r/JewsOfConscience • u/MrSFedora • 8h ago
r/JewsOfConscience • u/ChirpyLaura • 1d ago
Celebration Rosh Hashanah Staple Foods
Hi everybody! This is my first Rosh Hashanah as a practicing Jew, what foods do you find nostalgic and a mainstay in your new years feasts. I'm vegetarian, but I will take any suggestions because I'm looking to see how Judaism affects the culinary aspect of holidays, even if I can't make all of these lol!
r/JewsOfConscience • u/EliClifton • 6d ago
AMA I’m Eli Clifton, co-author of ‘Israel's Lobby: America in the Grip of a Foreign Power’. AMA
I'm Eli Clifton, coauthor of Israel's Lobby: America in the Grip of a Foreign Power. My coauthor, u/IanLustick and I, wrote this book to explain how shifts in global politics, Israel’s lurch to the extreme right, and the evisceration of American campaign finance laws make the influence of Israel’s lobby more costly and more dangerous today than it ever was before.
We will be here for the next hour or so answering all your questions about our book and the Lobby.
If you haven't already, please pick up a copy of our book at Bookshop.org, Amazon, or your local bookstore.
UPDATE
Thank you so much for joining us and asking such interesting questions. I hope you all get a chance to read our book and engage with the tough questions we are trying to address.

AMA!
Eli
r/JewsOfConscience • u/TrackerOneA • 3h ago
Activism Natasha Lyonne speaks out in support of Susan Sarandon, saying "#FreePalestine. It can't still be that radical to say that, can it?"
r/JewsOfConscience • u/TrackerOneA • 7h ago
Zionist Terror Israel prison guards indicted on killing Palestinian prisoner, after he asked if there was a ceasefire. One guard who wasn't charged, Oshrit Aliga, brags about beating Palestinians - describing it as giving "them a proper Shabbat reception." She has done adverts for the Israeli Prison Service.
News article:
In-depth exposé:
12 Israeli Prison Service guards have now (incident happened in 2023) been charged over the death of Palestinian prisoner Tha'er Abu Assab, a Fatah member who was serving a 25-year sentence for alleged "attacks against Israel" (never specified what exactly; not that it matters).
https://i.imgur.com/DIAaYcT.png
According to the investigation, Abu Assab asked a guard whether there was a ceasefire.
The question was relayed to a commander, who decided to "show" the prisoners that there wasn't one by beating them.
Guards then entered the cell and beat the prisoners, with Abu Assab taking the worst of it. He later died.
https://i.imgur.com/Sovac9Y.png
One guard testified that the commander had told them beforehand that whatever happened that evening was his responsibility and that they should do what he said.
https://i.imgur.com/zvVemns.png
The article notes that it's difficult to catch abuse by Israeli prison guards due to the culture of permissive violence and covering up for one another's crimes.
So the 12 indicted are only being charged for 'negligent homicide'.
https://i.imgur.com/UDmGmUZ.png
But this time, prosecutors had guards' own WhatsApp messages - in which they bragged about it all.
https://i.imgur.com/7oWxC4Q.png
One of them, Oshrit Aliga, had previously been featured in an IPS recruitment ad.
https://i.imgur.com/1GueMFd.png
Shortly after Abu Assab's death, she texted her partner: "Sweetie, here is an update for you, he's dead now," adding that she was "very happy and satisfied" and that "there was a lot of blood and they broke them." She also wrote that the commander "really wanted to break them."
https://i.imgur.com/dvYDccm.png
See this for better translations
- The source is a disgraced Israeli-American grad student, but he's the only one providing this additional translation on X.
A month later, talking about another group of Palestinian detainees arriving at the prison, she told a friend that she and the shift were preparing to give them a proper "Shabbat reception."
https://i.imgur.com/HdykLE9.png
Her friend joked about whether her baton was still working, and Aliga replied that it had undergone "a fair number of disinfections."
https://i.imgur.com/zeQNFec.png
She then bragged about beating prisoners and said that if she had not "cracked one of his kidneys," she did not consider the job done.
https://i.imgur.com/vuo0V7x.png
This reminds me of whenever I see people talk about anonymous online microaggressions like someone sarcastically saying, "G-d promised them the land 3,000 years ago."
I understand how that can be irritating and even distressing as it builds up - but you can also find actual analogues of that rhetoric being used by Israelis in circumstances involving real violence/abuse/criminality.
