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The biggest impediment to peace between Israelis and Palestinians has little to do with Gaza
The Gaza war may finally be over, and the idea of a Palestinian state has returned to the center of global discourse. But before it can become a reality, Palestinians will need to carry less suspicion and hatred toward Israel — which means Israel must give them fewer reasons to cultivate those reactions.
An investigation from last week by my former colleagues at The Associated Press helps show how distant we are from that outcome — not just in Gaza, but also in the West Bank.
The investigation found that, according to United Nations data that Israel does not dispute, live Israeli fire has killed at least 18 children under the age of 15 in the West Bank this year. It killed 29 children in 2023, and 23 in 2024.
Some were killed during Israeli military raids in crowded neighborhoods, others by sniper fire in calm areas. The army told AP that its open-fire regulations prohibit deliberate targeting and that it had launched some investigations. But it did not say whether anyone had been punished. The families of the deceased children report receiving little information from the army about the circumstances of their deaths, or any consequences meted out in reaction to them.
Israel’s security concerns about the West Bank are legitimate. The strategic ridge surrounds Jerusalem on three sides and overlooks Tel Aviv and the coastal plain. An attack from there could be catastrophic; if a group like Hamas were ever to take control there, the consequences are dire.
But the need for Israel’s security cannot justify the killing of children — not one, not 18, not 29. So long as the Palestinians of the West Bank live in fear of their own children joining those grim ranks, there cannot be a chance for a real, lasting peace.
Consider just some of the children killed this year, whose stories AP collected:
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- Layla, age 2: Tayma Asous, a single mother in the Jenin refugee camp, said that on Jan. 25, while her daughter Layla sat on her lap, an Israeli sniper fired through their second-floor window. The bullet struck Laila in the skull. Her grandfather lifted her and ran downstairs shouting for help. Layla, who was breathing when the ambulance arrived, died en route to the hospital. The army said it is still investigating, and could not provide details.
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- Rimas, age 13: On Feb. 21 — the 32nd day of an Israeli operation in Jenin — Rimas Amouri went to play outside, even though her mother, Rudaina, objected. Seconds after she left, Rudaina heard gunfire and screams. “They shot her in the back,” Rudaina said. “I screamed, ‘Please stop, stop!’ Then they started shooting at me.” About 10 soldiers surrounded the house and fired on her when she tried to reach her daughter, she said. Rimas’ father said the family required a special Israeli permit to bury her. The army said the case is under investigation, but shared no further details.
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- Mahmoud, age 14: On Jan. 14, a group of men gathered outside the Garabiya family home in Jenin. when one missile hit, then another, then a third. Only Ashraf Garabiya survived. Six people, including his son, were killed. The army said the airstrike had targeted several militants and that it was “aware of claims” of a civilian casualty. No indication of an investigation was given.
It goes on and on.
In Tulkarem, 10-year-old Saddam Rajab was caught on security footage standing on the sidewalk, turning, then being caught in a burst of gunfire and falling. He cried for his mother and died 10 days later. In Turmus Ayya, 14-year-old Amer Rabee, a Palestinian-American born in New Jersey, was shot while picking almonds with two friends, who were injured. His father said soldiers fired dozens of rounds, stripped the boy’s body, and carried it off; the army later described the victims as “three terrorists” throwing stones. In Hebron, 12-year-old Ayman al-Haimouni told his mother, “Mama, they shot me,” before collapsing. Video shows soldiers approaching his body, recoiling, and walking away without offering aid. The military police opened an investigation that has yielded no result.
Although the situation has grown especially horrible under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government, the phenomenon is not new. The Israeli philosopher and academic Yeshayahu Leibowitz warned in the early days of the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, after the 1967 Six-Day War, that this new reality would corrupt Israeli society and devastate its moral standing.
He was not wrong. My own experience as a reporter working in and around the West Bank confronted me many times with this clear and painful fact.
The newborn baby of one Palestinian AP photographer, in the Nablus area, experienced a medical emergency; the baby died while the ambulance carrying it was delayed by Israeli troops at a checkpoint in 2002. A year later, a cameraman with whom I regularly worked, Nazeeh Darwazeh, was killed by a random bullet fired by an Israeli soldier. I remember visiting the family, and trying to console the widow and his children. They were heartbroken.
