families Forum. Inon's parents were killed on October 7th, 2023 when Hamas attacked Israel. Mohamed Abu Jafar, a Palestinian member of the Parents Circle, lost his brother in 2002 when he was killed by Israeli soldiers.

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It was humbling and powerful to hear from Magen Inon, who lost his parents in the Hamas attack on October 7th. In the midst of tremendous pain, Magen continues to call for an end to the bloodshed and for peace rather than revenge.

Combatants for Peace activist Ahmed Helou has currently lost over 50 loved ones  as a result of the Israeli bombardment on Gaza. With great courage, Ahmed spoke of the value of every human life and called for nonviolence and an end to the occupation.

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American Friends of Combatants For Peace

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Courage in the Unknown: Exploring New Possibilities

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The Israeli army has dropped the restraint in Gaza, and data shows unprecedented killing

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“The Gazans who will emerge from the ruins of their homes and the loss of their families will seek revenge that no security arrangements will be able to withstand”

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The IDF chief of staff recently boasted of the army's precise munitions and its ability to reduce harm to noncombatants. But the data shows that in the war on Hamas that principle has been abandoned

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After the expressions of international solidarity with Israel faded out, growing criticism began to be heard about the scale of the killing of innocent civilians in the Gaza Strip by the Israel Defense Forces. Prominent in this regard was The New York Times, which on November 25 published the findings of a comprehensive investigation in which it maintained that the rate at which civilians were being killed in Gaza is higher than it was in the controversial offensives of the United States in Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria. However, besides arguing that the assault on Gaza is extremely intense, the Times did not provide any valid comparative findings that might shed light on the intensity question.

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Paid by Attorney Rakefet Shfaim

Paid by Attorney Rakefet Shfaim

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The Israeli army has dropped the restraint in Gaza, and data shows unprecedented killing

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The IDF Chief of Staff Recently Boasted of the Army's Precise Munitions and Its Ability to Reduce Harm to Noncombatants. But the Data Shows That in the War on Hamas That Principle Has Been Abandoned

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The "New Antisemitism" and the Logic of Whiteness | Los Angeles Review of Books

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this is not your grandparents' suffering. European antisemitism was based on race; this is a different thing.

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AS I'VE WATCHED many Jewish people on college and university campuses react to others' reactions to Hamas's massacre on October 7 and Israel's siege and bombardment of Gaza, I keep coming back to James Baldwin. Specifically, his short essay, originally published in Essence, entitled "On Being White ... and Other Lies," and his 1967 New York Times essay "Negroes Are Anti-Semitic Because They're Anti-White." Baldwin's claim in the former essay is stark and resonating: the Jewish community in the United States "came here from countries where they were not white, and they came here, in part, because they were not white," but American Jews have "opted to become white" by embracing the subjugation of Black people. Whiteness is not a phenotype or ethnicity but a position, a status, a membership. Numerous immigrant groups, in Baldwin's telling, have become white by assuming this status (his examples include the Irish and the Norwegians), but because Jews were not white in Europe, and were not even white in the United States for a time, they have "paid the highest and most extraordinary price for becoming white." To bowdlerize Baldwin's point: Jews' whiteness is contingent, perhaps uniquely so.

Baldwin's essays are rich and challenging texts that I am not equipped to fully unpack. But as an American Jew who spent a decade engaged in political activism on various university campuses, and as an employee of a large nonprofit that has largely embraced the anti-racism canon that emerged following the murder of George Floyd in the summer of 2020, I believe that they provide insight into the current struggle over claims of antisemitism in the academy and other "liberal" spaces. News coverage and social media posts have described broad pro-Palestinian feeling on US college campuses in the days following October 7, which has crystallized in various missives and marches. Many of these-according to media reports-took on the character of outright celebration of Hamas's "victory," with explicitly anti-Israeli statements made at a louder volume and among a wider swath of students and faculty than most campuses had seen before. This in turn prompted many professors and students to complain about an atmosphere of antisemitism on campus, with many Jews claiming to feel unsafe due to what they saw as a celebration of the murder of Jews (the dozens of Thai farmworkers and Bedouin who were kidnapped and killed by Hamas being inconvenient for both sides of the narrative).

Ironically, the claim that Jews on campus feel unsafe (physically or psychologically is never quite made clear) is being advanced at the same moment when the US government is deploying billions of dollars worth of weapons in an ostensible effort to maximize the physical safety of Israelis and making repeated statements intended to assuage the psychological suffering of American Jews. The response among many of those who oppose the Israeli state (Jewish and not) has been to ridicule these fears or to accuse those articulating them of playing the victim in order to gin up more support for the bombing of Gaza.

What Baldwin helps me to see is that something complicated and unarticulated is happening in the campus protests. I think what many Jews on campus are in fact reacting to is the perception that, among white progressive, liberal, or left-wing students and professors, support for the Palestinian cause has become not just canonical but of high salience today. These white students and (largely junior) faculty have spent the last few years suffused in a particular anti-racism curriculum that, in its most popular incarnation within colleges and other liberal, elite institutions, takes a Manichean view of race and racism. As should be clear from the fact that I began with Baldwin, I could not disagree more with the politicians who caricature these DEI efforts as being aimed solely at emotionally browbeating white students and who are seeking, in response, to ban the teaching of history outright. But these critiques are also not entirely baseless: the currently dominant anti-racism curriculum does tend to produce a sense of guilt in white students as its primary affective response and, in some of its theoretically sloppier incarnations, seems aimed primarily at doing so.

In this context, the Israel-Palestinian conflict represents an opportunity for tremendous psychological release. Yes, white Americans are implicated in the annihilation of Gaza through US military support for Israel, but they are not personally implicated in this instantiation of white-supremacist settler colonialism, as they are in US anti-Black racism, through privilege and microaggressions and national original sin. On this view, Jews in Palestine, by contrast, are the agents of (first British, now American) empire-they are whiteness concentrated. This ignores, of course, the actual ethnic and racial diversity (and intra-Jewish discrimination) of Israeli society, which is hugely important for understanding the original Zionist project and the history of Israel. But for these non-Jewish white students, Israel presents a way to condemn whiteness without implicating oneself, to support anti-racist ideology in a way that doesn't lead to shame and self-abnegation.

The sense of celebration some saw in the post-October 7 protests was not only originating from those who were personally-historically, familially-invested in freeing themselves and their loved ones from Israeli oppression, and who thus saw in Hamas's attack the possibility of military victory. Muslim, Arab, and anti-Israeli-government Jewish groups have been fighting for Palestinian liberation for a long time; I heard the phrase "from the river to the sea" many times on campus before this month, and no doubt most of those speaking out about unprecedented antisemitism had too. It is, rather, the fact that the white Left on campus is now shouting it that makes some mostly if not exclusively white Jews on campus-and in other places dominated, explicitly or otherwise, by a white Left-feel unsafe.

This feeling is, I suspect, the unconscious recognition that American Jews' contingent whiteness may be threatened if "the Jewish state" becomes a means by which other white people can disavow their own complicity in European colonialism. The relationship of leftist activists to their own whiteness is informing both the size and the tenor of the current wave of anti-Israeli campus protests, and inasmuch as this aspect forces into the open the lack of racial identification between white Americans and (Ashkenazi) American Jews, it threatens the success of assimilation and the accrual of white privilege for those American Jews. To put it another way: Many American Jews are not afraid of Hamas sympathizers in their dorms (though this may be what they claim to fear)-they are afraid of losing the status their parents and grandparents won in the diaspora, and the current anti-Israel protests suggest that that status may not be as secure as they had once thought. This fear is not irrational; losing the protection of whiteness is no small thing for people who may have grandparents or great-grandparents who survived the camps. But whiteness also, as Baldwin explained, comes at an enormous moral cost.

Those decrying the "new antisemitism" in colleges and other progressive spaces are therefore not entirely wrong when they attempt to articulate the presence of something ugly in the current campus protests. But what they are sensing is the product of young people working through their own discomfort with whiteness, and it would be a mistake for Jews, in response, to double down on their own. The current wave of pro-Palestinian sentiment on college campuses has to be understood in the context of the last three years of US anti-racist organizing and discourse-and the claims of a "climate of fear" for Jews on campus as a reaction, however subconscious, to facing the perceived loss of racial privilege.

That this fear reaction is especially intense in relation to flagging support for Israel is telling, since Israel presents, for many American Jews, a place where they can be white. What else can it mean for American Jews to support the existence of the state of Israel specifically as a guarantor of Jews' safety, at the same time that they point to its vulnerability to military incursion and terrorism from its neighbors as justification for billions in American military subsidies? If the United States turned on "the Jewish people," in what way would Israel-meant to be a hedge against discrimination or worse in the diaspora-offer safety? And why would so many people talk about an "unprecedented" wave of antisemitism in the US with so little, if any, acknowledgment that 11 American Jews were murdered in a Pittsburgh synagogue almost exactly five years ago? The psychological investment in US support for Israel among American Jews is, I think, a subconscious desire that Jews should be recognized as a people with a place, as one of the hyphenated communities Baldwin describes (the Irish-Americans, Norwegian-Americans, etc.), a people who have chosen the United States and thus whiteness. It is also, in a devastating historical irony, a desire to be folded into the ethnonationalist logic for which central European Jews were a "problem" in the first half of the 20th century, and to which the "solution" was annihilation.

The conflation of whiteness and safety, among those writing op-eds and Twitter threads and emails and petitions seeking the protection of white institutions by demanding official condemnation of pro-Palestinian protests and vindication of Israeli military actions, may in this light appear as more understandable and deserving of some sympathy, but it is still a profound mistake. Not only is the effort to reaffirm one's own whiteness an immoral choice, to use Baldwin's framing, but it is also one that, I fear, will have long-lasting and ruinous consequences for the Jewish diaspora. What I hope is that liberal American Jews who now sense the contingency of their belonging, not among MAGA Republicans but within their own progressive communities, and who simultaneously are confronted with the monstrous actions of the Israeli state in Gaza, may see this as a watershed to break with ethnonationalism altogether. Perhaps in this "unprecedented" moment there lies an opportunity for American Jews to embrace a return to universalism as a fundamental Jewish principle and to relinquish, in the United States as in Palestine, the poisoned gift of whiteness.

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Featured image: [Man with horse standing near the Dead Sea], ca. 1890-1900. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division. loc.gov, CC0. Accessed November 27, 2023.

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The "New Antisemitism" and the Logic of Whiteness | Los Angeles Review of Books

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Megan Wachspress argues that the relationship of leftist activists to their own whiteness is shaping the current wave of anti-Israeli campus protests....

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Free Lecture at Portland State University

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Free Lecture at Portland State University

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Held in person only at University Place Hotel 310 SW Lincoln St., Portland

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Neo-Nazis salute Hitler during Wisconsin march that stopped at local synagogue building - Jewish Telegraphic Agency

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the war between Israel and Hamas has led some U.S. Jews to assert that Israel is the "least safe" place for Jews, counter to the Jewish state's assertion that it is a haven for all Jews. Yet how safe really are Jews elsewhere? and how would their situation change if there was no State of Israel?

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Neo-Nazis salute Hitler during Wisconsin march that stopped at local synagogue building - Jewish Telegraphic Agency

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Members of the Blood Tribe white supremacist group shouted, “Israel is not your friend.”

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This is the first plan I’ve encountered that makes sense to me. Am I missing something? What do others think?

Bob Lowe (Robert.A.Lowe.pdx@gmail.com)

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/14/opinion/israel-war-biden.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare

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A Palestinian perspective in this NY Times oped 

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A Palestinian perspective in this NY Times oped 

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https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/14/opinion/israel-gaza-war-history.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare

Bob Lowe

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I found this article sobering and as a call to action. This Israeli American historian of genocide discusses the definition, applies it to Israel's actions in Gaza and concludes, "There is still time to stop Israel from letting its actions become a genocide. We cannot wait a moment longer."

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Opinion | What I Believe as a Historian of Genocide

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We know from history that it is crucial to warn of the potential for genocide beforehand rather than condemn it afterward. We still have that time.

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I’m pasting an email from the listserve of another Jewish community (P’nai Or of Philadelphia); I hope others find it as beautiful as I did.

Bob Lowe (Robert.A.Lowe.pdx@gmail.com)

==================================

Although I generally avoid posting lengthy pieces, when I heard the poem below read last night on a Zoom about the Israel-Palestine crisis, I decided to make an exception. It is by a Palestinian poet from the Galilee in Israel, Taha Muhammad Ali (1931-2011), of whom I knew nothing until then.

You can read more about the poet on the Poetry Foundation website. There is also a 2006 YouTube video available, in which Ali reads the poem in its original Arabic and translator Peter Cole reads the English. (Finally for now, if anyone was on Thursday night's Zoom call with me and 400-450 others, I apologize for the duplication.)

Witn a heart continually breaking,

Natalie

------------------------------------

Revenge

At times ... I wish
I could meet in a duel
the man who killed my father
and razed our home,
expelling me
into
a narrow country.
And if he killed me,
I'd rest at last,
and if I were ready—
I would take my revenge!

But if it came to light,
when my rival appeared,
that he had a mother
waiting for him,
or a father who'd put
his right hand over
the heart's place in his chest
whenever his son was late
even by just a quarter-hour
for a meeting they'd set—
then I would not kill him,
even if I could.

Likewise ... I
would not murder him
if it were soon made clear
that he had a brother or sisters
who loved him and constantly longed to see him.
Or if he had a wife to greet him
and children who
couldn't bear his absence
and whom his gifts would thrill.
Or if he had
friends or companions,
neighbours he knew
or allies from prison
or a hospital room,
or classmates from his school ...
asking about him
and sending him regards.

But if he turned
out to be on his own—
cut off like a branch from a tree—
without a mother or father,
with neither a brother nor sister,
wifeless, without a child,
and without kin or neighbours or friends,
colleagues or companions,
then I'd add not a thing to his pain
within that aloneness—
not the torment of death,
and not the sorrow of passing away.
Instead I'd be content
to ignore him when I passed him by
on the street—as I
convinced myself
that paying him no attention
in itself was a kind of revenge.

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Will the hard right solidify power? or will the bravery of those persecuted by the Netanyahu government open the door for their leadership?

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A good description of the place many of us find ourselves in if we feel for the pain even of those beyond the boundaries of our tribe; and some important context to help put feelings in perspective.

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A good academic book on antisemitism on the left written by leftist scholars

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A good academic book on antisemitism on the left written by leftist scholars

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The Jewish experience offers an equivocal test case. Universalism has stimulated the struggle for Jewish emancipation, but it has also helped to develop the idea that there is something peculiarly harmful to humanity about Jews - that there is a 'Jewish question' that needs to be 'solved'. This original and stimulating book traces struggles within the Enlightenment, Marxism, critical theory and the contemporary left, seeking to rescue universalism from its repressive, antisemitic undertones.

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Antisemitism and the left: On the return of the Jewish question

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Antisemitism and the left: On the return of the Jewish question [Fine, Robert, Spencer, Philip] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. Antisemitism and the left: On the return of the Jewish question

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A good book on antisemitism on the left written by a British socialist

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A good book on antisemitism on the left written by a British socialist

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Putting our best book forward

Each Great on Kindle book offers a great reading experience, at a better value than print to keep your wallet happy.

Explore your book, then jump right back to where you left off with Page Flip.

View high quality images that let you zoom in to take a closer look.

Enjoy features only possible in digital - start reading right away, carry your library with you, adjust the font, create shareable notes and highlights, and more.

Discover additional details about the events, people, and places in your book, with Wikipedia integration.

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Written from a socialist perspective, Randall's book takes the question of left-wing antisemitism seriously and confronts its threat from an anti-racist, revolutionary and liberatory perspective.

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How October 7 has changed us all - and what it signals for our struggle

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It can be hard to recognize a historic moment while living through it, but this time in Israel-Palestine, it’s plain for all to see. Here’s what we know, and what we can surmise, one month on.

By

Haggai Matar executive director of +972 Magazine

November 8, 2023

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It can be hard to recognize a historic moment while living through it, but this time in Israel-Palestine, it's plain for all to see. Here's what we know, and what we can surmise, one month on.

It has been one month since October 7. The lives of millions of Israelis and Palestinians have been upended by the massacres Hamas committed in Israel that day, and the subsequent and ongoing massacres Israel is committing with its large-scale assault on the Gaza Strip. It can sometimes be difficult to recognize a historic moment as you are living through it, but this time it is plain to see: the power balance has changed between Israelis and Palestinians, and will change the course of events from here on.

One month into the war is a good time to take stock of what we know has happened to Israelis, to Palestinians, and to the left in this country - and to make some careful assessments about what is to come.

Hamas' massacres in Israel

The carnage was brutal. Hundreds of unarmed partygoers were slain, including some Palestinian citizens who were there as first responders, drivers, and workers. Entire families were butchered in their homes, with some survivors witnessing the murder of their parents or children. In some communities , as many as one in four residents were either killed or abducted. Thai and Nepali agricultural workers, as well as Filipino care workers, were also , with Hamas militants shooting them and in at least one case throwing into a shack where they were hiding.

This feeling has been exacerbated by the winds of regional war and attacks by Hezbollah against Israeli soldiers and civilians in northern Israel, to which Israel has responded with its own artillery and drone strikes in Lebanon, killing combatants and civilians. This additional front has deepened our existential dread and the feeling that we, Israelis and Palestinians, are but pawns in wider regional and global struggles (and not for the first time).

The collapse of our sense of security came hand in hand with the realization that the entire Israeli state is, in fact, nothing more than a hologram. The army, rescue services, the welfare services, and more have all been dysfunctional. This has left Israeli survivors, the internally displaced, and the families of the hostages without anyone to turn to, pressing civil society to step in to fill the void where the government should have been. Years of political corruption have left us with an empty shell of a state, and with no leadership to speak of. For Israelis, no matter how we come out on the other side of the war, we want to make sure that nothing like October 7 can ever happen again.

Israel's massacres in Gaza

While failing on every other front, and before even regaining control of all the Hamas-occupied areas in the south on October 7, the Israeli army immediately went about doing what it knows best: pummeling Gaza. The justified , pain, shock, and anger translated into yet another unjustifiable military assault and campaign of collective punishment against the defenseless 2.3 million residents of the world's largest open-air prison - the worst we have ever seen.

The relentless aerial bombardment, both in the north and in the supposedly "safe" south , has so far killed over 10,000 Palestinians in just one month - by far the highest rate of deaths that this conflict has ever seen. Most of these are civilians, among them over 4,000 children. Hundreds of families have been wiped out, including those of two past +972 contributors - one of whom was himself killed , another who survived but lost five members of his family. One of our colleagues from "We Beyond the Fence," a project dedicated to sharing Palestinian stories from Gaza with Israelis and the world, lost 20 family members .

This does not include the hundreds or perhaps thousands of bodies, dead or alive, buried under the rubble, which no one can even begin to dig through. Palestinian residents are describing the stench of death taking over what remains of some destroyed neighborhoods. While we Israelis have rocket sirens, Iron Dome interceptors, and shelters, the people of Gaza have none of these, and no way to protect themselves against the rain of bombs dropped on all parts of the besieged enclave.

Western governments have so far given Israel a free hand to commit these atrocities, showing a consistent double standard between the value of Israeli lives and Palestinian lives - which is part of what brought us to this situation in the first place. We are seeing no remorse for the role these actors have played in silencing and sidelining Palestinians and their allies over the years, and closing all diplomatic and nonviolent avenues for their liberation - from boycotts, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) to appealing to the UN Security Council for intervention.

The more official line is that Israel is "only" trying to topple Hamas. But we know from experience that there is no military solution to the threat Israelis see in Hamas, and that decades of Israeli attempts to pick and choose a "convenient" Palestinian leadership have always failed. The only way to stop Palestinians from rising up against their oppressors is for Israel to stop that oppression and denial of their rights. It is justice, security, and a decent future for all of us, or for none of us.

