Turmoil among Jewish supporters of Israel

JVL Introduction

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Two articles in the Guardian, reposted below, tell of a stark crisis in the attitude of British Jews towards Israel.

On 3rd March we had Margaret Hodge, Parliamentary Chair of the JLM having just returned from a visit to Israel, shocked by what she had seen.

Two days later Harriet Sherwood presented a number of opinions, with Simon Schama pre-eminent among them, saying that British Jews must speak out over the “complete disintegration of the political and social compact” that underpins the state of Israel.

Anthony Julius, Rabbi Jonathan Romain, Reuven Ziegler and Hannah Weisfeld weigh in as well: “It’s very painful for British Jews, particularly those from an old-school Zionist background.”

Their critiques don’t go nearly far enough. They are based on a belief that Israel was more or less all right until Netanyahu brought Ben Gvir and Smotrich into the government.

In recent weeks we have published many voices from Israel exposing the deficiencies of that view, pointing to the limitations of the demonstrations which have been raging across Israel for two months now.

This sudden round of verbal protest in Britain shares those very limitations. Many of Israel’s current critics have been prominent in putting the boot into others who have been voicing their concerns about Israel for decades now, as well as being in the forefront of the campaign against Jeremy Corbyn and the false narrative of rampant antisemitism on the left.

Palestinians and their voices are virtually absent from the consciousness of Hodge, Schama and others. Their oppression should be centre stage but they are not considered as agents, they have no rights, their concerns barely figure in what for these writers is largely an intra-Jewish conflict.

Just contrast their criticism with Peter Beinart recent telling-it-how-it-is article in the New York Times: You can’t save democracy in a Jewish state.

But we should not simply dismiss their protests, whether or not they appear to many of us as too limited, contradictory, or self-serving.

There is no way of solving the crisis in Israel any day soon and the longer it goes on the more the fissures in the Jewish worlds in Britain – and elsewhere – will be subject to growing stresses and strains.

Whatever the short-term outcome, the myth of a liberal “Jewish and democratic” Israel has been dealt a mortal blow and new orientations towards it from its erstwhile liberal Zionist supporters will have to evolve.

It’s our job to ensure that Jews in Britain remain aware of the murderous realities of actually-existing Zionism and cannot return to the ostrich position which has dominated the last two decades, since the second intifada.

And, many would argue, for much, much longer, seeing current developments not as an aberration but rather the logical development of the choice to create an ethnocratic state, not a state of all its citizens.

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PS: As this was being posted we received notice of this relatively radical opinion piece by former President of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, Vivian Wineman, in Jewish News,  ‘What is a government’s purpose if not to protect ALL its citizens?’

Netanyahu has brought Israel to a dangerous moment. We, the Jewish diaspora, cannot just stand by

There must be outside intervention to facilitate new negotiations with the Palestinians – and international pressure to halt his excesses

Margaret Hodge, Guardian, 3rd March 2023

We are seeing the worst violence for many years erupting in Gaza and the West Bank. I have just returned from a week in Israel, my first visit since 1994. I spent half the trip with Labour Friends of Israel, a grouping of like-minded Labour MPs, and half with the New Israel Fund, an NGO that funds organisations that promote democracy and equality for all Israelis, based on the vision of Israel’s founders. A packed itinerary enabled me to see what had changed.

I have always supported the untrammelled right of Israel to exist and, like many others, have advocated for a two-state solution, ensuring a stable and secure home for Palestinians and Israelis alike.

But the two-state solution seems a fantasy at this moment, with little prospect of it developing into a political reality. The tensions are febrile and yet the international community, preoccupied with other crises, is doing little more than expressing concern at the heightened violence. In my humble view, it is simply not pro-Israel, nor pro-Palestinian, to do nothing.

There are so many wonderful things about Israel but the deeply anti-democratic proposals being considered by Benjamin Netanyahu’s new extreme rightwing government, alongside a renewed assault on the homes and most basic rights of Palestinians living in the occupied territories, will only deepen division and heighten tensions. They will end the dreams of the postwar idealistic Zionists who sought to build a new Jerusalem in the Middle East.

