“What is taking place today in the West Bank is a Chillul HaShem, a violation of God’s name of the worst order. We cannot stay silent. This is terrible for Palestinian people who want to get on with their lives in peace. It is terrible for Israel,” he said. Wittenberg added: “We must speak out. We must do so out of deep concern for what is human and just, and for the sake of Israel and Judaism. We cannot turn away.”

Taybeh, West Bank

Members of the Bedouin community from the West Bank village of Taybeh keep guard to prevent attacks by Israeli settlers from the nearby outpost. Prominent British rabbis have backed sanctions by Ed Miliband, the foreign secretary, on Israeli settlements, warning that the time for inaction on settler violence must come to an end. Photograph: Atef Safadi/EPA

Senior UK rabbis come out in support of sanctions on Israeli settlements

Spiritual leaders stress diversity of views within Jewish community and warn against inaction on settler violence

• ‘It’s a good start’: prominent Israelis welcome UK sanctions

Prominent British rabbis have backed Ed Miliband’s sanctions on Israeli settlements, warning that the time for inaction on settler violence must come to an end.

The intervention comes after the UK’s chief rabbi, the spiritual leader of mainstream Orthodox Jews in the UK, Sir Ephraim Mirvis, described UK sanctions against illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories as a “dark day for British Jews” and warned they could embolden people who “use hatred as a weapon against Jews”.

The sanctions were also condemned by the Board of Deputies of British Jews and the Jewish Leadership council.

But other senior rabbis, many from the progressive wing of the community, have come forward to stress the diversity of views within the British Jewish community, with some backing Miliband’s sanctions, while others warned that concern about the measures should not become an excuse for ignoring settler violence and expansion, and others calling for the government to go further.

Jonathan Wittenberg, a senior rabbi of Masorti Judaism, said he was in the Palestinian village of Umm al Khair while Miliband was delivering his speech, and had seen the results of settler violence “with my own eyes”.

“What is taking place today in the West Bank is a Chillul HaShem, a violation of God’s name of the worst order. We cannot stay silent. This is terrible for Palestinian people who want to get on with their lives in peace. It is terrible for Israel,” he said.

Wittenberg added: “We must speak out. We must do so out of deep concern for what is human and just, and for the sake of Israel and Judaism. We cannot turn away.”... READ MORE  https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2026/sep/09/senior-uk-rabbis-come-out-in-support-of-sanctions-on-israeli-settlements

AS ALWAYS PLEASE GO TO THE LINK TO READ GOOD ARTICLES (or quotes) IN FULL: HELP SHAPE ALGORITHMS (and conversations) THAT EMPOWER DECENCY, DIGNITY, JUSTICE & PEACE... and hopefully Palestine, or at least fair and just laws and policies here, there- and everywhere]  

ADC: American Arabs on Pope Francis "WHILE WORLD LEADERS REMAINED SILENT, HE NAMED THE TRUTH: THERE IS A GENOCIDE IN GAZA, AND THE WORLD MUST STOP LOOKING AWAY"

ADC National

@adc

ADC mourns the passing of Pope Francis, a global voice for the oppressed, a truth-teller on Palestine, and a moral leader who never flinched in the face of power. His legacy lives on in our fight for justice.

To our Arab Christian sisters and brothers, to Christians everywhere, and to all people of faith who seek to uphold the true intentions of faith

News

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
April 21, 2025
media@adc.org 

Washington, D.C. | Yesterday, millions of Arab Christians celebrated Easter with Christians across the world. We offer warm greetings to those who recently celebrated. For centuries, the vital presence of Arab Christians, whose devotion to peace, justice, and compassion has long enriched both the Middle East and the global community. Despite a common misconception, Arab Christians constitute a vibrant and integral part of our shared heritage, underscoring the diversity that has long been a hallmark of the Arab world.

Unfortunately, Arab Christians, along with other religious minorities in the Middle East, are targeted for how they worship or who they are. In what should be a time of celebration in Palestine, the birthplace of Christianity, Arab Christians are under constant bombardment from Israel. The historic Saint Porphyrius Church in Gaza City—one of the world’s oldest Christian churches—was bombed on October 19, 2023, killing 18 displaced civilians sheltering inside. Many Christians have sought refuge in the few remaining churches, relying on them for basic necessities and a measure of safety. Before the genocide, Gaza’s Christian population numbered around 2,000, mostly Greek Orthodox. Sadly, that number continues to dwindle as deaths and displacement mount.

Israel has destroyed over 200 cultural and historical sites, and more than 340 mosques—among them the iconic 700-year-old Great Omari Mosque. At least three churches have also been severely damaged, including St. Porphyrius Church itself. At least 16 cemeteries have been desecrated. And Christians across the Middle East face similar threats, with key sites damaged in attacks that further endanger this small yet longstanding community.

While many Christian leaders and groups in the U.S. justify the genocide, Pope Francis, who passed away earlier today, made nightly calls to Gaza’s Christian community from the onset of the genocide, boldly amplifying their voices when much of the world looked away. We mourn his loss, as his persistent stand against the ongoing oppression of Christians in Palestine—and of all those enduring occupation and violence—remains a testament to moral courage.

