The Elephant in the Room
In early August, four Israeli academics affiliated with North American universities initiated a petition entitled “The Elephant in the Room” (full text below) calling on leaders of North American Jewry – foundation leaders, scholars, rabbis, educators – to:
Support the Israeli protest movement, yet call on it to embrace equality for Jews and Palestinians within the Green Line and in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.
Support human rights organizations which defend Palestinians and provide real-time information on the lived reality of occupation and apartheid.
Commit to overhaul educational norms and curricula for Jewish children and youth in order to provide a more honest appraisal of Israel’s past and present.
Demand from elected leaders in the United States that they help end the occupation, restrict American military aid from being used in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, and end Israeli impunity in the UN and other international organizations.
Four distinctive elements of this statement make it notable and perhaps even a reason to believe that it can contribute to breaking the hold of uncritical pro-Israelism over much of North American Jewry. (A new film, “Israelism” examines this phenomenon.)
The first is that the signatories (currently 2210), the great majority of whom are Jews, include a significant number of prominent figures in North American and Israeli academia, especially in the fields of Jewish, Israel, and Middle East Studies. Among them are both liberal Zionists and anti-Zionists and non-Zionists of various stripes. Over three dozen rabbis have signed the statement, a third of them affiliated with the Reconstructionist movement, including several of its leaders. The intensity of the current multifaceted crisis in Israel/Palestine has impelled the assembling of this still potential coalition.
Second, the statement is unequivocal and clear-eyed in characterizing the current situation in Israel/Palestine. There is not simply a regime of occupation external to the sovereign territory of the State of Israel. Rather, a one-state reality of apartheid and Jewish supremacy prevails from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea. This did not begin with the current Israeli government.
Third, the essential condition of ending this unjust regime is “equal rights for all, whether in one state, two states, or in some other political framework.” The formulators and signatories of this text have wisely chosen to avoid the sterile debate over how many states might be required to achieve equal rights for all. Sterile because, one, two or seven states are not on the agenda of the most powerful relevant parties.
Fourth, over the last decade and a half then center of gravity of Israeli Jewish public discourse, to the extent that it engages the occupation at all, has shifted from “annexation, yes or no,” to “annexation, how much and when.” That is why the leaders of the current Israeli movement of protest against the assault on the judiciary coup oppose allowing speakers at the weekly demonstrations to address the occupation. Prominent liberal Israelis support that position, arguing that the protest movement would die if it did so. Large parts of the West Bank are somewhere on a trajectory between de facto and de jure annexation. Yet only a small minority of Jewish Israelis believe this is an urgent matter. The Elephant in the Room statement rejects this logic.
It is also notable that the statement calls for deep changes in North American Jewish Israel education.
All these positive elements should not blind us to problems both with the statement and its reception. There has been one sympathetic opinion article in the Washington Post by Ishaan Tharoor. The New York Times and The Los Angeles Times have not mentioned it. The JTA’s report, which does not include the terms “apartheid” and “Jewish supremacy” was reprinted in The Times of Israel when there were fewer than 200 signatories on the document. Forward, the most prominent American-Jewish publication, hasn’t mentioned the document. Nor has Jewish Currents, the leading Jewish progressive organ.
Rabbi Brant Rosen, of Tzedek Chicago notes in the most recent entry on his blog, Shalom Rav, “There are also Palestinians and members of the Palestine solidarity community who believe the letter doesn't go far enough. After all, it centers its concern on “democracy for Jews in Israel.” It emphasizes injustice in the Occupied Territories rather than Israel proper. It doesn’t mention the Nakba or the Palestinian Right of Return. And while it criticizes Israeli apartheid and Jewish Supremacy, none of its four goals explicitly call for the dismantling of these structural injustices.” Rabbi Brant goes on to explain why he signed despite these weaknesses.
I don’t agree with Rabbi Brant that a call to “embrace equality for Jews and Palestinians within the Green Line and in the Occupied Palestinian Territories” amounts to being concerned primarily with “democracy for Jews in Israel.” But there is no doubt that this is a text formulated by Jews and addressed to Jews. It is not a text designed to be embraced by the Palestine solidarity movement. A number of individual Palestinians have signed it; prominent figures in the movement have not. Teaching North American Jews to be more attentive to Palestinian voices is an important task which has only just begun.
The Elephant in the Room
We, academics, clergy, and other public figures from Israel/Palestine and abroad, call attention to the direct link between Israel’s recent attack on the judiciary and its illegal occupation of millions of Palestinians in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. Palestinian people lack almost all basic rights, including the right to vote and protest. They face constant violence: this year alone, Israeli forces have killed over 190 Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza and demolished over 590 structures. Settler vigilantes burn, loot, and kill with impunity.
Without equal rights for all, whether in one state, two states, or in some other political framework, there is always a danger of dictatorship. There cannot be democracy for Jews in Israel as long as Palestinians live under a regime of apartheid, as Israeli legal experts have described it. Indeed, the ultimate purpose of the judicial overhaul is to tighten restrictions on Gaza, deprive Palestinians of equal rights both beyond the Green Line and within it, annex more land, and ethnically cleanse all territories under Israeli rule of their Palestinian population. The problems did not start with the current radical government: Jewish supremacism has been growing for years and was enshrined in law by the 2018 Nation State Law.
American Jews have long been at the forefront of social justice causes, from racial equality to abortion rights, but have paid insufficient attention to the elephant in the room: Israel’s long-standing occupation that, we repeat, has yielded a regime of apartheid. As Israel has grown more right-wing and come under the spell of the current government’s messianic, homophobic, and misogynistic agenda, young American Jews have grown more and more alienated from it. Meanwhile, American Jewish billionaire funders help support the Israeli far right.
In this moment of urgency and also possibility for change, we call on leaders of North American Jewry - foundation leaders, scholars, rabbis, educators - to
Support the Israeli protest movement, yet call on it to embrace equality for Jews and Palestinians within the Green Line and in the OPT.
Support human rights organizations which defend Palestinians and provide real-time information on the lived reality of occupation and apartheid.
Commit to overhaul educational norms and curricula for Jewish children and youth in order to provide a more honest appraisal of Israel’s past and present.
Demand from elected leaders in the United States that they help end the occupation, restrict American military aid from being used in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, and end Israeli impunity in the UN and other international organizations.
No more silence. The time to act is now.
To sign the petition, contact academics.speak.out@gmail.com.
Include a 1-line affiliation/description.
For press inquiries, contact Dr. Lior Sternfeld at lbs18@psu.edu