Netanyahu’s government plans to undermine judicial independence by instituting the political appointment of judges and introducing a new “overriding” clause, allowing any decision by the supreme court of Israel to be overridden by a simple majority vote in the Knesset. This would destroy the independence of the judiciary. This is especially damaging because Israel does not have a written constitution and depends on its basic laws, upheld by an independent judiciary, to protect fundamental rights. Israel prides itself on being the only genuine democracy in the region – yet no credible democracy would undermine judicial independence in this way.

Netanyahu secured office after the last election by forming a coalition with the extreme right, and rewarding two of its most extremist leaders, Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, with jobs – responsible for national security, defence and finance – and a series of damaging proposals are now being developed. There are threats to LGBTQ+ rights; debate about segregating men and women at public events funded by the government; and there are colossal taxes imposed on funds awarded to civil society organisations by a foreign source. This last proposal represents a deliberate attack on those NGOs who work to protect the rights of the most marginalised in Israel.

Netanyahu secured his mandate in democratic elections, so many might question the right of others to comment, let alone intervene. But this is a very dangerous moment for Israel that could easily tip into a third intifada. Can we really stand aside?

The Jewish Israeli community is completely divided. Massive demonstrations against Netanyahu and his backers are now the order of the day. The parties on the left are in disarray and unable to provide an effective opposition. Negotiations between two dysfunctional forces, the Palestinian Authority and the Netanyahu executive, are impossible. Threats from Iran continue to dominate, and many believe an attack on the Iranian nuclear capability is inevitable. Right now, Israel is in no fit state to navigate a peaceful way forward.

Everybody is rightly concerned with security. When visiting an Israeli kibbutz, founded in 1951 by Egyptian Jewish refugees, we were shown around by a third-generation kibbutznik woman. The kibbutz lies so close to the Gaza border that we could hear the call to prayer for Muslims. The kibbutz inhabitants live under constant threat of rocket attacks and we saw the damage done to our guide’s modest home by a nailbomb that struck her reinforced external wall.

I also visited Sheikh Jarrah, a deprived neighbourhood in east Jerusalem. I sat in the garden of a 20-strong family of Palestinians, who had also lived in their modest home for three generations and who were now threatened with eviction by Jewish Israelis. The security minister, Ben-Gvir, had erected a small gazebo on a patch of grass in front of this family’s home, claiming it as his office. In fact, it was a provocative assertion of his authority over the area and its inhabitants.

Here I also witnessed a weekly demonstration by Jewish Israelis in support of those Palestinians threatened with eviction. The demonstration was disrupted by a group of rightwing Israelis, led by a local councillor with a loudhailer who screamed abuse at the Palestinians and the protesters inches from their faces, with the police just watching on.

And yet, amid all this chaos I met wonderful people trying their best to bring the two communities together. A group of doctors who visited different Arab villages every Saturday to provide healthcare; an Arab Israeli professor who ran further education courses both for Arab and Jewish Israelis.

But with a broken political landscape and a government focused on measures that can only entrench division and hatred, what can be done?

Funding grassroots organisations that work to build confidence between Arabs and Jews from the bottom up is hugely important. However, international pressure, especially from the diaspora Jewish community, to curtail the excesses of the present government, is also needed. And it needs a country outside Israel to actively work to facilitate negotiations between the two warring communities.

A two-state solution seems politically impossible for now, but I believe it is historically inevitable. We must play our part in getting there without more unnecessary hatred and bloodshed.

• Margaret Hodge is MP for Barking and the parliamentary chair of the Jewish Labour Movement

Simon Schama urges UK Jews to condemn Israel’s ‘horrifying’ shift to far right

Historian and TV presenter is among those to speak out as protest grows over settler violence against Palestinians

Harriet Sherwood, Guardian, 5th March 2023

British Jews must speak out over the “complete disintegration of the political and social compact” that underpins the state of Israel, the historian Simon Schama has said.

His call comes amid mounting disquiet among Jews in the UK and the US at the threats to Israeli democracy, violent attacks on Palestinians and a police crackdown on Israeli protesters.

Next Sunday, Israelis living in the UK will take to the streets to voice their opposition to the actions of the most rightwing Israeli government in the country’s 75-year history.

Protests are also planned by expat Israelis and Jews in other countries in solidarity with huge demonstrations in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem against the government.

In a sign of the changing mood, the Board of Deputies of British Jews, considered to be a conservative and staunchly pro-Israel body, issued a rare statement condemning a call by a senior Israeli minister that a Palestinian town in the West Bank should be “wiped out” in response to the murder of two Israelis.

