RSS
‘We will choose a new path’: How Israel’s peace activists are responding to the war in Gaza
BAQA AL-GHARBIYA, Israel (JTA) — On the morning of Oct. 7, Israeli human rights activist Ziv Stahl was visiting relatives in her childhood home of Kibbutz Kfar Aza.
As Hamas’ massacre on the Gaza border unfolded — with the terror group ultimately killing between 52 and 60 people from the small kibbutz community and kidnapping 17 — she waited in her family’s shelter alongside her niece’s partner, who had been wounded by Hamas gunfire earlier that morning. Until she was rescued from the secured room several long hours later, she feared for her own life and the fate of loved ones, some of whom — including her sister-in-law and childhood acquaintances — were killed that day.
About a week later, amid broad Israeli support for the escalating war, she wrote an essay calling for an end to “indiscriminate bombing in Gaza and the killing of civilians.”
“I have no idea how this will influence the rest of my life,” Stahl, the executive director of the legal rights organization Yesh Din, wrote in Haaretz. “If I will ever be able not to fear every small noise, not to imagine gunshots in the depths of the night. But one thing I feel more strongly than ever: we must stop this cycle of death. We must invest all of our power and energy in the end game, how to build a peaceful and secure future for all who live in this place.”
For Stahl and others in what is known as Israel’s “peace movement” or “shared society movement,” who have dedicated their lives to Israeli-Palestinian coexistence and a diplomatic accord between the two peoples, Oct. 7 has caused immense pain and presented a formidable challenge.
A number of peace activists were killed or taken hostage from the kibbutz communities that bore the brunt of the attack, plunging the movement into mourning. Added onto that, they must now reimagine what a peaceful future can one day look like as Israelis’ sense of security was shattered and the country has entered a long war in Gaza with a mounting civilian death toll.
“We are here tonight to say the simplest and clearest message: we demand on standing together Jews and Arabs, also and especially during these difficult times” Alon-Lee Green, a founding director of the Standing Together movement for a shared society, said earlier this month before a mixed crowd of several hundred Jewish and Arab Israelis who gathered for a rally in the Arab-Israeli city of Baqa al-Gharbiya.
“We will choose a new path that is different and opposite the path our government has taken us down the last few years,” he said. “A path for Israeli-Palestinian peace and safety from north to south and for those on the other side in Gaza.”
The group is holding rallies to trumpet that vision in cities across Israel. Green and Sally Abed, Standing Together’s head of development, recently drew crowds of hundreds of people in New York City, Washington, D.C., and elsewhere on a tour of U.S. cities.
But what the activists’ vision will lead to after the war ends, and what impact they will have, is still uncertain. A recent poll by Israeli Channel 12 found that 44% of respondents supported rebuilding Israeli settlements in Gaza, while 39% objected. A majority of respondents favored full Israeli control of the territory, reversing Israel’s 2005 withdrawal.
Imagining alternate visions for that “day after” in Israel is one of four new priorities the New Israel Fund, which supports a range of progressive nonprofits and causes, is funding in the wake of Oct. 7. The others are more immediate: offering direct relief to those impacted by the violence, protecting the civil rights of all Israelis and working toward a de-escalation of armed conflict. Alongside that, progressive groups including the NIF are in mourning, said Mickey Gitzin, the group’s Israeli director.
“So many of our own people, people that we knew, that we work with, are now either hostages in Gaza, or died during this time,” said Gitzin. He was referring to peace-activists like 74-year old Vivian Silver, who was declared dead last week when her remains were discovered more than a month after the attack, and 32-year old Hayim Katsman who was murdered in Holit, among others.
Alon-Lee Green, co-director of the Standing Together movement, speaks at an event in November 2023. (Eliyahu Freedman)
The NIF also has experience with something left-wing activists across Israel say they’re experiencing: active opposition from the government. The NIF has long drawn backlash from right-wing lawmakers for supporting groups that aid Palestinians, Arab Israelis, asylum seekers in Israel and other groups. In May, Ariel Kallner, a member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party in parliament, proposed an income tax rate of 65% on all non-governmental organizations, such as the NIF, that receive foreign funds — effectively killing their operations. The plan was dropped after it sparked sharp international reaction and fear that it would destroy Israeli civil society. A range of other legislators over the years have tried, and in some cases succeeded, to limit the activity of the NIF or its grantees.
