Hamas has responded to Israel’s escalating violence with an unprecedented attack. This is not a new tragedy; it is an extension of the same old cycle. We grieve all the losses of this calamity, and we call on our government not to speak the same old words but to finally act.
To call today’s act ‘unprovoked’ is wilful blindness. Choose your timeframe; choose your provocation. Israel is carrying out the longest, now-illegal, now-apartheid occupation in modern history. Gaza has been illegally blockaded for 17 years, confining more than two million mostly civilian human beings in deteriorating conditions, subjecting them to repeated bombardments and ceaseless deprivation. More than 200 Palestinians have been killed in 2023 so far, including four the other day. The latest of Israel’s settler-state pogroms in the West Bank took place in Huwara one day before Hamas’s action.
Hamas’s attack is a response to longterm and escalating, immediate violence.
The blockade wall that was breached is an illegal structure. A million children have been born behind that wall; did you expect them to sit quietly? That wall deserves to fall – but we, here in Aotearoa and throughout the world, should have brought it down with diplomatic and economic and legal sanctions long before it came to this.
Now Hamas’s violent resistance has broken through the wall.
Palestinians have a legal right to armed resistance, but no one has a right to unlimited violence. There is no honour in attacking civilians in their homes or bombing Gazan apartment buildings. It is a core principle of international humanitarian law that the violations of one armed group do not release another armed group from its constant obligation to uphold the rights of civilians. Armed groups are responsible to the law, to the idea of minimising the harm done in this world.
We who demand the protection of Palestinian civilians can best do that by calling for the protection of all civilians: human rights are either everyone’s rights or they are nothing. If we lose sight of that, the world becomes even more dangerous – and Palestinians have always borne the brunt of that danger.
There is no military solution. Solutions call for political will here, outside Israel / Palestine. The rage and despair accumulated through generations and decades of brutality will not reset. Do not call for the return to the status quo ante because it was intolerable, unjust and illegal.
We, here, need to act on the basis of law and the equal rights of human beings to protection, to justice, to self-determination. We call on our government to initiate, to pick up the phone and lead in mustering international action.
For anyone to be safe, Palestinians must be free and civilians must be protected.
“Yes, of course I recognise you – you’re Palestine!” image from Freepik
Sunday, 1 October 2023, 8:24 pm Press Release: Justice for Palestine and Alternative Jewish Voices
Justice for Palestine and Alternative Jewish Voices welcome the Labour Party’s announcement that if elected it will extend diplomatic recognition to the state of Palestine, by inviting the Head of the General Delegation of Palestine to present their credentials as an Ambassador to New Zealand [1]. In taking this stance New Zealand would be joining the majority of UN member states – 139 of 193 already recognise Palestine as a state. This includes others who, like New Zealand, pride themselves on their independent and principled foreign policy, such as Sweden [2], and Iceland.
Today the Labour Party has joined the growing weight of global opinion that recognising Palestinian statehood is a prerequisite for a just solution in Israel / Palestine, including the two-state solution that New Zealand has long supported. Such a solution is increasingly under threat by the violent expansion of Israeli settlements into the Occupied Palestinian Territories, which are illegal at international law [3].
Responding to Israel’s increasingly flagrant violations of international law and the basic human rights of Palestinians, many and diverse voices are pushing for diplomatic recognition of
Palestine and accountability for Israel, in order to level the ground for any negotiations towards peace. This includes, among many others, former Israeli ambassador and director general of Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Alon Liel,[4] Gareth Evans, former Australian foreign Minister [5], and the UN Special Rapporteur, Francesca Albanese, who described “the recognition of the Palestinian people’s fundamental right to determine their political, social and economic status and develop as a people, free from foreign occupation, rule and exploitation” as the “ critical issue” in addressing the situation in Palestine [6].
Marilyn Garson of Alternative Jewish Voices added, “Remember that Palestine predates Israel. We welcome Labour’s commitment to let Palestine speak with its own diplomatic voice about its own future. That’s a prerequisite for any solution grounded in the rights of all who live between the river and the sea.”
Justice for Palestine spokesperson, Neil Ballantyne, said “it’s great to see the Labour Party joining the Green Party in making a commitment to recognise Palestine if elected. In doing so they are continuing Aotearoa New Zealand’s tradition of taking independent and principled stances on foreign policy issues from nuclear free to standing up against apartheid.”
