I agree with you, Jeremy, 100 percent. That's why I joined J Street. We need to speak up, as we have. But stronger. I have also joined the resistance and fight against the Trump regime. Every Wednesday, Indivisible, one of the main leaders of the Hands Off, No Kings movement has a meeting on Zoom for anyone to join to discuss strategies and plans moving forward to grow the Pro Democracy Movement. I know J- Street is doing things to get membership active. But I haven't seen the structure yet to build a movement. We need nothing less than a movement. Yes. I do want my grandchildren to know I'm doing something.
Wow. I wasn't aware of this "Aircraft Blue" non-violent action resource. It's excellent. I book marked it and will share at our. next Indivisible meeting in San Diego where I live. But I'm sure they are aware of it. In any case, my point was to illustrate what we're doing to resist and eventually cause Humpty Dumpty to fall. I was saying we in J Street should take lessons from this Pro Democracy Movement playbook and tailor our activist campaign to influence all the fellow Jews we know who have taken off their stars of David in fear. Also, to learn how to effectively voice our nuanced Zionist views that call for joining with Palestinians for thoughtful compassionate solutions to peace.
What is happening in the West Bank is a systematic beat down of the entire population. If the world doesn’t wake up we will face another humanitarian catastrophe as people are pushed out, left homeless, jobless and stateless. This is Netanyahu and Ben Gvir’s vision.
Thank you for your continuing to speak out in your email of today and this Substack (https://jeremybenami.substack.com/p/a-moral-stain) against the continued carnage and the acute humanitarian situation in Gaza.
Tonight in Cleveland, Ohio, many Jewish and Palestinian and other activists will attend a showing at Cinematique of a film about Combatants for Peace, There is Another Way: https://thereisanotherwayfilm.com/. There must be.
Thank you. I watched the replay of the Remembrance Day ceremony in the West Bank I believe with Jews and Palestinians going through the only journey to peace--grief, acknowledgment of Nakba, the reality of the Occupation--acceptance, and action. What courage it takes. I just recently joined American Friends of Combatants to Peace. It's hard to even acknowledge the truth of Nabka. For a long time, as a Zionist, and I am still a Zionist, I shirked off the term as an Arab distortion of the truth, as the vast majority of lovers of Zion do. Right-wing extremist Israelis have physically attacked and threatened Combatants for Peace events, which exposes their fear and guilt.
As always, I find both brilliance and solace in your words, Jeremy. I agree from the bottom of my heart that Israel can only survive, let alone thrive, if it acknowledges the rights of the Palestinians, and makes them secure. We must find the way for both of our peoples to see the humanity in each other, and learn to care for each other, if we want the memories of the peace-seeking Israelis slain on October 7 to be for a blessing. It is far from an easy task; there have been (and still are) people on both sides of this multi-generational conflict who have inflicted unspeakable tragedies. Thank you, Jeremy, and all of your colleagues at J Street, for the work that you are doing to support change.
Not sure if this is another phrasing of the second definition, or a third definition of “never again” - what the Nazis did to the Jewish people is so horrific that it must never happen to us, or any other people, ever again.
I totally agree, we cannot stay silent while Israel does what it is doing in Gaza.
Couldn't agree more. I too joined J Street because we need to speak out about this publicly. "Do unto others" should be at the core of everything ever done in the name of a religion or people. What the Israeli government is doing is horrific; it is not "in my name."
I totally agree that this is a moral stain on Israel . Concentrating, starving and killing innocent people is not acceptable in any moral universe, and way too much like Europe in the 1930s and 1940s--different villains, different victims, but the same senseless hate.
As an American it also horrifies me that my own country is supporting this with $8.8 billion a year, used not for humanitarian aid, not for the iron dome, but for weapons. I know getting anything moral and ethical through this U.S. Congress and passed by this President is a very long shot, but isn't the money the only leverage we have? What else can we do, and how long can we delay? If not now, when?
Jeremy - thank you for that emotionally powerful crie de couer!
Speaking just for myself (and I really hope I am missing something -or overstating things), I've become painfully disillusioned by the relative silence of the Israeli people in regard to the horrific suffering of more than 2 million Palestinians in Gaza. From very early on in this war - straight up until today, I have been so disheartend by the narrow focus on the the plight of the hostages to the point of essentially ignoring the war crimes being committed by the Israeli gov't.
I think what has pained and confused me the most is that in Zoom after Zoom that I've "tuned into" nearly all of the most prominent leaders of the opposition to Netanyahu's regime have all but ignored what has been happening in Gaza - apart from the excruciating plight of the hostages.