Now, the wartime environment has created a “chilling effect” on free speech, said leading Israeli human rights attorney Michael Sfard. He said that is especially true for Arab Israelis, who have been investigated, imprisoned, suspended and fired for expressing various forms of solidarity with or compassion toward the people of Gaza. “Freedom of expression was never so battered as it is now,” Sfard said.
In addition, incitement toward Palestinians, including Israeli Arabs, appears to be on the rise. Last month, a crowd in Netanya chanted “death to Arabs” outside an Arab Israel student dormitory. Sfard said that the last month since the war started has seen a “tidal wave of incitement” towards Israeli Arabs.
A large number of Arab Israelis have been investigated, charged and detained for various forms of expression. As of last week, according to the Israel Police, there were 192 open investigations and 57 indictments of Arab Israelis for protest-related offenses — which Sfard says is more than the number of investigations for similar cases in the last five years combined. Meanwhile, according to the Times of Israel, as of Nov. 6 there have been zero indictments of Jews for violence toward Arabs — though several investigations of Jewish Israelis have been opened, and eight have been arrested for violent activities toward Arabs.
“The fear in the Palestinian community in Israel is to speak and express ourselves regarding the pain of others, and in general the fear to speak about the complexity of being an Arab-Palestinian citizen of Israel at a time when there is a war in Gaza,” said Rula Daood, co-director of Standing Together, at the rally in Baqa al-Gharbiya. “It is a true fear, and on the Jewish side, there is an existential fear after the massacre of Oct. 7.”
Debates over Arab-Israeli discourse have even reached the country’s popular soccer league. This week, Maccabi Haifa signaled that it would release one of its star forwards, Dia Saba, after his wife published a post on Instagram in the days after Oct. 7 saying, “There are children in Gaza, and 800 children have already died in Gaza from our bombs. And even if they’re stuck between the murderousness of Hamas and our bombs in Israel, we must say that we need to do everything to prevent children from dying.” Both Saba and his wife apologized for the post.
Rabbi Arik Ascherman, an American-born activist and founder of the Israeli human rights organization Torat Tzedek, views the increase in incitement and the crackdown on protest as the product of an Israeli “wartime hysteria” that is akin to the atmosphere in the United States after the Pearl Harbor attack.
“Israelis today are not really able to distinguish between Palestinian terrorists and terrorized Palestinians,” he said, comparing the situation to “Japanese Americans after Pearl Harbor when Japanese Americans were put in camps. With all the anger and fear that Americans had, nobody was willing to stand up for Japanese Americans.”
Nowadays, Ascherman spends much of his time helping Palestinian olive farmers in the West Bank but says that “many activists are afraid” to volunteer because of a spike in West Bank violence since Oct. 7. There are others, he said, who “after the terrible slaughter of Israelis don’t want to be helping Palestinians right now.” He hopes either the U.S. or Israeli government makes an active effort to keep Israeli-Palestinian violence from spiraling even further in the West Bank.
“Of course, we’ve seen the statements by President Biden, by Jake Sullivan,” he said, referring to comments by the president and national security adviser condemning settler violence. “But in terms of results, there is not yet any change on the ground.”
Another Jewish-Arab organization, the Abraham Initiatives, has increasingly focused on its education and anti-racism programming as a way to continue building a shared society in Israel.
“We see racism is rising right now and we want to give our educators the tools to talk to and acknowledge students’ pain without minimizing at the same time the racism and intolerance,” explained Moran Maimoni, who is the group’s co-director of public affairs.
The Arava Institute for Environmental Studies — which has a mix of international, Jewish-Israeli, Arab-Israeli and Palestinian students — has ramped up a schedule of dialogue sessions between students and has relaxed its attendance policy. Deputy Director Eliza Mayo said students and staff on the school’s campus near Eilat are also “constantly checking in with each other.”
“I think the main thing is that we try to always remember that we have a shared belief in each other’s humanity,” she said.
—
The post ‘We will choose a new path’: How Israel’s peace activists are responding to the war in Gaza appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
RSS
Anti-Zionists Are Excluding LGBTQ+ Jews From Pride Spaces, New Report Says
Jews of Pride members are seen marching in the Pride parade 2025, part of LGBTQ+ community’s Midsumma Festival. Photo: Alexander Bogatyrev / SOPA Images via Reuters Connect.