Expulsions in the West Bank, persecution inside Israel

The war being waged against Palestinians is not limited to Gaza. In the occupied West Bank, , , and an increasing number of joint militias - where the two become indistinguishable - have significantly increased their campaign of ethnic cleansing in Area C, the 60 percent of the occupied territory where Israeli settlements are located and where the army holds full control. At least 15 Palestinian communities have been entirely uprooted over the past month, and several more are experiencing greater threats with no one to defend them. Settlers and government officials are working to expand the territory directly controlled by settlements, which would mean pushing out even more Palestinians living in those areas.

According to the UN, at least 155 Palestinians have been killed by soldiers or settlers in the West Bank since October 7. Farmers are being prevented from picking their olives in the annual season when they are ready to be harvested, and in some cases even have to watch settlers steal their olives right in front of them. The Israeli army has arrested over 1,000 Palestinians on allegations of connections to Hamas, and thousands of Palestinian laborers from Gaza, who had permits to work in Israel or the West Bank, were put in internment camps under severe conditions before being back to Gaza late last week.

In Jerusalem, Israeli police are stopping random Palestinians on the street to for "incitement." The police also announced they will forbid all protests calling for a ceasefire - a rule it has thus far enforced almost exclusively against Palestinian citizens, and which has been check their social media feeds upheld by the High Court in response to a petition. "Anyone who wishes to identify with Gaza is welcome to. I will put him on the buses that are heading there now," declared Israeli police chief Kobi Shabtai.

In several Israeli cities, workplaces employing Palestinian citizens have shut down entirely, or told those workers not to show up for work, or placed special guards around the work sites to "protect" the surrounding Jewish community. Violent right-wing mobs attacked Arab students on two campuses and workers in several businesses, as well as the home of the leftist ultra-Orthodox Jewish journalist Israel Frey ; only four of the hundreds of assailants in these different incidents have been detained. Meanwhile, the Kahanist National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir has been giving out thousands of assault rifles to newly formed civilian security teams in dozens of cities and settlements, some of them manned by known right-wing extremists .

There are some truly inspiring initiatives of Jewish and Palestinian citizens working together, protecting each other, signing shared petitions, or volunteering together for victims - but unfortunately these are small rays of light in an otherwise dark storm.

A shattered left

The initial, understandable shock - which I too share - has been intensified by a feeling of disappointment at what they experienced as a lack of solidarity from Palestinian leaders, friends, and colleagues in the face of this horror. Truly worrying broader trends of either the denial or justification of the massacres in certain Palestinian circles and in the global left, have led some to start demanding that their friends denounce Hamas and pronounce their commitment to the right of Jews to live on this land, as proof of mutual solidarity and allyship.

At the same time, some of those Israelis have been justifying the attack on Gaza. Many are acknowledging that there is no military solution in the long run, and are stressing that they wish no harm to Palestinian civilians, but are insisting that "there is no choice but to topple that regime." While some may still reject settler attacks in the West Bank, they do not seem concerned with the persecution of Palestinian citizens, which is being justified by the same rationale against former friends and allies.

On the Palestinian side, many are opting for complete silence, in great part out of fear that any statement they make could and likely would be used against them. Any show of grief for the massacres of October 7 is manipulated by Israelis to justify the horrors it is bringing upon Gaza, and any sign of care for Gazans is interpreted by much of the Jewish majority, including by employers and the police, as treason and collusion with the enemy.

Of the Palestinians who are daring to make public statements, some are trying to walk a fine line between recognizing the right of an occupied people to resist with force but centering on state or military targets, thus justifying the "first phase" of the October 7 attack while rejecting the ensuing massacres of civilians. Others are either looking for ways to deny that the massacres took place - for example, by latching onto conspiracy theories about the Israeli army having actually killed civilians while attempting to rescue them or prevent their abduction (which may have happened in some cases, but in far smaller numbers than is being implied) - or are justifying it by saying that decolonization is "messy" and "ugly" because it reverses the original brutal oppression it is fighting.

These trends flourish in two communities that are caught up in very real grief, fear, and anxiety, both drawing on collective past traumas - the Holocaust and the Nakba - whose memories are being revived by genocidal rhetoric from leaders in Hamas and the Israeli government - and, in the Palestinian case, by actual expulsions and the discussion of plans for even more displacement. Needless to say, by each side retreating to the warmth and protection of its national or ethnic group, they are also unwittingly reaffirming the fears and disappointments of the other, creating a destructive dynamic of escalating mistrust and despair.

Horizons ahead

It is also impossible to assess the scope of the new age that will begin after this war. There is no telling who will govern Gaza - Hamas, the Palestinian Authority, an international force, or Israel itself. The magnitude of rehabilitation efforts needed in Gaza is unimaginable. There will also be a need to rebuild the Israeli communities destroyed or evacuated in the south and the north.

Two changes seem very clear to me at this point: the end of the Netanyahu era, and the end of the dominance of the "conflict management" discourse in Israeli society, giving way to a renewed public discussion on the future of Jewish-Arab relations.

Netanyahu is finished. I know this has been said many times before, and this leader has shown incredible survival abilities, but with what has happened in the past month, we are beyond that point. All polls since October 7 show that the vast majority of Israelis, including a considerable majority within his Likud party, believe he is to blame for Israel's military defeat at the hands of Hamas, and that he has to go. Some of his allies in the media and in government are already turning on him, preparing for the day after.

This is one more reason that Netanyahu is so dangerous right now, believing - rightly, as things stand - that as long as the war goes on, no one will bother with the politics of replacing a prime minister. He may still find that even Israelis have a limit, and either before or after the war ends, in one way or another, he will be ousted.

Throughout his near-continuous rein since 2009, this perception won the hearts and minds of Israelis, and the question of "what to do with Palestinians" - which used to be the main fault line of Israeli politics - has been removed from the agenda almost entirely, contributing to the hubris that led the army to drop its guard around Gaza. Last month, Hamas decimated that notion for years and maybe decades to come.

In the next Israeli elections, whenever they are held, we are likely to see a reorganizing of the political map, potentially creating three distinct blocs. It is too early to say how much traction each of these camps will have, but here is what they could look like.

The first is of course the far right, which has already been gaining traction since 2021, and which will try to capitalize on recent events. Led by the likes of Itamar Ben Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, probably joined by some from Likud, this camp will say that no matter how this war will end, it just wasn't enough. Israel, they'll argue, needs a definitive solution based on large-scale ethnic cleansing, because, in their eyes, the entire land belongs to us and there is no room for the Palestinian people to stay here as a collective.

A second approach, probably led by Benny Gantz and Yair Lapid, will likely center on unilateral steps, such as a "second disengagement" from the West Bank, pulling down settlements east of the separation barrier, annexing the rest, and fortifying the walls encaging Palestinians in both the West Bank and Gaza with more concrete, more tech, and more soldiers than ever before. Part of this approach may also include the "mowing the lawn" strategy - essentially, periodically recurring military campaigns - to prevent Palestinians from developing significant armed capabilities.

The third camp is likely to be a reconfiguration of what used to be Labor, Meretz, and parts of Yesh Atid, in which a key role may be played by the newfound hero of the Zionist center-left: former Meretz MK and army general Yair Golan, who spent October 7 as a volunteer one-man commando unit, going in and out of fighting arenas with his gun and private car, rescuing survivors under fire. This camp will likely propose a return to the two-state separation paradigm, to be achieved through negotiations with the PLO. It may also try to advance some discourse of coexistence within Israel, promoting different forms of Arab-Jewish partnership in civilian life.

Moreover, the knowledge that the Israeli army had redeployed forces from the Gaza fence to guard extremist settlers in remote West Bank outposts in recent months, which may have paved the way for the success of Hamas' military operation on October 7, has strengthened hatred and resentment of these settlers. That said, Israeli hatred toward Palestinians has skyrocketed far more, and the remote possibility of a one-state or confederate solution being accepted by Israelis has further shrunk.

Forward into the unknown

This is a grim and trying time for those of us who are committed to opposing apartheid and promoting a solution grounded in justice and equality for all. On the one hand, achievements hard won over decades of shared struggle have been erased by Hamas' massacres, and will be hard to regain. Our movement is in disarray, and despair abounds. Thousands of lives have been lost, thousands more still may perish, and the collective traumas we carry are intensifying by the day.

But the new reality will require some realignments. Alongside our commitment to the full realization of all Palestinians' rights, our progressive, anti-apartheid movement will have to be explicit about the collective rights of Jews in this land, and to ensure that their security is guaranteed in whatever solution is found. We will have to contend with Hamas and its place in this new reality, ensuring it can no longer commit such attacks on Israelis, just as we insist on the security of Palestinians and their protection from Israeli military and settler aggression. Without this, it will be impossible to move forward.

Until then, there are two extremely urgent calls upon which to center our efforts right now: freeing civilian hostages, and an immediate ceasefire. Now.

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How October 7 has changed us all - and what it signals for our struggle

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It can be hard to recognize a historic moment while living through it, but this time in Israel-Palestine, it's plain for all to see. Here's what we know, and what we can surmise, one month on.

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J Street is an American Jewish organization that exists to lobby the U.S. government on issues of importance to the Jewish community, first and foremost the relationship of the U.S. Jewish community to the State of Israel.

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a few words from the Israeli writer Etgar Karet

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Since October 7, I haven't really been able to write. For me, writing is a state in which you briefly release the suffocating grip of rationality and let your guts speak, but ever since this war broke out, my guts aren't saying anything. It's not that I don't feel: I feel too much, all the time. But the things I'm feeling - whether sorrow or fury or loneliness - don't lead anywhere. And when your gut goes silent, nothing meaningful can be written, at least not the way I write. My head is full of raw emotion and bits of information, things I need to remember so that I can say them to the next person who tells me Hamas is a legitimate resistance organization, or the next person who tells me that all Palestinians in Gaza are Hamas supporters and are therefore legitimate targets. My mind contains a lot of good answers to bad questions, and some fragmentary memories from my upsetting meetings with children and adults who lost their whole world on October 7-but other than that, not much else.

While desperately searching for an Alphabet-Soup-worthy piece of writing, I came across the first op-ed I ever wrote for a U.S. outlet. It was 22 years ago, during the Second Intifada. The nice editor of the weekly magazine's culture section explained that readers were very interested in the Middle East, especially since 9/11, but knew almost nothing about the region. "It would be great," he suggested, "if you could explain to our readers a little about the history of the conflict, the current geopolitical and human realities, and maybe some reflection on the future of the conflict and possible solutions. Oh, and if possible, we'd be happy if you could do it in 600 words or less."

It was a rare opportunity to publish something in a U.S. magazine, and I seized it with both hands. Over two decades have gone by, and the Middle East has only grown messier. Hamas, now a proxy for Iran, has become even more radical; Israel has imposed a blockade on the Gaza Strip, essentially turning it into a giant prison; the cycles of violence have grown ever more vicious. But amid this deterioration, one thing remains constant: the world still longs to understand the hellish chaos in my part of the world, and I'm still here to try and explain our unfathomable reality as best I can-if possible, in 600 words or less.

My mother says I'll never be able to understand what it's like for a nation to be without a country. Now, my mom, she really knows what she's talking about. After all, she went through the Holocaust, saw her home destroyed in Poland, lost her mom and dad and little brother and finally ended up here, in the land of Israel, her country, the land she swore she would never leave.

My Palestinian friend Ghassan says I'll never be able to understand what it's like for a nation to live under occupation. No, he didn't go through the Holocaust, and his whole family is alive, thank God, at least for the time being. But he's had it up to here with the Israeli soldiers at the border checkpoint. "Sometimes you make it through the roadblock in a second or two, but sometimes, when they're bored, they can make you feel like life isn't worth living. They force you to wait for hours in the sun for no reason, to humiliate you. Just last week, they confiscated two packs of Kent Longs from me, simply because they felt like it. An 18-year-old kid with a rifle in his hand and a face full of zits just came and took them."

Adina, the neighbor from downstairs, says that I'll never be able to understand what it's like to lose a loved one in a suicide bombing. "No death can be more meaningless than that," she says. "My brother died for two reasons -- because he was Israeli and because he felt like having an espresso in the middle of the night. If you can think of any dumber reasons for dying, let me know. And there isn't even anyone to get mad at. After all, the guy that killed him is already dead himself, blown to pieces."

My mother says that we have no other place to go, that no matter where we go, we'll always be strangers, hated, Jews. Ghassan says that my country, the state of Israel, is an alien and strange entity and that there is nothing like it anywhere else in the world. There it is, in the middle of the Middle East, pretending to be in the heart of Europe, participating in the Eurovision song contest every year, making sure to send a soccer team to the European cup games, and it just doesn't get that it's located in the heart of the desert, surrounded by a Middle Eastern mentality that it refuses to acknowledge. Adina says we're living on borrowed time, that every time she sees the Palestinian children going wild with joy and handing out candy after every terror attack, she thinks about how these children are going to grow up. So I should stop all that nonsense about peace.

And if there is one thing that my mother, Ghassan and Adina have in common, it's that they are all certain, absolutely certain, that I simply can't understand what's going on in their heads.

But I'm actually pretty good at figuring out what's going on in other people's heads, sometimes, especially when times are bad. I even manage to make a living at it. All kinds of foreign publications call me and ask me to explain, if possible in 600 words or less, what people in Israel are thinking.

It's just a shame that I can't invent new thoughts for them, too -- ones that are a little less afraid, a little less hateful. Thoughts more positive, optimistic, compact, no more than 600 words.
This piece was first published by LA Weekly on December 07, 2001
Translated by Ruchi Avital

Intro translated by Jessica Cohen

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The more things change, the more they stay the same | Non-Fiction | Canned Soup

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As the Israeli-Palestinian conflict enters its darkest chapter in decades, both sides are evoking the same foundational moment in their past: the events of 1948.
David K. Shipler, a former Jerusalem bureau chief for The New York Times and the author of a Pulitzer Prize-winning book about the conflict, discusses the meaning and reality of what happened that year.
Guest: David K. Shipler, author of “Arab and Jew: Wounded Spirits in a Promised Land.”

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As the Israeli-Palestinian conflict enters its darkest chapter in decades, both sides are evoking the same foundational moment in their past: the events of 1948.

David K. Shipler, a former Jerusalem bureau chief for The New York Times and the author of a Pulitzer Prize-winning book about the conflict, discusses the meaning and reality of what happened that year.

Guest: David K. Shipler, author of "Arab and Jew: Wounded Spirits in a Promised Land."

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As the Israeli-Palestinian conflict enters its darkest chapter in decades, both sides are evoking the same foundational moment in their past: the events of 1948. David K. Shipler, a former Jerusalem bureau chief for The New York Times and the author of a Pulitzer Prize-winning book about the confli...

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On Friday, October 20, 2023 (8:00pm Jerusalem | 1:00pm New York) the Combatants for Peace and American Friends of Combatants for Peace community gathered for a talk on Holding on to Humanity & Hope. This conversation was led by two Palestinian activists, Mai Shahin and Jamil Qassas, and two Israeli activists, Ayala Shalev and Chen Alon, from Combatants for Peace. The discussion was moderated by two AFCFP board members, Aziz Abu Sarah and Gili Getz.

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American Friends of Combatants For Peace

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Holding on to Humanity & Hope - Combatants for Peace

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On Sunday, October 29, 2023 (9:00pm Jerusalem | 3:00pm New York) the Combatants for Peace and American Friends of Combatants for Peace community gathered for "Solidarity: A Path to Liberation". This conversation was led by two Palestinian activists, Rana Salman and Souli Khatib, and two Israeli activists, Eszter Koranyi and Avner Wishnitzer. The discussion was moderated by the Director and Producer of "Disturbing the Peace," Stephen Apkon, and A'ida Shibli, Palestinian Bedouin activist and co-worker at the Tamera biotope in Portugal.

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American Friends of Combatants For Peace

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Solidarity: A Path to Liberation - Combatants for Peace

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Perspective of Long-time activist for improving Palestinian & Israeli Jewish relations  

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Perspective of Long-time activist for improving Palestinian & Israeli Jewish relations  

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https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/10/hamas-obstacle-peace-gaza-ground-offensive/675743/

Interesting viewpoint.

Michelle Berlin-Lowe

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Yuval Noah Harari backs critique of leftist 'indifference' to Hamas atrocities

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the left's antisemitism grows out of ethical indifference

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the left's antisemitism grows out of ethical indifference

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“there is no contradiction between staunchly opposing the Israeli subjugation and occupation of Palestinians and unequivocally condemning brutal acts of violence against innocent civilians. In fact, every consistent leftist must hold both positions simultaneously.”

it's not ethical rocket science, but it seems to be beyond many people to allow that Israelis are also human beings.

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The Israeli historian Yuval Noah Harari has backed academics and peace activists in his home country in an attack on the "indifference" of some American and European progressives to Hamas atrocities, accusing them of "extreme moral insensitivity" and betraying leftwing politics.

Harari - the author of bestselling books including Sapiens and Homo Deus - joined 90 signatories of a statement expressing dismay with "elements within the global left ... until now, our political partners" who had, on occasion, "justified Hamas's actions".

The 47-year-old, who has recently become a high-profile political activist in Israel, opposing Benjamin Netanyahu's rightwing populist coalition and its plan to weaken judicial oversight, told the Guardian he intervened after speaking with peace activists in his home country who were "completely devastated" and "feeling abandoned and betrayed by supposed allies" in peace efforts, after academics, artists and intellectuals signed letters which failed to condemn Hamas.

Harari's aunt and uncle lived in one of the kibbutzim targeted by Hamas in attacks that killed more than 1,400 people and saw more than 220 people taken hostage. They had survived after hiding while gunmen went house-to-house killing neighbours.

Speaking about the reaction from parts of the left in the US and Europe while on a visit to London, Harari said it was "shocking to hear some of the responses that did not only not condemn Hamas, but placed all responsibility on Israel" and to see "the lack of solidarity with regard to the horrific attacks on Israeli civilians".

The letter, whose other signatories included the celebrated Israeli novelist David Grossman, said: "We never imagined that individuals on the left, advocates of equality, freedom, justice, and welfare, would reveal such extreme moral insensitivity and political recklessness."

It concluded: "there is no contradiction between staunchly opposing the Israeli subjugation and occupation of Palestinians and unequivocally condemning brutal acts of violence against innocent civilians. In fact, every consistent leftist must hold both positions simultaneously."

Harari cited a statement from 30 Harvard student groups issued the day after the attacks which said it held "the Israeli regime entirely responsible for all unfolding violence". He said this suggested "the people that murdered babies don't even have 1% responsibility, and 100% responsibility is on Israel''.

He pointed to another statement by the Democratic Socialists of America on the day of the attacks which said: "Today's events are a direct result of Israel's apartheid regime."

Giving the historical example of some US and European socialists supporting Stalin, he said: "This is not the first time the radical left, in pursuit of some fixed vision of justice, finds itself aligned with some very brutal movements and regimes."

That approach may be founded in a "belief or fantasy that absolute justice is possible [where] one side is absolutely to blame for everything, including the crimes of the other side".

"[But] reality is complex," he said. "The same people can be victims and perpetrators at the same time. In most conflicts the blame for crimes and atrocities is not shared 100%/0% but somewhere in between. This is quite banal, but still people find it hard to accept this."

The tenor of the response of international leftist groups was important to the left in Israel, he said, because it felt it was the last bastion of hope for a peaceful two-state solution and so needed international support.

He highlighted a letter signed by the actors Tilda Swinton and Steve Coogan and the director Mike Leigh calling for "an end to the unprecedented cruelty being inflicted on Gaza" without specifically condemning the Hamas assault, although it condemned "every act of violence against civilians and every infringement of international law whoever perpetrates them".

"There is not a single word about the massacre [of 7 October]," Harari said.

The actor Maureen Lipman has already criticised the "Artists for Palestine" group, which compiled the letter as "bleeding heartless liberals". She signed a letter with more than 200 others including the TV presenter Rachel Riley, which called on the BBC and "everyone in public life to call out Hamas for what it is: a terrorist organisation".