These kinds of things simply happen all the time.
Aren’t these stories, repeated so frequently after so many decades, enough to boil the blood of any normal person? How would any supporter of Israel react if this kind of indiscriminate, senseless violence happened in Israel, and the army responsible was Palestinian? If that army kept claiming that it would investigate these awful and useless slaughters, but it was obvious that any form of punishment was all but nonexistent?
Add to the mix that Netanyahu’s reckless government has normalized settler rampages, the perpetrators of which are almost never punished. Unforgivably, Israel has prosecuted few if any of the settlers who regularly rampage through Palestinian communities in what is a clear provocation aimed at creating mayhem. Settler violence, with the winks and nods of the government, is at a high — and when they are detained it is usually for assaults on Israeli soldiers, not Palestinians.
Many Israelis fear that these reckless settler provocations will unleash a third intifada. But to some far-right radicals, that would be a welcome development, as they hope for a massive war in which the Palestinians might be somehow expelled — the same outcome some far-right Israelis very plainly wished for in the Gaza war.
Israelis who have the courage to face the truth must ask themselves sincerely: How can we accept this state of affairs? How can we explain to the world — and to ourselves — that this is reasonable and moral? Is this “the fight against terror”? How can we expect our Palestinian neighbors to want to work with us toward peace?
Something is clearly sick to the core. The way out of this bloody cycle is through a true and clear separation between Israelis and Palestinians, with hope for a normal life on both sides. If this continues, more violence is likely, and the outcome may not be good for Israel — or anyone.
The post The biggest impediment to peace between Israelis and Palestinians has little to do with Gaza appeared first on The Forward.
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Lula’s reelection puts the brakes on Latin America’s pro-Israel shift
(JTA) — BUENOS AIRES – Brazilians reelected Luiz Inácio ‘Lula’ da Silva as president, defeating the center-right senator Flavio Bolsonaro, putting the breaks on a regional shift toward closer ties with Israel.
The current president, a left-wing leader of Partido dos Trabalhadores (Workers Party), obtained 51.79% of the valid votes, while Bolsonaro received 48.21%.
Bolsonaro, of the Liberal Party, had pledged a close diplomatic partnership with Israel and cultivated ties with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, while Lula has become a critic of Israel’s military campaign in Gaza. Bolsonaro said he did not accept the election results, although it is not clear how he could challenge them.
In January 2024, Lula’s government endorsed South Africa’s decision to bring a genocide case against Israel before the International Court of Justice. A month later, Lula compared Palestinian suffering in Gaza to Hitler’s murder of the Jews, triggering a diplomatic crisis between Brazil and Israel. Brazil’s Jewish umbrella organization, CONIB, publicly condemned the comparison as a distortion that offended the memory of Holocaust victims and their descendants.
The remarks were also criticized by the Holocaust Museum of Buenos Aires. Sen. Bolsonaro promised a big shift toward Israel when he spoke on June 28, 2026, in Buenos Aires in a meeting with Jewish leaders. “In 2027, Brazil will not only once again have an ambassador to Israel, but will also take the step of moving its embassy to Israel’s capital, Jerusalem,” he said.
That night he also lauded the 120,000 Jews in Brazil, saying, “They are men and women who rank among the brightest in Brazilian medicine, industry, science, culture and business.”
After Bolsonaro finished ahead of Lula in the first round on Oct. 4, Netanyahu sent a message the following day on X: “Congratulations @FlavioBolsonaro on yesterday’s vote and good luck in the final. I look forward to restoring the extraordinary friendship between Israel and Brazil. Best wishes for your great victory, my friend.”
Since 2023, several Latin American countries have strengthened ties with Israel, in some cases reversing policies adopted by their predecessors, among them:
Argentine President Javier Milei elected in 2023, who makes support for Israel central to his foreign policy and meets with families of hostages Hamas abducted in its deadly Oct. 7, 2023, raid on Israel, which launched the current war;
Bolivian President Rodrigo Paz Pereira, elected in 2025, who restored diplomatic relations with Israel severed by his predecessor;
President Nasry Asfura of Honduras, elected in 2025, who immediately formally recognized Israel’s new ambassador, a process his predecessor left in limbo;
Chilean President José Antonio Kast, elected in 2025, who is rebuilding ties with Israel diminished by his predecessor;
and Colombian President Abelardo de la Espriella, elected in May, who restored diplomatic ties with Israel severed by his predecessor, sent his foreign minister to inaugurate an embassy in Jerusalem and pulled out of the ICJ genocide case against Israel.