Anti-Israel activists in the LGBTQ+ community are subjecting Zionist Jews to extreme levels of discrimination, including expulsions from major progressive groups and even physical assault, according to a new report by the nonprofit A Wider Bridge.
The release of the report — titled “Unsafe Spaces: Addressing Antisemitism Against LGBTQ+ Jews and Ensuring Pride Safety” — comes as LGBTQ community members across the Western world observe Pride Month, a period of festivities which celebrate the expansion of social and legal rights that have allowed gays to live more freely and authentically than ever in human history. For pro-Israel Jews, however, Pride Month 2025 is a challenging moment, as anti-Zionism has creeped into and crowded out many queer spaces which once welcomed them with open arms.
From online forums to the streets, the maltreatment and “erasure” of Jewish queer identity is severe, the report explains. Eighty-two percent of LGBTQ Jews have reported being expelled from social media channels or harassed on them, A Wider Bridge noted.
Earlier this year, NYC Dyke March, a public demonstration held by members of the lesbian community in New York City, banned self-proclaimed “Zionists” from its annual event, citing a desire to stand against the so-called “genocide” occurring in Gaza. Last year, the NYC Dyke March came under scrutiny after organizers settled on “genocide” as the theme of its 2024 event. In a statement, decrying “ethnic cleansing, violence, and dehumanization,” the organization compared the ongoing war in Gaza, to mass killings occurring in Ethiopia, Myanmar, and Sudan.
Also in 2024, the Dyke March Committee formally barred “Zionists” from participating in the Pride March, and during the event Jews were attacked and heckled after being seen wearing the Star of David on their clothing. That same year, an LGBTQ-friendly bar in the Brooklyn borough of New York City refused to hold a screening party for the Eurovision talent competition due to the participation of an Israeli contestant.
Forced, mass exiles are taking place in response to this new reality, the report added. Forty-three percent of queer Jews say they are leaving online forums; 40 percent abstain from participating in LGBTQ social events; and 30 percent said their decision was driven by precipitous deterioration of the manner in which they are treated. The only conclusion to draw, the report said, is that the Pride movement is “no longer universally safe or inclusive.”
“What we have found since Oct. 7 and what the report points to is that the explosion of antisemitism that the whole Jewish community has experienced has in some ways grown even more exponentially in the LGBTQ community,” Rabbi Denise Eger, interim executive director of A Wider Bridge and former president of the Central Conference of American Rabbis, told The Algemeiner during an interview on Friday. “What we’re seeing around now as Pride marches and organizations put on their celebration s is institutional discrimination and outright boycotts.”
Eger went on to note that antisemitism in LGBTQ communities is all the more distressing due to the outsized contributions, legal and political, which Jewish gays and lesbians have made towards fostering a society that is more inclusive of non-heteronormative identities and relationships.
“Look at who were the early leaders of the LGBTQ civil rights movement — Harvey Milk, one of the first openly gay elected officials in the US, was a Jewish man. Edith Windsor, who brought one of the first marriage equality cases that we won at the Supreme Court, and her attorney, Roberta Kaplan, who won it — these are LGBTQ heroes, not just LGBTQ ‘Jewish’ heroes and heroines,” Eger continued. “So, for LGBTQ Jews to be continually shut out of these spaces is paralyzing, shocking, and horrifying, and LGBTQ Jews are asking where is their home.”
She added, “These are difficult times, but together, the whole Jewish community, including the LGBTQ part of the Jewish community, can stand strong and be resilient in the face of all this, just as the Jewish people have done throughout our history. We have the tools within our tradition to keep us strong and to help us educate. And yes, I believe so much, as a rabbi, that we can and must help change the world for the better. That’s what we are called to do as the Jewish people.”
As previously reported by The Algemeiner, recorded incidents of antisemitism in the US continue to increase year over year, breaking all previous annual records.
In 2024, as reported by the Anti-Defamation League’s (ADL) annual audit, there were 9,354 antisemitic incidents — an average of 25.6 a day — across the US, creating an atmosphere of hate not experienced in the nearly thirty years since the ADL began tracking such data in 1979. Incidents of harassment, vandalism, and assault all increased by double digits, and for the first time ever a majority of outrages — 58 percent — were related to the existence of Israel as the world’s only Jewish state.