Last week, the New York Times headlined its website with claims that Israel was behind the bombing of the al-Ahli Arab hospitalin Gaza City. On Monday, the paper conceded it "relied too heavily on claims by Hamas" and editors "should have taken more care ... and been more explicit about what information could be verified".

Harari said that for the people in Israel and Gaza who "have suffered tremendously ... your mind is so full of your own pain that any attempt to even draw your attention to the pain of somebody else feels like a betrayal".

So, he said, "in a moment like this, we entrust the possibility of peace to outsiders".

"We cannot hold it right now, but we hope that outsiders hold it for us and help de-escalate the current situation," he said. "The job of intellectuals, artists and scholars is to try and go deeper. [It is] to try and see the complexity of reality, especially in today's climate of post-truth. It feels intellectually and emotionally lazy to just pick a side."

Harari said he believes "the idea that Israel should just destroy Gaza is unacceptable".

"We don't see a campaign of just obliterating Gaza," he said. "The situation of the Palestinian population is horrific but at least it is clear that Israel is not intending to kill as many civilians as possible. This is not what the Assad regime did in Homs and Aleppo. The only solution will come when not only is Hamas disarmed but the Palestinian people have some kind of alternative future."

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Yuval Noah Harari backs critique of leftist 'indifference' to Hamas atrocities

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Exclusive: Sapiens author among 90 signatories to statement of dismay at 'extreme moral insensitivity'

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Article about Standing Together, one of the organizations Shir Tikvah suggests supporting

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Article about Standing Together, one of the organizations Shir Tikvah suggests supporting

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https://time.com/6327279/israel-peace-movement-hamas-gaza/

Bob Lowe

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Enough with the warlords. There is another way

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Can we dare to envision a different way?

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Can we dare to envision a different way?

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The public’s resignation to the order, “Quiet, war!” and the institutionalized repression of Palestinian citizens does not just spit in the face of the idea of democracy — for which only recently millions took to the streets — but represents a civil rupture from which it will be very difficult to recover, if at all.

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Israel's addictive militarism has convinced us that the next dose of the drug will be the one that fixes things forever. But an alternative path exists.

Since the massacre carried out by Hamas in the Israeli communities surrounding the Gaza Strip on Oct. 7, Israel has been gripped by an appalling desire for revenge. Government ministers, army officials, and members of the public - including many identified with the leftist camp - are openly calling for the obliteration of Gaza and exacting an unprecedented price on its more than 2 million inhabitants. Whenever anyone objects, they are quick to respond defiantly: "What other choice do we have?"

This is not only a legitimate question, but the most important question on the agenda. I would like to propose a very concrete plan for action, even if I know that in the public mood today, it is a weak whistle against the wind.

This proposal for action is based on two fundamental assumptions. The first is that all human lives are of equal value. No one person's blood runs redder than another's, and all the inhabitants of the land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea have an equal right to justice, freedom, and security.

Don't all rush to nod: experience has proven that this basic statement is far from being widely accepted. Those who are ready to agree, without "ifs" and "buts", they, and only they, are my political partners - Palestinians and Israelis alike.

The second assumption is that the continuation of the war and its expansion through a ground invasion of Gaza could lead to a disaster that would dwarf the one we're already experiencing. The tensions in the north with Lebanon and Syria; the tens of thousands taking to the streets in Arab countries, including in neighboring Jordan; the calls by Temple movement activists for masses of Jews to ascend the Temple Mount/Haram al-Sharif; and the deepening of a genocidal mindset among the Israeli public - all of these are a recipe for a disaster on a scale we've never seen before, and from which there may be no more resurrection.

And there is another assumption: repeating the same policy that Israel has been conducting for decades and expecting it to yield a different result is wanton stupidity. It is this policy that is dragging us into the abyss. We have to change it by 180 degrees.

An alternative path

The first imperative deriving from these assumptions is an immediate ceasefire, and the exchange of prisoners and hostages on both sides. It should not be difficult to admit that the massacre Israel is currently unleashing in Gaza has nothing to do with our security. Indeed, for every senior Hamas operative whose name we hear when the army boasts of a successful assassination, another hundred innocent Palestinians are slaughtered.

If this mass killing of innocents seems to anyone to be a legitimate price to pay for the elimination of Hamas members, basic integrity would also require an agreement that Hamas destroy entire neighborhoods around the IDF headquarters in Tel Aviv, located in the heart of the most highly populated city in Israel. If the lives of all human beings are equal, and we accept the killing of innocents in Gaza as part of the "war on Hamas," then the same must be true in return - which, of course, it is not.

At the same time, Israel should commit to lifting the long-standing siege on Gaza, under which it holds more than 2 million people in a pen whose conditions were defined by the United Nations years ago as unfit for human habitation. The criminal blockade never had a security purpose; it serves only as a form of collective punishment inflicted on every single resident of the strip for the crime of "choosing" Hamas - nearly 18 years ago. The task of protecting the country's borders must be carried out from within the country's borders.

But even before doing so, Israel must dismantle the strongholds of Jewish terror in the West Bank, stop the diffusion between the military forces and the settlers, which are already very difficult to tell apart, and provide full protection to the Palestinian residents until the withdrawal of the army from the territories is settled.

And finally, at the same time, Israel's persecution of the Palestinian political sphere must be stopped in order to allow real democratic elections, from which will grow an independent leadership that no longer serves as a subcontractor for Israel's occupation. Real democratic elections and a real process to end the occupation are the most effective way to disarm Hamas both militarily and politically - certainly more than all the bloody "operations" in which the army promised to "eliminate Hamas," until the next one.

No more of the same

In these very days, and under the auspices of the war, the creeping ethnic cleansing that has been taking place in the West Bank for years is gaining alarming speed, and is being implemented with the full cooperation of the army and the settlers. Entire communities have fled, many more communities need the round-the-clock presence of Israeli activists to mediate - not always successfully - between their residents and the deadly arms of the settlers and the army. Those who refuse to understand the current reality in its full context and insist on looking at one fragment of it will not be prepared to deal with its consequences.

The full context of this reality also includes the unrestrained persecution that is now being waged against Palestinian citizens of Israel. This bullying, too, cannot be separated from the familiar Israeli concept of control through oppression. The disgraceful of the police commissioner to send to Gaza any Arab citizen who demonstrates against Israel's assault on the besieged strip should have brought every democracy-seeking citizen to the streets.

I insist on saying that Israel's current logic of action is exactly the same logic that has been leading all of us, Palestinians and Israelis, to wallow in blood for years. Therefore my first answer to the question, "So what should be done now?" is: no more of the same. We must give up this addictive behavior, which has convinced us that the next dose of the drug will be the one that will fix things forever.

Extinguish the flames

To those who see these words as an invitation to an Israeli declaration of defeat, I say: so be it. The notion that we can continue to maintain this bloody conflict, with all its inherent oppression, and not pay a price for it - that has certainly been defeated. Your victories have brought us nothing but bereavement and death, for Israelis and Palestinians alike. I have no interest in the victory you're offering me, because I know that the only way for it to materialize will be in the form of the next graves that we will have to dig.

If defeat means deep contempt for Israel's policy of militarism, which continues to sell us the lies of "security," "eliminating Hamas," or the devil knows what, at the cost of the lives of the hostages and the lives of many more who will be sacrificed on the altar of power, arrogance, and revenge, I now raise the white flag. At any moment I would prefer it to the black flag of those warlords, who have brought us nothing but suffering, hatred, and death.
A version of this article was first published in Hebrew on Local Call. Read it .

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Enough with the warlords. There is another way

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Israel's addictive militarism has convinced us that the next dose of the drug will be the one that fixes things forever. But an alternative path exists.

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Seems particularly pertinent given the webinar we saw a bit of today.
Michelle Berlin-Lowe

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/22/world/middleeast/peace-activists-israel-palestinian.html?unlocked_article_code=1.40w.Vgav.-jWAWoCjurVL&smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare

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This webinar is co-hosted by the founder of Mejdi Tours, the creator of the Israel-Palestine Dual Narrative tour that Shir Tikvah was due to take in November 2023. That trip has been postponed; the learning need not be.

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horrible words to see but this op-ed from Israel's foremost newspaper is important to read.

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Haaretz | Israel News

Analysis |

Security establishment became enamored in the notion that the enemy is deterred ■ Netanyahu nurtured Hamas, and Israelis looked away ■ The years of ignoring the ramifications of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict exacted a heavy, sudden price

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The Coordination and Liaison Office at Erez, on Israel's border with the Gaza Strip, looked quite drowsy on the morning of August 25. It was a Friday, six weeks and a day before Hamas' murderous surprise attack, which ignited the war. The sentry opened the gate slowly; not many soldiers were visible on the base. But the commander of the Gaza Division, Brig. Gen. Avi Rosenfeld, looked and sounded as though a cloud of concern loomed overhead. Asked what lay ahead for Gaza, Rosenfeld, a former commander of Shaldag, an Israel Air Force reconnaissance unit, replied laconically: Things won't get better, at some point they'll get worse.

In the News

Paid by Attorney Rakefet Shfaim

Paid by Attorney Rakefet Shfaim

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Failures leading up to the Hamas attack that changed Israel forever

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Security Establishment Became Enamored in the Notion That the Enemy Is Deterred Netanyahu Nurtured Hamas, and Israelis Looked Away The Years of Ignoring the Ramifications of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict Exacted a Heavy, Sudden Price

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who did it? how? what happened?

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Tuesday, Gaza's health ministry, controlled by Hamas, blamed Israel for an explosion at Al-Ahli Hospital and said hundreds died in an airstrike. That claim led to protests across the region and the cancellation of President Biden's scheduled summit in Jordan. But the U.S. and Israeli Defense Forces say the cause was a Palestinian rocket. Nick Schifrin examines what we know with Marc Garalasco.

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Examining intelligence assessments over who is responsible for Gaza hospital blast

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Tuesday, Gaza's health ministry, controlled by Hamas, blamed Israel for an explosion at Al-Ahli Hospital and said hundreds died in an airstrike. That claim led to protests across the region and the cancellation of President Biden's scheduled summit in Jordan. But the U.S. and Israeli Defense Forces say the cause was a Palestinian rocket.

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There’s a facile version of taking a stand on social media that generates righteous back patting but reduces complex issues to a simple yes or no. Taking simplistic stands can also lead to twisting words. Concern for Palestinians is portrayed as support for Hamas or hatred toward Israel or Jews in general. Anger about Hamas’s deadly attacks on Israeli citizens — or any mention of antisemitism — is portrayed as denigrating the dignity of all Palestinian lives. This kind of thinking is deeply unserious and further fuels hostilities, warping nuanced positions into extremism and mistaking tweet-length expressions of outrage for brave action in the face of atrocity.

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Opinion | I Don’t Have to Post About My Outrage. Neither Do You.

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The pressure to make simplistic declarations about the Israel-Gaza war is not helping anyone.

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Long & worth reading
Michelle Berlin-Lowe

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Twenty-five years ago the Jewish state proclaimed its independence in a part of Palestine. Six months earlier, the General Assembly of the United Nations had recommended its establishment. This act of historic justice strove to fulfill the earlier pledge of the Balfour Declaration and the League of Nations Mandate which gave recognition not only to an immediate Jewish need but also to the principle of a Jewish right to national self-expression. Zionism, as an aspiration, is as old as the Exile. As a political movement it goes back a hundred years. The vision of a Jewish return to the original homeland is far older than the solemn international commitments of 25 and 55 years ago. An independent Jewish state arose as the culmination of a long process of national liberation, which eventually won formal sanction through the moral sense of the community of nations.

In the twenty-fifth year of independence, Israel has ample cause for satisfaction: she has developed from a community of 600,000 at the close of the British Mandate into a technologically advanced, democratic state of three million. She has fulfilled her mission of homeland and refuge by absorbing over a million Jews from every sector of the globe, including half a million refugees from Arab lands as well as hundreds of thousands of survivors of the Nazi holocaust; and while engaged in her enormous constructive tasks she has managed, though vastly outnumbered, to repel concerted assaults by the Arab states on her very life. She has translated a remote dream into solid reality. In all this Israel has brought to fruition the labor of Jewish pioneers who, since the turn of the century, gave their lives to transform a barren and denuded land into fertile fields, flourishing settlements and new patterns of society. In surveying the burgeoning towns of modern Israel, it is easy to forget that the land to which the young settlers came was rich only in historic memories and religious associations. It had neither oil nor abundant natural resources. Its wastes offered no temptation except to Zionist pioneers animated by the twin ideals of a new Jewish society and a reconstructed land.

The renewal of Jewish national independence after centuries of dispersion and persecution is one of the great ethical affirmations of our time. An age-old inequity was at last redressed, not at the expense of another people, but with full regard for the rights of others. For we were not alone in securing independence. In a parallel development, many Arab states were established in the same period and in the same region but in a far more generous expanse. In the huge area liberated by the Allies from Turkish domination we had been accorded a "small notch" which we sought to develop in peace and coöperation with our neighbors. The failure of that hope has been costly to both Arab and Jew, and I shall not pretend that the persistent conflict with the Arabs does not weigh heavily upon us.

Decades of struggle have brought much bloodshed to both. Nothing can be more horrifying than parents burying their children, and I know of families who have lost three generations of their sons in this tragic conflict. We would be happier if we could use all our energy in the more rewarding tasks of reclaiming the deserts and bare hills which still constitute so much of Israel. In Israel, as elsewhere, there are problems of economic deprivation and social maladjustment whose solution would be hastened by peace. But peace still remains elusive. Though the Arab peoples suffer grave ills of poverty and disease, their governments concentrate mainly on the sterile goal of destroying Israel's independence. This fixation torments the Middle East and obstructs its creative destiny.

II

Yet this grim course was not inevitable. The heart of the Zionist faith was the conviction that Jewish independence could be achieved in harmony with Arab national aspirations.

From its inception, Zionism, as a political movement, strove to establish an Arab-Jewish understanding. A great number of attempts had been made before the famous Weizmann-Faisal agreement of January 1919 which welcomed the Jews to Palestine. These were followed by attempts in the 1930s and 1940s. All had one aim in view: to reach an agreement with our Arab neighbors. As late as 1947-48, we tried, in vain, to avert the course of events. In November 1947, shortly before the Partition Resolution was adopted at the United Nations, King Abdullah of Jordan promised me that he would never join the Arab states in a war against us and that after the U.N. Resolution was adopted we would meet to work out ways and means of peace and cooperation between our states. As late as May 10, 1948, just five days before the British were to leave Palestine, I crossed into what was already enemy territory-Jordan-and met the King in Amman. As I drove on the road leading to Amman, I could see the Mafraq camp and the Iraqi troops and guns massing there. At that meeting. King Abdullah did not deny the promise given me in November, but he stated that if we declared ourselves a state and insisted on unlimited Jewish immigration, he would have no choice but to join in a war against us. His alternative was to bring the whole area under his domination and curtail Jewish immigration. That was 25 years ago. Since the achievement of our independence and the conclusion of the Armistice Agreements of 1949, we have left no stone unturned in an endless effort to find avenues of dialogue which might lead to agreement.

Nothing could be more false than the Arab script in which Zionist "aggressors" appeared on the scene to dispossess local Palestinians. Since this accusation still constitutes the burden of the Arab case and provides the rationale for Arab enmity, it cannot be ignored even though the answers, like the charges, are familiar. We cannot assume a guilt we do not feel for sufferings of which we were not the cause.

Let me put it in the simplest terms. When I came to Palestine in 1921 my pioneer generation was neither morally obtuse nor uninformed. We knew there were Arabs in Palestine, just as we knew from our own experience that our labor in malaria-ridden kibbutzim transformed uninhabitable swamps into habitable soil. Far from ignoring the local population, we were sustained by the sincere conviction that our toil created more and better living space for both Arab and Jew. In this belief we were proven right. Between 1922 and 1947, the Arab population of Palestine grew from 670,000 to 1,200,000-a spectacular increase paralleled in no neighboring Arab territory. Thanks to the agricultural and industrial development of the country, Palestine changed from a land of Arab emigration to one of Arab immigration attracted by the higher standards of living and greater opportunities. The supposed Zionist dispossession of Arabs is a myth disproven by every official census.

I shall not pretend that the persistent conflict with the Arabs does not weigh heavily upon us.

We were also fully aware of Arab national aspirations in the Middle East. We assumed that these aspirations would find ample satisfaction in the various Arab states set up by the Allies in the vast areas freed from Ottoman domination. By the end of the British Mandate, 99 percent of that area had been allotted to the Arabs, one percent to the Jewish homeland. If there was any inequity in this distribution, surely the Arabs were not its victims. Hence we hoped, sincerely if perhaps naïvely, that Jewish and Arab independence would flourish peacefully side by side to the advantage of the entire Middle East.

Something else should be made clear. Palestinian Arab nationalism was not a visible factor at the time. Until recently, Arab nationalism constantly opposed the designation of one sector of the Middle East as Palestine. It regarded this "particularism" as a violation of the concept of a unitary Arab state. The territory that Jews cherished as historic Palestine the Arabs viewed merely as Southern Syria. As late as 1956, Ahmed Shukairy, at that time Syrian representative to the United Nations and later head of the Palestine Liberation Organization, declared in the Security Council that "it is common knowledge that Palestine is nothing but Southern Syria."

At the time of the rebirth of the Jewish state, the argument was between the Jewish people and the Arab people. Though the nationalist demands of the latter had been richly fulfilled, they refused to honor the equivalent legitimacy of Jewish rights. Their position was that Arabs should be sovereign everywhere, the Jews nowhere.

Thus it was Arab intransigence that led to the compromise of the U.N. Partition Resolution by which the area encompassed by the Balfour Declaration was further cut so that Israel arose in one-fifth of the territory originally allotted for a Jewish homeland. (The first truncation had taken place in 1922 when three-fourths of the original Palestine area was severed for the establishment of Transjordan.) Nevertheless, for the sake of independence, peace and the possibility of freely bringing Jewish survivors to Israel's shores, the Jews accepted this compromise and created Israel in a spirit of joy and hope. Instead of the Arabs doing likewise and establishing their state in the area assigned to them by the U.N. Resolution, seven Arab states attacked new-born Israel. They refused to accept the existence of the Jewish state and sought to throttle it at birth.

III

This chronology is essential for an understanding of the present impasse. There can be no greater mistake in assessing the current situation in the Middle East than to assume that the conflict continues because of a specific political Arab grievance: the plight of the Arab refugees; the Israeli presence on the West Bank, or in the Sinai; the reunification of Jerusalem. The record bears out the error of this view. In 1947-48, when seven Arab states launched the invasion which resulted in the exodus of 600,000 Arabs, mainly to other parts of Palestine-to the West Bank, Gaza and Jordan-there had been no dispossessed Arabs and no Arab refugees. The Arab refugee problem was the result, not the cause, of the 1948 war. In June 1967, Sinai, Gaza, the West Bank, the Golan Heights and East Jerusalem were all in Arab possession. Nevertheless, the Arabs concentrated their troops in Sinai, established a blockade and announced, in Nasser's words on May 27, 1967, that the object of the war was "the destruction of Israel." It is therefore absurd to contend that the present territorial configuration is the cause of the Middle East tension.

The heart of the problem is what caused the Six Day War, not the territories administered by Israel after the war. Simply put, the root issue is the Arab attitude to Israel's very existence and security. Once the Arab countries accept the legitimacy of Israel as we have always accepted theirs, there is no reason for their intransigence against negotiating the differences between us. In this connection, let me state as firmly as I can that Israel's insistence on negotiations, direct or indirect, is not a maneuver devised to bait our Arab enemies. The vehement refusal of the Arab leaders to discuss with us the terms of a peace settlement must raise the question as to whether they are really prepared to live in peace with us. This is the crux of the conflict.