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
The post Lula’s reelection puts the brakes on Latin America’s pro-Israel shift appeared first on The Forward.
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In anti-Muslim speech, Trump says Jews who support El-Sayed should be ‘ashamed’
(JTA) — President Donald Trump disparaged Jewish voters who support Abdul El-Sayed, Michigan’s Democratic Senate nominee, at a rally in Port Huron on Sunday.
“Any Jewish person that supports this guy should be ashamed of themselves,” Trump told some 4,000 supporters in the city north of Detroit, where he stumped for Republican nominee Mike Rogers. “You should never speak to them again.”
Hundreds of Michigan Jews have pledged to vote for El-Sayed, who polls indicate is narrowly leading Rogers in a race key to determining control of the Senate. Another subset of Jews has pressured El-Sayed, a staunch critic of Israel, to defend “Jewish safety — including for Zionist Jews” and “Jewish sovereignty in Israel.” Still others have urged their community members to reject El-Sayed outright and back Rogers.
El-Sayed opposes U.S. military aid to Israel, saying the country has committed genocide in Gaza and is “not an ally.” Those positions divided the Democratic party during his primary campaign against pro-Israel U.S. Rep. Haley Stevens, whom he narrowly bested in August. A former public health official, El-Sayed has also emphasized affordability in healthcare, housing and education. He has made a concentrated push to reach undecided Jewish voters in the homestretch before the Nov. 3 midterm election, hiring a Jewish outreach director last week.
Trump has in the past accused Jews who vote for Democrats of being “disloyal to Jewish people” and “disloyal to Israel.”
He said at the Port Huron rally that he is “polling at 99% in Israel,” which will hold national elections on Tuesday.
Trump did not cite evidence for the claim, which is unsupported by publicly available surveys. While he has historically scored high popularity among Israelis, a poll by the Jewish People Policy Institute in June found the Israeli public’s trust in him was declining. The poll said that 12% of Israelis reported having a great deal of trust in Trump, down from 21% in May, while the share of Israelis with complete distrust in him rose from 32% to 37%.
Trump joined his comments about Jews and Israel to anti-Muslim rhetoric about El-Sayed, who would become the first Muslim in the Senate if he is elected.
Trump baselessly called El-Sayed a “jihadist Muslim Brotherhood member” who was “on the side of the terrorists,” adding that he would “have to go through a metal detector before he’s allowed to go into the Senate.”
He threatened that “if Abdul and the Democrats win, they will open the floodgates and invite hordes of jihadists to our shores, creating a nightmare of violence and terror until you cannot even have a Christmas.”
Trump claimed that El-Sayed’s half sister, Eman Abdelhadi, celebrated the Hamas attacks on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. On the first anniversary of the attack, Abdelhadi posted a video that said, “no matter how great the brutality, the oppression, the intensity of what we’re going through, the horizon of justice is just around the corner,” according to The New York Times. She did not directly mention or celebrate the violence.
Trump also said that El-Sayed’s mother had “worked for an organization that gave hundreds of thousands of dollars to Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda.” A Times investigation reported that El-Sayed’s mother worked as a nurse in Missouri for a Muslim aid group that was later designated by the U.S. government as a supporter of terrorist groups. She was never accused of wrongdoing.
El-Sayed’s campaign has said that he “disagrees” with his sister on “a number of political positions and the rhetoric she’s chosen to use, including on foreign policy.” He was raised by his father and stepmother and has said that he had little relationship with his biological mother while growing up.
Former President Barack Obama campaigned with El-Sayed in Detroit on Saturday, saying the candidate was “fighting for change, real change, that will get money out of politics and put money in your pocket.”
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
The post In anti-Muslim speech, Trump says Jews who support El-Sayed should be ‘ashamed’ appeared first on The Forward.
