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The Jewish left is grappling, sometimes painfully, with how to respond to Hamas’ attack
(JTA) — In his first posts about Hamas’ massacre of Israeli civilians, progressive writer Joshua Leifer expressed horror at the accounts of atrocities that were emerging from southern Israel.
He also lamented the range of progressive organizations and figures who appeared to condone or even celebrate the attack — leaving him with “a deep sense that the left abroad has lost the values it was supposed to stand for.”
“I thought we were leftists because we wanted a world without war, torture, the killing of families & children in their beds,” Leifer posted on X. “Self-professed human rights defenders, even would-be colleagues are celebrating and glorifying unspeakable acts that violate the most basic elements of human life. I feel sick.”
The thread of posts — which Leifer later expanded into an article for the left-wing journal Dissent — struck a chord among other Jews on the left. The progressive Jewish writer Peter Beinart shared Leifer’s thread, saying it “captures my feelings exactly.”
Some progressive figures and organizations, from local Black Lives Matter chapters to the New York City chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America, have appeared to condone or even celebrate the massacre — which killed 1,300 people, largely civilians — as an act of resistance against an illegal occupation. Some Jewish leftists have mourned the slaughter while placing the blame squarely on Israel.
And others who have also spent their careers opposing Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territory are now decrying their ideological allies’ refusal to condemn the killing of civilians — in some cases their friends or relatives.
“For the people who are most connected to people in Israel, this is a really, really hard and disheartening time,” said Arielle Angel, editor-in-chief of the progressive magazine Jewish Currents. “Because what they see is people totally dismissing the value of the lives of people that they know and that they think should not be considered collateral damage.”
At the same time, Angel said, Jewish leftists are confronting another tension: They are reckoning with the mass killing of Israeli civilians by Hamas — and also continue to oppose Israel’s occupation and airstrikes on the Gaza Strip, which the terror group governs.
“I think this is a new moment,” she said. “If you’re talking to American Jewish leftists, there’s a split in terms of where their energy is going right now.”
She added later, “I’m very scared about the future of the left in this moment.”
Some on the left, including at least one Jewish writer, openly celebrated the attack shortly after it began.
On Saturday, as Hamas attackers were still in Israel, Rivkah Brown, a journalist for the U.K.’s Novara Media, posted on X that the assault should mark “a day of celebration for supporters of democracy and human rights worldwide, as Gazans break out of their open-air prison.” The New York City Democratic Socialists of America promoted a rally expressing “solidarity with the Palestinian people and their right to resist 75 years of occupation and apartheid.”
And in the immediate wake of the massacre, some left-wing Jewish organizations said blame lay with Israel. IfNotNow, which opposes Israel’s occupation, said of the murdered Israelis that “their blood is on the hands of the Israeli government, the US government which funds and excuses their recklessness, and every international leader who continues to turn a blind eye to decades of Palestinian oppression.”
Jewish Voice for Peace, an anti-Zionist group, acknowledged the “unprecedented assault” and the hundreds of Israeli casualties in an Oct. 7 statement that did not mention Hamas.
“Israeli apartheid and occupation — and United States complicity in that oppression — are the source of all this violence,” the statement said. “Inevitably, oppressed people everywhere will seek — and gain — their freedom.”
Other groups such as Jews for Racial and Economic Justice tread a middle ground, saying, “We recognize that attacks on civilians by Hamas are neither justifiable nor unprovoked.”
Several days later, as the scale of the atrocities became clear, some of those activists walked back or qualified their statements. On Tuesday, New York City’s DSA said it mourned “the loss of life in the region” and apologized “for the confusion our post caused and for not making our values explicit.” It deleted its original tweet.
Brown also deleted her tweet and apologized on Wednesday. “I responded too quickly and in a moment of heightened emotion,” she said. “Witnessing Palestinians defy decades of oppression hardened me to the suffering of Israeli civilians, including my friends and family, and I regret that. I’m sorry.”
On the same day, Jewish Voice for Peace released another statement saying that it “mourns deeply for the over 1200 Israelis killed, the families destroyed, including many of our own, and fears for the lives of Israelis taken hostage.”
The group added, “the massacres committed by Hamas against Israeli civilians are horrific war crimes. There is no justification in international law for the indiscriminate killing of civilians or the holding of civilian hostages.”