The Algemeiner parsed the ADL’s data, finding dramatic rises in incidents on college campuses, which saw the largest growth in 2024. The 1,694 incidents tallied by the ADL amounted to an 84 percent increase over the previous year. Additionally, antisemites were emboldened to commit more offenses in public in 2024 than they did in 2023, perpetrating 19 percent more attacks on Jewish people, pro-Israel demonstrators, and businesses perceived as being Jewish-owned or affiliated with Jews.
“Hatred toward Israel was a driving force behind antisemitism across the US, with more than half of all antisemitic incidents referencing Israel or Zionism,” said Oren Segal, ADL senior vice president for counter-extremism and intelligence. “These incidents, along with all those documented in the audit, serve as a clear reminder that silence is not an option. Good people must stand up, push back, and confront antisemitism wherever it appears. And that starts with understanding what fuels it and learning to recognize it in all its forms.”
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
The post Anti-Zionists Are Excluding LGBTQ+ Jews From Pride Spaces, New Report Says first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
RSS
Two UK Men Convicted, Jailed Following November Antisemitic Harassment
Illustrative: A pro-Hamas march in London, United Kingdom, Feb. 17, 2024. Photo: Chrissa Giannakoudi via Reuters Connect
A court in the United Kingdom on Thursday sentenced Hussein Altamimi, 22, and Ali Alanzi, 30, to prison sentences of eight months and seven months respectively, for charges stemming from an incident at London’s Western Marble Arch Synagogue in November 2024, according to British media.
The two men received convictions for yelling at four Jewish worshipers such phrases as “Jews aren’t welcome here,” “you don’t belong here,” and “f—king Jew.” They also repeatedly screamed “free Palestine.”
The incident grew violent when Altamimi hit one victim’s arm to try and prevent her from filming the abuse. Alanzi also hurled liquid from an alcoholic drink toward one person. When police arrived to arrest the pair, he assaulted one of the officers.
The court convicted both men of four counts of religiously aggravated public order offenses and religiously aggravated assault. Alanzi also received a conviction for attacking the officer and will endure an additional 12 weeks’ incarceration due to a previous suspended sentence.
On Friday, the Campaign Against Antisemitism (CAA) described its reaction to the hate crime prosecutions on X in one word: “Vindicated.”
Altamimi also faced additional charges and guilty verdicts related to a July 2023 incident which included racial abuse and striking a police officer.
“The CPS is working closely with the police to tackle hate crime, making sure that perpetrators who target victims because of their religion, race, sexuality, gender identity, or disability are brought to justice,” Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) lawyer Anna Hindmarsh said following the trial. “We know that hate crimes have a significant impact on victims and the wider community, and we will continue to support victims and witnesses who come forward to report any examples of hate crime they have experienced.”
The convictions against Altamimi and Alanzi are part of a historic surge in antisemitic acts in the United Kingdom.
The UK experienced its second-worst year for antisemitism in 2024, despite recording an 18 percent drop in antisemitic incidents from the previous year’s all-time high, according to a report released in February.
The Community Security Trust (CST), a nonprofit charity that advises Britain’s Jewish community on security matters, released data showing it recorded 3,528 antisemitic incidents for 2024, a drop of 18 percent from the 4,296 in 2023. These numbers compare to 1,662 antisemitic incidents in 2022, 2,261 in 2021, and 1,684 in 2020.
In the 12 months following Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, invasion of and massacre across southern Israel, CST counted 5,583 antisemitic incidents in the UK, an increase from 204 percent from the same period the previous year.
Many of the incidents involved violence targeting the Jewish community.
Last month, On May 26, a group of six or seven men attacked three Jewish boys at the Hampstead Underground Station in North London, requiring hospitalization for one. CAA said that “this report is yet another stark reminder of the growing threat facing Jewish communities, including children.”
Another antisemitic assault occurred in Manchester in February, when an unidentified individual hit a Jewish man with what was believed to be a bottle, shattering the victim’s glasses.
The heavily Orthodox Jewish neighborhood of Stamford Hill in Hackney saw an antisemitic act last week when vandals targeted a Jewish-owned investment firm, smashing its windows and splashing red paint. The group Palestine Action claimed responsibility for the crime, as it had done previously for similar acts at the University of Cambridge’s endowment fund headquarters and the BBC’s New Broadcasting House.