Neil continued “We have faith that just as ordinary New Zealanders were not prepared to stand by in silence while the South African government maintained an apartheid regime, we will not be silent while Palestinians suffer similar indignities and will reward those politicians who are taking this courageous stance.” [7]
Notes:
[1] See p. 64 – 65: labour_manifesto_2023.pdf (documentcloud.org)
[2] After recognising Palestine in 2014, the Swedish government now calls on other states to recognise Palestine arguing that the two-state solutions requires “mutual recognition and a desire for peaceful coexistence”: Badarin, E. (2020). States recognition in foreign policy: The case of Sweden’s recognition of Palestine. Foreign Policy Analysis, 16(1), 78–97.
[3] As recognised in the UN Security Council Resolution 2334 sponsored by New Zealand under the leadership of the National Government’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Murray McCully.
[4] Alon Liel, a former Israeli ambassador and director general of their Ministry of Foreign Affairs, recently wrote in support of the need to recognise Palestine now: “The Benjamin Netanyahu-led ultranationalist government is racing towards annexation of the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT), a manoeuvre which will not only end any chance of a two-state outcome, but also permanently entrench the daily humanitarian and anti-democratic nightmare that the Israeli occupation has become.”
[5] Gareth Evans, former Australian foreign Minister, recently dismissed the argument that recognition would destroy the peace process, saying the argument has no credibility “in the face of Israel’s breathtaking intransigence, being taken to ever more alarming new heights by the Netanyahu government. If the two-state solution is in fact dead, it is the Israeli settlement program that has killed it.”
[6] UN General Assembly Report of the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967, Francesca Albanese (A/77/356) (21 September 2022), at para 11. Available at: https://www.un.org/unispal/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/A.77.356_210922.pdf
[7] Numerous major international human rights organisations have reported that Israel is an apartheid regime, including Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, B’tselem, and the former UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the occupied Palestinian Territories. The International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid defines “apartheid”, the systematic oppression of one racial group of persons over another, as a crime against humanity. Daily life for Palestinians living under the Israeli apartheid regime is unbearable and inhumane.
Background on Justice for Palestine, Alternative Jewish Voices and the campaign to recognise Palestinian statehood
Justice for Palestine is a human rights organisation working to promote justice, peace and freedom for the Palestinian people. Justice for Palestine is a democratic, membership organisation that works to educate and inform New Zealanders about issues relating to Palestine and to advocate for New Zealand to contribute to international solidarity with Palestinian efforts to achieve equal rights.
Alternative Jewish Voices is a collective of Wellington and Auckland Jews. AJV works on three issues: Jewish pluralism in the community and its representation, anti-racism including antisemitism, and supporting Palestinians as they pursue their own liberation and freedom. We welcome every step that normalises our relations with Palestinian communities.
Justice for Palestine presented a petition to Parliament earlier this year calling on the Parliament to pass a motion recognising the State of Palestine and urge the Government to formally recognise the State of Palestine. Justice for Palestine’s website sets out in more detail legal, political and moral reasons for recognising Palestine.
On this night nine years ago, I watched the fire station opposite my Gaza apartment explode and burn. What malice, to destroy a fire station at the onset of a bombing campaign. Neighbours raced heedlessly toward the shattered building, willing to dig with only their bare hands, to haul forth survivors or carry what they found for burial – because international rescue teams dared not go to Gaza.
Nine years have passed since Israel bombed Gaza for 51 days and 50 interminable nights. The sounds of screaming through those nights will live forever within anyone who heard them. Screaming for rescue, screaming for mercy, screaming from the very edge of human tolerance.
Still Gaza waits for the International Criminal Court to get to work—and more fundamentally, Gaza waits for us to bring down the damned blockade walls. Behind those walls, two million Gazans wait to breathe, to walk, to live and be rejoined to the human community of our world.
For my dear colleagues, neighbours and everyone who waits in Gaza, I restate this:
Tell it to a judge.
I am not Palestinian but I was a witness to the assault of 2014. I want its
alleged war crimes to be prosecuted by the International Criminal Court. Those Israeli warriors who were ‘brave’ enough to direct an assault on a trapped populace should be brave enough to account for their choices in a well-lit courtroom.
Why is a court of law important?
