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‘The settlers are winning now’: West Bank activists aiding Palestinians are increasingly targets themselves
DUMA, WEST BANK — For three decades, Rabbi Arik Ascherman has devoted himself largely to helping Palestinian civilians in the occupied West Bank. He heads Torat Zedek, which means Torah of Justice — a group that is out in the field trying to protect them from one of the most intensive waves of settler violence since 1967.
Judging from what he sees, hears and documents during his daily forays, things are going very badly for those in the way of Israel and its massive settlement project, which includes proliferating outposts and sheep farms that serve, he says, as staging grounds for violence against Palestinians.
“The settlers are winning now,” Ascherman says, driving past outposts southeast of Nablus that are illegal according to both international and Israeli law “Outposts are expanding and Palestinian communities are disappearing.”
Fifty-nine Palestinian communities have been displaced by settler violence since Oct. 7, 2023, with another 16 communities losing about half of their residents, according to the human rights organization B’tselem. About 170 new outposts have been established during that period, it says.
Violence is the engine of that process, with Palestinians and their property becoming exposed targets in remote Bedouin areas and increasingly around larger locales, rights groups say. According to UN figures, settler violence reached a 20-year high in March, just after the outbreak of the Iran war. This has rippled into greater risk for protective presence activists like Ascherman. Two volunteers say they were almost burned alive in their sleep on April 9 in Mukhmas village.
Activists say they feel much more frustrated and less effective because the army is now increasingly barring them from key areas they used to protect. The army says the new restrictions are necessary to prevent friction and disturbances, but activists say locking out outside advocates leaves Palestinians even more exposed to settler violence.
“In Duma there have been days the army comes looking for us. It was never like this before,” said Ascherman, who was hospitalized in June after being beaten with a rifle butt and club by settlers. “We can’t protect people. Instead of protecting people, the situation becomes that the Palestinians feel they need to hide us. Then the question is: At what point do you risk arrest?”
In the June incident, Ascherman and others carrying out protective presence in Mukhmas were attacked by a gang of six settlers, he told the Jewish Chronicle at the time, adding that two volunteers suffered broken elbows. The IDF described the incident as a “violent confrontation” involving Palestinians accompanied by Israelis and other Israeli citizens “that included stonethrowing and mutual physical assaults.”
Ascherman stresses that there have been waves of settler violence throughout his years as an activist. For decades, settlements went through a formal Israeli government approval process, even as Amnesty International and other human rights groups declared they violate international law prohibitions against an occupying power transferring its nationals into the occupied territory.
But he views the start of the Iran war as an inflection point similar to Oct. 7, which too was followed by a major surge of settler attacks. In both cases, settlers “cynically exploited” the distraction from the West Bank caused by wars to act more violently, he says.
Thirteen Palestinians have been killed during settler incursions since March 1, according to Haaretz, the latest being 29-year-old Odeh Awawdeh near Ramallah on Wednesday a day after 14-year old Aws Hamdi al-Nassan and Marzouq Abu Naim, 32, were killed, also in the Ramallah vicinity.
The UN Office for the Coordinator of Humanitarian Affairs says March saw the highest number of Palestinian injuries caused by settlers during the last 20 years. In the week between March 31 and April 6 alone, at least 23 Palestinians were injured by settlers during 47 attacks on persons and/or property, according to the office. The attacks involved arson, physical assaults, stonethrowing and vandalism, it said in a report.
“Attacks on residential areas, on villages, cities and roads are a constant threat to the lives of Palestinians,” says Ramallah-based analyst Jehad Harb, former senior researcher at the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research. The violence is not haphazard, instead serving a state goal of “ethnic cleansing” in stages, he alleges. Ascherman likewise sees the violence as part of an intensified government dispossession effort, citing what he sees as unprecedentedly tight cooperation during the last several months among settlers, the army and police.
For the perpetrators, the violence is not about claims to a specific property nor is it violence for violence’s sake. Rather, it stems from belief that God endowed the territory of the West Bank to the Jews, making them exclusive owners of all the land there, with the Palestinians seen not only as trespassers but as terrorists, according to Shabtay Bendet, formerly a prominent settler who in 1995 was one of the first permanent residents of the West Bank outpost Rehelim but years later decided to leave the fold and now gives lectures about what he sees as the need to end the occupation.
Direct causes for violence, he says, include “desire to seize more territory and drive away Palestinians, vengeance in the belief that all Palestinians are supporters of terrorism and, for a small minority, a belief that the IDF is not deterring the Palestinians.”
