Fact: There is no monolithic view among Jews on the legitimacy or morality of Israel as a Jewish state. There has always been Jewish opposition to the establishment of Israel, from European Jews who embraced doikayt ("hereness"), to Jews who already lived in the Levant and opposed a European colonial project in their homeland. Many Jews across the globe have long felt the very idea of a Jewish State is not in alignment with Jewish values. 

Fact: The State of Israel does not keep us safe. A state where there is not full equality cannot ever make one group safe. Jewish safety is interwoven with the safety of Palestinians, and with that of all people.  In fact, the conflation of the State of Israel and the Jewish people makes for an increase in antisemitic attacks on Jewish people worldwide. Only in solidarity with our oppressed neighbors will we achieve a true and just safety.

Fact:  There is nothing complicated about standing in opposition to decades of violations of international law, denial of human rights, and injustice toward the Palestinian people. In fact it is the most Jewish thing we can do. To quote Ta-Nehisi Coates, “I have a moral compass about this. Either apartheid is right or it’s wrong. It’s very simple.” You do not have to be an expert on foreign affairs to speak out against injustice in Palestine or anywhere in the world. Doing what is right always requires some amount of courage, but that should never prevent us from taking action. 

Fact: Discussion, lively debate, and reaching for truth have always been foundations of our culture. Being okay with disagreeing, and engaging with different understandings of the world, is a cornerstone of Jewish community practice. We are also implicated in the moral imperative of Palestinian liberation, because the Israeli government so often claims to speak for us. Jewish safety does not exist within the boundaries of the state of Israel, it exists within our interdependent woven communities. As we share and connect with others over our fears and traumas, and as we build joint struggle and move toward collective liberation, we create more safety for Jews around the world. 

Fact: Many Palestinians, Arabs, and Jewish neighbors live in grief and fear in Portland, as their relatives are killed or endangered. This alone should justify our interest, but Israel and Palestine are a direct concern for every U.S. citizen. This is because so many of our tax dollars go directly to supporting Israel, and so many of our elected representatives are heavily funded by Israel-backed organizations like AIPAC. Oregon is invested directly in Israel via Israel Bonds and indirectly in the ongoing genocide and apartheid of Palestinians by investing in companies like Caterpillar and Elbit Systems which produce the weapons and machinery used by Israel to destroy Palestinian lives and homes. 

Fact: Our nation funds countless human rights violators around the world—including  Israel—and this is reason enough for any U.S. American to speak up. In the case of Israel, it is especially important for Jews like us to join together and declare: not in our name! Jews have always played important roles in movements for social justice and have spoken out against oppression. You do not have to choose between your values. Many of us who openly challenge Israel are committed to intersectional liberation movements for the betterment of all human life.

Fact: Other nations aren’t committing crimes against humanity in our names, and as U.S Americans and Jews we are uniquely complicit in the crimes Israel commits. We are especially abhorred by the extreme acts of brutality that the state of Israel is committing, because it claims to do so in the name of Jewish safety, bearing a name and wielding a symbol that are sacred to our people. Jewish tradition holds P’kuah Nefesh, the value of saving a life, over all other mitzvot. It is a fundamentally Jewish act to criticize the State of Israel’s military destruction of the people and the land in Eretz Yisrael, the place that is sacred to the common ancestors of both the Arab and the Jewish people. If this land is sacred to us, if we are connected to it through our ancestry, commitments, or traditions, then we have a responsibility to hold it to international standards of dignity and respect for humanity and the earth upon which we all depend. 

Fact: . There is no justification for what the state of Israel is doing. Many of us are descendants of survivors or refugees of the Holocaust, or Shoah—‘catastrophe’—and see Israel’s violence as a continuation of the cycle of trauma that our ancestors endured. In fact, Shoah has the same meaning as Nakba, the name for the catastrophic ethnic cleansing of Palestine in 1948. Violence does not secure borders for long, nor does our pain justify the pain of others. The violence of the ongoing occupation continues a hopeless cycle which puts us all further at risk. Israel’s practices are in no way defensive and are aggressively aimed at increasing the footprint of a Jewish state in extreme  violation of Palestinian rights and basic decency.