Because the menace that underpinned the assault of 2014 is still present:
the dehumanization of Palestinians. Walled off and vilified, anything can be
done to the people of Gaza. A trial will amplify their story of being under
intensive attack behind a wall. Let Gazans tell their story.
Because people will still be living with the memory and the imprint of this
war (as I am). The body remembers the singed smells that linger on your skin,
the sight behind your eyelids of neighbours racing toward rubble to rescue
neighbours, the sound of children in hospital hallways with chattering teeth.
The drifts of white dust in the corners of window sills. The screams of people
in the streets, seeking shelter before nightfall – but there is no shelter
behind a wall.
Because courts prosecute individuals, not nations. Individuals make choices
and are accountable. Individual responsibility lets everyone else get beyond
blaming whole states. Someone wrote the doctrines, chose the weapons and the
targeting parameters and the orders of battle. They should be judged by
their handiwork.
Because of the 18,000 homes destroyed, the 100 family homes targeted in the
first week, and the millions of tons of rubble that altered the very landscape
of the Gaza Strip. In 51 days, Gazan forces fired nearly 6000 rockets and
artillery shells while Israel’s armed forces acknowledge dispatching 5000 tons
of munitions to fire at a trapped populace. The tonnage and the stated IDF doctrines of disproportionate force like the Dahiya Doctrine await judgement.
Because someone knew that the UN shelter-schools were filled with displaced
Palestinians. They knew, because I told them. As a member of the UNRWA team operating those shelters, one of my tasks was to confirm the pre-existing protections of each flagged United Nations school building that was sheltering displaced people. Over and over they were told. Those schools were clearly marked on military maps. Everyone knows their location and their signature colours. Someone in Israel knew and approved the decision to fire at them anyway. Seven times they fired at shelters, killing 44 Palestinians and injuring 227. Let those responsible people explain their actions to a judge.
Because the earth trembled with the tonnage of bombs that the IDF used to
destroy the homes of 92,000 Palestinians in Shuja’iyya, and because of the
quieter killings in Khuza’a. The stories of Gaza’s neighbourhoods need to be heard and responsibility assigned.
Because of the 73 medical facilities, the ambulances and every other illegal target that was hit. Because of the civilian infrastructure destroyed, the water pipes and the power plant, and all the gratuitous hardship that Gazans endured. The lesson of the war, they said later, was that Israel no longer saw any civilians in Gaza at all. A court must restore Gazans’ civilian status and protections.
Because of the 293,000 displaced Gazans who endured such trying conditions
in 90 UNRWA shelters—because there was no safer place behind that wall.
Because 6,000 airstrikes and 14,500 tank shells and 35,000 artillery shells
equates to 100,000 kg of explosives every day, day after day. Israeli forces
killed 2251 Gazans including 1,462 civilians, a third of whom were children. The human consequence of the IDF’s choice to inflict such massive violence must be heard. Battlefield explosive weapons must not rain down upon crowded cities with impunity again.
Because beneath those bombs in Gaza, the minutes were interminable. There
was nowhere to flee, no way to help, nothing to do but wait for the next bomb
through nights when there were more bombs than minutes. Let a trial record and weigh the harm of those 51 merciless days and nights of minutes of witness.
Because some debased Israelis sat on hillsides eating popcorn. They watched the bombs land on human beings and homes as if it were entertainment. Around the world many, many others turned away and did nothing. Perhaps both sets of people will be shaken to realise that they were enjoying, or averting their eyes from, a crime.
Because what is demonstrated in Gaza with impunity today, is normalised
elsewhere tomorrow at the expense of other inconvenient human beings. The
assaults upon Gaza are relevant even here, because New Zealand is buying military robots that were tested on the trapped people of Gaza and the West Bank. Is this who we aspire to be?
Because as a Jew, I have heard the rationales for that massive violence.
“It’s necessary.” “Kill all the little snakes.” “This time we’ll finish the job.”
I have heard all that. But where is Gaza’s voice? I wait to hear the
evidence and the verdict on the Jewish ethno-nationalist project.
Our world must not value human life so differently when the life is
Palestinian. Because our lives are of equal value, Gazans must be heard in
court.
Marilyn Garson
Wellington City Council has initiated a friendly city link with Ramallah, Palestine, as a precursor to a sister city relationship. In the course of this initiative, the patterns of Zionist speech in Aotearoa have deteriorated. They are becoming less transparent, more alarming and alarmist.