‘Why weren’t you here?’
Torat Zedek, one of the more prominent groups in the field, gives protection by serving as non-violent human shields during settler violence, documenting it, notifying the army, police and media, and funding fences to protect Palestinians and their property, Ascherman says. He adds that he has “too few” volunteers, with between 15 and 20 whom he calls “particularly active.”
The spiraling violence is broad in geographical scope and becoming so recurrent that it is increasingly getting coverage in mainstream Israeli media. Last month, dozens of settlers raided the Bedouin area of Khirbet Humza in the northern Jordan Valley. Settlers sexually assaulted a man in front of his family, beat girls and threatened to kill children and rape women, according to witnesses quoted by Haaretz. In one tent, six masked settlers used clubs to beat a resident and two protective presence activists, who were among six people that needed to be treated at a hospital, according to one of the activists who had been assaulted.
Qusra village, in the Nablus district, suffered three settler attacks during the week beginning March 31, according to the UN, which said settlers killed a Palestinian man there and injured eight people. The UN said settlers attacked houses, stole sheep and vandalized vehicles.
For Ascherman, an emotional turning point came even before the war, when a settler fatally shot a 19-year old Palestinian-American, Nasrallah Abu Siyam, in Mukhmas, in an incident that his family said had started with armed settlers stealing goats. Mukhmas is a place Torat Zedek tries to help, but Ascherman was elsewhere at the time. “I felt guilty that I was not there. Palestinians asked me ‘Why weren’t you here?’”
The army spokesman’s office sent a statement to the Forward stating that the army’s mission in the area “is to maintain the security of all residents of the area” while preventing terrorism and harm to Israeli citizens.
But members of the ruling Israeli government coalition are being more brazen in voicing intent to oust Palestinians. The senior Israeli minister for Judea and Samaria, Bezalel Smotrich, who also holds the finance portfolio and is head of the Religious Zionism party, told a party meeting in late February that the government should “encourage migration” of the Palestinians in the West Bank. Last year he unveiled a map showing the Palestinians would be confined in the future to six disjointed urban clusters on less than a fifth of the West Bank.
Settlers and their backers say that Palestinian attacks that are launched against Israeli targets are the main problem in Judea and Samaria, the biblical names of the West Bank area. The protective presence activists just make the situation worse, according to Moshe Solomon, a member of the Knesset from Religious Zionism.
“They work against Jews in Judea and Samaria, which is the heritage of our forefathers. They come to harm the fabric there. I’m against violence against them but their provocations can’t be allowed,” he said. Solomon said that where he used to live in the Gush Etzion bloc of settlements south of Jerusalem, “non-Jewish locals” got along with Jews until the moment when “external actors, whether Jewish or European, would arrive and cause ferment and chaos.”
‘Fire dripping like water’
The activists stress that the Palestinians bear the real cost of the mayhem and bloodshed. But they themselves — some Israelis and some international visitors, are themselves increasingly targeted.
On April 7, two volunteers were nearly burned alive on the outskirts of Mukhmas village, northeast of Jerusalem, at around 2 a.m. on a hill overlooking a chicken farm that settlers often pelt with stones, they told the Forward. Noah Benninga, 48, said he awoke to see “fire dripping like water from the ceiling,” which was made of nylon.
“I started to shout. Later we understood they had poured gasoline and lit it. There was a strong smell of gasoline. They may have poured around, but only the nylon caught fire,” he said in an interview.
“I’m not sure they knew there were Israelis inside and I don’t think they care. For them it’s all the same thing,” he added.
After he shouted for help, Palestinians rushed to put out the embers, which had not spread to nearby wood, he recalled. He attributed what he considers a narrow escape to the arsonists not having enough time to complete their job.
“More serious things have also happened there to us: burning of buildings, injuring activists. One of our women activists was beaten unconscious,” Benninga said. He called the police but they did not come, he said. He then filed a complaint, sharing with the Forward the police’s confirmation of receiving it. The Israel Police’s spokesperson’s office did not respond to questions about the incident.
Two days later, when Ascherman and this reporter visited the area, settlers in black were again descending towards the chicken farm. This time they contented themselves with a show of presence, but they have often attacked the property, Ascherman said.
Frozen zones
The army is now making it much harder for activists to reach areas that need protection, according to Ascherman. He shared with the Forward closed military zone orders applicable to protective presence personnel. With the West Bank under military occupation, the army is entitled to declare zones closed to everyone except security forces and others at the discretion of commanders. In practice they are not enforced against settlers, creating a situation where Palestinians lose their protective presence and face greater danger, activists and Palestinians say. On initial closure, those excluded are required to leave the area. If they make a return entry, they are subject to arrest.