ADC calls on all world leaders to protect religious minorities by condemning violence against any faith community and holding perpetrators accountable, ensuring that no one is targeted for how they worship or who they are.

In this spirit, ADC remains devoted to our mission, urging those in power to reject genocide, end cycles of violence, and protect the dispossessed. May hope and resilience guide us forward as we strive for the day when every community—regardless of creed—can celebrate in peace. 

https://adc.org/pope-francis/

ADC National

@adc

“He was wounded for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities… and by his bruises we are healed.” — Isaiah 53:5 This verse speaks of a suffering servant — one who bears the wounds of injustice to bring peace and healing. Easter isn’t just about resurrection — it’s about resurrection through suffering. And nowhere is that more alive today than in Palestine — the land of Christ’s birth, life, and death. As Palestinian Christians face relentless attacks — churches destroyed, worshipers displaced — we witness a people whose faith refuses to die. No nation shows the power of resurrection, the depth of hope, and the endurance of love more than Palestine. This is the true meaning of faith. This is the true message of Easter. #EasterInPalestine

https://adc.org/

Standing with Palestine & the rule of fair and just laws, policies and investments: Photos from Al Awda Right of Return March Washington DC 3-1-2020

From Jewish ethics to Israeli free-fire zones

http://www.stumbleupon.com/su/25ji4j/jordantimes.com/?news=27171/r:f

From Jewish ethics to Israeli free-fire zones

By Rami G. Khouri

The events unfolding in the wake of Israel’s Monday attack against the humanitarian aid flotilla heading for Gaza can be assessed on three levels, and it matters very much how one chooses to engage the matter.

The first is the narrow technical level of who used force first - whether the Israeli attack was the problem or those on board who defended themselves against the Israelis triggered the fighting that resulted in death and injuries.

The second is the wider political context of the actions of both sides, raising important moral and legal issues - the long-running Israeli blockade and recent strangulation of the people of Gaza, and the growing Palestinian-international effort to break the Israeli siege and send basic humanitarian supplies to Gaza’s population.

The third level is Israel’s standing among the nations of the world. It is about how the entire modern Zionist movement that successfully created Israel as the homeland of the Jews who want to live there has found itself increasingly isolated because it ascribes to itself prerogatives that seem to place it above the laws that govern the conduct of all other states. This is why many have asked for years whether “Zionism is racism”.

The issues on all three levels are being widely discussed in the international media and political forums. The most important one, in my mind, is the third level - the hard questions about what Israel and Zionism have become, and how they relate to other people and states, beyond their conflict with the Palestinians and Arabs.

Are Israel and Zionism the noble manifestations of the Jewish people’s right to live in peace and security, without being subjected to genocidal pogroms - as Zionists portray their movement? Or have Zionism and Israel become so narrowly and blindly obsessed with their own needs that they have lost sight of the ethical foundations - justice, compassion, ethics-based law and equality for all humankind - that are widely seen as the core characteristics of Judaism, as of the other Abrahamic faiths?

Has Zionism, and by implication Israel and Judaism, been transformed from a commitment to preserving life to a media-based justification for siege, assault, piracy and murder?

These questions now being asked around the world are the deeper, more complex and often gut-wrenching ones that Israelis and Jews themselves need to debate and resolve. Israel wants to avoid this discussion, and prefers to keep the focus very narrow and technical. It has used its well-honed propaganda machine to shift the initial discussion in the international media to how a few passengers on one ship used sticks and knives to beat off the attacking Israeli commandos.

Jews were attacked by club- and knife-wielding mobs, the Israeli-Zionist refrain goes these days, and Jews must never again allow themselves to be attacked by mobs. In the wake of several hundred years of inhuman pogroms, racism and genocidal assaults against Jews mostly by white Christian Europeans, the message of Jewish self-defence carries special weight and resonance around the world - as it should. Yet the modern Jewish right to self-defence increasingly clashes with the modern Zionist and Israeli track record of aggression, ethnic cleansing, massacres, occupation, siege, collective punishment, low-intensity starvation, colonisation, and occasional bouts of barbarism against the Palestinians and other Arabs.

The practice of Israeli Zionism increasingly contradicts the ethical and moral foundations of historical Judaism: international law applies to the entire world, but the state of Israel reserves the special right to ignore and transcend that law, and to attack humanitarian convoys on the open seas, in the name of defending the Jewish people and their values.

Now, this Israeli-Zionist penchant for taking any measures deemed necessary to protect Jews has over-spilled the narrow conflict with Palestinians and Arabs, and has resulted in the death of Turks and a grave affront to the concept of the universality of international law.

Israel wants the world to get tangled up in an endless debate about a few knives and clubs. The world wants Israel to come to grips with the more fundamental issue of whether Israel respects the laws and norms that govern all humankind or behaves only according to an increasingly hysterical, violent and often murderous sense of its own perpetual victimhood.

Israel makes of its historical and permanent victimhood an absolute right to transform any place in the world into a free-fire zone and a killing field where it can run amok - in the name of protecting the Judaism that, in fact, it only increasingly besmirches and demeans.

Israel is becoming a new Jewish ghetto, increasingly isolated from and criticised by the world, and doubly tragic because this is largely the consequence of its own handiwork.

Jewish ethics hold human beings accountable to a higher moral code; does this also apply to Israel?

4 June 2010