I still have the newspaper headlines in the New York Times and Boston Globe from the massive protest that took place in Tel Aviv against Sharon and the IDF's complicity in the massacre of more than a thousand people in the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps in Lebanon in 1982.
I've kept them all these years because of the deep pride that I felt by the fact that hundreds of thousands of Israelis had the moral courage to openly protest against their own gov't's role in such a stomach turning night of killings.
The lack of any large-scale protests about the killing of so many innocent people in Gaza - along with the outrageous blockade of food and medicine- stands in very painful contrast to that memorable protest back in 1982. And as much as it hurts me to say this - it has made me feel less connected to Israel and the Israeli people. But I haven't, by any means, altogether severed my emotional bonds with Israel. I'm fully aware that there are many Israelis (albeit, not enough) who have spoken out about what has been happening in Gaza - along with many others who are actively working towards a just peace with the Palestinian people and the reconstruction of Israeli democracy.
Yes. All. you say makes me very sad. I can't imagine living in Israel right now and feeling this way, and trying to find an outlet to express this. I have to admit I have not explored enough about the current active resistance in Israel to the Gaza War. I do know about several grass roots groups of Palestinians and Israelis who have joined (one named Standing Together) to grow a movement of peace for a future of freedom, equality, justice, independence and peace for Palestinians and Jews. Another group was formed by Palestinians and Jews who have suffered loses of family in October 7 and the Gaza war named The Parents Circle, which has an American branch called Friends of the Parents Circle. I joined this group, and was put on the email list of the former group. But I am not aware of any active peace Group in Israel presently that is vigorously and actively opposing the War in the streets.
There is a very strong resistance to the government and to its abandonment of the hostages and the decisions it's making that are seen as advancing narrow parochial interests over the interests of the country and the hostages in particular. The missing piece that many of us can't grasp who don't live there is how there isn't a moral outrage over the treatment of the people - civilians, women, children - of Gaza. Sadly, the anger and rage over October 7 and frankly much more over the past two decades simply overwhelms any empathy. That and the lack of media coverage and public debate about conditions in Gaza.
Yes. Thank you for clarifying this. My sense was that, yes. the emotional pain as you said overwhelms any empathy. I have never contacted my acquaintances in Israel to talk have this important discussion with them because it is such a sore spot. So, it seems, we, who are watching from afar, must speak out and act, on their behalf. But what form does that take?
I don't agree that Israel is "an apartheid state"! ..Yes the West Bank is set up/ruled like something akin to apartheid...but not Israel proper... and to use the word "butchers" in the way you have is demonizing Israel as a whole. I was expresing my disappointment and disillusionment which is a very different kind of criticism than yours is.
You've put your finger on the problem for us nuanced Zionists to voice our position and take effective actions. It's the age old question of avoiding to air our dirty laundry in public. I don't like what Netanyahu is doing. It's wrong. It's cruel. And it's ineffective. The actions his government has taken in Gaza pursuing an illusive goal with such collateral damage is a shanda. But help me, here. How as nuanced Zionists how o resist, protest, take actions, to change the current situation? The Israelis, the majority who want Netanyahu out, seem unable to effect change until late next year with elections. That's too late. Doesn't that leave it to us in America?
On the mark! Thank you for the bold statement acknowledging the atrocities being wrought by Israel on the Palestinian people and the dysfunction of such for Israel. A travesty upon Palestinians and a travesty upon Judaism.
Thank you for moral clarity of this piece. A sincere question about the call for humanitarian aid: I am torn between desire to see innocent Gazans receive supplies they desperately need, and revulsion and anger at ongoing reports that aid deliveries are largely stolen by Hamas and fortifying its fighters, not civilians. Does J Street have any insight into how much aid has actually been reaching its intended recipients, and whether an end to Netanyahu’s blockade would provide them with substantial relief?
Thank you. To be clear, I wasn’t suggesting that collective punishment is appropriate — it’s ghastly and monstrous. It was simply a question, and not a rhetorical or loaded one, about efficacy — whether any substantial number of Gazans would in fact receive aid if the shipments recommenced, absent any other changes in conditions on the ground. If yes, then I support the lifting of the blockade wholeheartedly. I gather it’s your and J Street’s conclusion that they would.
Yes, the situation is extremely fraught and complex but groups like World Central Kitchen and ANERA working with the World Food Program have been able for 19 months to serve the needs of the civilian population. In the past week, WCK had to cease operations because it ran out of food. So - yes - for all that is stolen and diverted, what's needed for the civilian population was making it through. Now it is not.
Where is the evidence Israel’s Arab neighbors (or the Arabs in Gaza and the West Bank) have any desire to work with Israel “to begin building a future for Palestinians that provides freedom, hope and self-determination in a state of their own next to Israel”?