The army, citing what it said is the need to prevent friction and disturbances, recently issued a one-year closure order for parts of Duma, effectively depriving of protective presence the tiny Bedouin community of Sheqara, which, according to Torat Zedek activists, had been intensively targeted by settlers bent on using violence to drive out the Palestinians.
When the activists had to leave, the 12 families of Sheqara, fearing for their safety, also relocated — ending up in other places in Duma or in the town of Salfit.
“The solidarity activists were prevented from being with us and without them we couldn’t stay” and face the violence alone, said Deif-Allah Arare, who had a permit to work in Israel prior to Oct. 7, 2023, and like many others in the West Bank has been without a job since. A settler’s vehicle could be seen in his former living compound on April 9, while he had moved to a tiny concrete rental apartment on the other side of Duma. “How would you feel if there is a settler in your house?” he asked. “He stole not only the house, but the entire life, there is no life now. My land is gone, my house is gone, the place of my children. They stole everything.”
“My children all the time say, we want to be in Sheqara,” he added “They destroyed our lives.”
The IDF spokesman’s office denied the army allows settlers to remain in closed zones while excluding activists “As a rule, the IDF enforces the closed zone equally against anyone who violates it. The purpose of the enforcement is to maintain order and prevent friction in the area.” it said in a written response to a query by the Forward.
Herd of Justice, a group that documents settler violence, provided the Forward with video showing settlers running through Sheqara and one of them pepper spraying activist Yael Rozmarin in the face during a March 1 confrontation that was followed by another confrontation on March 2. Rozmarin said both confrontations and others at the site previously were started by the settlers. “On March 1 the soldiers joined the attack and on March 2 they did not prevent it from continuing.” she said A settler was photographed armed with a rifle in what Herd of Justice said was the March 1 confrontation.
The IDF, in its response, did not address the events of March 1, but it said that on March 2 “forces were dispatched to the area following a report of Palestinians hurling rocks at Israeli civilians. Upon arrival, the soldiers acted to disperse both Israeli and Palestinian civilians.”
The IDF added: “There were other incidents reported, including Israeli civilians vandalizing property in Duma and Israeli civilians attacking Palestinians in the area, for which a local security coordinator was dispatched and conducted a search but found no evidence substantiating the claims.” Local security coordinators in the West Bank are local settlers who are employed by the ministry of defense.
Doron Meinrath, a retired IDF colonel turned protective presence activist, alleges that the Israeli army has no qualms about violent dispossession of Palestinians by settlers. “In general the army very much supports what the settlers are doing,” said Meinrath, who is part of the group Looking the Occupation in the Eye. He used to be director of planning in the IDF General Staff and before that a commander of troops in the West Bank.
“I don’t think the army supports the most severe forms of violence, like murder. But ongoing violence, theft, harassment and anything that makes people’s lives more hard to bear, it does support.”
In area C, the rural territory under full Israeli control that comprises most of the West Bank, “the army has no problem with harassments. The opposite is the case. It would be happy if area C was empty of Palestinians and also area B,” said Meinrath, referring to places that are under Israeli security control and Palestinian Authority civil control. That would leave Palestinians only in area A, the non-contiguous urban clusters in Smotrich’s plan.
Meinrath said his experience shows that the IDF’s attitude towards the protection activists is “very negative and hostile. If there are activists and settlers, the settlers are favored. Socially, the soldiers pal around with the settlers and in practical terms when they make a closed military zone they enforce it against the activists, not the settlers.”
The IDF spokesman’s office, in a statement sent to the Forward, declares that the military opposes settler violence. It says police, who are members of the same police force that operates inside sovereign Israeli territory, bear primary responsibility for dealing with violations of the law by Israeli citizens. But, the statement said, soldiers are required to stop violations “and if necessary to delay or detain the suspects until the police arrive.”
“In situations where soldiers fail to adhere to IDF orders, the incidents are thoroughly reviewed and disciplinary actions are implemented” the IDF statement said.
Meanwhile, Benninga, the activist who described being almost set on fire in Duma, says he will return there. ”It was the first time I experienced such a thing. Maybe it can be an educational experience for activists to help them understand what Palestinians go through all day, every day.”
The post ‘The settlers are winning now’: West Bank activists aiding Palestinians are increasingly targets themselves appeared first on The Forward.