Although it is not in Wellington, For the Protection of Zion Trust was vocal. The FPZT is not a trust in the usual sense at all. It is registered as a “trust” business type. Its trustees are Pastor Nigel Woodley of a Hastings Christian Zionist church, and one other person with the same surname. As a company, it is not obliged to disclose much more than its basic information. It does not disclose any financial information, so we don’t know who paid over $10,000 for two full-page advertorials in The Post, opposing the city council motion. Their content is clearly in the form of an opinion but we wonder whether The Post would permit Jewish capacities and rights to be similarly belittled.
In council chambers, Pastor Nigel called Ramallah a “centre . . . a hotbed of terrorism.” His depiction of murder strayed so far into the weeds that Mayor Whanau had to reel him back by reminding him that there were children in the room.
David Zwartz said that he was speaking as an individual. He is a member of the New Zealand Jewish Council Incorporated (NZJC), and the wording on their website overlaps strongly with his. He said that twinning with Ramallah would be “bad, both for the Jewish community and for Wellington,” and that the motion “is seeking to align us with Ramallah’s values.” Among those, Zwartz listed violence, intolerance of LGBTQ+, lack of democracy and hostility toward the people who occupy Palestinian land. Our inclusive Wellington values, he emphasised, do not align with the values of Ramallah.
We, Alternative Jewish Voices, do not celebrate violence in any form. However, neither Ramallah nor Palestine can be reduced to incidents of violence. Wellington has three sister cities in China, whose government is engaged in widescale, systematic human rights violations against Uighurs. Do our sister cities align us with those values? Did we cut our sister city ties to the US when it elected Donald Trump? Is David Zwartz reducible to the fascism of members of Israel’s current government, or the ethno-nationalist pogroms of its settlers?
No, only in Palestine do such incidents render a whole people unfit to associate with us.
We reject the PAs opposition to LGBTQ+ rights, as strongly as we reject this Israeli MK’s assertion on June 21 that the “LGBTQ community poses [a] greater threat to Israel than Hezbollah or Hamas.”
We are waiting to hear the Zionist speakers shout for our government to cut its ties with Israel for the preservation of Wellington’s values.
These speakers opposed the motion on exceptional and highly selective grounds. Their arguments were specific to Palestinians and contrary to our treatment of others. Their tone left us feeling sad and indignant. At least their tone didn’t win.
But neither has it receded. Since losing, there is a sour aftertaste in comments like this tweet by Juliet Moses, member and spokesperson of the New Zealand Jewish Council.
Well the Israel haters’ favourite token Jew Marilyn was there to welcome Ramallah to Wellington, so presumably that’s the kind of thing that she’s keen to see.
Moses’s correspondent has previously shared anti-immigrant stories, covid denial, and so on. The spokesperson of NZ Jewish Council affirms his reduction of Palestinian culture to violence, and stokes the fear that welcoming Palestinians will lead to murder and mayhem. Further, she gratuitously attributes this looming danger to a Jew who disagrees with her–one who has never applauded violence.
How quickly we would all recoil from a tweet warning that Jews shouldn’t be welcome in Wellington—that if we let Jews in, chaos and criminality will follow because they are integral to Jewish culture. It is every bit as racist and reprehensible for the spokesperson of the NZ Jewish Council to write such garbage about others.
We are waiting for the Jewish Council to disavow the message or its speaker.
The Israel Institute’s last filing with the Companies Office indicates that they now have four directors, three of whom are not Jewish while the fourth was a member of the NZJC until November 2022. On the day after the city council made Ramallah a friendly city, the Israel Institute circulated a tweet declaring, “Neo Nazis and Anti Israel activists are all the same.”
Aside from being vile and stupid, we’re unsure how this aligns with the lofty values that the Jewish Council and its members fear to tarnish by association with Ramallah.
It is disgraceful that these are voices of the current / recent NZ Jewish Council. Shame on them for trafficking in racist, menacing tropes and for continually using their platforms to vilify Jews and non-Jews who disagree with them.
Wellington’s thirteen other sister cities do not elicit this kind of vitriol. The WCC vote merely granted Palestinians a connection to their whenua that other ethnic communities already enjoy without such outrage–including communities divided by conflict like China and Taiwan.