Israel is sometimes accused of "rigidity" in her stated positions and is exhorted to be more "flexible." These charges deserve careful examination. Since 1967, we have shifted from our original demand for direct bilateral negotiations-which we consider the most effective and promising method-to a procedure similar to that employed at Rhodes in 1948-49, when talks, both direct and indirect, took place. In 1970, in order to meet Arab intransigence, we agreed to the procedure of indirect negotiation in the first stage, hoping that this would pave the road to a peace agreement. An even more fundamental indication of Israel's readiness for compromise may be found in our policy statements. We have said that whereas Israel would not return to the tragically vulnerable pre-June 1967 armistice lines, we do not insist that the present ceasefire lines be final. We thus leave open a very broad area for meaningful negotiation and compromise. The Arab states, on the other hand, continue to reiterate their demand for Israel's "total withdrawal" to the June 4, 1967 lines. By this demand they distort Security Council Resolution 242 which never called for total withdrawal, or withdrawal from all the territories. The language of the Resolution is withdrawal "from territories," acknowledging Israel's right to live within "secure and recognized boundaries." All attempts made to insert in the Resolution the demand for total withdrawal or withdrawal from "the" territories were rejected by the Security Council.

We know that the phrase "secure and recognized boundaries" is not a magic incantation. It is a theme for negotiation. In our insistence on this point, we are motivated by two realistic considerations based on our experience since 1948. We want boundaries whose very character will make aggression less inviting to any would-be invader, and which could be defended with fewer casualties if such aggression nevertheless took place. The enormous advantages in size of population and topography which our adversaries have always enjoyed have tempted them periodically to make assaults upon us. We want to weaken such temptation to the greatest possible degree.

We have our doves and hawks. Most Israelis are neither, but we do refuse the role of clay pigeon.

After three wars for survival in the last 25 years, we cannot reasonably be expected to disregard our bitter experience. In 1948, 1956 and 1967, we learned how swiftly Egypt could move her tanks and regiments into Sinai from the south, and how readily our southern maritime approach could be blockaded from Sharm-el-Sheikh. To the south stretched the Gaza Strip, pointing as an aggressive finger into the heart of our territory. From there, fedayeen regularly infiltrated and carried out sabotage and murder, reaching all the way to the outskirts of Tel Aviv. On the eastern border Jordanian guns, pointing at our dwellings, could be seen by our children playing in the streets of Jerusalem. The city could be bombarded from our very doorstep. Israel herself could be readily cut at her 12-mile waist between the old line with Jordan and the sea near Nethanya. In the north, from the fortified ridge of the Golan Heights, the Syrians shelled our kibbutzim in the valley at will. To the west lay the Mediterranean into which the Arabs regularly promised to drive us. Having escaped from such tight encirclement, we feel justified in our determination not to reënter again a trap composed of vulnerable geography. Even in an age of rockets and missiles, we cannot renounce the added security inherent in more rational boundaries which would keep the potential adversary at a greater distance from our homes. When the new European security system was established after the Second World War, no one in his right mind proposed the precise reconstruction of the map which had spelled vulnerability and disaster for so many nations.

The border changes Israel seeks do not involve loss of territory vital to Arab interests. The Sinai desert has in the past served no Egyptian purpose save to provide a ready staging-ground for attacks on Israel and for the maintenance of blockade. No Egyptians live in Sinai and only a few Bedouin tribes (not Egyptian citizens) roam its sands. Sharm-el-Sheikh, a desolate, uninhabited outpost, was used by the Egyptians only to blockade the Gulf of Aqaba. In any case, Israel, under a peace settlement, would not seek to retain all or most of Sinai. As for the Golan Heights, it constituted primarily a military fortress directed at our agricultural settlements in the valley below. The West Bank presents a more complex problem. I have made it clear several times that in negotiations with the Kingdom of Jordan we will naturally present proposals for a territorial agreement.

My general comment holds good: the border changes sought by Israel will, by reducing the strategic advantage enjoyed by a would-be aggressor, help to deter war. Conversely, reconstructing these advantages would facilitate hostile designs against Israel and renew the prospects of war.

This is not the first time in our history that Israel has been urged to withdraw from Sinai, Sharm-el-Sheikh and Gaza at the close of hostilities: In 1956, in response to the massing of Egyptian armor in Sinai, the blockade of the Straits of Tiran, and the terrorist incursions from Egyptian-held Gaza, Israel acted in the Sinai. We repelled the Egyptian army, freed the Gaza Strip occupied by Egypt in 1948, removed Egyptian gun placements that for six years had blockaded the Gulf of Aqaba, and restored free access for the movement of ships through a waterway which has the character of a lifeline for Israel.

I do not consider Israel's right to existence a theme for discussion.

In response to solemn assurances that the blockade would not be renewed, terrorist infiltration would not be restored, and the Egyptian forces would not reënter Gaza, Israel agreed to withdraw from Sinai, Sharm-el-Sheikh and Gaza. As Foreign Minister, it was my office in March 1957 to announce to the General Assembly Israel's compliance with the U.N. Resolution call ing for such withdrawal. Previously (January 1957), I had warned the General Assembly of the consequences of any action that might result "in the restoration of the blockade, and the consequent renewal of regional conflict, and international tension." And I asked, in words painfully relevant today: "Shall Egypt be allowed once more to organize murder and sabotage in this strip [Gaza]? Shall Egypt be allowed to condemn the local population to permanent impoverishment and to block any solution of the refugee problem?"

The world knows what happened. Despite the "assurances" and the "hopes and expectations" on the strength of which Israel withdrew, Egyptian troops promptly reoccupied Gaza. Learning of this betrayal of our good faith as soon as I got back to Israel, I at once returned to the United States to voice my indignation to Secretary of State Dulles and U.N, Secretary-General Hammarskjöld. I shall never forget Secretary Hammarskjöld's blunt question: "It's not worth going to war for again, is it?" In 1967, the remaining elements of the 1957 arrangements were unilaterally violated by Egypt.

The repeated failure of international arrangements to safeguard our country's vital interests has taught us a lesson we do not easily forget. International decisions proved meaningless in each crisis that we faced: in 1948 when the Arab states violated the Partition Resolution; in the long years of lawless blockade and terrorist incursion; and in 1967 when the international community, which had "assured" our territorial integrity and freedom from blockade, proved powerless to stand by its commitments. Hence, we inevitably reflect on this history when urged to take action which could result in diminishing our capacity for self-defense and make us dependent on international guarantees.

History repeats itself in the Middle East. After every war staged by the Arab states against us, they demand the restoration of the very borders they set out to destroy. When Egypt insists now upon total withdrawal of Israeli forces to the pre-June 4, 1967 lines, the simple question arises: If those borders were so sanctified for Egypt after the war, why were they not honored by Egypt before the war and why launch war to destroy them in the first place? The bitter truth is that the Arab leaders have not changed their attitudes about our very presence in this area. Arab statesmen, from Nasser to Sadat, have made no secret of their proposed strategy. Mohamed Hassanein Heikal, the influential editor of the Egyptian daily, Al-Ahram, formulated a notorious "Theory of Two Stages" in an article on February 25, 1971:

There are only two specific Arab goals at present: elimination of the consequences of the 1967 aggression through Israel's withdrawal from all the lands it occupied that year, and elimination of the consequences of the 1948 aggression through the eradication of Israel.

The second goal is not, in fact, specific but abstract, and some of us make the mistake of starting with the second step instead of the first. On the basis of the conditions I have mentioned, it is possible to believe in the possibility of attaining the first goal. As for the second goal, we should learn from the enemy how to move step by step.[1]

We find this strategy all too concrete and decline to facilitate its implementation. Israel is a democracy in which various views, minimalist and maximalist, are freely advocated. We have our doves and hawks. Most Israelis are neither, but we do refuse the role of clay pigeon. More than once I have made it clear that we are ready for negotiations on the issue of borders and that we have never said that the ceasefire lines have to be the peace boundaries on all sectors. The borders must be defensible and for that purpose significant changes in the previous lines are necessary, but we are ready for a territorial compromise.

IV

Jerusalem, mourned in Jewish prayers since the fall of the Temple, was never without a community of pious Jews. Furthermore, Jews constituted a majority of the ancient city from the mid-nineteenth century until 1948, when the Jordanian Army seized the eastern half of Jerusalem, including the walled Old City with its religious shrines sacred to Jews, Muslims and Christians, and drove out the Jewish inhabitants.

According to the 1949 Armistice Agreements signed by Jordan and Israel, free access to the Jewish Holy Places, to the Mount of Olives and to the university and hospital on Mount Scopus was agreed to. But instead of honoring this commitment, Jordan divided the city with walls, barbed wire and gun emplacements. For the first time since the Roman conquest, Jews were prevented from praying at their holiest shrine, the Western Wall. During the 19 years of Jordanian occupation, Jews were barred from their religious sites in total violation of the Armistice Agreements. Israel's repeated appeals to the Security Council brought no redress.

In June 1967, Jordan again began shelling Jerusalem despite Israel's message to King Hussein, sent through General Odd Bull, the U.N. representative, that Israel would not attack if Jordan kept out of the conflict. Hussein joined the Egyptian assault with the result that Jordan lost her hold on eastern Jerusalem. Israel reunited the artificially rent city. Our joy in the liberation of Jerusalem was marred by the sight of the sacred ancient Jewish Quarter and the venerable synagogues destroyed by Jordan. The Jewish cemetery on the Mount of Olives had been desecrated and thousands of its tombstones used as paving stones for Jordanian roads. Since 1967, Jews, Christians and Muslims have moved freely in and out of all its sectors.

Perhaps this record will explain why we view fears that are sometimes expressed for the sanctity of Jerusalem under Israeli rule as disingenuous. In 1948 and in 1967 the Arabs shelled Jerusalem with no regard for the safety of churches and holy places, without rousing the vocal apprehension of the world. In 1967, Israeli soldiers, to spare Jerusalem, risked their lives in hand-to-hand fighting, street by narrow street, rather than resort to heavy armor. Jordanian troops, on the other hand, used church roofs and even the minarets of their own mosques for gun emplacements. Journalists covering the Six Day War commented on the reverence with which Israeli soldiers approached Jerusalem.

Since that time, satisfaction has been expressed by Christian dignitaries at the care which Israel has bestowed on the Holy Places of Christendom. We have also shown strict regard for Muslim sanctuaries, though, while rebuilding our ruined synagogues and devastated Jewish Quarter, we have had cause to regret that the Arabs failed to display an equivalent respect for what we hold dear.

Israel has publicly announced her policy that Christian and Muslim Holy Places be administered by the respective heads of these religions. To this end, Israel wishes to enter into special agreements with the heads of the various denominations for the detailed implementation of this policy. Jerusalem shall remain united and the capital of Israel. Its Arab inhabitants will, of course, continue to enjoy full freedom and equality.

History repeats itself in the Middle East.

I don't find it necessary to refute Arab propaganda about Israel's alleged ill-treatment of the local population of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Such charges are readily disproven by the daily life of the areas, the success of the "open bridges" policy, and the testimony of impartial observers. The manifest material advantages of the Arab inhabitants of the West Bank and Gaza are undisputed. I know that a marked rise in the standard of living, free opportunities for work at the Israeli wage-rate (which is twice as high as Jordan's), and the introduction of modern health and technological services are welcome benefits, but they do not in themselves solve sensitive political and national issues.

Let me therefore return to the overriding question of peace. In his recent article in Foreign Affairs,[2] President Sadat, among other accusations, several times charges that Israel seeks to "dominate" the Middle East. It is hard for me to believe that an Arab statesman seriously believes this evil phantasy. But Voltaire's epigram-as long as men believe absurdities they will commit atrocities-reminds us of the bloody persecutions and wars that have stained the course of human history because men believed absurdities about others. The carnage of the Nazi epoch is only the most terrifying example of the depth to which people sink through the acceptance of imbecilic myths. For this reason I stress the obvious.

We are a small people of some three million among a hundred million Arabs, as our adversaries never tire of reminding us, A glance at the map shows Israel as a mere pinpoint amid huge Arab territories. To suggest that Israel, no matter how able or energetic, seeks to "dominate" this vast expanse is of the stuff of the "Elders of Zion" forgery, according to which the tiny persecuted Jewish minority conspired to rule the world.

Let me review our record in the Middle East Though the Balfour Declaration promised a Jewish homeland in the area of historic Palestine-an area extending from the Mediterranean to the borders of present-day Iraq-we accepted the severance of three-fourths of that territory for the establishment of the Hashemite Kingdom east of the Jordan. We later accepted the further shrinkage of the original pledge through the U.N. Partition Resolution. Still later, in the tense last week of May 1967, when the Arab onslaught was imminent, Prime Minister Eshkol turned to the Arab states with a final plea for peace: "I would like to say again to the Arab countries, particularly Egypt and Syria, that we harbor no aggressive designs. We have no possible interest in violating either their security, their territory or their legitimate rights." The Arabs responded by proclaiming that the hour of Israel's annihilation had struck.

We did not seek to "expand" but neither did we dismiss Arab threats of a holocaust as "rhetoric." We are too aware of the disparity of forces and resources available to Arab states for us to discount promises the Arabs twice before tried to fulfill. Having been driven to defend ourselves, we secured the bridgeheads from which our enemies sought to destroy us, but successful self-defense is hardly evidence of a desire for "domination." Survival is not aggression.

In his article, President Sadat dwells on the impropriety of keeping "the fruits of victory." I do not care to speculate on what would have been the fate of Israel had the Arabs enjoyed those fruits. Nor am I aware of any modern country that waged a successful war of self-defense whose peace treaty failed to correct the vulnerable and dangerous positions which had made it an inviting target for aggression. The adjustment of the border between Poland and East Germany provides a contemporary instance of significant border changes involving large areas of populated territory with the aim of offering increased security.

Israel is convinced that Poland was justified in insisting upon this territorial adjustment, and Chancellor Brandt deserves credit for the courage he displayed in carrying out the change. The presentation of the Nobel Prize to Willy Brandt is evidence that this is the sentiment of world opinion generally. Anyone familiar with our region cannot reasonably suggest that our right to insist upon border changes is less than that of Poland.

V

Total peace would be a more constructive slogan than total withdrawal. Since it may not be possible to reach total peace in a single step, Israel is willing to negotiate the immediate settlement of specific issues, notably that affecting the reopening of the Suez Canal. We have made the following proposal in regard to the Suez Canal: "With a view to facilitating the attainment of durable peace between Israel and the U.A.R., Israel is prepared to consider entering into a Special Agreement with the U.A.R. for the opening of the Suez Canal to international navigation, the observance of a ceasefire without limitation of time and nonresumption of fighting, and the stationing of the Israel Defense Forces [IDF] at some distance east of the Suez Canal."

Among particulars spelled out in this proposal, the suggested agreement calls for the release of all prisoners of war within 15 days of its signing. It also states that the line to which the IDF would withdraw east of the Canal would not be considered final; subsequently the IDF would withdraw to the boundary determined by a peace settlement.

In offering, before a final peace, to forgo the strategic advantage of the water barrier provided by the Suez Canal, Israel took a calculated risk as a step toward the relaxation of tension. Such a decisive concession is hardly evidence of an intractable disposition. Of the countries involved, Israel has the least to gain from the Canal; Egypt the most. Yet Egypt rejected the proposal. Egypt demands an Israeli commitment to withdraw to the June 4, 1967, lines, prior to any process of negotiation. The precondition is related not only to negotiating an overall settlement, but to a partial Suez Canal agreement Egypt wishes to end the negotiations even before they begin. Thus, the rigidity of this position precludes progress toward peace.

Finally, there is the issue of the Arab refugees, I do not propose to reargue in detail the origins of this problem. That the exodus was instigated by the Arab leadership is readily demonstrated through Arab sources. To cite just one: "The Arab governments told us, 'Go out so that we can get in.' So we got out, but they did not get in."[3] That the numbers of the authentic refugees have been grossly inflated through duplicate registrations and the accretion of Arabs from Syria, Jordan and Lebanon to the relief rolls has been revealed by every check of the UNRWA. records. Nor do I seek to minimize the wretchedness and abnormality of unproductive existence in the camps. But who bears the responsibility for this situation?

The deliberate exploitation of the refugees for political ends began in 1948 and continues unabated to this day. The Arab governments have repeatedly rejected numerous lavish proposals for the solution of the Arab refugee problem. They make no secret of their motivation. One quotation will suffice: "Any discussion aimed at a solution of the Palestine problem which will not be based on ensuring the refugees' right to annihilate Israel will be regarded as a desecration of the Arab people and an act of treason."[4] A policy of calculated incitement in the camps, whose dissolution the Arab leadership refuse to permit, has kept the pot boiling. As the role of second-generation refugees begins to wear thin, there has appeared the image of the Palestinian terrorist sworn to "dismantle" Israel.

Israel has an indigenous minority of nearly half a million Arabs, constituting approximately 15 percent of the population. Israeli Arabs are equal citizens whose welfare and integration are our natural concern. But we cannot accept the repatriation of those who originally joined our enemies and in the intervening years have become a hostile army proposing to submerge Israel. And obviously we have no common language with Palestinian irredentists, whose cry is the "liquidation" of Israel, or assassins who pretend to the name of "revolutionaries."

During the few years since the Six Day War, the position of the refugees in the areas administered by Israel has undergone substantial improvement-in employment, in education, in health and in living standards. This human progress indicates what might have been achieved during the 20 years prior to 1967 had Arab governments behaved humanely toward the refugees-their own kith and kin-rather than exploit them as a political weapon against Israel.

So long as the ceasefire remains intact, we shall continue to do all we can to relieve the refugees of the misery of the camps and restore to them their human dignity. A complete solution of the refugee problem, however, will come about only when the Arab states assume their full responsibility within the vast geography that is at their disposal.

Is the conflict then irreconcilable? Let me answer plainly: I do not consider Israel's right to existence a theme for discussion. As long as all Arab designs are predicated on the immediate or eventual destruction of Israel, no progress toward peace is possible. At the same time, we believe that the differences between us and the Arabs are soluble, and that because of the genuine needs of the peoples of the Middle East reason will finally prevail. International funds, toward which Israel is prepared to contribute her share (we have offered compensation for Arab property in Israel), are available for the resettlement of Arab refugees still living in camps. Between the Mediterranean and Iraq-the original area of Mandatory Palestine-there is room for both a Jewish and an Arab state. The name of the Arab state and its internal constitution and order are its responsibility and concern.

I still hope that, in a world that has just seen the close of the Vietnamese conflict through negotiation and a movement toward coexistence among the great powers, the many sovereign Arab states will come to terms with the idea of Jewish national independence and with the reality of Israel, the one small land in which that independence can flourish. Genuine peace requires more than a signature to an agreement. That signature is a beginning; it is the passage to a bridge of understanding and of coöperation between nations across which will move people, ideas and goods. My vision of peace is regional exchange and coöperation. And who can deny that there is much to be done for the good of this area? We do not make this a condition for signing a peace agreement. We register it as an expression of the quality of relations we would wish to see develop between ourselves and our neighbors in peace.

[1] Cairo Radio, February 26, 1971, quoted from BBC Monitoring Service.

[2] Anwar el-Sadat, "Where Egypt Stands," Foreign Affairs, October 1972.

[3] Statement of an Arab regugee, quoted in Al-Difaa (Amman), September 6, 1954.

[4] Resolution adopted at Refugee Conference, Syria, July 1957.

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Twenty-five years ago the Jewish state proclaimed its independence in a part of Palestine. Six months earlier, the General Assembly of the United Nations had recommended its establishment. This act of historic justice strove to fulfill the earlier pledge of the Balfour Declaration and the League of Nations Mandate which gave recognition not only to an immediate Jewish need but also to the principle of a Jewish right to national self- expression.