Think of that settler standing on a Palestinian family's home and saying, "G-d promised it [Palestine] to me."
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/5GeAjH12A0I
Or Yair Lapid's religious Zionist comments, conveying that Israel has divine mandate to expand its borders.
Testimony by guards described violence against Palestinian prisoners as routine and that senior officials knew & approved of it.
https://i.imgur.com/CEf8aCc.png
During questioning, the commander initially denied what happened and reportedly asked the investigator, "How do you know they didn't do it to themselves?"
https://i.imgur.com/FhLuLyH.png
This case/investigation also has a Shawshank-style element of institutional corruption.
Abu Assab reportedly had a working relationship with prison management and served as a spokesman or point of contact for his cell.
https://i.imgur.com/yVzJz7Z.png
He was also being prosecuted for allegedly bribing a guard to smuggle in phones and an e-cigarette.
According to Haaretz, citing Kan, he had threatened during interrogation to expose similar arrangements involving other prison guards.
His death ended that prosecution, and with it the possibility that he could implicate other IPS personnel.
Given everything else revealed in this investigation, it is very convenient for the prison management that he is now dead.
r/JewsOfConscience • u/full-fathom-5ive • 6h ago
News The New York Times is "looking to talk to Jewish New Yorkers about whether their views on Israel and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict have changed." Tell them your thoughts.
r/JewsOfConscience • u/TrackerOneA • 19h ago
Zionist Terror Zionists celebrate AfD's win in Germany.
r/JewsOfConscience • u/userx46 • 1h ago
Activism Israel deports British activist who protected Palestinian children
r/JewsOfConscience • u/Roy4Pris • 8h ago
News Mixed feelings about this one
Just saw this on FB. I understand many people don't want to click on FB links, so the short version is that due to obliterating Gaza's water treatment infrastructure, almost all of Israel's desalination plants are now choking on what is very likely toxic algae bloom caused by said bombing.
https://www.facebook.com/photo?fbid=1490347499794591&set=pcb.1490347639794577
So really the headline should read 'Gaza is paying the price of destruction, Israel is 'collateral damage'.
Of course what I hate most about this news is that it's yet another reminder of the horrific cost of this war on an entire population. Israel's problems are non-trivial, but nothing in comparison to what it must be like to live among two million people without a functioning sewerage system.
-
To be clear, I don't want anyone to suffer, Palestinian or Israeli. No one should be forced to drink polluted water. But what this article also suggests to me is that Israel is fundamentally unsustainable.
They can't truck in water for 10 million people. And even if they could, they'd need more land borders with friendly countries with which to do it. Israel has so alienated all of its neighbours, the only ones it can do business with do so only because they are American puppets.
If you actually asked the people of Egypt and Jordan what they think, I feel pretty sure they would not align with those country's foreign policies towards Israel.
Okay I'm kinda waffling now. I guess where I'm going is that, big picture, the future for Israel as an apartheid state is not good. They may have overwhelming military might, but even the toughest soldiers and West Bank settlers need water.
r/JewsOfConscience • u/TrackerOneA • 18h ago
News Eight-year-old Palestinian girl killed by Israel on her first day of school
r/JewsOfConscience • u/ExtendedWallaby • 3h ago
Zionist Nonsense New conspiracy theory just dropped
en.wikipedia.orgApparently Qatar is secretly funding universities to make them anti-Israel. I have some questions about the methodology here.
r/JewsOfConscience • u/nayuunii • 18h ago
Discussion - Flaired Users Only I don’t know if I’m allowed to post this. But I’m Lebanese Arab. Muslim too. Just wanted to say…
That I really love you guys. ♥️
I don’t know how many times I’ve been called an “”anti semite”” for criticizing Israel and Zionists when it’s the farthest thing from the truth. I’m anti Zionist and anti Israel.
I don’t hate Jewish people. How can I? You guys are my cousins and I consider you closer to me than I consider the Christians close to me. You and I share way more in common than I share with a Christian.
We are People of the Book for a reason. Don’t let Israel’s fascism confuse us and make us hate each other when we should know who the true enemy is.
I have family in Lebanon. They’ve been texting us videos of the bodies they walk past in the street as they flee. They text us the bombs falling in their neighborhood.
I have Palestinian family members who have married into the family.
Every day I’m sick with worry and anger over what is happening and how I’m powerless to stop it.
