SURJ Jews for Palestine: End the deadly violence and occupation now
Image description: B&W art of animated crowd in silhouette; two figures stand at the front, wearing COVID masks, holding a banner that says in large, handwritten capitals: JEWS SAY STOP GENOCIDE OF PALESTINIANS. The words Stop Genocide stand out in red.
Art credit: Pollinator Press / Jewish Voice for Peace
As Jewish members of Showing up for Racial Justice Toronto, we feel it is imperative to speak up about the ongoing violence and loss of life in Palestine and Israel. We dream of a day when every person is seen as valuable and worth protecting. We know that day is not today because of ongoing racism, colonialism, Islamophobia, antisemitism, and other harmful beliefs that deny countless people their rightful humanity. We join so many in grief and terror as events continue to unfold in besieged Gaza; the UN has warned of an immediate risk of genocide as Israel cruelly and unlawfully cut off water, food, fuel and electricity to Gaza, as relentless and deadly bombing continues. The end to this horrific violence will only be achieved through an end to Israeli apartheid and to all ongoing systemic aggressions toward Palestinian people. We join so many in calling for an immediate ceasefire to stop the deadly assaults on Gaza.
We see the ways that Israeli occupation, land theft, the blockade and tormenting rule of Gaza, the provocation of Palestinians in the West Bank and stealing of lands for Israeli settlements, decades of racist and dehumanizing policies, violence, humiliation, and ongoing genocide have all created the conditions of the current situation. There is no way to understand what is happening in Gaza without placing it within the context of day-to-day life under Israeli occupation for the last 16 years, and the militarized presence of a colonial state since 1948. We also see the ways that the Israeli colonial state does not protect, represent, or act in the best interests of Jewish people. Israeli Jews, and white Jews globally, are conditioned to fear and dehumanize Palestinians for the false promise of the safety of a Jewish ethnostate. We reject this logic and the logic of white supremacy it is built on.
As white settlers invested in decolonization, we also reject the popular notion that this is a conflict of two opposing sides. The blood of Palestinian and Israeli civilians is on the hands of Netanyahu’s government, and is symptomatic of colonial violence. In the fight for everyone’s sacred freedom we stand committed to addressing the root issues of this humanitarian disaster: colonialism and occupation. Further, as settlers living in Canada, we are directly implicated in the atrocities taking place; after all, the Canadian state is the “architect for apartheid.” Canada benefits from the expansion and flourishment of Israeli apartheid, and Canadian taxpayers still partially fund the Jewish National Fund’s settlement expansion in Israel, including the establishment of “Canada Park” on top of demolished Palestinian villages. There is a well-documented mutually beneficial loop of financial and geopolitical gain, and military training, or “testing” oppressions, on populations globally from Israel, to the US, to Canada.
As leftist Jews we must also call out the sheer inadequacy of the dialogue on this topic in Canada. The institutional left has failed to speak out against Israeli apartheid, instead placing moral judgment on Palestinian resistance. But, as Kelly Hayes and Mariame Kaba clarify, “Palestinian resistance, in all of its forms, no matter how peaceful or nonthreatening, has been met with deadly violence, deprivation, torture, imprisonment and oppression.” Simple condemnations, they continue, imply “that the Palestinian people have been granted the freedom or the means to effectively pursue their liberation in another manner, and have simply chosen violence.”
We believe that all this violence stems from the foundational oppressive violence of colonialism. Focusing on one violent organization, group, or act, without placing a similar focus on the Israeli state, is limiting and dangerous to global calls for justice. It furthers an inaccurate narrative of Israel as the innocent “responder” to violence, rather than the architect of one of the worst, and yet most socially acceptable, genocides in modern history. On the other hand, when the pendulum swings to a celebration of Jewish death, or a conflation of Zionism with Jewish people more broadly, we must also be wary of the deep-rooted antisemitic tropes playing out. Let us not harden our hearts. We reject either/or thinking: Israeli apartheid must be challenged, loss of life can be mourned, peace can be called for, revolutionary movements can be celebrated. We can dream of more for our analysis, for our activism, and even for our grief.
Finally, as SURJ members we believe that we must find our mutual interest in fights for racial justice. And while our immediate attention is on stopping the Israeli state from decimating Gazans, and after that, on ending the occupation, we do so knowing that our liberation is intertwined. This means that we reject the divisive white supremacist logic that underpins Israeli statehood: Israel is not going to protect us from antisemitism, nor will it heal the historical violence woven into our DNA. Working toward a world free from antisemitism means tearing down white supremacy, settler colonialism, and global imperialism. We seek more for an international Jewry invested in a true, anti-colonial, and anti-racist “never again”; a sentiment that should never be weaponized to enact genocide on another people. We join a chorus of progressive and intersectional voices clear on the path to peace: an end to the genocide of the Palestinian people, and an end to Israeli occupation.