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Milad Vosgueritchian, co-founder of House of Hope, internationally known peace educator

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From House of Hope Vision School, Palestine

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From House of Hope Vision School, Palestine

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Dear Beloved Community,

This is the cruelest time for human beings in Palestine and Israel. The pain is profound. Children are, yet again, paying the highest price. But we must not sit by idly.
We can do much to stop this war and nurture the children traumatized by the violence.
At House of Hope, we believe in peace. We also believe it won't come without justice. We believe in and are nourished by love's transformative, limitless power. And we believe in the two-state solution, where the two nations of Palestine and Israel live side-by-side in peace and prosperity.In the West Bank, we are living under an Israeli military siege and have little freedom of movement. Army checkpoints block our town's entrances and exits. Most of our roads are closed. Tear gas seeps into the rooms in our homes. We are suffering a lot, not just because of our villages' conditions. We also feel the pain of all innocent people in this land, especially the people of Gaza, who are aggressively bombed and have no solutions for their lives and dreams. Our Palestinian children in Gaza feel internationally isolated and that their lives don't matter as they watch more buildings collapse into rubble as death comes closer.Our students' dreams are simple: to play with no army around them. No sounds of gun shooting. And no home demolitions in their neighborhood.
Our children's dreams are our dreams. And since we are ALL children of God, your dreams are our dreams, too. We all want to live peacefully, healed from intergenerational trauma and fear.
Let us stop this war.
Let us stop supporting weapons sales.
Let us stop preaching hate.
Let us stop hiding in our ideological tribes.
Let us stop making innocent people pay for another government's evil.
Let us stop discriminating and murdering beloved children of God.
At House of Hope, we provide our children with an education that heals. In our healing classrooms, we promote diversity, interreligious dialogue, freedom of speech, and respect for differences.
Please stand with us.
Keep us in your prayers and good deeds toward a better future in Palestine.

Salaam,Milad Vosgueritchian,  Co-Founder and Peace Education Director, House of Hope Vision School

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the usually bustling Jerusalem marketplace 

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eye witness accounts from Israel in the days after October 7 2023

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eye witness accounts from Israel in the days after October 7 2023

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https://docs.google.com/document/d/1jiAIxOop2x6F7NeqIHwuXLHKzzsinDIOQtMVPMeF03w/edit?usp=sharing

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Ordinary Israelis and Palestinians should never have had to live through the death, destruction, humiliation and torture that have marked recent days.

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Evolve - Groundbreaking Jewish Conversations

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Ordinary Israelis and Palestinians should never have to live through the death, destruction, humiliation and torture that have marked recent days.

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קולולם | One Day - Matisyahu  | חיפה | | 14.2.18

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In 2018 thousands of people who had never met before took up the invitation of the Haifa Municipality to come together to learn and to sing Matisyahu's "One Day" in Hebrew, Arabic and English. Here is what happened.

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קולולם | One Day - Matisyahu  | חיפה | | 14.2.18

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“Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it.”

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Senior Columnist Rob Eshman October 10, 2023

Have you ever read the Hamas charter?

It's worth taking a break from the unrelenting, tragic news to better understand the founding document of the group whose attack plunged Israelis and Palestinians into their current hell.

Founding documents are aspirational. It took well over 100 years for the United States to begin to live up to "All men are created equal." And Israel, even within its pre-1967 borders, is still lurching toward upholding "the full social and political equality of all its citizens without distinction of race, creed or sex" promised in its Declaration of Independence .

Similarly, a close reading of Hamas's charter, which was created in 1987 and revised in 2017 , explains a lot about its decision to slaughter innocent Jewish civilians, and unleash a reaction that has inevitably claimed innocent Palestinian lives as well.

Hamas was founded in 1987 as an Islamic fundamentalist party - an offshoot, really, of Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood. In 2006, a year after Israel withdrew its armed forces and settlers from the Gaza Strip in what is widely known as the disengagement, Hamas won legislative elections, beating the rival Fatah party of Mahmoud Abbas, 74 seats to 45. A year later, it launched a bloody military campaign against Fatah, and took complete control of Gaza.

After Hamas's takeover, Israel imposed a blockade on Gaza, controlling travel and trade in and out of the coastal enclave. Hamas, which the United States, Israel, the European Union, Canada, Egypt, and Japan designate as a terrorist organization, had by 2006 conducted terror attacks in Israel that killed 506 and wounded thousands . After the blockade, the number of attacks plummeted.

But Hamas has never changed its aspirations to wrest control of all of Israel by killing its Jews- a goal you will see clearly when you read the Hamas charter, as I did on Tuesday.

The first version of the charter , adopted in 1988, begins with a preamble. Only instead of "We-the-People," it reads: "Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it."

The 36 articles that follow are buttressed by quotes from the Quran and lessons of the Prophet Muhammed ... as interpreted by the militant Islamists of Hamas.

After establishing the primacy of Islam, the charter pivots to removing Jews from historic Palestine. "Nothing in nationalism is more significant or deeper than in the case when an enemy should tread Moslem land," states Article 12.

The charter's description of Jews echoes millennia of antisemitic tropes.

"With their money, they took control of the world media," reads Article 22, "news agencies, the press, publishing houses, broadcasting stations, and others."

The 9000-word document blames Jews for the French and Communist revolutions, World War I and II, the Rotary Club and the United Nations, " to enable them to rule the world through them."

"There is no war going on anywhere," it reads, "without having their finger in it."

The charter directs the killing of Jews, drawing on a , or prophetic saying: "The Day of Judgment will not come about until Muslims fight Jews and kill them. Then, the Jews will hide behind rocks and trees, and the rocks and trees will cry out: 'O Moslem, there is a Jew hiding behind me, come and kill him.'"

In 2017, Hamas issued a revised charter , which softens its Islamist rhetoric somewhat. While maintaining the right to Palestine "from the river to the sea," this new version accepts the idea of a Palestinian state in territories occupied by Israel since the 1967 War - the so-called two state solution.

Analysts say the group's continued loss of popularity among Gazans - even in 2006 a plurality of the total votes cast, 44% - forced the changes.

The new charter states that Hamas's conflict is with Zionism, not Jews.

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Hamas' charter, first written in 1988 and revised in 2017, blames Jews for the French and Communist revolutions, and World Wars I and II.

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I found this webinar very informative. Will be interested in others’ reactions to it.
https://youtu.be/dZbYL9xOZ8w?si=NpV2B8PevcaeOAb4

- Bob Lowe (Robert.A.Lowe.pdx@gmail.com)

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Expert Briefing: Terror Onslaught, Israel at War with Hamas

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there's no reward for good works other than having done them

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there's no reward for good works other than having done them

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Huwara, February 26 2023: the turning point?

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Huwara, February 26 2023: the turning point?

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Haaretz | Opinion

Opinion |

After Hawara, we are beginning to see the occupation and the settlement enterprise for what they are - fundamentally undemocratic, racist, uncompromising and violent

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The pogrom against Palestinians that brought the occupation home to Jewish Israelis | Opinion

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After Hawara, We Are Beginning to See the Occupation and the Settlement Enterprise for What They Are - Fundamentally Undemocratic, Racist, Uncompromising and Violent

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Secretary-General's remarks to the press on the situation in the Middle East

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you don't have to sit back and wonder "what happened?" There is much to learn.

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It took Hamas's deadly attack today to remind Israel, the United States, and the world that Palestine still matters.

The militant group based in occupied Gaza launched aerial attacks and broke through the heavily secured fence into the State of Israel. Hundreds of Israelis have been killed, a historic scale of violence for the country. The Israeli counterattack will inevitably lead to more death and destruction for Palestinians and a tightened occupation.

It comes after nearly two decades of the US and world leaders overlooking the more than 2 million people living in Gaza who endure a humanitarian nightmare, with its airspace and borders and sea under Israeli control. The attack comes amid an ongoing failure to grapple with the dangerous situation for Palestinians in the West Bank where Israel's extreme-right government over the past year has escalated the already brutal daily pain of occupation.

Instances of Israeli security forces and Israeli settlers antagonizing Palestinians through violence are on the rise, from the pogrom on the city of Huwara to a new tempo of lethal raids on Jenin. Israeli government ministers have been pursuing annexationist policies and sharing raging rhetoric; both incite further violent response from Palestinians and appear at a time when new militant groups have emerged that claim the mantle of the Palestinian cause. The now-regular presence of Israeli Jews praying at the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem, one of Islam's holiest sites, have further pressurized the situation. A Hamas commander cited many of these factors in his statement.

But the ongoing reality of the occupation has not featured prominently in US or Arab leaders' engagement with the region in recent years, even as circumstances for Palestinians worsened.

The question must thus be asked to the Israeli government, the Biden administration, and Arab leaders: How did they forget about Palestinians? How did they so brazenly ignore Gaza?

President Joe Biden has not reversed his predecessor Donald Trump's policy of putting aside the question of Palestine and instead has exerted immense capital on the normalization of Israel's relations with Arab states, no matter how extreme the policies of the Israeli government.

In the current US-led diplomatic equation, there is no space for Palestinians, except for talk of minor concessions to ease daily humiliations. Biden said recently, as many of his surrogates often do, that the US remains intent on "preserving the path to a negotiated two-state solution."

But negotiations between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization have been frozen since 2014 under President Barack Obama, and most Palestinian analysts at this point acknowledge that US administrations since President Bill Clinton have engaged in a failed, asymmetrical process that never would have allowed for the conditions of an independent, sovereign state of Palestine.

And so the symbolism of Hamas breaking through Israeli security barriers and wreaking havoc on Israel - including the kidnapping of at least one Israeli soldier as well as civilians - will resonate across Palestine, the Arab world, and beyond.

Israel's conflicts with Hamas, along with the 2006 Hezbollah-Israel conflict, have largely been rocket and artillery exchanges. Even in decades of large-scale Arab-Israeli wars, the battles were fought outside. "No Arab army has entered the territory of Israel since the 1948 war," the preeminent Palestinian scholar Rashid Khalidi of Columbia University told me. "This is a huge strategic surprise."

Israel and the United States have wished away Palestinians. The terrible bloodshed of today's attacks underscores the cost of doing so.

How Biden missed the plot on Gaza

I've been to several Mideast policy conferences this month and spend probably too much of my time interviewing Washington experts and attending lectures on Middle East history.

Palestinians are hardly represented in panels and keynotes. The Biden administration's key players bring up Palestine as a secondary issue. Gaza does not come up anymore.

But it remains central to how Palestinians and Arabs see Israel-Palestine and the Middle East - and how many Arabs perceive the US role in the world.

Trump exacerbated the hopelessness for Palestinian political rights by cutting the Palestinians entirely out of the process, and instead helped seal normalization deals between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, and Morocco. But the autocratic Arab leaders who made "peace" with Israel never represented their own citizens.

With Biden's Middle East team prioritizing a long-shot deal between Israel and Saudi Arabia, Biden's inner circle has avoided talking about Gaza entirely. It's all the more surprising because the two-week war between Israel and Hamas in May 2021 should have been an indication of Palestine's enduring centrality to Middle East affairs. But as far as I can tell, there has been no policy reckoning in Washington about that war. No policy reviews.

There was complacency. "The Middle East region is quieter today than it has been in two decades," Biden's national security adviser Jake Sullivan said only last week.

It's not even the first time that someone like Sullivan, who also served as a senior official in the Obama administration, has worked with his Egyptian counterparts to negotiate an Israel-Hamas ceasefire, as he is likely doing now. But now it's clear that he and others treated Gaza peacemaking as a sideshow. It is not integral to Biden's approach.

The humanitarian crisis in Gaza, which Hamas administers some level of control over, remains as acute as ever. But because the US has long designated Hamas, the Palestinian militant political group with an Islamist worldview, as a terrorist organization, US officials can't contact them and must work through third countries. It means that the US knowledge base and expertise on Gaza is not just low - it's absent.

The Palestine Liberation Organization's leadership, with Chair Mahmoud Abbas still hanging on at 87 years old, lacks legitimacy among Palestinians. The Palestinian Authority, the body that exercises some administrative control over the occupied West Bank and that Abbas also runs, is seen by Palestinians as a collaboration arm of the Israeli occupation. A grassroots movement of Palestinian youth who engage in violent resistance against the Israeli security state, against settlers, and against civilians has emerged.

Between the radical Israeli government and the sclerotic Palestinian leadership, the Biden administration chose to continue the path of Trump's normalization deals, with Saudi Arabia as the prize. Biden's team still states an allegiance to the pursuit of a Palestinian state while doing little more, all which exposes the emptiness of the two-state solution.

What this means for Palestinians

Early on Saturday, Hamas sent bulldozers through the barriers that have hemmed in Palestinians in Gaza from Israel and the rest of the world. That image of resistance to the occupation will be widely circulated in the Arab world, and will endure long beyond this war. Its symbolic power cannot be underestimated.

Gaza is in essence a refugee camp (about 70 percent of those living in Gaza come from families displaced from the 1948 war) and an open-air prison, according to human rights groups. The United Nations describes the occupied territory as a "chronic humanitarian crisis." Israel has blockaded Gaza since Hamas assumed control of the territory in 2007, and neighboring Egypt to the south has also imposed severe restrictions on movement.

Between them, Israel and Egypt monitor the entry and exit of all people, vehicles, and goods. They have not allowed enough construction materials and humanitarian items into the occupied Gaza Strip to enable the battered territory to rebuild from recurring episodes of deadly Israeli bombardments that are allegedly meant to target Hamas, but that often include civilian death tolls in the very dense territory.

The current Israeli government has aggravated these realities, Khalidi explained, by increasing pressure on the Palestinians on multiple fronts: in Jerusalem, squeezing Gaza, assaults on Palestinian villages by settlers, with settler-politicians leading ministries in the Israeli government; and with annexationist policies like the recent major policy change putting the Israeli civilian government (not the Israeli military) in charge of the occupied West Bank. Hamas's attacks on Israel won't change life for Palestinians, and Israel's government will now use the full force of its advanced military in response. And given Israel's state of emergency, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is now in talks with the opposition parties to pull together a unity government for the country. But even if some of the most extreme settler voices currently in the Israeli cabinet are replaced by more mainstream Israeli voices, harsh policies against Palestinians across the West Bank and Gaza will continue.

"This pressure being put on Palestinians - it just assumes that they're insignificant and they will tolerate any degree of humiliation, and that's just not true," Khalidi told me. "If you had lifted the siege of Gaza, you would not have had this happen."

Now Israelis are experiencing terrible loss and a tremendous sense of danger, and Palestinians living in Gaza will endure more violence, including Israeli troops entering the territories and the extensive bombardment of alleged military sites that typically have a significant civilian toll.

Global powers have been ignoring Gaza, but some in Israel haven't forgotten.

"The dread Israelis are feeling right now, myself included, is a sliver of what Palestinians have been feeling on a daily basis under the decades-long military regime in the West Bank, and under the siege and repeated assaults on Gaza," writes the Israeli journalist Haggai Mattar in 972 Magazine. "The only solution, as it has always been, is to bring an end of apartheid, occupation, and siege, and promote a future based on justice and equality for all of us. It is not in spite of the horror that we have to change course - it is exactly because of it."

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This Gaza war didn't come out of nowhere

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Everyone forgot about the Palestinians - conditions have been set for two decades, and Biden's focus on Israel-Saudi talks may have lit a match.

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Hope this link will work
Michelle

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Why Hamas Attacked—and Why Israel Was Taken by Surprise

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for those who were sacrificed to failures of omission, comission, and irresponsibility

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for those who were sacrificed to failures of omission, comission, and irresponsibility

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הדלקת נר לקורבנות מחדל 23

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הדלקת נר לקורבנות מחדל 23

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No place for Gaza residents to flee after Israel declares war, bombs homes

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Fire and smoke rise following an Israeli air strike in Gaza City [Fatima Shbair/AP]

Gaza City - Amer Ashour's pregnant wife started having labour pains just as Israel began to bombard the besieged Gaza Strip on Saturday night.

They rushed to a nearby maternity hospital where the couple was blessed with a baby boy, their second child. But what they did not expect was to return home and find no trace of it except for a pile of rubble and stones.

Keep reading

Israel's forces bombed the 11-storey building the couple lived in, in the Al-Nasr neighbourhood in the west of Gaza City, after the Palestinian armed group Hamas launched an unprecedented attack inside Israel earlier on Saturday.

"What I feared most when the escalation began was that my wife was about to give birth. I was worried how we would get to the hospital in light of the continuous bombing," Ashour told Al Jazeera. "But I did not at all expect my house will be bombed and destroyed."

Israel on Sunday declared a "state of war" and approved "significant military steps" after Hamas's surprise attack. The fierce battles that followed have killed more than 1,000 people - including at least 400 in Gaza - and wounded thousands on both sides.

Approximately 80 families inhabited the building in Gaza City Ashour lived in.

"Today, all of us, our children and women, are homeless," he said as he pulled his belongings from the rubble. "Where will we go in these difficult times?"

Shadi Al-Hassi and his elder brother fled their home in the east of the Gaza Strip after it was damaged following an air strike on a building behind their house. They went to their parents' apartment in Al-Watan Tower in downtown Gaza City.

"At four o'clock in the morning, I was surprised by calls to us to evacuate the tower, which had been threatened with Israeli bombing," Al-Hassi told Al Jazeera.

Civil defence vehicles and ambulances rushed to evacuate the building's residents minutes before it was bombed, causing panic among the families that lived there.

"Until this moment, I am still in shock that the tower was targeted. A residential and civilian tower par excellence, with clinics, companies and a beauty centre? Where is the military activity that Israel claims?" Al-Hassi told Al Jazeera.

"Now all of us, my brother and my family, were rendered homeless within hours and we don't know what's coming next."

Youssef Al-Bawab, who lived in a building opposite the Al-Watan Tower, told Al Jazeera they received a warning from Israeli forces at 5pm local time (14:00 GMT) to evacuate their house.

"We felt very frightened. The tower is only a few metres away from us and it is a civilian tower. We did not notice any resistance activities in it as Israel claimed."

The building in which Al-Bawab lived with 150 other people was badly damaged and became uninhabitable. Several other houses and buildings around the Al-Watan Tower were also severely damaged after the bombing.

"Israel says it is targeting resistance fighters, military sites and buildings belonging to Hamas, but the truth is otherwise. I believe Israel is deliberately targeting civilians and displacing them to put more pressure on Hamas," Al-Bawab said. "But what is our fault? Where do we go?"

Mohammed Salah, from Beit Lahia neighbourhood in the north of Gaza, said he left his home and took shelter in a United Nations-run school with other families from the area.

"Last night, Israeli aeroplanes randomly bombed our area. The situation was very dangerous, so I left my home with other families," he told Al Jazeera.

"Israeli bombs don't differentiate between civilians and resistance fighters. In every war, we leave our homes because of the indiscriminate bombing."

"We have been living in this for years, with no one defending or standing for us. We have the right to resist our occupier," Salah said.

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No place for Gaza residents to flee after Israel declares war, bombs homes

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Residential buildings in besieged strip bombed by Israel forces, killing hundreds, after Hamas's unprecedented attack.

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Shock and anger: Israelis search for loved ones after Hamas attack

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what it's like when your loved ones die violently

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what it's like when your loved ones die violently

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This is not easy to read but it's necessary to understand the real cost of the political malfeasance that has brought Israel to this moment.

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teve Markachenko, a 25-year-old from Carmel, in northern Israel, had been looking forward to attending the Nova music festival on a desert kibbutz this weekend. He and his girlfriend, Elisa Levin, 34, drove four hours south on Friday night for the event celebrating the Jewish harvest festival of Sukkot.

But at 6.30am on Saturday, they were among thousands of young partygoers enjoying the sunrise but unaware that their lives were about to change forever. At first, the air raid sirens seemed like they were part of the trance music, survivors said. Then rocket vapour trails began appearing in the sky above: people began panicking about being caught in the open and rushed to their cars. And then the gunfire began.

Around 200 people are believed to have been killed at the all-night festival, and dozens more are still missing, believed to have been taken to the Gaza Strip as hostages. The attack was one of the worst single incidents during the Palestinian militant group Hamas' surprise offensive Operation al-Aqsa Flood - a day that will go down in history as Israel's 9/11.