Thank you for being on the right side of history. Let’s walk hand in hand and hope to see the fall of Israel in our lifetimes.
r/JewsOfConscience • u/Fit_Dog_123 • 58m ago
Zionist Nonsense Zionists upset Macklemore exercises right of free speech.
If they don't like what he says dont listen. If they dont want to see him on a concert tour, then dont attend his concert. If they dont like the criticism, maybe dont commit or aid in committing war crimes.
Anyone in that audience knows Macklemore advocates for Palestine and paid to see it! Rabid Zionists dont speak for Macklemore's fans. Dumb argument.
This is stupid. Macklemore is an individual who has a right to say political things and speak up when his conscience is sparked. These people dont like that he says stuff. Boo hoo.
Is this something new: a petition from the public the lobby puts out. Is this a sign their backdoor influence is weakening. i mean usually they have hushed people up without appealing to the public from the inside. To the sane, if Macklemore isn't their cup of tea, they listen to something else. Its insanity to jump into a scene they know nothjng about and invest so hard to silence someone for exercising free speech, part of the brand that is Macklemore.
This petition is pretty sad and desperate. I dont see what a petition will do. If they don't like his performance, just dont watch. There is obviously a large enough group of people that are fans of Macklemore that he is on tour, which means he has a whole network that promote and invests in producing Macklemore the entertainer which includes his advocacy for Palestine as a central component.
This stupid petition is a free promotion sure to enlarge the fanbase! When you try to shut someone down sometimes it does the opposite, especially when you are universally despised. Appealing to the public is a dumb thing strategically here for Zionists because Zionism requires a little antisociality.
r/JewsOfConscience • u/terenscendent • 20h ago
News Kushner Claims Gaza Malnutrition Among World's Lowest After Trump 'Flooded' Aid; UN Reports Widespread Hunger
r/JewsOfConscience • u/Fit_Dog_123 • 19h ago
Zionist Nonsense B.S.: "Family members of 9/11 victims seek to bar Mamdani from 25th anniversary commemoration"
This is stupid Islamophobia and racism. Why exactly should the mayor of NYC not attend ceremonies about the city's most tragic and memorialized day?
Because he sometimes criticizes Israel and allegedly doesn't condemn the phrase about globalized intifada, which he actually did.
They can't come up with any reason. This isnt about Zionists and some of their bigoted views about Mamdani. This is stupid.
Let's cut to the point. This ridiculous "othering" of Mamdani is fueled by racism and Islamaophobia, and b.s. like this is even made a point of discussion by people who fear their privilege gained by corruption could be undone by Mamdani's movement for democracy.
These talking points to undercut Mamdanj published by people with influence are stupid, pathetic, and they aren't working. The NY Times, CNN, and many Zionist oubkications are trying to push the narrative that Mamdani isnt worthy to commemorate 9/11 by "othering" him. Straight up racism and Islamaphibia.
What's truly disgusting is their desecration of the memorial by exploiting it to spin racialized political narratives.
r/JewsOfConscience • u/Minivampiretaco • 10m ago
Zionist Nonsense Labor and Coalition vote down bill to strip tax breaks from charities funding Israel war machine - Michael West
Labor and the Coalition have voted down a Greens amendment to strip tax breaks from charities funding illegal Israeli settlements and the IDF. Stephanie Tran reports.
The Labor Government has joined with the Coalition to vote against a Greens amendment which would have stripped deductible gift recipient status from Australian organisations found to be supporting an illegal occupation by funding Israeli settlements and organisations linked to the IDF.
Greens senator Mehreen Faruqi introduced the amendment in the Senate this week, arguing that Australian taxpayers should not subsidise organisations whose funds support illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank.
Genocide is a war crime. Ethnic cleansing is a war crime.
But in this country, you can send money to fund those war crimes, and you’ll receive a tax deduction,” Faruqi told the Senate.
Both Labor and the Coalition opposed the amendment.
Faruqi referenced investigations by Michael West Media which revealed that Australian charities registered with the Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission (ACNC) were hosting fundraisers linked to the IDF and Israeli settlements in the West Bank while benefiting from DGR status.
“These charities are helping to bankroll the genocide in Gaza by channelling funds to organisations linked to the IDF and to violent illegal settlements off the back of Australian taxpayer money.”
The proposed amendment would have amended the Income Tax Assessment Act 1997 to provide that an entity would not be entitled to DGR endorsement if it had supported an “illegal occupation”.
Last month, the UK Charity Commission launched an investigation into charities in England and Wales donating funds to illegal Israeli settlements in Palestine.
