For immediate release
March 4, 2026
Alternative Jewish Voices urges, Stop this catastrophe!
We, Alternative Jewish Voices, deplore Israel and America’s illegal war of aggression against Iran. We also condemned the repression of Ayatollah Khamenei, but that does not justify this war. International war will only bring – is already bringing – more civilian death and destruction. We support the right of the Iranian people to determine their own future.
America and Israel again attacked Iran in mid-negotiation, three days after Iran’s Foreign Minister, Sayed Abbas Araghchi tweeted, “Iran will under no circumstances ever develop a nuclear weapon.” No one has offered the slightest contrary evidence.
This war of aggression violates international and US domestic law. After World War II, the Nuremberg Tribunal called aggression ‘the supreme international crime’. We see around us the world they were trying to avert: Israel has waged genocidal war on a trapped community and bombed six countries that were not at war. This morning, Israel is occupying parts of Lebanon. Russia has invaded and pounded Ukraine for four years. Pakistan is bombing the cities of Afghanistan. Trump doesn’t know what to grab next.
We regard the attack on Iran as the latest enactment of longstanding imperial ambitions. How many countries has America tried to bomb into submission? How many times did Netanyahu bomb the blockaded population of Gaza before America gave him the green light and the weapons to commit outright genocide? This week, benefiting from the distraction of Iran, Israel has yet again sealed Gaza behind a total blockade. Aid agencies are again counting the days until they again run out of food.
Netanyahu boasts on camera that this war is “what I have yearned to do for 40 years”. Beware of men who prefer the risks of war to those of peace. Chaos and civilian misery are their signatures, but we share responsibility for their impunity. Even after the horror of livestreamed genocide in Gaza, Prime Minister Luxon acquiesces to more war and speaks as if Trump and Netanyahu are trustworthy public officials.
Luxon’s appeasement disgraces us. We must not support this unfolding disaster, not materially and not out of the side of the Prime Minister’s mouth. We must say ‘No’ in a bold, principled voice; joining states like Spain and Denmark.
As this fire spreads, we must also peer through the headlines and focus on the people of Iran, Gaza, Afghanistan and Lebanon. Civilians need protection, intervention and an end to the games of these warmongers.
We urge our morally vacuous government to stand with the civilians, the law and our future.
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Alternative Jewish Voices – Sh’ma Koleinu is a collective of anti-Zionist Jews from the Far North to Dunedin. We live a liberatory Aotearoa Jewish identity, whether we are religious or secular or cultural. We are part of a movement for collective liberation, here in Aotearoa and in Palestine.
Enquiries: contact@ajv.org.nz
Sh'ma Koleinu - Alternative Jewish Voices (NZ) 