“This should be treated as [an] antisemitic incident without any doubt. [The owners] are visibly Jewish people; the people who run the business and this business itself have nothing to do with Israel,” said Rabbi Herschel Gluck, president of Jewish security service Shomrim’s branch in Stamford Hill.
Days earlier, residents of Brighton in southeastern England discovered antisemitic vandalism at a memorial created to honor the victims of the Hamas-led Oct. 7 terror attacks.
“There have been over 40 attacks on the site including vandalism, theft, and graffiti. The abuse has been relentless,” Heidi Bachram, who volunteers to maintain the memorial, told The Jewish Chronicle at the time. “It’s shocking that grief for innocents is met with such violence. The hate won’t stop us, and every night, a different victim’s story will be told [at the memorial]. We will never let them be forgotten.”
In April, according to prosecutors, Abdullah Sabah Albadri, 33, attempted to climb a wall outside of the Israeli embassy in London while carrying a “martyrdom note.”
Prosecutor Kristel Pous said that Albadri told police that he wanted to “do something to send a message to the Israeli government to stop the war.”
The Israeli embassy stated in response to the foiled attack that “we thank the British security forces for their immediate response and ongoing efforts to secure the embassy.” It vowed that “the embassy of Israel will not be deterred by any terror threat and will continue to represent Israel with pride in the UK.”
The post Two UK Men Convicted, Jailed Following November Antisemitic Harassment first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
RSS
Large Pro-Israel Event in Texas ‘Indefinitely Postponed’ Due to Threats of Terrorism
A protester holds a sign that reads, ”From the river to the sea Palestine will be free” during a pro-Palestinian emergency demonstration outside the Consulate General of Israel in Houston, Texas, on March 19, 2025. Photo: Reginald Mathalone via Reuters Connect
The 2025 Israel Summit in Dallas, Texas has been indefinitely postponed in response to what organizers described as intensifying threats of terrorism.
Prior to the cancellation, the event was expecting over 1,000 attendees. The Israel Summit had already undergone a last-minute venue change due to mounting safety concerns. The gathering, scheduled for June 9–11, was set to feature prominent voices from both the Jewish and Christian pro-Israel communities.
Former US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman, who had been scheduled to speak at the event, commented on the cancellation on social media: “This is what America looks like in 2025. A peaceful pro-Israel gathering with more than a thousand participants had to be scrapped because of threats from violent extremists.”
Ten days prior to this year’s event, local police and intelligence officials in Dallas alerted organizers that the gathering had been upgraded to a “high-threat event.”
According to Josiah Hilton, host of the Israel Guys show, which was scheduled to co-host the event with HaYovel, the organizers had to produce “a mandatory security plan with a substantial budget estimated in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.”
The organizers then moved the Israel Summit to a facility in an isolated area of Kenneth, Texas. However, the event was forced to cancel after the Palestinian Youth Movement Dallas and Jewish Voice for Peace, a pair of anti-Israel, pro-Hamas organizations, revealed its location to their followers.
“[T]he Genocide Summit had to change plans last minute in desperation due to them claiming to be ‘under attack.’ The reality is they understand DFW’s commitment to confronting the extremist ideology that is Zionism,” Palestinian Youth Movement Dallas wrote on Instagram.
However, the organizers stated that they are going to hold the pro-Israel event “in the near future,” and vowed to “come back bigger and stronger, with more people.”
Hilton said that the cancellation reflects “the growing normalization of antisemitic threats and anti-Israel extremists, which are fueling intimidation and silencing voices of support for Israel across the United States.”
The cancellation of the Israel Summit also reflects growing concern regarding potential violence against supporters of the Jewish state. Last month, two Israeli embassy staffers, Yaron Lipschinsky and Sarah Milgrim, were murdered while exiting an event hosted by the American Jewish Committee (AJC) at the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington, DC. Then this past Sunday, an assailant firebombed a pro-Israel rally in Boulder, Colorado, injuring 15 people and a dog.
The post Large Pro-Israel Event in Texas ‘Indefinitely Postponed’ Due to Threats of Terrorism first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
You must be logged in to post a comment Login