ACNC rules “don’t extend to … international law”
Faruqi said the amendment was necessary because the existing regulatory framework did not adequately address conduct that breached international law.
“By maintaining DDR status for these supposed charities, the government says that this violence is okay. That is what this government is doing. That these murders are okay. That this ethnic cleansing is okay,” she said.
“How can supporting ethnic cleansing, settler occupation, and murdering Palestinians be ensuring the safety of vulnerable individuals overseas? It cannot and the ACNC has not been able to answer these questions.”
When she previously moved the amendment in March, Labor senator Anthony Chisholm told the Senate that the ACNC’s external conduct standards did not extend to conduct under international law.
Faruqi said that meant charities could continue to fund activities that are unlawful under international law while retaining their tax concessions.
“Labor is more than happy for those who participate in, sustain, and fund the illegal occupation of the West Bank, an occupation that Labor itself has recognised as illegal, yet it gets a tax deduction,” she said.
Labor senator Tim Ayres said “charity registration can be revoked by the ACNC where the governance and external conduct standards are not met”.
However, Ayres reiterated the government’s previous position that “the external conduct standards don’t extend to conduct under international law.”
Subsidising illegal occupation
Faruqi challenged Ayres over whether the ACNC was investigating specific organisations identified in MWM investigations.
She cited the Chai Charitable Foundation, which received more than $19m in tax-deductible donations in 2025 and had hosted campaigns for organisations that publicly stated they provided direct support to IDF soldiers.
She also referred to reporting by MWM which revealed that the Foundation had hosted fundraising campaigns linked to settlements in Tekoa and Hebron in the West Bank.
Faruqi also cited investigations on United Israel Appeal Australia, which reported $50m in revenue in 2024, and funded the Lone Immigrant Soldier program, which provides support to immigrants serving in the IDF. The organisation has also funded settlement-related activities in the West Bank.
“Minister, do you know if the ACNC is investigating these organisations?” Faruqi asked.
Ayres heads off allegations
Ayres responded that “the ACNC is an independent regulator and it’s accountable for the work that it does on an independent basis”.
When Faruqi pressed him on whether he should know whether the organisations were receiving tax deductions and whether the allegations demonstrated that existing safeguards were insufficient, Ayres said he could not respond to questions about individual organisations.
Faruqi challenged the government over the external conduct standard requiring charities operating overseas to take reasonable steps to protect vulnerable people.
Palestinians living under occupation, displacement, and genocide
are clearly vulnerable people. Australians are deeply distressed that tax-deductible donations may be supporting organisations connected to the very forces and settlements harming them,” she said.
“Minister, why won’t the government listen to those concerns and support this amendment, so that it can be crystal clear that Australian tax concessions cannot be used to subsidize what your own government recognizes as an illegal occupation? What is the problem here?”
Ayres said the government’s “approach in relation to the broader question has been very clear”.
“I don’t really understand the relationship that you’re trying to draw between the purposes of this piece of legislation, which is about DGR status and a whole range of things,” he said.
Escalating settler violence
The amendment comes as violence against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank has escalated, with two Palestinian teenagers murdered last week by Israeli troops.
Sixteen-year-old Khalil Abu Alia and 19-year-old Omar al-Nassan were killed in the Palestinian village of al-Mughayyir after settlers entered the village under police and military escort.
Abu Alia, who was about to begin year 11, was shot in the neck while standing on the doorstep of his home. Al-Nassan, who had recently graduated from the same school, was also shot and died before reaching hospital.
The two teenagers were among five students from the same school killed in Israeli attacks this year. The other victims included a 17-year-old Palestinian youth footballer and two 14-year-olds.
At the same time, Israeli forces demolished the homes of 12 Palestinian families in Khirbet al-Taban in the South Hebron Hills, leaving all 70 residents homeless, including 28 children, according to Israeli human rights organisation B’Tselem.
The organisation said the community was the 66th Palestinian community to have been wiped out since October 2023.
“These are whole worlds and lives extinguished in evil, depraved, and violent attacks that have become part of everyday life for Palestinians,” Faruqi said.
Coalition, Nats, Labor, One Nation – same deal
The Coalition also opposed the amendment.
Nationals senator Bridget McKenzie accused Faruqi of conflating support for the IDF with criminal conduct and criticised what she described as “abhorrent anti-Semitic comments”.