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We Jews have three choices: Separating, assimilating or integrating
אַבֿרהם און שׂרה, טאַטע און מאַמע פֿונעם ייִדישן פֿאָלק, האָבן ביידע געהאַט די זעלבע השקפֿה און שליחות אין לעבן. פֿונדעסטוועגן האָט יעדער איינער פֿון זיי געלייגט דעם טראָפּ אויף אַן אַנדער אַספּעקט פֿונעם לעבן.
אַבֿרהם האָט זיך מער געוואָנדן אַרויסצו, צו דער וועלט בכלל, מיטן ציל אַרײַנצוברענגען אין איר דעם באַוווּסטזײַן וועגן איר באַשעפֿער. שׂרה, פֿון דער צווייטער זײַט, האָט זיך מער קאָנצענטרירט אינעווייניק, זאָרגנדיק פֿאַרן פֿיזישן און גײַסטיקן וווילזײַן פֿון איר זון יצחק — דער איינציקער גליד וואָס האָט געזאָלט ווײַטער פֿירן די טויזנט־יאָריקע קייט וואָס זײַן פֿאָטער האָט אָנגעהויבן.
אַ ייִד וואָס לעבט אין אַ ניט־ייִדישער געזעלשאַפֿט האָט דרײַ מעגלעכקייטן: זיך אָפּצוזינדערן, זיך צו אַסימילירן אָדער זיך צו אינטעגרירן.
דער וואָס פֿילט זיך באַדראָט פֿון דער געזעלשאַפֿט, אָדער פֿילט אַז ער האָט נישט עפּעס באַזונדערס בײַצוטראָגן ווי אַ ייִד, קלײַבט געוויינטלעך אויס צו האַלטן זײַן ייִדישקייט אין שטוב און אין שול, בעת אויף דער גאַס פֿירט ער זיך ווי אַ „נאָרמאַלער“ בירגער. ער האָט ליבער נישט צו פֿאַרעפֿנטלעכן זײַן ייִדישקייט.
דער וואָס זעט גאָרנישט באַזונדערס אין דעם וואָס ער איז אַ ייִד — בפֿרט אויב ער האַלט זיך נישט פֿאַר „רעליגיעז“ — אָדער וויל דאָס פֿאַרבײַטן אויף אַ לעבנסשטייגער, וואָס פּאַסט זיך בעסער צו דער געזעלשאַפֿט אַרום אים, קלײַבט אָפֿט אויס זיך צו אַסימילירן. דאָס הייסט: ער פֿאַרלאָזט זײַן ייִדישע אידענטיטעט כּדי אָנצונעמען אַ וועלטלעכע און מער „אוניווערסאַלע“ אידענטיטעט.
דער וואָס איז זיכער אין זײַן ייִדישקייט און אין דעם בײַטראָג וואָס ער קען, דווקא פֿון זײַן ייִדישקייט, געבן דער גאַנצער מענטשהייט, דאַרף נישט אַנטלויפֿן און דאַרף זיך אויך נישט אַסימילירן. זײַן ברירה איז זיך צו אינטעגרירן אין דער אַלגעמיינער געזעלשאַפֿט דווקא ווי אַ ייִד, און זי צו באַרײַכערן פֿון זײַן אייגענעם באַזונדערן אָרט.
פֿאַרשטייט זיך, אַז כּדי זיך געזונט צו אינטעגרירן און האָבן אַן השפּעה אויף דער ברייטערער געזעלשאַפֿט, דאַרף מען האָבן שטאַרקייט און קלאָרקייט וועגן דער אייגענער אידענטיטעט, און זײַן שטאָלץ מיט די אחריות וואָס די אידענטיטעט ברענגט מיט זיך.
אַבֿרהם און שׂרה זענען די פּראָוטאָטיפּן פֿון דער דינאַמיק פֿון דער ייִדישער משפּחה דורכויס די דורות. דער מאַן איז דער וואָס באַשעפֿטיקט זיך, קודם־כּל, מיט דער דרויסנדיקער וועלט; די פֿרוי איז די וואָס דערנערט און בויט די אינערלעכע וועלט פֿון דער משפּחה. נאָר דער וואָס האָט געהאַט און האָט נאָך אַלץ אַ שטאַרקע אינערלעכע וועלט קען זיך שטעלן אַנטקעגן דער דרויסנדיקער וועלט און זי באַאײַנפֿלוסן.
פֿון דער אידענטיטעט פֿונעם ייִדישן פֿאָלק, לאָמיר איצט אַריבערגיין צו דער אידענטיטעט פֿונעם ייִדישן לאַנד.