Google "Egypt plan for Gaza" and you will get a summary of a 100-page plan that Egypt worked on with the Palestinian Authority and that the Gulf States have supported. Similarly "UAE plan for Gaza" will get you the Gulf perspective. There is a lot of information out there about the work that Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar, Egypt and Jordan have done together to lay the groundwork for a "day after" plan. All that's needed is an Israeli commitment to the creation of a Palestinian state and there can be what I call a "23-state solution" to the broader Arab-Israeli conflict, not just the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
A plan for rebuilding Gaza is quite different than a commitment “to begin building a future for Palestinians that provides freedom, hope and self determination in a state of their own next to Israel,” is it not? The Egyptian plan, which does not even mention Hamas, does nothing to resolve the underlying issues that have prevented previous attempts to achieve while offering nothing but the same type of “security” solutions that have failed in Lebanon.
All valid points. But the Arab world can only really take the full step toward the vision of the Arab Peace Initiative and the building out of the Abraham Accords when there is an Israeli government ready to work toward a Palestinian state. My belief is that there will be an opportunity to pursue that post-Netanyahu (late 2026 and beyond). There is a deep desire across the Arab states and their leadership to put the Israeli-Arab conflict in the rearview mirror and focus on more relevant challenges of the 21st century.
This is where we disagree, I think the Arab world needs to step up with a viable plan to guarantee peaceful Palestinians before Israel can commit to any independent Palestinian state.
I think the second intifada greatly damaged any political will in Israel for establishing a Palestinian state and Oct. 7 destroyed it completely. No Israeli leader will be able to accept what happened in Gaza after 2005 again let alone expanding that model to the West Bank.
The Palestinian population desperately needs to be de-radicalized first.
I agree with you, Jeremy, 100 percent. That's why I joined J Street. We need to speak up, as we have. But stronger. I have also joined the resistance and fight against the Trump regime. Every Wednesday, Indivisible, one of the main leaders of the Hands Off, No Kings movement has a meeting on Zoom for anyone to join to discuss strategies and plans moving forward to grow the Pro Democracy Movement. I know J- Street is doing things to get membership active. But I haven't seen the structure yet to build a movement. We need nothing less than a movement. Yes. I do want my grandchildren to know I'm doing something.
This fellow is trying to move folks into more active direct actions rather than merely lamenting about the situation in the US: https://aircraftblue.substack.com/p/pillars-of-support-part-2
Wow. I wasn't aware of this "Aircraft Blue" non-violent action resource. It's excellent. I book marked it and will share at our. next Indivisible meeting in San Diego where I live. But I'm sure they are aware of it. In any case, my point was to illustrate what we're doing to resist and eventually cause Humpty Dumpty to fall. I was saying we in J Street should take lessons from this Pro Democracy Movement playbook and tailor our activist campaign to influence all the fellow Jews we know who have taken off their stars of David in fear. Also, to learn how to effectively voice our nuanced Zionist views that call for joining with Palestinians for thoughtful compassionate solutions to peace.
What is happening in the West Bank is a systematic beat down of the entire population. If the world doesn’t wake up we will face another humanitarian catastrophe as people are pushed out, left homeless, jobless and stateless. This is Netanyahu and Ben Gvir’s vision.
Yes. You are absolutely correct!
Thank you for your continuing to speak out in your email of today and this Substack (https://jeremybenami.substack.com/p/a-moral-stain) against the continued carnage and the acute humanitarian situation in Gaza.
Today's 6th Annual Joint Nakba Remembranc Day even from Combatant's for Peacet, supported by many US groups including T'ruah, was sad but hopeful https://www.youtube.com/live/YUHBlnGkZdE?si=ktiyywL2tCom26G4.
Tonight in Cleveland, Ohio, many Jewish and Palestinian and other activists will attend a showing at Cinematique of a film about Combatants for Peace, There is Another Way: https://thereisanotherwayfilm.com/. There must be.
Thank you. I watched the replay of the Remembrance Day ceremony in the West Bank I believe with Jews and Palestinians going through the only journey to peace--grief, acknowledgment of Nakba, the reality of the Occupation--acceptance, and action. What courage it takes. I just recently joined American Friends of Combatants to Peace. It's hard to even acknowledge the truth of Nabka. For a long time, as a Zionist, and I am still a Zionist, I shirked off the term as an Arab distortion of the truth, as the vast majority of lovers of Zion do. Right-wing extremist Israelis have physically attacked and threatened Combatants for Peace events, which exposes their fear and guilt.