“Listening to Senator Faruqi, it would seem that supporting the IDF or the families of the IDF is somehow now a crime in Australia,” McKenzie said.
She said the Coalition would not support the amendment and “look forward to voting no as soon as possible”.
Faruqi, meanwhile, argued that the amendment was about preventing Australian tax concessions from supporting activities Australia itself recognises as unlawful.
“The International Court of Justice, in 2024, called on parties, states such as Australia, to prevent trade or investment relations that assist in the maintenance of illegal situations created by Israel in the occupied Palestinian territories,” she said.
“Labor allows Australian charities to funnel money to support ethnic cleansing, apartheid, violence, and occupation.” She accused Labor of hypocrisy
over its position on Palestinian statehood and Israeli settlement expansion.
“It is completely disingenuous for the government to say it supports a Palestinian state while effectively subsidising its destruction,” Faruqi said.
“Supporting these heinous crimes deserves a criminal investigation, not a tax deduction.”
“Labor says they mourn the death of Zomi Frankcom, but in the same breath, they hand tax benefits to those who support the murderers.”
r/JewsOfConscience • u/1Palestine • 19h ago
Discussion - Flaired Users Only The problem is not the Netanyahu government for the solution to be a different government. The problem is the genocidal settler-colonial state of Israel and the solution is its dismantling and the establishment of its antithesis: One democratic Palestinian state, for all its citizens, from the river
Netanyahu’s government is guilty of settler colonialism and genocide. With the Knesset elections coming up, is the colony’s opposition the solution? Let’s take a look at key figures.
Neftali Bennet, leader of the “Bennett 2026” Party. He describes himself as “more right-wing than Netanyahu”. He said that Gaza’s children “are not children but terrorists trying to kill our children” and called in 2023 for a total blockade on Gaza. He was head of an umbrella organization of Jewish settlements called the Yesha Council, and supports the annexation of the West Bank.
Gadi Eisenkot, leader of the “Yashar” Party. He speaks of “equal rights” within the colony. He was chief of the staff of the colony’s occupation army and led ethnic razing operations in the West Bank. He supported the massive bombing of infrastructure in Beirut as a means of deterrence against the Lebanese resistance, and applied the same in Gaza as part of the “War Cabinet”.
Avigdor Lieberman, leader of the “Yisrael Beiteinu” Party. He spoke of a two-state “solution” on the basis of the ethnic razing of Palestinians with Israeli citizenship from 1948-occupied Palestine to areas under the “Palestinian Authority”. He supports the colony’s focus on “preemptive” military action and claimed that there are “no innocents in Gaza”.
Yair Golan, leader of the “Democrats” Party. He speaks of a two-state “solution”. He criticized the colony’s “killing babies in Gaza” but not the genocide itself. He says the colony’s army is “an occupying military” yet believes it is “justified”. He served as an officer in the occupation army which he believes is “a moral army that protects human dignity”.
Yair Lapid, leader of the “Yesh Atid” Party. He speaks of a two-state “solution”. He said that the media should present “only the Israeli side” as “presenting both sides would serve Hamas”. He supports annexation of occupied Syrian territory. He also expressed support of “Greater Israel”, which he defined as expanding the colony’s borders “as much as possible”.
Alon-Lee Green, co-leader of the “Makom Lekulanu” Party. He speaks of a two-state “solution” and “equal rights” within the colony. He supports “radical empathy” and spoke of occupation soldiers killed by the Palestinian resistance as “innocent victims”. His Party does not mention the right of return and has stated it will support the candidate “best poised to oust Netanyahu”—i.e. one of the above.
The above paints a picture of the colony’s opposition, clearly showing it opposes Netanyahu, not settler colonialism. One need not delve into that many details, however. Zionism is, by definition, the support of the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine. One’s support of Zionism is enough to make one guilty, regardless of one’s statements regarding solutions, rights or peace.
The truth is clear: The problem is not the Netanyahu government for the solution to be a different government. The problem is the genocidal settler-colonial state of Israel and the solution is its dismantling and the establishment of its antithesis: One democratic Palestinian state, for all its citizens, from the river to the sea.
r/JewsOfConscience • u/TravellingBeard • 13h ago
Discussion - Flaired Users Only Serious question: what is the conversation Jews from both sides are having with each other?