ארץ־ישׂראל: דאָס לאַנד פֿון די ייִדן, אָדער אַ ייִדיש לאַנד?
ארץ־ישׂראל איז דאָס נאַציאָנאַלע ירושה־גוט פֿונעם ייִדישן פֿאָלק. לויט הלכה־אויטאָריטעטן איז יעדער ייִד אויף דער וועלט דער נאַטירלעכער בעל־הבית פֿון לכל־הפּחות אן „אמה על אמה“ — 0.48 קוואַדראַט־מעטער — לאַנד אין ארץ־ישׂראל. דאָס איז אונדזער אייביקע ירושה.
עס זענען דאָ דרײַ שטעט אין ארץ־ישׂראל וועמענס קויפֿן דורך ייִדן איז דאָקומענטירט אין תנ״ך: חבֿרון, שכם און ירושלים. עס וואָלט געדאַרפֿט זײַן מער ווי קלאָר, אַז ס׳איז נישטאָ קיין אָרט פֿאַר אַ מחלוקת וועגן דער היסטאָרישער און לעגאַלער פֿאַרבינדונג צווישן די שטעט און דעם ייִדישן פֿאָלק — וויפֿל עס זאָלן נישט זײַן אַזעלכע וואָס ווילן זיי, חס ושלום, מאַכן „Judenrein“.
אין דער פּרשה חיי שׂרה לייענען מיר ווי אונדזער פֿאָטער אַבֿרהם האָט אָפּגעקויפֿט פֿון עפֿרון החתי די „מערת המכפּלה“ און די אַרומיקע פֿעלדער, מיטן בפֿירושן ציל דאָרט צו באַערדיקן זײַן פֿרוי שׂרה. שפּעטער זענען דאָרט אויך באַערדיקט געוואָרן די אָבֿות יצחק און יעקבֿ, צוזאַמען מיט זייערע פֿרויען רבֿקה און לאה.
דאָס אַלץ איז דאָקומענטירט אין דער תּורה — אַ דאָקומענט וואָס ווערט באַטראַכט ווי היסטאָריש לעגיטים דורך מער ווי 50 פּראָצענט פֿון דער הײַנטיקער וועלט־באַפֿעלקערונג.
כאָטש אַראַבער קענען טענהן אַז זיי שטאַמען אויך פֿון אַבֿרהם דורך זײַן זון ישמעאל און האָבן דעריבער אַ לעגיטימע תּבֿיעה אויף די דאָזיקע לענדער, איז דאָס אַ טעותדיקע טענה צוליב צוויי סיבות.
ערשטנס, זענען די אַראַבער וואָס וווינען הײַנט אין ארץ־ישׂראל נישט די אָפּשטאַמיקע פֿון ישמעאל, נאָר זענען אַריבערגעפֿירט געוואָרן אין אַנדערע געגנטן דורך דעם אַסירישן קעניג און שׂונא פֿון די ייִדן, סנחריבֿ.
צווייטנס, אַפֿילו ווען מיר וואָלטן אָנגענומען אַז זיי זענען בני ישמעאל, קומט זיי דערפֿאַר נאָך נישט ארץ־ישׂראל, ווײַל ישמעאל איז געווען דער זון פֿון שׂרהס דינסט הגר. אַבֿרהם האָט אים געגעבן זײַן ירושה נאָך בײַם לעבן און אים אַוועקגעשיקט ווײַט פֿון ארץ כּנען.
ארץ־ישׂראל איז נישט בלויז דאָס לאַנד פֿון די ייִדן; עס איז אַ ייִדיש לאַנד.
אייגנטום איז אַ צופֿעליקער און ענדערלעכער מצבֿ: הײַנט האָב איך עס, מאָרגן האָסטו עס. עס איז נישטאָ קיין מהותדיקער חילוק אין מײַן אויטאָ פֿון איידער איך האָב עס דיר פֿאַרקויפֿט ביז נאָך דעם וואָס עס איז געוואָרן דײַן אייגנטום; פֿריִער איז עס געווען מײַנס, און איצט איז עס דײַנס.
מיט ארץ־ישׂראל איז אָבער אַנדערש. דאָס לאַנד איז באַשאַפֿן געוואָרן פֿאַרן ייִדישן פֿאָלק, כּדי דאָס פֿאָלק זאָל קענען אויספֿירן זײַן תּכלית: אַנטפּלעקן דעם אויבערשטנס אָנוועזנהייט אין דעם פֿיזישן וועלט אויפֿן בעסטן אופֿן, און פֿון דאָרט, ווי דאָס האַרץ, אַרויספּאָמפּען אָט די אָנערקענונג און באַגײַסטערונג אין דער גאַנצער וועלט.