“We utterly condemn Bezalel Smotrich’s comments calling for the Israeli government to ‘erase’ a village which days ago was attacked by Israeli settlers. We hope that this and similar comments will be publicly repudiated by responsible voices in the governing coalition,” the board said.

The board’s statement was a reflection that British Jews across the political spectrum are deeply troubled by “dangerous extremists” in the Israeli government, said one insider.

This is of concern to Jewry the world over. It’s utterly horrifying. We should not be lily-livered about it

Simon Schama

Speaking to the Observer, Schama said that Israel was at risk of becoming a “nationalist theocracy” with the inclusion of ultra-religious, far-right parties in the coalition government headed by Benjamin Netanyahu.

Key government posts have been handed to extreme hardliners Itamar Ben-Gvir and Smotrich – both ideological settlers committed to Israeli annexation of the West Bank.

The government has begun moves to undermine judicial independence and expand Israeli settlements in the occupied territories.

The army has failed to contain a surge of settler violence, and the police last week fired stun grenades and water cannon at peaceful protesters in Tel Aviv.

“This is of concern to Jewry all over the world,” said Schama. “It’s absolutely, utterly horrifying.” Israel’s 1948 declaration of independence – “a noble document, which promised equal civil rights to all religious and ethnic groups” – had disintegrated, he said.

Jews must speak out, he added. To do so was “not a betrayal of Israel, it’s a passionate declaration of support for the enormous number of people [in Israel] who feel as anguished as we do. We should not be lily-livered about it”.

Margaret Hodge, the veteran Labour MP and parliamentary chair of the Jewish Labour Movement, said an “assault on democracy” combined with “vicious attacks on Palestinian rights” was creating a “dangerous moment” for Israel.

She had always been a “critical friend” of Israel, but said she and other British Jews must now be “more vocal. The voice of the Jewish diaspora must be stronger, we must exert what pressure we can to curtail the excesses of the Israeli government.”

Anthony Julius, one of the UK’s most prominent Jewish lawyers, said the Israeli government incorporated “the worst features of the populist, anti-liberal democratic parties that operate in Europe and in America as well, but with a special kind of antinomian Jewish intensity”.

Sweeping reforms to give the government total control over the appointment of judges and to allow parliament to override supreme court rulings were “destructive”, he said in Haaretz newspaper last month.

According to Rabbi Jonathan Romain, the “vast majority” of his congregation in Maidenhead, Berkshire, was “deeply worried” about what’s happening in Israel. “The extremist faction in the government is anti-gay, anti-women, anti-civil liberties, anti-pluralism, hostile to Palestinians,” Romain said.

“The mood is shifting from British Jews being out-and-out supporters [of Israel] to being critical friends – and voicing that criticism publicly.” His constituents were “more worried about the direction of Israel than at any time previously”, he said.

Next weekend’s protest, under the banner “Defend Israel’s democracy”, is open to all expat Israelis “and all supporters of Israel and democracy”, the organisers said.

Reuven Ziegler, a law professor at Reading University, who will be speaking at the protest, said: “The demonstrations are a very patriotic act because they are an attempt to save Israel from making substantive mistakes that would ultimately change its character. They are anything but hostile to the Israeli state.

“Since this government was formed, it has given many reasons for people in the diaspora to find themselves alienated from it.

“In the past, faced with certain expressions of antisemitism, many Jews have felt the need to defend Israel, right or wrong. That sentiment may be weakening, but ultimately the blame for that lies squarely with the current government.”

Hannah Weisfeld, the director of Yachad, a UK organisation that advocates for a political resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, said: “There is real disquiet in the community over Smotrich and Ben-Gvir. The settler attack on Hawara was quite a gamechanger.”

People, she said, were starting to understand there was “a connection between the undoing of democracy and settlers running wild in the West Bank.

“It’s very painful for British Jews, particularly those from an old-school Zionist background. Many have family in Israel who are telling them that a dictatorship is coming. We’re not quite at a tipping point yet, but I think we’ll get there.”

Six European countries, including the UK, on Saturday condemned recent Palestinian militant attacks that killed Israeli citizens in the occupied West Bank and called on Israel to halt expansion of settlements there. “We urge the Israeli government to reverse its recent decision to advance the construction of more than 7,000 settlement building units across the occupied West Bank and to legalise settlement outposts,” said the countries in a joint statement.