The Condemnatory National Jewish Assembly – an exchange re Zack Polanski

To the National Jewish Assembly

We are writing  in response to your condemnation of Zack Polanski for supporting calls for the investigation of British Nationals who have served in Israel’s military forces. We are a Jewish organisation and the lessons we draw from the history we share with you is to oppose militarism and violence.  In your condemnation, you fail to examine why supporters of peace and justice for Palestinians should be horrified that British citizens are serving alongside the Israeli military as they are perpetrating genocide against the Palestinian people.

You state that “credible allegations of war crimes should always be investigated” We believe that these allegations are credible. The conclusion reached by the majority of non-Jewish as well as Jewish genocide scholars, human rights organisations inside and outside Israel, and United Nations investigations and special rapporteurs is that a genocide is being committed by Israel. Instead of opposing genocide and raising concerns about British complicity, you seem to be promoting genocide denial.  

You accuse Zack Polanski of hypocrisy for showing concern over the involvement of British Nationals in genocide while accepting as deputy leader of the Green Party someone who expressed his condemnation of participation in genocide, in an intemperate way, for which he apologised. The war crimes involved in the undisciplined slaughter of Palestinians and the destruction of the means for their survival are of an entirely different order from any error in the infelicitous choice of words used in condemning genocidal complicity.

As Jews, I am sure you will agree that we all have a special responsibility to condemn genocide whenever, wherever and to whomever it happens, and in holding accountable those who perpetrate it.

Yours sincerely

Leah Levane and Jenny Manson, Co Chairs, Jewish Voice for Liberation

Response from NJA

Thank you for your email.

While we appreciate your willingness to engage, it is clear that our organisations approach these issues from profoundly different starting points.

Our statement regarding Zack Polanski was not an objection to the principle that credible allegations of war crimes should be investigated. Rather, it was a criticism of his decision to support a campaign originating from activist organisations and individuals, some of whom were involved in an earlier dossier submitted to the Metropolitan Police concerning ten British nationals alleged to have committed offences while serving in Gaza.

The Metropolitan Police subsequently concluded that an effective investigation could not be conducted and that there was no realistic prospect of a conviction. Yet rather than accepting that outcome, many of the same activists have returned with a fresh campaign seeking to cast suspicion on British nationals who have served in Israel’s armed forces. We believe it is entirely legitimate to question why Mr Polanski has chosen to align himself with such efforts.

We note that your email accepts our statement that credible allegations of war crimes should be investigated, but then immediately proceeds on the basis that the allegations in question are already established and that genocide is taking place.

That is precisely where we disagree.

The fact that an allegation is believed by activists, campaign groups, political organisations, or even some academics does not transform it into an established fact. Serious allegations require serious evidence and rigorous scrutiny. The purpose of an investigation is to determine whether wrongdoing occurred, not to validate a conclusion that has already been reached for political or ideological reasons.

Belief, however sincerely held, is not evidence.

We also reject your assertion that there is a settled consensus that Israel is committing genocide.

The International Court of Justice has not ruled that Israel is committing genocide. No international court has reached such a finding. The allegation remains disputed by legal scholars, governments and commentators. While some academics, activists, human rights organisations and UN officials have advanced that argument, others have rejected it. To present a contested allegation as an established and universally accepted fact is simply inaccurate.

The tragic loss of civilian life in Gaza should concern all people of conscience. However, your analysis appears to assign responsibility almost exclusively to Israel whilst largely ignoring the central role played by Hamas in creating and perpetuating the conflict.

This war did not begin in a vacuum. It followed the 7 October massacre, the largest mass murder of Jews since the Holocaust, in which Hamas and others murdered, tortured, raped and kidnapped Israelis and foreign nationals, including Jews, Muslims, Christians and people of many other backgrounds. The stated objective of Hamas has never been peaceful coexistence with Israel but the destruction of Israel itself.

Nor can any honest assessment of civilian casualties ignore Hamas’s well documented strategy of embedding military infrastructure, weapons, command centres and fighters within densely populated civilian areas. The suffering of Palestinian civilians is tragic, but responsibility for that suffering cannot be assessed whilst treating Hamas merely as a passive observer rather than an active participant whose actions have materially contributed to the scale and duration of the conflict.