Fact: The Palestinian led Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement was started in 2005 as a non-violent response to repeated Israeli military and political violations of international law and principles of human rights. It is modeled after the boycott and sanctions movement that was instrumental in ending the racist policies of South African Apartheid. The BDS movement has widespread international support as a nonviolent movement that has deep roots and principles in upholding respect for human rights. 

The BDS movement very clearly targets the policies and practices of the State of Israel and NOT the Jewish people through applying nonviolent approaches including economic leverage to end the unjust treatment of the Palestinian people. This is a hallowed strategy with roots in the US Civil Rights movement led by Dr Martin Luther King, Jr, as well as in South Africa to end Apartheid. 

The BDS Movement has strong foundation principles opposing hate and discrimination in all forms (as opposed to Israeli laws that privilege and favor the rights of Jewish Israelis). In the words of the BDS movement statement opposing racism, “Adhering to the UN definition of racial discrimination, the BDS movement does not tolerate any act or discourse which adopts or promotes, among others, anti-Black racism, anti-Arab racism, Islamophobia, anti-Semitism, sexism, xenophobia, or homophobia.” 

Accusations of the BDS Movement being antisemitic are simply attempts to once again silence all forms of non-violent Palestinian and allies’ voices in working for human rights and justice. 

Fact: Israeli policy and military practices have systematically targeted Palestinian civilians for decades. Israel’s repeated use of 2000 pound bombs on heavily populated residential  areas in Gaza and Lebanon in fall 2024 demonstrates they do not differentiate between combatants and civilians. There are numerous media reports, including by Israeli media, based on both first hand accounts from Palestinians as well as from Israeli troops , on the frequent use of Gaza’s residents as human shields to protect Israeli troops from potential explosives. This practice is illegal under international law. 

Many international human rights organizations and Israeli human rights groups have documented the repeated use of indiscriminate and disproportional force in Israel’s attacks in Gaza as well as on the West Bank and Jerusalem. Health Care Workers and health facilities, schools, residential complexes, journalists and even international human rights workers have been “legitimate” targets by Israeli forces. This has occurred far too many times to be “accidental” as the Israeli government claims. In addition, the use of starvation as a weapon of war is a tactic that targets civilians indiscriminately. 

Since Oct 2023, at a minimum, 16,000 children have been killed in Gaza from Israeli weapons. Oxfam International reports that “Israeli explosive weapons hit civilian infrastructure in Gaza - including schools, hospitals and aid distribution points - once every three hours.” More children and women have been killed in Gaza in the past year than in any other armed conflict worldwide over the past two decades. Israel has been found by the highest court in the world, The International Court of Justice, to be committing a “plausible genocide.” Use of starvation, deprivation of all forms of humanitarian aid, vast destruction of human infrastructure are all forms of targeting a civilian population. 

We categorically oppose targeting of civilians and support international judicial review of all such acts. Hamas and other groups must be held accountable for civilian deaths, casualties and capture in the October 2023 attacks in Israel. We hold that these actions need to be understood in the context of decades of a brutal military occupation, violent assaults, siege and total denial of human rights by Israel. Hamas is far more than a military force. Hamas also has responsibility for governing Gaza and maintaining the entire civil structure, health services, educational, sanitation, and all other life-sustaining structures in Gaza.  

Fact: Jewish Voice for Peace was founded by Jews, is led by Jews, and the majority of its nearly 750,000 members are Jewish. Locally and nationally, JVP emphasizes Jewish history, culture, and ritual practice as driving factors in its work. Non-Jewish allies are welcome as members, but those allies who join do so precisely to organize with a Jewish lens, and under Jewish leadership. We emphasize that Jewishness is not a monolithic experience, but a constellation of interconnected identities showing the multifaceted history of an ancient people. We are not “the” single Jewish Voice, but rather a diverse, varied collective Voice for Jews and allies who gather together under one banner to demand Justice. Zionists—both Jewish and not—are eager to dismiss us as a means of discrediting our growing collective power. This is painful and invalidating, echoing the alienation many of us have felt within our home communities for challenging Israel. It’s also clearly antisemitic, insisting that Jews believe only one thing, and those who diverge from that path are “fake,” or “self-hating.” We are proud of our Jewishness. We love our community. And we will not let others deny our identities any longer.