As always, I find both brilliance and solace in your words, Jeremy. I agree from the bottom of my heart that Israel can only survive, let alone thrive, if it acknowledges the rights of the Palestinians, and makes them secure. We must find the way for both of our peoples to see the humanity in each other, and learn to care for each other, if we want the memories of the peace-seeking Israelis slain on October 7 to be for a blessing. It is far from an easy task; there have been (and still are) people on both sides of this multi-generational conflict who have inflicted unspeakable tragedies. Thank you, Jeremy, and all of your colleagues at J Street, for the work that you are doing to support change.
Not sure if this is another phrasing of the second definition, or a third definition of “never again” - what the Nazis did to the Jewish people is so horrific that it must never happen to us, or any other people, ever again.
I totally agree, we cannot stay silent while Israel does what it is doing in Gaza.
Couldn't agree more. I too joined J Street because we need to speak out about this publicly. "Do unto others" should be at the core of everything ever done in the name of a religion or people. What the Israeli government is doing is horrific; it is not "in my name."
I agree 100%.
I totally agree that this is a moral stain on Israel . Concentrating, starving and killing innocent people is not acceptable in any moral universe, and way too much like Europe in the 1930s and 1940s--different villains, different victims, but the same senseless hate.
As an American it also horrifies me that my own country is supporting this with $8.8 billion a year, used not for humanitarian aid, not for the iron dome, but for weapons. I know getting anything moral and ethical through this U.S. Congress and passed by this President is a very long shot, but isn't the money the only leverage we have? What else can we do, and how long can we delay? If not now, when?
Jeremy - thank you for that emotionally powerful crie de couer!
Speaking just for myself (and I really hope I am missing something -or overstating things), I've become painfully disillusioned by the relative silence of the Israeli people in regard to the horrific suffering of more than 2 million Palestinians in Gaza. From very early on in this war - straight up until today, I have been so disheartend by the narrow focus on the the plight of the hostages to the point of essentially ignoring the war crimes being committed by the Israeli gov't.
I think what has pained and confused me the most is that in Zoom after Zoom that I've "tuned into" nearly all of the most prominent leaders of the opposition to Netanyahu's regime have all but ignored what has been happening in Gaza - apart from the excruciating plight of the hostages.
I still have the newspaper headlines in the New York Times and Boston Globe from the massive protest that took place in Tel Aviv against Sharon and the IDF's complicity in the massacre of more than a thousand people in the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps in Lebanon in 1982.
I've kept them all these years because of the deep pride that I felt by the fact that hundreds of thousands of Israelis had the moral courage to openly protest against their own gov't's role in such a stomach turning night of killings.
The lack of any large-scale protests about the killing of so many innocent people in Gaza - along with the outrageous blockade of food and medicine- stands in very painful contrast to that memorable protest back in 1982. And as much as it hurts me to say this - it has made me feel less connected to Israel and the Israeli people. But I haven't, by any means, altogether severed my emotional bonds with Israel. I'm fully aware that there are many Israelis (albeit, not enough) who have spoken out about what has been happening in Gaza - along with many others who are actively working towards a just peace with the Palestinian people and the reconstruction of Israeli democracy.
Yes. All. you say makes me very sad. I can't imagine living in Israel right now and feeling this way, and trying to find an outlet to express this. I have to admit I have not explored enough about the current active resistance in Israel to the Gaza War. I do know about several grass roots groups of Palestinians and Israelis who have joined (one named Standing Together) to grow a movement of peace for a future of freedom, equality, justice, independence and peace for Palestinians and Jews. Another group was formed by Palestinians and Jews who have suffered loses of family in October 7 and the Gaza war named The Parents Circle, which has an American branch called Friends of the Parents Circle. I joined this group, and was put on the email list of the former group. But I am not aware of any active peace Group in Israel presently that is vigorously and actively opposing the War in the streets.
There is a very strong resistance to the government and to its abandonment of the hostages and the decisions it's making that are seen as advancing narrow parochial interests over the interests of the country and the hostages in particular. The missing piece that many of us can't grasp who don't live there is how there isn't a moral outrage over the treatment of the people - civilians, women, children - of Gaza. Sadly, the anger and rage over October 7 and frankly much more over the past two decades simply overwhelms any empathy. That and the lack of media coverage and public debate about conditions in Gaza.
Yes. Thank you for clarifying this. My sense was that, yes. the emotional pain as you said overwhelms any empathy. I have never contacted my acquaintances in Israel to talk have this important discussion with them because it is such a sore spot. So, it seems, we, who are watching from afar, must speak out and act, on their behalf. But what form does that take?
