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Israeli-Palestinian peace group Standing Together pushes back after founding member of BDS campaign calls to boycott it
(JTA) — Palestinian activists within Israel and outside of it are arguing over whether to boycott a leading Israeli peace organization, and are accusing each other of playing into the Israeli government’s hands.
The public debate concerns Standing Together, a joint Jewish-Arab Israeli activist group with more than 5,000 members. The group has drawn international attention in recent months for being one of the loudest voices in Israel pushing for an end the Israel-Hamas war and for renewed efforts toward Israeli-Palestinian peace.
But last week, the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel, or PACBI, issued a call for “conscientious people” to boycott Standing Together, charging it with seeking “to distract from and whitewash Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza.”
The group is a founding member of the anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, known as BDS. Its statement came on the eve International Court of Justice’s preliminary ruling on South Africa’s genocide charge against Israel.
“By trying to paint Israel as a tolerant, diverse, and normal state, and focusing on ‘hatred’ rather than oppression as the problem, this organization is intellectually dishonest and outright complicit,” the statement said. “It is serving a key role in Israel’s international propaganda strategy at this time.”
Prior to the boycott call, Standing Together was already facing marginalization in Israel, where calls for a ceasefire have been rare and the vast majority of Israeli Jews support the conduct of Israeli soldiers. On Tuesday, the group’s Israeli Arab membership, identifying as Palestinian citizens of Israel, issued a statement denouncing PACBI’s boycott call and saying that it only contributed to what it called the Israeli government’s crackdown on antiwar voices.
“Our ability to speak, act, or effect change under a fascist government is already severely limited and seems to be diminishing further,” the statement said. “Efforts to silence and isolate Standing Together do not serve the Palestinian cause, they serve the interests of Israel’s political establishment, which is also attempting to silence us.”
The statement, which was unsigned and issued through a Standing Together social media account, said the group “has provided us and tens of thousands of Palestinian citizens of Israel a safe political refuge during these challenging times, a place to demand a ceasefire, grieve safely, and organize for a future where we are free and equal in our homeland.
The group’s leadership includes both Palestinian and Jewish Israelis. It is preparing for its upcoming leadership elections as well as a major “peace gathering” in Haifa this week.
Standing Together has found a new audience, since Hamas’ Oct. 7 invasion sparked the war, for its vision of “peace, equality, and social and climate justice.” Inside the country, the group has seen attendance at its rallies grow, although it lacks supporters in Israel’s parliament as well as a plan to implement its ideas on a wide scale. Abroad, the group has found new fans on social media, particularly after two of its leaders, Alon-Lee Green and Sally Abed, embarked on a U.S. tour.
Its prominence has made it a target of Palestinians who oppose any initiatives that engage with Israel as a legitimate country. Founded in Ramallah in 2004 by a group of Palestinian academics, PACBI has long opposed efforts for Jewish Israelis and Palestinians to work together on those grounds. In 2009, the group’s opposition to a joint Israeli-Palestinian musical tour by Leonard Cohen led to the cancellation of his planned concert in Ramallah after several shows in Israel.
The group’s criticism of Standing Together elicited an array of responses last week, both on social media and on an internal Whatsapp group for Standing Together members in the Tel Aviv area.
On the WhatsApp group, some said they saw the statement as an opportunity for self-reflection and growth, while others dismissed the BDS movement and its member groups as out of touch with reality on the ground in Israel.
On X, formerly Twitter, Monica Marks, a professor of Middle East politics at NYU Abu Dhabi who supports Standing Together, described PACBI’s statement as “counter-productive, circular firing squad purism.”
Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib, who describes himself as a “Proud American from Gaza City” who is “pro-Palestine, anti-Hamas & violence,” harshly criticized the statement in a lengthy post on X.
“The movement is doing tremendous harm to the pro-Palestine movement by attacking Jewish and Israeli allies and is an increasingly fringe, radical effort that is going nowhere. Engaging with diverse Jewish/Israeli audiences, and yes, that includes pro-Israel Zionists, should be normalized, not criminalized,” he wrote.
“They’re trying to operate within the mainstream landscape to be effective and become a political home for diverse Israeli audiences disillusioned with the Netanyahu/rightwing regime,”Alkhatib added, referring to Standing Together. “That’s how you build effective power, not by appealing to fringe elements within the BDS/pro-Palestine movement.”
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The post Israeli-Palestinian peace group Standing Together pushes back after founding member of BDS campaign calls to boycott it appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Iranian Media Claims Obtaining ‘Sensitive’ Israeli Intelligence Materials
FILE PHOTO: The atomic symbol and the Iranian flag are seen in this illustration, July 21, 2022. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo
i24 News – Iranian and Iran-affiliated media claimed on Saturday that the Islamic Republic had obtained a trove of “strategic and sensitive” Israeli intelligence materials related to Israel’s nuclear facilities and defense plans.
“Iran’s intelligence apparatus has obtained a vast quantity of strategic and sensitive information and documents belonging to the Zionist regime,” Iran’s state broadcaster said, referring to Israel in the manner accepted in those Muslim or Arab states that don’t recognize its legitimacy. The statement was also relayed by the Lebanese site Al-Mayadeen, affiliated with the Iran-backed jihadists of Hezbollah.
The reports did not include any details on the documents or how Iran had obtained them.
The intelligence reportedly included “thousands of documents related to that regime’s nuclear plans and facilities,” it added.
According to the reports, “the data haul was extracted during a covert operation and included a vast volume of materials including documents, images, and videos.”
The report comes amid high tensions over Iran’s nuclear program, over which it is in talks with the US administration of President Donald Trump.