Some attendees watched their friends die in front of them; others played dead for hours until they heard voices speaking in Hebrew and knew help had arrived. Videos from the scene showed lifeless bodies on the ground, a shot-up van, and men and women being dragged away by armed militants. Screams fill the air.

One harrowing clip showed an Israeli woman identified as Noa Argamani pleading for her life as she was separated from her partner and driven away on a motorbike by two Hamas fighters.

Markachenko and Levin managed to escape the initial chaos, his brother Dima said. Their car's GPS system shows the vehicle still located about 5km (3 miles) away from the party site. But no one has heard from the couple since around 6.15am, when Levin called her brother.

"We don't know anything. The Home Front, the police, the army, no one has any information to give us. We've been to every hospital in the country, nothing. And the road is blocked, so we can't go to their car," the 32-year-old said.

"All this technology, all this stuff we have done to keep ourselves safe, the army, it meant nothing. This country is a joke."

Israeli soldiers take position on the main road near the border with Gaza. Photograph: Atef Safadi/EPA

Markachenko was at a missing persons centre set up at a police station near Tel Aviv's airport on Sunday to register his brother's name and submit DNA samples. He was one of hundreds of quiet, subdued people who went in and out of the centre over the course of the morning. In what is usually a deeply divided society, Israelis of all backgrounds - secular, ultra-Orthodox, nationalist-religious types, Ashkenazi, Mizrahi, and Palestinian citizens of Israel - milled around the building, united in worry and grief.

Some people were sure of their loved ones' whereabouts after seeing their terrified faces in Hamas videos that appear to have been filmed inside Gaza. Approximately 100 Israelis, both military and civilians, are believed to have been taken into the enclave, authorities said on Sunday.

Hamas has frequently used captive Israelis as bargaining chips to secure the release of its members in Israel's prisons, but has never managed to seize more than a handful at a time until now.

"My cousin, his wife, and their eight-year-old daughter, they are in Gaza. They have a 15-year-old boy too, but we don't know where he is," said Nitzan Eli Akin, 51. His family members - Noam, 48, Dikla, 51 and Ella, 8 - were seized at gunpoint from the border kibbutz Nahal Oz. Their last contact was around 10:30am on Saturday, when they sent messages saying that terrorists were inside their community.

"They look like they are not underground in a tunnel, that's good, and there is some blood on their clothes but they seem in OK health. We are just begging for anyone to help us return them safely," he said.

Israelis are used to war, but the scale and ferocity of Saturday's attack blindsided the country's security and intelligence forces, who assessed as recently as last week that Hamas was not currently interested in a full-scale war. Now they are facing the fifth conflict in the 16 years since the Islamists seized control of the strip and Israel and Egypt imposed a punishing air, land and sea blockade.

Barrages of rocket fire were used as cover for the devastating and unprecedented ground attack, which saw Hamas operatives break through 29 points in the high-tech Israeli defences surrounding the tiny enclave before fanning out in trucks and motorbikes into 22 nearby Israeli communities.

The militants shot indiscriminately at people in the streets, before entering homes and public buildings, where in some cases they seized hostages. The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) were slow to respond; fighting continued overnight and into Saturday evening as the army still struggled to neutralise gunmen in different locations; by sundown, at least three villages and kibbutzim appeared to be going back and forth between Israeli and Hamas control.

At least 600 Israelis have been killed, with the death toll likely to keep rising. Hamas's attack is now the deadliest in the country's history: there are already almost the same number of dead as the entirety of the five-year-long intifada, or Palestinian uprising, of the 2000s, in just a single day.

As the war lurched into a second day on Sunday, sirens continued to blare across southern and central Israel as volleys of rockets launched from Gaza hit the same areas that suffered Saturday's violence; the IDF is evacuating Israelis from a buffer zone around the strip, making a ground offensive more likely. Near the city of Ashkelon, highways heading north were packed, but empty in the other direction, other than army vehicles and a handful of civilian cars blasting music to raise troops' morale.

Around noon, two F-16 fighter jets roared over the traffic heading towards the Mediterranean, before turning south towards the Gaza Strip. Retaliatory Israeli airstrikes on the besieged Palestinian territory have killed at least 370 people, the Hamas health ministry said. Initial Palestinian media reports also suggested that 17 members of one family, aged between one to 65, had been killed in a single strike.

Israel's northern front, against the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, was also tense after the Iran-backed Islamists claimed a rocket attack on Israeli territory. The Shia group normally sits out flare-ups in Gaza, but has warned that it will respond if Israel sends ground forces into the strip. A war on three fronts, if the restive West Bank also ignites - or even four, if there is a return to the intercommunal violence seen in 2021 - would mark an unprecedented escalation in the decades old Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

The trail of destruction left by Hamas across communities in southern Israel was easy to follow. On Ha-Tamar Street, in the small town of Ofakim, nearly every house was covered in bullet holes, every car shot up, and traditional Sukkot tents for eating outside during the holiday ripped and torn. Inside one street bomb shelter, drying streaks of blood marked the wall.

Footage shows Akin family held hostage by Hamas militants - video

A couple there were taken hostage by five militants, and were released alive after a special forces raid killed the captors. Neighbour George Elkhazov, 23, along with his parents and sister, first realised something deeply frightening was happening when a Hamas gunman carrying a rocket-propelled grenade rang the doorbell. After seeing him through the intercom camera, the family huddled behind the kitchen wall for 17 hours until the shooting was over.

"I got a call, two hours in, telling me I had been called up for reserve service," Elkhazov said. "I was the one asking, 'Where are you? Why aren't you helping us?'"

Amid the tragedy, there were stories of hope and bravery. Yair Golan, a reserve major general and a former member of the Knesset for the leftwing Meretz party, reportedly saved a passerby from armed gunmen, while a retired general living in Tel Aviv travelled to his son's kibbutz, successfully freeing his family.

But the overwhelming sentiment in Israel right now is shock - coupled with a rising sense of anger.

"This can never happen again," said Dima Markachenko, whose brother, Steve, has not been seen since the attack on the music festival. "We need to crush Gaza. Once and for all this time."

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Shock and anger: Israelis search for loved ones after Hamas attack

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At least 600 Israelis have been killed and around 100 taken hostage in the deadliest attack in the country's history

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Israeli lawmaker blames pogroms against Palestinians for "terrible" attacks

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how to understand what's happening in Israel and Palestine

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how to understand what's happening in Israel and Palestine

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there are those in the Israeli government who oppose the fascist behaviors of Netanyahu's coalition. This article covers the reaction of one of them to the Hamas attack on Israel.

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Ofer Cassif, a member of the Knesset, said he warned the situation would 'erupt' if the Israeli government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu did not change its policies towards Palestinians [File: Atef Safadi/EPA]

An Israeli lawmaker has told Al Jazeera that his party warned about events like Saturday's Hamas attack on Israel if the country's government continued its illegal occupation of Palestinian lands.

Hamas launched a multipronged assault at dawn on Saturday with thousands of rockets fired at Israel, and the Gaza-based group's fighters infiltrating Israeli towns and illegal settlements.

Keep reading

The attack left at least 300 Israelis dead, including dozens of soldiers, with bodies strewn on roads. Meanwhile, at least 313 Palestinians have been killed and more than 1,700 others wounded in Israeli bombardments of the besieged Gaza enclave.

Ofer Cassif, a member of the Knesset and leftist Hadash coalition, said he warned the situation would "erupt" if the Israeli government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu did not change its policies towards Palestinians. Hadash has four seats in the 120-member Knesset.

"We condemn and oppose any assault on innocent civilians. But in contrast to the Israeli government that means that we oppose any assault on Palestinian civilians as well. We must analyse those terrible incidents [the attacks] in the right context - and that is the ongoing occupation," Cassif said.

"We have been warning time and time again... everything is going to erupt and everybody is going to pay a price - mainly innocent civilians on both sides. And unfortunately, that is exactly what happened," he said.

"The Israeli government, which is a fascist government, supports, encourages, and leads pogroms against the Palestinians. There is an ethnic cleansing going on. It was obvious the writing was on the wall, written in the blood of the Palestinians - and unfortunately now Israelis as well," he added.

More than 20,000 Palestinians have left Gaza's border region to head further inside the Hamas-controlled territory to seek refuge in UN schools, according to UNRWA, the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees.

Previously, conflicts between Israel and Hamas resulted in extensive devastation in Gaza and days of rocket attacks on Israeli towns. The current escalation appears to be even more precarious than normal, as Israel's far-right government grapples with the unprecedented security breach, while Palestinians are mired in despair due to the ongoing occupation in the West Bank and the suffocating blockade in Gaza.

"The only thing Netanyahu cares about is not the well-being of the citizens of Israel, let alone of Palestinians in the occupied territories," Cassif said. "He is interested in surviving. He just wants to stay out of prison. That is the only motivation and incentive that drives [him]."

Netanyahu is facing numerous legal troubles at home with the country's attorney general filing several charges against him, including fraud, breach of trust, and corruption. The Israeli leader has strongly denied the charges.

The latest escalation raises the prospect of a broader regional conflict. On Sunday, Hezbollah, a powerful armed group backed by Iran, said it had launched guided rockets and artillery onto three posts in Shebaa Farms "in solidarity" with the Palestinian people.

Shebaa Farms, which is claimed by Lebanon, was captured by Israel in the 1967 Six Day War.

The Israeli military said on Sunday it fired artillery into an area of Lebanon from where cross-border mortar fire was launched. Israel's military said one of its drones struck a Hezbollah post in the area of Har Dov, an area in Shebaa Farms.

"I'm afraid that some of the elements like Hezbollah are going to join this war. I hope not, of course. Indeed, for the sake of all people, of all civilians, Palestinians and Israelis alike, I hope that that this is going to end as soon as possible," Cassif said, adding that "the only way to stop the bloodshed of both peoples is to put an end to the occupation".

On Sunday, an Egyptian policeman opened fire on tourists in the Mediterranean city of Alexandria, killing at least two Israeli nationals and one Egyptian, according to local media reports.

Extra News television channel, which has close ties to Egyptian security agencies, quoted an unidentified security official as saying that another person was wounded in the attack at an Israeli tour group in Pompey's Pillar site in Alexandria.

"This morning during a visit of Israeli tourists in Alexandria, Egypt, a local opened fire at them, murdering two Israeli citizens and their Egyptian guide," Israel's foreign ministry said in a statement.

"In addition, there is a wounded Israeli in moderate condition," the statement added.

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Israeli lawmaker blames pogroms against Palestinians for "terrible" attacks

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Ofer Cassif says he warned the situation would 'erupt' if Israel did not change its treatment of Palestinians.

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https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/israel-story/id1048515651?i=1000624360494

This episode of the “Israel Story” podcast is about two songs - same music, different lyrics. One celebrates the beauty of Jerusalem, while the other mourns the violence and death involved in the 1968 war. I found it very moving.
-Bob Lowe (Robert.A.Lowe.pdx@gmail.com)

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Israel Story is an award-winning podcast that tells true stories you won't hear on the news. Hosted by Mishy Harman, the bi-weekly show brings you extraordinary tales about ordinary Israelis. The show is produced in partnership with The Jerusalem Foundation. For Hebrew episodes, see סיפור ישראלי, or go to our website: israelstory.org
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Israel Story is an award-winning podcast that tells true stories you won't hear on the news. Hosted by Mishy Harman, the bi-weekly show brings you extraordinary tales about ordinary Israelis. The show is produced in partnership with The Jerusalem Foundation. For Hebrew episodes, see סיפור ישראלי, or go to our website: israelstory.org
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

So Many Interesting and Diverse Stories

I have a been a long-time fan and cannot say enough about how interesting and varied the stories are including the series on the Declaration of Independence, the Jerusalem YMCA, etc. Your pivot to the War Time Diaries is so right for the moment. Not only are the stories captivating but all of the production is of such high quality - audio, music, etc. Really great and please keep it up.

The best podcast right now

During this time listening to the voices this podcast brings is critical. Thank you and thank you for the beautiful music with which you end each episode .

A Light Amidst The Darkness

Thank you, for bringing these human stories to us, and allowing us to hear them. They are so important. May the survivors find heading & peace. Am Israel Chai

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Israel Story is an award-winning podcast that tells true stories you won't hear on the news. Hosted by Mishy Harman, the bi-weekly show brings you extraordinary tales about ordinary Israelis. The show is produced in partnership with The Jerusalem Foundation. For Hebrew episodes, see סיפור ישראלי, or...

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I’m reading “A History of Burning,” by Janina Oza. It’s a novel - historical fiction about the aftermath of British colonial rule, describing how the different groups in a country ruled by the British were pitted against each other, so that when colonial rule ended, violence ensued. So far, it’s covered India/Palestine and Uganda - but the dynamics are highly relevant to what we’re learning about Israel and Palestine. (Ironic that in 1903, there was serious discussion about setting up a Jewish homeland in Uganda!)
If you read this, I’d love to know your reaction.
-Bob Lowe (Robert.A.Lowe.pdx@gmail.com)

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US pro-Israel groups in bitter feud over Netanyahu's far-right government

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this is a good overview of how these two groups, each a political organization of American Jews who support Israel, disagree with each other. AIPAC has chosen to support the current far right Israeli government. J Street calls for conditions on US foreign aid to Israel. The president of J Street, Jeremy Ben Ami, will be in Portland OR for 24 hours next week; there may still be room to hear him at the Eastside Jewish Commons September 7 at 7pm - sign up now!

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A public feud has broken out between the US's leading pro-Israel lobby groups over who represents the true interests of the Jewish state in Washington under the most rightwing government in its history.

The hardline American Israel Public Affairs Committee (Aipac) has called its smaller and more liberal rival, J Street, a "grave threat" to Israel's security and accused it of endorsing the country's "most virulent critics" in Congress.

J Street has responded by portraying Aipac as a front for Benjamin Netanyahu's extremist coalition, while accusing it of failing to support unprecedented Israeli public protests against an undemocratic power grab by the government.

The vitriolic dispute reflects a deepening divide among American Jews about what it is to be pro-Israel. But it also comes as Aipac's once-unchallenged influence in Washington has been diminished by its unwavering backing for Netanyahu over the past decade or more, including siding with the Israeli leader against President Barack Obama, and by growing support for the Palestinian cause within the Democratic party as Israel further entrenches its occupation.

Aipac's standing was also damaged when, for the first time in its history, it broke with its claim to be bipartisan last year and began directly funding political campaigns against critics of Israeli government policies. It was accused of being "morally bankrupt" for endorsing Republican members of Congress who tried to block President Biden's presidential election victory.

At the heart of the dispute is Aipac's position that support for Israel means virtually unquestioned backing for whatever government is in power. J Street argues that support for Israel requires standing for the country's broader interests, including an end to occupation, even when that is in opposition to the policies of a particular administration in Jerusalem.

As the two lobby groups prepare to face off by pouring millions of dollars into backing rival candidates in next year's congressional elections, Aipac sent its donors a letter attacking J Street's policies such as imposing conditions on the US's $3.8bn a year in military aid to Israel to prevent it being used to annex Palestinian territory, expand Jewish settlements or other actions to entrench occupation. J Street endorsed Democratic congresswoman Betty McCollum's 2021 bill to place similar conditions on US aid.

"Today, one of the gravest threats to American support for Israel's security comes from an organization that outrageously calls itself pro-Israel," Aipac said in the letter.

"J Street's efforts fracture the bipartisan consensus for Israel and give its radical opponents in Congress a veneer of legitimacy from an allegedly 'pro-Israel' group. This is a clear and present threat to American support for the Jewish state."

J Street's president, Jeremy Ben-Ami, fired back in a series of tweets.

"Sadly, over time, Aipac has embraced an increasingly distorted vision of what it means to be 'pro-Israel' - one more aligned with the goals of the Netanyahu government and the American right than with the Jewish, democratic values of most Jewish Americans (+ Israelis themselves)," he wrote.

"There's no room for genuine concern over eroding democracy, endless settlements, racist rhetoric and the growing toll of maintaining a permanent, unjust, undemocratic occupation."

Aipac's attack in part reflects a growing concern within the Israeli government that demands by J Street and others for the US government to take a stronger stand to end the occupation will gain wider traction in Washington.

The dispute has spilled over to Israel itself.

The liberal Tel Aviv newspaper Haaretz two weeks ago described Aipac as "the pro-Netanyahu, anti-Israel lobby" and accused the group of flying in 24 Democratic members of Congress "so that Netanyahu could mollify them with lies".

"Effectively, the organization has become an operational wing of Netanyahu's far-right government, one that peddles a false image of a liberal Israel in the United States and sells illusions to members of Congress," it said.

The leaders of Israel's pro-democracy movement, which has led months of mass protests against the government's moves to weaken the power of the judiciary, accused Aipac of blocking the visiting Democratic members of Congress from meeting the protestors.

"It is about time Aipac realizes that there are no longer any buyers for the fake picture of Israel it's trying to sell," said the authors, who included the former deputy head of Israel's National Security Council and former officials in the prime minister's office.

"Aipac is trying to offer an alternative reality and is effectively turning from a pro-Israel organization to one that promotes the anti-democratic overhaul and the de facto annexation of the West Bank, led by Netanyahu and aided by the most extreme, racist and violent elements of the Israeli far right."

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US pro-Israel groups in bitter feud over Netanyahu's far-right government

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Hardline Aipac - condemned for unquestioning support of PM - calls liberal rival J Street 'grave threat' to Israel's security

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Ari Sharit viewpoint on Israel Justice Dept (towards the end of this piece)

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Ari Sharit viewpoint on Israel Justice Dept (towards the end of this piece)

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https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/15/opinion/israel-benjamin-netanyahu.html?unlocked_article_code=whLxqG40emXzGL7PqYsXkosOiYv_dvA3RSRKq6isZyhCATwwS9vz5KtBrv3V9jKo7VvPhzIti8Pq7YeXQJm54ulmX0TaFX8bzFcj6IW1E4ar2f-RxGKlqzXRZg3_uRrN7l5GpOB7ceatkEEPats6Ge8rWSjHqG1yeM70_RuimyZIRIpOYEreIlOz-XEU72lQKXqRT4MmX9rrWCv2PzGwr6pF48xooqb6mIhknMIpMx3NmbFaSGSxyzl73jpP1Ocsg2KivOOhzLcnuKo0UQmERlGyIZTaAhAq5nyw90hZnm9pu916YBhM5sxZgP1PnIq_9vKwfxGPKfwNEYGnF9KDjNirpg&smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare

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Take advantage of this unusual opportunity!

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Israel’s Crisis of Democracy: What it Means for Israel, Palestine and the American Jewish Community

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Please join J Street President Jeremy Ben-Ami for a meaningful discussion about the growing Israeli protest movement, what it means to be pro-Israel in today’s world, and what we as American Jews and the US government can do to advance democracy, equality and justice in both Israel and Palestine. Wh…

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August 8th, 2023 - Last month, the online Jewish magazine Tablet, a reliably right-wing Zionist publication, published an article by staffers Jacob Siegel and Liel Leibovitz with a surprising headline: “End U.S. Aid to Israel.” In contrast to prevailing wisdom, the article argued that “American payouts undermine Israel’s domestic defense industry, weaken its economy, and compromise the country’s autonomy” and called for “the stranglehold of aid” to be cut so that both the US and especially Israel could pursue their own interests.

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The Land of Hope and Fear by Isabel Kershner review – how Israel betrayed its high ideals

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Broadly speaking, Kershner is sympathetic to the values that she believes underlay the young state of Israel, where the socialist parties that later merged into the Labor party were firmly in control. She is inspired by the fast-disappearing “generation of titans, the vital men and women who had fought to establish the Jewish homeland... from the uprooted Holocaust survivors who escaped Hitler’s ovens to the warrior-poets who shaped modern Hebrew culture”. She admires the pragmatic romanticism of the early kibbutz movement; the “hardy pioneers” who “made the desert bloom”; and “the modesty and ideological purity” of politicians such as Israel’s first prime minister, David Ben-Gurion, who lived out his retirement in a remote and spartan cabin. And she looks back to a time when the IDF was “the glue of a fragmented nation”, where (Jewish) Israelis of all backgrounds served alongside one another and reserve duty helped “preserve the citizen’s sense of camaraderie over decades”.