נישט אומזיסט רופֿט די גאַנצע וועלט דאָס לאַנד „דאָס הייליקע לאַנד“. דערמיט דערקענט מען, אַז אַפֿילו די ערד גופֿא פֿון ארץ־ישׂראל איז הייליק.
אין אַנדערע ווערטער: די פֿאַרבינדונג צווישן ארץ־ישׂראל און עם־ישׂראל איז נישט בלויז היסטאָריש אָדער צופֿעליק. זי איז מהותדיק און נשמהדיק. דאָס לאַנד און דאָס פֿאָלק טיילן אַ שליחות וואָס דער אויבערשטער האָט זיי געגעבן, און די פֿולע אויספֿירונג פֿון דער שליחות איז אָפּהענגיק פֿון ביידע.
ווען מיר קעמפֿן פֿאַר אונדזער לאַנד, טראַכטן מיר נישט בלויז פֿאַר אונדזערט וועגן, נאָר אויך לטובֿת אונדזערע שׂונאים. אויך פֿאַר זיי איז עס צום גוטן, אַז זיי זאָלן לאָזן דעם ייִדישן פֿאָלק אויספֿירן זײַן שליחות אין זײַן לאַנד, בשעת זיי קענען בשלום אויספֿירן זייער שליחות אין דעם לאַנד וואָס געהערט צו זיי.
ווען דער דאָזיקער פּונקט וועט זײַן קלאָר בײַ אונדז, וועט אונדז זײַן גרינגער זי קלאָר צו מאַכן אויך פֿאַר אַנדערע.
The post We Jews have three choices: Separating, assimilating or integrating appeared first on The Forward.
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Mike Rogers campaign event for Jews brings out Haley Stevens’ fiancée
(JTA) — BIRMINGHAM, Mich. – The Republican Jewish Coalition typically isn’t known for drawing committed Democrats to its events.
But that’s what happened Wednesday night at the Townsend Hotel in suburban Detroit, when a campaign event for GOP U.S. Senate nominee Mike Rogers attracted several Jews from the other side of the aisle. Those included Jason Turkish, a Democratic lawyer and megadonor best known as the fiancé of pro-Israel Democratic U.S. Rep. Haley Stevens.
Turkish did not speak at the event. But just before it started, he had gone public with his declaration that he was voting for Rogers, and his conviction that Abdul El-Sayed, the Democratic nominee and former county health director who beat his partner in the primary, was antisemitic.
“This choice for me, in the end, was very simple,” Turkish told reporters from the sidelines. He cited recent instances of El-Sayed not answering whether Iran or Israel poses a bigger threat to the United States, and of the candidate only softly distancing himself from a PAC ad that blamed Israel for the price of groceries.
“History will remember who stands where in this moment, and it will not remember Abdul El-Sayed kindly,” Turkish said.
Turkish’s public stance against his party’s nominee, whom Stevens herself has endorsed while not directly campaigning for him, was yet another indication of the deep distrust and anger many of Michigan’s pro-Israel Jewish voters have voiced toward El-Sayed throughout this campaign. Republicans are hoping that will translate into more Jewish lifelong Democrats, like Turkish and former Stevens campaign chair David Kramer, pulling the lever for Rogers instead.
“I love it,” Rogers, a former congressman, told reporters about Turkish’s endorsement. From the stage, the candidate was clear about what he thinks of El-Sayed: “He’s beyond antisemitic. He hates Jews.”
Turkish insisted that despite his Rogers vote, he was not a Republican.
“I will vote for Democrats up and down the ballot,” he said. “This isn’t some major departure. You can support Democrats up and down the ballot and make a choice to choose country over party in one race.”
When asked by reporters at a different campaign event about Turkish, El-Sayed responded, “I’m building a movement to take on the challenges that Donald Trump is facing. If folks have issues that are more important to them than that, that’s fine.”
Most of the Jews in the RJC room were committed Republicans, who booed a mention of progressive Jewish megadonor George Soros and cheered the name of far-right Jewish U.S. Rep. Randy Fine.
The newfound Jewish discomfort with the Democratic nominee and the desire to send a message to the party were a key part of the pitch that Rogers and Texas GOP Sen. Ted Cruz made to the estimated 500 attendees at the RJC event.