Iranian-Israeli tensions reached an all-time high since the October 7 massacre and the subsequent Gaza war, including Iranian rocket fire on Israel and Israeli aerial raids in Iran that devastated much of the regime’s air defenses.
Israel, which regards the prospect of the antisemitic mullah regime obtaining a nuclear weapon as an existential threat, has indicated it could resort to a military strike against Iran’s installations should talks fail to curb uranium enrichment.
The post Iranian Media Claims Obtaining ‘Sensitive’ Israeli Intelligence Materials first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Israel Retrieves Body of Thai Hostage from Gaza
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz looks on, amid the ongoing conflict in Gaza between Israel and Hamas, in Jerusalem, Nov. 7, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun
The Israeli military has retrieved the body of a Thai hostage who had been held in Gaza since Hamas’ October 7, 2023 attack, Defense Minister Israel Katz said on Saturday.
Nattapong Pinta’s body was held by a Palestinian terrorist group called the Mujahedeen Brigades, and was recovered from the area of Rafah in southern Gaza, Katz said. His family in Thailand has been notified.
Pinta, an agricultural worker, was abducted from Kibbutz Nir Oz, a small Israeli community near the Gaza border where a quarter of the population was killed or taken hostage during the Hamas attack that triggered the devastating war in Gaza.
Israel’s military said Pinta had been abducted alive and killed by his captors, who had also killed and taken to Gaza the bodies of two more Israeli-American hostages that were retrieved earlier this week.
There was no immediate comment from the Mujahedeen Brigades, who have previously denied killing their captives, or from Hamas. The Israeli military said the Brigades were still holding the body of another foreign national. Only 20 of the 55 remaining hostages are believed to still be alive.
The Mujahedeen Brigades also held and killed Israeli hostage Shiri Bibas and her two young sons, according to Israeli authorities. Their bodies were returned during a two-month ceasefire, which collapsed in March after the two sides could not agree on terms for extending it to a second phase.
Israel has since expanded its offensive across the Gaza Strip as US, Qatari and Egyptian-led efforts to secure another ceasefire have faltered.
US-BACKED AID GROUP HALTS DISTRIBUTIONS
The United Nations has warned that most of Gaza’s 2.3 million population is at risk of famine after an 11-week Israeli blockade of the enclave, with the rate of young children suffering from acute malnutrition nearly tripling.
Aid distribution was halted on Friday after the US-and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation said overcrowding had made it unsafe to continue operations. It was unclear whether aid had resumed on Saturday.
The GHF began distributing food packages in Gaza at the end of May, overseeing a new model of aid distribution which the United Nations says is neither impartial nor neutral. It says it has provided around 9 million meals so far.
The Israeli military said on Saturday that 350 trucks of humanitarian aid belonging to U.N. and other international relief groups were transferred this week via the Kerem Shalom crossing into Gaza.
The war erupted after Hamas-led terrorists took 251 hostages and killed 1,200 people, most of them civilians, in the October 7, 2023 attack, Israel’s single deadliest day.
The post Israel Retrieves Body of Thai Hostage from Gaza first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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US Mulls Giving Millions to Controversial Gaza Aid Foundation, Sources Say
Palestinians carry aid supplies which they received from the US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, in the central Gaza Strip, May 29, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Ramadan Abed/File Photo
The State Department is weighing giving $500 million to the new foundation providing aid to war-shattered Gaza, according to two knowledgeable sources and two former US officials, a move that would involve the US more deeply in a controversial aid effort that has been beset by violence and chaos.
The sources and former US officials, all of whom requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter, said that money for Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) would come from the US Agency for International Development (USAID), which is being folded into the US State Department.
The plan has met resistance from some US officials concerned with the deadly shootings of Palestinians near aid distribution sites and the competence of the GHF, the two sources said.
The GHF, which has been fiercely criticized by humanitarian organizations, including the United Nations, for an alleged lack of neutrality, began distributing aid last week amid warnings that most of Gaza’s 2.3 million population is at risk of famine after an 11-week Israeli aid blockade, which was lifted on May 19 when limited deliveries were allowed to resume.
The foundation has seen senior personnel quit and had to pause handouts twice this week after crowds overwhelmed its distribution hubs.
The State Department and GHF did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Reuters has been unable to establish who is currently funding the GHF operations, which began in Gaza last week. The GHF uses private US security and logistics companies to transport aid into Gaza for distribution at so-called secure distribution sites.
On Thursday, Reuters reported that a Chicago-based private equity firm, McNally Capital, has an “economic interest” in the for-profit US contractor overseeing the logistics and security of GHF’s aid distribution hubs in the enclave.
While US President Donald Trump’s administration and Israel say they don’t finance the GHF operation, both have been pressing the United Nations and international aid groups to work with it.
The US and Israel argue that aid distributed by a long-established U.N. aid network was diverted to Hamas. Hamas has denied that.
USAID has been all but dismantled. Some 80 percent of its programs have been canceled and its staff face termination as part of President Donald Trump’s drive to align US foreign policy with his “America First” agenda.
One source with knowledge of the matter and one former senior official said the proposal to give the $500 million to GHF has been championed by acting deputy USAID Administrator Ken Jackson, who has helped oversee the agency’s dismemberment.
The source said that Israel requested the funds to underwrite GHF’s operations for 180 days.
The Israeli government did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The two sources said that some US officials have concerns with the plan because of the overcrowding that has affected the aid distribution hubs run by GHF’s contractor, and violence nearby.
Those officials also want well-established non-governmental organizations experienced in running aid operations in Gaza and elsewhere to be involved in the operation if the State Department approves the funds for GHF, a position that Israel likely will oppose, the sources said.
The post US Mulls Giving Millions to Controversial Gaza Aid Foundation, Sources Say first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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