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The Land of Hope and Fear by Isabel Kershner review – how Israel betrayed its high ideals

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The New York Times correspondent’s compelling history identifies the issues that have polarised a country now split by far-right extremists

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https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/jul/24/american-jews-critical-israeli-settlements-west-bank?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

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Mike Levinson has been pushing back for 40 years and finally thinks he might be getting somewhere.

"There's a change and the politicians see it. I think it scares them," said Levinson, holding a sign demanding "Stop Israeli settler violence" as he marched through New York on Thursday.

"There's a tremendous change going on in the American Jewish community. There are a lot of Jews, especially young people, who are not so quick to automatically and unconditionally support everything that Israel does. People are accepting the fact that it's OK to be Jewish and criticise Israel."

Levinson, a Jewish New Yorker, began protesting against Israeli government policies during its 1982 invasion of Lebanon. It's been a long and often lonely road since then as he has sought to get his fellow Americans to pay attention to decades of Israeli occupation, military assaults on the West Bank and Gaza, and the unrelenting expansion of Jewish settlements.

People are accepting the fact that it's OK to be Jewish and criticise Israel

Mike Levinson

Through it all, however, support for Israel in Washington has remained largely undiminished.

Nothing much looked to have changed last week as Democrats and Republicans alike feted Israel's president, Isaac Herzog, during his address to Congress. The Democratic leadership distanced itself from a boycott by some progressive representatives and joined the pile-on against Pramila Jayapal, chair of the influential Democratic Progressive Caucus, after she called Israel a "racist state" before rowing back to say she meant that its government is pursuing " outright racist policies ".

The Democratic leader in the House of Representatives, Hakeem Jeffries, made a pointed defense of Israel while congressional Republicans quickly engineered a resolution declaring "Israel is not a racist or apartheid state". All but 10 members voted for it.

The New York Times columnist Michelle Goldberg described the backlash against Jayapal as a " hysterical overreaction " from Democrats and Republicans alike "demonstrating that, no matter how far Israel veers from liberal democratic norms, when it comes to American politics, it's still protected by a thick lattice of taboos".

But for all that, Levinson was upbeat as he marched last Thursday in support of proposed state legislation to block New York charities from funding illegal Israeli settlements. He said opinions about Israel have been shifting for years as increasing numbers of ordinary Americans, Jewish and not, see the Israeli-Palestinian conflict through the prism of civil rights.

"I hear it from them. They see social media, they're checking out information coming from the Middle East. They don't have to rely on the mass media here any more. They're more sceptical about what they hear from the politicians and mainstream Jewish groups," he said.

The Israeli president, Israel Herzog, is applauded by the US vice-president, Kamala Harris, and the speaker of the House, Kevin McCarthy, on 19 July 2023. Photograph: Will Oliver/EPA

Opinion polls suggest Levinson is right. A Gallup survey earlier this year found that for the first time more Democrats were sympathetic to the Palestinians than the Israelis by a margin of 11%, a significant shift from a decade ago.

In 2021, a Jewish Electorate Institute poll found that 58% of American Jewish voters support restrictions on US military aid to prevent Israel using it to expand West Bank settlements. One-third agreed that "Israel's treatment of Palestinians is similar to racism in the United States" and one-quarter said that "Israel is an apartheid state", numbers that shocked some Jewish community leaders.

Part of the shift has been driven by social media and the wide circulation of videos such as Israeli assaults on Gaza and the West Bank, the large-scale forced removal of Palestinians from the South Hebron hills, and armed Jewish settlers rampaging through Palestinian towns.

In addition, Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu's longstanding repudiation of a Palestinian state, and far-right members of his latest government openly advocating annexation, have undercut Israel's longstanding defense that its policies are a response to terrorism. That has given traction to claims by Israeli and foreign human rights groups that Israel has imposed a form of apartheid on the occupied territories.

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But protesters in New York on 20 July in Manhattan's Herald Square who were protesting Israeli settlements had no illusions that evolving public opinion is going to translate into a change in policy in Washington any time soon.

Rosalind Petchesky, a retired political science professor at the City University of New York whose family fled anti-Jewish pogroms in Russia at the beginning of the 20th century, was also marching on Thursday. She said that some politicians were uncertain how to respond to the gap between the strong pro-Israel instincts of Washington and the views of some of their constituents.

Mainstream Democratic leaders get a lot of money from these groups and billionaires that support Israel, and that gives them power

Rosalind Petchesky

"Their response to Pramila Jayapal is a sign of weakness in the sense that they feel threatened because they're exposed. But the mainstream Democratic leaders care about 2024 and get a lot of money from these groups and billionaires that support Israel, and that gives them power. So as long as that's true, we are fighting an uphill battle. But we are going to win," she said.

One way forward, said Diala Shamas, a lawyer with the Center for Constitutional Rights who joined the demonstration, is to focus on aspects of Israeli policies that are hard to defend.

American politicians mostly support Israel in the broadest terms, often referring to shared democratic values with the US and speaking up for Israel's "right to defend itself". But it is harder to justify individual Israeli policies, particularly over the settlements.

"It is, of course, an uphill battle to climb," said Shamas. "But we know that the numbers are moving towards consensus around opposition to Israeli settlements. When you actually look at the demands of this campaign, they are the most uncontroversial from a legal standpoint. So those who oppose it have to actually say that they actually think that it's OK to aid and abet war crimes."

Still, it's one thing to win support and another to get voters to care enough about an issue that it has political impact.

The challenge was clear in Herald Square. As the protesters chanted "We are winning", New York shoppers mostly walked by without paying attention. Except for a man who stopped and started explaining to his son who the settlers are.

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'We are winning': Are US Jews who oppose Israeli settlements finally getting somewhere?

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American Jews are growing sceptical of Israeli policies towards Palestinians and want limits on aid to prevent settlement growth

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https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/22/opinion/israel-military-aid.html

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Opinion | With Israel, It’s Time to Start Discussing the Unmentionable

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Does it make sense for the United States to provide $3.8 billion annually to another rich country, indefinitely?

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I found this interesting
Michelle Berlin-Lowe

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"America is a thing you can move very easily, move it in the right direction." Those were the words spoken by then-Israeli citizen, now-Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in 2001 to a group in the northern West Bank settlement of Ofra, picked up by a hot mic. Fast forward two decades, and it appears the prime minister was right-the U.S. public is movable, though not exactly in the way he thought. Polling over the past few years indicates that U.S. support for Israel is on a steady decline, while sympathy for Palestinians in the eyes of Americans has been on the rise.

"America is a thing you can move very easily, move it in the right direction." Those were the words spoken by then-Israeli citizen, now-Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in 2001 to a group in the northern West Bank settlement of Ofra, picked up by a hot mic. Fast forward two decades, and it appears the prime minister was right-the U.S. public is movable, though not exactly in the way he thought. Polling over the past few years indicates that U.S. support for Israel is on a steady decline, while sympathy for Palestinians in the eyes of Americans has been on the rise.

Part of this is because Israel, once a bipartisan cause, has now become strongly associated with the right. Years of mutual infatuation between the U.S. Republican Party and Israel's far-right Likud party culminated in the Trump administration's internationally condemned decision to move the U.S. Embassy to Israel to the disputed city of Jerusalem. In turn, the recent rise of a progressive flank within the Democratic Party has produced politicians such as Reps. Rashida Tlaib and Pramila Jayapal, who are both willing to openly criticize the nature of the Israeli state.

The old impulses are still there, as evidenced by the pushback after Jayapal's recent description of Israel as a racist state. But more Americans than ever, especially among the young, share Jayapal's assessment of Israel. A Gallup poll released in March and a University of Maryland poll released in April show, respectively, that Democrats sympathize more with Palestinians than with Israelis, and that more than a fifth of Democrats view Israel to be a "state with segregation similar to apartheid." The Jewish Electorate Institute has found that nearly 35 percent of Jewish Americans agreed that "Israel's treatment of Palestinians is similar to racism in the United States."

Columnists and analysts have been keen to agree that Netanyahu's multiple premierships over the past three decades have played a major role in disillusioning Americans. Since 1996, Netanyahu has served more than 15 years as prime minister in three nonconsecutive terms. His longest term lasted from 2009 to 2021, during which he publicly clashed with former U.S. President Barack Obama and embraced his far-right successor, Donald Trump. Today, Bibi is overseeing the most right-wing government in Israel's history.

Yet it would be a mistake to attribute the shift in public opinion to Netanyahu's rocky relationship with Obama or his love affair with Trump. While Netanyahu's presence in the public consciousness has helped polarize the issue of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict around partisan lines, the data suggests that this steep decline in support for Israel cannot be pinned on just one individual. The Gallup poll in particular, conducted entirely within the month of February, shows that there was an approximate 11-point shift in public sentiment in just the past 12 months. This is notable because Netanyahu only returned to office in December of last year, indicating that the government of change led by Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid in rotation did little to meaningfully improve the image of the Israeli state in the eyes of Democratic voters in the United States.

Beyond the heightened polarization along partisan lines, evidenced by the various polls since May 2021, there is also a stark generational divide. While baby boomers and Generation X poll as more sympathetic to Israelis, millennials have been shifting toward Palestinians. Gallup polling finds that "millennials are now evenly divided," with 42 percent sympathizing more with the Palestinians and 40 percent with the Israelis. These statistics come at a moment when Israel is more integrated into the region than ever before, with the notion of an Israel surrounded by enemies fading away as states such as the United Arab Emirates and Sudan normalize relations and deepen cooperation via the Abraham Accords. In contrast, the Palestinians are further away from an end to occupation than they were before the First Intifada of the 1980s, and with formal annexation on the horizon, the widening gap in strength has become difficult to ignore.

Even among evangelical Christians, support for Israel is plummeting. Over the span of just three years, from 2018-21, support for Israel among younger evangelicals dropped from 69 percent to 33 percent. Younger Christians, generally more racially diverse and conscious of the morally corrosive qualities of figures like Trump, are diverging from their elders on issues such as immigration and climate change, and their views on Israel are no exception.

Public outcry from the international community in response to the murder of Shireen Abu Akleh by the Israeli army, as well as the dispute between the Israeli state and the Palestinian Jerusalemite residents of the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood, have been massive contributing factors to these shifts in perception as well. In the United States, nearly half of all Democrats under 34 years old disapproved of President Biden's handling of the Israel-Gaza crisis in 2021. Many Democratic members of Congress, spearheaded by Sen. Chris Van Hollen, continue to demand answers in the wake of Israel's decision not to prosecute the soldiers responsible for Abu Akleh's death. In the case of the latter, systemic discrimination and state-backed displacement against Palestinians has inspired Black activists across the United States to draw comparisons between the Black Lives Matter movement and the cause of Palestinian liberation.

This more intersectional approach reflects the increased awareness of what life under the occupation is like, especially after the killing of Iyad al-Hallaq, an autistic Palestinian man, by Israeli police occurred the same week that George Floyd was murdered in the United States. The jarring parallels in brutality and subjugation have caused intra-Jewish conversations about how to approach civil rights in America and Israel-Palestine as more people in both regions are drawing connections between them. Unlike the case of George Floyd, the policeman who killed Iyad was acquitted of all charges, renewing outrage and despair about the systematic lack of accountability. With social media's prominent role, more activists in social justice movements have found themselves exposed to the ways in which the occupation of East Jerusalem, the West Bank, and Gaza produces conditions that amount to injustice for Palestinians.

The ascent of the progressive wing in the Democratic Party has further strengthened the Palestinian perspective in U.S. politics. In 2018, the United States saw the first two Muslim women elected to the House of Representatives. One of them is Tlaib, a Palestinian woman whose grandmother is living under Israeli military occupation. Tlaib's vocal support of Palestinian self-determination has helped facilitate a new tendency within Democratic politics that dissents from the more mainstream, bipartisan consensus touted by Biden and the rest of the Democratic Party.

Political analyst Abe Silberstein noted that it's not just Tlaib anymore who strongly supports Palestinian self-determination. Whereas in years past, commemoration of the Nakba-the displacement of Palestinians by the creation of the Israeli state in 1948-would have been completely taboo on Capitol Hill, Tlaib's Nakba Day event was hosted by Jewish Sen. Bernie Sanders in a Senate hearing room and also saw a prominent Black congresswoman, Cori Bush, in attendance. Progressive organizations within Jewish American society, such as Jewish Voice for Peace and J Street as well as more broadly left-wing organizations such as the Democratic Socialists of America, are beginning to take a sharper line toward Israel, thus applying pressure to the Democratic Party's consensus and moving some Democrats, even moderates such as Betty McCollum and Andre Carson, toward a proactive approach.

The situation is only likely to get more divisive. With a government of self-described "fascist homophobes" and militant followers of the ultranationalist Meir Kahane's ideology, Israel teeters on the edge of embracing an openly Jewish supremacist, anti-democratic political program that risks alienating even traditional Democratic supporters of Israel. As the occupation continues to crystalize and de facto annexation takes place under the auspices of Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, criticism of Israel's role in the conflict is likely only to grow in scope and harshness, especially given the recent and rapid deterioration in the relationship between the Israeli government and the Jewish diaspora in the United States. It is unlikely that these actions can be easily reversed, especially without pressure from Washington and the broader international community.

In recent months, settler-led pogroms in the Palestinian villages of Huwara and Turmus Aya have further shocked the consciousness of Americans: Jewish, Arab, and otherwise. The U.S. public is sensing that the status quo of 2023 resembles something more of an unequal, unjust one-state reality than a complicated war between two nations. Today, the Palestinian narrative of a desire for the end of the occupation and some arrangement of self-determination or equality is compelling to progressives. Tomorrow, barring a dramatic change in the trajectory of the conflict, that narrative is bound to become compelling to more and more people. Perhaps America can be moved in the right direction.

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Young Americans Are Swinging Toward Palestine's Cause

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Israel's support of right-wing politics abroad has backfired.

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In the tragic but rather educational tale of the Tower of Babel, which originally appeared in the biblical Book of Genesis, a united human race that spoke one language arrived at the land of Shinar, where they agreed to build a city with a tower whose top would reach the sky. God, who watched people attempting to reach his heights, punished them for their hubris by confounding their speech so they could no longer understand one another, scattering them around the world.

In 1985, French-Algerian author Jacques Derrida, the father of deconstruction - a set of approaches to understanding the relationship between text and meaning - published the essay "Des Tours de Babel," a scintillating short treatise in which he addressed the problem caused by translation. Upset by the confusion of language and its numerous potential meanings, Derrida used the parable of Babylon as an example of this confusion. He began his account by deconstructing the words in the title of his essay, asking whether the word "Babel" signifies the proper name of a place or a noun.

Derrida then went further to suggest that God actually punished the people for wanting to create a universal genealogy for themselves. By deconstructing the tower, he wrote, the need for language to be translated was born, and with it, the challenges of translation. The act of translation, he concluded, is therefore a "movement of love." The act itself "does not reproduce, does not represent" but rather "extends the body of languages, it puts languages into symbolic expansion."

Wind the tape almost 40 years ahead to the present day, and you'll encounter a joint Jewish and Palestinian translation project operating against all odds right in the heart of Israel, a contested territory whose conflict-riddled and violent trajectory can sometimes make the city of Babylon and its sparring denizens pale in comparison.

The project, a book series operating under the auspices of Jerusalem's Van Leer Institute since 2017, consists of a team of Palestinian and Jewish writers, translators, and editors who work together to render Arabic-language and Palestinian literature accessible to Hebrew-language readers.

The series is titled Maktoob, a name deriving from the Arabic verb "to write" and the expression for something "already written." This is a nod to the Islamic concept that at the time of birth, everything that is supposed to happen to an individual and how it will happen is already decided and written. The series was launched by the late Palestinian Salman Natour together with current chief editor, Prof. Yehouda Shenhav, an Israeli sociologist and critical theorist known for his research on ethnicity in Israeli society and its relationship with the Jewish-Palestinian conflict.

This ambitious translation initiative can be seen as a contemporary "movement of love," to borrow Derrida's wording. It is also, and perhaps primarily, perceived by its core members as an act of resistance to the Israeli and Hebrew-speaking hegemony and to what they view as a concerted regime-led agenda to sideline and silence the Arabic language in the country.

Jokingly paraphrasing the euphemism, "If the mountain won't go to Mohammed, then Mohammed must come to the mountain," Eyad Barghuthy - Acre-based writer, translator, editor, and deputy editor of the Maktoob series - tells Haaretz that he and his team understood that "if Moses won't come to the mountain, the mountain will be translated into Hebrew."

Jokes aside, Barghuthy stresses that "clearly there is ample need for our project, with less than 0.4 percent of Israel's Jewish population capable of reading a literary text in Arabic. Personally, this is the most effective kind of cultural resistance I know. I speak on behalf of our entire team and for myself as a Palestinian writer, translator, and academic when I say that I view our work as a sort of agency, and view it as my personal duty to erase and break down the linguistic barrier that has been erected in this country."

One need not return to ancient history to back up Barghuthy's statements. As recently as 2019, the Israeli parliament passed the Nation-State Law. It defines Israel as the homeland of the Jewish people and gives superiority to Hebrew over other languages spoken in the country, despite the Arabic-speaking demographic making up about 20 percent of Israel's population.

"We want to start a revolution, but not only within the confines of our team at Maktoob. We want this revolution to spread to the entire country," says Kifah Abdul Halim, a translator, editor, writer, journalist, and producer who lives in Haifa. In addition to her editing and translation for Maktoob, she also oversees media relations and copyright work as well as the design of the book covers, on which she opts to feature predominantly Palestinian art. "It's very strange that Jews in Israel don't speak Arabic, despite the fact that they live in a region where this is the lingua franca," she says.

"In my opinion, the most political act Jews living here can do is to go and learn Arabic. It's even more important that they do so than voting in the elections. If people learn Arabic, then suddenly the language won't sound so scary to them, and they will hear other sides of the story that are almost entirely absent from the public discourse. Language is an incredible tool for communication; if people here will be able to communicate with us in our mother tongue, half the conflict will be resolved."
Translating in dialogue
Until that day comes, Barghuthy, Abdul Halim, and their colleagues are hard at work translating numerous books. They're constantly improving and experimenting with their translation method, a system that's entirely unique to Maktoob.

"We work in a dialogue-based, binational, and bilingual system and try new formats all the time," Barghuthy explains. "This means that in the main team working on the translation of each book, there's always a Jew and a Palestinian working together. Sometimes the translator is Palestinian and the editor is Jewish; other times it's the opposite."

"Most often in the world of translation, translators translate works into their first language, but we don't work this way in Maktoob, because we're trying to break up this notion of exclusivity over the language. Palestinians can also translate books into Hebrew, not only Jews," adds Abdul Halim.

This approach, says Barghuthy, is based on notions expounded upon by Prof. Shenhav in his 2020 book "Laborers and Actors in Translation: From the Individual Turn to Bi-National Translation."

"The idea that a translator is sitting all alone at his table, poring over heaps of dictionaries while entirely disconnected from the culture and space in which the language of the text continues to develop, is outdated," Barghuthy says. "In his book, Shenhav explains that the image of the translator as a lonely laborer is often the result of a national and ideological standpoint, which seeks to separate the act of translation from its collective nature. Historically, translation used to be an act of sharing, of moving information throughout spaces and cultures."

Abdul Halim says that this approach sets Maktoob apart from most of the other book series and publications that work on Arabic-to-Hebrew translations in Israel. "It's not rare at all for you to see entire books translated from Arabic into Hebrew without a single Palestinian professional getting involved in the process," she laments. "The results speak for themselves: These books contain multiple errors, stereotypes, and racist nuances that find their way into the translation."