“People who are lifelong Democrats who want to vote for Democrats for every other office, I’m not advocating that,” Cruz joked to the room. “But even if that’s where you are,” he urged, “say there is a line that is too far, and this is that line.”
RJC spokesperson Sam Markstein told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that he had to fetch more chairs for overflow seating. Markstein said turnout for Wednesday’s event was double what the RJC had drawn for a similar gathering in 2024 in support of Rogers’ first, unsuccessful Senate run — when the GOP was stronger nationally than it is now.
Hundreds of Jews in the state have signed a pledge to vote for Rogers, though a rival pledge to vote for El-Sayed has nearly twice as many signatures.
El-Sayed’s comments following the March terror attack on the Temple Israel preschool, in which he stated, in part, “Hurt people hurt people,” haunt his perception among Jews months after he apologized for them. An Israeli strike in Lebanon had killed members of the attacker’s family.
At the RJC event, signs read “No, Abdul: Hurt People Help People” and “Mike Will Keep Us Safe.” Some attendees carried a parody picture book called “Hurt People Hurt People,” featuring an El-Sayed-like “Dr. Context” caricature who consoles the Big Bad Wolf instead of the Three Little Pigs.
The RJC has made a $2 million ad buy with pro-Rogers commercials featuring members of Temple Israel, some of whom spoke to the crowd. A separate Jewish organization, the Combat Antisemitism Movement, has made its own ad buy for Rogers via a new political advocacy arm, featuring one of the same Temple Israel moms.
The GOP sales pitch to Jews has also veered into darker territory, which was evident Wednesday night. Onstage, both Cruz and Rogers claimed that El-Sayed receiving Senate-level security clearance for intelligence briefings would pose a risk to national security.
“The risks are too high that he would share sensitive information with the Muslim Brotherhood,” Cruz said, echoing a growing conservative attack line against the Democrat. He also called El-Sayed a “jihadist leprechaun.”
Rogers said that Hasan Piker, the anti-Israel streamer who campaigned with El-Sayed, “should go back to Turkey, where he belongs.”
Asked later by JTA about his comment, Rogers said he was referring to Piker’s dual Turkish citizenship, and said, “I just thought if he wanted to go back there because he hates America so much, I’d pay for the ticket.”
Rogers appeared to distance himself from comments that U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. made at a Grand Rapids campaign event earlier this week with the candidate present. Kennedy had claimed that Arabs “don’t produce science” and “don’t win the Nobel Prize.”
“Sometimes the campaign takes lefts and rights,” Rogers told reporters, when asked about Kennedy. “What I’m concerned about is what’s happening here. Our Arab community is showing lots of support.” The substantial Arab American community in this swing state makes it a key player in elections, and Republicans have been walking a tightrope between weaponizing El-Sayed’s faith against him and keeping on board Arab Americans who voted two years ago for President Donald Trump.
Rogers sought to make clear to the Jews in the room that he was aligned with Cruz, a pro-Israel stalwart who has picked public fights with far-right commentator Tucker Carlson. Cruz, though, has been a vocal proponent of war in Iran, while Rogers recently told JTA in an interview that “we met our objectives” in Iran and should wind down the war there.
On Wednesday, Rogers took a more hawkish tone on Iran. “I’d love to see this wrapped up, but I don’t think we can leave it where they have any ability to hurt our friends and neighbors,” he said. “So their army, navy, air force has to be as diminished as they can.”
Both men also took time from the stage to denounce antisemitism from the right.
At their donor events, Rogers said, “Without fail. I would get three or four or five young, white men who would come up and say, ‘You’re not going to take Jewish money, are you?’”
Rogers chalked up the problem to college campuses, calling for efforts to “get Qatari money out of our colleges.”
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
The post Mike Rogers campaign event for Jews brings out Haley Stevens’ fiancée appeared first on The Forward.
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Progressive US Jews call for Israel’s opposition bloc to welcome Arab parties
(JTA) — Liberal U.S. Jewish leaders are urging Israel’s opposition parties to abandon their campaign promises and join hands with Arab parties in order to oust Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Following Tuesday’s vote, Netanyahu’s bloc was projected to win 53 seats in the Knesset, Israel’s legislature, while the camp of his main rival, Gadi Eisenkot, is projected to win 48 seats. That means both fall short of the 61 votes required to form a new majority governing coalition.
One of the most significant shifts in electoral politics coming out of Tuesday’s results was the success of Israel’s two Arab parties, the Joint List and Ra’am, which nearly doubled their representation to 19 seats.