For that reason, we find it striking that your email contains repeated references to alleged Israeli crimes yet makes no meaningful reference to Hamas’s atrocities, its openly eliminationist objectives, its use of civilian infrastructure for military purposes, or its role in ensuring that this conflict continues. One might reasonably expect a movement committed to justice and accountability to devote at least some attention to the organisation that started the war, openly seeks the destruction of the Jewish state, and continues to hold hostages whilst using its own civilian population as strategic cover.

We also reject, unequivocally, your allegation that the National Jewish Assembly is engaged in “genocide denial”.

That accusation appears to rest on the proposition that anyone who disputes your characterisation of the conflict, or rejects the claim that genocide has been established as a matter of fact, is somehow guilty of denial. Such reasoning is incompatible with serious legal or academic inquiry.

To reject an allegation that has not been judicially established is not genocide denial. It is recognition of the distinction between an allegation and a proven fact. Reasonable people may disagree about the conduct of the war, the proportionality of military actions, or the humanitarian consequences of the conflict. Disagreement with your conclusion does not amount to denial.

Your email further highlights a deeper difference between our organisations.

Your organisation openly describes itself as anti-Zionist. The National Jewish Assembly is unapologetically Zionist.

As Chief Rabbi Sir Ephraim Mirvis observed in his essay What is Zionism?, Zionism is not a fringe political doctrine but the national liberation movement of the Jewish people and, for most Jews, an integral part of Jewish identity itself.

For the overwhelming majority of Jews worldwide, Zionism is neither an extremist ideology nor a political aberration. It is the belief that the Jewish people, like every other people, have the right to self-determination in their historic homeland. Support for Israel as the nation state of the Jewish people remains the mainstream position across global Jewish communities.

It is therefore difficult to reconcile opposition to Zionism with a simultaneous claim to oppose racism. Many Jews, including our organisation, regard the denial of Jewish self-determination as discriminatory. Indeed, such positions are reflected in examples contained within the IHRA Working Definition of Antisemitism, which has been adopted by the UK Government and numerous public bodies.

We also note that your organisation’s public materials characterise Israel as an apartheid state. Many Jews regard such claims, particularly when directed uniquely at the Jewish state whilst comparable standards are not applied elsewhere, as deeply problematic and potentially falling within examples identified by the IHRA definition.

Perhaps most fundamentally, we differ on the lessons of Jewish history.

You conclude your letter by asserting that Jews have a special responsibility to condemn genocide whenever, wherever and to whomever it happens. On that principle, we agree entirely. Where we disagree is that support for Israel’s existence and security is somehow incompatible with that responsibility.

The lesson most Jews drew from centuries of persecution, culminating in the Holocaust, was not that Jewish sovereignty is dangerous, but that it is necessary. Had a Jewish state existed before the Second World War, countless Jewish lives may well have been saved.

While it is, of course, possible to find individual Jews, including Holocaust survivors, who oppose Zionism, such voices do not alter the broader reality. The overwhelming majority of Jews worldwide, together with the vast majority of Jewish communal, religious and representative institutions, remain Zionist and regard the existence of a Jewish state as both legitimate and necessary.

It is therefore remarkable that, eighty years after the Holocaust, there remain Jewish organisations whose response to Jewish vulnerability is opposition to the principle of Jewish national self-determination.

We are proud to stand with the overwhelming majority of global Jewry in supporting Israel’s existence as the nation state of the Jewish people. We are equally proud to oppose racism, hatred and genuine genocide wherever they occur.

We therefore agree with your closing sentiment, but with one important qualification. Jews have a responsibility to oppose genocide wherever it occurs, but they do not have a responsibility to abandon standards of evidence, law and due process when the accusation is directed at Israel.

Respectfully, we remain firmly opposed to the views expressed in your letter and to the anti-Zionist ideology your organisation promotes. We suspect that disagreement will remain. However, if the objective is genuinely justice, accountability and peace, those principles must surely be applied consistently, including to Hamas, Palestinian terrorism, and those who excuse or minimise their role in bringing about the very suffering they claim to lament.

Yours sincerely,

Steve Winston
Managing Director
National Jewish Assembly