Abdul Halim identifies this phenomenon as a political problem, not just a literary one. "Many Jewish translators who work in this field have learned literary Arabic but don't know spoken Arabic well enough, so they miss out on jokes or common expressions that authors use in their original texts.

"That's why at Maktoob, if one of our Jewish translators works on a book, he or she will be matched with a Palestinian translation editor who makes sure nothing will be lost in translation," she says. "This doesn't mean that you have to stick to the original text word by word, but that you ensure the spirit of the text is kept intact in the transition between languages."

As part of their mission, Maktoob invites individuals to train with them. It also holds annual translation workshops for young Palestinian translators in which they explain their translation model, teach it, and offer an opportunity to connect with their network of translators. Abdul Halim, who has translated books for Maktoob, shares that "it's daunting to translate a book into a language that isn't one's own first language. With our system, you can rest assured that there will be an editor by your side who can support you in the process."

Sounding the voice of the unheard

The egalitarian approach reflected in their work process is also evident in Maktoob's selection of titles, which Barghuthy is in charge of choosing and curating. "We try to provide a platform for diverse writers and stories," Barghuthy says. "It's important to emphasize that Arab literature is rich and diverse, so once you begin exploring it, it's like stepping into a wonderful maze. That's the main experience I want to give readers."

The series is divided into subcategories, which include fiction and historical accounts. "When we select which historical journals to translate, we choose them based on their historical value to the readers," Barghuthy says. "One such important book we have translated is 'The Day on Which the Laws of Nature have Changed.' In this book, historian Abd Al-Rahman Al-Jabarti writes from an Egyptian viewpoint about the French occupation of Egypt that Napoleon and his army did at the end of the 18th century."

For the fiction line, Barghuthy makes his decisions based on "the quality of the texts, their diversity and the extent to which they offer a continuation of the narrative." One project he is especially proud of is the translation of "Amputated Tongue," "which is a vivid example of how we tell the fragmented Palestinian story by sounding the voices of different authors from different generations." Barghuthy calls the anthology, which contains 73 stories that were written by 57 authors who are Palestinian residents of Israel, the West Bank, Gaza, and the Palestinian diaspora, "the richest and most comprehensive anthology of Palestinian prose in Hebrew."

Abdul Halim says she is most moved by the unexpected success of certain books the series chooses to translate. "There are books we struggle to sell to Israeli readers, books we translate for ideological reasons without necessarily expecting they'll be popular, and suddenly they become bestsellers. One example of such a book is 'The Children of the Ghetto: My Name is Adam,' a novel by the author Elias Khoury."

The Lebanese author's novel is a fictional story about a Palestinian man named Adam Danun and his attempt to write a book after immigrating to New York (which is said to be a retelling of Khoury's own life story). Abdul Halim says it has "sold thousands of copies and was reprinted in a third edition. Who would have thought that a book that discusses the Nakba and the ghetto created around the city of Lud would be so popular with Hebrew readers? We got an outpouring of positive responses and letters by moved readers, including a letter from an elderly Holocaust survivor who loved this book."
What about the authors themselves? I understand that you translate books from all over the Arab world, including countries that don't maintain good (or any) ties with Israel. Is it hard to persuade them to let Maktoob translate their oeuvres?
Abdul Halim: "It's definitely a challenge to get authors to consent to their works being translated into Hebrew. I wouldn't say the writers we approach are too glad, even Palestinian authors living in Gaza or the West Bank. Despite this challenge, we were able to build connections with many authors.

"An important persuasive factor is that we're a project in which Palestinian professionals facilitate the translation process at each step of the way. The majority of the writers don't speak or read Hebrew, so they're reassured to know that Palestinian translators like myself and Eyad will work with them. Another strong factor in our favor is that these writers understand that we're a project with a clear political agenda. We're not only a literary project, we're working to challenge the Israeli perception of the Palestinian and Arab world."
So what other efforts do you undertake to challenge the perception of Israeli readers? I assume that your target audience is left-wing academics like myself and the readers of this newspaper, but how do you reach beyond this obvious circle?
Barghuthy: "We're proactive. Just last year, we launched a community of subscribers who sign up to hear about our publications and receive the new books we publish. This community already includes hundreds of subscribers who are interested in supporting our project. Most are influencers: Academics, activists, researchers, and literary agents. These are the kind of people who are in charge of composing the syllabi at educational institutions, and they add our books to reading lists."

Abdul Halim: "We also constantly hold events in large cities like Tel Aviv, Haifa, and Jerusalem and initiate new collaborations to reach new readers. At the events we hold we read texts in Hebrew and in Arabic, because we want people to be able to hear Arabic spoken in a literary and cultural context. I know from experience that people have prejudices toward the language; when they hear Arabic in the public space, they're threatened. At our events, the purpose is for people to hear it as the beautiful language it is, experience its lyricism, and perceive it in a new light."

Barghuthy: "We make this literature accessible to Hebrew readers who don't know how to access the texts, who don't have the knowledge or the tools to find them. Having said that, the readers also have to want to expand their knowledge. I understand and believe it takes courage and an active decision for Israelis to say: OK, I want to know what happened here. I want to understand what's happening around me right now. I'm willing to disconnect from everything I've been told thus far."

For Abdul Halim, a big incentive in continuing the hard labor is promoting the work of authors she believes represent a Palestinian perspective she and her peers can identify with. "There are writers who describe in their books things that most Israelis aren't willing to hear otherwise," she says. But when you're lounging in your bed and reading a book, it can get to you. The literary context is often a better way to convey things; it's probably a stronger experience than reading yet another political interview."

While Barghuthy concurs, he is also quick to assert that readers ought to remember that "every author published by Maktoob is merely describing his or her own experience of life and their own take on history. That's the beauty of literature. I say this to make it clear to the Israeli reader - it's not like by picking up a couple of books you'll suddenly understand the entire Palestinian narrative. Nonetheless, if you start reading the books we translate, you'll gain an entryway into an infinite journey of Arab and Palestinian culture."

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'The most political act for Jews in Israel is to learn Arabic'

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Palestinians and Jewish Translators Work Together at Maktoob, a Series of Books Bringing Arabic-language and Palestinian Literature to Hebrew-language Readers 'Working on the Translation of Each Book, There's Always a Jewish and a Palestinian Translator-editor Duo Working Together'

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The ugly statements by far-right people in the current Israeli government coalition are so extreme that it's hard to remember that there are Israelis who are fighting hard against this hate (and this government).

Keep in mind that in the media business, to survive you need attention. To get attention you publish only the most horrible stories.

The most important lesson we Jews can derive from the fact that some Jews are attacking some Palestinians right now is that Jews are people just like any other people. Whether we are a race, or a nation, or a people, or a religion, or a culture, or a way of life, we are no worse and no better than any other people.

You are not helpless in the face of the violence perpetrated by Jewish bigots; you can lift up the voice of those organized against them, such as our speaker Hannah Barag who founded  Machsom Watch, Ir Amim and Yesh Din. It's an honor to join in her courageous and determined stand against the Yetzer haRa' among our own people.

More about the Yetzer haRa' in the next post.....

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As the CUNY Law Jewish Law Students Association said in a statement:  "Our condemnation of zionism is based on outrage at the way it has harmed and continues to harm Palestinians, not, as external zionist organizations would have people believe, on antisemitism. As long as zionism has existed, there have been Jewish people fighting against its racist and imperialist logic– to equate anti-zionism with antisemitism is to erase the history of Jewish anti-zionism, throughout the world and at CUNY Law (Within Our Lifetime)."

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http://20465691.hs-sites.com/unpack-the-distinction-between-criticism-of-israel-and-antisemitism?ecid=ACsprvsyUB3ST6KapdgA2Vnv1I7ASfMwZQJcy8fxAuHO5_PKP-E2HY7Fd-YX848olsccRQqc8f-X&utm_medium=email&_hsmi=263948876&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-8Ojv32ndplhNSLrwSPQ6JFoIdXPkciVt2mfp1AyQcPNjTyoAZ0nUBhx_Vm5O2De_xsYy3YzmxK4av3bWNTqpKkC0DE_SUseP9NUVVyjDxN2JD2GRs&utm_content=263948876&utm_source=hs_email

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Fatima Mousa Mohammed reminded her classmates of their social responsibility post-graduation during her City University of New York School of Law commencement speech last month. She encouraged them to use their degrees to "protect our communities," "protect the organizers fighting endlessly, day in and out, with no accolades, no cameras, no votes, [and] no PhD grants," and to "confront the systems of oppression that wreak violence on them." She narrated her family's experience as Yemeni American immigrants, encouraged CUNY to uphold its mission of promoting "law in the service of human need," and called for the CUNY School of Law Class of 2023 to "fight against capitalism, racism, imperialism, and Zionism around the world" ( CUNY/YouTube).

In the following days, Mohammed's words became famous nationwide-not for the clarity of her political and moral vision but because of an astonishing claim that she is a bigot. Per her critics, opposing Zionism and "Israeli settler colonialism" meant she hated Jewish people. She was denounced by the New York Post, New York City Mayor Eric Adams, and Senator Ted Cruz ( NY Times). Republican House members introduced a bill that would defund schools that "authorize Anti-Semitic events" ( The Intercept). The CUNY Board of Trustees called her remarks "hate speech." The Nation, a progressive magazine, published an editorial claiming that Mohammed's speech used "imagery straight out of 4chan-or The Protocols of Elders of Zion," an infamous antisemitic forgery ( The Nation).

There has been a surge of antisemitic attacks against Jewish people in the United States. In May, a Massachusetts middle school teacher resigned after repeated antisemitic harassment by a sixth grader ( The Berkshire Eagle). Last year, an Arizona professor was murdered by a former student who believed him to be Jewish ( 12 News). One quarter of Jewish people in the United States experienced an antisemitic incident in 2022 ( AJC). Antisemitism-the hatred of or discrimination against Jewish people-is a rising danger in the modern U.S. that must be vigorously confronted.

Fatima Mousa Mohammed was slandered as an antisemite because she criticized the state of Israel and Zionism, the political ideology in favor of Israel as an explicitly Jewish nation. But criticism of Israel is not the same as hating Jewish people, and anti-Zionism and antisemitism are not the same. Zionism is used to justify the disenfranchisement and oppression of non-Jewish people in the territory claimed by Israel, starting with the armed expulsion of 750,000 Palestinians during the Nakba in 1948 ( Al Jazeera). On June 21, 2023, Israeli settlers "rampaged" through towns in the illegally-occupied West Bank ( Reuters) as soldiers looked on. Instead of trying to calm tensions, Israel's far-right National Security Minister told parliament, "We need a military operation, we need to flatten buildings, we need targeted killings" ( Reuters).

As the CUNY Law Jewish Law Students Association said in a statement:

Our condemnation of zionism is based on outrage at the way it has harmed and continues to harm Palestinians, not, as external zionist organizations would have people believe, on antisemitism. As long as zionism has existed, there have been Jewish people fighting against its racist and imperialist logic- to equate anti-zionism with antisemitism is to erase the history of Jewish anti-zionism, throughout the world and at CUNY Law ( Within Our Lifetime).

Some commentators suggest that any criticism of Israel is antisemitic because it's the only Jewish state. Saudi Arabia is the only nation with the two holiest cities in Islam, but that doesn't mean that criticizing the Saudi regime is inherently Islamophobic. Criticism of Saudi policies can certainly play into Islamophobic tropes, just like criticism of Israel can use antisemitic narratives. But silencing criticism of Israel by claiming that anti-Zionism and antisemitism are identical is unacceptable.

According to Human Rights Watch:

Across two governments, each in power for roughly half of 2021, Israeli authorities doubled down on policies to repress Palestinians and privilege Jewish Israelis. The government's policy of maintaining the domination of Jewish Israelis over Palestinians across Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT), coupled with the particularly severe repression against Palestinians living in the OPT, amounts to the crimes against humanity of apartheid and persecution ( HRW).

The unacceptable conflation of anti-Zionism and antisemitism means ignoring these crimes against humanity. The Biden administration recently joined 31 U.S. states in adopting a definition of antisemitism that includes anti-Zionist critiques of Israel. It is the "culmination of lobbying efforts to instrumentalize and accelerate the use of false accusations in order to censor protected speech, to target any sort of viewpoint that is critical of Israel, and to chill one side of an important political debate by saying that anyone who supports Palestinian rights is antisemitic," says Palestine Legal's Lina Assi ( The Intercept). Fighting these efforts and speaking out in support of those standing in solidarity with oppressed communities here and abroad is imperative.

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Unpack the distinction between criticism of Israel and antisemitism.

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Fatima Mousa Mohammed reminded her classmates of their social responsibility post-graduation during her City University of New York School of Law commencement speech last month. She encouraged them to use their degrees to "protect our communities," "protect the organizers fighting endlessly, day in and out, with no accolades, no cameras, no votes, [and] no PhD grants," and to "confront the systems of oppression that wreak violence on them."

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More on “one state” state-of-affairs.
Note: this should open when you click on it-if not, let me know & I’ll see if there another way to get this to you all.

https://wapo.st/3XtqUTs
Michelle

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Palestinians pick up the pieces after settler pogrom in West Bank village

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Residents say police and army protected settlers as they rampaged in Al-Lubban ash-Sharqiya following a lethal attack in a nearby settlement.

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What is the political status of the West Bank?

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What is the political status of the West Bank?

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The 1995 Oslo II Accord established the administrative division of the Palestinian West Bank into areas A, B, and C as a transitional arrangement, pending a final status agreement. The divisions persist, with Area A administered by the Palestinian Authority, Area C by Israel, and Area B under joint control.

Area A

Under the terms of the Oslo agreement, Area A is under Palestinian administrative and police control.

Area B

The Palestinian Authority exercises administrative control over Area B but shares security control with Israeli authorities. The majority of Palestinians in the West Bank live in areas A or B.

Area C

Area C, which Israel administers, covers over 60 percent of the West Bank. An estimated 300,000 Palestinians live in 532 residential areas located partially or fully in Area C, along with some 400,000 Israeli settlers residing in approximately 230 settlements.

A third of Palestinian communities in Area C lack a primary school, forcing children to travel or walk long distances to reach the nearest school. More than 70% of communities in Area C are not connected to a water network and rely on tankered water at vastly increased cost. 95,000 people receive fewer than 50 liters of water per capita per day - half of the minimum amount recommended by the World Health Organization. Nearly half of Area C Palestinian communities report that their access to emergency and basic health care is hampered by the long distances to the nearest clinic or the need to pass through checkpoints.

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What are Area A, Area B, and Area C in the West Bank? - Anera

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The 1995 Oslo agreement established an administrative division of the West Bank into areas A, B, and C as a transitional arrangement.

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created by the women who founded Machsom Watch

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Occupation Policies

Settlements

Settler violence

Accountability

Annexation Legislation Database

Settlements and outposts

In First Person

Reports

Legal Action

Support our work

Legal reality of occupation

% 43

of Palestinian who contacted Yesh Din in the years 2018-2021 chose not to file complaints with the police

% 72

of complaints concerning suspected soldier offenses against Palestinians are closed with no criminal investigation

% 92

of investigations into ideological crimes against Palestinians were closed with no indictment filed

Occupation policy

Renewing settlement of title in Area C in the West Bank: A breach of international law and violation of Palestinians’ rights

Report to the UN Special Rapporteur - The impact of Israeli settlements on the human rights of Palestinians

Ill-Gotten Gains: Theft of Palestinian land – declaring “state land” where settlement of title was halted when Israel occupied the West Bank

Yesh Din’s position on the possible ICC investigation of suspected war crimes by Israelis

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Information, data and in-depth publications on human rights violations and law enforcement

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Human Rights organization focusing on Jerusalem

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Human Rights organization focusing on Jerusalem

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Ir Amim | FOR AN EQUITABLE AND STABLE JERUSALEM WITH AN AGREED POLITICAL FUTURE

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June speaker: Hanna Barag of Machsom Watch

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June speaker: Hanna Barag of Machsom Watch

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The brutal massacre carried out by Hamas on Oct. 7 left us all - Jews and Arabs - stunned and shocked. In the weeks that have passed since that cursed Sabbath, additional atrocities have been added to the atrocities committed by Hamas: thousands of people have been killed, and are still being killed, by the Israeli bombings in Gaza, many of whose residents have even been cut off from water and electricity.

Countless innocent children, women and elderly, lost their lives on both sides; hundreds of thousands lost their homes and their world - harming innocents on one side does not balance the pain of the killing on the other side, it just adds more pain to the immense pain.

Why is this important?

We - movements, organizations and activists, Jews and Arabs - write these words out of heavy mourning for the thousands of people killed in recent weeks, and out of terrible anxiety for the safety of the abducted and those who will still be harmed in Israel, Gaza and the West Bank.

The brutal massacre carried out by Hamas on Oct. 7 left us all - Jews and Arabs - stunned and shocked. In the weeks that have passed since that cursed Sabbath, additional atrocities have been added to the atrocities committed by Hamas: thousands of people have been killed, and are still being killed, by the Israeli bombings in Gaza, many of whose residents have even been cut off from water and electricity.

Countless innocent children, women and elderly, lost their lives on both sides; hundreds of thousands lost their homes and their world - harming innocents on one side does not balance the pain of the killing on the other side, it just adds more pain to the immense pain.

The occupation, the siege, the wars, the terrorism, the oppression, the racism and the violence, the violation of democracy and human rights - all these brought the two peoples who live between the sea and the Jordan River to an unimaginable disaster, which has no measure. Precisely in these terrible days, the simple truth is clearer than ever: the freedom, security and life of all living in this land depend on each other.

In memory of the murdered and for the sake of the living, we must act together - Jews and Arabs - for the release of the kidnapped and captives, for the end of the war, for the end of the occupation and the conflict, for peace.

We, who believe in the way of democracy and peace, call to:
1. Strive for a stable ceasefire, within which negotiations for a political agreement will be started immediately based on mutual recognition of the right of the two peoples to self-determination - an agreement that will guarantee security, freedom and well-being for both peoples.
2. Immediately promote a broad prisoner deal ("all for all").
3. Immediately stop harming innocent civilians. There isn't and cannot be any justification for harming the innocent.
4. Act immediately to curb the rampant settler violence in the West Bank with the backing of the army, and to curb the transfer that this violence is trying to promote.
5. Stop the persecution and oppression of Palestinian Citizens of Israel and of those who express solidarity with the residents of Gaza and oppose the war. Stop the violation of basic rights, including freedom of expression, freedom of demonstration, and more.

We have all experienced the rounds of violence. Timen and time again it is evident that there is no military solution to this conflict, nor can there ever be one. The only way to stop the bloodshed is a political agreement that will guarantee security, justice, and freedom for both nations.

There are no winners in war. Only peace will bring security.
Academia for Equality; Arava Institute for Environmental Studies; Banki; Bimkom - Planners for Planning Rights; Combatants for Peace; Druze Initiative Committee; The Forum for the Fight Against Incitement; Hadash; Hands of Peace; Horiya; Jahalin Solidarity; Jordan Valley Activists; Kaa"- political working group; Looking the Occupation in the Eye; MachsomWatch; Mesarvot; Mothers Against Violence; Negev Coexistence Forum for Civil Equality; New Profile; On the way to Sulha; Parents Against Child Detention; Parents Circle Families Forum; PsychoActive; Rabbis for Human Rights; Social Workers for Peace and Welfare; Tandi; Tomorrow's Women; Torat Tzedek; Women in Black; Woman to Woman; Yesh Gvul; Your Neighbor as Yourself; Youth
Against Dictatorship; Zazim - Community Action; Zochrot ; Itach Ma'aki - Women Lawyers for Social Justice

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We meet the Palestinians in all the points of friction created between them and the settlers and between them and the army throughout the West Bank, not only at the checkpoints at the entrance to Israel