For non-Jews like me, we are obviously not privy to the nuances of discussions occurring on your end. Is any serious dialog happening and swaying pro-zionist beliefs away from years of programming?
r/JewsOfConscience • u/Direct_Appointment99 • 11h ago
News Analysis: Ed Miliband is becoming the UK's most formidable foreign secretary in decades
"No foreign secretary this century has ever successfully challenged either the power of the White House or pressure from Israel – let alone both at once.
Miliband is stepping out of line. Moreover, he is doing so against strident opposition from significant sections of the British media. In short, Miliband has torn up the script on British foreign policy."
So I know there is copious scepticism about Milliband and Labour in general, for very good reason. It is the party that created the Zionist state. One might also say that sanctioning those who do business with settlements doesn't go far enough.
However, it has also been noted that the Israeli economy is inextricably linked to the settlements - that if enforced, sanctions do in fact have a broader impact, including on British businesses that trade with the Zionist state. That includes law firms, weapons manufacturers, banks and insurers (a particularly large impact on shipping).
The big question remains whether these sanctions survive reality. The article outlines the dilemma, which is that the UK is a junior partner to the US and the US has many levers it can pull.
r/JewsOfConscience • u/LeoKitCat • 21h ago
Zionist Terror Gaza War vets expose the "Mosquito Protocol" ..the IDF's organized protocol on how to use Palestinian civilians as human shields
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r/JewsOfConscience • u/Enough_Comparison816 • 13h ago
Zionist Nonsense Self-Defense for THEM, Too?
Of course Matt Yglesias sucks, but the article is a great example of the discourse between liberal Zionism and anti-Zionism that has continued to play out post-10.7. Liberal Zionism is the most popular form of the ideology outside of the settler colony, and I believe that combating it is one of our most important tasks as anti-Zionist Jews.
r/JewsOfConscience • u/MrSFedora • 1d ago
Zionist Nonsense There are many amputees out there. Most of them aren't war criminals.
r/JewsOfConscience • u/DorkasaurusRexx • 1d ago
Resources The most succinct and clear argument that Israel is an apartheid, from Tamir Pardo, former head of the Mossad, appointed by Bibi Netanyahu.
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September 6, 2023. Exactly 3 years ago to the day.
“There is an apartheid state here,” Pardo said in an interview with the Associated Press news agency, published on Wednesday.
“In a territory where two people are judged under two legal systems, that is an apartheid state,” Pardo said, joining a small but growing list of retired officials to endorse an idea that remains largely on the fringes of Israeli discourse and international diplomacy but has gained growing acceptance within human rights circles.
In apartheid South Africa, a system based on white supremacy and racial segregation was in place from 1948 until 1994. Human rights groups have based their conclusions on Israel on international conventions like the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. It defines apartheid as “an institutionalized regime of systematic oppression and domination by one racial group over any other racial group.”
Pardo said Israeli citizens can get into a car and drive wherever they want, excluding the blockaded Gaza Strip, but that Palestinians can’t drive everywhere. He said that his views on the system in the West Bank were “not extreme. It’s a fact.
He also warned that what has been described as Israel’s “forever occupation” threatens its existence as a Jewish state. “Israel needs to decide what it wants,” he said. “A country that has no border has no boundaries.”
Pardo is among the highest ranking former officials to draw the once taboo parallel with the old South Africa. Israel’s former attorney general, Michael Ben-Yair, said last year “that my country has sunk to such political and moral depths that it is now an apartheid regime”.
The former speaker of the Israeli parliament, Avraham Burg, and the renowned Israeli historian, Benny Morris, are among more than 2,000 Israeli and American public figures who have signed a recent public statement declaring that “Palestinians live under a regime of apartheid”.
The open letter calls on US Jewish groups to speak out against the occupation of the Palestinian territories as “the elephant in the room” in the mass Israeli protests against Netanyahu’s deeply divisive judicial reforms which, it said, are intended to “annex more land, and ethnically cleanse all territories under Israeli rule of their Palestinian population”.
Prominent foreign officials have also invoked apartheid to described the situation in the occupied territories.
Earlier this year, the former Irish president Mary Robinson and the former UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon – representatives of The Elders group of global leaders founded by Nelson Mandela in 2007 – spoke about the “ever-growing evidence that the situation meets the international legal definition of apartheid” after visiting the West Bank.
Israelis are barred from entering Palestinian areas of the West Bank, but can drive across Israel and throughout the 60% of the West Bank that Israel controls. Palestinians need permission from Israel to enter the country and often must pass through military checkpoints to move within the West Bank.