That a simple connection should provoke such fragile, indeed hysterical opposition highlights the contingent status of Palestinians in New Zealand. The Zionist tone amounts to a heckler’s veto. They are trying to force government to restrict its actions because of the anticipated or actual response of the Zionist segment of the Jewish community.
It is misguided and misleading to hesitate to connect with Palestinian people out of fear of my Jewish community’s response. It’s misguided because the rights of my neighbours to expression, connection with their whanau and whenua, the peaceful enjoyment of our shared public space, robust political participation and the full realisation of their rights – in short, their wholeness—is not at my expense. Palestinian identity and rights do not diminish me. They enrich the tapestry of the city we share.
No one, including my people, has the right to define our identity so expansively that they ask you to erase others.
We again thank the Wellington City Council for treating Palestinians in Wellington and Ramallah as the normal, whole human beings they are. Let’s break down some barriers by getting to know each other better.
The radicalising of Zionist speech does not bode well for the reasoned conduct of politics. They are racing toward the kind of distortion and hatred that have harmed other communities. We fear they are harming ours.
Today Wellington City Council voted to initiate a Friendly City link with Ramallah, Palestine with the longer term aim of becoming sister cities.
In a rather lively session, Alternative Jewish Voices had this to say:
Mayor Whanau, councillors and neighbours, Tēnā koutou. Kō Marilyn Garson taku ingoa. Ngā mihi nui for the opportunity to speak for Alternative Jewish Voices of which I am a co-founder.
In 1982, the Wellington City Council declared Wellington a nuclear-free city. A few years later, the country agreed. Cities act in the interests of their citizens. Wellington has 13 sister city relationships and they have not brought the sky down. Taipei is our sister city, as are several Chinese cities – so which government do the no-voters believe we’re endorsing?
Or perhaps you have been told that Palestinians are a special case, that the people who live in the West Bank are essentially political beings, existing only in opposition to Jewish people like me.
Those comments are essentially political, but the West Bankers are not. No person’s identity is limited to politics. It is deeply wrong to think that Palestinians exist only through the issue of occupation. It is equally wrong to refuse to interact with them until Israel ends its occupation. The effect of reducing people that way is to further punish them for being an occupied people.
Our Palestinian neighbours are too often reduced to politics rather than being acknowledged as one more ethnic community which fully participates as of right in every venue, every aspect of Wellington’s life.
Friendly cities are the antithesis and maybe an antidote to all those politics. Sister city relations are cultural, profitable—curious. I worked four years in Gaza and I worked occasionally in Ramallah because it is the technology hub of Palestine. Ramallah hosted regular Start-up Weekends to feed its entrepreneurial incubators. We did much of our work in the cafes, of which Ramallah has many. Does that sound familiar? Those are the ways in which we hope to enjoy our Palestinian sister city – visiting, exchanging ideas, investing, maybe the odd joint venture.
This initiative should also foster positive encounters between the ethnic groups of Wellington, and AJV thanks you for promoting that.
It is misguided and misleading to hesitate to connect with Palestinian people out of fear of my Jewish community’s response. It’s misguided because the rights of my neighbours to expression, connection with their whanau and whenua, the peaceful enjoyment of our shared public space, robust political participation and the full realisation of their rights – in short, their wholeness is not at my expense. Palestinian identity and rights do not diminish me. They enrich the tapestry of the city we share.
No one, including my people, has the right to define our identity so expansively that they ask you to erase others.
It is misleading to imagine Jews and Palestinians in a zero-sum relationship. Alternative Jewish Voices was formed partly to say that we Jews are diverse in the ways that we love and express our Jewishness. We are here today to say in our Jewish voices that we welcome Ramallah to the Wellington whanau. Let’s break down the barriers that estrange us.
Friendly city, sister city, whatever – we welcome this opportunity to get to know Ramallah and make Ramallah better known to Wellingtonians.
Alternative Jewish Voices wishes to thank Mayor Whanau and this council for leading in the interests of Wellingtonians.
June 29, 2023
Alternative Jewish Voices of Aotearoa – New Zealand
On June 29, Wellington City Council will vote on an initiative to add Ramallah to our existing 13 “city-to-city relationships around the world created to strengthen our cultural, educational and business connections.”
We will be thrilled to welcome Ramallah to the family. Ramallah, like Wellington, is a technology hub and a centre of government administration, its hilly streets dotted with cafes and cultural outlets. A sister-city relationship will emphasise that we have things in common to enjoy and explore.
