At a time when the Israeli settler state has murdered over 12,000 Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank, with thousands more missing, and millions displaced, it cannot be stated enough the importance of how we orient ourselves in organizing against the Zionist settler colonial genocide.
We must be explicitly, unabashedly anti-Zionist, and make clear that our organizing does not stop after a ceasefire, it does not stop at the end of the siege on Gaza, it must not stop until Palestine is free from the river to the sea.
It is imperative that Jews understand that while Zionism and Judaism are different, this is a genocide that is being actively committed in our name as Jews, just as the entire Zionist settler colonial project has been committed in our name. While Jewish voices absolutely must not be made the priority, Jews have a duty to organize against Zionism.
The Good Shepherd Collective and writer Em Cohen recently released a Guide for Jewish Anti- Zionist Allyship where they specifically made it a point to mention that Zionism’s international infrastructure is made up of “many Jewish communal organizations and institutions. From organizations that host propaganda trips or directly fund zionist settlement to organizations that spread zionist propaganda, the Jewish organizations that structurally support zionism are many. This is a form of direct zionist harm that exists around us that anti-zionist Jews can and should struggle against.”
For decades, Palestinians have been demanding that Jewish anti-Zionists organize around fighting Zionism within their own communities, and the Jewish left has not made it a priority.
This has been made especially clear with how in this moment the ways that the Jewish left has failed completely in giving support and solidarity to the Palestinian people.
There has still not been a reckoning with how so many among us acted in the wake of October 7th, centering Jewish or Israeli grief, and actively condemning an act of anticolonial resistance in Operation Al Aqsa Flood against the Zionist settler entity which has systematically massacred, displaced, and dehumanized Palestinians for over 75 years. Organizations which claimed to support the Palestinian struggle completely abandoned them when they dared to resist colonial oppression.
This is reflected in the messaging and action of so many “liberal Zionist” and non-Zionist organizations like IfNotNow in the United States, Independent Jewish Voices in Canada, and Na’amod in the United Kingdom, and even organizations like Jewish Voice for Peace which call themselves anti-Zionist, but who have refused to identify as such in any of their messaging as of late.
All of these organizations actively cater to and enable Zionists within their spaces. There is a steadfast refusal to call for the end of the Zionist settler colonial project, the very root of the genocide in Palestine. There is also a failure to support the Palestinian resistance by any means necessary.
This is a genocide that is actively being facilitated by a high majority of the Jewish institutions which claim to represent us, ones which are actively Zionist and have aided and perpetuated this settler colonial genocide.
From our very start Jews Against White Supremacy (JAWS) was founded on the notion that we must be explicitly anti-Zionist and approach anti-Zionism from an anti-colonial perspective, we must support Palestinian resistance by any means necessary, and it is imperative that we organize as Jews against the Jewish Zionist institutions that have been aiding and perpetuating atrocities and now an annihilation of the Palestinian people.
When mainstream Jewish leaders, leaders of Jewish Zionist organizations and institutions, and rabbis, have been openly calling for genocide and the annihilation of Palestinian people, there is no greater evidence that we must organise as Jews to defeat Jewish Zionist institutions.
While we absolutely give organizers within INN and JVP credit for putting their bodies on the line and getting arrested, we reject the liberal framework of the crux of their organizing. Direct action is needed not just against Jewish Zionist institutions but also secular Zionist institutions, especially arms manufacturers.
Ultimately, JAWS believes Palestinians must always be in the forefront of anti-Zionist organizing, and their voices prioritized. We as Jews however, not only have a duty to speak out and be overt in our anti-Zionism, but we have a responsibility to do the work within our own communities to fight to abolish Jewish Zionist institutions. This fight is a global fight and JAWS is uniting anti-Zionist Jews around the world to get involved in the anti-Zionist solidarity struggle and challenge the Zionist institutions in our own communities.
From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free!!!
“Jews Against White Supremacy” invites all individuals who share our values and commitment to fighting for a more just world to join us in organizing as revolutionary socialist anti-Zionists to fight Jewish Zionist institutions. Together we can fight against settler-colonialism and the institutions which perpetuate it, and for a revolutionary transformation of Jewish community life.
JAWS currently has branches in Philadelphia, the Bay Area, Brazil, the Philippines, New York City and UC Santa Cruz with many more to come.
For more information about “Jews Against White Supremacy” and how you can get involved please visit our website (jewsagainstwhitesupremacy.org) and follow us on social media
For further inquiries, please reach out to jewsagainstwhitesupremacy2023@gmail.com
The conflation of anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism is at best a nonsense, and at worst, a vicious slur. Zionism itself is inherently anti-semitic. If I as a non-Jewish Australian said to Jewish Australians “This is not your home, you don’t belong here. Your home is Israel/Palestine, you should go and live there, in the Jewish homeland, the nation state of the Jewish people”, I would quite rightly be condemned as an anti-semite. However, I would simply be saying what Zionism says. As far as I am concerned, the homeland of Jewish Australians is Australia, of Jewish Americans – America etc. It is not Palestine. I fail to see how that makes me an anti-semite.
I am anti-Zionist – a perfectly moral stance. The Eastern European Zionist colonists of the early 20th century had no intention of sharing Palestine. They intended to achieve a Jewish majority in Palestine, a country that was 95% Arab, turn it into a Jewish state, and displace as many of the resident Arabs as they could. Land purchased by Jewish colonists became the “inalienable property of the Jewish people” and could not be sold or rented to Arabs, who were also mostly excluded from employment on it. As the King-Crane Commission, sent to Palestine by US President Wilson in 1919 stated “The fact came out repeatedly in the Commission’s conference with Jewish representatives that the Zionists looked forward to a practically complete dispossession of the present non-Jewish inhabitants of Palestine, by various forms of purchase”.
The ethnic cleansing of Palestine in 1947/48 was Zionism in action. The land grab of the 1967 war was Zionism in action. The Occupation is Zionism in action. The confiscation of Palestinian land, the building of Jewish only settlements, and demolition of Palestinian homes is Zionism in action. Zionism is not a benign movement.
RE: “The genocide in Gaza is being committed in our name as Jews.”
STUART SELDOWITZ: “If *we* killed 4,000 Palestinian kids, you know what? It wasn’t enough. It wasn’t enough.”
SOURCE – https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/nov/22/stuart-seldowitz-ex-state-official-attack-food-vendor-racist-islamophobic-new-york
This is the problem with the left today. This piece is reductionist and authoritarian. I am a Jew. I call for both a ceasefire and for the hostages to be released. As a non-violent activist, I mourn the loss of all life. I understand full well the power imbalance and the settler-colonialism, as do the very solid organizations of IfNotNow and Jewish Voice for Peace, both which do state their views against Zionism clearly and unapologetically, though this article claims otherwise.
There are two tasks for us: to do what we can to counter Zionism, especially of course Jewish Zionism; and “Jew-washing,” supporting non-Jews who may well otherwise be called anti-semites.
I wonder whether this group (JAWS) really exists , since there are no names and it’s message , advocating the genocide of Jews , seems to fit the right-wing narrative that the anti-Zionists are pro-Hamas and genocidal.
In any case, it’s disgraceful that MW posted this piece in support of genocide.