Rights groups point to discriminatory policies within Israel and in annexed east Jerusalem, Israel’s blockade of the Gaza Strip, which has been ruled by the Hamas militant group since 2007, and its occupation of the West Bank. Israel exerts overall control of the territory, maintains a two-tier legal system and is building and expanding Jewish settlements that most of the international community considers illegal.
r/JewsOfConscience • u/Minivampiretaco • 1d ago
News High Court Orders Return of Palestinian Families Driven Out by Settlers
haaretz.comThe justices questioned why soldiers were filmed playing soccer with settlers who seized the homes, and why police failed to arrest suspects identified in attack footage. 'There are questions in abundance; satisfactory answers – fewer' the court said
Israel's High Court of Justice ordered the state on Sunday to allow three Palestinian families who were expelled from their homes by settlers in the West Bank to return and to provide security for them.
In its decision on a petition filed by three residents of Jalud, the court sharply criticized the Israeli military and police for failing to prevent the settler attacks and the families' expulsion, as well as for failing to take sufficient action to bring those responsible to justice.
The petition was filed by three residents of Jalud, which lies in Area B of the West Bank, after violent settlers forced three families from their homes and entered and occupied one of the houses. Jalud, near Qusra, is one of several Palestinian villages in the Nablus area that have become a flashpoint for settler attacks over recent weeks.
Last week, an NBC News international correspondent and members of his press crew who were interviewing a Palestinian woman were attacked and injured by masked Israeli settlers in the village.
One of the families involved in the petition, the Tubasis, had been besieged for almost a month between two outposts that settlers had established on both sides of their plot of land in the village of Jalud, on the edge of Area B, which is under Israeli security control but Palestinian civil control.
After repeated settler attacks and an outpost established in their yard, the Tubasi family was finally expelled from their home in front of a Haaretz team and in the presence of Border Police officers on July 22.
Supreme Court President Isaac Amit and Justices Yechiel Kasher and Alex Stein wrote in their decision that "the bottom line, based on the material before us at the time of writing, is that the petitioners have still been unable to return to their homes. This fact speaks for itself and cannot be accepted."
The justices instructed the state to coordinate a date for the families' return, when security forces are to protect them and allow them to bring in equipment and supplies needed to repair their homes and restore their water and electricity infrastructure.
The court also issued a conditional order requiring the state to detail by September 22 what measures it is taking to arrest the settlers responsible for the attacks, prevent them from returning and harming the Palestinian residents, and pursue their prosecution.
The court noted that the state did not dispute the sequence of events described by the petitioners, according to which the harassment began in April, when settlers erected a tent on the residents' privately owned land. The Palestinians were subsequently subjected to months of incursions, threats, roadblocks, stone-throwing and damage to property and infrastructure.
According to the decision, settlers repeatedly threw stones at the petitioners' homes to intimidate the families, cut off their water line, broke and uprooted trees, grazed livestock on their private land, set fire to a vehicle belonging to one of the families and blocked the road connecting the homes to Jalud with large rocks.
The attacks effectively cut off and placed the homes under de facto siege, the court said. The families were forced to leave in July and have not returned since.
The justices also sharply criticized what they described as the failure of the IDF and police to effectively confront the settler attacks. They questioned why soldiers had been filmed playing soccer with settlers who had taken over the homes, why police had not seized vehicles documented as being used in the attacks and why people clearly identified in footage had not been arrested.
"The picture that emerges is extremely bleak," the justices wrote. "There are questions in abundance; satisfactory answers – fewer."
In addition to ordering the state to facilitate the families' return, the court demanded an update on the confiscation of vehicles, investigative measures and possible prosecutions of suspects involved in the attacks.
Attorney Ghiyath Nasser, who filed the petition on behalf of the residents, called the ruling "a courageous and important decision by the High Court" and "a significant milestone in confronting the phenomenon of settlers taking over Palestinian homes and land in the West Bank."
"The court made clear that general statements about enforcement are not enough, and that the real test is the result: whether homeowners can return to their homes safely and whether the intruders are actually removed," Nasser added.
Shortly after the High Court issued its decision, police announced that two suspects had been arrested in connection with a violent attack in the nearby village of Qusra.
Police said a search of the vehicle of one suspect, a 19-year-old resident of the West Bank, uncovered an air pistol, a knife, a pocketknife and tear gas. A second suspect, an 18-year-old resident of the Jordan Valley who was serving as an active-duty IDF soldier, was also arrested as part of the investigation.