This positive initiative has been challenged with reference to the Jews’ interests or sensibilities, as if the Jews is an object in zero-sum opposition to the Palestinians. Let’s unpack that, in order to bring the sister-city initiative into clearer view.
What is the Jews of Wellington? We don’t know how many Jews live in Wellington because our Jewish institutions make no effort to locate or include them. We only know the membership of a few Jewish institutions, for whom Zionism has become a litmus test of welcome. The boards of those institutions appoint members of the NZ Jewish Council. The erstwhile Wellington Regional Jewish Council was so unsupported at its last community meeting that they agreed to suspend their operations, draft a new constitution and seek a community mandate. That was 2021 and we’re still waiting . . .
Therefore, anyone claiming to speak for the Jews is at best speaking for the membership of a few Jewish institutions – not more. We are a diverse community. We do not all think the same way. There is no single Jewish position on this issue or any other.
On the steps of Parliament, a group of Christian Zionists recently disrupted the handover of a petition to MPs by shouting incessantly into their megaphones about the Jews. The Jews this, the Jews that. For them the Jews is an abstract blunt instrument with which to batter the Palestinians, thereby advancing an agenda which benefits the Christian Zionists. Reductionist crackpot hooha.
As we have previously mapped, vocal civil society institutions whose names suggest that they are grounded in the Jewish community—like the Israel Institute and the Holocaust and Antisemitism Association—are in fact majority-Christian in their overlapping executives. For them, the Jews is a useful stand-in for the Israel in whose interests they advocate.
We want our fellow Wellingtonians to understand that you are not hearing the voice of the Jewish community when you hear these voices. We Jews are not presently represented by any one voice. Alternative Jewish Voices was established partly to say just that: when you think of the Jewish community, please assume our diversity.
Neither sister cities nor access to Wellington’s public space is accurately configured by pitting Jews against Palestinians. Palestinian rights, Palestinian identity, expression and culture are not about Jews at all.
People simply have a full complement of human and political rights in this world. No one’s positive expression of identity – in this case Palestinian expression – should be sized to fit the space left over by others’ political ambitions. None of us has the right to define our identity so expansively that we demand the erasure of another.
Rights are not zero-sum: the full measure of your rights does not diminish me in any way. Instead, rights reside in the sphere of abundance. The more justice, equality and freedom we create, the richer we make our lives together.
Our normal relations with the occupier Israel stand in unhealthy contrast with our lack of interaction with occupied Palestine. It’s time to level up aspects of that deficit. When Wellington City Council votes to establish a sister-city relationship with Ramallah, they will open a perfectly normal gateway to cultural, business and other exchanges.
We thank Mayor Tory Whanau and our city councillors for supporting this enriching initiative, and we look forward to getting to know Ramallah better.
Every Passover we sigh, ‘Next year, may we all be free.’ This is the year, if we dare.
It’s all on. Israeli soldiers have entered the Al Aqsa Mosque and beaten Muslim worshippers, desecrating Passover and Ramadan. The video is shocking and the inter-communal implications are horrible to contemplate. The Christian character of Jerusalem is also under assault. Historic numbers of Israelis have protested Netanyahu’s overthrow of Israel’s court system. Most are protesting the loss of their own rights, rather than the occupation or apartheid structures within which they exercise Jewish advantage. Our NZ leadership apparently couldn’t care less. Meanwhile, the proliferation of gross antisemitism on social media seems to be tracking with the spread and violence of anti-trans intolerance.
There is a way out of this.
As long as Israelis protest with the aim of restoring the previous Jewish supremacy, they are fighting for scraps. They will not achieve more than an impasse or, worse, an intra-Jewish battle for unsustainable ethnic power.
The way to break the impasse is to protest the occupation and apartheid—protest the rot that gave rise to this rotten government. Protest for democracy—yes, with Palestinians in the very front row. Palestinians comprise half of the people living between the river and the sea. If Palestinians could vote, Ben Gvir, Smotrich and Netanyahu would not be scheming to keep each other out of jail or handing out armed militias as party favours.
A Palestinian-Jewish majority protest to overthrow the occupation regime would not merely stop traffic. It would stop apartheid. That democratic protest would bring the world to its feet.