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CAIR Connecticut urges Greenwich schools to stop using Eisner Camp over Israel ties
(JTA) — GREAT BARRINGTON, Mass. – Greenwich Public Schools in Connecticut said it would proceed with a planned fall trip for sixth graders at a Jewish camp in Massachusetts as planned this week, despite pressure from a Muslim advocacy organization over the camp’s Israeli symbols and Israel-related programming.
CAIR Connecticut, the state chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, objected to the trip, saying that programming at Eisner Camp in Great Barrington “incorporates connections to Israel,” the chapter’s board chair Farhan Memon wrote in a letter to Greenwich Superintendent of Schools Toni Jones dated Oct. 13.
The four-day Greenwich Schools field trip was organized by the Outdoor Classroom project, which works with seven locations in New England, including Eisner. Four of the camps are affiliated with Christian organizations, and two have no religious affiliation. With its clients, Outdoor Classroom coordinates nature-related learning programs for kids.
Memon wrote that some parents in Greenwich had viewed a video and photos of previous school events at Eisner and “identified Israeli flags and yellow ribbons prominently displayed in spaces used during school visits.”
“At the very least, spaces used by Greenwich students on any school trip should be free of national and political displays,” Memon wrote.
Eisner director Paul Isserles said in a statement shared with the Jewish Telegraphic Agency: “We welcome Outdoor Classroom to use our camp facilities. Throughout the year many outside organizations rent our facilities for various programs. URJ Eisner Camp is proud to have an Israeli flag displayed for our camp programs.”
When it comes to visiting groups, “Frankly, we are not regularly asked to do anything to remove those symbols or to cover them,” said Union for Reform Judaism president Rabbi Rick Jacobs in a telephone interview with JTA. “Because to be honest, we wouldn’t.”
Answering Memon’s letter on Oct. 14, Jones wrote in an email that her school district “acknowledges that individuals and families have vastly different views regarding global events” and that it intends to “provide an inclusive and safe educational environment for all Greenwich Public School students, including when they are on field trips under our care.”
She added that she had “made it clear to a few families that we will not take a political or religious stand.” JTA has seen both the CAIR letter and the email response.
CAIR Connecticut did not respond to JTA’s query.
CAIR’s national website says the organization promotes interfaith dialogue and “condemns all acts of violence against civilians by any individual, group or state.”
The Reform movement founded the 600-acre camp in 1958 as the Joseph Eisner Camp Institute for Living Judaism. It is located in the Berkshire Hills south of the town center of Great Barrington.
It is one of more than a dozen of the movement’s overnight camps in the North America. Many of those camps are rented throughout the year by groups that have nothing to do with Judaism, URJ’s Rabbi Jacobs said. “If a group rents the camp, they come up with their own agenda,” he said.
He added, “There are flags and other symbols of Judaism and of Israel in our camps, and we’re proud of that.”
Some parents had raised concerns about the venue as early as March. CAIR urged the district to stop using the camp in the Oct. 14 letter.
Removing decorations from the camp would not be enough, he said, noting that parents were upset after seeing promotional material about Eisner bringing Jewish campers to visit Israeli army bases under the Gadna, an Israeli military youth program.
A July 2019 post on Eisner Camp’s website says a group of participants in its Israel trip chose Gadna, stayed at an army base, practiced drills and learned to shoot at a target.
“URJ Eisner Camp participants who go to Israel have not participated in Gadna since 2023,” camp director Isserles said in a statement provided to JTA. “Our Israel programming at camp and in Israel is focused on Jewish identity, community, education, and connection to Israel.”
What CAIR is saying is that “A Jewish institution can be an unfit place for public-school children because it is visibly Jewish and identifies openly with Israel,” wrote blogger and Eisner alumnus Rabbi Jeff Salkin in his “Unfiltered” Substack on Oct. 19.
“A Jewish institution should not have to hide its Jewish identity to count as a fit place for other people’s children. You would not ask a church camp to remove a cross, or a Muslim camp to take down a crescent. A standard that demands such hiding makes Jewish identity itself the problem,” Salkin wrote.
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
The post CAIR Connecticut urges Greenwich schools to stop using Eisner Camp over Israel ties appeared first on The Forward.