On Wednesday, JVP spokesperson Sonya Meyerson-Knox said the group felt it was caught in a precarious position — fearing that public expressions of grief for Israeli civilians would fuel a harsher military response against Gaza.
“We were feeling the incredible pressure of needing to say something that we hope addresses both our fear and our grief and our sorrow and our anger, and that doesn’t allow any of that to be used as fodder for the Israeli government and the United States government warmongering,” Meyerson-Knox said. “Many of us are feeling compelled to process our grief through a hard pivot to a prevention of a scale of death that is utterly inconceivable.”
The Israel Defense Forces has repeatedly said it abides by international law and takes measures to prevent civilian casualties, including by risking its own troops to reduce collateral damage. Human rights organizations and the United Nations have cast doubt on those claims and harshly criticized the conduct of Israel’s military, while other bodies — in addition to the United States and other allies — have defended Israeli actions.
Angel said other activists on the Jewish left shared concerns similar to the ones expressed by Meyerson-Knox.
“Even people who are not expressing grief right now are grieving, and it’s a question of whether they think that that grief is the most important thing, and what they think that public expression of grief is going to do,” Angel said. “People are afraid that there’s going to be a Palestinian genocide.”
The high death toll among Israelis on Saturday had forced a reckoning for some on the Jewish left, since in previous conflicts more Palestinians were killed, Angel said, though she added that the balance of casualties was shifting as Israel carried out airstrikes in Gaza.
“We have never seen Israeli casualties, at least in one event, that exceeded Palestinian casualties,” she said, stressing that she still believed the conflict is rooted in Israel’s occupation despite the death toll. “We have become practiced at answering that and at trying to help people see that. We are not practiced at a situation like this.”
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Iran, US Task Experts to Design Framework for a Nuclear Deal, Tehran Says
Atomic symbol and USA and Iranian flags are seen in this illustration taken, September 8, 2022. Photo: REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo
Iran and the United States agreed on Saturday to task experts to start drawing up a framework for a potential nuclear deal, Iran’s foreign minister said, after a second round of talks following President Donald Trump’s threat of military action.
At their second indirect meeting in a week, Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi negotiated for almost four hours in Rome with Trump’s Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff, through an Omani official who shuttled messages between them.
Trump, who abandoned a 2015 nuclear pact between Tehran and world powers during his first term in 2018, has threatened to attack Iran unless it reaches a new deal swiftly that would prevent it from developing a nuclear weapon.
Iran, which says its nuclear program is peaceful, says it is willing to discuss limited curbs to its atomic work in return for lifting international sanctions.
Speaking on state TV after the talks, Araqchi described them as useful and conducted in a constructive atmosphere.
“We were able to make some progress on a number of principles and goals, and ultimately reached a better understanding,” he said.
“It was agreed that negotiations will continue and move into the next phase, in which expert-level meetings will begin on Wednesday in Oman. The experts will have the opportunity to start designing a framework for an agreement.”
The top negotiators would meet again in Oman next Saturday to “review the experts’ work and assess how closely it aligns with the principles of a potential agreement,” he added.
Echoing cautious comments last week from Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, he added: “We cannot say for certain that we are optimistic. We are acting very cautiously. There is no reason either to be overly pessimistic.”
There was no immediate comment from the US side following the talks. Trump told reporters on Friday: “I’m for stopping Iran, very simply, from having a nuclear weapon. They can’t have a nuclear weapon. I want Iran to be great and prosperous and terrific.”
Washington’s ally Israel, which opposed the 2015 agreement with Iran that Trump abandoned in 2018, has not ruled out an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities in the coming months, according to an Israeli official and two other people familiar with the matter.
Since 2019, Iran has breached and far surpassed the 2015 deal’s limits on its uranium enrichment, producing stocks far above what the West says is necessary for a civilian energy program.
A senior Iranian official, who described Iran’s negotiating position on condition of anonymity on Friday, listed its red lines as never agreeing to dismantle its uranium enriching centrifuges, halt enrichment altogether or reduce its enriched uranium stockpile below levels agreed in the 2015 deal.
The post Iran, US Task Experts to Design Framework for a Nuclear Deal, Tehran Says first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Hamas Says Fate of US-Israeli Hostage Unknown After Guard Killed in Israel Strike
Varda Ben Baruch, the grandmother of Edan Alexander, 19, an Israeli army volunteer kidnapped by Hamas, attends a special Kabbalat Shabbat ceremony with families of other hostages, in Herzliya, Israel October 27, 2023 REUTERS/Kuba Stezycki
Hamas said on Saturday the fate of an Israeli dual national soldier believed to be the last US citizen held alive in Gaza was unknown, after the body of one of the guards who had been holding him was found killed by an Israeli strike.