That is our Passover wish. Form a democratic majority: place the rights of Palestinians in the front row. One person needs one vote to bring justice to the land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea.
Every Passover we say, ‘Next year, may we all be free.’ This is the year, if we dare.
What is asked of us here, in Aotearoa? Here as there, Alternative Jewish Voices believes that when we stand up with others against hate, violence and injustice; we will not be left alone to confront those who hate or seek to harm us. Let us be part of a majority that stands up for justice, love and acceptance. Here and there.
The Jewish community of Aotearoa is not collectively responsible for the actions of the thugs and criminals who govern Israel. We are not responsible—but neither are we helpless or uninvolved. We have a role in this. ‘Next year may we all be free’ will not happen without us. It is a call to action.
Those of us who see, turn away, and do not speak about the escalating wrongs being committed in the name of the Jewish people are accountable for their own silence. That’s worth repeating: we are not collectively responsible for Israel’s crimes, but we are each accountable for our response to the wrongs from which we derive advantage.
What advantage? We can get on a plane and fly to Tel Aviv, which Israeli law prevents indigenous Palestinians from doing. If we choose to immigrate, we can vote for the people who govern us, which Israel prevents millions of Palestinians from doing. We can drive one hour in a straight line, which Israel’s blockade obstructs Gazans from doing. We know all this is done to preserve our privilege. We know.
This Passover is the moment to bring into being a world where everyone is free to live without violence, injustice or fear. Not next year, now.
Ken y’hi ratzoneinu – may it be our will.
Chag Sameach – happy Pesach, Ramadan Kareem, happy Easter and happy long weekend!
Hundreds of Israeli settlers have rampaged, terrorised, burnt, shot; wounded nearly four hundred and killed one person in Huwara in the West Bank, Palestine. Palestinians are an occupied people whose protection is Israel’s legal responsibility. In law and in any framework of human decency, we are responsible for upholding their protection and punishing violations.
Without equating the responsibilities of occupier and occupied people, Alternative Jewish Voices abhors all of the violence and we grieve for each and every death. But shame, no. Shame is a feeling that grows the gap between one’s image and the reality one confronts, so shame is not my response to these settlers.
We already knew that the settlers are the shock troops of a racist religio-nationalism. They inhabit illegal settlements and they hunt in the company of the army that sponsors them. The settlers filmed themselves—that’s how sure they are that the Netanyahu government (whose project they implement) will protect them. Thus far they are right. Their crime disgusts me.
Shame is not my response to the Netanyahu government that incited and protected this atrocity: uniformed soldiers accompanied the mob. We already knew that this government has handed power to racists and fascists. I had no delusions that might sour into shame. The leaders of this government belong in court—a court they have not neutered. Send them to the International Court of Justice, and add the crime of Huwara to their charge sheet. Their actions are contemptible.
I feel what I felt on the morning after the Israeli military obliterated the Shuja’iyya homes of 92,000 Gazan Palestinians in July, 2014: shock. The smells lingered, disbelief hung in the air. No warning prepares one for that much violence. No theory fully captures the willingness to commit such atrocities against trapped civilians. That is how I feel: forewarned and still shocked.
I am the grandchild of four refugees from the pogroms of Eastern Europe. When (quoting Israeli organisations) I say that Israeli settlers have carried out a pogrom, I speak from memory. I choose to use a loaded term to plead for attention: a malevolent rabble is loose and if they are not stopped, they will hunt again and again.
I feel such dread and terror for the Palestinians who must live with Israel’s armed racism every hour of their days and nights. Their exposure is beyond imagining. They will not be safe until they have international protection.
Shame? I am ashamed of our government, which speaks in our names about law and the rights of all human beings but does nothing to bring about safety—nothing. My government inhabits a diplomatic fugue state, unable to recall our obligations yet expecting to wake in a two-state fairyland. Laws are not upheld by empty speech. They are predicated on action.
Nanaia Mahuta, I beg you to treat these war crimes as war crimes. These are the moments for which the laws were written. Professor of international law and former Special Rapporteur Richard Falk wrote yesterday that the rampage in Huwara “qualifies not only as a war crime, but confirms the pervasive genocidal settler aura, now made vivid.”
With such menace afoot, I am ashamed that my community should allow itself to be spoken for by unelected Zionist ideologues. Jews are not collectively responsible for Israel’s actions, but leaders are responsible for their choices. Ours choose to enable Zionist nationalism and punish any opposition to it.