Those gains would be enough to give the Netanyahu or Eisenkot blocs the necessary seats to form a coalition, but neither has publicly indicated a willingness to include Arab-led parties in their coalitions. The idea is also anathema to much of the Jewish Israeli electorate after the Hamas attacks of Oct. 7, 2023.
Nonetheless, U.S. Jewish voices urged Eisenkot and his allies – collectively known as the “change” bloc – to welcome the Arab-Israeli parties as partners for implementing that change.
Jeremy Ben-Ami, president of the liberal Zionist lobby J Street, hailed the “extraordinarily high voter turnout,” estimated at nearly 78% of eligible voters, and praised “the historic participation of Arab citizens of Israel,” saying that “their voices and votes are a vital part of Israel’s democratic fabric.”
“This is a moment for the Jewish opposition parties to demonstrate genuine leadership by reaching out to the Arab parties and working together to form an alternative government,” Ben-Ami continued. “Israel cannot build a stronger, more inclusive democracy while treating the political representatives of one-fifth of its population as illegitimate governing partners.”
Dan Shapiro, former U.S. ambassador to Israel during the Obama administration, commended the voters for creating an “important opportunity for change.” That change, he added, could occur if Eisenkot’s bloc worked with Arab parties.
Shapiro added in a follow-up post that “in almost no scenario” would far-right ministers Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich “continue to have the influence they currently enjoy.”
“Ensuring that is the case is an important incentive to the opposition bloc to avoid going to new elections, which would extend the damaging tenure of these extremist ministers,” Shapiro said.
Gabriel Epstein, a senior policy associate at the Israel Policy Forum, encouraged Eisenkot and his partners not to shy away from taking the historic step of joining with Ra’am and Joint List, both of whose support they would need to come to power.
Epstein said in a post on X that there were benefits beyond politics: “Greater integration of the Arab community into Israeli society is also key for political and democratic legitimacy.”
Israelis for Peace NYC, a self-described group of “anti-occupation activists,” praised Palestinian citizens of Israel for voting in unprecedented numbers and delivering “a victory to the anti-Netanyahu bloc” by dislodging the current ruling coalition. At the same time, however, the group slammed the change bloc for “refusing to accept this gift, out of no other reason but deep-rooted, unexamined and systemic racism.”
Describing the current choice as “a shared future or no future at all,” Israelis for Peace warned that a fifth of the population is “being completely and shamelessly disregarded,” referring to the approximately 20% of Israel that is Arab.
“But this isn’t over,” the group added. “The liberal majority in Israel can hit the streets in mass demonstrations, like it has done so well against Netanyahu for four years, and pressure Eisenkot and other opposition leaders to sit with the Arab parties.”
But Jacob Stoil, a research professor of Middle East Security Studies at the U.S. Army War College, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that “there are some real challenges to putting together a coalition that includes the Arab parties,” given the political positions they take and the campaign promises made by Eisenkot’s partners.
Although one party, the Islamist Ra’am, previously served in a coalition and has expressed willingness to do so again, multiple members of Eisenkot’s bloc have pledged not to sit with an Arab party. Meanwhile, the second party, the Joint List, rejects the definition of Israel as a Jewish state and therefore refuses to serve in a Zionist-led government.
One plausible option could be “a minority government with the Arab parties essentially voting to keep the government in office and protecting it,” according to Stoil, who said his comments did not reflect the views of the U.S. Army or the U.S. government. But he warned that such a minority government could “create a lot of challenges in passing legislation.”
“There is a realistic pathway,” Stoil said, noting, however, that this pathway toward partnership with Arab parties can only be determined once the full results of the election are tallied.
At this point, he explained, there are still many things that can change. For example, Israel’s Central Elections Committee has yet to tally ballots cast by soldiers, prisoners and diplomats stationed abroad, which will reportedly add another 430,000-480,000 votes to the mix.
The Jewish Federations of North America, meanwhile, released a neutral statement after the election, applauding “the shared values that bind Israelis and North American Jews, including a deep commitment to democratic principles and civic participation.” The organization said it would continue working “with leaders across the political spectrum.”
The American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the pro-Israel lobbying group whose influence has played a sizable role in November’s U.S. midterm elections, offered similar accolades to Israelis for showing “their commitment to democracy through free and fair elections.”
The massive voter turnout among multiple religious groups “underscores Israel’s diversity and steadfast commitment to the democratic process – a value shared and cherished in America,” an AIPAC statement added.
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
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