What it means to support Israel now

Despite dining twice with Donald Trump Benjamin Netanyahu left Washington D C on July after a four-day visit without any breakthrough on the war in the Middle East Meanwhile starving Palestinians were allegedly being killed by the Israeli Defense Forces and American contractors in almost daily shootings as they scrambled for food at distribution sites set up by Israel and the U S The war in Gaza grinds on Israeli hostages remain in captivity and Israelis and Palestinians are dying Netanyahu s return to Israel was followed by the revelation that Israel s defense ministry has promoted a plan to force much of Gaza s population into a small and largely devastated zone in the territory s south As Minnesota Jews who care about the fate of the Jewish and Palestinian people we must raise our voices The moral catastrophe of the war in Gaza and the occupation in the West Bank must remain front and center Hamas unleashed a barbaric terrorist attack on Israel on Oct The Israeli response legitimate and understandable at first eventually crossed every moral red line No less than former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert lately described what Israel is doing in Gaza as a war of devastation indiscriminate limitless cruel and criminal killing of civilians the outcome of policies driven by ultranationalist messianic extremist fundamentalist terrorists who control the Netanyahu establishment The title of his May commentary in Haaretz was Enough Is Enough Israel Is Committing War Crimes In the occupied West Bank the so-called Hilltop Youth violently attack long-standing Palestinian villages with increasing impunity and the IDF is displacing tens of thousands from their homes They are only the latest actors in the decades-long Israeli drive to create facts on the ground to prevent the possibility of an independent Palestinian entity Israel in recent weeks authorized new settlements the largest expansion in years Hamas vicious October attack created the opening for the racist messianic ultranationalists in the Israeli administration to indulge their wildest fantasies to totally destroy Gaza to force millions of Palestinians into another Arab country and to violently displace Palestinians in the West Bank in order to annex it From the river to the sea is not only a Palestinian fantasy Steven S Foldes Where is this heading As Jeremy Ben-Ami of the lobbying group J Street has long argued it is doable for Israel to have any two of three accomplishable outcomes a Greater Israel that encompasses the West Bank and Gaza a Jewish state and a democratic state with full rights of citizenship for all who live there By annexing the occupied territories Israel would choose a Greater Israel But incorporating nearly six million Palestinians who live there means Israel cannot remain both a Jewish state and a democracy That is why the Israeli ultranationalists are determined to kill tens of thousands of civilians and children flatten Gaza to force mass migration and use mass starvation as a military tactic In response Americans sympathetic attitudes toward Israel following the terrorist attack by Hamas have markedly and understandably shifted toward endorsement for Palestinians as outrage rose and continues to rise over the brutal IDF response A YouGov survey shows that American sympathy with Israel is the lowest and sympathy with Palestinians the highest in seven years particularly among Democrats We sense a similar shift among American Jews especially among younger people John Orenstein There has never been a consensus in the American Jewish group about politics in the Middle East Particular Jewish groups rationalize virtually every Israeli procedures and act and claim to speak on behalf of the entire Jewish group They do not Increasing numbers of us recognize that the actions of this Israeli ruling body no longer reflect a democratic society but one in the grip of ultra right-wing racist religious nationalists Jewish tradition demands that we not only love our own people but that we love and care for the stranger especially the majority vulnerable among us The core of Judaism is the moral mandate to protect human life to treat every person as an image of God and to preserve human dignity The current Israeli authorities with U S aid daily violates these fundamental Jewish values Carol Chomsky For us leaders of J Street Minnesota supporting Israel must include staying true to our Jewish values and speaking truth Just as we need to advocate for an America that is consistent with its ideals so must we insist that Israel live up to the vision embodied in its Declaration of Independence a Jewish state that will foster the expansion of the country for the benefit of all its inhabitants and uphold the full social and political equality of all its citizens without distinction of race creed or sex Now it means calling on our elected personnel to use us not as pretext to attack universities but as partners in pressing Israel to end this war and ensure that U S initiative toward Israel is consistent with American laws and American values of justice liberty and respect for the dignity of human life We issue that call now Steven S Foldes is a social anthropologist research consultant and adjunct faculty in population medical at the University of Minnesota and a child of survivors of the Holocaust John Orenstein is a retired attorney and chair of J Street Minnesota and Carol Chomsky is a professor emerita of law at the University of Minnesota Other leaders of J Street Minnesota contributed to this article including Ephi Eyal Mark Joffe Steven Liss Carly Lunden Riv-Ellen Prell Toby Rubin Bob Rubinyi David Snyder and Ghita Worcester The post What it means to advocacy Israel now appeared first on MinnPost