To the individuals who may be squirming in that shameful space between their ideals and the present reality: find some spine, stand yourself up and speak to the reality of Huwara.
I feel heartsick at the settlers’ desecration of my religion. Jewish history has seen false messianism before and damnit, we have not learned a thing.
In prayer services and in study, I have recently discussed Elijah. He sought understanding while a stormy wind split the rocks, then an earthquake and a fire passed before him. In the quiet after the storms, he was enlightened by a still, small voice that asked, “What are you doing here?”
Now is the quiet after the fires in Huwara. What are we doing?
Jewish Groups Across the Globe Applaud Barcelona Mayor Colau
The International Jewish Collective for Justice in Palestine (IJCJP) is comprised of Jewish groups and individuals who live in fifteen countries. From many cities around the world, our members celebrate Barcelona Mayor Ada Colau’s decision to cut ties with Israel until everyone in Israel/Palestine fully enjoys their rights, safety, and self-determination.
Cities are critical actors for social justice, because cities are the sites of our daily lives. People of every ethnicity and identity share the streets, schools, buses, culture and events of our cities. We form bonds, provide mutual aid in times of need, and enrich urban life with our diversity. Not so in Israel, where apartheid allocates rights, space, public services, protection, justice and life prospects ethnically.
Until Israel’s cities are shared, we must not normalise the structural violence of apartheid. We thank Barcelona’s mayor and citizens for refusing to look away from abuses that they would not tolerate in their own streets. With principled actions like Barcelona’s, we have the power to require change.
We are sad to see that Mayor Colau has come under attack for affirming universal human and political rights. That all members of society should live by a single law is both a traditional Jewish teaching and a pillar of secular justice. We stand in solidarity with Barcelonians who have acted to uphold it.
Barcelona’s example reminds each of us to redouble our local efforts to become the next city that stands up for justice.
Signatories:
International Jewish Collective for Justice in Palestine
Alternative Jewish Voices of Aotearoa New Zealand; South African Jews for a Free Palestine (SAJFP); Jews Say No, US; Jewish Voice for a Just Peace in the Middle East, Germany; Zochrot, Israel; International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network (IJAN) Argentina; International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network (IJAN) Spain; Boycott from Within (Israeli citizens for BDS); UJFP (French Jewish Peace Union); Jewish Network for Palestine (JNP), UK; Jewish Voice for Peace US; Jews 4 Palestine-Ireland, Independent Jewish Voices Canada; Jews Against the Occupation Australia; Jewish Voice for Labour (UK)
In the perpetual present tense of so much reporting, today’s violence began today. But it didn’t.
Today’s violence began 75 years ago, when Israel occupied Palestine and dispossessed its people. The nationalist project of Zionism rests upon rounds of increasing structural and military violence. Palestinians resist, as occupied people are legally entitled to do (although no one, nowhere, has a ‘right’ to unlimited violence). That’s the dynamic: the occupier holds the power and has the choices, while the occupied people resist. A new generation of Palestinian youth is stepping up its resistance just as Israel’s far right, religio-nationalist government is stepping up its aggression.
1. We seek a solution anchored in law and human rights. Neither Palestinians nor Jews will be free or healthy until this illegal occupation is replaced by a decent, dignified society where all people enjoy their rights.
2. Do not ask everyone to take one step back, because occupier and occupied are not two parties with equal responsibilities. We urge our government to actively support the International Court of Justice, whose job it is to assign responsibility for the disastrous violence which is integral to Israel’s occupation.
3. We grieve for those who have been killed. We call on our government to act in support of the laws and treaties it signs in our names. Act as we are obliged to act, to protect the occupied people and preserve the safety of civilians everywhere.
4. A cessation of violence is not the same as a solution. We urge, we plead with our government to speak and act in a principled, unexceptional, rights-based manner in Palestine so that real justice can be brought nearer without any need for more violence. We are not powerless; we are just inexcusably timid.
5. We urge our Jewish community and institutions to roundly disavow Israel’s government, which gives power to Kahanists, outright fascists and racists. They will push the occupation to new lows in all of our names.
Now is the time to speak—not later, when this has gone any further.
Sh'ma Koleinu - Alternative Jewish Voices (NZ) 