Jewish Voices for Peace — it’s hard to imagine a worse misnomer. Even knowing that the group’s focus is the Middle East and that it falls on the left side of the spectrum, it would be fair to assume the group advocates for peace between Israelis and Palestinians. At minimum, for a two-state solution, or possibly even as far as a one-state confederated solution.
But that’s not what JVP is about. Instead of being a voice for Jews or for Israel, it is a voice for Palestinians and against the Jewish state.
There’s something perverse about a group calling itself Jewish and advocating against the safety and security of half of global Jewry. Of course, it’s not only Jews in Israel who are protected by Israel. It’s all of us. Imagine if there had been a Jewish state in 1938? My grandparents both left Hungary just before the war, but all of their immediate relatives — parents, siblings, in-laws, nieces, nephews, numbering well into the double digits — were murdered, save one single person. What if Israel had been there?
Today, all of us Diaspora Jews are afforded a high level of peace of mind — whether conscious or not — that, if necessary, we have a refuge.
Yet, JVP does what it can to destabilize that Jewish state and to heighten anti-Semitism through its anti-Israel provocations.
The latest example? A cartoon depicting Israeli soldiers as blood-thirsty henchman, taking pleasure in killing Palestinians.
The ADL called the cartoon “undeniably anti-Semitic” and “immensely dangerous.”
How can someone call themselves “Jewish” or “peaceful” when sowing seeds of hatred and potential violence against Jews, using hateful imagery that in the past has led to bloody massacres of innocent Jews?
Not every Jew has to agree with Israel’s politics or policies, or even support the State of Israel. Not every Jew has to be a Zionist. Any Jew can choose not to travel to Israel, not to support it financially and even to critique it.
But actively to fight against it — the one place on Earth that specifically devotes itself to the preservation and continuity of Jewish life?
JVP is the left-wing mirror image of the right-wing Neturei Karta, the rabid anti-Zionist sect that protests together with Palestinians against Israel, and that even has traveled to Iran to meet with the openly anti-Semitic, then president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
Both loathe Zionism so much that they would endanger their fellow Jews.
It’s contemptible.
Shana Goldberg may be reached at shana@ijn.com.
Copyright © 2022 by the Intermountain Jewish News