I don't agree that Israel is "an apartheid state"! ..Yes the West Bank is set up/ruled like something akin to apartheid...but not Israel proper... and to use the word "butchers" in the way you have is demonizing Israel as a whole. I was expresing my disappointment and disillusionment which is a very different kind of criticism than yours is.
You've put your finger on the problem for us nuanced Zionists to voice our position and take effective actions. It's the age old question of avoiding to air our dirty laundry in public. I don't like what Netanyahu is doing. It's wrong. It's cruel. And it's ineffective. The actions his government has taken in Gaza pursuing an illusive goal with such collateral damage is a shanda. But help me, here. How as nuanced Zionists how o resist, protest, take actions, to change the current situation? The Israelis, the majority who want Netanyahu out, seem unable to effect change until late next year with elections. That's too late. Doesn't that leave it to us in America?
On the mark! Thank you for the bold statement acknowledging the atrocities being wrought by Israel on the Palestinian people and the dysfunction of such for Israel. A travesty upon Palestinians and a travesty upon Judaism.
Amen
appreciate your clarity ethics
and compassion-
Thank you for moral clarity of this piece. A sincere question about the call for humanitarian aid: I am torn between desire to see innocent Gazans receive supplies they desperately need, and revulsion and anger at ongoing reports that aid deliveries are largely stolen by Hamas and fortifying its fighters, not civilians. Does J Street have any insight into how much aid has actually been reaching its intended recipients, and whether an end to Netanyahu’s blockade would provide them with substantial relief?
There is definitely theft, and it is still immoral to withhold necessities from two million for the actions of a few tens of thousands.
Thank you. To be clear, I wasn’t suggesting that collective punishment is appropriate — it’s ghastly and monstrous. It was simply a question, and not a rhetorical or loaded one, about efficacy — whether any substantial number of Gazans would in fact receive aid if the shipments recommenced, absent any other changes in conditions on the ground. If yes, then I support the lifting of the blockade wholeheartedly. I gather it’s your and J Street’s conclusion that they would.
Yes, the situation is extremely fraught and complex but groups like World Central Kitchen and ANERA working with the World Food Program have been able for 19 months to serve the needs of the civilian population. In the past week, WCK had to cease operations because it ran out of food. So - yes - for all that is stolen and diverted, what's needed for the civilian population was making it through. Now it is not.
Thank you -- I appreciate this insight.
Where is the evidence Israel’s Arab neighbors (or the Arabs in Gaza and the West Bank) have any desire to work with Israel “to begin building a future for Palestinians that provides freedom, hope and self-determination in a state of their own next to Israel”?
Google "Egypt plan for Gaza" and you will get a summary of a 100-page plan that Egypt worked on with the Palestinian Authority and that the Gulf States have supported. Similarly "UAE plan for Gaza" will get you the Gulf perspective. There is a lot of information out there about the work that Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar, Egypt and Jordan have done together to lay the groundwork for a "day after" plan. All that's needed is an Israeli commitment to the creation of a Palestinian state and there can be what I call a "23-state solution" to the broader Arab-Israeli conflict, not just the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
A plan for rebuilding Gaza is quite different than a commitment “to begin building a future for Palestinians that provides freedom, hope and self determination in a state of their own next to Israel,” is it not? The Egyptian plan, which does not even mention Hamas, does nothing to resolve the underlying issues that have prevented previous attempts to achieve while offering nothing but the same type of “security” solutions that have failed in Lebanon.
All valid points. But the Arab world can only really take the full step toward the vision of the Arab Peace Initiative and the building out of the Abraham Accords when there is an Israeli government ready to work toward a Palestinian state. My belief is that there will be an opportunity to pursue that post-Netanyahu (late 2026 and beyond). There is a deep desire across the Arab states and their leadership to put the Israeli-Arab conflict in the rearview mirror and focus on more relevant challenges of the 21st century.
This is where we disagree, I think the Arab world needs to step up with a viable plan to guarantee peaceful Palestinians before Israel can commit to any independent Palestinian state.
I think the second intifada greatly damaged any political will in Israel for establishing a Palestinian state and Oct. 7 destroyed it completely. No Israeli leader will be able to accept what happened in Gaza after 2005 again let alone expanding that model to the West Bank.
The Palestinian population desperately needs to be de-radicalized first.
The flipside of your argument is that Netanyahu and his Israeli butchers want Palestine cleansed of Palestinians.
Given how long he has been in power, Netanyahu has proven himself utterly incapable of accomplishing the goal you attribute to him.
And this is true too. The vision I’m laying out is for a post-Netanyahu era.
The Palestinian people in Gaza are turning against Hamas. The strategy seems to be working.