Bernard Spiegal

The Israeli parliament – the Knesset – has passed into law the Penal Law (Amendment – Death Penalty for Terrorists) Bill (2025) mandating the death penalty by hanging for Palestinians convicted of carrying out alleged terrorist acts.  This law captures in its blooded maw Palestinians of the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT) as well as Palestinian citizens of Israel.

But not Israeli Jews. They are free to kill and main Palestinians with impunity – and often with delight as the only too graphic videos and testimonies of some perpetrators confirm.  And not least by the National Security Minister, Itamar Ben Gvir, who along with his fellow parliamentary henchmen celebrated the Bill’s passing with champagne.

 The death penalty law stands as yet one more symbol – in a context rich in comparable symbols – of Israel’s utter depravity, its self-decoupling from anything resembling human values. Inured to both censure and accusation, draped in a finely attuned sense of self-exculpatory victimhood, draping itself in a flag stolen from a venerable, centuries-old, religion, it degrades and distorts the traditions from which it claims to hail.  

Giving succour to the essentially fascistic state of Israel, are too-many non-Israeli Jews who, be it by their silence, or their blind pro-Israel, pro-Zionist advocacy, are thoroughly implicated in the maiming and slaughter of Palestinians: babies, children, adults. Some are thorough-going Zionists who, as with Ben Gvir, are too far gone to have hope of redemption. (Though here I am mindful that, in principle, no-one is beyond redemption. However, do not hold your breath.)

But for others, many of whom have drifted away from the strictures, beliefs and habits of Jewish religious adherence, Israel and Zionism together have, perhaps unwittingly, come to serve as a proxy religious faith, inserted into the space where Judaism used to be.

This transmutation of a religion – Judaism – into, or at least indistinguishable from, a political ideology, Zionism, taking material form as the State of Israel, is a disaster, certainly for Palestinians and the peoples of the region. But also, without suggesting any form of equivalence, for those Jews who have put themselves at the service of the Israeli state, whether by passive acquiescence in its policies and actions– silence is a pro-Israel position by default – or in strident, substantially uncritical, support. A disaster arising from a state whose first language is violence.

As at 4 April, 340 children have been killed and thousands injured since the US and Israel launched their attacks on Iran.

There will be more. In effect, it’s programmed-in. Only the specifics await tangible expression.

What cannot be shirked

Of course, there are some, notably the UK Chief Rabbi of the United Synagogues (representing not all, or even a majority, of UK Jews) who treat Judaism and Zionism as synonyms. As he avers, ‘I am a Zionist because I am a Jew.’  This ties the Rabbi to supporting a Jewish Supremacist state. A shameful position to hold, and certainly not one that should masquerade as representing UK Jewry as a whole.

It cannot be shirked: Israel is a Jewish Supremacist state, a status codified in its Basic Law which, without embarrassment, affirms that ‘The right to exercise national self-determination in the State of Israel is unique to the Jewish people.’ Thus excluding, by design, Palestinian citizens of Israel, some 20% of the population; and more, excluding those living in the Occupied Territories who are subject to military law.

This ‘unique’ status underpins the legal and distorted moral framework by which the Israeli state, the specifically Jewish Israeli state, justifies the structured-in, institutionalised, persecutory policies directed at Palestinians. In practice, this means there is virtually nothing that is not permitted to Israel, up to and including genocide. This amply demonstrated daily.

The Jewish Israeli state never tires of claiming its actions, no matter how morally reprehensible, no matter the carnage and destruction visited upon its Palestinian victims – and now Iranian and Lebanese – are done in the name and for the benefit of the specifically Jewish state. And rushing to support and justify such positions are what we can call the UK Jewish Establishment: The Board of Deputies of British Jews (BoD), the Chief Rabbi – ‘Chief’, as indicated above, of only a minority of UK Jews – the Campaign Against Antisemitism (CAA), the UK Lawyers for Israel (UKLfI) to name a few.

Given all this, can it be a wonder that many non-Jews are led to think that it is Jews as such that are responsible for, or support, as Jews, the horrors Israel inflicts on Palestinians, but also, and not least, on Iranians, the Lebanese, and Syrians.

Isn’t it time?

Isn’t it time that concerns about antisemitism should no longer be deployed – cynically deployed – as cover for Israel’s descent into the moral void it has created for itself?

Isn’t it time to face up to the fact that having family and friends in Israel cannot serve as moral alibi for remaining silent about Israel’s offences against humanity. Care and concern for family and saying truth about Israeli barbarism are not mutually exclusive positions.    

Isn’t it time that the reported rise in antisemitism should be viewed alongside the rise in Islamophobia and countering both should be part of wider, inclusive, anti-racist activity?

Isn’t it time that anti-Zionist, Israel-critical Jews were better, and more widely represented in mainstream media, rather than rendering them virtually invisible?

Isn’t it time that Jews turned against a Jewish Establishment that refuses to distinguish between a religion – Judaism – and a political, racist-infused ideological programme: Zionism?

Isn’t it time PM Starmer whispered into the ear of the pro-Israel lobby that he can no longer so uncritically support their positions.

There is no middle ground

Avrum Burg, former Speaker of the Knesset, Chairman of the Jewish Agency, now author and peace activist makes the point directly:

… destructive elements were always present in the Jewish whole, but they were usually contained, marginalized, restrained. Today, after two thousand years, they have seized control and are implementing their darkest impulses. Every Jew must now confront two fundamental questions: What is my Jewish identity? And am I with them, or against them?

There is no middle ground. There mustn’t be.

Isn’t it time?