A month after Israel abandoned the ceasefire with the resumption of intensive strikes across the breadth of Gaza, Israel was intensifying its attacks.
President Donald Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff said in March that freeing Edan Alexander, a 21-year-old New Jersey native who was serving in the Israeli army when he was captured during the Oct. 7, 2023 attacks that precipitated the war, was a “top priority.” His release was at the center of talks held between Hamas leaders and US negotiator Adam Boehler last month.
Hamas had said on Tuesday that it had lost contact with the militants holding Alexander after their location was hit in an Israeli attack. On Saturday it said the body of one of the guards had been recovered.
“The fate of the prisoner and the rest of the captors remains unknown,” said Hamas armed wing Al-Qassam Brigades’ spokesperson Abu Ubaida.
“We are trying to protect all the hostages and preserve their lives … but their lives are in danger because of the criminal bombings by the enemy’s army,” Abu Ubaida said.
The Israeli military did not respond to a Reuters request for comment.
Hamas released 38 hostages under the ceasefire that began on January 19. Fifty-nine are still believed to be held in Gaza, fewer than half of them still alive.
Israel put Gaza under a total blockade in March and restarted its assault on March 18 after talks failed to extend the ceasefire. Hamas says it will free remaining hostages only under an agreement that permanently ends the war; Israel says it will agree only to a temporary pause.
On Friday, the Israeli military said it hit about 40 targets across the enclave over the past day. The military on Saturday announced that a 35-year-old soldier had died in combat in Gaza.
NETANYAHU STATEMENT
Late on Thursday Khalil Al-Hayya, Hamas’ Gaza chief, said the movement was willing to swap all remaining 59 hostages for Palestinians jailed in Israel in return for an end to the war and reconstruction of Gaza.
He dismissed an Israeli offer, which includes a demand that Hamas lay down its arms, as imposing “impossible conditions.”
Israel has not responded formally to Al-Hayya’s comments, but ministers have said repeatedly that Hamas must be disarmed completely and can play no role in the future governance of Gaza. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is scheduled to give a statement later on Saturday.
Hamas on Saturday also released an undated and edited video of Israeli hostage Elkana Bohbot. Hamas has released several videos over the course of the war of hostages begging to be released. Israeli officials have dismissed past videos as propaganda.
After the video was released, Bohbot’s family said in a statement that they were “deeply shocked and devastated,” and expressed concern for his mental and physical condition.
“How much longer will he be expected to wait and ‘stay strong’?” the family asked, urging for all of the 59 hostages who are still held in Gaza to be brought home.
The post Hamas Says Fate of US-Israeli Hostage Unknown After Guard Killed in Israel Strike first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Oman’s Sultan to Meet Putin in Moscow After Iran-US Talks
FILE PHOTO: Sultan Haitham bin Tariq al-Said gives a speech after being sworn in before the royal family council in Muscat, Oman January 11, 2020. Photo: REUTERS/Sultan Al Hasani/File Photo
Oman’s Sultan Haitham bin Tariq al-Said is set to visit Moscow on Monday, days after the start of a round of Muscat-mediated nuclear talks between the US and Iran.
The sultan will hold talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday, the Kremlin said.
Iran and the US started a new round of nuclear talks in Rome on Saturday to resolve their decades-long standoff over Tehran’s atomic aims, under the shadow of President Donald Trump’s threat to unleash military action if diplomacy fails.
Ahead of Saturday’s talks, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi met his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov in Moscow. Following the meeting, Lavrov said Russia was “ready to assist, mediate and play any role that will be beneficial to Iran and the USA.”
Moscow has played a role in Iran’s nuclear negotiations in the past as a veto-wielding U.N. Security Council member and signatory to an earlier deal that Trump abandoned during his first term in 2018.
The sultan’s meetings in Moscow visit will focus on cooperation on regional and global issues, the Omani state news agency and the Kremlin said, without providing further detail.
The two leaders are also expected to discuss trade and economic ties, the Kremlin added.
The post Oman’s Sultan to Meet Putin in Moscow After Iran-US Talks first appeared on Algemeiner.com.